pop
Track: Sam Smith – Safe with me
If I were to strip a Car down, I would find that if it were a Porsche it would have fantastic manufacturing, fantastic engineering and the best components available, and if it were a cheap car (can I apologise there, I know absolutely nothing about cars) it might be good, but the quality of the …
See: Ellie Goulding releases new visuals for current single, Burn
Me and royalties are not very close partners. In my pop career, as bassist to (the name doesn’t matter) a band that peaked by scraping into the indie top twenty towards the end of the 1980’s/early 1990’s, but still making rare appearances and even the odd recording, royalties don’t come easy to us. As I …
New Music: Heyward Howkins
No, I hadn’t heard of him either. But I think you should make the time and check out this deftly-arranged, warm pop-folk. Coming out of Philly, Heyward sings and plays guitar, backed by Severin Tucker on guitars, Charlie Hall on drums and Meg Morganelli on keyboards. They put a couple of tracks of their forthcoming second album, “Cut …
Feature: David Bowie is… exhibition, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
It was with some excitement, and a little trepidation, that I took the first train down to London for the David Bowie exhibition at the V&A. To start with I did not have a ticket and hoped that the queue for the daily release of tickets would not be too well formed when I got …
Track: Lolo, and listen to her track Weapon for Saturday
I was a very shy youth at school. Just when I changed school to secondary school, someone (accidentally) whacked me around the head with a golf club, and I ended up in hospital for weeks, and then not allowed to go to school in the afternoons for several months. Even worse, I lost large parts …
See: Gypsy & The Cat – It’s a fine line video, and album news
There’s two things that I’ve always been good at. One is dreaming, and I often think that maybe now that I’m a proper grown up, with children and everything, I’m possibly too old for dreaming, but I don’t seem to be able to stop. So every time I kick a ball it’s Wembley and I’m …
Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City
In the end this album didn’t quite do enough. There was a moment when I thought “Modern Vampires of the City” might be really brilliant. But it has ended up just being very good. I’m sure the band are going to be devastated when* they read that. It boils down to a case of a …
Coastal Cities – Nothing Ever Changes
Listen, I just checked it and the weather forecast for today is mainly excellent for the UK. So do yourself a favour, get up, get up as soon as possible after now. Don’t fuck about watching telly or take ages trying to make coherent plans, just make a couple of phone calls and get some …
News: Tom Hickox to join Richard Hawley, Band Of Horse and others at Somerset House ‘Summer Series’
In my day it was called YTS. When you wanted to learn a ‘trade’ like plumbing, or typewriting, or being a zookeeper (probably) or a footballer, you signed up on a course that was part schooling and part learning on the job, and they (the government that is) paid you something like £17.50 per week …
Album Review: Johnny Hates Jazz – Magnetized
You heard right: Johnny Hates Jazz have a new album out. Radio 2 are playing their new single. It’s technically their third studio album, although only the second with the original singer, Clark Datchler. This time round they’re a two-piece, just Clark and bassist/producer Mike Nocito, returning without drummer Calvin Hayes. The story of JHJ is …