Post-Infest, pre-Cold Waves, I’ve been hit by the usual late-summer/early-autumn rush of new music, with little time to process it all. For a start, then, there are thirteen tracks here rather than ten to ensure I cover more.
This is part two of my look back at 1996, where I continue what I started in Tuesday Ten: 250 by looking at releases that were broadly in February/March of that year.
It all started at one of the very first weddings we attended. Up in the hills west of Huddersfield, this wedding had an “alternative” soundtrack as befitted the bride and groom, and after a first dance of Velvet Revolver’s Fall To Pieces and a succession of amusingly – and we have no idea if unwittingly […]
2015 in gigs: 70 days, 165 live sets, 154 unique bands, forty venues, seven cities, four festivals (and each of those festivals in a different town/city), three countries, two continents.
This week, on part three, I turn my attention to the best albums of the year. I seem to say it every year, but really – 2015 has been an extraordinary year for alternative music, you’ve just got to have been looking in the right places to find some of it. Not all of it […]
For the third year, I assisted with the GVWI‘s Hallowe’en Party – by being the DJ, along with Andy Ravensable.
This week, time for a Tuesday Ten I’ve been thinking about and working on, gradually, for a few months. I was set a challenge, you see: to come up with a Tuesday Ten where deaths occur “on camera” (i.e. are described or happen in the songs). However, I could not rely on some of the […]
This year: 170 bands, 57 days worth of gigs. Five festivals, three countries, eight cities/towns. From venues holding thousands to those holding tens. Due to personal issues and, frankly, being too damned busy for much of the year, I didn’t get to write about many of them aside from the festivals, so writing this list […]
My friends in the GVWI had their Hallowe’en Party this weekend, and Andy and I were asked to DJ. So, we had some fun with suitably themed music…
I actually started this 80s rundown a couple of years back, but life and other things have rather got in the way. So, a little bit of spare time has allowed me to get this finished. Without further ado, then, let’s get on with it.
This week, my Tuesday Ten series goes in a new direction – as I’ve not written it. A few weeks ago, I posted an innocent post on Facebook asking my friends what they considered their perfect albums…and got an avalanche of suggestions. Over 100 comments and 150 suggested albums later, I thought it might be […]
After last year’s exhausting run of gigs, 2013 was even crazier. I saw 66 days of gigs – seeing nearly 160 live sets in the process, in three countries, six different cities and including three festivals. What was interesting, though, was that maybe I hit saturation point this year. While there were a handful of […]
Part four of my 2013 rundown – and this was a difficult list to do. Very difficult. And for the first time in a number of years, it took until the last week to finally decide once and for all on the top five in particular.
2013 has been a really, really strong year for music.
For my first new interview on amodelofcontrol.com in four years or so – I’ve only ever conducted interviews with bands on an “as and when” basis, if I’m being honest – I’ve thrown a few questions the way of one of London’s brightest prospects right now, Blindness. These were questions e-mailed to the band, and […]
Back for a new year, here are my tracks of the past month.
This year has been a bit of a crazy year for gig-going, even by my standards. I saw 140 different bands, only 10 of them more than once, at 53 shows, three of which were multi-day festivals. At 36 different venues, in three different countries this time (UK, well, England, Belgium and Czech Republic).
A fun evening helping my friends in the GVWI with their Hallowe’en Party.
A couple of years ago, I posted the best of the 90s, and the best of the 00s, from my point of view.
During 2011 I saw an awful lot of live sets. At a rough count, around about 125 (including supports and festivals) – and I saw a few bands more than once, in particular Front 242, who I saw four times in four different countries. Like the albums list, a few that might have made it […]
