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 […]
During 2011 I bought an awful lot of albums. at least 75, in fact. And so many that some that might have made it in a normal year ended up being missed off this list. So there may well be a “what I overlooked” post at the end of the year, just to ensure that […]
It has been a long time, er, coming, this. I’d say excuse the pun, but you know I don’t mean that. Anyway, I first started working on this a few months ago, and here it is at last.
I got wind over the weekend that the bar that I ran tcf in for five years is closing – initially it sounded like it was for good, but instead it’s apparently for a refurb that will see The Nelson in Sheffield close for eight weeks. So it feels like an appropriate time to look at songs […]
I wondered for a while how I was going to tackle this week’s vague subject, and how strict I had to be. After all, when it comes to songs about horror, do I only go for specific songs referring to horror themes? Or songs that are scary and terrifying? Or songs that poke fun at […]
The weird thing about writing these Tuesday Tens is that the ideas for some take a long time to come together. Others can have a whole load of suggestions come at once, particularly if an idea for a subject pops up while I’m in the pub, or out with my girlfriend (especially in the car, […]
The problem with my gig-going in 2010 wasn’t that I went to too few, or too many – although for various reasons I did miss a number of gigs I really wanted to see – but that trying to narrow the best of the year down to ten was probably as difficult as it has […]
Onto part three of my 90s album run-down. There is again a Spotify playlist accompaniment to it, which is only missing a couple of entries (it's remarkable how much is now on Spotify, actually!).
This week is inspired by the usual annual marketing blitz that is Valentines Day, and in particular this article about valentines day compilation albums. So, here are ten songs you are unlikely to hear on such a compilation: all of these songs are about love in one way or another, just maybe not the “conventional” […]
Today’s Tuesday Ten is slightly different to the norm. Mainly because I’ve not been to that many gigs this year, here are five of them worth mentioning.
The fourth instalment of this lengthy rundown.
A list that seemed to grow every time I even thought about it, this one – songs about crime. Perhaps I wasn’t specific enough in my initial criteria, but hell, I’ve got so many I’m going to be covering more than ten this week.
