I’m beginning to like this idea of sponsored gigs. After all, if nothing else, the sponsorship helps to bring down the insane costs of gigging nowadays – noted last night on the gig listings was a Happy Mondays show at Brixton for £37.50, for example – and also benefits from perhaps better promotion and backing […]
From various conversations over the years, it certainly isn’t just me that associates particular bands, songs or albums with particular times of life. Funnily enough, for me mainly it is periods where things were not so good – and during the late 90s, in other words my unhappy time at university in London, Marion were […]
There are constant reminders of an apocalyptic future for indie labels in particular as the stampede towards digital music gains ever more pace, so it is also good to see some labels still thriving. This year is the 10th anniversary of Monotreme Records, and to celebrate they put on a show in London with three […]
From the first time I heard Chelsea Wolfe‘s music, it was pretty clear that she wasn’t like most other singer-songwriters. It isn’t often you hear a Burzum cover, never mind from an artist outside of the usual extreme metal sphere. Digging a little further, Wolfe’s second album, released last year, was a striking howl from […]
Last year, the first Resistanz festival in Sheffield was one of the talking points of the “scene” in the Spring, and due to family commitments that we couldn’t miss, we couldn’t make it. So, an early decision was made this time around to ensure that we would make it north this time, and return to […]
Sean Payne’s Cyanotic have always been more than their reputation suggests. The first thing most people think of – that know of them at least – is their intense fusions of drum’n’bass, industrial and metal that have been the core of all of their signature songs. But all the way since they first started, the […]
Back in the 80s, Al Jourgensen was one of the driving forces behind industrial and metal coming together. The three albums released around the end of the 80s and early 90s were all incredible albums for different reasons, but all were most notable for pushing the envelope, and hard. There were scorching, stupidly heavy tracks, […]
For the first of seven nights of gigs in the thirteen days, it was to a regular haunt once again, the Electric Ballroom, for a night of alternative rock.
I guess last week’s repackaging Tuesday Ten was kinda apt, seeing as this past week has marked five years of my Tuesday Ten series. That is five years of me carping on about music in various forms. And seeing as I’m not out of ideas yet for the series, they will keep on coming. So, […]
A second night of RIVET, with Steve Nine from Departure joining us.
I’ve looked at band reunions before (144: Back For Good?), but I’ve not looked at the glut of album reissues, remasters and other ways that record labels have found to help bolster their physical sales numbers that little bit more, as digital sales continue to increase. And while I have a bit of a distrust […]
My horizons continue to expand to new venues, for me, anyway. In the past couple of years, since I returned to London, I’ve been to most of the smaller venues on the northern side now, and this gig took me to The Lexington, an Islington venue that is rather better than I thought it might […]
Call this an exercise in free advertising if you like, but I’ve always been happy to recommend and write about music that is released by people that I consider friends. I’d be lying if I said that I like every moment of every release by each artist here, but I’d much rather offer honest opinions […]
This week my Tuesday Ten series hits number 150. There was going to be a special “awards” one this week, but time constraints have put paid to it. It might still become number 151 next week, we shall see. In the meantime let’s look at the awesome tracks you should hear from this month.
After a long period as “resident guest” at Autonomy, this was my last set of that run (I’d return one more time, but more on that later).
It can hardly have escaped any gig goers attention nowadays just how eye-watering the price of gig tickets has got of late. I’m not talking about arena gigs, which have always attracted a premium, but even mid-sized shows. When it has got to the point that it is rare for a signed band to be […]
There aren’t many bands I’ll shell out silly amounts of money for to see them live, but Rammstein are one of them. I’ve seen them five times previously over the past ten years, never been disappointed, always amazed and entertained, so when the “greatest hits” tour got announced there was no was I was missing […]
One of the joys of going to smaller gigs again, and indeed seeing bands from a “scene” that I’ve not generally been involved in for some time, is that I am going to venues I never even knew were gig venues – and this gig was one of those. A pleasantly restored pub on Essex […]
In this era of downloads, the B-side has almost become a dead art. And what a shame, when you consider some of the astonishing tracks hidden away on the flipside of a single over the years. Not to mention that a number of B-sides have become accepted as some bands greatest songs, or have become […]
For my first gig of a busy few weeks (five gigs between now and the end of February, and quite a few in the month or two after that), it was time to revisit a band who I only saw about three months ago. Call it a case of making up for lost time, perhaps, […]
