Tuesday Ten: 140: Tracks of the Month (August 2011)
Time for another of my monthly new(ish) track roundups. You know the drill by now, right?
Into the Pit: 107: Amanda Palmer – Live at Heaven – 02-September 2011
Like so many Amanda Palmer/Dresden Dolls fans, I’m no stranger to seeing her live – this was my fifth time (one Dresden Dolls show, two full AFP shows, and two “ninja” gigs), with a sixth time coming on Monday in the unusual settings of the British Library. But all of the previous shows I’ve seen, […]
Tuesday Ten: 139: Music Daisy Loves…And I Don’t.
When Daisy and I got together, we realised pretty quickly that we have some common ground in our music taste, but there are areas where we diverge in our tastes a great deal. Like, to the point that there are a number of bands that one or the other cannot stand whatsover. I was reminded […]
Memory of a Festival: 013: Infest 2011
In a flash, that is Infest over for another year already. A weekend that shot by – of fifteen bands, a good many DJs, many more friends new and old, some silly moments, some serious moments, a fair bit of wonderfully cheap booze, and whole lot of fun and silliness (and thanks to assisting Tails […]
Tuesday Ten: 138: Hip-Hop
It seems to surprise everyone that I have a not-so-secret love of hip-hop. I’ve only ever dabbled, really, and certainly was never part of the wider hip-hop culture. Some of the stuff that has been released from the hip-hop scene over the years, though, has been phenomenal. There has been stuff every bit as heavy […]
Tuesday Ten: 137: Videos and 30 Years of MTV
Another bit of a retrospective this week, as I finally get ’round to covering the fact that MTV turned 30 years old on 01-August. As the NME noted a few months ago, whatever happened to the MTV of old? For all its faults – not least seemingly moving away from what was the whole point […]
Into the Pit: 106: Blindness – Live at the Barfly – 03-August 2011
I can’t recall the last time that I headed to a small venue on the “toilet circuit” to check out a barely-known, under-the-radar band. Especially when they are not the headliners. But the marvellous single/EP Confessions – released late last year, and in my top ten tracks of 2010 – had me hooked from the […]
But Listen: 114: Gothminister – Anima Inferna
Björn Alexander Brem’s Gothminister have remarkably been around for over ten years now. They first gained real attention with the stellar singles from their debut album (the grandiosely titled Gothic Electronic Anthems), and indeed such was the quality of the album that it was stacked full of potential singles right to the end. Sadly over […]
Tuesday Ten: 136: Tracks of the Month (July 2011)
The first TT for a few weeks, and it is already back to my tracks of the month.
But Listen: 113: Necro Facility – Wintermute
It really is remarkable how time flies by so fast. This is Necro Facility’s third album, and their debut The Black Paintings dates back to 2005 (and second album The Room is already four years old now). To be honest, both of those albums were something of a solid effort in hero worship, though. Basically […]
Into the Pit: 105: Modulate – Live at the Purple Turtle – 28-July 2011
I’ve seen a whole lot more gigs this year than I have in a while. I’m putting it down to being back in the heart of the action (i.e. London) and being able to get out to Montreal this year: plainly and simply I have access to so many more venues, and the reality is […]
But Listen: 112: Dismantled – The War Inside Me
We appear to be in something of a transitional period in the scene nominally called “industrial”. Many bands I have looked upon as relative newcomers for some time have now been around for five or ten years, few new bands are coming through, and even the clubs and DJs appear unclear on what they want […]
Tuesday Ten: 135: A Night On The Town
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 […]
Tuesday Ten: 134: Tracks of the Month (June 2011)
Ok, so it’s my usual monthly roundup of ten songs you should hear. Or go back and listen to again if you have already.
Memory of a Festival: 012: Wireless Festival 2011: Day Three
I’ve been meaning to go to at least one of the days of Wireless for a couple of years now – but I think really I was awaiting for the right lineup to splash my cash on – and the announcement of Pulp for this back before Christmas (god, that long ago?) sealed the deal. […]
But Listen: 111: KMFDM – WTF?!
After celebrating 25 years of “conceptual continuity” in 2009-2010, with the associated tour and best-of album, as we headed into 2011 the first signs of the next stage of KMFDM were revealed, in the guise of a couple of singles, and now a new album under the moniker of WTF?! – continuing with the age-old […]
Tuesday Ten: 133: 90s Dance
Yes, I’m still on something of a retro tip. After seeing a depressing “top selling dance songs of the noughties” list, I began thinking back to the stuff I loved in the nineties. I was, to be fair, heavily into big beat and drum and bass in my uni days, so this list might well […]
Into the Pit: 104: Godflesh – Live at Kentish Town – 16-June 2011
I, like other music lovers, should perhaps be getting very concerned about just how many gigs that I’ve attended in recent years that are a reunion or return of an “old” band. The same goes with re-issues of “old” albums, repackaged, remastered and resold to fans that quite likely already have the original.
Tuesday Ten: 132: nineteenninetyone
I seem to have been delving into my musical past, and in particular the nineties, an awful lot so far in 2011. I’m not exactly sure why: perhaps it’s just been discovering a handful of nights in London that cover parts of that past that I’m still fond of – so Nuis@nce and Louder Than […]
Into the Pit: 103: Battles – Live at Heaven – 08-June 2011
I wasn’t going to let a small case of burnout, exhaustion and illness to stop me getting to this gig – after all I’d waited some years to see the headliners. So on my own I went to a venue I’d never attended before.