There is hype, and there is genuine excitement about some bands. And it is fair to say that it is often difficult to tell which is which without making the effort to find out for yourself.
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.
Time for another of my monthly new(ish) track roundups. You know the drill by now, right?
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The first TT for a few weeks, and it is already back to my tracks of the month.
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
