DJ: Guest: 051: Brigid, Andy and Jessica’s party – 15-January 2011
A second year running DJing this fun party.
/Countdown/2010/Gigs
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 […]
/Countdown/2010/Albums
A good year for music, so here’s twenty albums I think were great this year.
DJ: Guest: 050: JUDDER! – 10-December 2010
A return trip to the lunacy of JUDDER!.
Into the Pit: 097: The Young Gods – Live at Academy Islington – 05-December 2010
Nowadays – and perhaps as always during their twenty-five-year career – the release of a new Young Gods album is an event. A band of unusual standing, a band that don’t really fit in amongst the usual genre descriptions, and frankly have long since had the freedom to record what they like. Which has seen […]
Into the Pit: 096: Neurosis – Live at KOKO – 06-December 2010
I think it’s pretty fair to say that I wasn’t expecting a support act quite like Daniel Higgs. Having read up since, he’s an ex-member of an influential folk act called Lungfish, and looked initially like he may be as old as the total age of the members of Neurosis, and looking a little like […]
DJ: Guest: 049: Autonomy – 04-December 2010
Saturday saw us in Leicester for Autonomy, which was good fun (and a hard-dance-free zone, too)
/Countdown/2010/Tracks
There has been so much good music this year – as well as a few stinkers, frankly, but let’s not dwell on those, at least for now – that for the first time ever in a year roundup I’ve stretched this one out to cover 25 songs, and I’ve still had to miss a couple […]
Into the Pit: 095: Deftones – Live at Brixton – 17-November 2010
We got there late, and so only caught the second half of Coheed and Cambria‘s set. A band that I’ve never really got into, and having read up since I didn’t realise that all of their albums are concept albums based on sci-fi stories written by one of the band. Well, it explains the prog […]
/Tuesday Ten/118/Advert
For this week’s Tuesday Ten, I’m going back to a list I’ve had on the back burner for bloody ages. That is, music on TV in the form of advertising. Always a contentious subject – there are probably just as many artists who flatly refuse to sell their music for use in this way as […]
Tuesday Ten: 117: Tracks of the Month (October 2010)
Rather later than originally intended – I had to push it back a week because of Whitby – here is my usual tracks of the month roundup.
Memory of a Festival: 010: Damnation Festival 2010
Next time I do an all-dayer in a city 200 miles from where I live, I won’t be going out clubbing until 0300 the previous night.
Into the Pit: 094: Swans – Live at KOKO – 28-October 2010
My first visit to Koko in about eleven years last night saw me head there for the return to London of Swans, of which more in a moment. But as always, I feel it’s notable to mention the organisation. Doors at 1900 – fine, and they opened on time, not to mention being friendly security […]
Tuesday Ten: 116: Samples
The use of sampling in music has been around for some time now, and at points the use of it has approached levels of extraordinary musicality and ingenuity. At other points, of course, it’s been used in obvious, unsubtle ways – and as a result frequently becomes something of a monster hook. And why not? […]
Tuesday Ten: 115: Haven’t You Heard?
This week, my Tuesday Ten is a bit later than usual, but still on a Tuesday. It’s all about bands you probably haven’t heard of. Of course, there are some of you that have. Hence the probably. Then again, if you know me well enough, you might well have heard me carp on about a […]
Into the Pit: 093: Einstürzende Neubauten – Live at The Forum – 16-October 2010
There are few bands that could justifiably claim that as they pass thirty years of existence as an active and still-recording unit, they remain a source of reference and perhaps reverence to many music-lovers and indeed other artists. One band that certainly can is Einstürzende Neubauten, whose second stop on their “30th Anniversary tour” was […]
Tuesday Ten: 114: Tracks of the Month (September 2010)
A day earlier than usual, here’s my usual roundup of tracks new and old that I really like right now:
DJ: Guest: 048: Autonomy – 02-October 2010
A night that seemed to pass by in a flash. Autonomy was good fun, nice and busy despite the awful weather, and DirtyK played an impressive forty-minute set that had the biggest crowd I’ve yet seen for a gig in the venue. I had intended on playing a noise-heavy set, and went broadly that way […]
But Listen: 104: Kidneythieves – trypt0fanatic
There has been a steady procession of reformations and/or long-awaited returns in the past couple of years, either bands returning for one last shot at success that perhaps eluded them in the first place, bands simply looking at making some (more) money on the back of previous success and a feeling of nostalgia, and then […]
Tuesday Ten: 113: Genres
The sub-sub-subgenre seems to be the desperate way to get a band recognised now, and as comments on a recent facebook post of mine clearly showed, it’s really kinda difficult to work out what is real and what is taking the p1ss. As a now longtime music critic (I’ve been doing this since 1996), using […]