Here’s a question for you. What is “urban” music? Is it really just hip-hop, rap, R&B and various forms of dance music? For me, urban music brings to mind music that could only be created in the environment fostered by living in a city – and that isn’t always music you can dance to. The […]
My first night there in 2011. Despite the gigs in Sheffield and London taking many of our regulars, it was a good turnout, and the night shot past.
Playlists: Spotify Time for the first roundup of new music to recommend for 2011 – it’s my Tracks of the month January 2011.
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, […]
For my first Tuesday Ten proper in about two months, I’m looking at guest appearances. I thought I had covered this before, but somehow it appears that I haven’t. Anyway – guest appearances are either used a little cynically (to get the guest artist more exposure, or even to get the other artist more “credibility” […]
A second year running DJing this fun party.
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 […]
A good year for music, so here’s twenty albums I think were great this year.
A return trip to the lunacy of JUDDER!.
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 […]
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 […]
Saturday saw us in Leicester for Autonomy, which was good fun (and a hard-dance-free zone, too)
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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.
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.
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 […]
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? […]
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 […]
