The longest distance I’ve travelled just to DJ was to Aberdeen, and the club venue, the Tunnels, was a strange little underground venue with two rooms (and pretty poor soundproofing between the two, oddly enough.
In these mp3-based times, this isn’t necessarily a collection of singles, more the best individual tracks I’ve heard this year (and were released in the last twelve months since last year’s list).
Despite a slightly late and frustrating train journey – where two teenagers sharing an mp3 player were singing only loudly, and badly, to the chagrin of much of the carriage – I somehow got to the venue just in time to be in place as ESA came onstage, and the pounding beats of Your Blood […]
And now, back to 2008. As per last year (and the year before that, etc), it’s time to begin my musical run-down of 2008, and I’m starting with the stuff that has disappointed me. This isn’t just albums this year, it’s a mix of observations on the music scene as I see it. Obviously, as […]
Rob – long-time friend and occasional DJ at tcf, left Sheffield for London (and I would follow suit a year or so later), so we threw a party, and I was one of the DJs.
It’s been a while since the last truly new material from Cyanotic – debut album proper Transhuman goes all the way back to spring/summer 2005, the re-built (as opposed to remixed) Transhuman 2.0 goes back to summer 2007 – so it’s no stretch to suggest that new material has been a long time coming. However […]
What has been a busy month or two for gigs continued last night with me heading back to Sheffield Academy 2 for the Ladytron gig. Also on downstairs in the main venue was Jarvis Cocker, so it transpired, and in some poor organisation all punters were being pointed towards one main queue, and then another […]
Like what appeared to be all of the UK metal community, I headed up to Leeds yesterday for the long-awaited Damnation Festival, the biggest incarnation yet of the one-day metal festival that has had something of a nomadic existence over the past few years. The queue to get into the venue was huge at 1630 […]
For this week's Tuesday Ten, I'm turning my attention to the side-project, an often-maligned pasttime for many artists.
I’ve held this over from last week, which perhaps would have been a better time for it…but never mind. Songs about politics and all relating to it are an age-old idea, but still even after all these years one with legs. And after a quick scan of my collection suggested loads and loads for this, […]
It’s amazing to think just how long it’s been since the last full Collide release. Some Kind of Strange was released way back in April 2003, and the extensive remix album Vortex a year later in April 2004. That’s nearly five and a half years since the last actual new material, and while The Secret […]
Support act Demians, who I’d heard glowing things about from others previously, were an interesting proposition. At least a partly-French band, they are what could probably be called one of the modern faces of Prog Rock. Lengthy songs with an epic scope, that didn’t always work entirely but left me with a positive impression, particularly […]
It feels like a long time since I last did one of these. This week it is time for my usual monthly rundown of my top ten tracks from the past month or so. I struggled for a list for this month, too. Any suggestions for new music I should be listening to or hunting […]
A friends’ posting of this link over the weekend provided me inspiration for the subject of this week’s Tuesday Ten.
As the rain lashed down (it was worse in Manchester than in Sheffield), I have to admit that I was beginning to question my sanity in going all the way across to Manchester on a dark, cold October night, particularly as due to the crap times of the return trains – 2218 and 0018?, Oh, […]
The late Bill Hicks probably had it right when he espoused his views on the links between musicians and drugs. You see, I think drugs have done some good things for us. I really do. And if you don’t believe drugs have done good things for us, do me a favor. Go home tonight. Take […]
After something of a quiet summer for gigs, the autumn run of lots of them worth attending is finally beginning to kick in. My attendance at this one, though, was delayed by wanting to catch the end of the football first, so I arrived only just before the end of the Deviant UK set. I’ve […]
For once, we got our timing spot on – literally as we walked through the door into the venue, first support Jason Webley was just starting up. Not a lot to watch, or so we thought – initially it was just Jason and his accordion (and later his acoustic guitar). As the first few songs […]
Back to the TT after a few weeks off, and it's time for my usual round-up of ten tracks that have had my attention this month.
It’s been a long, long time since the first Modulate demos surfaced. Or at least, it feels that way – the first promo I was passed is probably over four years old, and the DJ promo that made the act’s name, Dystopia, was covered here nearly three years back. So what has happened in the […]
