I was last at Resistanz in 2014, ending three straight years of attending the festival, with various other life commitments (and Whitby, more often than not) meaning it hadn’t been possible for us to return for some time. But, when certain bands got announced this year, a plan was quickly hatched, and we found ourselves […]
I don’t know why, but I’ve not really had the desire to interview artists particularly in recent times – with the exception of my new series /The Last Song I’ll Ever Sing, which I’ll be resuming again soon. But hearing about the new album from grabyourface got me ready to ask questions again.
Inspirations for new collections of posts come from disparate places. This one comes from two places: one, a desire to try and record some of the stories of the past in our scene, by way of beloved songs, and two, from The Guardian’s long-running How We Made series.
Inspirations for new collections of posts come from disparate places. This one comes from two places: one, a desire to try and record some of the stories of the past in our scene, by way of beloved songs, and two, from The Guardian’s long-running How We Made series.
I’ve been attending Infest since 2000, and this was my twenty-fourth edition (including the two mostly-online editions, one of which I DJed at, and I contributed video interviews with bands to both of them). It’s seen a lot of change over time – both as styles of music within the wider alternative/electronic/etc scene have come […]
The final part of /Countdown 2023 sees me looking at the best gigs of the year. Some statistics for my gig-going in 2023. I went to 38 shows (each festival is counted by number of days – so Infest is three days, so counts for three shows), and saw 125 live sets. I saw 122 […]
Onto the third week of /Countdown/2023 on amodelofcontrol.com, and this week I’m looking at the best albums of the year. As I’m sure I’ve explained before, I treat the “year” as 01-December to 30-November, to allow me a cut-off point, and to allow this to be done and dusted before Christmas so that I can […]
Continuing the amodelofcontrol.com review of 2023 – and the twentieth year that I’ve done this – which this week turns attention to the best tracks of the year. Next week will be the wrap of the best albums of 2023.
Welcome to /Countdown/2023 – this year’s wrap-up of the best new music that I’ve heard across the year, and the 20th anniversary of me starting to do such annual roundups (which began on LiveJournal before moving to this site). I begin as usual, with the best compilations and reissues in no particular order, although it […]
Cold Waves XI was my fifth trip to Chicago, and over the course of the weekend, it was suggested to me more than once that I’m becoming an honorary Chicagoan, such is the frequency that I’ve made it over across the past decade.
Just four months ago, I was beginning to be resigned to the August Bank Holiday being devoid of one of my favourite events of the year. So when we finally set foot in the new venues, it was very much a feeling of joy that we’d got there at all.
That what started out as a hastily-scheduled event to celebrate the life of Jamie Duffy has turned into a large, multi-day, multi-city festival over the past decade is something of wonder: but what is also great is how it has fostered a wider family of sorts, one of multiple groups that come together from all […]
One of the obvious casualties of COVID since early 2020 was live music, both in the form of gigs, and festivals. For many, both 2020 and 2021 were almost entirely devoid of the kind of communal joy that these events can bring, and parts of my life certainly felt that bit emptier without them – […]
The second of my recently promised interviews is another long-overdue one, really: with Scott Fox of Canadian tribal-industrial behemoth iVardensphere.
While there hasn’t been many new reviews or interviews posted on /amodelofcontrol.com recently, that’s partly because I’ve been beavering away behind the scenes on a number of projects – as well as listening to the glut of new music that has been reaching my inbox of late, too.
As I mentioned last week on /Tuesday Ten/398, I went to see Nadine Shah at the end of February, and the support band were the hugely entertaining Melt Yourself Down, whose new single is the excellent Crocodile. As is often the way, a song triggered a thought about other reptilian songs.
My gigging in 2020 has perhaps started slower than usual – I didn’t see a single show in January – but this might be down to the fact that by all accounts, there wasn’t a lot going on in January in our part of the music world. It was almost as if after a traumatic […]
It’s time for what is likely to be the last Tuesday Ten of 2019 – although I might do one more just before Christmas, as I have A Plan – before I get started on wrapping up 2019 next week. As usual /Countdown/2019 will be posted over four Tuesdays, covering compilations/reissues, the best tracks, the […]
For the last couple of years, one Saturday around this time of year has seen me head to Electrowerkz for the latest London edition of the BEAT:CANCER shows – and indeed take photos of the bands, and write about them too.
Many bands fly under the radar somewhat. Perhaps they never make the mainstream – and maybe they never wanted to. Perhaps they’ve decided that a particular niche is for them, and they are happy as a band doing just that. I listen to a lot of bands like that, and have written about most of […]
