As I’ve noted before, I come from a military family. My parents both lived overseas as children and teenagers when their fathers were stationed in Germany (in different locations), and then met while living on adjacent army camps, as I understand it, north of Salisbury – and indeed I was born in Salisbury, and for […]
Another busy week of new music and upcoming announcements – not to mention lots of choice on the Livestream front, too. In addition, I’ve overhauled the events page in a big way, so see the link further down for that. Livestreams and waiting for new releases seem to be the order of the day, for […]
Three weeks into January, Trump is gone from the White House, but things still feel pretty bleak here in the UK. Lockdown looks like it’s going to go on for a while yet, festivals are beginning to be cancelled for the summer (again), and so livestreams and waiting for new releases seem to be the […]
The seventh part of Transmission, the a-z of industrial. This continues our look at industrial music, and is this week all about bands beginning with “f”, and we’ll finish off this letter in 008.
I’ve said it before, but really, I can’t believe I haven’t covered this before. Dancing is such an important companion to music. It can be a joyful release, a form of protest, epoch-changing, style-leading, a celebration, a way of meeting or courting people or even dealing with unimaginable horror. It has changed the world, it […]
This weeks Ten has been long-planned to have this subject, but how it was going to work was the bit I didn’t really know. So, I chose to open it up.
A few months ago, Tuesday Ten #226 howled about dogs. But in the meantime, Elin – among a few others – was unimpressed that I did songs about dogs, but not cats. So time to redress the balance, with some songs to mewl along to. Bring your kitten heels to dance.
This year: 170 bands, 57 days-worth of gigs. Five festivals, three countries, eight cities/towns. From venues holding thousands to those holding tens. Due to personal issues and, frankly, being too damned busy for much of the year, I didn’t get to write about many of them aside from the festivals, so writing this list has […]
In the annals of crazy plans by me, this one was up there with Festival Kinetik 4.0 in 2011, where my friend Tim and I headed to Ottawa and then Montreal for a heavy, heavy week of music, drinking and sightseeing. Doing Cold Waves III came up from similar origins – a lineup too good […]
I actually started this 80s rundown a couple of years back, but life and other things have rather got in the way. So, a little bit of spare time has allowed me to get this finished. Without further ado, then, let’s get on with it.
Following last week’s awesome fun of submissions from many of my readers and friends, I thought I probably ought to suggest my own to this. So this is a postscript, of sorts, offering five albums that I celebrate as being my idea of perfect albums. I’ve been careful to ensure that I haven’t repeated any […]
As Infest 2013 looms this weekend – and with the announcement that there won’t be an Infest in 2014, either – I’ve decided that it is time to look back at the twelve Infests I’ve attended previously (I’ve been to every one since 2000, and of course there wasn’t one in 2009).
So…I’ve looked at the best gigs, live venues, and gigs at the London Astoria, bands at Infest, bands I’ve *not* seen live…but I’ve never had a look at live albums, somehow, as my girlfriend pointed out last week.
During 2011 I saw an awful lot of live sets. At a rough count, around about 125 (including supports and festivals) – and I saw a few bands more than once, in particular Front 242, who I saw four times in four different countries. Like the albums list, a few that might have made it […]
There are times when I wonder exactly how and why the support bands are picked for a live show, and this was most certainly one of those. On occasions, an eclectic bill can work, surprise and enthrall a crowd, other times it just becomes a real frustration. We missed Global Citizen this time around (mainly […]
So for one final flourish this year, in a year where I have attended more gigs and seen more bands than I have done in a long, long time, I headed outside of the UK once again, this time for a weekend visit to Antwerp for the two-day, tenth-anniversary of BIMFest. Despite a grim and […]
It has been a while since I travelled this far for a gig in the UK. Let me explain: I love Front 242. And given the news that old friends of mine in Je$us Loves Amerika were announced as the support act for this Glasgow show, it was not a difficult decision to head north […]
I seem to have been delving into my musical past, and in particular the nineties, an awful lot so far in 2011. I’m not exactly sure why: perhaps it’s just been discovering a handful of nights in London that cover parts of that past that I’m still fond of – so Nuis@nce and Louder Than […]
Just in case I thought this weekend couldn’t get any better or more fun, Saturday’s performances ended up being probably the finest day of live industrial music I’ve ever seen – and that was even with at least one act that I really, really don’t care for.
