The profoundly influential Birth Of The Cool – a 1957 LP featuring recordings first released as a series of 78 rpm singles in 1949 and 1950 – was arguably the first indication of Miles Davis’s restless creative spirit and desire to innovate. Tired of bebop, he assembled a short-lived nonet that included Gerry Mulligan, Lee Konitz, and Max Roa…
It’s been reissued before: frankly it should be reissued weekly, and made mandatory listening for anyone who thinks they know 70s glam rock. Essentially the best album Ziggy Stardust never made, it finds Bill Nelson, in his early twenties, fronting a spectacular band and throwing himself into the then prevalent sounds with commitment and chutzpah…
As off-the-wall rockers went, the Sect were kings, making even the Pretty Things look safe and sophisticated. Diminutive singer/guitarist Don Craine in his deerstalker hat contrasted wildly with the looming figure of bassist Keith Grant on crashing live shows, while their records veered from proto-punkish R’n’B to doom-laden shock rock to primi…
If The Whole Of The Moon remains The Waterboys’ de facto signature song, Fisherman’s Blues (released three years later in 1988) was, to all intents and purposes, the game-changing album. It looms large in their discography, its significance highlighted again by the 2013 bumper six-disc deeper dive into the sessions, Fisherman’s Box.
I expectantly sat on my hard pew at this holy venue hoping to witness a Wise selection of deep cuts from the venerable Blunstone’s sophisticated solo and guest singing career. Thankfully, throughout a two-hour set, my prayers were firmly answered in the positive. Standing straight, tall and skinny, with wild, dark, tinted hair and glasses, the chie…
The twentieth anniversary of Slam Dunk took place this weekend in Hatfield (23rd May) and Leeds (24th May) which saw Good Charlotte headline as European Exclusives. The stacked bill included a first ever UK appearance from Long Beach legends Sublime, Taking Back Sunday, Knocked Loose and the mysterious President plus fan favourites and Slam Dunk fe…
The old Ringo-ism that he makes more right moves than left moves is certainly true of his hooking up with T Bone Burnett for last year’s pivot back to country music; Look Up was his best album in decades. Invigorated, Ringo has got the band back together in short time, Burnett co-writing and producing another highly enjoyable country set that see…
And so, 44 years after Haircut 100’s debut album Pelican West, its proper follow-up, Boxing The Compass, arrives like a summer breeze. The delightful surprise is the funk quotient on the album – Someone and Vanishing Point stand strong with 80s anthems Baked Beans and Kingsize. The jangle is there, too – the beautiful overdriven major chords …
Comic actor Harry Enfield, on his recent UK tour, summed up Paul McCartney perfectly, affectionately talking of the Beatle’s utter childlike wonder at everything with a quick impersonation – “Wow, look, the sky”, “Wow, look, the countryside” – and it’s true, that wide-eyed naiveté has been his calling card for years. And although a…
Hearing the first taste of Ed O’Brien’s second solo album, Blue Morpho, felt like connecting with a folk fantasia. It starts with the sound of chirping birds, field recordings from O’Brien’s woodland home in Wales, before Nick Drake-esque campfire guitar is matched to symphonic grandeur; strings cascade beautifully as O’Brien enigmaticall…
