Funny how the timing works out sometimes: two huge gigs in two days – Bruce Springsteen at Wembley on 15 June and Neil Young at the O2 on the 17th. You’ll probably have seen the reviews already so here are some random thoughts on […]
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By day three I’m starting to flag, but Canada House at the Blind Tiger looks intriguing: a line-up sponsored by music organisations from three of the western provinces. I’m off to Alberta at the end of July, so this could […]
It was definitely Billy Bragg‘s day, with a strong contender for performance of the year, not just of TGE. In comparison with the other stuff I saw, it’s a bit like wondering how the rest got on when Mo Farah turned […]
So, here we are again, tramping the streets of Brighton, squeezing into some unfeasibly small spaces to see bands we’ve never heard of… I’d been feeling somewhat underexcited by this year’s Great Escape because it the only one of hundreds of names on the […]
At Hove’s Palmeira pub last night Mike Taylor, the man behind the Hiss Golden Messenger monicker, memorably compared his songwriting to building lightning conductors. Putting the songs out there and seeing if a flash of electricity will coruscate through them… He has […]
A really nice burst of Billy Bragg on the latest from the always admirable Secret Sessions. His new album Tooth and Nail seems – on a first few lstens – to build nicely on his earlier Americana-tinged excursions with Wilco on Mermaid Avenue with a set of […]
(From Eden On The Line) Well, the gamble paid off. It was certainly worth the trip to Belfast and a stonking ticket price and braving the washed-out St Patrick’s Day weekend weather to take front row seats to see Van […]
“I’m going to be playing the guitar tonight,” announced Michael Chapman to a rightly packed West Hill Hall yesterday. “I’ve just been touring with Thurston Moore and we’ve been torturing the things…” He is a man of several parts and the improv […]
The world of Bob Dylan bootlegs is a deep and mysterious one. I’ve dabbled on the edges and have a shelf of CDs to show for it, but I’d never claim to be an expert. (Talk about setting yourself up for a […]
Yet another sad and premature loss today, with the news that Kevin Ayers has died, aged 68. He was one of the first performers I saw live, in 1971, at one of the legendary Clitheroe Pop festivals, with a very youthful Mike […]
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