The first year of the new decade is coming to a close, and it was an intriguing if not exceptional year for music. there were signs that hip hop was emerging from the doldrums of sound-alike rhymers with little to say, new stars shone in the indie rock firmament and the parade of reunion shows [...]
There’s a scene in In The Loop in which the “crossest man in Scotland” is introduced. Up until then you can be forgiven for thinking that you have been spending most of the film with that very man, Malcolm Tucker, a fixer with a penchant for four letter words that would make Deadwood’s Al Swearingen [...]
For our latest flashback we take you on a trip back to 1969 – the year of Woodstock and Altamont when peace and love co-existed with the fallout of the turbulence of the previous year’s wave of assassinations, the election of Richard Nixon, and the continuing trauma of the Vietnam War. It was a rich [...]
My initial response to Franz Ferdinand’s third album, titled perversely (for a non-live album) Tonight: Franz Ferdinand was tempered by the pre-release press and band statements that suggested a major sea-change for the band. Lo and behold, on first listen there are some departures but this is very recognizably the work of the Scotsmen who [...]
Overheard on the way out of Roseland last night: “That show reminded me of that time I was in a car crash and I almost died…” OK, so, not your typical Jonas Brothers show. In fact it was the long wished-for re-union of My Bloody Valentine, British godfathers of the shoegazer genre who both defined [...]
The Twitters