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Farewell, The Top Rank
The sad sight of the long-closed Top Rank Suite in Reading being demolished. It was the venue for my very first gig, Hawkwind on their Levitation tour, with Ginger Baker on drums, and NWOBHM power...
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Black Sabbath: 10 of the best
The Guardian have just published a piece I’ve written in their “Ten of the Best” series, about Black Sabbath. The task of choosing ten songs to tell the story of the most influential metal band on the...
View ArticleThe Eurovision Song Contest
I’m at a gig this Saturday, so I’ll be missing the Eurovision Song Contest. But here’s Lithuania’s entry for 2006, the same year as Lordi won for Finland. The brief instrumental break with the dancing...
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There are critics that help you improve, and critics that don’t
There is a very valuable quote at the end of an interview with James Raggi, designer of Lamentations of the Flame Princess for ConTessa. Lamentations of the Flame Princess is a horror-themed fantasy...
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Progzilla and their Problematic List
Progzilla Radio have done a countdown of the Top 100 Modern Prog Classics. Unfortunately, the list is, as the saying goes “problematic”. While all lists of this nature are subjective and shouldn’t be...
View ArticleInto The Sausage Factory
A couple of Tweets from my editor at Trebuchet Magazine set off a discussion: If you ever needed any sort of proof that the mainstream music industry is an utter stitch-up, Courtney Barnett is surely...
View ArticleMark Kozelek, Bellend
From The Guardian, “I interviewed Mark Kozelek – He called me a ‘bitch’ on stage” Last Monday (1 June), Sun Kil Moon played at the Barbican in London. During the encore, Kozelek introduced a snippet of...
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Shocked to find Genesis aren’t awful after all
This is comedy gold. A punk-era NME-style music journalist straight out of Central Casting writes about Genesis’ “Selling England By The Pount”. He starts out dismissing their music using as many tired...
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Where are the women of rock?
Haidi Widdop and Martin Ledger of Cloud Atlas Regular readers of this blog ought to know the answer, but that is still the question John Harris asks in The Guardian, in a piece on the male-dominated...
View ArticleSex Pistols credit cards. Oh Noes!
Got to love the Sex Pistols credit cards. Thre is much schadenfreude at the congnitive dissonance it gives to those who still buy uncritically into the whole punk mythology. So much of “punk” was...
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Thirty Years Ago Today
Today is the 30th anniversary of the 1985 Knebworth Fayre, headlined by Deep Purple. David Meadows shares his memories of the day. It’s 1985. Thirty years ago today, as I write this. I’m a student in...
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Gatekeepers
Chantel McGregor at the 2014 Cambridge Rock Festival, which prominently features female artists The Guardian have run their fourth piece in as many weeks bemoaning the fact that the lineups of major...
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One Can Only Hope
I find it impossible to read this poster for the Bospop festival in The Netherlands and not think “If only Jools Holland was to invite a few of the bands he’s sharing a bill with on Sunday to appear...
View ArticleRIP Chris Squire
View image | gettyimages.com The progressive rock genre is in shock with the news of the death of bassist Chris Squire, founder and only constant member of Yes. Tributes have been pouring in from...
View ArticleMuse: Why The Hate
The comments in The Guardian’s Muse: 10 of the best have predictably filled up with drive-by trolls dismissing them as “shite”. What is it about Muse that attracts the haters? Is it just that the...
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Farewell, NME
With news that the NME’s circulation has sunk to a pitiful 15,000, and it’s going to turn into a freesheet, a lot of people are giving eulogies for how it was a vital part of their teenage years,...
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The Economics of Streaming
This very perceptive piece on the economics of music streaming by Anil Prasad, The Finger’s on the Self-Destruct Button includes this very illuminating quote from Matt Stevens. “Streaming makes it...
View ArticleWhen Only 30 People Turn Up
Remember #East17 ? No exaggeration this was me minutes before and during their gig in the Academy last night pic.twitter.com/qTyoek6dbR — Tom Flynn (@tomflynnphoto) June 26, 2015 Got to love this...
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A Model For Streaming?
Anil Prasad of Innerviews has written a follow-up to his earlier “Self-Destruct Button” piece and concludes that A Fair Music Streaming Model is Possible. He makes the point that the 10-quid-a-month...
View ArticleThe Legality of Ripping CDs
So the High Court has jusr overturned the previous government decision that it was legal to copy your own CDs for personal use, such as ripping them onto your iPod or phone. Musician Ben Bell, for one,...
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