• Getting Re-acquainted: Randy Newman – Rednecks

    July 16, 2013 - By 

    For a large number of people, Randy Newman is safe. His distinctive drawl has featured on some of the biggest grossing movies of all time, from Toy Story to Monsters Inc, telling family friendly songs of friendship and warmth. He’s a nice guy, and the kids love him. But this ignores the fact that Randy Newman has been – and always will be – a musical maverick. Right from his earliest days as one of a burgeoning scene of Los Angeles weirdo songwriters who weren’t afraid to follow their own muse, Newman has displayed a singular fearlessness at tackling subjects that few would dare to, in a style…

  • Classic album: Can – Future Days

    July 15, 2013 - By 

    Think of a colour. Think of another colour. Think of things that are the first colour, and imagine them in the second colour. Then think of them in a different shape. This – confusing as it might be – goes some way to explaining the creative processes behind a record like Future Days, a record that simply couldn’t sit back and accept things the way they are. And, in a testament to its success, people are still thinking about things in a different way to this very day. Can aren’t an easy band to get into. But then again, if something…

  • Top Ten Alternative Summer Songs

    July 11, 2013 - By 

    The world is melting! The seas will boil, and the sky will become as one great fireball! We’re doomed! Well, that’s what they tell us anyway, but we know better. So allow us to take you by the hand, offer you a delicious ice cold lolly, and give you ten incredible summer songs that are never, ever going to trouble the likes of NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL SUMMER, VOL 2,856. And are all the better for it. 10. The Cure – ‘If Only Tonight We Could Sleep’   Hazy, sweaty, uncomfortable … but enough about Robert Smith’s underpants, this…

  • Classic Album: The Band – Music From Big Pink

    July 9, 2013 - By 

    You go outside. The sun is warm on your face, and you smile at the sounds of nature that surround you – the singing of the birds, the wind through the trees, the rushing of the river. You sit down upon the warm grass, and you consider that God is good. You chop some firewood. You do some whittling. Then you go and plug in your electric guitar, turn to Bob Dylan and say, “Let’s cut it.” Without a doubt, there was something very strange going on in the rustic backwater of Woodstock in upstate New York. To this day,…

  • Festival Mixtape: Glasgowbury 2013

    July 8, 2013 - By 

    An annual celebration of local musical talent like no other, Glasgowbury Festival returns to the Sperrin mountains this year with arguably its finest line-up to date. Headlined by the globetrotting, genre-defining The Answer, And So I Watch You From Afar and The Japanese Popstars, there is an absolute wealth of homegrown talent littered throughout this year’s line-up – a two-day event for the first time in its thirteen year history. Excited as we are about this year’s showcase, we’ve put together a fifteen-song Spotify playlist featuring songs from some of the finest acts playing this year’s festival – everyone from cello-wielding songstress…

  • Classic Album: Metallica – Kill ‘Em All

    June 28, 2013 - By 

    You feel it building in your muscles, a tension crying for release.  Your fists clench, and your feet move. The strain spreads into your back, snaking up your spine. Before you know it, you’re thrusting your head forwards, pulling sharply back, your hair flailing. “BANG YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE STAGE, LIKE YOU NEVER DID BEFORE, MAKE IT RING, MAKE IT BLEED, MAKE IT REALLY SORE!” And you’re gone, lost in wild abandon, part of something primal and bigger than yourself. This is 1983, and you are a fan of the greatest thrash metal band the world has ever seen: Metallica. From…

  • Getting Re-acquainted: Kitchens of Distinction

    June 14, 2013 - By 

    In the last few years, shoegazing (or ‘dream pop’, as our American cousins call it) has made a real comeback, a whole new generation of inarticulate youths picking up guitars and delay pedals , ready to kneel at the altar of My Bloody Valentine. But whilst MBV, Slowdive, and Ride have re-entered the musical vocabulary of the current swathe of indie rockers with floppy fringes, Tooting’s Kitchens of Distinction have remained mysteriously … mysterious. Coming together after meeting at a party in 1985, Patrick Fitzgerald, Julian Swales, and Dan Goodwin comprised one of those bands that could only have existed…

  • Classic Album: Slowdive – Souvlaki

    June 7, 2013 - By 

    If we were to transport someone from the mid-90s to the present day, they’d almost certainly be in for a shock. Not at the political situation of the earth, although that is a cause for great concern in every single person’s life. They might not be shocked by the technological dominance in our society, perhaps seeing that as a sign that they’re in the future, and that far-out space-age technology now exists. They might even wonder where we keep our flying cars. No, the most shocking thing that our mid-90s time traveller would almost certainly encounter would be the continued…

  • Inbound: Go Wolf

    June 3, 2013 - By 

    Having spent the last few months building an ever-increasing fanbase, fast-rising Belfast indie pop band Go Wolf have just finished recording their debut EP. Seven months on from the release of their incandescent debut single ‘Voices’ (featured via Bandcamp below) Brian Coney catches up with Scott and Chris from the band four-piece to talk music, image and the Northern Irish music scene. ___ First thing’s first: how did GO WOLF come to be? Did you all know each other beforehand or was it a case of one person setting out to start a band? Scott: Chris and I met at…

  • Getting Re-acquainted: ‘Breaking The Law’

    May 31, 2013 - By 

    Part of metal’s appeal is its terminal uncoolness. It can’t be co-opted, it isn’t ‘hip’, and it doesn’t easily translate to a mass audience. Sure, sometimes it has a dalliance with the mainstream, but there are always the hardcore contingent who take it to extremes, and they’re the ones who are still there when it slinks back to the darkness. Metal is, and always will be, outsider music. And if being uncool is what makes metal cool, then Judas Priest must be the coolest band on the planet. Their 1980 single ‘Breaking the Law’ remains their signature tune, and also…