My mum brought the album home from work. A friend of hers knew that me and my brothers were into our music, so he thought he would work on expanding our knowledge. I want to shake him by the hand. For, the album which I put my hands on, I am guessing as a 14 […]
Category: reflection
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The Pub Pianist that got lucky
Elton John played the last of five sell-out gigs at Madison Square Gardens last Saturday. I took some ridicule for the big-budget ticket, at a price that would’ve shown me at least four memorable bands in the same city, the same night. I saw it as one of those box-tickers; Bruce, Billy or Elton at […]
Warning: I’m about to go out on a limb here… Weller’s best band was The Jam. I know have argued the corner for The Style Council as being a time which captured Weller at the peak of his ‘creative’ mode – pushing the boundaries of his music. But, let’s be honest – for balls-out, angry […]
So I am heading to Manchester. You see, I’m a bit of an Elbow fan, as posts on this site have already been testament to. As soon as the Elbow date at the MEN Arena was announced, the tickets were booked. I live in NYC, but my heart is in Manchester. There’s no finer place […]
The Brand New Heavies were bloody great, weren’t they? Seriously, before they essentially became purveyors of pop, they were a fine, fine funk outfit. ‘Midnight at the Oasis’, ‘Dream On Dreamer’ and ‘Brother Sister’ were all good tunes – but they targeted the masses. Roll it back a few years, and you’ve got an entirely […]
Let’s face it, some bands just don’t cut it live. They fail to capture the intimacy of their recorded material when forced to play it to the masses. They let the adoration of the crowd get to them. They go on, and on, and on… And then, you get bands which totally nail it to […]
Radiohead baffle and astound me in equal measure. Let’s face it – they don’t take the easy path. I’m not a massive fan of ‘Pablo Honey’. I’m not saying that I don’t like it – it’s just that ‘the difficult second album’ blew it away. ‘The Bends’ was massive. I remember hearing it for the […]
Two bands stand astride The Atlantic. One, from the UK, never puts a foot wrong, and has been constantly innovating, reshaping, and challenging their audience since the early 90s. The other, from the US, has for the best part of ten years been providing nothing short of unbridled joy in the form of music – […]
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Fac 501: Tony Wilson
A post from earlier in the week, about DJing in Berlin, was ostensibly about the enduring love that people of a certain age, and born in a certain geographic location, have for the music of Manchester. Anyone who has been a semi-regular visitor to this site, or who has ever set foot near to one […]