This review first appeared in Thursday’s Nottingham Post “WE’RE really smoking tonight,” says Animals singer and bassist Pete Barton. And it’s true. An amp has caught fire, halfway through a set of classics from the sixties. Barton replaces Eric Burdon, who sued to get the name from original drummer John Steel. And lost. Keyboard player Mickey Gallagher, best known as one of the Blockheads, replaced Alan Price at short notice in 1965 and returned in 2003. Danny Handley on guitar and vocals completes the new team. It’s My Life, Dimples and others roar by, with covers like I Believe To My Soul. They sound like a terrific tribute band with a fantastic keyboard player, but this is only the warm-up. After a break, they…
My thirty albums of the year, ordered by how much I’ve enjoyed them rather than attempts at spurious objectivity. A terrific top 21 & the best of the also-rans. Downloads of many featured artists in the post below. A tight fight for the top spot, Leonard’s first. Hopefully, Frank will have plenty more opportunities to compete for this coveted honour. 1 Leonard Cohen – Old Ways 2 Frank Ocean – Channel Orange 3 The XX – Coexist 4 Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Psychedelic Pill 5 Dirty Projectors – Swing Low Magellan 6 Bob Dylan – Tempest 7 Aimee Mann – Charmer 8 Bobby Womack – The Bravest Man In The Universe 9 Simone Felice 10= Rumer – Boys Don’t Cry 10= Beth…
Every year since 1988, we’ve given out twenty-odd best of year CDs (formerly cassettes, but a Spotify playlist wouldn’t cut it) to our music loving friends and, for the last few years, I’ve put all the songs on this blog, together with sleeve notes for each song. So if you’re here to find out about my books, scroll down or check out the Beat novels currently coming out as eBooks, with all new afterwords. If you’re an unhappy copyright holder, just contact me, but the point of these downloads and the cds is to persuade people to investigate the new music that I love. And if you’re a recipient of these CDs, you might like to look away until yours arrives (the first ones…
This is the last post of the year bar my best songs of the year cd countdown, which starts tomorrow. I’ve been to three gigs in the last four nights. Follow the links to read about Squeeze (disappointing) and Beth Orton (outstanding) in the Nottingham Post. I wasn’t reviewing last night’s gig. In fact, until a week ago, I didn’t have a ticket. Tried to get good seats the moment they went on sale, months ago (couldn’t stand, because of going with an ill friend) but was only offered ones at the back. Finally found a pair near the front on eBay and they arrived on Tuesday. Phew. Funnily enough, the seats were very close to where Mike and I sat the first time I…
Last year I did a reading and talk at Leicester De Montfort University, after which the organiser, author and academic Jonathan Taylor, asked me whether he could use the story I’d just tried out in a new anthology that he was hoping to get published. My copy of Overheard: stories to read aloud arrived last week and I’ve been dipping into it ever since. It’s a very nifty idea for an anthology, with nothing over 3,000 words long (I had to ruthlessly edit my story, Games In Bed, to get it down to 2,999 words!), so each story take only a few minutes to read or – at most – fifteen minutes to read aloud. I’m one of those people who will read a poem or story aloud…