Jon Bryan, Author at Backseat Mafia

Not Forgotten: Eels – Electro-Shock Blues

Electro-Shock Blues might very well be one of the bravest albums ever released. Although Mark Oliver Everett (a.k.a E) had released a couple of solo albums prior to Eels’ debut,…

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Album Review: Steven Page – Discipline: Heal Thyself, Pt. II

Sometimes the most unexpected thing can catch your attention and send you down an avenue and into a field of knowledge that you ever thought you’d end up in. A…

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Not Forgotten: Bruce Springsteen – The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle

Even after four and a half decades, there’s still something oddly lovable about The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. I guess it’s the fact that it really…

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Not Forgotten: Mansun – Six

Twenty years later and the shock of hearing Six for the first time still stays with me. I’d already heard the single “Legacy”, which was one of the best things…

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Album Review: B.C. Camplight – Deportation Blues

Quite why B.C. Camplight’s How to Die in the North didn’t capture the attention of the music buying public is something of a puzzle. Luxuriant in its arrangements, with a…

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Classic Album: Blondie – Parallel Lines

Having previously transitioned from first-wave punks to the cutting edge of the new wave, their third album, Parallel Lines, found Blondie as an unashamed pop band, a fact underlined by…

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Music
News

News: Mott the Hoople to release Mental Train (The Island Years 1969-71) six CD box set

The Mental Train’s a rollin’… It’s probably fair to say that Mott the Hoople had a career of two halves. While it took the Bowie-penned to catapult them to commercial…

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Not Forgotten: XTC – Mummer

1982s English Settlement had achieved a lot for XTC. Their first top ten album was also home to their first top ten single, and they seemed poised to be one…

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Not Forgotten: Neil Young – Tonight’s the Night

The opening title track starts with the saddest piano notes you’ve ever heard, droplets of sorrow falling onto a lake of melancholy, and you quickly start to realise that this…

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