Not Forgotten: Warren Zevon

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Not Forgotten: Teenage Fanclub – Grand Prix

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Album Review: Mark Lanegan – Straight Songs of Sorrow.

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Back in the early 70s, there was still a distinct generational difference between what ‘the kids’ listened to and what ‘the olds’ listened to. Only particularly foresighted adults were listening to what current music was offering at the time and very few kids had anything but a passing interest in their parents music collection. Pop …

It starts with audience noise, David Byrne scrolls out and utters immortal opening lines. “Hi. I’ve got a tape I wanna play you.” A basic electronic drum pattern starts up, there’s a sharply strummed acoustic guitar and then the bare-bones live version of “Psycho Killer” blows the studio original clean out of the water. Just …

There are four blokes on stage with an unenviable task. Tonight’s crowd are here to see one man and one man only, and I’m among them. Ian Hunter inspires a devoted following of fans, much in evidence tonight by the high percentage of the audience being resplendent in their Mott the Hoople and Ian Hunter …

In Hearing Of Atomic Rooster is a remarkable album, but not for the most obvious reasons. On first listen, it’s a heavy psych-prog album by a band centred around former Crazy World of Arthur Brown organ-botherer Vincent Crane and the band’s only album featuring the vocal talents of former Leaf Hound vocalist Peter French (who …

Pretty much smack inbetween the career high-water mark that was Tres Hombres, and the ultra-commercial, MTV-courting, mega-seller, Eliminator, ZZ Top’s Deguello is something of a stand-alone for the band. Whereas all their earlier albums albums were re-released on CD in the latter-half of the 80s slathered in drum machines, and their next album, El Loco, …

It’s easy to forget just how consistently impressive Alice Cooper was between 1971 and 1975, both as a group and then morphing into Vincent Furnier’s solo career. From Love It to Death through to Welcome to My Nightmare, Alice Cooper’s output stands comparison to the likes of both Elton John and David Bowie, two other …

New Adventures In Hi-Fi can be a difficult album to digest. It doesn’t flow particularly well, it can drag and in places it can sound rather dull. There aren’t many REM fans that would claim that New Adventures In Hi-Fi is their favourite album. It’s reputation has suffered because of comparisons to those albums that …

Walking away from Mott the Hoople at the point they were beginning to make their mark in the USA, a lot of people must have questioned Ian Hunter’s desire to make it as a rock and roll star. Apparently he was burnt out, and having finally achieved success in his early 30s, he had seemingly …

After a clutch of scruffy punkish releases, Let It Be was where The Replacements started to indicate that they were slowly starting to mature, starting to blend more considered material like “Unsatisfied” with the likes of “Gary’s Got a Boner”. Where once there was sloppiness and youthful exuberance, here there is self reflection and youthful …

Martin Austwick is a man of many talents. Not only is he a supremely talented singer and songwriter, but he’s a physicist and university lecturer, and is also known as “Martin the Sound Man” on the hugely popular comedy podcast Answer Me This!, as well as the Brain Train, Global Lab and The Sound of …