not forgotten
Not Forgotten: We revisit Augie March’s stunning debut ‘Sunset Studies’ from 2000 – still an essential antipodean sonic milestone – which gets a belated 21st birthday party.
By 2000, by the time Y2K anxiety had dissipated and, before the events of 9/11 cast a pall everywhere, post grunge was solidifying its place in the world and the vestiges of Britpop were bouncing along in ever decreasing circles. The Australian indie scene towards the end of the previous decade was mostly typified either …
Not Forgotten: The Jasmine Minks – ‘The Jasmine Minks’: on older brothers, cassette pets and discovering the world of Creation
MY ROUTE into The Jasmine Minks and the whole world of early Creation Records – Slaughter Joe, Biff Bang Pow, Revolving Paint Dream and so many others? Mine was the time-honoured one: that is, the combined good agency of a friend’s older brother and the humble cassette. It’s a story repeated everywhere there are older …
Not Forgotten: Warren Zevon
FOR FAR too many music fans here in the UK, the name Warren Zevon merely equates to the American singer-songwriter’s one and only hit in the late 70s, “Werewolves Of London”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as it’s a great song and Zevon deserved his pop-star moment. Things is there was more to …
NOT FORGOTTEN: Snub TV: when British telly had a decent indie strand
JANUARY 9, 1989. Perhaps not the most auspicious date in world history, though there would be more epochal happenings later in the year, of course. The day dawned with the sad news of the plane crash at Kegworth, Leicestershire, the day before, when British Midland Flight 92 attempted an emergency landing at East Midlands Airport; …
NOT FORGOTTEN: The Irresistible Force – ‘It’s Tomorrow Already’: the loud, great finale of British rave-ambient
“IT’S TIME to lie down and be counted”: so goes Mixmaster Morris’s brilliant call to very relaxed arms for the 90s’ British ambient scene. It was a manifesto banner that he jointly flew with The Orb’s Alex Paterson in that era, 1991-95, when the appetite for strange interweavings of found sound, Krautrock washes, environment recordings, …
Not Forgotten: The Supernaturals – A Tune a Day
Released in 1998, The Supernaturals’ A Tune a Day followed the same trajectory as a large number of sophomore Britpop efforts did, in that it failed to match the commercial impact of the act’s debut, leaving their record label wondering if they had a future with them. What made it stand out from the pack …
Classic Compilation: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – Anthology: Through the Years
Tom Petty – a Dylan disciple, a Byrds with harder-wearing tunes, a Bruce Springsteen for the rest of us. Few artists have defined approachable Middle-American rock and roll radio quite like Petty and his loyal band, and no one has made such a consistently good job of it for as long as he did. Anthology: …
Obituary: Tom Petty
Of all the luminaries of pop music that we have lost in the last couple of years, it is the music of Tom Petty which I have had the longest and most committed relationship with. A radio-friendly American Heartland rocker, Tom Petty was less earnest then Springsteen and more consistently brilliant than Bob Seger. Originally …
Not Forgotten: Elton John – 17.11.70
After years, if not decades, of wandering about the cultural wilderness, it has reached the point where even the most indifferent music fan has to admit that between 1970 and 1975, Elton John put out some pretty good music. While it is albums like Tumbleweed Connection, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Captain Fantastic and the …
Not Forgotten: The Bees – Octopus
There’s something heartening when you discover a band that’s obviously not part of a media-hyped ‘scene’. Released during a period where tie-rock, Brit-pop revivalists and Coldplay-clones still held sway here in the UK, at least as far as rock music goes, Octopus confirmed that The Bees particular brand of shaggy retro-revivalism just didn’t seem to …