@tiggerlion Remember seeing Martin Fry and Morrissey in The Gay Traitor. What a bizarre place it was. There was a baked beans and potato cafe at One point.

The Commitments was massive in bringing soul classics back to a younger audience. The first soundtrack album went triple platinum.

Why would that be exactly? We generally thread anytime there’s a music story in the wider news. Eurovision is an annual Aword staple. Clearly there’ll be some wanting Israel in, some out etc and we usually hol […]

Factual correction: currently out are Slovenia, Spain, Netherlands and Ireland.

We’ve got until May to work out whether we watch or not, but whatever happens it’ll leave a somewhat sour taste. Will we run our traditional live thread? I should add that the fudge/stitch up was because Israel […]

34 here, Mrs Moles is 73 which makes me a toyboy! Top 5 Throwing Muses (saw them in aug, refreshing my knowlede of their catalogue) Gyorgy kurtag – listened to a 73-track piano album Haim Saint […]

Well I have moved through the Bowie canon over the years, starting off aged 16 with Lets Dance as that was on the radio. Then Ziggy Stardust. Then Young Americans (I know!). Then Low. Moving steadily upward like […]

Can I recommend his 3-minute turn as a fortune teller in seventies Lew Grade flick The Medusa Touch, part of a stellar cast inc Burton, Remick, Ventura, Jacobi, Badel etc. Watched it at the weekend, a secular […]

Begs the point about what he thinks indirect racism is.

Aged 8 a Royal Navy frigate captain, aged 18 a theatre director. My career, in the the arts, has been a long process of figuring out what I’m employable as and better than others at, and refining that.

I felt the same about the set order when the Mary Chain played a complete album tour a few years ago, either the first or second album. Why not do the ‘odds and sods’ in the first half, and the album in the […]

Absolutely, saw Pains of being Pure at Heart yesterday and (ok only split up for six years rather than 40) but almost all the band were onstage. The Cabaret Voltaire final tour next year has the surviving […]

There is also a Facebook page run by former drummer Pete Hammon, the fur continues to fly over there too… And there is a reference to a hometown Birmingham gig (where of course they are from, key early gigs […]

@retropath2 listened to the album and answers the question as to what The La’s would sound like fronted by Richard Thompson. So not too shabby then, but I think not quite enough to get into my top 20 of the year.

I’m running with the OP title – new bands this year that you may have missed and can catch up on just before the end-of-year AW lists start in a fortnight. For your consideration Sharp Pins and their mega-catchy […]

I’m a big Cormac fan (the Crossing trilogy is just awesome from start to finish) but The Road is a different beast. It’s about what happens to us after the apocalypse has happened. There’s a ‘thing/event’ between […]