That travel ban (at the time of writing) seems BS: it really just applies to airports in the Schengen area, but cannot stop Europeans departing to the US from the UK and Ireland. It’s a way for Trump to blame the […]

I like this thread.

Slightly overrated third albums? At the time, the Happy Monday’s third, ‘ Pills ‘n Thrills and Bellyaches,’ was celebrated as their shift into the big time of dance-rock with DJ produce […]

To win an argument, I consider The Aerosol Grey Machine a non-starter (Peter Hammill solo-project, released only in the US as a contractual get-out when the actual band signed to Charisma) but this is a grey area.

Trout Mask Replica, of course.

‘154’ by Wire has been a difficult album for me to like in comparison with the previous two, but I now realise how extraordinary it is and how it anticipates so much music of the 80s. Self-consciously “difficult”, […]

I like the first line of that Love song at the top: it’s slightly perverse, and suits the fact that the lyric is in the character of an alarming gun-toter who kills things who are on his property (I do wonder if […]

Sad news indeed: of that generation of UK “Superstar” DJs, he often seemed the most maverick and surprising

Me too: I saw them support James (what was I thinking of?) at the Norwich UEA, and from what I remember thought they were boring- and I still dislike that first album anyway.

Tortoise are playing the Blue Note Jazz Club in Tokyo this week with two gigs a day: a “greatest hits” session in the afternoon and then a run through of the “TNT” album in its entirety. Wouldn’t mind going but I can’t.

I agree that the first EP is the best record they did ( shame that Bob Last won’t let anyone listen to it). This is Andy Gill’s version of a protest song- a dig at The Clash’s ‘Tommy Gun’ perhaps?

I’m not a professional musician, but I want to sound like one.

Underworld’s “Rez” is much better in the original instrumental mix than “Cowgirl”, the vocalised equivalent on the album.

The genius of Python can seem like a curse at times, as their writing is reduced to the bits people quote (like that guy in “Sliding Doors”). But by chance I saw “Holy Grail” again recently and it is a genuinely […]

Well, I at least remember the last post-punk revival of around 2001, with The Rapture, DFA records, Erase Errata, and the “Rough Trade Post-Punk 01” compilation. It’s all eternal recurrence, innit? A Nietzschean […]

In my experience of teaching academic writing to non-Native-English speakers, “they” has been advancing as a neuter, third-person pronoun for some years now: The New York Times and Washington Post have been using […]

I appreciate that it is an aggregate rather than a specific poll, but that is a conspicuously “Generation X” -style chart (lots of 90s and 00s); much more than any of the UK rock mags would likely publish. Interesting.

Amon Duul II, Archangel Thunderbird: the guitarist comes in too late after the breakdown at 2.10. He had one job to do,,,

More 808 State: this performance is a bit of a mess and squanders the cool glaze of the single, but I remember watching this.

The Stones’ “Paint It, Black” (as it says on the earliest pressings, although I cannot link to a photo right now) seems very unfortunate because by adding a comma to make the phrase vocative, it sounds racist. […]

Austurbaejarbio Is The Fall’s equivalent of the John Coltrane Live in Japan Album: an untypical lineup of the group pushing the stops out for a new audience and achieving something extraordinary. Try to hear it i […]