All the indignation of the right-wing press makes me chuckle. The Telegraph’s pocket cartoonist ‘Matt’ – who is admittedly the best in his business by a long way – is paid absurd amounts for what he does, […]

I always find this enormously uplifting.

I’ve been listening to a great podcast with Mr Lowe:

Where he talks about the windfall from the Bodyguard OST. He reckons it gave him the freedom to continue making the slower, more grown-up records he wanted – […]

The vid features XTC’s Dave Gregory miming the solo – he was in Aimee’s touring band for a while and, I believe, was briefly in a relationship with her.

The only album by Thorns (Matthew Sweet, Pete Droge and Shawn Mullins do CSN-style music) is really lush and overproduced, but a special 2CD edition came out with a set of the same track listing, done live and […]

Both live albums, but if that counts John Cale’s Fragments of a Rainy Season (just him, a piano and acoustic guitar) and 10,000 Maniacs’ Unplugged are my favourite collections by both.

I haven’t heard it, but […]

Same gig as you! A great night. I remember the band playfully kicking Michael Penn up the arse as he tried to sing the extremely lyric-heavy ‘Brave New World’ and guitarist Buddy Judge’s Elvis Costello impersonation.

This Christmas sketch has never stopped making me laugh, especially for her ‘Bah a-fuckin’ humbug’ at 1:05 and Michael Penn’s performance.

Pretty sure it was 4th of July on that Q CD, as I was one of those punters! I’m a completist, love the first two albums which made me search out other production by Jon Brion too. Lost in Space is a mid-period c […]

Just the chorus (especially the bassline) of these two.

Your Devil’s Advocate correspondent writes: The two bands toured together in 1972. Don Felder, who wrote all the music for the song Hotel California, didn’t join the Eagles until 1974 and, according to him, didn’t […]

Which came out in 1979. And this, from 1986:

The melody isn’t the same, but chords are pretty much the same, in the same key, too.

Elastica have form with this one. Two of their hits, Connection and Waking Up. Both settled out of court with Wire and The Stranglers.

If Bryan ‘Run to You’ Adams didn’t settle out of court with Tom ‘Refugee’ […]

He did say which cafe, but I forget it. My friend would have left but didn’t want to let his mates down, and live gigs are a) a novelty after so long and b) not his main source of income these days – he’s a […]

A friend of mine, professional trumpet player, agreed to sit in with a blues duo last weekend at a cafe in Leicester Square. Agreed ( though not signed on) fee (not his fault) was halved when they took their […]

Oh yes indeed! When I saw his name on the Spilt Milk credits I made the connection between Jellyfish. And those first two, amazing, Aimee Mann albums. Had to buy Meaningless in Minus Zero, a rather snobby power […]

I was the same in 1991 – the outfits detracted from the music. Over time, I gave Jellyfish another chance, and I’m glad I did. I’ve got everything there is to buy, plus a great deal of ex-members’ music (Jaso […]

In the Goldsmith case, the producer, Gil Norton, was something of a tyrant and referred to him and bassist Nate Mendel as ‘the rhythmless section’. I feel slightly bad for them in each case as they were obviously […]

Like any solo Beatle, you have to pick and choose, but there’s some great stuff off the beaten track. The 2CD Wingspan is a good compilation to start with, as it has the Hits on one disc and the History on the […]

Grohl’s an interesting one. I think he is one of the good guys but, like any mega-successful bandleader (hello Tom Petty, Jon Bon Jovi etc), he’s done some pretty brutal firing to keep the show on the road.

The […]