My first big gig. While it was great to see the classics, the sound put me off arenas for life. Would love to see Jon and the Geeks at Hammersmith.

I’ll be buying it, as his albums always have one or two outstanding songs. Southeastern was the high watermark and it doesn’t look like he’ll hit that standard again. Saw him and the 400 Unit last year and, while […]

There have been a few ‘last of’ deaths in recent weeks. Last member of The Band, last New York Doll and now last member of Badfinger. As you said Dai, possibly the saddest story in popular music. Some ghoul wil […]

Jangle pop heaven from Newfoundland’s finest.

This is a great song Teenage Fanclub, especially Gerry Love, never wrote:

We did a great trip about 10 years ago – Eurostar to Paris, overnight train to Munich* and then a magical train journey through the Alps to Verona. Four nights seeing the sights and stuffing ourselves in Verona, […]

Thanks for the review. Me and the GLW bought tickets as soon as they went on sale – can’t wait.

All I can hear with In The Evening is Page’s guitar going out of tune. Almost all of ITTOD is wretched, especially the abysmal Hot Dog, but it’s almost saved by Fool In The Rain, which is ace.

I think they ended on a high with Collapse Into Now. My last highlight would be Mine Smell Like Honey, which is bloody ace played loud, even if it sounds like something Winnie The Pooh says in an unguarded moment. […]

Thanks for the review. I saw a friend of a friend play old-timey jazz on a similar arch top and I immediately thought ‘David Rawlings’. Said friend kindly gave me a go on it during his break – the ‘fl […]

On a slight tangent, I ordered an expensive guitar part yesterday and paid an extra tenner for ‘next working day’ delivery. It was only after I hit ‘pay’ that I noticed the small print ‘When ordered before 2pm’. […]

Not 25p, but I remember WH Smith selling certain new albums on cassette for 99p in the mid 90s – I was a very late adopter of CDs because I was too skint for both CDs and something to play them on. Two 99p gems […]

Apparently Paul Merton’s appearances on I’m Sorry… were swiftly curtailed when they did a “Film Club” round and he did a “Bring Me The Head Of…” gag, which he hadn’t realised was Graeme Garden’s standby line […]

For some reason I thought Pretenders’ 1st came out in 1979 – it would have been on my list for sure.

REM – Murmur Paul Simon – Graceland Cowboy Junkies – The Trinity Session XTC – Skylarking Elvis Costello – Blood and Chocolate Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique Pretenders – Learning to Crawl Tom Petty – F […]

‘A small hole in your front window will allow your canary to come and go as it pleases”.

That was my first thought too.

I’d forgotten this crap. Armed with a giant splurge gun of bullshit, Trump will threaten, ‘muse’ and wilfully misinform for the next four years and the world will have to investigate whether his ramblings are f […]

I appreciate this doesn’t help much, but we were planning on going to Lisbon last year and were advised to try Porto instead. Glad we did, it was ace. Also, Portuguese is a devil of a language, but we got by.

One of Noel Gallagher’s bon mots* was about Florence Welch: “She always sings like someone’s just trodden on her foot”. * That’s another thread in waiting – musicians whose interviews are far better than their music.