Following on from Chris Weingarten’s speech berating music blogs for wiping out good, honest journalism, here’s Something Awful suggesting that the reason blogs were able to push forward was because the music journalism in old media (such as Rolling Stone) … Continue reading
Prepare to have rock history rewritten. Forget the Beatles in Hamburg or Otis at Monterey or the Pistols at the 100 Club or Radiohead at Glastonbury. This is the one I would have wanted to be at. The Bay City … Continue reading
If you haven’t heard Chris Weingarten’s speech on the way music journalism is being squashed by maths, it’s well worth a listen. Warning: lots of swears, and a horrid hat. Thanks to Everett True for the link.
I’ve long been a defender of books. Good, honest, inky, papery, analogue books, with words that don’t change colour even if you point at them. Kindles? Pah! They don’t smell of anything, and you can’t fold the corners over. And … Continue reading
How many songs are there where the definitive version is the live recording, rather than the studio take that (presumably) preceded it? ‘Definitive’ is of course debatable, so let’s say “the version that would probably get played if the song … Continue reading
I think the death of JG Ballard deserves marking here because although he never (to my knowledge) smashed a guitar or threw a groupie out of a hotel window, his transgressive erudition was far more rock ‘n’ roll than that displayed … Continue reading
I’m currently working on a book project involving late-blooming karaoke icon Len Cohen. Immersing oneself in the minutiae of anybody’s life always gives rise to odd emotional reactions; this is especially tough, not least because from certain angles Cohen looks … Continue reading
There is a long an honourable tradition of songwriters copying each other’s work. Elderly bluesmen had their back catalogues rifled by Elvis, the Stones and Led Zeppelin; James Brown was the unwitting co-author of numerous hip-hop anthems; and Noel Gallagher … Continue reading
Which bands are you happy never to have seen live? Continue reading
The acquisition of a second-hand paperback by the much-missed Dr Magnus Pyke recently prompted a post on my own blog, Cultural Snow, and an inevitable YouTube trawl for that Thomas Dolby track. Which, in the way these things happen, led … Continue reading
What’s your record of the decade? Or is it no longer possible to identify such a thing? Continue reading
