When I first heard them 40 years ago, I thought the Jesus And Mary Chain were the most exciting new band I’d heard since The Sex Pistols. They still sound great in 2023.
The Royal Hotel is a slow-building mystery thriller about two female backpackers who find themselves at the mercy of Aussie men at their worst after taking a holiday job behind the bar of an Outback watering hole, in Australian film-maker Kitty “The Assistant” Green’s second feature-length assault on toxic masculinity.
RIP Terry Venables (1943-2023)
Footballer, manager, writer, singer, Dagenham boy Terry played for Chelsea, Spurs, Queens Park Rangers and (briefly) Crystal Palace between 1960 and 1975. He then managed Palace (winning the Division 3 and 2 titles in successive years), QPR (winning Division 2), Barcelona (winning the Spanish league title) and Spurs (winning the 1991 FA Cup). He took over England in 1994 and guided them to the semi-finals of the Euro 96 tournament, where they lost on penalties to Germany.
Requiem has to be the song to remember Geordie Walker, the Killing Joke guitarist who has died. Not just for its title but for his vast metallic slabs of electric guitar that scythe through the synth bass.
Adrian Sherwood at the controls for this dub remix of Panda Bear and Sonic Boom’s 2022 album Reset, aptly titled Reset In Dub.
I was hoping to see Fightmilk on Friday night at a night of LGBTQ+ music at the Sebright Arms, headlined by Belfast’s energetic feminist punks Problem Patterns. But because my friend Alex was late after missing his bus, and his train, I only caught their last number as they were the support act.
Cat Power captures much of Bob Dylan’s original magic in her cover of Ballad Of A Thin Man from her song-for-song note-for-note recreation of his 1966 concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
Irish quartet ØXN play “experimental doom folk” and their debut CYRM has more in common with avant-garde noise bands than campfire folk.
Slate are a young post-punk quartet from Cardiff barely out of their teens. With their love of poetry and epic widescreen sound, they could be the Welsh Fontaines D.C.
Little Richard was not just one of the formative figures in the birth of rock’n’roll but an influence on those to follow. Even if he did ‘borrow’ his own sound and look from a little known predecessor.