Rodrigo y Gabriela: Echoes – new single

Be-Bop Deluxe filled a Bowie-shaped hole in my musical education after Aladdin Sane. I loved them despite – no, because of – the obvious similarity. (more…)

I have fairly strong feelings that comedy and music should be kept well apart. Otherwise you end up before long with Ernie and Shaddap You Face. This is the exception. (more…)

Chuck Brown is surely not the only convicted murderer to have a hit record, but his crime lends a certain macabre cachet to his place in pop history. (more…)

I met these guys by chance in New York when I went down to visit East Village Radio station one day in 2009 – and later caught their live debut in London.

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Dawes move into new territory with their eighth album, a decade after I discovered them on a sweltering summer night in London. (more…)

Deep Southern soul music doesn’t get much better than this version of These Arms Of Mine by James Carr from 1968. (more…)

If this doesn’t put a smile on your face, then nothing will! I can say with some confidence that this is the first music I’ve ever posted from the tiny islands of São Tomé and Príncipe.

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Everyone knows them best for Boogie Nights but the Heatwave single I have in my collection is the 12-inch version of this sultry slow jam from 1978. (more…)

I was wondering what would be the perfect song to play on the hottest day we’ve ever had when I remembered this… a song that immediately conjures up a sweltering summer’s day in New York. (more…)