Saw Roddy Frame at the Bloomsbury Theatre last week, and was so impressed that sarah & I decided to catch his show in the North West on Saturday night. Not in Liverpool or Manchester. Oh no. He wasn't playing Liverpool or Manchester. He was playing Holmfirth; the quaint, charming Peak District town whose main claim to fame is being the location of ( Read more... )

Before I rediscovered pop music circa 1984, I really dug Karlheinz Stockhausen. Ralf & Florian were always banging on about his music & theories, and Holger Can was a student of his, so as I was a fan of both it followed that I'd be a fan of Stockhausen. And while I found it a little tricky getting my head around some of his more fruity pieces, ( Read more... )

In the days leading up to last night's Jandek show, his first ever in London, I'd been giving his work a little serious thought. What's it for? Why does he do it? Is the character portrayed in the music an extension of himself or merely a persona? And if the latter, how in Heaven's name can he switch that persona off & become Mr Normal with a white ( Read more... )

When I tell people where I work & what I do for a living, they generally respond either with, "ooh, I have a friend who works at the BBC, they're in News Online perhaps you know them?", or "why on Earth did you erase all those Pete & Dud shows/Syd Barrett on Top Of The Pops/Madhouse On Castle Street...?" To which I respond with ( Read more... )

This morning I received an advance of the new CD from Fugu. This fella will need no introduction to chiff-chaff (I hope things are well with you in Houston right now, but I imagine you have more pressing issues than reading livejournal. Hope all friends & family are safe and coping well), but in a nutshell: a series of 45s from the early-to-late-90s released ( Read more... )

Of all my guilty pleasures, attending the Beach Boys Stomp annual fanclub convention is one of my guiltiest. This year's event took place -as it always does every damn year- on the same day as open house, the third saturday of september. The unlikely venue -a parish hall in Greenford- is off-the-wall enough, but the day's host is a true one-off. A ( Read more... )

I've just returned from a -I believe they're called- "City Break" in Stockholm. My diet had been going quite well up till this point, but gosh you forget how delicious beer is, don't you? Particularly when it costs £6 a pint ( Read more... )

I think I did one of these not so long ago, but at the request of steviecat, here's my Pick seven songs that you're into right now. List them. Pick seven friends who have to repeat this process. List them ( Read more... )

Wandered around London doing chores yesterday, and in St James's Park I had my first encounter with armed police. I say "encounter". I mean "I saw two policemen armed to the gills with AK47s (I'm guessing)".

Went to Fopp for the Magic Numbers single launch. There are some photos ( behind here )

I first encountered Jandek back in the mid-90s at one of Kieron's musical evenings. I remember him removing this huge stack of LPs from his shelves and saying "take a look at these & tell me what you think." Well...hmmm..these are interesting looking records...great titles...."Six And Six"..."Telegraph Melts".."Ready For The House"...wow...he's ( Read more... )