Music Category
Music news and reviews, music videos and tittle tattle, with a lingering look at the past from Anorak. A source for rock, pop, album and live music, new releases, artist interviews and features.
The Beatles Tour De Force: Ron Howard Pipes Them Live and Direct To The Masses
MOSTLY, The Beatles are not a live band.
Sure, they cut their teeth around Britain and Germany for years, before blowing everyone’s brains out in Australia, Japan and America, but when people think of the Fabs, it is all about the studio.
We’ve seen endless documentaries with George Martin talking about ‘the boys’ and the madcap studio ideas they had (Lennon wanted to be swung from the ceiling, trying to recreate the sound of a thousand monks of a hillside, slice tapes and throwing them in the air to stick them back together again, and all that great stuff), but on film, their live prowess has been somewhat neglected.
Liverpool Empire 1965
And now, Ron Howard – a long term Beatle nut and Academy Award-winning director, has been tasked to direct and produce an authorised, as-yet-untitled documentary about the touring years of the Fab Four.
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The BBC Defends Black Music Critcism… And Quite Right Too
RECENTLY, the BBC rated the most influential artists in Radio 1Xtra’s Power List. The “UK’s leading black music station” (their words) gave the top honour to Ed Sheeran, who you might recognise as being absolutely not-black and not really making black music.
Wiley, number 16 in the poll, went nuts, accusing Auntie Beeb of representing a “backwards” music industry in Britain. “We influence a man and all of a sudden it turns he has influenced us… Lol,” he wrote.
That’s called Columbusing.
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Kidrock: The Best, Worst And Most Confusing Youthful Hits And Misses
WHEN you think of children being in bands, you immediately think of the Jackson 5 or Hanson. They’re slick, pro-outfits that have been tutored and taught within an inch of their lives.
That’s not to say they’re bad in any way, but they’re basically making music by adults, aimed at kids. The youthful joy is there, but what about the abandon and awkwardness which makes children such a fascinating prospect?
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Your favourite rock star is probably about to die
WE’RE getting to a special time in rock ‘n’ roll where the pantheon of Peter Pans is looking more mortal than ever. The music of the babyboomers is finally creaking with age.
Lennon, Joplin, Redding and Gaye all had the decency to die young, thereby making them immortal. The babyboomers did not feel worried. We’re the rock ‘n’ roll generation! That’s exactly the kind of exciting thing that happens to us! I HOPE I DIE BEFORE I GET OLD, MAN! Just like Keith Moon! Just like Brian Jones!
All the while, the rest of rock ‘n’ roll survived and got old. Just For Men, Facelifts and increasingly younger partners plastered over the cracks in the wall.
Then everyone started dying of old age.
Initially, Syd Barrett and Arthur Lee left and the babyboomers (and their kids) all felt bad, but brushed it all off with “well, they had a pretty crazy life! It was always going to catch up with them at some point! Shine on you crazy diamonds!”
And now everyone is dropping like flies. The sheer volume of dying rockstars over the past decade has been astonishing. Not a week goes by without someone tweeting RIP to one of their favourite musicians dying. They’re all in the 60s and 70s now. They’re old. There’s no escaping it.
This week, Ramones drummer Tommy Ramone shrugged off his mortal coil, leaving zero original Ramones left. Even punk is getting old. No-one is safe.
Of course, there’s a good number of rockstar legends knocking around the circuit, such as Mick ‘n’ Keef, Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, but there’s something gnawing at the back of fans’ brains about their idols.
They’re nearly dead.
This weekend, fans in the UK watched Neil Young roll back the years. The sad fact is, that is statistically likely to be the last time they see him in person. Neil Young may have said that it is better to burn out than fade away, but fade away he will – he’s not got long left.
The babyboomers are going to watch every single one of their idols die. The Woodstock Generation… the Mods… the dadrockers… for the first time in their lives, they’re faced with the very real possibility of every single thing they like turning into compost before their eyes. And with them will go their own youth.
We’re in the middle of rock music’s retirement, with only bands like The Black Keys, Jack White and Arctic Monkeys still clinging on to the old fashioned idea of ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ to be played in huge stadiums, revering the blues.
This all sounds desperately negative, but if you want to cherish these acts, do it now. Watch their final flings and roll around in nostalgia because, like it or not, the people who invented the teenager, the people that shaped what popular music could achieve, are all this close to joining the choir invisible.
Magazine will beatify these men and women, but soon, they’ll stop being in the present, and soon become very much of the past. And that, for the true spirit of rock ‘n’ roll, is incredibly exciting indeed.
The Real Problem With Musician’s Tax Avoidance
THERE’S quite the kerfuffle in musicville, after it turned out that a number of wealthy musicians were ferreting their money away in tax avoidance schemes.
Lazy people are vomiting into their hands about how awful it all is, while even lazier fans of said bands are saying “CUH! LIKE YOU WOULDN’T AVOID TAX IF YOU COULD!”, despite the fact most people can’t, don’t and wouldn’t.
All four members of Arctic Monkeys, George Michael, Gary Barlow, Katie Melua have been named as hiding their millions from HMRC.
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Posted: 12th, July 2014 | In: Celebrities, Music | Comment (1)
The Ultimate Tour De France Playlist
WITH the Tour De France in full swing, nearly killing riders with wet cobbles and craft ale enthusiasts thrilling at the warring riders like teenage Hollyoaks fans, it got us thinking about cycling music.
Of course, the great music to cycle to is anything Kosmiche from Germany. Neu! albums are pretty much designed to sound like streamlined engineering, powered by human muscle.
However, we’re not talking about the things you’d listen to while powering your pedals (besides, you might not want to ride around with earbuds in, for fear of being hit by a combine harvester or something), but rather, the songs dedicated to those that cycle and the magnificent machines themselves!
There’s surprisingly few songs about bikes (seeing as they’ve been around for so much longer than cars and planes, which have endless ditties in their honour), but we’ve waded through them, missed off ‘Daisy Bell’ and the terrible Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Katie Melua numbers, and found some gems!
Have a listen and do add your own in the comments.
Tomorrow ‘My White Bicycle’
Ace British psychedelic band, Tomorrow, made one album and saw their guitarist running off to form Yes. However, while they were around, they made this tribute to the free bicycle movement that took place in Holland in the ’60s. Please note the cute bell ringing sound effect.
Kraftwerk ‘Tour De France’
The greatest tribute to cycling comes from Kraftwerk, and Ralf und Florian are total and utter cycling nuts. During one Manchester show at the Velodrome, when they played ‘Tour De France’, the Team GB cyclists appeared and everyone got a bit emotional.
Pink Floyd ‘Bike’
The Syd-era of The Floyd loved whimsy with an edge. They took mundane things and made them B-movie. ‘Gnome’ should be nice and it isn’t and, likewise, ‘Bike’ is a pleasant ditty with a knife between its teeth. Please don’t ride a bike with a machete in your gob, thanks.
Tom Waits ‘Broken Bicycles’
Rainsoaked Tom wouldn’t write a song about a perfectly functional working bicycle he’d just bought for loads of money from Evans, which leaves us with this dollop of pathos.
Junior Reid ‘Poor Man Transportation’
Junior Reid is one of the finest voices in reggae and provides this lovely paean to the prole’s best vehicle.
Vivian Stanshall ‘Terry Keeps His Clips On’
When Stanshall wasn’t causing mayhem in the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, he was… well… causing havoc all by himself. And here, we have the wonderful nonsense of ‘Terry Keeps His Clips On’.
Deerhoof ‘Midnight Bicycle Mystery’
One of the more unusual bike songs, but that’s Deerhoof in a nutshell. They’re mental. And we should cheer from the rooftops about bands like this because we need their shade in the light of commercial rock.
Ballboy ‘Olympic Cyclist’
This song does exactly what it says on the tin and is wonderful for it.
Livingston Taylor ‘Bicycle’
This is the most straightforward bicycle song in music history, even down to the cutely dull description of what his helmet is made of.
The Bouncing Souls ‘BMX Song’
Bicycle songs aren’t all commuting and aerodynamism – The Bouncing Souls were all about popping wheelies and buying bikes that are less practical and more fun.
Julie Doiron ‘When The Breaks Get Wet’
A lovely, plaintive song which paints a picture of riding through drizzle. A wonderful snapshot.
Dukes of the Stratosphear ‘Bike Ride To The Moon’
Neo-psychists, Dukes of the Stratosphear were XTC in disguise where they got to play with the dressing up box. Here, they ape Floyd and take a bike ride to the moon. Worth checking those guys out.
Posted: 12th, July 2014 | In: Music, Sports | Comment (1)
Insane Clown Posse’s FBI lawsuit is laughed out of town
THE Insane Clown Posse are an odd bunch. For starters, they think magnets are powered by witchcraft or something. And their fans? Well, their fans are VERY devoted (seriously – they make fans of The Smiths look like rational, reasonable people without a worrying neediness that burps out of their every pore).
As such, the ICP and their Juggalos are well known.
They’re so well known that the FBI started sniffing around them. Were Juggalos violent and mental and doing all manner of criminal stuff. Probably, but only as much as any group of people who come under any bracket are able or willing to engage in criminal activity.
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See Andre 3000 as Jimi Hendrix in All Is By My Side Trailer
ROCK biopics are always fun, even if they’re not always good. There’s been mixed movies, from The Runaways to The Doors, from Ray to What We Do Is Secret. Even the crappy ones are still worth a look because, even if the storytelling and acting is lousy, at least the music will be great.
And so, we’re looking down the barrel of a Jimi Hendrix biopic and there’s a lot riding on it.
Why? Well, Hendrix was a smooth, fascinating character with a preposterous talent and a gentle soul – that’s not easy to capture. Moreover, Outkast’s brilliant Andre 3000/Benjamin is playing the title role. There’s no-one on Earth who wants this to fail.
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REVEALED: The Music Behind The Worst Album Art In The World
LESS than ten years ago, bad album covers suddenly became a “thing”. Sure, there had always been people like me: longtime vinyl enthusiasts who cherished these unholy creations; but, it took the Internet to really generate a widespread appreciation for the “bad album cover”.
So, as the years went on, and collectors far and wide shared their vinyl oddities, a few particularly bad ones rose to the top. To say they went viral would be a stretch; however, it’s safe to say certain albums gained notoriety. Unfortunately, we only had the covers to mock. The actual recordings remained a mystery. You could only imagine what they sounded like, since the owners of these rare gems generally didn’t share the recordings.
But now we have YouTube, where no stone in the vast pop culture landscape gets unturned, no matter how obscure. At last we can not only look, but also listen. So, come along and take a tour through some well-known bad album covers and get a taste for the music they hold. Be prepared: it’s often breathtakingly disappointing….
Jake Bugg Hates Music Festivals – Doesn’t Mind Sexism
EVEN though you may have guessed it from his permanently surly face (he’s too cool to smile), Jake Bugg has said he hates music festivals.
And who can blame him? It is filled with people who like watching white men with dreadful haircuts play backward facing dadrock who are too cool to sm… wait a minute!
The pint-sized miserablist said:
“I hate music festivals so much, but obviously to be this high up on the line-up and to be playing [at Glastonbury] is a privilege,” he told NME. “But the actual experience of festivals I could really do without.”
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Watch Robbie Williams Break A Fan’s Arm In Newcastle
IT is always nice to watch someone successful make a fool of themselves. It isn’t their fault we’re all pathetically jealous, but they’ve got such nice and unusual lives, it is pleasing to find out their stuttering bozos like the rest of us.
Robbie Williams gave a glimpse into how ordinary he can be while embarrassingly breaking a fan’s arm after he fell off the stage during his gig at Newcastle.
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Oh. A Superhero Film Written by Arctic Monkeys and Miles Kane
HERE’S a thing.
Arctic Monkeys frontdude Alex Turner, and Rascals pal Miles Kane, have stopped work on their Last Shadow Puppets careers to concentrate on… wait for it… a superhero film.
This is a joke, right?
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Death Metal Band Unfathomable Ruination To Play Until They Literally Run Out of Oxygen
ROCK music is in a weird place at the moment, but thank god for metal. Metal is single-handedly dragging rock music’s lifeless body through the streets, refusing to let it die.
Despite what the Arctic Monkeys say, with their meandering dadrock, metal is the only form of rock that is eschewing all the pouting and posing and charging headlong into everyone with a windmill attack.
And death metal band Unfathomable Ruination have got just the thing to prove how serious metal takes the cause.
They are going to play a gig in an air-tight, soundproof cube until they run out of oxygen. That’s right. They’re going to play until they can’t breathe anymore and their hearts start doing weird things.
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The world needs a bar run by GWAR
GWAR, the greatest band in the whole universe, have had a rough time of it, with key members of the group shrugging off their mortal coil to join the choir invisible.
However, things must continue and they’ve had a truly magnificent idea – GWAR BAR!
Gwar are looking for $50,000 through their Indiegogo page to open their own “gourmet junk food’ restaurant, which will be called, tremendously, ‘Gwar-B-Q’.
And the fun doesn’t end there, as this video will show.
The band promise that their establishment will “change the dining experience in much the same way that Gwar changed the concert-going experience (well, maybe, without quite as much mess).”
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Posted: 1st, July 2014 | In: Music, The Consumer | Comment
Are the Arctic Monkeys ‘indie’ Enough?
INDIE. There’s a funny word. In music terms, it used to mean ‘signed to an independent’ label. That meant bands signed with Stock Aitken & Waterman would be in the weekly indie charts. However, at some point, ‘indie’ meant ‘a specific type of rock music’.
Indie credentials have never really been clear, but basically, what it seems to mean is this: Bands comprised mainly of white men or women, playing with one or two guitars, a bass, a drumkit and possibly a keyboard player – throwback 50s/60s haircuts preferred.
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WuBabies: Raekwon Shows Off Baby Wu
WHEN Wu Tang first exploded on the scene, they were smart, funny, dangerous, brutal, angry, fierce and not exactly entry-level hip hop.
However, after a dazzling run of solo LPs and the classic Wu debut ’36 Chambers’, they soon became rap royalty and no-one could touch the RZA, the GZA, Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Inspectah Deck, Raekwon the Chef, U-God, Ghostface Killah and the M.E.T.H.O.D. Man.
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Posted: 1st, July 2014 | In: Music | Comments (2)
PHEW! Jesus The Jew Would Approve of Gay Marriage, Says Elton John
MOST people who don’t like gays are religious, or at least, religious sympathetic. They think homosexuality goes against nature or some kind of cosmic order.
Some are violent or abusive toward gay people, because presumably, they feel the need to serve up justice because they don’t believe their god is up to the job, cometh the hour. The inherent weakness of deities must be a constant concern for the praying sorts.
Or, maybe it is something to do with deities being into homosexuality?
Elton John reckons that Jesus Christ would approve of gay marriage. In an interview with Sky News, Sir Elton added that he’s meeting up with Russian President Vladimir Putin in a bid to try and improve Russia’s gay rights record.
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Lana Del Rey vrs The Guardian: Frances Bean Cobain wins
YOU may have missed it, because she’s so tragically dull, but Lana Del Rey recently said she was tired of living and basically glamorised singers who had died too young.
She said these words in the Guardian, which she then refuted by saying she was lead-on. The Guardian then published the audio of the conversation, which shows she wasn’t.
And that’s the long and the short of it.
However, saying you want to die; that’s catnip to anyone with a passing interest in outrage. A series of op-eds have appeared and everyone is tying themselves in knots. The real winners are Lana Del Rey’s publicity drive for her new album and The Guardian, who find themselves in a minor ‘NME/Richie Edwards/4REAL‘ scenario.
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Listen To This Ear-Breaking Collection Of The Worst Demo Tapes From The 1980s
ROBERT Popprer presntes the world’s greatest dem o tape cioompilations. He explains:
In the late 1980′s, my cousin gave me a cassette that instantly became an obsession of mine. It was a tape, compiled by a UK record company – and made purely for internal use – featuring the worst songs they’d ever been sent from the thousands of demo tapes they received each year.
There were no details of any of the ‘artists’, and it’s all quite mysterious, but as someone who has heard loads of terrible demo tape complilations, this one is definitely the best/worst. Get ready for the dullest rendition of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, a spooky lady singing about ‘Alfreston’ while playing the organ, and the genuinely terrifying end track, ‘All the People With the Money’. By the way, I lost the tape years ago and thought all hope was lost, until my buddy Peter Serafinowicz found it last week in a box in his office. We celebrated with a listen and a good ole sing-a-long. Hope you guys sing along too…
You can see more wodnerfuyl singers in the World’s Got Talent archives.
Spotter: Reddit
Glastonbury Pain: Help Us Find The Sorrowful Man In These Photos
DO you know this man seen at Glastonbury, looking sorrowful stood in the rain?
What is he looking at?
Sky Ferreira Defends ‘Uncle’ Terry Richardson
THERE’S been a lot of talk about Terry Richardson lately. Basically, a number of models have said that he’s a sexual predator, to which the celebrity photographer dismissed.
And now, pop starlet Sky Ferreira has defended ‘Uncle Terry’ in a long post on her Facebook page.
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Posted: 28th, June 2014 | In: Celebrities, Music | Comment
Guilty Pleasures: 5 Musicians Of The 70s You’re Supposed To Hate (But Secretly Love)
1. The Carpenters
Everyone remembers that scene in Tommy Boy where Farley and Spade declare their distaste for The Carpenters. After all, The Carpenters are “lame”. Only the biggest loser would actually like The Carpenters.
Fast forward a bit, and they’re singing their little hearts out to “Superstar”….
The fact is, The Carpenters are awesome. I’ll admit it. I’ll also admit to 4 others… but don’t let me stand alone. Join me in pronouncing once-and-for-all that it’s “okay” to love these artists. Don’t carry these secrets with you any longer. Shout it from the rooftops. Your soul shall be cleansed.
2. Barry Manilow
In similar fashion to Tommy Boy, there’s a scene of sweet release in Family Guy. After a news report on Barry Manilow airs, the gang at the bar vigorously denounces the singer, but can’t contain their shameful secret for long. Within moments, all four giddily come out of the Manilow closet…
They end up drifting into Manilow’s “Ready to Take a Chance Again”, as well they should. Manilow rules.
3. John Denver
I remember when the Silver Fox (Charlie Rich) protested John Denver’s award at the CMA’s by literally lighting the ballot on fire on live television.
The incident made Rich look like a drunken douchebag, but the damage had been done; Denver had been publicly denounced. He wasn’t accepted in the country genre, and he definitely had no friends in the rock world. Denver’s cool points equaled zero.
Yet, all this derision was unfounded. Denver wrote about the Earth and an appreciation for the natural world better than anyone. While most bands of the Seventies were singing about f***ing, Denver was singing about the inner peace one only can find deep in the woods.
Sure, he didn’t look as cool as Ritchie Blackmoore twirling his guitar or Robert Plant thrusting his junk every which way… but must we always have the twirling and the thrusting? Sometimes it’s okay to just take the rock theatrics down a peg, and just stand there and sing your songs.
4. Bee Gees
I think we may have reached a point in our society where it’s okay to admit to liking the Bee Gees. However, for a couple decades after the fall of disco, you didn’t dare. In fact, Barry Gibb had to literally go undercover to write his music. You didn’t know Kenny Rogers (“Islands in the Stream”) or Dionne Warwick (“Heartbreaker”) were singing Gibb tunes, but they were. The Bee Gees were, frankly, too reviled to dare release these songs.
But, damn, Barry effing OWNED the late Seventies…
Starting in 1976, when Gibb discovered his flair for the falsetto on “Nights on Broadway” it was off to the motherf***ing races. He gave a few gems to his brother Andy (“I Just Want to Be Your Everything”) then the trio released “Jive Talking” and a string of hits that would continue unabated until 1980. The Gibb’s made the Billboard charts their bitch for about 4 straight years.
Barry was a hitmaker for everyone: With Streisand (“Guilty”), Samantha Sang (“Emotion”), Yvonne Elliman (“If I Can’t Have You”), Frankie Valli (The theme song for Grease) and Andy (“(Our Love) Don’t Throw It All Away”, “Shadow Dancing”, and “(Love Is) Thicker Than Water”).
Add in the hits he recorded with the Bee Gees, and it’s truly astounding. In 1978, the Bee Gees owned 5 of the US Top 10 (a chart dominance not seen since The Beatles in ’64), and Barry became the only person to ever record 4 consecutive US number one hits.
Then came the disco backlash and the Brothers Gibb were the prime casualties. True, their massive Sgt. Pepper fail didn’t do them any favors, but the venom they received was undeserved. They were the poster boys of disco, and disco was considered an embarrassment for many years to come.
Well, I say “no longer”.
5. Neil Diamond
Poor Neil has never been cool. But like Manilow, he had a following in the 70s almost exclusively consisting of white thirtysomething females, which certainly didn’t add to his street cred. Wear a Neil Diamond concert shirt to school, and expect to be punched repeatedly in the nuts. Schoolmates didn’t take kindly to public expressions of Diamond fandom.
Diamond’s early hits were respectable enough “I’m a Believer” and “A Little Bit Me, A Little Bit You” became hits for the Monkees, and Diamond followed them up with count’em 10 number one hits in the US. “Cracklin’ Rosie”, “Cherry, Cherry”, “Sweet Caroline”, “Song Sung Blue”, “Red Red Wine” and “Solitary Man” are all stellar.
The problem is, Diamond jumped the shark. Somewhere along the way, he started dressing like Liberace and attracting hordes of housewives to his concerts. A cheesy duet with Streisand (“You Don’t Bring Me Flowers”) followed up by the cheesiest song ever recorded, “America” just made matters worse. Then the nail in the coffin: the song inspired by the movie, E.T. There was simply no going back….
Good God, that is awful. But just as Vegas Elvis shouldn’t cloud our memory of early Elvis, I won’t let Sequined Jacket Wearing Diamond cloud his early work. I will wear my Neil Diamond concert tee with pride. Viva la Diamond!
Posted: 27th, June 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment (1)
Luis Suarez ‘Don’t Bite Me’: Tom Rosenthal’s Songs For Football’s Biggest Entertainer
PIES has spotted this wonderful tribute tio Liverpool and Uruguay’s highly entertaining Luis Suarez.
Take it away, Tom Rosenthal.
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Posted: 26th, June 2014 | In: Liverpool, Music, Sports | Comment
Is Rock And Roll Dead? No. It Just Smells Bad
“ROCK and Roll isn’t dead. It just smells bad.”
I am, of course, paraphrasing Frank Zappa’s famous response when asked whether jazz was dead. Who would have guessed that quote would be applicable to rock music just a few decades later.
There are many of you already feeling your blood pressure rise at what I’m saying. I can hear you now: “There are tons of great bands today! All you have to do is stop wallowing in the past you old bastard, and dig for it!” Problem is – if you have to dig it up, it’s probably dead.
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Posted: 25th, June 2014 | In: Key Posts, Music | Comments (13)
