Jun
18
Treasure Trove
June 18, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Today the British Library launch an online digital archive of 2 million pages of newspapers from the 19th century. That’s a tiny fraction of the 750 million pages they have from that golden era of newspapers. It’s well worth the £6.99 daily access fee: http://newspapers.bl.uk/blcs/ Here’s two snippets of miscellany I found from a casual […]
Jun
18
Deerhunter, Rainwater Cassette Exchange
June 18, 2009 | 1 Comment
Like singer Bradford Cox this EP from Atlanta’s Deerhunter is a frail, androgynous thing. Occasionally striking but more often than not falling down on the listless side of insipid. Fans of the band will of course know that never straying above second gear is Deerhunter’s thing.
Jun
16
Iran’s army of mutts
June 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment
I’ve just spent a day monitoring Twitter.com’s #iranelection feed.
Jun
1
Susan Boyle and her “journey”
June 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment
I’ve just heard the Guardian’s Tanya Gold on World Have Your Say say that Susan Boyle wasn’t on a talent show: Cowell, Morgan and the one with the botox weren’t interested in her talent, they were interested only in her journey. Miss Gold is absolutely right but sadly we’ve been here a thousand times before […]
May
25
New Cassettes, The Art Of . . .
May 25, 2009 | 1 Comment
Less bluesy than The Sammies but with the same carefree abandon this debut album is easy on the ear — a fun bundle that would sit great as the soundtrack to some late night footy montage or a sun-kissed surf flick, strange to imagine it hails from Northampton. Substance is there too – if you […]
May
16
Pete Doherty, Rythym Factory, 15th May
May 16, 2009 | Leave a Comment
As always with a Pete Doherty gig the unhealthy speculation was rampant: would he turn up spiked to the veins and mumble his way through some vague song endings or maybe, just maybe this could be _the_ night of post-Libertines redemption? Pity the huge chunk of the audience who decided to leave around midnight for […]
May
12
Gold: World Service wins again
May 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Hot on the heels of news that UK audiences for the World Service are up, comes the news of The World Today’s gold at the Sony Radio awards.
Apr
27
MJ Hibbett, Regardez, Ecoutez Et Repetez
April 27, 2009 | 10 Comments
You couldn’t create an album with less female appeal than this if you’d tried. What other men try to conceal beneath the periscope hood of ageing parkas, Mark John Hibbett proudly thrusts into the open. All of blokedom is on offer here from Linux to DIY. Hibbett’s mission in life is to pounce on the […]