The rock band reunion is no longer an inherently embarrassing concept. This Summer, their reputation having swollen considerably in their absence, and their influence evident from Nirvana’s Nevermind onwards, the 80’s American alternative band The Pixies are playing to packed stadiums of former fans, more used to seeing them in tiny clubs, and curious latter…
The Smiths – The Smiths – Rough Trade – Rough 61 Vocals – Morrissey, Guitars, Harmonica – Johnny Marr, Bass – Andy Rourke, Drums – Mike Joyce. Reel Around The Fountain; You’ve Got Everything Now; Miserable Lie; Pretty Girls Make Graves; The Hand That Rocks The Cradle; Still Ill; Hand In Glove; What Difference Does…
After over twenty five years in the British Entertainment Industry, Popular Music Division, Manchester’s punk scene survivors The Fall still haven’t developed what record company fat cats might call a Signature Sound. Sometimes they could be a 60’s garage punk relic, at others an over-amplified, over-amphetamined 50’s rockabilly group. Some songs suggest 70’s German experimental…
The name Fountains of Wayne might sound familiar for two reasons. Perhaps you remember them from the two critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful late 90’s albums, where they mixed irresistible guitar pop hooks with uncommonly witty and surprisingly sympathetic descriptions of the quietly desperate lives of various suburbanites. Or maybe you’ve seen a garden furniture…
Two and a half years ago the composer Richard Thomas asked me to help with a Battersea Arts Centre workshop of his un-finished epic, Jerry Springer The Opera. I thought it would take a couple of months. We didn’t expect a National Theatre run, or a West End transfer, and we certainly didn’t expect to…