My Life With Rock N' Roll People
As 2025 limped to a close, the usual muddy race for the Christmas No. 1 single took place and the winner turned out to be the subtly titled XMAS from the consistently unreliable, if well-connected, Kylie Minogue who has been troubling the charts with ephemeral pap for some time now. Meanwhile, the top album was a 40-years-old relic from the…
The phrase or expression “Freak Out!” has been around for some time now but this was how I discovered it, on the handsome sleeve of The Mothers of Invention debut studio album. Although not aware of it at the time I must have been drifting in some kind of alternative universe. Released in June 1966, I was at school in…
You will probably be familiar with the phrase “Publish and be damned!”, an exhortation used by newspaper editors and publishers in many a film and TV show over the years. The origin of the expression dates back to Regency times involving one Harriette Wilson, the most notorious courtesan of that lascivious era. At the age of 15 she became the mistress…
“Ian’s death was an unbelievable marketing campaign,” according to one of the speakers at the recent launch of the revised edition of Shadowplayers: The Rise and Fall of Factory Records by James Nice (Faber). James was on a panel which also included Peter Saville, the graphic designer who co-founded Factory Records with TV presenter Tony Wilson in 1978, and Lesley Gilbert,…
There’s always a frisson of excitement when Bob Geldof is back in town and this time round there are a couple of reasons why he should have popped up again. Firstly it’s the fiftieth anniversary of his band, the Boomtown Rats, the Dublin punk band famous for their chart-topping hits 'Rat Trap' and 'I Don’t Like Mondays'. The group has…
You’ve probably heard the name Spizz since he’s been around for years, decades even. Six, to be precise, dating back to the early post-punk scene of the late ’70s. In those days he and his ramshackle bunch of chums went under the brand of Spizzoil, making a name for themselves touring with Siouxsie and the Banshees. This coincided with the new…
As geopolitical chatter about World War III rises to a crescendo, one news organisation recently came out with a right old howler: how Russian aggression was leading to increased UK defence spending which would inevitably impact upon… The British Way Of Life. The lesser appreciated social commentator/cult rocker Chris Pope wrote about TBWOL some 45 years ago when he joined punk-mod…
Cast your mind back to the late '80s and it was a strange period. Rock was rubbing shoulders with indie, new country, dance, hip hop and a major back catalogue scene based around old records being reissued on CD. At the time I was editing a magazine and would receive all manner of advance cassettes, one being Kick, the forthcoming album…
Funny what happens when you decide to do a tidy-up. That large box I kept tripping over was supposed to be full of 90s compilations, mostly repeating each other’s tracks, a hangover from the days when record companies were making their next round of easy money with greatest hits CDs of one sort or another. Then shone a veritable diamond in…
You may remember Beatle John Lennon’s wry but seething definition of life. That “it’s what happens to us while we are making other plans”. Well since the late ‘80s Del Amitri have become a very popular band although most music fans will mainly be familiar with hits like 'Nothing Ever Happens' and 'Kiss This Thing Goodbye' and, at a stretch, their…
