Never a dull place even at the worst of times, Camden Rocks had the whole borough buzzing on Saturday. With 200 acts performing in 20 venues, wherever you turned there was live music to be heard. Beer, bands and bonhomie – what could be better? With so much to see the only problem was where to drop anchor for […]
News
176 posts
More than 40 years after The Damned lit the blue touch paper for the punk rock revolution, original drummer Rat Scabies is busier than ever. Since quitting his old band amid some rancour in the late ’90s, he’s played in numerous outfits and developed interesting sidelines in cigar box guitar-making and the little matter of hunting for the holy […]
Coming 10 years after its predecessor – and with David Bowie‘s right hand man Tony Visconti in the producer’s chair – there were naturally big expectations surrounding Evil Spirits, the latest offering by The Damned. With founder members Captain Sensible and Dave Vanian well into their 60s – many have predicted it might be their farewell album – a last run around the track for the band, […]
The history of popular music is littered with performers who quit, or more often, were ousted, from bands just as they were on the cusp of fame. Pete Best is the classic industry archetype having been usurped from a certain Liverpool band’s drum stool by Ringo Starr, just a year before the outbreak of Beatlemania. Best’s grunge counterpart Jason Everman had the misfortune to […]
When An Ideal For Living last spoke to Colin Blunstone he was preparing to head out with The Zombies on a world tour marking the 50th anniversary of their classic album Odessey And Oracle. Barely had he returned those dates, when he was out on the road again with his solo band, the UK leg of which kicks off on April 20. Oh, […]
Bauhaus drummer Kevin Haskins was behind the kit for one of the most iconic groups of the late ’70s and early ’80s. Now he’s got together with Cleopatra Records to document his life and times with the band in a glossy, coffee table art book. Featuring largely unseen memorabilia, Bauhaus Undead is Haskins personal account of the goth rockers turbulent history, from their inception […]
Recorded at the same Skyline studios, where they made their best-selling major label debut Flood, I Like Fun feels like a hearkening back to They Might Be Giants‘ glory days of old. TMBG fans have long learned to expect the unexpected and this their 20th album is typically eclectic, mixing and mashing genres from surf-punk to funk, college rock to avant […]
XTC fans have been rather spoiled with new product of late, after years of relative inactivity since the band ground to a halt in 2006, there have been a wave of re-issues, a feature-length documentary and, at the end of last year, the first EP from TC&I. For the benefit of anyone not living in the XTC universe, TC&I […]
Words Matt Catchpole, Pictures Sam Wells The Damned’s place in history is secured as one of the triumvirate of London bands that kick-started the punk rock revolution. And yet despite being first out of the traps with a bona fide punk single, New Rose in 1976, they’ve often been dismissed as the jokers in the pack. For the sheer effrontery of […]
Emerging from the Bristol Party scene of the late 1980s, Massive Attack have been hailed as one of the most original and influential groups the UK has produced. Now a new book seeks to lift the lid on the band, their home city and the network of artists and collaborators that broke through alongside them. Massive Attack Out of the […]