MOTT THE HOOPLE – “Saturday Gigs”
“Saturday Gigs” was Mott The Hoople’s farewell single. Farewell records occupy a special place in my heart, because….well, you can probably guess why, actually. On this track[…]

THE CURE – Friday I’m In Love
Some cynic has just e-mailed me to say that this whole worlds worst week of pop was constructed so I could get yet another dig in at the corpulent kings of goth rock. To you sir I say – you can never ba[…]

BRIAN ENO – Thursday Afternoon
It’s possible – nay, likely – that, had you bought Thursday Afternoon back in 1982, you’d have taken it back to the shop. “Hold on,” you might have said, “I expected the i[…]

There was something about Mary: also from the Guardian, this extract from Al Green’s upcoming autobiography, dealing with the ex-lover/hot grits/hurling/resultant suicide incident. A dramatic enough story without the slight over-writing that se[…]

Much amusement to be had from the unintentionally funny interview with Alan McGee, which finds him wildly enthusing about a lot of knackered old music. “Genius!” he says, of everyone, before rambling offensively about how Ian Curtis was &[…]

JAMIE WEDNESDAY – “We Three Kings Of Orient Aren’t”
This ill-advised week of wank ™ comes to its hinterland now as we enter the not oft sung about days of the week Wednesday and Thursday. This could well be because many […]

GRACE JONES – “Slave To The Rhythm” (12″)
“Ladies and Gentlemen….” What Eighties pop had more than anything before or since is a sense of scale. Long tracks previously tended to be messy jams, or primitivist […]

I want my money back – a cry you will rarely hear me say in a pub. Nevertheless I was piqued into an argument with a bar manager last night in that usual battle of the little man versus the large corporation. Not strictly a pub, I was drinking […]

SLIMM CUTTA CALHOUN – “It’s OK”
Another day, another magnificent hip-hop single. It’s almost easy to take this year’s embarrassment of riches for granted: things are so good right now that you can almost lie back a[…]

Ally reviews a new Sarah Cracknell EP, so I thought I’d point out that Cracknell’s Saint Etienne bandmates have co-written most of the songs on the new Shampoo CD. Now, I’m not going to buy it any more than you are, but there is a c[…]