When in doubt, head for the josh blog. Josh talks a bit about trip-hop, thus triggering my bonnet’s most implacable bee: I think in retrospect my mistake was to use a Massive Attack or Tricky review to address the subject at all – those a[…]

Sabattleco: music blogs? They’re old hat, man. Sabattleco (can’t figure out the title, no matter) is a music journal and it’s great.[…]

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: the very excellent, very indie western homes takes on Sergeant Pepper and OK Computer on the same day! Waaah! The struggle to say something new about Pepper’s is an unwinnable one, though wh’s […]

Songwriting of Merritt–and Distinction: a Washington Post feature on Stephin Merritt, and as good an opportunity as any to mention that 69 Love Songs, one of the grandest records ever made, is finally getting a UK release on indie label Circus.[…]

Rock ‘n’ Rape: an Utne Reader writer with a quick overview of rock’s ‘new misogyny’, post-Woodstock ’99. Courtney Love has probably the most interesting things to say. Does liking Eminem and not liking Sarah MacLac[…]

Dancing About Architecture focusses on Lester Bangs, who was a famous rock critic, who is dead, who has had a biography written about him. Cue much flouncing and muttering about the parlous state of the rockcrit art (not from DAA, to their credit, th[…]

The Problem With Music: Josh sent me (why me specifically, apart from that I’m a major label pimp and all?) to this Steve Albini rant, which appeared in slightly different form in an APA I’m in, several years ago. Indeed, lots of the APA […]

“Time and Curiosity: Journey to the Outside”: I’m uncomfortable with ‘outsider art’ because so much of the ‘appreciation’ of it boils down to mean-spirited kitschery. And yet obviously there are a lot of peop[…]

TINY TIM – “Ever Since You Told Me That You Loved Me (I’m A Nut)”
I can’t take Current 93’s own music in more than short bursts, but I can hardly think of a musician I’d rather have make me a compilation tape[…]

Virgin vixens – a field guide: “it might be exhilarating to under-10s and to paedophiles who recently voted Spears the “girl you’d most like to see in a porn movie”, but there’s little of interest to anyone else&#8[…]