In two weeks time (October 14th), we have another POPTIMISM night – hurrah! This is the good news.
The bad news is, it’s our last at the Polar Bear, as they don’t need us any more. We don’t know whether this is just us, or a w[…]

RIP Helen Cresswell, author of The Bagthorpe Saga, which made me larff so much as an 11-year old that I’ve never dared go back and try reading it again.[…]

scorsese wz a good choice of dylan doc-director for any number of reasons of course, but one might just be the way BE MY BABY kicks off mean streets – seeing as MS has a clear gift for making you rehear songs
not much to say abt the portrait o[…]

I am listening to a track by THE ROOGALATOR! Another tiny ambition fulfilled, it’s called “Love And The Single Girl” and it’s a bit ‘jazzy’, like a naffer Joe Jackson maybe. It will not be being played at the next […]

Bits of Nick Southall’s latest Stylus essay fits comfortably into a growing trend, anxiety over download culture and the hyperconsumption it allows. The cynic in me suggests that critics worry about this new world because it’s harder to f[…]

On the cover is the smiling face of Al Martino. Sorry ladies, he’s 78.
The theme is ‘underrated number ones’
1. LORD ROCKINGHAM’S XI – “Hoots Mon”: Big end-of night feelgood stomper.
2. FLOYD CRAMER – &[…]

The Nu-Guardian reaches Friday and so it’s time for the new look Review, or rather Film & Music. And something leaps out at me. They’ve replaced the old “at home with…” feature, in which musicians talked about their[…]

A few weeks ago a copy of the first ever biography of Belle And Sebastian landed on the FT doormat. The FT doormat gave it to me, and I decided that I would use my extensive contacts amongst reformed members of the feared Sinister ‘massive&#821[…]

Culture Beat – “Mr Vain”
There is an argument, one I hope to elucidate in the following, that Culture Beat are exactly that. The rhythm of our Western Culture in 1993: the thud of the backing of this song is merely the underpinning […]

Music and Writing: interesting roundtable from 2003 where Mark Sinker sets a bunch of questions that assorted ILXish and other thinkers try and answer. I think he sent me the questions too, I know I didn’t answer them. Well worth a look.[…]