A Brief History of Banned Music in the United States: mostly the usual suspects, but a few other amusing tales too – “The NBC and CBS radio networks joined ABC in banning a novelty hit by Dot and Diamond called “Transfusion” b[…]

I’m moving this week, initially to my parents’ and then to who knows where (job-related uncertainty). Will I do a Westernhomes and vanish completely? Hardly. But there might be some fall-off in posting between now and Thursday. If Fred, G[…]

Here’s a metaphysical puzzler for you: at what point will the number of album reviews in the world exceed the number of albums released? Some albums, of course, never get reviewed. Others are reviewed a billion billion times, or so it would see[…]

menotyou is a new music/films/popculture site which promises an irreverent, well-written daily look at, well, much the same stuff the rest of us are looking at. Still, it looks very crisp, and reads that way too. It so far seems a lot clearer about w[…]

Robin weighs in with his view of 69 Love Songs. I think he’s a bit off in his summation of “Busby Berkeley Dreams” (whose protagonist is basically quite a frightening fellow, albeit a sympathetic one), and I don’t think Momus […]

MacArthur Park: What’s It All About, Jimmy – page full of clippings and links related to “MacArthur Park”, Jimmy Webb’s metaphor-heavy angst epic, which has long been a source of cheap gags re. its supposed impenetrabili[…]

RIAA vs Napster: Glenn McDonald’s ‘position paper’ on the topic. The War Against Silence, Glenn’s staggeringly long-running (and just staggeringly long, period) music review site has taken a Jeremiac turn of late, and this is […]

Smashing Pumpkins Star To Quit Music? – the official Worst Band In The World seem to be carrying out the Worst Split In The World. The idea, my friend, is that you split. See? Not write another 14 songs and carry on going for a couple of years […]

Bill Grundy Interview: as if you wanted it, a transcript of the ‘notorious’ Sex Pistols/Billy Grundy interview, which I visited to confirm my suspicions re. Steve Jones saying “You fucking rotter” to Grundy. Rotter?? Who the h[…]

THE CHAMELEONS – “Swamp Thing”
On paper, we should owe The Chameleons everything: every grand swoop, passioned howl and gritted-teeth gesture of modern rock might stem from these North-East die-hards. I should be cursing them now fo[…]