Biff. Bang. Pow. This is really gonna knock you out. While tired middle-aged blokes might like to think that anything made by four teenagers who look a bit like they used to look in 1997 and who sound a bit like all the bands they liked at the same point is “exciting” the truth is [...]
This is the tale of a Northern soul. From humdrum streets where the rain fell hard. Looking to find his way in the world. His heart is his compass. Lost, lonesome, gladsome, humourous and, sometimes, a little blue. A crocodile cryer, happy to look down. A wholly humble heart. Folk music. Pop music. Rock but [...]
Greenock sits on the West coast of Scotland and on the surface is a fairly genteel sort of a town…a bit more upmarket than it’s neighbour Port Glasgow…but it is still, like so many towns in that part of Scotland marked by decades of industrial decline and under-investment. Which makes it fertile soil for dreamers [...]
Twenty five years have passed since Britpop ruled not just Britannia but the world at large. What had started off with a spiky little single from baggy boys Blur back in March of 1992 and that had been thrust into the wider public consciousness with an edition of Select magazine a year after that, had [...]
At the start of the Powell and Pressburger film "A Matter of Life and Death" an RAF pilot finds himself hurtling towards his death following a direct hit at the hands of those blasted Luftwaffe boys. Smoke billows around the cockpit, his second in command lies dead behind him, his parachute is shot to ribbons...his [...]
"I want to be part of everything" (Hits Like a Fix, The Gravity Drive) "Sometimes people are beautiful. Not in looks. Not in what they say. Just in what they are." (Markus Zusak) Beauty. I once saw the comedian/writer Daniel Kitson do a "bit" about people who have "type" when it comes to who they [...]
It was the last day of term, the summer holidays were laid out ahead of me and I couldn't wait. Because I don't drink I wasn't at the end of term staff party but was, instead, at home on the sofa with a bag of Haribo and a can of fizzy pop. Living the [...]
A lot of people really love "Common People" by Pulp. It is, for them, a reminder of their youth. It has become the Britpop national anthem. It evokes memories of the sunny, hopeful, optimistic, nineties. It is the soundtrack to heady nights on the dancefloor of the indie disco. It marked the moment when the [...]
"We're gonna do a song, that you never heard before" In 1862 the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by Lincoln and brought an end to slavery. But then, just eight years later, the Fifteenth Amendment was required to guarantee that an individuals "...race, colour or previous condition of servitude" could not be a reason to deny [...]
It seems ridiculous to me. I refuse to accept it. A quarter of a century. I won't have it. It can't be. Ah, but it is. The passing of time with all of its sickening crimes. Perhaps the most sickening of all is the fact that Marijne from Salad has refused to age. It's a [...]
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