I am making my way to the rather grand environs of the Usher Hall in Edinburgh to see the Manic Street Preachers for the first time. Re-re-wind, don't say "bo" or "selecta". It is twenty-three years ago, almost to the day. May 23rd, 1996. I am in the penultimate year of my degree at the [...]
We continue our exploration of the greatest debut albums by Britpop bands with numbers 18, 17 and 16...an unholy, maybe unheard, trinity of calling cards from bands who shoulda been contenders. Elcka - Rubbernecking (1997) Alright. Let's deal with it. Yes. You are right. This might well be the worst cover for an album in [...]
Even as I write this I am filled with feelings of regret and doubt. This is an album that should be in the top twenty albums in British pop music history. "Here he goes again." Maybe. I know...it's all hyperbole and exaggeration 'round are way. But that is what great music should do to you...make [...]
I've been a mess of late... Health problems...physical and mental. Burn out at work. A invisible weight pushing me down...down...down... Salvation can come from unusual sources. Sunlight bathes the cobbles of the Cowgate as I wend my way to the Mash House to bend the knee and doff my cap to Kiwi jazz enthusiasts [...]
"Misery loves me, but I don't love her" sings Elizabeth Stokes on the opening track on the debut album from The Beths, "Future Me Hates Me" and, in that one line, she issues a clarion call to the grotesquely lonely...or to people like me; grotesque and lonely. It is the sort of line that [...]
It's wet in Auld Reekie. Wet and cold. A slate grey Victorian sky has been turned the blackest of black. The rain has soaked me to the bone. My newly dry cleaned mac is sodden. My lovely selvedge jeans (and really boys it has to be selvedge...enough with the Next denim) now look like I [...]
Time is tight. Just one entry in the top 25 Britpop debut albums today. But what an album... 20. The Seahorses - "Do It Yourself" (April, 1997) What's the best way to put this? Um... I think there may have been some "excesses" during the making of the second Stone Roses album; "The Second Coming". [...]
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