A nervous, exciting and fulfilling day for Clive and I on Monday.
Category: music
A Beating Heart Will Never Die: The Continuing Story Of Big Country
Always underestimated, Big Country have hit their 30th anniversary as a musical force that’s both reinvigorated and hungry. Continue reading A Beating Heart Will Never Die: The Continuing Story Of Big Country
Thoughts On Record Store Day 2013
Soho on a Saturday morning is usually a quietly hungover place. Not on the 20th of April. Continue reading Thoughts On Record Store Day 2013
Dreams Never End: X&HT Saw Peter Hook And The Light
The prospect of a bunch of chancers playing the first two New Order albums in their entirety, in sequence and in order doesn't sound very appealing.
Continue reading Dreams Never End: X&HT Saw Peter Hook And The Light
2012: The Year Of Writing, and My Best Of List
I will look back on 2012 as the year that I finally stopped procrastinating.
Continue reading 2012: The Year Of Writing, and My Best Of List
We Still Believe In Love, So Fuck You: X&HT Saw Elbow
I've never been comfortable with the idea of Elbow as a stadium band.
Continue reading We Still Believe In Love, So Fuck You: X&HT Saw Elbow
Soundtrack: Satan’s Schoolgirls
Satan’s Schoolgirls has a soundtrack, and I think you’ll like it! Continue reading Soundtrack: Satan’s Schoolgirls
Learn To Love Again: The Foo Fighters and The Reading Festival 2012
It’s the end of the 2012 Reading Festival. Past midnight, after an epic 2-and-a-half hour show by the Foo Fighters that was one of the finest gigs I had ever seen. We (for the purposes of clarity, we are TLC, DocoDom, new chum Groovy Geoff and yr. humble author) are backstage, sipping cocktails and hanging with the band.
An old Talking Heads song passes unbidden through my head as Geoff jumps up to get a picture with Dave Grohl and Ricky from the Kaiser Chiefs. I ask myself; well, how did I get here?
Continue reading Learn To Love Again: The Foo Fighters and The Reading Festival 2012
Reading The Signs At The Reading Festival
The August Bank Holiday weekend offers up an almost unrivalled set of distractions and attractions for the discerning punter, and always presents yr. humble writer with something of a dilemma. London offers both the UK’s biggest free festival, the Notting Hill Carnival, and the country’s largest gathering of horror fans, Frightfest (more on this from our embedded correspondents on the ground, fear fans).
And then there’s the Reading and Leeds Festival, the climax of the music, mud and over-priced lager season. For the first time in three years, X&HT will be on site.
Code Of Silence
Westminster Council have a reputation for sucking the fun out of any party. The pubs in Soho are well known for the draconian restrictions placed on them in terms of drinking outside, and the fenced-off demarkation zones have to be strictly enforced on pain of a heavy fine.
But now they’ve gone to far. Although the blame has yet to be categorically laid at their door, Westminster Council are at least indirectly responsible for cutting off Bruce Springsteen.
