Wednesday 20 October 2010

'When you fly through a storm, hold your head up high' (sic)

As a supporter of Liverpool and with Iron Maiden being the first 'proper gig' I attended, I'm particularly amused by the news that Bruce Dickinson has flown the team to Italy ahead of their Europa Cup match in Napoli on Thursday!

Hopefully his band's affiliation with West Ham won't cause him to seek revenge for the 2006 FA Cup final ...

Saturday 16 October 2010

Manic Street Preachers - Motown Junk (Astoria 20/02/92)

Countdown to the gig begins ... with happy memories of when I first saw them on this very night in February 1992.

Thursday 7 October 2010

The Jim Jones Revue

Surely some mistake ... for the second week in a row Later With Jools Holland comes up trumps, this time with The Jim Jones Revue. To put it politely, the band is made up of older musicians and a little bit of research found that the Jim Jones in question fronted Thee Hypnotics, the almost-there-but-not-quite psychedelic/garage rockers from the 1990s.

Well summed up by a Guardian review from 2008 ("the Jim Jones Revue imagine that rock'n'roll didn't really need to evolve after 1956; it just needed to get much, much louder, and wildly more distorted") their brief performance on Tuesday night's shorter warm-up show, with appropriately long-slung guitars, was enough to ensure I'll be tuning in again on Friday to see what else they have on offer.

Friday 1 October 2010

Vive le Rock - new magazine launch

Spinning off from the long-standing website comes the launch of Vive Le Rock magazine, featuring The Ramones, the very en vogue Killing Joke, The Clash and David Bowie plus a free CD promising 'both the coolest cats on the block as well as the legends who paved the way for them'.

Future issues promise Devo, The Who, The Sex Pistols, Johnnies Cash and Thunders, Jerry Lee Lewis and Tom Waits.

With a mandate to 'to bring ... the Bad Boys of rock 'n' roll! From punk and new wave, glam and garage through to mod and primal rock 'n' roll', this looks to be a very welcome addition to newstands.

First issue will be published on October 15th.