mtaylor has written the following articles:
There’s a strange moment about two-thirds of the way through the video for ‘Not Gonna Get Us’. At the point when the song’s seventeen-stone super-heavyweight backbeat gives way to a solitary featherlight keyboard, the images of a t.A.T.u.-driven juggernaut pelting it full-kilter through Siberia are replac»
Goodness me. If Maxilian Hecker isn’t stalkerishly intense in real life, he’s putting on a pretty good show here. Obsessive in its passion, ‘Fool’ forgoes any kind of detour, backstory or self-aggrandising trickery for a four minute profusion of unreturned devotion. And I’m buying every second of it»
Helen Marnie’s playing games. As her dark, mascara-outlined eyes flit over the crowd, they move with a steady purpose. Her eye contact is precious to tonight’s audience, and she’s offering it to us in discriminate, tantalising stanzas. Live, the delightful, cold-heartedness Ladytron offer in recorde»
Twenty past eight. Claire Ingram and Paul Resende – guitarist and vocalist respectively with Ikara Colt – are ready to begin the last song of a frantic half-hour set. But there’s a problem. Dominic Young, the band’s drummer, is slumped over his snare, dripping with an absolutely breathtaking»
Beth Hirsch is ace. In the world of the blind, her voice – distilled from pure honeydew – would probably be top-shelf material. Nonetheless, the last time she bothered the charts was as long ago as 1998, when she provided vocals for Air’s 'All I Need'. A class song it was too - hazy, unflustered an»
It’s hard to imagine Alpinestars being anybody’s favourite band. Just like the kid you stuck in goal when you played football in the playground, they come across as altogether too keen not to upset anyone to be the slightest bit interesting. And kicking a ball straight at their stomachs would be a wry, if shamef»
The sirens had but one trick to lure unwary sailors to hit the rocks. Then again they only needed one; after all, it worked more-or-less every time. 'Hayling' offers a call as utterly compulsive as any siren could hope to muster. A crystalline, female voice breathes sublime, languid come-ons with disarming te»
Plumpfh. A prolonged, snaky intro. Then the opener on this here demo - ‘Is It My Turn’ - coughs its way into a scruffy ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ riff sometime after the first chorus. It’s hard not to endorse developments of this kind, albeit that the quiet/loud trick has been around the block a squillion»
Let’s get one thing straight. The lopsided bowl-cut Kelly Osbourne sports in the video for this is a complete, unqualified disaster. She looks like Ann Widdecome, only with better skin. Yet she’s still cool. Especially when she’s prone on all fours, banging the microphone on the floor. Just like that.
There’s a bitter, sick-hearted compulsion towards self-destruction in the best of us. If you really, really thought that there were monsters under your bed, I’ll bet you wouldn’t be able to help looking. Monsters that could tear your feeble body in half; You’d want to know for sure. You could never just leave it alone»
Nowhere did punk rock matter more than on television. And the staid British broadcasting institutions were unprepared. Top Of The Pops was suddenly volatile – with punk rock bands hitting the top 40, a threatening underculture was thrust into living rooms otherwise filled with a sedative diet of Magpie an»
We've lost a legend. The indisputable 'king of skiffle', Lonnie Donegan, passed away on Sunday morning (November 3rd) after a short illness. He was 71 and midway through a UK tour. At it's best, Donegan's music was vital and energetic, a revelation in staid times. The British rock scene of the»
The other afternoon, I was walking home, up one of the steepest hills in the city, in the unrelenting rain. It hadn’t rained for three weeks, but on Tuesday it rained solidly – all day, all night. The water was resisting the drains, cascading down the hill and soaking my useless shoes. I don’t know if I cared about the»
It’s not as easy as you might think, telling the world how fucked off you are. Not if you want to avoid sounding like a mewling, self-fixated little virus, it’s not. Still, doing just that - and turning into Coby Dick - might shift you a few records, so maybe you too want to degrade yourself for the old green. B»
I wish this band could change the world, because, well, Rival Schools are the best band in the world at the moment. Still, it's a fucking lie of course. Good things are never going to just happen in this world, they're nowhere to be seen. They never were, either. It's a soft-hearted, frail, simple-minded way»
I remember spending a summer evening walking along the fringe of the Atlantic, along the shoreline of France’s West Coast, near La Rochelle. The movement of the ocean was mesmerising, I carried on watching it until long after night had fallen. It might have been 1995, it might have been the year after. I’m not quite su»
Bearsuit are going wild this winter... The best new band in the world are about to go into overload. Hold tight. This week, the band travel to Sheffield for their first ever gig outside East Anglia. They play the city's new Sounds Furry club night, supported by Seachange, who are also g»
Twist had a dream. A dream where the perfect fusion of Nirvana’s guttural sincerity and excitement mixed with the pure, relentless, guitar-bruising assault of Sonic Youth. Only in this way could vocalist Emma Fox’s anger and frustration make sense, her middle-finger to the world; especially the men of it; could »
They're the new bouncy face of guitar pop perfection, are Bearsuit. John Peel loves them, their Sonic Youth-ish, Only Ones-ish debut single 'Hey Charlie, Hey Chuck' might have been the best thing ever. Hell, along with MoTel, they even make Norwich seem like an exciting place to be. On interv»
It didn’t take Iain and Lisa et al of Bearsuit very long to realise that the world really isn’t quite as beautiful as it should be. So they formed a band, and in doing so made the planet just that little better. Because Bearsuit make beautiful songs about a world which is as beautiful as this one should be.»
‘On Saturdays we’re a Def Leppard cover band’, Douglas tell us, and for once, we’re glad it’s not the weekend. They then proceed to play lots of loud, fast punk songs, all of which sound quite similar. It is likely that Douglas are familiar with the work of Idlewild, but, sadly, their angst se»
Details of Ireland's foremost festival were unveiled at a launch party in Dublin last night.
The acts confirmed so far for Witnness 2001 are:
Stereophonics
Fun Lovin' Criminals
Paul Weller
Placebo
Tindersticks
The Frames
The Avalanches
Starsailor
James
Ala»
Sometimes marvellous indie rock veterans Echo and the Bunnymen are back on the road. Woo! And with support from the mighty Snow Patrol. Get in there, kids!
Touring the UK and Eire, they call at:
21st may - Wolverhampton - Wulfrun Hall
22nd may - London - Shepherds Bush Empire
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The recording of Venus Ray’s debut LP, Chuck Berry Vs IBM, was not an easy process. Punctuated by a reported ‘succession of medical emergencies and unexplained technical glitches’, the scars left are distinctly audible on the finished album. The record is awash with curious background noises and unid»
Airport Girl played at the Casbah last week. I don’t know how they managed to fit all seven members on stage, because for Snow Patrol tonight there is barely room for four. The venue is one of those deliciously cramped and seedy subterranean dives that rock ‘n’ roll should be always be played in. When Snow Patrol»
As Cable recorded their second (and last) full length LP, Sub-Lingual, they were also being sued by their own manager. About a year and a half earlier, in 1997, the band's song Freeze the Atlantic (from their first album, When Animals Attack) was used as the soundtrack to a Sprite advert. They»
