Christina Amphlett (1959-2013)
Chrissy Amphlett, lead singer of Divinyls, died this past Sunday. She was 53. Most musicians are lucky if they ever release a record, much less make the charts, never mind change the world. Ms. Amphlett, who left home at 14, accomplished all three.
The 49 Americans – E Pluribus Unum/We Know Nonsense (Staubgold)
The 49 Americans were an experiment in the pursuit of happiness.
The Flaming Lips – The Terror (Bella Union)
It seems this experience has totally renewed my enjoyment of all that other Flaming Lips stuff that I play in the daytime
The Season of The Witch | 55 songs about witches
This, we’re told, is the Season of The Witch. I beg to differ, at least for the reasons given. I like witches.
A fitting playlist for her funeral | 30 Songs about Margaret Thatcher
Here’s what I’ll be playing, come the day of her funeral.
Bonnie “Prince” Billy & Marquis de Tren – Solemns 12″ (Domino)
These masterly musicians are in top form here, ambling arm-in-arm and conversing as only decades of friendship allows.
Book Review – The City is Ablaze! The Story of A Post Punk Popzine 1984 – 1994
It costs the same as 3 issues of Mojo, or 6 weeks’ worth of NME’s, and it’s a dozen times more likely to change your life.
A review of ‘Arc’ by Everything Everything that absolutely takes issue with everything the NME and the Tories stand for
The words come tumbling out of Jonathan Higgs’ mouth like so many bright bees, clouds and clouds of them buzzing about, so numerous and sharp such that their ingenuity, volume and ambition remind me of Joanna Newsom’s meticulous verses. He conjures up drone strikes, billionaires, footballers’ wives, broken war-heroes, landmines, volcanoes, rioters, pterodactyls, post-apocalyptic landscapes, revelatory visions. Not a waistcoat in sight.
How to write a press release
Why would we make this music that is The Terror – this bleak, disturbing, hopeless record…?? I don’t really want to know the answer that I think is coming: that WE were hopeless WE were disturbed (but we didn’t have a longing to NOT be disturbed) and, I think, accepting that some things are hopeless…or letting hope in one area die so that hope can start to live in another?? Maybe this is the beginning of the answer.
