Man. That headline pun is so good, it’s like Mega-Butter. Mmmmm. Yes, the news is this news: the always-reliable Drive-By Truckers have gone and made a video – but no! Wait! – TWO videos for the chunky riff-o-rama of “This Fucking Job”. But rather than documenting the tawdry and lewd world of the “professional night-time escort” business – as the song title would misleadingly suggest – it instead shows us a man losing his job…
The bellowingly good news coming from last night’s Ham Sandwich gig is this: their new album is shaping up to be jolly good. (This has been calculated using science – specifically, an inventive method involving measuring the size of the bruises on the knees and thighs of myself and my colleague-in-jests, David Kirk, following the frenzied dancing of the girl in front of us, and the resulting pendulous swinging of her abnormally hefty handbag, during…
Jarvis Cocker, Pulp alumnus, eccentric genius, and the first man to successfully clone himself (evidence), is still keeping busy. When he’s not winning awards for his BBC Radio 4 series, he’s sifting through a selection of “found sounds” collected by The National Trust (laudable British conservationists) and arranging them into an ambient album he BBC-quotingly describes as “a holiday for the ears”. If you enjoy hearing music boxes, old doors creaking, Steve Vai wailing and…
Since I’m here, and not really doing anything else of import (tonight’s checklist in chronological order: have a bit of a sit down; listen to the Ray Foley Show Podcast (while sitting); do nothing else of import), I might as well inform you of this thing: Band of Horses’ new album Infinite Arms (which is released into the great wide open next week) can be streamed in its entirety using this “gidget”: I haven’t listened…
Everyone still likes Tom Petty, correct? His Mudcrutch CD, as much as it was really just a Heartbreakers CD with a slightly different haircut and a trucker’s hat on, was quite excellent, and he does have the most hirsute of faces. Shaggy beards are always rock n’ roll (except, naturally enough, when it’s a rabid tramp whose face is housing the beard, and that face is currently knawing at your knees. But since, as far…
News for our several States-side chums today. Desert rock propagators with potential, Sweethead, are releasing their unimaginatively eponymous debut album on your side of the Atlantic today. Sweethead, of course, are the pet project of dapper sometimes-Queen of the Stone Age Troy Van Leeuwen, who beefs up his back end (oo-er) with the dab hands of Mark Lanegan Band alumni Norm Block and Eddie Nappi, and also unleashes the vixenly stlyings of singer Serrina Sims…
Album name: Heaven is Whenever Artist name: The Hold Steady Genre: Rock Released: 3 May 2010 Label: Vagrant/Rough Trade ZME Rating: 9/10 Website: theholdsteady.net A while back, I tweeted something to this effect: “If Craig Finn was a better singer, The Hold Steady would be a worse band.” In that respect, it would appear that Heaven is Whenever exists only to mock me. But more on that later. Here, for the hither-to uninitiated, is a…
I really hope Niamh doesn’t kill me for that title. But yes, I’ve made no bones about my unfettered enthusiasm for Ham Sandwich – I’ve previously told you how heartswellingly splendid they are on precisely four thousand different occasions. But now there are four thousand and one occasions, because I’m about to do it again. The reason for that is this: they’re building up to the May 14th release of their new single “The Naturist”…
Look. I’m sorry, but I make no apologies for this: due to a series of internal misunderstandings, my review of the Hold Steady’s Heaven Is Whenever (released – oh! – sometime in the last 24 hours) is unlikely to be ready until Thursday or Friday at the earliest. (“Not even a proper excuse!” I hear you wail. I sighingly look up from my other important duties to explain that I was accidentally killed while retrieving…
I like to think that I keep my finger on the pulse. I sniff out news, I hunt down obscure albums to review, and I rend asunder songs and feast on their bulbous, nutritious entrails. Also, I mix my metaphors, and I get confused about time zones and stuff, and sometimes I sleep until 4pm in the afternoon. All of that somehow adds up to the reason that I bring this to you today, only…
Al Byrne