California
Best Coast, O2 ABC2, GlasgowSunday, 17 June 2012
Best Coast has always been the quintessential California band, an identity the duo has embraced so fully that the artwork for their latest album features the bear that is the state’s mascot. It would be clichéd to remark on the unsuitability of the... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: David Bowie, The Association, Boban I Marko Marković OrkestarSunday, 10 June 2012
David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars 40th Anniversary EditionHoward MaleLet’s start with the bombshell. Yes, Ziggy is a landmark Seventies album but it’s not the masterpiece it should or even could have been,... Read more... |
CD: The Beach Boys – That’s Why God Made the RadioWednesday, 06 June 2012
“We’re back together, easy money”. For anyone feeling a wee bit cynical about The Beach Boys' reunion, that lyric – from “Spring Vacation” – is likely to push them towards full-blown contempt. Although That’s Why God Made the Radio is defined by... Read more... |
Korn, Brixton AcademyTuesday, 27 March 2012
To dubstep or not to dubstep, that was the question perplexing the nearly 5000 metalheads jammed into the Brixton Academy to see Korn.The California four-piece made their name as purveyors of "nu metal" in the mid-Nineties (like old metal - but with... Read more... |
Dustin Hoffman rides his Luck on Sky AtlanticThursday, 16 February 2012
Further advancing the theory that television is the place for pedigree actors to be seen nowadays, Dustin Hoffman makes his TV debut in HBO's Luck, which kicks off on Saturday 18 February on Sky Atlantic. A complex, multi-stranded saga about horse... Read more... |
CD: Van Halen - A Different Kind of TruthThursday, 09 February 2012
Not many realise it, but Diamond Dave and the Van Halen brothers have actually been back together since 2007. It’s true they only actually managed one tour before Eddie was back in rehab. But, boy, by all accounts, what form they were in. So, now... Read more... |
Bombay BeachMonday, 30 January 2012
I can’t help thinking of Mad Men when watching the opening sequence of Alma Har’el’s marvellous documentary Bombay Beach. Newsreel footage from the 1950s excitedly trumpets the “miracle in the desert” of the Salton Sea, formed by accident when the... Read more... |
CD: Gonjasufi - Mu.zz.leWednesday, 18 January 2012
Debut albums often set the bar high. How are you going to top a Psychocandy or a Piper At The Gates of Dawn? The answer is, not easily and, with rare exceptions, not at once. All those ideas that had been growing forever splurge out in those first... Read more... |
theartsdesk Q&A: Musician GonjasufiSaturday, 14 January 2012
Gonjasufi, AKA Sumach Ecks (b 1978) was raised in San Diego by a Mexican mother and an American-Ethiopian father. His musical ability first came to more than local prominence when he appeared on the Flying Lotus album Los Angeles in 2008. His own... Read more... |
CD of the Year: Laura Marling - A Creature I Don't KnowWednesday, 28 December 2011
This was the year I finally fell in love with Laura Marling’s music. I liked her first two albums well enough, but I couldn't quite shake the feeling that the endless chorus of critical hosannas was more about what people wanted her to be than what... Read more... |
The Mighty Uke, Hyde Park Picture House, LeedsThursday, 08 December 2011
Recorded music has a lot to answer for. Until its arrival, most people made their own music – at home, using whatever resources were to hand. If you were lucky, you might have owned a piano. The less well-off might have had access to a ukulele. Tony... Read more... |
CD: Korn - The Path of TotalitySunday, 04 December 2011
In the mid-Nineties, America had a bit of a moment with electronic dance music. The most emblematic sign of this was The Prodigy’s Fat of the Land topping the Billboard charts in 1997. The truth was, however, that despite inventing house music and... Read more... |
