This year I've joined the team behind Independent Venue Week to manage their digital editorial and social media. The event, now in its fourth, is a little bit like a Record Store Day for live music. Every year in January (23-29 2017), IVW supports Independent venues across the UK, helping them to stage, promote and …
I vividly remember the release of Suede's Dog Man Star because it was the last time I saw a Flexidisc. These thin sheets of plastic, which could be played once or maybe twice on a record player, were cover-mounted to magazine or posted out in the late 80s and early 90s... except they weren't really …
Continue reading Flexidiscs & Dog Man Star by Suede (Archive Podcast)
I was involved in a conversation last night about the lost great festival sets, the years where everyone focuses on the headliner and forgets that there was anything else going on. Once such example is Primal Scream's Other Stage headline slot at Glastonbury 2011. While the story since has tended to swell around whether or …
Continue reading It’s a scream! Bobby Gillespie on writing lyrics (Archive Podcast)
This article originally appeared on Qthemusic.com Stylish and sophisticated, Danish duo The Raveonettes have quietly gained a cult following since their debut release, the eight track Whip It On EP, ten years ago. Blending hard rifts and sonic atmospherics, biker chains with electronics, in many ways the band pioneered the dream pop sound years before …
This article originally appeared on Qthemusic.com Photo by Alex Lake It's been a busy start to 2014 for Baxter Dury. Not only has the singer-songwriter been working on his fourth album, the follow-up to 2011's acclaimed Happy Soup, but this Sunday (13 April) he's set to run the London Marathon on behalf of children's charity …
Continue reading Q&A: Baxter Dury “It’s a laugh, but a bit wrong”
Recently I had the pleasure of speaking to Professor John Street who taught me while I was studying politics at UEA He probably thought he was done after three years... but I was back for more instruction recently on behalf of new website TheQstn.com. They offer the public the chance to quiz experts on big …
Interview with UEA's Professor John Street (plus my old lecturer and father of Disclosure's manager, FYI) about the possibility of a new political party establishing itself in the UK for Theqstn.com. Read in full now...
This article originally appeared on Qthemusic.com One if the bands to emerge in the New York post Strokes boom at the start of the 2000s, The Rapture carved a post-punk, disco niche for themselves producing a debut album, Echoes, that made you think and dance. Having left their initial label, James Murphy's DFA, for a …
This article originally appeared on Qthemusic.com If the very convincing, put upon, stay-at-home new dad in Noah Baumbach’s new film While We’re Young seems familiar, then you probably do know him. However, you’ll have never seen the actor in a role like this before. In fact, unless you possess a certain degree of fandom you …
This article originally appeared on Qthemusic.com The first time this writer encountered Kanye West he was knee-deep in water, stood in a disused Czech mineshaft in 2005. Continually conferring with video director Hype Williams, the rapper-producer was enduring the mud and dirty air – filtered masks were a legal requirement when cameras weren’t rolling – …
Paul Stokes – Journalist 