Music Category
Music news and reviews, music videos and tittle tattle, with a lingering look at the past from Anorak. A source for rock, pop, album and live music, new releases, artist interviews and features.
The Bluffers GuideTo This Year’s Coachella Line-up
THE Coachella Festival is back, announcing the 2014 line-up, much to the excitement of people on Tumblr who are hipster enough to fawn over it, but alas, too poor to actually afford to attend.
The big news is that the festival will have a recently reformed Outkast headlining, which is good news for all. Also topping the bill are Muse and Arcade Fire (Queen 2.0 and Music For Dads, respectively).
In a post on Twitter, the festival revealed the line up for the April event, with the message “Share it like a polaroid picture”. You can see that here.
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Kaiser Chiefs’ Ricky Wilson Shows Rare Honesty About Doing The Voice
MUSICIANS aren’t known for telling the truth very often. When they break up bands, they cite ‘musical differences’ rather than ‘we all pretty much hate each other now and couldn’t convince the record label to let us have a break, so we’re going to argue about music until we can’t look each other in the eye’.
When they nearly kill themselves with drugs and booze, they pretend they’ve got ‘nervous exhaustion’. When they refuse to do promotional work for new records, they know that that, in itself, is promotional work and it works very well thank you very much.
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Posted: 9th, January 2014 | In: Music, TV & Radio | Comment
Happy Birthday David Bowie: BOWIE’S IN SPACE
HAPPY birthday David Bowie, for us and Flight of the Conchords:
Spotter: Iowahawk
Rare Nirvana Footage Appears Online (And Other Greatest Vids)
RARE footage of Nirvana playing their last ever LA gig has been put online by someone who knew the band. Within months of the recording, Kurt Cobain would cut his life short and rid us all of a band who, whether you liked their music or not, were really fun to be around.
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Posted: 7th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Music, Reviews | Comment (1)
The Top of The Tops Unofficial Celebration
TWENTY years ago, the BBC was celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of one of its most ‘iconic’ shows.
Ten years ago, the BBC was celebrating its 40th anniversary.
There was a problem, however. During the first decade of the show – which also unfortunately happened to be its heyday – most of the episodes were erased on the grounds that videotape was expensive, and television was considered an ephemeral medium. Posterity was not a consideration.
In the past decade, some missing footage has been retrieved from private collectors, which boded well for the big 50th anniversary. Or so you might think.
In fact, the BBC has removed footage from the clips that are available, and decided not to celebrate the anniversary at all.
The reason, guys and gals, is simple: the programme in question was Top of the Pops, and the TV studio in which it was filmed served as an HQ for the nefarious activities of Jimmy Savile and his pop pals. Hence Jim’s introductions and performances from certain artistes are now strictly verboten.
None of which will stop Anorak from picking some top pop moments from the show’s golden years – erring on the side of the hidden gems –in this unofficial celebration…
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Posted: 7th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music, TV & Radio | Comments (3)
The Rock-afire Explosion: World’s Greatest Anamatronic Band Are Back For One Last Show
THE animatronic band of animals that once rocked the Showbiz Pizza Place restaurants have been reprogrammed by fan Chris Thrash to play Pop, Lock and Drop It.
Pizza and robots. Live the dream, kids.
The Rock-afire Explosion rock on. Before the song, let’s introduce the band:
Billy Bob Brockali (bear / bass)
Fatz Geronimo (gorilla / keyboards)
Mitzi Mozzarela (mouse /vocals)
Dook LaRue (dog / drums)
Beach Bear (bear / guitar)
Rolfe & Earl (wolf / puppeteer)
Looney Bird (bird / vocals)
Inventor Aaron Fechter’s band starred in The Rock-afire Explosion, a documentary about their lives and loves:
* The movie focuses on one fan in particular, a small-town roller-rink DJ from Alabama by the name of Chris Thrash. Thrash has actually installed a fully working version of the Rock-afire Explosion in his home, and eventually brought the group new exposure in the 2000′s when he began programming the robots to sing along to current popular music and released videos of it on Youtube.
Fechter’s story of how he came to create the Rock-afire Explosion is told in the movie, and it’s an interesting and even inspiring one – a struggling inventor trying to door-to-door sell a pool-cleaning device he had created, he just happened to knock on the door of a businessman looking for someone to build him a mechanically operated shooting gallery.
In 2013, the guys and gals played with Cee Lo Green:
* We’ve seen the RF band appear in music videos and feature films, and today the band takes up residency as part of Cee Lo Green’s live Vegas show at Planet Hollywood opening the show with a rousing Rock-afire rendition of “F*** You”.
See them play Nine Inch Nails, and The Black Eyed Peas.
According to the imdb:
* “The Rock-afire Explosion” is the story of a small-town disc-jockey, a struggling inventor, and an animatronic rock band, that quickly becomes an eccentric portrait of childhood memories, broken dreams, and the resilience of the human spirit.
In this clip the band plays Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) by Arcade Fire:
In October 2013, Aaron Fechter’s downtown Orlando warehouse fell victim to an exploding gas tank. The Rock-afire Explosion went ka-boom.
* An inventor with a flair for music and a degree in finance, Fechter was a CEO and millionaire before he was 30. In 1982, Fortune Magazine called him “a prodigy of automatons,” when his creatures — created in the Orlando warehouse — became headliners at ShowBiz Pizza Placejoints across the country…
As ShowBiz expanded, so did Fechter’s company, Creative Engineering Inc… At its peak, CEI had 300 employees building 70 shows a year. Fortune said each cost $90,000.
When ShowBiz opened its 100th store — in Texas — Fechter donned a Billy Bob suit and arrived by helicopter to mingle with fans. “It was like being a rock star,” he says.
But like every good rock-‘n’-roll story, it couldn’t last. And in 1983, Fechter got a call from ShowBiz. Stop production, the company said, we’re not opening any more restaurants. The company had grown too quickly, expenses had soared, and ShowBiz couldn’t afford Fatz and friends.
ShowBiz merged with rival Chuck E. Cheese, which was also struggling, ultimately asking for the rights to the Rock-afire Explosion. Fechter refused.
“These were my characters, and I thought I might do something with them in the future,” he said. “So I walked away.”
If you like what you’ve heard, the whole film is here:
Bands Who Sold Out: The Who’s 1982 Schlitz Tour
IN 1982, The Who took the corporate coin and sold out to Schlitz.
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Lady GaGa Is Mismanaged, Causing Redundancies And Other Pop-Woes
WHEN Bad Romance landed, it looked like Lady GaGa was going to conquer the whole world, forever. For a time, she could barely put a foot wrong. Each video was a huge pop event, each single had a chorus destined to remove all the tops on all the dancefloors.
Then, something fell flat. GaGa lost momentum. GaGa went from delightfully divisive and ambitious to being stuck in a rut. The talent, clearly still there and the comforting kookiness still shone, but there was something missing and suddenly, she didn’t have ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ was.
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Posted: 6th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Music | Comment
12 Impressively Bizarre and Ridiculous Fitness Records
YEARS AGO in days of old when magic filled the air, people did their workouts at home by their turntable. Generally, the needle bounced and scratched from all the flopping around. Plus, record players were usually centrally located, which meant you had to get sweaty and embarrass yourself in front of everyone in the living room. It wasn’t until the advent of the Walkman and the proliferation of health clubs that workout music got practical. Of course, this meant the demise of the fitness LP.
Thankfully, the fossilized remains of some of these albums have been uncovered and are well worth a look.
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Posted: 6th, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music, The Consumer | Comment (1)
The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute To The Beatles May Well Be The Worst Karaoke Gig Ever
AMERICA’S fondness for The Beatles is unwavering and borderline bizarre. Of course, The Beatles are brilliant and hugely significant, but it isn’t like The States have a plethora of heroes to celebrate that belong to their shores.
Either way, they’ll be celebrating The Fabs again with a show called The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute To The Beatles, which will be recorded at the Los Angeles Convention Centre on January 27.
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Posted: 6th, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Music | Comment
The White Devil And His Music: The Heavy Metal Subculture of Black Africa
IS HEAVY Metal, the music sound hewn in the British Midlands, big in black, sub-Saharan Africa? South African photographer Franck Marshall found a throbbing pocket of metal in Botswana.
The metallers have cracking names. The chap above calls himself “Death”.
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Morrissey Is Writing Books Because No-One Likes His Records Anymore
FANS of The Smiths, and in particular Morrissey, are a weirdly devoted bunch. Their fervour isn’t matched by the output they receive from the Grand Miserablist.
The Smiths, of course, deserve their place in the annals of popular music simply for popularising an outcast spirit of disenfranchisement. They turned it into an artform and teenagers the world over fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Their records, objectively, weren’t great for the most part… but like The Clash or The Doors, it is what The Smiths stood for which made them so loved.
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Posted: 3rd, January 2014 | In: Celebrities, Music, Reviews | Comments (3)
Pink Floyd: Syd Barrett’s First Trip (Magic Mushrooms) Filmed In 1966
SYD Barrett’s first trip (magic mushrooms) as filmed in 1966 by Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon.
This experimental silent short is very rare (filmed in 8mm) and only lasts 11 minutes. Nigel Gordon, film student, filmed Syd Barrett while he tripped on mushrooms. This film is made up of two parts. Part 1: Syd tripping at Gog Magog Hills. Part 2: April ’67, Pink Floyd right after they signed their first recording contract, with EMI Records at Abbey Road Studios.
Pink Floyd – 1967. Back row: Roger Waters (l) and Nick Mason. Front row: Syd Barrett (l) and Rick Wright.
Early signs of the Pink Floyd front-man’s mental disintegration were apparent in 1967. That year he appeared on stage with an entire tube of Brylcreem in his hair into which – according to some accounts – he had crushed a handful of Mandrax tablets. Mandies or not, the lotion melted under the lights, leaving him looking like ‘a guttered candle’. The song Vegetable Man (unreleased) reflected Syd’s self-loathing at the time…
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Posted: 2nd, January 2014 | In: Film, Flashback, Music | Comment
BBC Wusses Out Of Top Of The Pops Anniversary Special Because of Jimmy Savile
THIS year would mark the 50th anniversary of Top Of The Pops. The show was, until relatively recently, a cornerstone of British television. A mixture of people’s interest shifting to the internet, and the BBC’s complete failure to stay in touch with youth culture and an over-reliance on the Glastonbury coverage saw TOTP falling by the wayside.
And then there’s the ongoing Jimmy Savile child abuse scandal.
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Posted: 2nd, January 2014 | In: Music, Reviews, TV & Radio | Comment
Awkward Band Publicity Photos
TO MAKE IT in the music biz and get some publicity, it used to be a requirement to take some “professional” photographs for local newspapers, magazines, and venue posters. Trouble is, thirty to forty years later someone like me is going to share them with the world. Chances are, your press photos are a tad on the awkward side, and I’ll have a snarky comment or two. Shake it off. It’s all in good fun. Maybe you can even point and laugh at the other bands.
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Posted: 2nd, January 2014 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Music | Comment
DJ Derek Sweet Memory Sounds: A Tribute To The UK’s Original White Reggae Star
DJ Derek is Derek Serpell-Morris. He’s 72. Last night the Bristolian played his last ever show at London’s Notting Hill Arts Club. Derek is the Cadbury accountant who became a much-loved dance hall DJ.
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Extreme Dieting: Keith Moon Versus Hunter S Thompson
Keith Moon, the eccentric drummer of The Who, at Heathrow Airport with his girlfriend Annette Walker-Lax, on return from the United States.
THE late Keith Moon was once asked whether he thought he was the greatest drummer in the world, he replied: “I’m the greatest Keith Moon-style drummer in the world”, and no one can argue with that. However Moon is just as famous, even today, for packing in far more than his fair share of convivial nights during his short eventful life. He died in September 1978 just two weeks after his 32nd birthday when he fell unconscious, never to wake up, in the Mayfair flat of his close-friend Harry Nilsson. Coincidentally, it was the very same bed where Mama Cass Elliot had died four years earlier.
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Posted: 27th, December 2013 | In: Books, Celebrities, Key Posts, Music | Comments (2)
The Bad Brains Charlie Brown Christmas Mash Up
IT’S A Bad Brains Christmas, Charlie Brown.
The song is Pay to Cum.
Artist Recreates Punk And Indie Stars As Super Heroes
BILLY BUTCHER has turned faces of music into superhero. He asks:
What makes a pop culture icon?
Would it be the effect of their contribution to a cultural movement? Is it the way they impact the time and the generation they are targeting? Or just how their exposure constitutes a defining characteristic of a given society or era?
As a child of the 80’s I was heavily influenced by everything from saturday morning cartoons on TV to the music coming from the radio. Ian Curtis or Johnny Rotten are as iconic to me as Superman or Batman. Real people or imaginary characters, the incorruptible ideals of perfect superheroes or the human flaws and desires sometimes so desperately depicted in song lyrics – all of those influences affect us to the point of defining our character and personality, career paths and life choices.
The references we are exposed and specifically the ones we choose to absorb make us who we are. Who are your heroes?
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5 Unforgivably Awful Christmas Songs
THERE have been so many awful, bowel shaking Christmas songs over the years, it’s hard to narrow them down. The number of holiday polka tracks alone is terrifying. So, let’s take it slow. Here are five from the bottom of the barrel – proceed at your own risk.
“Trim Your Tree” by Jimmy Butler (1954)
“I’m gonna bring along my hatchet,
My beautiful Christmas balls,
I’ll sprinkle my snow all on your tree,
Hang a mistletoe on your walls.”
I’m all for playful wordplay, but the imagery ol’ Jimmy is conjuring up is a tad graphic for holiday music. Call me a prude, but I could do without the mental image of Mr. Butler sprinkling his snow. I’m just funny that way.
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Posted: 18th, December 2013 | In: Flashback, Music | Comment
The Angriest Christmas Caroling Ever (With Lyrics By Donny Tourette And George Michael)
SING along but not at work, where it is not safe.
We (Vocal4Play) decided to go christmas caroling… Donny Tourette answers the door IN Y-FRONTS!!…sings a nice christmas tune but then goes CRAZY!!! Even though he did lose the plot… he treated us to some beers and he’s actually alright so go check out his band here – www.facebook.com/towersoflondonband cheers Donny! You certainly made this years caroling unforgettable!
Posted: 17th, December 2013 | In: Music | Comment (1)
Cool Kids: Malcolm Brickhouse & Jarad Dawkins Are Metalheads
IN a profile on Unlocking The Truth, we get closer to Malcolm Brickhouse & Jarad Dawkins, two metalheads we met earlier in the year:
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Watch Bob Dylan’s TV Singing Debut In The Madhouse on Castle Street
IN January 1963, an unknown young Bob Dylan got some work in a (now lost) BBC play The Madhouse on Castle Street. He sings The Ballad of the Gliding Swan. The Sunday night play also features Dylan’s first televised performance of Blowin’ in the Wind.
He was paid a fee of 500 guineas to play the role of Bobby.
* While in London, Dylan stayed with Martin Carthy, who helped introduce him to the burgeoning folk club circuit and who remembers chopping up a piano for firewood to counter the effects of that long cold winter. Dylan became a regular figure on the folk scene and even found the time to cut an LP in a record shop on Charing Cross Road, under the pseudonym of Blind Boy Grunt.
Dylan’s stay also resulted in a burst of original songs (Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright, Bob Dylan’s Dream) which were heavily influenced by his exposure to traditional English folk music.
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Posted: 16th, December 2013 | In: Flashback, Music, TV & Radio | Comment
