Blogs

White Denim, “Corsicana Lemonade”

Playing spot-the-reference isn’t, I guess, the most elevated game for critics to indulge in. White Denim’s music, however, suggests that the Austin quartet are conceivably America’s most exciting record store nerds. Last time they put an album out (“D”, in 2011), I wrote a review in the mag that included this paragraph:

Crosby, Stills And Nash, London Royal Albert Hall, October 11, 2013

There are two attempts early on to get the audience to sing along: one works, one doesn’t. During “Military Madness”, Graham Nash tries unsuccessfully to encourage the audience to join in on his chant of “No more war”. A little while later, however, he’s got the entire Albert Hall singing cheerfully with him on “Our House”, which even leads to the first standing ovation of the night.

Trans: The return of Bernard Butler and Jackie McKeown

A few weeks ago, an EP turned up from the Rough Trade label, credited to a band called Trans (I’ve included some tracks below). Information was sketchy, at best: among the gnomic statements of intent on the press release, the most concrete were probably “Hard-panned stereo”, “Glasgow left/London right”, “celebrate good times” and, most pointedly, “MESSAGE: OBLIQUE”.

Fleetwood Mac, London O2 Arena, September 27, 2013

“Life is good,” reflects Mick Fleetwood. We are over two hours into Fleetwood Mac’s third and final show at the O2, and it has fallen to Fleetwood to introduce his fellow bandmates on stage.

The Haim Wars

Yesterday afternoon, I did something that I should probably, as a curious and more or less responsible music journalist, have done weeks ago: I listened to the debut album by Haim, “Days Are Gone”.

Roy Harper and Date Palms, reviewed live, September 23, 2013

“I am guilty,” says Roy Harper, “of taking you on some strange journeys, I have to admit.” We are two songs into a solo Harper show to mark the release of his first new album in 13 years, taking place in a record shop (Rough Trade East) and being streamed live on the internet; a confluence of events that clearly amuses the singer on some essential and bemused level.

The Counselor by Cormac McCarthy

The coverage in last weekend’s broadsheet arts pages of Cormac McCarthy’s new book was puzzling, to say the least: there wasn’t any. As you might expect, there were plenty of reviews of Thomas Pynchon’s Bleeding Edge, which was also released this week – The Times even ran with a preview/review of The Goldfish, Donna Tartt’s first novel in a decade, which isn’t published for another month. But, strangely, the publication of The Counselor by Cormac McCarthy passed by without comment.

Chris Forsyth, Cian Nugent, Wilco and the return of Television

I’m not, as a rule, the sort of person who reveres and memorises reviews from the notional golden age of rock journalism. But the other day, I was pondering something Nick Kent wrote in his original NME review of Television’s “Marquee Moon”. I found it online this morning, specifically this passage:

The Waterboys: “Fisherman’s Box”

In the next edition of Uncut, out on September 25 in the UK, Alastair McKay recounts a recent trip to Mike Scott’s flat in Dublin. McKay is there to interview Scott for a piece on the making of The Waterboys’ “Fisherman’s Blues”, a wonderful album which, imminently, will be memorialised by a 7CD compilation of its epic sessions, “Fisherman’s Box”.
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