Hines earl

Back in 1996, the last time I saw Lou Reed, I remember making a mental note at the end of the show, to remember to never go and see him again. It wasn’t so much his legendary tetchiness, although that was well to the fore, as a glowering Lou shot irritated, grouchy-headmaster daggers at the band around him while they played, and maintained a stony silence between songs, cracked only for a brief tirade about something a journalist had said to annoy him earlier.

Also Walter Becker and Wild Beasts in our releases round-up!

Sell-out show by the Gorillaz collaborators

Also Emmylou Harris, My Morning Jacket and Fleet Foxes in our releases round-up!

There is, of course, plenty that's wonderful about The Apprentice. Let's start with how a bunch of jumped-up estate agents, regional sales reps and “risk managers” stab each other in the back and bicker while displaying the level of intelligence usually associated with lesser Crustaceans. It’s the same reason you might watch Big Brother, so you can hoot cynically as the worst specimens that a few million years of evolution has to offer parade their tawdry, desperate dreams across the screen.

Follow-up to Waterloo To Anywhere is nearly complete

Tony Palmer's magisterial documentary series, unseen since the late 70s

I got an email from someone the other day about a new band helmed by Richard Fearless, the sometime leader of Death In Vegas. Of Black Acid, they said, “Half of it sounds like a Japanese sixth form band doing Mary Chain covers. Half of it sounds like Bobby Gillespie telling you about records he likes while trying to play them. The first song is ten minutes of backwards noise.”

Magnificent return, reinvention from the Bristol three + indepth Q&A w/Geoff Barrow

First nights are never what they’re cracked up to be, right? You’re always worrying what’s going to go wrong, and if enough people will turn up – after all, it’s the night before Good Friday. We needn't have worried, though.