Of all the Pavement albums, Terror Twilight is the least “Pavement-like” and of all the songs on Terror Twilight, “…And Carrot Rope” is the least Pavement-like and as such as a song it perfectly sums up the band. To some extent, only Pavement fans would follow that logic, in fact Pavement were to the […]
Even bastards get to lament and when they do, this song is for them. Those of a certain age always look down on the new generations and wonder, in a pitiful way, whether they’ll get to experience music just as they did when they were younger. The answer is usually yes of course they […]
O.k here’s the deal – I’m asked to get seven songs together that rocked my year (why seven? Maybe the editor is on a Madonna Kabalistic tip – who knows?). My clause – these are songs that I’ve played obsessively throughout the year, but they’re not necessarily released this year. Now, with that out of […]
This week I received a stern letter from the guvmint telling me I had not yet chosen which Pension Fund to “invest” my pension contributions in. If I had not made up my mind which horse to back within ten days, the missive said, one would be chosen for me. Naturally it was too much […]
It could hardly be more rock n’roll – the frontman dies, and the group disbands with one member going off on a crazed visionary tangent. St. John, beloved disciple – the only one, according to the gospel, to stay awake in Gethsemane while Jesus swept blood – according to tradition ended his days on the […]
Gazeta Wyborcza’s man on Greece is Jacek Pawlicki. He has recovered somewhat from the shock of his interview on Wednesday with a Polish shopkeeper in Greece. Asked whether she feared for the safety of her shop the redoubtable lady said no, the rioters were only targeting the likes of multinational chains and banks. And your […]
There used to exist the perfect bar. It was on a sidestreet off Amsterdam’s main square, simply sitting there, waiting to be stumbled on. For years I used to go back there, sure each time that it wouldn’t dissapoint, until that dreadful winter evening when I turned up after an evening flight from Dublin, only […]
Derek Raymond, the English noir writer whom Interpol knew better as Robin Cook, could spell in at least two languages, as his dystopian novel A State of Denmark proves. Leave aside comparisons to Orwell, with the novel’s imagined totalitarian England run by a media-backed dictator called Jobling, and instead concentrate on the words frazione, presa, […]
Instead of shedding tears over just how much Mike Skinner has forfeited his concrete jungle panache in a series of increasingly trend adhering, substance lacking albums since (and including it has to be said) A Grand Don’t Come for Free, let’s remember for one beautiful instance the Brummie smartmouth had perfection precariously wobbling in his […]