Monday 16th May 2016 was the 50th Anniversary of Pet Sounds, an album most people aged 35 upwards have in their music library. It has touched the lives of generations, it is critically rated by many of the great musicians and is often cited as being one of the best albums of all time (it’s actually Rolling […]
Music
Podcast with Francis Rossi
A month or so ago I had the pleasure of bumping into Mr Francis Rossi of Status Quo and he was kind enough to help us promote Purley Festival by giving me an interview. I transcribed part of the interview for the Croydon Advertiser. You can listen to the podcast here.
Down and out in Soho – My funny Valentine
We don’t usually celebrate Valentine’s Day but this year we decided to push the boat out and head up town, inevitably we ended up on a massive pub crawl but we found some real gems that I thought I should share. The first is The Angel in St Giles High St, spitting distance from Denmark […]
Interview with Joan Armatrading
Joan Armatrading, MBE and more importantly – according to her – (BA Hons) has won the coveted Ivor Novello Award, been nominated three times for a Grammy and twice for a Brit, written over 20 albums, has a plethora of gold, platinum and silver discs, been honoured by the Queen, sung for Nelson Mandela and […]
Interview with Spin Doctor’s front man, Chris Barron
You can pretty much guarantee that anyone in the UK who was in their teens or twenties in the early 90’s will have fond memories of dancing The Spin Doctors alt-pop chart toppers like Two Princes and Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong, you might even find they have a copy of multi-platinum album Pocket Full Of Kryptonite in […]
I heart the 90’s alternative scene
This evening me and the Mr took a trip down memory lane and played some of the tunes from back in the day, (we actually first met at 6th form college). We listened to Arrested Development, Faith No More, Smashing Pumpkins and the very awesome soundtrack to Judgement Night featuring a fine mash-up of Rock […]
Listen to this – interview with Squarepusher and Charles Hazlewood
‘Listen to this’ set to “engage, inspire and excite and generally blow the mind of the entire audience that come and witness it” (Charles Hazlewood) 2011 saw massive cuts to the arts budget in Croydon Council, closing the Clocktower and cutting the summer festival. Croydon now seems to be going through a period of significant […]
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Interview with Baz Warne (The Stranglers)
In 2000 Stranglers fan, Sunderland native and Smalltown Heroes guitarist Baz Warne was invited to London to audition for The Stranglers. He was given the gig on the spot. Since then the band have made three albums, played sold out gigs, been on several tours and played many festivals including Glastonbury. After the success of […]
Return of the Bush
Today, tickets went on sale for Kate Bush’s (allegedly) one off comeback show, I say ‘allegedly’ because the cynic in me is sure that these ‘one off’ gigs are just test gigs to build demand and see if there is a possibility to do more (see the Stone Roses 2011). The tickets for Kate’s gig […]
Radio Show: Croydon’s music scene in the 70’s – The Greyhound
Tune into Croydon Radio at 10 am tomorrow for my latest show, focusing on The Greyhound music venue, Croydon in the 70’s and the bands who played there. Featuring music from: Queen, Mott the hoople, Genesis, Pink fairies, Elton John, T-Rex, Roxy Music, ELO, David Bowie & Lou Reed and an interview with the old manager Howard […]