Here’s someone new and very good. Liz Green may be best known this year as the winner of the Emerging Talent competition to play at Glastonbury, and getting to open the Pyramid Stage on the Saturday. That’s a big gig for someone who didn’t even have a record out! I hadn’t paid that much [...]
EOTR goodnessThe big news of the day (or yesterday) is that the full line-up and stage times have been announced for the End of the Road Festival! They’re on the website, but I’ve had a bit of a slack day at work, so over lunch I’ve compiled them into a nice table for easy reference. [...]
We’re still in the Bs, as I slowly make my way through my big CD singles rack, and will be for a while longer. Today I have a couple of bands who are no longer around and were little-known to the extent that I can’t find much information about them anywhere (and I have tried).
The [...]
I first came across Jake Flowers and the Carol-Anne Showband on Song, By Toad the other week. Just my sort of thing, I thought as I listened to the tracks. I was about to email Matthew to ask where he got these from, when an email pinged into my inbox from Jake Flowers himself, announcing [...]
When is an album not an album? Or rather, how many tracks does it take to push a mini-album up to a full album? The Early Learnings of Eugene McGuinness, the debut release from Eugene McGuinness (naturally) has 8 tracks, and it’s being classed as a mini-album. But all the Stooges classics had 8 or [...]
This is surely one of the most interesting releases of the year. Now we’re all familiar with tribute albums, where artists respectfully cover songs by someone they like. There’s even the rarer cases of bands covering entire albums (Camper Van Beethoven going Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk is one that springs to mind). But Rise Above, the [...]
So, Richard Hawley has got a new album out, and for the first time, there’s been a real sense of anticipation. Though it was his last record Coles Corner that properly introduced him to a wider audience (being nominated for a Mercury Music Prize and all that) it sold over a long period of time, [...]
I’m having a bit of a refurb round here. Getting the builders in and giving The Daily Growl a bit of a much-needed lick of paint. It’s started with the new banner up top there (kindly provided for my by my colleague Paul). Let me know what you think…
I’ve also been updating my blogroll, and [...]
Here’s a tale of former bandmates. In 2004, The Concretes released their self-titled debut long-player, which is an album I return to again and again, and it never fails to charm me three years on. In early 2006 they released their second record In Colour, which was another likeable collection of songs. Then last summer, [...]
I thought I had an idea of what to expect from the debut album by St Vincent. Maybe it’s the Sufjan connection. Both Annie Clark (for she is St Vincent) and Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond have served good quality time as part of Stevens’ touring band, and both now have solo projects not [...]
