We all partied, as the saying goes. LCD Soundsystem called it a day in 2011, and their three-night run in Tripod in 2010 was one of the defining events at the long-lost Dublin venue – […]
Category: Total recall
‘I think therefore I ambient’: Mixmaster Morris interview
Mixmaster Morris is the OG of the UK chillout room, an ambient pioneer who reworked the acid house experience to include soft landings alongside the all-night raving. You can loosely file him alongside The KLF […]
She drives me crazy: Grace Jones – Pull Up to the Bumper (1981)
A few years ago I had to pick some tunes for an X-rated list and I had Wu Tang Clan’s Dog Shit pencilled in – Ol Dirty Bastard’s leg-humping solo effort on Wu-Tang Forever. But […]
Roots Manuva interview: ‘It’s like a mud fight instead of a ballet’ (2008)
Not renowned for their modesty, most commercial hip-hop artists assign some ethereal majesty to their MTV-bankrolled ‘vocation’. For Rodney Smith Aka Roots Manuva, it’s a base instinct, a subconscious tic “I find it hard to […]
Too smart for the charts: Sparks – Hello Young Lovers (2006)
Sparks are about to release their 24th album Hippopotamus this Friday, and it’s another pop sidestep from the brothers Ron and Russell Mael, who’ve been upending pop conventions for nearly 50 years. Hippopotamus is a […]
For a crash course in house music history, Pump Up the Volume is a good place to start (2001)
The problem with dance music documentaries, history books and anthologies is that they date pretty quickly. New fads have writers like Simon Reynolds going back every few years to reshape their books with tacked-on chapters, […]
Lloyd Bradley’s Bass Culture is still the definitive history of reggae (2001)
As the late ska icon Prince Buster writes in the intro: “Jamaican music at last has the book it deserves”. I read Lloyd Bradley’s bulging history of reggae around 10 years ago and it’s one […]
No compromise: Remembering Suicide’s Alan Vega – a true one-off
It’s just over a year since Suicide frontman and co-founder Alan Vega passed away aged 78, and last night independent station Dublin Digital Radio broadcast a brilliant tribute to one of the most singular frontmen […]
30th Century Man lets us see through the fog of Scott Walker (2006)
Scott Walker is up there with David Bowie as one of the most universally revered artists in popular music, and the hyperbole is hitting morto levels on the BBC this week with Proms: The Songs […]
Don Letts just sent me on his top 10 ‘Crucial Reggae Killer Cuts’
With over 50 years of records to choose from, creating a top 10 reggae playlist is a hell of a job — but it helps if DJ Don Letts is helping out. Letts has been […]
Blazing Brixton soundclashes in cult UK reggae movie Babylon (1980)
I‘m getting into the zone preparing to interview Don Letts – cult and cultural icon, DJ, film director, writer, Big Audio Dynamitee and the UK’s most eminent reggae and dub historian of the last 40 […]
Stick this in your fuse box! Bon Scott interviewed in Covent Garden in a pair of denim hotpants (1976)
Imagine being the parents of a teenage Angus Young – then imagine he started hanging out with Bon Scott. By the time Angus was 15, he’d already dropped out of school in Sydney, started working […]
Skip the foreplay: Sparks become disco infiltrators on Beat the Clock (1979)
JUST last year, art-rock pranksters Sparks finally created an official YouTube channel, hoping to round up some of the greatest pop clips of the last five decades. So far they’ve got 45 videos and counting, […]
Strength to minimise: Helmet – In the Meantime (1992)
IF you were a teenage metaller in the early 90s but you didn’t fancy the double denim and patches look, Helmet were a hell of a lifeline. Loads of teen musical epiphanies involve a glimpse […]
No harm in a bit of pompous Europop: Voyage Voyage by Desireless (1986)
Voyage Voyage by Desireless is a pompous slice of French Europop fromage, but for me it’s a memory jolt back to the days of Top of the Pops with Paul Hardcastle’s opening credits, Pet Shop […]
Moo Kid 