Just Another Social Profile Really

As I’ve said before, I’ve never been a huge Beastie Boys fan, in terms of buying their albums and listening to them all the way through, repeatedly. But a huge number of their songs have a large hold on my heart, and I’m guessing that there are plenty of people like me who will have [...]

So, last Saturday saw Gilles Peterson’s first show on the wonderful 6Music, and it was great. Rambling, sprawling, diverse and, most importantly, oozing with a self-evident love of music, it covered everything from David Bowie to Paul Weller, Dr. John to Jamie xx, Quantic to Dinosaur L, and even a weird little cover of The [...]

I’ve written before about DJ DSK (AKA my old flatmate from Sydney, Nick). And I’ve written about Eric B. & Rakim before. Well, now my Nick/DJ DSK has got together with a rapper called Mystro to do an homage to the Eric B. & Rakim classic I Know You Got Soul. It’s excellent in many [...]

Well, that’s 2011 more or less wrapped up. Where the bloody hell it went, I have no idea, but, as I do most years, I thought I’d finish it by wrapping up my favourite albums of the year. Now, I should probably add at this point that, because I’m no longer a teenager who buys [...]

I can’t decide whether I love or hate Devlin’s cover version of The Jam’s classic track Town Called Malice. As anyone who knows me, or has ever seen my last.fm profile will know, I think Paul Weller is an absolute genius, and one of the best British musicians of the last 30 years. In fact [...]

So, he didn’t win the Mercury, though I think he should have done. But he is playing in Dublin next week (I’m going!) and he’s done this rather lovely accoustic version of the, excellent, Us Against Whatever Ever, from the equally excellent début Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam, for something called The Secret Sessions, which I’ve not [...]

As I said the other day, and again since, I’ve been thoroughly disappointed by Watch The Throne, the album by the (supposed) hip hop dream team of Jay Z and Kanye West. It’s the sound of millionaires coasting, phoning in an album for lulz, recycling their best work and devaluing it in the process. It’s [...]

I downloaded  the new Jay Z & Kanye West album, Watch The Throne, last night and was, after my first listen, rather disappointed. Is this really the best that two of the most successful, innovative and inspiring hip hop artists have to offer? Boasting, girls, n***ers * bling? Much of it with beats & rhythms that [...]

Whilst my grand plan to hit shuffle on my iPod every day, and then to write about the first track to come along, didn’t last much past the new year, I have been using shuffle a lot recently. But rather than finding individual tracks, I’m using it to hit upon whole albums I can listen [...]

Well, this is the joy of Glastonbury (by which, obviously, I mean watching it from the sofa). As, the ever more lovely, Lauren Laverne, and, the ever more Peel-like, Mark Radcliffe, take over the coverage (after a U2 set that, I’m not ashamed to admit, brought a tear to my eye when a real-life spaceman [...]