British ska heroes THE SPECIALS scored their biggest hit
with GHOST TOWN this day 45 years ago, on 12 June 1981.
It topped the UK Singles Charts for 3 weeks.
The song’s sparse lyrics allude to urban decay, unemployment
and violence in inner cities in the UK, at the time.
Jerry Dammers(keyboards/songwriter): “The overall sense I wanted to convey was impending doom. There were weird, diminished chords: certain members of the band resented the song and wanted the simple chords they were used to playing on the first album. It’s hard to explain how powerful it sounded. We had almost been written off and then “Ghost Town” came out of the blue”
Track: BURIAL
The lead single from their 4th album, named Wasteland,
out on October 2nd. Tracklist and pre-order info here.
Album artwork
Press info: “‘Wasteland’ is an aggressive, genre-bending rock record knocking
on metal’s door while still managing to breathe through the chaos. It’s an intense headbanging journey between fast, bad-trip-inducing jams and contemplative
ambient passages.
New single ‘Burial’ opens the album and sets the tone for the rest of the journey. With dark, anxiety-inducing riffs, hypnotic vocals, insane guitar solos, and a fast-paced rhythm section, the song delivers 4 minutes and 41 seconds of pure suffocation, culminating in a catchy guitar lead that will stay stuck in your head for days.”
TUTV: Blimey. All hence on deck. Travo storm at 100 miles per hour through a thunder
and lightning kamikaze haymaker. Like a Formula One race car out of control, like a derailed comet.
Crazed guitar assault alarmingly, the octopus drummer batters as if his life depends
on it, while sinewy vocals add extra fervour. Brace yourself for a nuclear turbocharger,
for a ballistic blast.
BILLY IDOL (born William Michael Albert Broad in London, 70 years ago)
has 9 solo LPs under his belt, last year’s Dream Into It album, as his most
recent one.
In August/September, he’ll travel around the US for
a series of concerts with oldtimers Devo as one of
his guests.
Iconic hard rockers DEEP PURPLE have been around for ages. Their 24th LP,
named Splat! arrives on July 3rd. They’re starting their European tour today,
and it’ll keep them busy until November.
In the past few years, you could see rock titans GUNS N’ ROSES somewhere on this planet. And no pause. They’re about one third in this year’s run, with the UK/Europe and US dates coming next.
Band: THE MOUNTAIN GOATS Who: Californian veteran rockers THE MOUNTAIN GOATS, conducted
by singer/songwriter/musical mastermind and only original member John Darnielle have been playing around for more than 3 decades.
Track: SHALLOW GRAVE
Piece from their 24th LP, named Days. Available August 7th.
Vincent: “My musicianship is quite untrained, and I didn’t even realise I was writing it in 6/8 time. That’s the kind of stuff that’s been allowed to shine on this record, because it’s a full band and Sam’s jazz background helps those moments to work.”
TUTV: Ardency embraced by a slowly advancing devotion, sonically,
vocally, and lyrically. Big Truck are riding in the right direction.
Artist: VIOLET GROHL Who: The 20-year-old daughter
of Foo Fighters’ frontman.
Track: OFTEN OTHERS
Knockout belter from her debut full-length Be Sweet To Me.
She co-wrote all songs, mostly with the LP’s producers Anthony
Paul Lopez and Justin Raisen.
Mojo about the album: “She marr[ies] the etheral swoon of dream-pop with
the crunch of grunge, creating a fusion that evokes the off-kilter spirit of the ’90s.”
TUTV: Violet rocks with more supersized zing and determination than a bunch of today’s muscular groups. Hopefully, she will not be cited ‘like father, like daughter‘ all the time. Yes, there are Foo Fighters echoes, but in the end, it’s Violet‘s own, top-scoring debut opus.
THE ROLLING STONES are about to release their 25th LP Foreign Tongues, but let’s go back in time, more than half
a century, actually.
Today, 55 years ago, on 12 June 1971, they released the song WILD HORSES (more than 400 million streams on Spotify), in
the US, not in the UK
It was the 3rd single from their classic LP Sticky Fingers.
Earlier that year, Marianne Faithfull overdosed on sleeping pills.
When she woke up, she told Mick Jagger,“Wild horses wouldn’t drag
me away“.
Mick recalled, “Everyone always says this was written about Marianne, but I don’t
think it was; that was all well over by then. But I was definitely very inside this piece emotionally.”
The music originated, allegedly, as a lullaby Richards was writing for his newborn son.
Keith Richards said, “If there is a classic way of Mick and me working together this is it.
I had the riff and chorus line, Mick got stuck into the verses. Just like ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Wild Horses’ was about the usual thing of not wanting to be on the road, being a million miles from where you want to be.”
Blues rock veteran JON SPENCER has been riffin’ around since 1983. He did so, with…
take a deep breath, his first band Pussy Galore, his gang the Blues Explosion, with his wife Christina Martinez‘s inBoss Hog, with his group the Hitmakers, and now as a trio (under his own name) with Kendall Wind on bass and Spider Bowman on drums.
Press info: “Garage punk for today, hyper-driven soul and powerhouse grooves,
beats hard as diamonds and slick as ice, fuzz bass in your face, and an avalanche
of uncontrollable urges, pushing Jon’s latest outbursts — hollering, drooling, sexified crooning, and vociferously lamenting these difficult times — to new levels of rock’n’roll expressionism.”
Spencer: “I’m in a time of spiritual reckoning. These past few years, there has been a lot of emotional conflict and personal loss, the passing of time takes its toll. Losing friends, losing family, and all of this set against a world gone topsy-turvy, where it feels like we are losing
basic freedoms I’m trying to balance a lot of things, but the answer is always rock ’n’ roll.”
TUTV: Spencer is fed up, as millions of us, with that monkey in the White House. He totally messed up the world’s balance with trade wars, insulting and intimidating other countries and their leaders for not kissing his fat ass, and with his economically disastrous Iran war, and all this in just 18 months. Whatever disturbs Spencer’s mind, he seeks distraction in his music, as we music junkies do in listening to it.
There’s an abundance of anxiety, anger, and fury to ventilate on this new record, instigating a non-stop riff-licks-hooks flood. Old skool blues explosions. A 32-minute
tirade of raging rock ‘n’ rebellious roll excitation. Songs Of Personal Loss And Protest has enough deliberative firepower to reinvigorate us with the confidence to face and fight
the daily turmoil caused by larger-than-life egos in charge, who derail our lives.
Thanks, Jon.
Band: THE HAPPY SOMETHINGS Who: Mysterious indie pop trio from England. They describe themselves
as an “independently unpolished band who like to be happy. Unintentionally
retro. Effortlessly uncool“.
No band photos, their only visualized
through drawning and as action figures.
New single: CONSOLATION STREET
Piece from upcoming album
‘A Healthy Dose Of Hope‘.
Out on August 7th.
Their music isn’t mysterious whatsoever,
they write appealing indie guitar pop tunes.
“With your cropped tops and your hips that sway
and your belly button on display,
you don’t leave much to the imagination.”
Vitalizing tunes that work faster than a stream of caffeine
11 June 2026
New York‘s foolproof, post-hardcore-rock hellraisers SHOW ME THE BODY
announced a few weeks ago the upcoming release of their new full-length,
their 4th. It’s titled Alone Together and will come our way on July 10th.
