The LP’s cover is a portion of an oil painting by guitarist Graham Coxon called Apprentice
BLUR topped the UK Albums Chart on 21 March 1999, today 25 years ago.
It hit the top seat in Ireland and in several European countries too.
Q (British music monthly) said: “13 is a dense, fascinating,
idiosyncratic and accomplished art rock album.”
It featured romantic stadium sing-along anthem TENDER. It was written by the four band members about frontman Damon Albarn‘s breakup with musician turned painter Justine Frischmann (Suede / Elastica).
Forty years on from the release of their debut album, UNCUTcelebrates the band
with an 172-page Definitive Edition of our Ultimate Music Guide to THE SMITHS.
Mike Joyce (former drummer) “The music we were playing was so different, and it stayed like that throughout the Smiths’ career. It wasn’t punk or reggae or vaudeville, or something with big anthemic tunes but at the same time it was all of that. The band was never about the four individuals. You could say the same about the Beatles or the Stones: how did it work? Why did it work? It just happened that way, as a unit. What we were creating was so magical and diverse it drew us all in. What we did is bigger than us as individuals. We changed the perception of what indie bands were supposed to be.” ”
Collected here are incisive and in-depth reviews of all the band’s albums, and a selection of the best interviews from the archives. In an eight-page foldout miscellany timeline, you’ll find stats, maps, and insightful miscellany.
The past year has seen the passing of Andy Rourke, and it’s testimony to him and abiding ties of what The Smiths created together that Johnny Marr and Morrissey have both been of one mind in expressing their sadness and gratitude for his life. Marr knew Rourke as a close friend. Morrissey, as an admiring bandmate: “nothing that he played had been played by someone else”.
You can purchase a copy and let it be sent to your home. Info HERE.
Who:New York hit team that mixes sludge metal, noise rock, punk, and hardcore.
So far they have 2 LPs on their CV, Contempt (2017) and Take A Chance On
Rock ‘N’ Roll (2020) and #3 is coming up.
Kevin Hall (bassist): “The Donkey” is simultaneously simple and complex, like
a bucket of sewage which at first appears homogeneous, but upon close inspection
dazzles the mind and the senses with the diversity and pungency of its constituent
detritus.”
TUTV: With this barbaric mid-tempo sledgehammer you can crush Putin‘s balls
in an eye/ear blink. The Donkey (Abridged) is a ferocious hellraiser with the pulverizing
hard-punk-core power of a deranged tank.
Psycho-tic guitar frenzy, Herculean drum/bass ruckus, and in the middle of the war zone Megan Osztrosits‘s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde clamor sends shivers down your spine. He has pipes of barbed wire steel. Dogs have sex here, and razorblades and needles are flying around. Sounds like demonic fun, right? You betcha. Hallelujah.
“Fearing someone can be paralysing if you let it, but that fear can also act as
a fuel to help you push past the thing that scares you. That’s what our new song
is about – harnessing, repurposing and owning your nervous energy.”
“We wrote this about an experience, working for a boss, who ruled by intimidation
and fear. He didn’t have time for other people’s ideas or creativity. He was hellbent
on his way. Everyone in Royal Castles has spent lots of time in the theatre as teenagers.
That’s why we felt that wrapping those frustrations around a stage allegory could really
work, lyrically.”
TUTV: Spring is in the air, titillating tunes are in the air, like this frisky one that
rotates around a disco beat in overdrive, and has an instantaneous, activating
impact on your eager limbs.
Lively vocals and a jumpy synth chorus augment the briskness at play here.
Get up, stand up, take your blue suede shoes out of the closet and show us
your best hip moves. Shake your dancefloor fright off with this rad
head-over-heels twister.
In order to not miss a beat Turn Up The Volume scans the musical
horizon daily (doing it for years now, actually) to stay in touch with
all new things sonically great and shares the results on a weekly
basis.
Check the 10 new rad cuts just
added to this rad 2024 playlist.
ALL TOGETHER
. TRACK BY TRACK
Band: THE BLACK CROWES (Atlanta, US) Who: The blues rock Robinson brothers
“This is a song of two definitive sections. The first half was instinctive. It projects the uneasy feeling of late-night anxiety when you awake from sleep in the dark of the night and your brain jumps from one terrifying thought to another. The lyrics were just a continued representation of that atmosphere of the music, which spilled out on the page.
Haunting jam.
Eerie electricity.
Yearning vocality.
Blistering finale
Band: HOT JOY(St. Louis, Missouri) Who: Austin McCutchen (Choir Vandals / Foxing / Squint)
and co-vocals /bassist Nicole Bonura
New single: FINGERS ON MY SIDE
Piece from their upcoming debut EP, out on 19 April.
“This song is sort of about being afraid of confrontation, but leaning into it because you know it’ll make your life easier in the long run. By not confronting the things that are taking up space in your head, you’re living in a different sort of reality. Not knowing if anything is fact or fiction, feeling the friction of wrestling with those thoughts in your mind all the time.”
Sleater-Kinney jamming with Dinosaur Jr.
Guitar-bass-layered slackerness.
Melodic turbulence all the way.
Alex Edkins: “I was listening to lots of Jesu and Low, as I do most winters, when writing this one. Lyrically, it’s about missing your loved ones to the point of losing your grip on reality. We distorted and added a mechanical slap back to the drums to create a wild and huge sound. I love how big we got the production on this one. It’s like nothing we’ve ever made before, sonically or lyrically. Amber Webber (Black Mountain, Lightning Dust) was so great to work with, and her voice just takes this song to another stratosphere. I think the video by Colin Medley perfectly captures the vibe and intent of the song.”
Shoegaze guitar galvanism in slo-mo.
Starry-eyed, far-out, and hallucinatory. Metz explore new sonic boundaries.
“In “Cultural Consumer III the consumer has become a new ager who is blasting a killer curated playlist in his car on the way to the airport to fly to a meditation retreat in Taiwan. Despite all of his consuming and questing for self-help, unlike Bob Dylan, he has never once ‘gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing.’ He is just buying crap.”
Infamous British misfits FAT WHITE FAMILY – one of the best bands
of this Century on record and on stage – just announced the upcoming
birth of their 4th longplayer.
It’s baptized FORGIVENESS IS YOURS and lands on 26 April. Pre-order info here.
During the recordings co-founder and musical captain Saul Adamczewski left.
(Lias Saoudi, photo by TUTV)
Lias Saoudi, voice/face/wordsmith/poet/writer, about the LP: ‘Forgiveness Is Yours,’ is about life as eternal contingency…about no longer suspecting, but knowing that this shit will never get any easier…in fact, it’s about to get a whole lot worse, your body’s going to go into decay and the people you love will slowly start dropping dead around you…but somehow, you’ve smashed enough of your expectations thus far in life, you’re sort of fine with it…you accept it.The overarching aesthetic themes at work here are torpor and further torpor still.”
Sounds like FWF have written/recorded the soundtrack for our daily Doomsday experiences, as we know it. In the end, humankind will destroy itself rather sooner
than later. World War III is just around the corner.
Artwork
The three shared singles, so far.
– RELIGION OF ONE –
Enigmatic, pondering ballad with AI backing vocals by Pavarotti
– BULLET OF DIGNITY –
A trippy, richly orchestrated groove. The accompanying video shows the band,
led by commanding general Lias Saoudi , having an SM party (to my eyes that is)
– TODAY YOU BECOME MAN –
Word waterfall storytellin’ by Saoudi
Eternal rock & pop legend JOHN LENNON (1940-1980) married the love of his life YOKO ONO (now 91) in Gibraltar today 55 years ago, on 20 March 1969. They spent
their honeymoon in Amsterdam, campaigning with a week-long Bed-In For Peace.
To all Yoko haters: time to go to the toilets.
THE BALLAD OF JOHN AND YOKO
Standing in the dock at Southampton
Trying to get to Holland or France
The man in the Mac said, “You’ve got to go back”
You know, they didn’t even give us a chance
Christ, you know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be
The way things are going
They’re gonna crucify me
Finally, made the plane into Paris
Honeymooning down by the Seine
Peter Brown called to say, “You can make it okay
You can get married in Gibraltar, near Spain”
Christ, you know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be
The way things are going
They’re gonna crucify me
Drove from Paris to the Amsterdam Hilton
Talking in our beds for a week
The news people said, “Say what you doing in bed”
I said, “We’re only trying to get us some peace”
Christ, you know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be
The way things are going
They’re gonna crucify me
Saving up your money for a rainy day
Giving all your clothes to charity
Last night the wife said, “Poor boy, when you’re dead
You don’t take, nothing with you but your soul”
Made a lightning trip to Vienna
Eating chocolate cake in a bag
The newspaper said, “She’s gone to his head
They look just like two gurus in drag”
Christ, you know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be
The way things are going
They’re gonna crucify me
Caught the early plane back to London
50 acorns tied in a sack
The men from the press said, “We wish you success
It’s good to have the both of you back”
Christ, you know it ain’t easy
You know how hard it can be
The way things are going
They’re gonna crucify me
The way things are going
They’re gonna crucify me
Singer-songwriter JOHN GRANT, born in Buchanan, Michigan 55 years ago and now living in Iceland, Europe was a former member of alt-rockers The Czars (1994–2006) and has so far 4 solo LPs on his CV and number 5 is recorded and ready to be launched.
Press info: “The Art Of The Lie is Grant’s most opulent, cinematic, luxurious album
yet and confirms Grant’s status as a modern electronic auteur. Grant likens the musical flavours of The Art of the Lie to the sumptuous Vangelis soundtrack for Bladerunner or the Carpenters if John Carpenter were also a member. While undeniably a John Grant record, nestling humour into tragedy, bleeding anger into compassion, there is a musical ambition and nerve to ‘The Art of the Lie’ which offsets its most political and personal moments.”
The daft album trailer.
The first track that is shared is called IT’S A BITCH.
Grant: “It was a blast making this track which is just about having fun with words, synths, dope rhythms and bass lines, and also making fun of post-COVID malaise. Plus, people get to ponder what a ‘hesher’ is. I loved going to the arcade in the 80s and watching smokin’-hot heshers hold court while playing Tempest, Stargate, Robotron and Asteroids, and while also blasting Iron Maiden and Rush on their Walkmans.”
You don’t hear John Grant
going friskily funky every day.
Press info: “Over the past 15 years Cloud Nothings have become part of the fabric of modern indie rock with a steady run of reliably fantastic records, and this streak continues unabated with Final Summer – an album that’s so assured, so instantly satisfying, that it forces you to pause and realize you’re listening to one of the great American rock bands
in their prime.”
Album artwork
Today we can enjoy track #3, titled I’D GET ALONG
from the upcoming full length (stream all 3 below).
Dylan Baldi: “I got pretty obsessed with the band Earth during the pandemic, and that
led to an obsession with other doom metal, and then I started buying lots of fuzz pedals and downloading distortion plugins online — basically just anything that would blow out my guitar sound and get it sounding somewhere in the deep and fuzzed out ballpark of the heavy music I was listening to. ‘I’d Get Along’ is sort of a Cloud Nothings take on that sound, where the guitar is big and bulky but there’s a really poppy vocal melody on top, and the drums are bouncy and rolling around the other instruments in their own idiosyncratic way.”
