VIA PRESS RELEASE | Joy Division announce Eternal (Live), their first-ever official collection of live concert recordings, available to pre-order now via Warner Music. Years in the making, this landmark release from one of the most seminal bands of our time, brings together audio from 16 live performances across 14CDs, meticulously sourced from audience recorded cassettes, soundboard tapes, and broadcast recordings, all mastered at Abbey Road Studios.

Eternal (Live) documents some of Joy Division’s most significant live performances of their career, including two previously unreleased shows, Hope & Anchor and Acklam Hall, and three previously unheard recordings, The Factory, Lyceum, Moonlight Club (April 2). It also features the band’s final live performance, at High Hall Birmingham in 1980, where they played “Ceremony” for the first and last time on stage.

There are two DVDs featuring over 2 hours 30 minutes of live shows, including the previously unseen Plan K, Brussels concert and two concerts and soundcheck from the Apollo Theatre, Manchester that have only been partially released on VHS (in 1982) and a brand new edit of Joy Division – A Malcolm Whitehead Film.

Housed in a 12″ x 12″ lift-off lid box with artwork by Warren Jackson, Peter Saville, Howard Wakefield, and Brett Wickens, the cover photography is Sirius Through a Defocused Telescope, 2023 by Wolfgang Tillmans. Eternal (Live) is completed by a 16 page booklet, including personal notes by Simon Armitage and photography by, amongst others, Anton Corbijn and Kevin Cummins.

Read More »

Remembering Big Bill Broonzy, born on this date in 1893. —Ed.

Born on June 26, 1903, William Lee Conley Broonzy, aka Big Bill Broonzy, was a giant of the blues. Cutting his first sides for Paramount in 1927, an extensive stretch of recordings followed across the next two decades. After a break in the late 1940s, he experienced a career resurrection that lasted until his untimely death in 1958, a sustained second wind that carried him to Europe, where he cut records for the Vogue label in France and was captured in performances of astonishingly high fidelity in the Netherlands. Grooving into vinyl a substantial portion of Broonzy’s shows in the titular city, Liberation Hall’s Live in Amsterdam 1953 arrived for Record Store Day Black Friday in 2022.

To appropriately comprehend the level of Big Bill Broonzy’s popularity, please consider his prolific output across the decade of the Great Depression. The brutal 1930s economic downturn decimated the young record industry, which had been thriving before the crash, and snuffed out recording opportunities for dozens of bluesmen, with a handful of those musicians later “rediscovered” in connection with the folk music boom of the 1950s-’60s. Broonzy was an early catalyst-beneficiary of that boom, and would’ve surely experienced further success had he not died in ’58.

Broonzy’s late ’40s sabbatical from touring (reportedly through doctor’s orders) found him working as a janitor at Iowa State University. It didn’t take him long to return to activity, and when he did there was a comfortable shift into folk blues mode as he kept company with Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee and Pete Seeger.

That Big Bill choose to hang around with ol’ Pete and Studs Terkel as he pivoted into a somewhat easygoing style no doubt ruffled the feathers of many a subsequent blues purist, particularly as the two Yazoo volumes of his early stuff, The Young Big Bill Broonzy 1928-1936 and Do That Guitar Rag: 1928-1935 are loaded with hokum smokers, wicked rags, and uncut bluesy oomph. Columbia’s Roots N’ Blues comp Good Time Tonight is also an excellent survey of his more urban 1930s motions that benefit from the cleaned up sound that was the Roots N’ Blues series specialty.

Read More »

Adi Newton is a founding figure of British experimental music whose work has shaped the genre for nearly five decades.

Before founding Clock DVA and TAGC/The Anti Group in 1978, he was an original member of The Future, the project that evolved into The Human League. Clock DVA stands alongside Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire as a pioneer of late-’70s and ’80s experimental sound, with releases like the 1980 debut Thirst on Fetish, named by Paul Morley in his NME review as one of the best debut albums of the decade, and the 1988 electronic landmark Buried Dreams.

Through TAG, a shifting collective working under his direction, Newton has pushed into extreme electronic territory with works like the ambisonic Digitaria and the Test Tones series. His art has been presented at ARS Electronica Linz, the V&A London, and the Reina Sofía in Madrid. He describes music-making as research, guided by intuition and arcane, occult, and futuristic knowledge.

Adi remains very busy working in all these projects and performing live with Clock DVA and TAG. Clock DVA recently released the 45th Anniversary reissue of Thirst, remastered and out on double “thirst-red” vinyl, CD, and digitally via The Grey Area of Mute.

Read More »

Celebrating Colin Greenwood, born on this day in 1969. —Ed.

Not long after Radiohead released 2000’s Kid A, my friend Patrick and I gave it a scathing review without having actually listened to it, on the basis that its only appeal was to depressives better served by listening to the Archies. We also surmised that if Thom Yorke was such a creep why bother, because who wants to hang out with a creep? And seems we weren’t alone. Author Nick Hornby lambasted Kid A, and a critic for England’s Melody Maker dismissed it as “tubby, ostentatious, self-congratulatory, look-ma-I-can-suck-my-own-cock whiny old rubbish.” You won’t hear that sort of language on The Crown.

It was the Melody Maker review that finally convinced me to give Kid A a listen–if the damn thing was really that bad, I wasn’t going to miss out on the opportunity to pile on. But Kid A isn’t the space age fiasco I’d hoped for; its Pink Floyd/Brian Eno vibe make it the perfect accompaniment to a hard day over a hot bong. Your more active types, on the other hand, risk drowning in its ambient ooze. That sound you hear off in the distance is a non-fan, crying out hopelessly for a lifeguard.

The band itself was split over Kid A’s new direction; vocalist/songwriter Thom Yorke went into the studio convinced rock music had “run its course,” while guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood and bass player Colin Greenwood worried that they risked producing “awful art-rock nonsense just for its own sake.” Yorke was full of it–folks have been writing rock’s obituary since the early 1960s. The Greenwoods were wrong as well–Kid A may not be my cup of studio overkill, but it’s a noble foray into the realms of electronica that works, at least in parts, very well indeed.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Divine providence brought Camila Grey and Leisha Hailey together once. Now, more than two decades later, Uh Huh Her, the synth duo that would help define the indie sleaze era and inspire contemporaries like Metric, Dum Dum Girls, and Magic Wands, are back and ready to beckon a new generation of fans to the dance floor with the re-release of their 2011 electropop classic, Nocturnes.

The reissue, titled Nocturnes: Redux, is due out August 7 via Kill Rock Stars across digital platforms and as limited edition goth confetti vinyl. It features the never-before-heard original mixes by super producer Tchad Blake (The Bangles, Arctic Monkeys, Sheryl Crow, Cibo Matto), plus two never-before-heard songs: the sensual and moody new song “Shook” and a cover of Sonic Youth’s classic “Kool Thing.”

Harnessing the band’s signature poetic lyricism and mesmerizing musicianship, the new single “Shook” released today is Uh Huh Her for the modern age. Cam, a singer and multi-instrumentalist whose credits include touring with Morrissey and Adam Lambert, and as a member of Strokes bassist Nikolai Fraiture’s supergroup Summer Moon, explains that the song is “particularly relevant in a time where everything and everyone feels so unstable.

We are living through a profound assault on our central nervous systems by the barrage of media we ingest on a daily basis. While “Shook” is more about a personal situation, the title speaks volumes about what we feel as humans on a daily basis.”

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | When L.A. Guns hit the Guild Theatre stage last summer, for the launch of their new album Leopard Skin, few in the audience knew what to expect.
​
Reviews of the album were unanimously impressed, and the band could easily have focussed on that alone. As rocket.net remarked in its review, “This isn’t some nostalgic retread. L.A. Guns aren’t stuck in the past—they’ve evolved naturally, delivering a record that feels fresh while staying true to their roots.”
​
But those roots were still flourishing, and though the show opened—as did the album—with “Taste It,” it quickly became apparent that the band’s entire history was going to be on display tonight, a truly crowd-pleasing set that delved back to their very first LP—the band’s last single, “Electric Gypsy,” span from that still epochal debut, and it sounds as fresh now as it did way back then.
​

Whetting the appetite even further, today sees another single come driving into view, the mighty “The Ballad Of Jayne,” first heard on the Guns’ second album, 1989’s Cocked And Loaded, and occupying much the same place in the live show as it did back then, as the band neared the end of the show.
​
Live, it is a triumphant power ballad that leaves the audience drained and the Guns triumphant. But it was also L.A .Guns’ first major hit single, reaching #33 in the US and #53 in the UK; and, while the song is widely believed to have been composed about Jayne Mansfield, the impossibly glamorous actress who died in a car accident in 1967, Tracii Guns says no, and he should know!

Read More »

Remembering Allen Lanier, born on this day in 1946. —Ed.

Good news! You don’t have to fear the Reaper! Blue Öyster Cult were only joking!

For years morons like yours truly were so wrapped up in Blue Öyster Cult’s ethos (evil as career choice) that we never caught on to the (manifestly obvious in hindsight) fact that the band was pulling our collective leg!

That’s right. Here we hayseeds thought they were, like, a bunch of Satan-worshipping Aleister Crowleys dabbling in Nazism and S&M when in reality they were just a coupla nice Jewish boys from Long Island sniggering down their collective sleeve at the hard-rock-loving suckers retarded enough to take them seriously. As occasional lyrics contributor and full-time rock critic Richard Meltzer said of the boys’ music, “This is really hard rock comedy.”

I don’t want you to get the impression that I’m some kind of terminal moron; I caught on to the joke a long, long time ago, and would have never fallen for it in the first place if I hadn’t been spending all my time smoking pot with pig farmers. Pig farmers and bikers make up the bulk of the Blue Öyster Cult fan base, and by that I don’t mean to imply pig farmers and bikers are stupid. Most of them are in on the joke too, and love it, because not only were Blue Öyster Cult funny back in 1972, they were one hotshit boogie band writing great songs that sounded even better after you drank a bottle of Wild Turkey and popped a few Placidyl.

Blue Öyster Cult’s eponymous 1972 debut may have less laughs than some of their later LPs, but it’s heavy on screaming diz-busters, inspiring anthems, a lil taste of the rock ’n’ roll apocalypse, and one very cool psychedelic threnody to a foot. In short it’s one helluva rock record, and well deserved the plaudits it received from just about every critical luminary (Christgau, Bangs, etc.) of the time.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Blow by Blow: The Jeff Beck Story, by acclaimed music journalists Brad Tolinski and Chris Gill, is the first biography to fully capture the life, music, and mystery of this singular artist. Drawing on more than 30 hours of original interviews with Beck, as well as extensive conversations with friends and collaborators including Jimmy Page, Johnny Depp, Clive Davis, and many others, the book delivers the most complete and revealing portrait of Beck ever assembled.

A follow-up to the bestselling Eruption: Conversations with Eddie Van Halen, this book goes far beyond the myth, uncovering the restless creative force behind Beck’s relentless reinvention—from his groundbreaking work with the Yardbirds to his genre-defying solo career.

Beck’s story is not one of steady ascent, but of constant evolution—marked by bold risks, missed opportunities, and moments of staggering brilliance. He turned down superstardom with the Rolling Stones, briefly joined Elton John’s band before walking away, and helped spark one of rock’s most enduring controversies over Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” His platinum-selling masterpiece Blow by Blow—an instrumental jazz-rock album few believed would succeed—became his biggest commercial triumph.

At the same time, Beck remained a deeply private figure. Through new reporting and firsthand accounts, Tolinski and Gill illuminate the man behind the music: fiercely independent, obsessively creative, and guided more by instinct than ambition. The book also explores Beck’s unexpected late-life friendship with Johnny Depp and the quiet, deeply personal circumstances surrounding his final days.

Read More »

Anybody seeking a full understanding of the 1980s underground music scene must reckon with the prolific if largely undercelebrated project F/i. Founded by Richard Franecki out of a creatively stalled early ’80s Milwaukee, WI hardcore scene, F/i honed a sound betwixt doom-laden early Industrial, surly experimental noise, abstract electronics, and even a smidge of kosmische atmosphere.

As one of the many outfits that helped define ’80s cassette culture, F/i favored self-releasing on said format before making arrangements with a few discerning labels. Invisible Men is Birdman Records’ reissue of a 1985 tape, plus a bonus track, on double vinyl in an edition of 500 with liner notes by Kark J. Palouček. It hits stores on June 26.

Milwaukee has a worthy punk history, but F/i sprang from the later period of the original hardcore wave, morphing out of the stylistic stagnation alongside the highest-profile hardcore band from the city, Die Kreuzen. Starting as straight-up hardcore (but good… real good, in fact), Die Kreuzen became one of the few post-hardcore bands to incorporate both post-punk and non-doofus heavy metal into their sound. This made Die Kreuzen a solid fit for the Touch and Go Records experience.

Prior to F/i, Franecki had played in The Drag (no known recordings) and The Shemps (a couple of tracks on Mystic Records compilations) and was part of The Surfin’ Führers together with Greg Kurczewski (an ex-bandmate from The Drag) and Brian Wensing. The Surfin’ Führers released a six-song demo, “Peewaukee Surf,” in 1983 that was eventually reissued in 2013 as a 10-inch metal acetate in an edition of 20 copies.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Mute / Future Days have announced details of the newest installment in a long running series of Can live albums: Can Live in Arles 1975. The new album—out on 25 September 2026—originates from a fan recording of the show, and documents a performance that founding member Irmin Schmidt remembers fondly.

Recorded on a sultry hot August night at the Roman Amphitheatre, Théâtre Antique d’Arles, Schmidt recalls, “I remember a very beautiful atmosphere. It was a summer night in the South of France, everybody was stoned and the atmosphere was very special.” This incredible recording mirrors the gauzy ambience of the evening.

Can Live in Arles 1975 features the core line up of Irmin Schmidt, Jaki Liebezeit, Michael Karoli, and Holger Czukay. The concert, with Nico and Kevin Ayres as well as Ash Ra Tempel supporting, is remembered by two fans—including the author / journalist Pascal Bussy—for the sleeve notes, which also feature a translation of a French magazine article from the time.

The new album is the latest in a series of live recordings that have been unearthed from the Spoon Records vaults and from fan recordings, then painstakingly assembled by founding member Irmin Schmidt and producer / engineer René Tinner.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | In his boisterous and entertaining memoir, Nigel Dick recounts his wild ride from record company motorcycle messenger to one of the world’s leading music video directors.

After a brief stint busking in the Paris Metro, Nigel Dick got his start in the music business at London’s upstart Stiff label in the late ’70s. From helping out on a Madness video, he began a career as a music video director; he went on to work with hundreds of stars, including Oasis, Ozzy, Cher, Paul McCartney, Guns n’ Roses, Toto, Britney Spears, Celine Dion, Alice Cooper, Def Leppard, Alice in Chains, and Tears for Fears. If you’ve watched MTV, you’ve seen his work.

Music Video Mischief goes behind the scenes for a wild ride through the creative process, the egos, the politics, and the logistics involved in making videos for A-listers. Dick shares entertaining tales of things going right and wrong, stars who were wonderful to work with and stars who weren’t, natural disasters, amazing triumphs, and mad dashes around the world—all with self-deprecating wit and the enthusiasm of a lifetime music fan.

Excerpt from Music Video Mischief | Richard Ogden called. Back in my motorcycle messenger days, I often dropped off packages at his office in West London. Back then he was managing Motörhead, but things had changed—I was now making music videos, and he was now managing Paul McCartney.

Read More »

There was a time in the early to mid-’70s when Glam was the hottest trend in music. Also referred to as Glitter rock, it had been brewing for a while and often encompassed groups or artists from other musical genres.

The dominant artists, who were all British, were David Bowie, Mott the Hoople, and T. Rex. By the time Glam was at the red-hot center of pop, T. Rex was, for the most part, the primary musical vehicle for Marc Bolan. Bolan had been on the scene for years before he hit big, starting with the short-lived John’s Children in the late 1960s.

Initially called Tyrannosaurus Rex, the group was, in their early days, primarily a duo comprised of Bolan and Steve Peregrin for their first three albums, with Mickey Finn replacing Peregrin for the fourth. The group played a distinctively trippy and heady brand of folk-inspired psychedelia on their first four albums. Two were released in 1968, one in 1969, and one in 1970.

The group became T. Rex in 1970 (thanks to some studio log-sheet shorthand by producer Tony Visconti) with their self-titled debut, which showed a funkier, flashier, more rock-oriented style, although Bolan and Finn were still the two main members. It wasn’t until 1971 with Electric Warrior that the group exploded and became truly a group with the addition of Steve Currie on bass and Bill Legend on drums, and with guests including Ian McDonald on sax, Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman on backing vocals, and Rick Wakeman supplying the keyboards on “Get in On.”

Read More »