VIA PRESS RELEASE | A Certain Ratio celebrate two anniversaries this year: 45 years since they went into Revolution Studios in Cheadle Hulme, Stockport to record Sextet (1982) and 40 years since the release of the 1986 album Force—and mark the occasion with companion releases for each of the albums out on 28 August, and an anniversary tour in October. Sextet and Force are two of ACR’s classic, and beloved, album releases so the band have put together two very different albums—The Joy of Sextet and Force Majeure—to accompany their anniversaries.

Sextet was ACR’s third studio album and showed a whole new side to the band. It was described on release as “… an album of the present, killing the present and agreeably ignoring the future” by Sounds and more recently reappraised by Pitchfork who said it “still sounds like no other record.” The line-up for Sextet features Martha “Tilly” Tilson, who the band had met in New York while they were recording To Each… Tilly’s lyrics, Jez Kerr explains, “reflect her take on life in Manchester, “walk along the waterline, see the ships passing by, grey skies, still water.”

This singular release—which spent 11 weeks in the UK Independent Chart, reaching the #1 slot—has been given a brand-new mix by long-time collaborator Andy Meecham (The Emperor Machine) from the original album session tapes. Talking about the process, Meecham explains, “Taking on an epic album like this involved pushing up the faders again from the original 1981 2”multitracks adding some new dynamics while recapturing the sound of 1981 without losing the original raw energy and feel.”

Read More »

Celebrating Morrissey on his 67th birthday. —Ed.

Morrissey has long been the funniest man in the rock biz. The King of the Miserablists (my own word) and high priest of unrequited love has turned self-pity and general anomie into pop gold, and in the process has proven Samuel Beckett’s famous adage that “Nothing is funnier than unhappiness.” But the Moz is more than just a jilted jester. He can hit the tragic notes too, although he often filters them through irony and his trademark humor.

Since his beginnings with The Smiths, Morrissey has cut a unique figure on the pop landscape. Fey, sensitive as a flower, yet possessed of a wit as cutting as a straight razor, Morrissey is the closest we’ve ever gotten to a second coming of Oscar Wilde. He strikes one as being much too tender a violet for this world, yet can vent contempt as well as Bob Dylan. Throw in a unique voice, and a personal life that is veiled in myth and conjecture, and you’ve got my idea of the perfect pop figure—one who looks at life darkly, but transmutes that darkness into irresistible pop songs. Really, is there—or has there ever been?—another pop star who could pull off a song as complex, ironic, and ultimately hilarious as “Girlfriend in a Coma”?

I’m one of those rare birds who, all things considered, slightly favors Morrissey’s solo work to his work with The Smiths. That said, I’ve always felt the pull of Strangeways, Here We Come, from its title with its mention of a now-defunct English prison to such moving songs as “Death of a Disco Dancer” and “Paint a Vulgar Picture.” Strangeways was the fourth and final Smiths studio LP, with Morrissey and Marr parting ways after some false information in the press giving the impression that Morrissey was exasperated by Marr’s side projects managed to sever their remarkably successful partnership.

The Smiths hailed from Manchester in 1982 and included Morrissey on vocals; Johnny Marr on guitar, keyboards, harmonica, autoharp, synthesized strings, and saxophone arrangements; Andy Rourke on bass; and Mike Joyce on drums. Marr wrote the music, Morrissey the lyrics, just like Elton John and Bernie Taupin.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | “Tony Fletcher, one of the great post-punk inspirational writers and thinkers: his fanzine Jamming! inspired me to start Creation. POW! is his story of that period. Take a bow Tony, you always were a cool chap.” —Alan McGee, author of Creation Records: Riots, Raves and Running a Label

Before authoring 11 books, including best-selling biographies of Who drummer Keith Moon, R.E.M., and The Smiths, Tony Fletcher was a teenage music magazine publisher in his native England. But, with a degree of industry that sounds absolutely exhausting, he also ran a record label, interviewed rock stars, led a band, promoted concerts, worked as an on-air TV interviewer—and still found time for romance.

Fletcher chronicled the early days of his life and career in Boy About Town (2013), but had enough extraordinary experiences left over for this colorful and engaging memoir.

1980–’84 was an explosive time in British rock, as the disruptive energy of bands like The Clash and Sex Pistols gave way to more sophisticated and chart-friendly genres and bands. Fletcher was on the front lines, running a record label with the Jam’s Paul Weller, attending all the important concerts and meeting the top acts, many of whom became MTV regulars: Madness, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, Wham!, Echo & the Bunnymen, Killing Joke, Adam and the Ants, The Smiths, and more. Then there’s the time he interviewed Paul McCartney…

Read More »

When Stephen King set out to make the 1986 film Maximum Overdrive (the only film he ever directed), he knew exactly who he wanted to produce the music for the soundtrack—AC/DC.

And in order to show AC/DC how much he loved their music, he sat them down and sang over their song “Ain’t No Fun (Waiting Round to Be a Millionaire)”–all six minutes and fifty-four seconds of it. I don’t know if King attempted a Brian Johnson imitation as he did this. But the band promptly said, “Okay, sure, count us in.” I suspect it was out of fear that King would follow “Ain’t No Fun” with a version of “Big Balls.”

The film was a monumental flop. It was so bad that King himself would later call it “a moron movie.” The band didn’t think much of it either (“…when we watched his film we thought it should be made into a comedy to be honest,” said Malcolm Young). Their opinion was shared by every marsupial in Oz. And said one outraged dingo drily, “THIS is the baby we should have eaten.”

By contrast, the soundtrack by every rock-loving sentient being’s favorite band from Down Under is merely a disappointment. 1986’s Who Made Who could have been the unofficial Greatest Hits record by a band that has never released a Greatest Hits record.

It isn’t for three reasons. The first is song selection. The second stems from King’s request that the band write some original songs for the soundtrack, and two of the three songs the band came up with were instrumentals. The third is the Who Made Who soundtrack, which includes only one Bon Scott number.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Variety called Trouser Press “one of the greatest music magazines in history” and described Zip It Up! (2024) as “practically a real-time history of some of the best rock music of that era.”

Zip It Up! Too is packed with more enthusiastic, in-depth coverage of a diverse collection of artists. Vintage interviews with Paul McCartney, Jeff Beck, Bill Wyman and members of The Who provide insight into classic rock history, while profiles of the Police, Talking Heads, Duran Duran, The Cars, Devo, The Pretenders, and New Order reflect the progress of music in the 1980s. There are features on Nick Drake, Ian Dury, The Modern Lovers, Lene Lovich, ABBA, The Troggs, and the German group Can—as well as a previously uncollected Ramones interview by the famed Lester Bangs.

Zip It Up! Too includes 21 “autodiscographies,” a unique Trouser Press feature in which artists spoke about each of their albums in sequence, sharing detailed behind-the-scenes memories of them. Stars who opened their musical closets to Trouser Press include Genesis, Jethro Tull, Jefferson Airplane, Cheap Trick, Sparks, Iggy, Blondie, Slade, and Ian Hunter (Mott the Hoople), all of whom provided fascinating first-person documents of real historical value.

Trouser Press began as a mimeographed fanzine in New York in 1974 and grew to a glossy national monthly by the end of its existence in 1984. Although known for its coverage of British bands, the magazine more generally focused on music that was underground, independent, or unappreciated. Fans called it “the bible of alternative rock.” Trouser Press put its name to five album review guides published in the 1980s and 1990s and continues with a dedicated website at www.trouserpress.com.

Read More »

Celebrating Kevin Shields on his 63rd birthday. —Ed.

My Bloody Valentine’s famously obsessed frontman spent 3 long years and a whole shitload of other peoples’ money making this 1991 shoegaze classic, and he didn’t deliver a follow-up until 2013. Seems Kevin Shields found Kevin Shields a tough act to follow. As for the guy whose money he spent (Creation Records honcho Alan McGee), his verdict on the record is on the record. In 2014 he said, “Loveless is fucking overrated as fuck.”

Well I humbly fucking disagree. While there are brief moments on Loveless when my attention wanders, My Bloody Valentine’s “sheets of tampered guitar noise meet dreamy melodies and hushed vocals” recipe is a winning one. The songs contained therein are simultaneously abrasive and deliciously mesmerizing–Loveless is as hypnotic a drug as nembutal, but it won’t put you to sleep.

The formula’s simple–Shields utilizes a whole mess of tricks (reverse reverb, tremolo techniques, tuning systems, samplers, etc.) to create oceanic swells and tidal washes of guitar that he harnesses to beguiling melodies over which he and Bilinda Butcher sing like sedated angels. Every single review I’ve ever read has described the guitars on this record as “swirling,” but that’s not what I hear. I hear churning–the churning of raw distortion into creamy dream pop butter.

Both mood and volume vary–for some reason “Only Shallow” and “What You Want” are twice as loud as anything else on the LP–but for the most part what you get are a set of songs that sound, well, like some mad genius fucked with them in the studio until they sounded wrong–wrong in such a way that obliges you, dear listener, to grow an entirely new set of ears in order to hear them right. And you do. After a while the brain-melting seesaw guitars and slushy and pureed vocals not only begin to make sense but to sound inevitable–as inevitable as any great forward leap in music, or any of the arts for that matter.

Read More »

There are voices in rock and roll that don’t just sing—they summon. Mike Peters had one of those voices. For more than forty years, he stood at the front of The Alarm like a man holding the line against the dark, fist clenched, jaw set, every syllable a small act of defiance.

On Transformation, that voice rises one final time. I have been with this band since I was a fourteen-year-old kid wearing the grooves off Declaration in 1984, learning every word of “68 Guns” like it was scripture taped to my bedroom wall. I am telling you now, with my hand on the record: this is the most quietly devastating, most stubbornly hopeful thing The Alarm has ever put to tape. This isn’t a swan song. It’s a stand.

Cut between October 2024 and January 15, 2025—the night before Peters began CAR-T therapy for Richter’s Syndrome—Transformation was made by a man who fully believed he was going to win. You can hear that belief in every chord, every cymbal crash, every time he leans into a chorus like he’s still got a mountain to climb.

The copy I am holding is the standard black vinyl pressing, not the limited white-and-clear edition with the signed card, and even without that collector’s flourish, the package is a knockout. The cover appears to be an MRI scan of Peters himself, a ghostly blue-green portrait of the body that was waging the war—it took me a long moment to realize what I was looking at, and then it took my breath.

Read More »

Hailing from Vancouver, the Modernettes stand as one of Canada’s consistently undersung early punk bands. They released their debut recording, the EP “Teen City,” in 1980 on Quintessence Records. Energetic catchiness is the default mode as the six songs straddle the power pop and new wave. If falling a little short of a masterpiece, the set is still a worthwhile acquisition, so it’s sweet that the 45th Anniversary Edition Custom Vinyl is out now from Porterhouse Records.

If the Modernettes don’t get enough credit, they are far from forgotten. If the discography is slim, nearly everything has been reissued at least once. The band’s classic trio lineup was in place for the debut, consisting of John Armstrong, aka Buck Cherry, on guitar and lead vocals, Mary Armstrong, aka Mary-Jo Kopechne, on bass and vocals, and John McAdams, aka Jughead, on drums and vocals.

Buck Cherry had previous experience playing guitar in Active Dog, a short-lived band that released one 45, “Rat Race” b/w “Good Filthy Fun” in 1979 and landed one song, “Fun While it Lasts,” on the compilation Vancouver Complication alongside such heavy-hitters as D.O.A., Subhumans, Pointed Sticks, No Fun, and Dishrags.

Did Active Dog land on a Killed by Death boot? Yes indeed, #17, in fact, plus Bloodstains Across Canada and Hyped 2 Death #5. Wasted Lives, with Mary-Jo Kopechne on bass, were also included on Vancouver Complication. Kopechne also played in Big Black Puppets prior to the formation of the Modernettes. A split 45 featuring Wasted Lives and Big Black Puppets was released in 1979.

Read More »

WORDS AND IMAGES: SEAN McKRACKEN | Picture this: the sun dips into the Pacific, a rum punch sweats in your hand, and somewhere on the lido deck, WAR rips into the opening notes of “Low Rider” while eight thousand fans, arms in the air, belt every word back at the band. That is not a daydream. That is a Tuesday on the Old School Cruise, and after sailing back-to-back voyages this past April, I can tell you with full confidence that this is the most fun you can legally have on a boat.

At the end of April, Concert Cruise Events ran back-to-back sailings of the Old School Cruise—the first, a three-day trip to Ensenada, and the second, a five-day run to Cabo San Lucas. Between the two cruises, roughly 8,000 fans were partying and soaking in one of the most unique music experiences around. By the time the gangway closed on the second sailing, most of us were already plotting how to get back on board for the 2027 voyage.

As you board either of the two cruises, the trip kicks off with a party in the Atrium where cruise staff pass out rum punch so everyone can start the party off right. As we pulled away from port, WAR launched the cruise with every hit they’re known for, including “Low Rider,” “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” and so many more. Later that night, Lisa Lisa, Heatwave, Bloodstone, Club Nouveau, and The Intruders kept the party going late into the night. The final show of the evening was a fun, intimate set with Big Mountain.

The next morning started early with the Funky Brunch, where the Mike Torres Band played covers while everyone tucked into mimosas and ocean views. Daytime sea-day performances included Club Nouveau, who were joined by nine-year-old Oliver Kai—a kid who absolutely killed a cover of Prince’s “1999.” Other old-school favorites that played that day included Lighter Shade of Brown, Bloodstone, and many more.

Day three of the first cruise was the stop in Ensenada. Things kicked into high gear later with The Miracles, followed by Keith Sweat in front of a crowd that was packed wall to wall. The rest of the night rolled on with sets from WAR, Trinere, and more.

Read More »

VIA PRESS RELEASE | Ten years ago, The Tragically Hip took the stage for the final time in their hometown of Kingston, Ontario. That extraordinary night has since become woven into Canada’s cultural fabric, and now, the band is set to honor its legacy with the release of a landmark live album (August 21) and exclusive CBC rebroadcast/global live stream of A National Celebration (August 22 at 7 p.m. local time)—the band’s last show.

The album, Live July 22 – August 20, 2016, arrives August 21, 2026, via UMe. Featuring recordings from the band’s unforgettable final cross-Canada tour, the collection captures The Tragically Hip’s last stand in real time, powerful, unfiltered, and preserved in Dolby Atmos for generations to come. Fan favorites “Fifty-Mission Cap” recorded in Edmonton and “Locked In The Trunk Of A Car” from the final night in Kingston are out now.

The Kingston finale marked the closing chapter of the Man Machine Poem Tour, a 15-date, coast-to-coast farewell that reached millions. One-third of Canadians tuned in at a fever pitch; they filled arenas, gathered in public squares, and watched from living rooms and on their phones. As CBC’s historic 2016 broadcast unfolded, the nation stood still. It was more than a concert; it was a shared heartbeat.

Billed as A National Celebration, the final Kingston show had Canadians and fans worldwide come together to honor a band whose songs are stitched into the collective subconscious of this country. CBC will rebroadcast the concert, commercial-free, as it originally aired at local time (7:30 NT), nationwide on both services. It will be available globally on CBC Music’s YouTube channel and throughout North America on SiriusXM on CBC Radio One (ch 169) and Canada Talks (ch 167).

Read More »

Bob Dylan turns 85 on May 24. June 20 will mark the 60th anniversary of the release of Blonde on Blonde, perhaps Dylan’s most ambitious album and the one that concluded the trilogy of albums that was the peak of his legendary rise to mythical musical supremacy in the 1960’s. Dylan is still going strong today and is in the middle of the so-called “never-ending tour.”

A recent box set of his music—yet another laudable archival project in his long-running Bootleg Series—magnificently frames the era when Dylan, the musical artist, was being born and then exploded like a comet in the early ’60s. There have been some exceptional bootleg series releases, but this one is truly consequential and could not have come at a more opportune time.

The Bootleg Series Vol. 18: Through The Open Window, 1956-1963 is available in various formats, including an eight-CD box set with 139 tracks and a 4-LP Highlights package with 42 tracks. Both will be covered here.

The release doesn’t just cover Dylan’s emergence as a musician and songwriter, but also places his music and its significance in the context of the folk revival and the fertile, historic Greenwich Village folk scene of the early ’60s. It also reflects the watershed protest voice of a generation of songs that Dylan himself called his finger-pointing songs. Dylan was never comfortable with the protest-singer/voice-of-a-generation label and quickly shed that sobriquet as his songwriting matured.

Dylan fans who relish collecting and hearing his unreleased recordings will be thrilled by the overflowing bounty of never-before-released recordings included in this set. The eight-CD set includes a whopping 59 previously unreleased recordings.

Read More »