Nothing did more to further the cause of Alternative Nation-building than 120 Minutes, MTV’s Sunday-night video showcase of non-mainstream acts. For nearly two decades, the program spanned musical eras from ’80s college rock to ’00s indie, with grunge, Britpop, punk, industrial, electronica and more in between. MAGNET raids the vaults to resurrect our 120 favorite and unjustly forgotten [...]

Living in the Hampshire / Surrey / Berkshire borders in my teens and twenties meant that unless I took the forty minute train ride to London, exposure to indie / alternative music culture was very restricted. There were very few venues to see bands in and the clubs were full of hair gelled boys dressed in pastel coloured suits trying to get off with girls in ra-ra skirts, high heels and bad make up. The kind of girl I liked was more likely to be found in a pair of Doctor Marten boots and a pretty flowery dress, and they [...]

Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine - This Is How It Feels [Inspiral Carpets] | zs
PLAYLIST: Fiery Furnaces – Chris Michaels Suede – Moving Clinic – The Return of Evil Bill Sharks – Brassneck Standard Fare – Fifteen The View – Wasted Little DJs Poster Children – He’s My Star Carter USM – The Undertaker and the Hippy Protest Singer Sugar – Frustration The Concretes – You Can’t Hurry Love The Soundcarriers – Cannonball Flowered Up – It’s On Husker Du – Books About UFOs The Raveonettes – Twilight The Twang – Loosely Dancing
PLAYLIST: Fiery Furnaces - Chris Michaels Suede - Moving Clinic - The Return of Evil Bill Sharks - Brassneck Standard Fare - Fifteen The View - Wasted Little DJs Poster Children - He's My Star Carter USM - The Undertaker and the Hippy Protest Singer Sugar - Frustration The Concretes - You Can't Hurry Love The Soundcarriers - Cannonball Flowered Up - It's On Husker Du - Books About UFOs The Raveonettes - Twilight The Twang - Loosely Dancing
Just like a Simpsons episode, Danger Radio only gets better with repeated listenings. PLAYLIST: Fall On Me - Alpha Stone Just Desserts - Art Brut Needles In My Eyes - The Beta Band Kaleidoscope - The Boo Radleys The Undertaker And The Hippy Protest Singer - Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine One To Another - The Charlatans This Is Radio Clash - The Clash Human Behavior - The Decemberists Under Canvas Under Wraps - The Delgados Well And Truly Done - Little Barrie [...]
This week the Mackerel family celebrated Moomin's birthday with Norwegian Blurt Kake (or something like that). We've presented workshops on good writing (ha!), been to the seaside, accidentally mowed down a rabbit, missed out on the fireworks with Mrs Mackerel, and watched the brilliant Frailty for the first time - go Otis!So in some respects we've had some death and glory this week, compounded

The Smiths – This Charming Man (1983): This is listening to John Peel . This is a special new world. The excitement of something new and vital when music had seemed to go downhill in the aftermath of the demise of The Jam . This is snobbish rejection of mere ‘chart pop’. This is the exclusivity of the ‘in’ and the ‘unknown’. This is identifying with sensitivity whilst being at a rugby-dominated University (it was Wales after all). This is rejecting accepted [...]
WARNING - JC IS ON HIS SOAPBOX TODAY......... It's no secret that I'm a huge fan of cover versions, and I've featured many of my favourites in these pages over the years. Today's offering is one that I'm ashamed to say I had forgotten about, and when it came round yesterday on shuffle on the i-pod, it was probably the first time in maybe a decade that I had actually listened to it. It's a

I'm currently in the process of converting all my vinyl to mp3, a daunting task but well worth it. Music must be one of the most emotive of mediums. Certain records take be right back to 80s/90s - being wrecked at the Reading festival, dodgy clothes, even dodgier hair and Karen...aah, the lovely Karen!. It all seemed so innocent back then, but then I'm getting old!!! I've provided you lucky people with three of my faves from back in the day; Stourbridge's finest - Pop Will Eat Itself, fellow midlanders The Wonderstuff and and the dynamic duo themselves - Carter [...]

1997 löste sich eine der besten Bands der Welt offiziell auf - Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine (oder kurz Carter USM ). Ein Umstand, den ich schon vor einiger Zeit ( HIER ) würdigte und deren Absenz auf der Bühne des Punkpop schmerzlich zu spüren war. Letztes Jahr nun gaben Jim Bob und Fruitbat bekannt, dass sie noch einmal zwei Gigs, als Abschiedskonzerte, geben würden. Beide Veranstaltungen (in London und Glasgow) waren flott ausverkauft und, so hörte man, ein großer Erfolg. Aus diesem Grunde wird es nun im November [...]
The Indelicates Genre: Indie / Folk Rock / Punk From: Brighton, United Kingdom Last.Fm is one of the 7th wonders of the Internet. Since signing up (a little late to the party I know but then I saw it's face and now I'm a believer) I've been introduced to some great stuff that had passed me by. The [...]

New Years Eve is generally rubbish I find. It's pretty much a night like any other, although it costs four times as much to do anything, and is compounded by a pressure to enjoy yourself which almost certainly ensures that you probably won't. Up until last year, for two years in a row I found myself doing the deejaying on New Years Eve. The first year was in a basement in Soho, which held a maximum of 50 people, at a push. The drink was relatively cheap, and I found myself greeting the new year in a double [...]
OK, part two of my attempt to fill in the blanks of Rhino's worthy but incomplete Brit Box chronicling the UK indie scene from 1985 - 2000. (Part One, or Disc Five, is here.) Mind you, these are filtered through...
EAR FARM's Last.fm tells only part of the story, so let's check in with the 10 albums getting the most attention at EF HQ at the moment. There's a song from each album posted below, and a link to purchase each on Amazon/iTunes (if available). -- Rust In Peace by Megadeth - If you haven't already, I bet you're finally starting to realize that my love of metal is pure, real, and entirely devoid of irony. Unless you count hair metal, but let's not go there [...]

Oh, Dear Readers, it has been an unexpectedly exhausting week. Work has been hectic, thanks ultimately to those greedy enough to have cultivated the reprehensible and irresponsible practice of subprime mortgage lending. But let's not go there. I'm tired, I'm spent, I'm emotional. So when I saw this I just about wanted to cry. Sod it, all I want is to give peace, love and kisses out to this whole stinking world... Have a lovely weekend, and be excellent to each other!! Carter USM [...]

I think it was the late Marvel writer and editor Mark Gruenwald who once stated that “Every character is someone’s favorite.” If that attributed maxim is true, then who among you will testify to “The Sacrifice of Kid Psycho”? Anyone? Anyone? No? Okay, then I guess it’s up to me. Our story begins in Superboy #125 (December 1965), when a teenage Clark Kent encounters a mysterious youth walking about Smallville. Dressed like he’s auditioning for a role in Johnny Carson’s Carnac Babies and possessing a code name better suited to any given [...]

(with apologies to Edith Wharton) Armagideon Time, in conjunction with Fawcett Publications, is proud to present this very special episode of Captain Marvel .... It's the combination of the doctor's cherubic face and pencil-thin moustache that adds that extra level of creepiness, don't you think? You know that thought-provoking but contextually inaccurate line about how the Roman Empire had all the available technology to create a steam locomotive/microwave oven/"slammable" form of yogurt, but never managed to put the pieces together? This panel [...]

This week's 4 tracks come from a grab-bag of mixed CDs I picked up from The Beat Goes On for about $1.99 each. 1989 was a banner year for music in my humble opinion, as exemplified in an early QBiM post . It was also the year that I attended my first real rock concert and Toronto's Exhibition Stadium. The bill was The Sugarcubes, Public Image Limited , and New Order. That's Björk, John Lydon, and the living members of Joy Division--not too shabby for the first [...]

I can’t remember the exact circumstances why, but a while back I made a list of the most depressing places I’ve ever had the misfortune of visiting. It’s all relative, of course. I’ve never set foot inside a hospice for terminally ill children, for example, so my definition of “depressing” could very well differ from yours. I just wanted to get that out up front, lest someone think I’m a callous son of a bitch. Some of the places on the list are self-explanatory, like the psych ward of the Bedford VA hospital or the nursing [...]