
We're at Derby's new venue tonight, The Royal formerly the Royal Hotel although it closed as a hotel in 1950. Both tonight's bands comment on the posh-ness of the surroundings when they come on stage, which is quite late. The support act play at 9.15, the main band at 10.15. First up are a band called Madskull. The name doesn't sound promising and neither does the lack of a drumkit. Then when a badly dressed group of scallies, looking like Oasis after they've eaten all the pies, walk on stage to the sound of 'My Boy Lollipop' possibly [...]
I have a vivid memory of sitting against the couch in my parents' living room, watching Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros perform "Johnny Appleseed" on Conan O'Brien back when their album Global A Go-Go first came out. I wish I could tell you that I instantly fell in love with the song and was converted [...]

After waiting for a year, I finally got to see Julien Temple's documentary Joe Strummer: The Future is Unwritten , and it was definitely worth the wait. A bricolage of interviews, live performance footage, random archival footage, Strummer's sketches that had been animated, and voiceovers pieced together from earlier interviews was stitched together with Strummer's London Calling World Service broadcasts. It took me until the near end of the film to understand why most of the interviews with friends, family and celebrities, including John Cusack, Johnny Depp, Bobby Gillespie, and Anthony Kiedis, were conducted around campfires - in the [...]
Today, I'm featuring two bands that deserve mentions but I'm so backed up with stuff that I just can't write up a full post for each of them. THE PURRS Two guitars, one drumkit, and a singer round out the crew behind the navel-gazing album, The Chemistry That Keeps Us Together. It's the band's second record, [...]
For today's Clash fix, Joe Strummer & The Latino Rockabilly War, Manchester International II England, August 5, 1988. A pretty good audience boot with lots of banter. This is from a low point in Joe's solo career and life, and there's a few oddities and curiousities here. For example, it's the only [...]
I've admitted here before that I'm not a huge Nirvana fan. I actually prefer the Foos. But live, Nirvana kicked ass over their studio stuff. This is a great hometown show (Seattle) from January 6, 2006, with lots of their old punkier stuff and pretty good soundboard quality. I'm [...]
Before today's post: A few show notes. I write-up the posts and reviews for this site about a week in advance, all in one sitting based on little notes I take all week long about various new releases that have come my way through contacts, labels, promoters, and my own wallet. So I have a [...]
Sorry no posts lately-Been in the hospital. Here's a little something for now . . . Built By Snow's debut EP "Noise," is completely indie and D.I.Y., which is pretty amazing because the production is quite good. In fact, because it's so good the EP isn't nearly close enough to the punk it aspires to [...]
Don't worry. I'll be posting more complete shows. But today is devoted to single songs, maybe where I don't have the whole show or where the whole show wasn't all that great, or maybe some single studio cut that was never released . . . A to Z. If y'all dig this, [...]

I know I know didn't I already do a post about Clash covers ? Yes, but who could possibly get enough of the Clash? Apparently not Berkeley Place . BP posted an A to Z of Clash covers some of bands covering the Clash and a few covers by Strummer. Below are my favorites but definitely go get the rest which include a Bedouin Soundclash cover of Guns of Brixton, ArtGel's cover of Rudie Can't Fail and Joe Strummer covering Blitzkreig Bop. MP3: Joe Strummer- The Harder They Come (Jimmy Cliff cover) MP3: [...]
Like a lot of people , I wasn't too impressed with the first hour of HBO's surf noir John From Cincinnati . It was hard to find things to like about any of the characters, and it was cryptic in a way that was more 'wtf??' than 'wow, you just blew my mind!' But now that I've seen three hours of the David Milch drama, I'm hooked to it like The Sopranos , Lost and, yes, Milch's last HBO series, [...]
Like a lot of people , I wasn't too impressed with the first hour of HBO's surf noir John From Cincinnati . It was hard to find things to like about any of the characters, and it was cryptic in a way that was more 'wtf??' than 'wow, you just blew my mind!' But now that I've seen three hours of the David Milch drama, I'm hooked to it like The Sopranos , Lost and, yes, Milch's last HBO series, [...]

This is a series where I spotlight some of my favorite albums of the past seven years (2000-2007). By favorite, I mean these are albums that I listened to alot and cherish to this day. Here is Part II: Macha multi-instrumentalist brother's Josh and Mischo McKay and Bedhead's guitar songwriting siblings Matt and Bubba Kadane grew up together in Wichita, Texas . Each set of brothers was a fan of the other's music and [...]
Man, did I ever have a hard time narrowing this down, but then, that's nothing new for me. It was especially difficult cos there were plenty of songs I almost put on the playlist, and then realized - oh, those aren't in any movie that I know of, they're just on the soundtrack to the many movies in my head. I finally narrowed it down to sixteen tracks from fourteen films. I'm listing them by the films' release dates. From The Muppet Movie (1979): Kermit & Rowlf - "I Hope That Somethin' [...]
I had more to say about the last couple tracks but Blogger keeps crashing and I want to update this fucker so I can go to bed already. Argh. Jerry Goldsmith Gremlins Original Motion Picture Score I can't think of a movie that was a bigger part of my childhood than Gremlins was. Unlike a lot of other childhood favorites ( Star Wars, The Goonies, Monster Squad ) I can still remember the first time I saw it very clearly (I hid [...]
There's nothing in any way tacky or dispiriting about the claims Janie Jones makes about Joe Strummer . Apparently, he visits her with advice: "When I heard about Joe's death I cried my eyes out. He was still a young man," Janie said. "His spirit now comes to me. "I was asked to do a film project and I couldn't make up my mind. "As I sat looking in my mirror, Joe came to me and said, 'You're not doing it for them - but do it for me'. [...]

It's necessary here on Ickmusic to periodically post about the late great Joe Strummer. Today, my friends, a treat. This is an afternoon in-store appearance in Portland, Oregon back in November of 1999. Joe's first Mescaleros album, Rock Art & the X Ray Style , had just been released weeks earlier. From Black Market Clash , a cool site covering all of the Clash / Joe Strummer bootlegs.... The acoustic session is awesome as Joe plays ad lib with funny and made up lyrics ad lib. The sound is excellent [...]
Playlist Theme 1 - "I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night and Party Everyday" Submitted by Ryan Carroll mp3 24 Hour Party People (Happy Mondays - The Platinum Collection) mp3 Party Hard (Pulp - This Is Hardcore) mp3 Fuckin' (Hot One - S/T) mp3 This House Is A Rocking' (Stevie Ray Vaughan - Greatest Hits) mp3 Rock The Shack (New Order - Get Ready) mp3 Old Time Rock And Roll (Bob Seger - Greatest