Things I That Were Not A Good Idea Today, All Things Considered: 1. Staying in bed 'til eleven thirty with a novel. Let alone an Irish psychological thriller I've already read. 2. Hot chocolate and cigarettes. 3. Two-hour walk while listening to film scores, which are guaranteed to stir me up under the best of [Read Full Post...]
Robert Forster - 2541 [ purchase ] When Husker Du broke up at the end of 1987 it was drummer Grant Hart who released the first solo recording, an EP named "2541". The following line pretty much sums things up: "Now everything is over /Everything is done/Everything is in boxes/ at 2541" A little googling identifies 2541 as the [...]
Be it friend or family, the loss of a loved one eventually hits us all. Be it sudden or expected, it makes it no easier. A couple of years ago I went to see Robert Forster, one of my musical idols. It was the first time that he had toured since the death of fellow Go-Between Grant McLennan. Grant was very much the elephant in the room, and everyone was waiting to see what Robert would say about him. In the end, he didn't say anything. He didn't need to. He just sang this song. [...]
HAPPY MONDAYS ok. So, we kinda slept it on this thing at first. Melbourne hipster hangout Rooftop Bar are putting on some pretty sweet gigs right across summer. It is called Happy Mondays, and is all about starting the week with some killer live music. Check out the lineup below and you can grab tix [...]
Filed under: News , UK The Go-Betweens' Robert Forster has spoken of how a move into journalism has helped him come to terms with the death of his late songwriting partner, Grant McLennan. McLennan passed away at the age of 48 in 2006, after suffering a heart attack. The singer-songwriter was speaking after his first collection of rock reviews and features for Australian magazine, the Monthly, had been published. Entitled 'The Ten Rules of Rock 'N" Roll,' Forster casts a wry eye over the world of contemporary [...]
This weekend, let's spend some time delving into the Go-Betweens back catalogue, shall we? Oh, go on. Much supported by the Record Mirror and Snipe, the music fanzine which morphed into When Saturday Comes, the Go-Betweens were part of what felt like a very minor Australian invasion at the time. Which would have been early-ish on in the 1980s. (See, young people, it wasn't all outsize phones and Richard Branson launching airlines...) Built around Robert Forster and Grant McLennan's songwriting partnership, you could argue that they were two bands, or a single band with [...]
In Latin, they used to say, De gustibus non est disputandum . Roughly translated it means, I'm right and you're wrong. No really, it translates to There's no accounting for taste . Since this blog is a one person show, this list was created in a vacuum. The only debates that happened putting this list together went on inside my head, and since my tastes lean toward pop, this list reflects just that. As far as how this year compares with previous years, there wasn't one record that jumped out at me a screamed best record of the [...]
Well, here's my list of my favourite gigs of 2008. Why 13 you ask? Cause I couldn't pare it down to just 10, especially once I got past the first 8. In any year where I hadn't seen Leonard Cohen for the first time ever, the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds gig we saw recently would probably have been at #1, but this was a special year for music because not only did Leonard Cohen return to playing live, but the gigs he was playing were absolutely magical. Anyway, here's the list: Leonard [...]
1. Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid 2008 hasn't been a classic year for albums, but a handful of records stood out, none moreso than this brilliant set from Elbow. They've never convinced me over the course of an album before, despite a handful of tracks from each previous release making an impact. This time though, the heartfelt and powerful songwriting of tracks like One Day Like This, Bones Of You and the astounding Mirrorball have [...]
In 1997, I heard The Go-Betweens for the first time. In Olympia, Wash., sitting on the floor of a carpeted dining room in the rickety rental house of a friend, the album Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express came through the speakers. Each song was my new best friend. In subsequent months, on tour with my band, I tracked down all of The Go-Betweens' LPs, poring over the mysteries that constitute their sound and their scope. Each album title up through Send Me a Lullaby contained two Ls in the title, and [...]
Robert Forster was in fine form when we saw him last Sunday night at the Royal Northern College of Music in what was his first time back in Manchester since the tragic and untimely death of close friend and songwriting partner Grant McLennan put an end to The Go-Betweens as a going concern and robbed the world of one of its finest songwriting talents. Grant was never far from our or, I suspect, most of the audience's minds for much of the evening, his absence heightened by the familiarity of Forster's backing band - Adele Pickvance and Glenn Thompson were [...]
Listen up good people. On Saturday 20th September 2008, Robert Foster (pictured above), is playing a gig at Oran Mor in Glasgow - and I'm hoping as many of you as possible will get along. Some of you might not be familiar with Robert's work, but for most of the past 25 years and more, he's been best known as part of one of Australia's greatest exports - Go Betweens. Sadly, the death of his
This week's long laundry list of amazing bands waiting to be heard, features the first Portishead album in over ten years, aptly named Third . The talent is still there and the album is packed with great songs. 65daysofstatic also released an EP this week that sounds like it is ready to be played on tour with The Cure. Other releases that I can recommend are A Town and Two Cities by Your Vegas and Santogold's self-titled release. 65daysofstatic The Distant and Mechanized Glow of Eastern European Dance Parties [...]
I spent my weekend and Monday taking care of my two small boys, and since that's usually the time I spend absorbing the new releases for the week (and pumping out the weekly Ear on TV bit,) I find myself impossibly behind, so I'm going to keep commentary on this week's haul short and semi-sweet. Highlights this week include the latest from Portishead, Jamie Lidell, Robert Forster, Santogold, Constantines, 65daysofstatic and the stateside release from Sweden's Robyn, which took three years to cross the pond. Playlist: New Releases 04.29.08 [...]
Once again, I find myself rushing to get this week's Graboid up, so this will be short. Nearly ten years after their last release, Portishead make their triumphant return with Third . After several listens, i'm still not quite sold on the album yet, but it certainly doesn't make me love the group any less. Other releases worth looking at include Santogold's self-titled debut, The Constantines' Kensington Heights , South's (who spells it out as sOuth? cos it's really lame) You Are Here , and hmm...what [...]
Today's free and legal mp3 downloads: MGMT : "Destrokk" [mp3] from Time to Pretend (reissue out March 4th) other MGMT music blog posts: @lhb @hype @elbo.ws The Portland Cello Project : "Toxic (Britney Spears cover)" [mp3] from The Portland Cello Project (out August 12th) The Portland Cello Project : [...]
Assured-beyond-their-years San Diego quartet the Muslims will definitely get a lot of attention for their name, but we're much more interested in the band's catchy, sorta sloppy and stark post-punk-infused rock 'n' roll. They mix a kind of Strokes-y, and therefore VU, detachment and something that bumps in the night like Hell and his Voidoids (or, better yet, Hell and the Heartbreakers doing "Love Comes In Spurts"). You can also hear a bit of the Stooges -- not just because the band cites 'em, along with the Replacements, as an inspiration -- and early Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers [...]
After the death of Go-Betweens writing partner Grant McLennan in May '06, Robert Forster picked himself up, dusted himself off, and released his first solo album in 11 years. Three of the album's 10 tracks were co-written with McLennan, and the Go-Betweens rhythm section backs Forster on it, but while there's a Go-Betweensian air, The Evangelist is definitely a new chapter. The first song out of the gate is "Pandanus." A pandanus is a shrub/small tree native to Forster's native Australia. We're guessing it stands for other things, too.
The Good: Islands - "Creeper"; Nick Thornburn has already proven his ability to pen addictively catchy pop songs with The Unicorns and on the first Islands album, but with "Creeper" he may have outdone himself. This song is syrupy smooth, a song of a broken heart with a dance beat and just enough rock licks to appease even the most jaded of music snobs. Its a killer song that gives me super high
DAYDREAM STATION
Star Maker Machine
THE VINYL VILLAIN
A Town Full of Losers
me, and all my friends
Spinner.com
No Rock And Roll Fun
the finest kiss
The Indie Credential
On The Trail Of The Great
NPR Music: Monitor Mix
Instrumental Analysis
thus spake drake
The Yellow Stereo
largehearted boy
Stereogum
Pop Tarts Suck Toasted
A-Trak - "Round of Applause" / "Where My Money At" (MP3 Download)
Diplo - "Climax" (MP3 Stream)
Out This Week 2/14
Skrillex Uses Satanic and Homosexual Influence to Win Grammys
