Blogs

James Blackshaw: London Vortex, September 17, 2009

The first show by James Blackshaw with additional musicians begins a little oddly. A man plays a brief tuba solo, then settles down to some concerted texting on his phone. It turns out that this is a false start, however. The James Blackshaw Ensemble might contain a cellist, two violin players and a flautist, but the tuba player – warming up, it transpires – is here to accompany the support act, guitarist/pianist Tom James Scott, through a series of hushed, minimal pieces.

Fantastic Mr Fox and Where The Wild Things Are

It’s been a bit quiet on the blog for a while – apologies, but I’ve been embargoed from writing about a couple of films I’ve seen recently. Anyway, one film I have seen, which I am allowed to write about, is Wes Anderson’s latest, Fantastic Mr Fox.

The Flaming Lips: “Embryonic” and Beak>: “Beak>”

There’s an interesting snippet in the next issue of Uncut, when the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne talks about Portishead’s “Third”. “It got under my skin,” he says. “From the standpoint of being in a band, they do some fun production things, it’s pretty inspiring. I liked how they embraced more stranger elements of prog-rock, and Silver Apples-influenced drum loops and things like that.”

Okkervil River Rock The Scala

There were so many people packed last night into the Scala to see Okkervil River that if I’d arrived any later, I probably would have had to watch the show from across the street, on the concourse of King’s Cross Station.

The Hold Steady Blow The Roof Off, Again

I mentioned yesterday’s that I was just off to see The Hold Steady at the Islington Academy and I duly went and they were, as ever, duly brilliant – urgent, incendiary, delirious, a symphonic juggernaut, a hurtling thing, a wholly rousing noise.

Big Star: “Keep An Eye On The Sky”

As our recent Uncut playlists probably make clear, we’ve been happily overwhelmed by a glut of Big Star-related material over the past few weeks, beginning of course with the hefty “Keep An Eye On The Sky” boxset.

‘Don’t miss Richmond Fontaine!’ insists Uncut reader. . .

In the email newsletter I send out every Monday (you can subscribe to it on www.uncut.co.uk), I wrote about the number of great gigs looming over the next few weeks, starting tonight, in fact, with The Hold Steady at the Islington Academy. I'm going to that, but wasn't sure how many of the others shows I'd be able to make it to. I therefore invited any readers of the newsletter who had either recently seen or were going to see any of the bands I mentioned to write in with their thoughts on the gig.

Fuck Buttons: “Tarot Sport”

Over the past few weeks, there have been a bunch of albums, much anticipated, that I’ve found hard to get into, at best, or slightly disappointing, at worst. In the midst of these frustrations, the second Fuck Buttons album, “Tarot Sport”, has acted like a kind of big, cleansing blast.
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