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First Look – Morrissey 25: Live

As anniversaries go, you might presume that Morrissey hasn't much wanted to throw a party to celebrate his quarter century as a solo artist. After all, his year has been blighted by ongoing health problems - bleeding ulcer, Barrett's esophagus and double pneumonia, food poisoning - and a number of crippling tour cancellations, the most recent due to lack of funding, all of which has led him to note glumly, “the future is suddenly absent.”

First Look – Spike Jonze’s Her

There comes a moment during the trailer for Spike Jonze’s new film, Her, where Joaquin Phoenix turns to the object of his affections and says, “I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you.”

Ty Segall, “Sleeper”

For all his flailing locks and dazed expression, Ty Segall does not make a particularly convincing slacker. In a short promotional clip for his new album, released on Youtube back in May, he pretends to be asleep in bed, on his couch, in a garden and then, preposterously, up a tree and at the wheel of a moving van.

Mark Kozelek & Desertshore

I was reading this interesting Wilco piece a few days ago, which talks about how Jeff Tweedy has parlayed cult success into what appears to be a viable business model. It made me think of the strategies used by Mark Kozelek these past few years: how he keeps a steady stream of music, predominantly live albums, coming through his Caldo Verde label to satisfy his obsessive fans (and I suspect Kozelek fans tend to be by nature obsessive; I know I am).

Introducing… Promised Land Sound

The cover image of Promised Land Sound’s debut album, an old Nashville street map, clearly asserts the geographic and aesthetic loyalties of Sean Thompson, Joey Scala, Evan Scala and Ricardo Alesio, and their press biog has the requisite classy endorsement from local grandee Jack White's Third Man Records.

Atoms For Peace, London Roundhouse, July 24, 2013

At 7pm on the first night of Atoms For Peace’s London residency, the Amok Drawing Room has already sold out of commemorative mugs. The Enterprise pub across the road from the Roundhouse has been rebranded in expressionist monochrome, and an upstairs room has been upholstered in Stanley Donwood wallpaper, the better to sell exquisite £500 prints, t-shirts screenprinted while-you-wait, and a pointedly apocalyptic jigsaw puzzle.

First look – Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa

For Steve Coogan, Alan Partridge’s big screen debut represents a pivotal moment in the actor’s relationship with his most famous creation.

God bless Rod Stewart

God bless Rod Stewart Not even creepy celebrity horse-whisperer Alan Yentob could wholly ruin last week’s highly entertaining BBC Arena special on Rod Stewart. His contributions were laughably witless all the same. “You look just like brothers!” he exclaimed excitedly of Rod and long-time mucker Ronnie Woods, which may have been true 40 years ago. These days they don’t even look like cousins.

Tropicalia: Alegria, Alegria! The brief, exhilarating history of a Brazilian musical revolution.

When unpleasant right-wing governments seize control by one means or another, a lot of wishful thinking often goes on among radical artists. Hard times, they speculate, will encourage a new counterculture; angry political art will flourish in the face of oppression. We heard a lot of this rhetoric from dissenters trying to put a positive gloss on the election of David Cameron in 2010. But as yet, a provocative cultural revolt against the Tories, if there is one, remains too underground to register on most radar.

The Rolling Stones, Hyde Park, London, July 13, 2013

We find ourselves in the wrong bar by mistake. Arriving at Hyde Park for this second London show on the Stones' 50 & Counting tour, we're issued with numerous coloured plastic wristbands that are intended to identify where we can travel around the site. There is this bar, that tier, this restaurant, these toilets... one of the first questions we're asked as we enter the site is whether we have a dinner reservation.
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