At the end of Public Image Limited’s performance of Death Disco on Top Of The Pops, presenter/DJ Mike Read refers to the band as Johnny, Jah and the boys – one camp baiting the establishment by their mere existence, the other camp not really understanding what they were so angry about and failing to draw […]
The last post on his website was six years ago, his music reaches from dense complex grooves, raw innovation to eccentricity. I love an intellectual with a self deprecating sense of humour, Czukay’s and his former band CAN’s massive influence on me and the world is hard to gauge. Here he is in 1979 riding […]
An odd choice of mood for a Christmas special as Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush duet on Roy Harper’s classic song of regret. Another Day was originally released on Harper’s first album for Harvest Records, Flat, Baroque And Berserk (1970) the album reaching No.20 on the UK chart. The song was also covered by This […]
It’s 100 years since Dada appeared in Zurich at Cabaret Voltaire, making a massive impression with the cognosenti before disappearing and leaving an idea that would influence the art world forevermore. In this period pianist, composer and wit, Erik Satie roamed the streets of Paris with an eccentric air, like the Dadists contributing radical ideas to […]
A long way from Kentucky in Twickenham in London in the time of New Wave I had a regular gig in a wine bar. One of the songs I played was Oliver’s Army, a hit for Elvis Costello in 1979 (No.2 in the UK for 4 weeks). Who was No.1? Well in January 1979 it […]
Anyone lucky enough to be 21 or thereabouts in 1979 will remember all the great New Wave hits between 1977 and 1980. One of them was Lucky Number by the inimitable Lene Lovich. She had the voice of an owl locked in a tree, the look of a Dickensian 19th century doll dressed for a banquet […]