New Heavy Sounds Hey kids, let’s talk about nominative determinism! You know, that thing where someone’s name informs what they do, like having a dentist called Dr Tooth or a Tory councillor called Mr Gaping-Anus. It’s fun! Thing is, it tends to work the other way round with bands, because traditionally they actually CHOOSE their names rather than being christened at birth.
Justin Farrington
149 posts
London 29 January 2019 A couple of months ago, the world lost perhaps its greatest showman, the driving force behind the creation of an entire universe: Stan Lee. Today, his creations and co-creations are everywhere — on our TV screens, at the cinema, in book stores and adorning all types of clothing, from socks to baseball caps. His influence on the world of popular culture was massive. As […]
London 1 December 2018 It’s Saturday night. It’s Oxford Street. It’s nearly Christmas. It’s fucking horrible, is what it is. And what a relief to get into The 100 Club which, while packed, is still somehow less claustrophobic than the street outside. And the reason it’s packed is because everyone’s hear to see The Heads, the elusive Bristolian psych-rock combo
Cleopatra Well deck my balls with holly and call me The Saviour, bugger me if it isn’t nearly Christmas. So get the tinsel up, dangle some dongles from a tree and slap Die Hard on the telly. Oh, and at this holiest time of year, have you considered inviting William Shatner into your heart?
Cherry Red OK. I have a shocking revelation to share with you. And there’s an easy way you can test my hypothesis. Get thee to the internet and find a recording of the Enfield Poltergeist case. In case you’re unaware, in the late 1970s, an Enfield family reported strange goings-on at their house in north London, including furniture moving, unexplained noises
London 31 October 2018 Years ago, back in the early 1990s, I had a friend (well, I say “had”– we’re still friends and he’s here tonight) with whom I shared a lot of common ground in terms of musical taste. He used to always be on at me to listen to The Church.
London 13 October 2018 Hallowe’en is just around the corner, and as the holy month of Spooptober gets underway, what better time could there be for that most festive of tipples, a Nurse With Wound / Current 93 cocktail? And that’s just what’s being served at Shepherds Bush Empire tonight, albeit with a VERY early curfew, no doubt due to that awful urban phenomenon of people moving in […]
Beggar’s Arkive It’s no exaggeration to say that the late lamented David Bowie cast an immense and glittery shadow over popular music, and it would seem the darkest part of this shadow fell on one Peter Murphy, superfan and Bauhaus lead singer. Bauhaus took the glam aesthetic of the Spiders From Mars, mixed it with the abrasiveness of punk and swapped out the science fiction for horror cinema
Ipecac Still sporting the best hair in rock, King Buzzo is back with the latest iteration of his wonderful musical monstrosity. Pinkus Abortion Technician is the kind of album title that’s designed to make you go “…wait, what?”
By Norse Music Tradition’s a funny old concept, isn’t it? For how long and how often does something have to occur before it counts as a tradition? Are some traditions more traditional than others? How does one measure something’s traditionality?
London 4-6 May 2018 Friday: Justin It’s a sunny Friday in Olde London Towne, and the weather’s predicted to be a strictly non-traditional scorcher of a May Bank Holiday weekend. What better time to punctuate outdoor drinking with a succession of slow bands in dark rooms?
Consouling Sounds OK, a brief history lesson. In the fourteenth century, a man named Tamerlane, who dreamed of restoring the glory of Genghis Khan‘s Mongol empire, laid waste to big fuck-off tracts of Europe, Asia and Africa. Calling himself “the Sword of Islam” and “the Scourge of God”, Tamerlane built towers from the skulls of his enemies.
London 23 March 2018 “Andrew O’Neill was living at my house, and he was doing a show about British industry in the nineteenth century and he said ‘why don’t we write some songs and we can do them as a support act for the show?’”
Nuclear Blast When Donald Trump was inexplicably elected to be the forty-fifth president of the United States of America, social media was abuzz with people making trite comments about “ah well, at least we’ll get some great art out of it”, as if that was really what we should be worrying about. That said, though
Leather Apron Those of you who are inclined towards the comic book medium may remember a short-lived title that ran in the very late 80s and very early 90s called Baker Street. Created by Gary Reed and Guy Davis, the story was, as you’d expect, yet another riff on Sherlock Holmes. The twist this time, though, was that punk had happened in the Victorian era. It was steampunk […]
Neurot (vinyl and CD) / Supernatural Cat (vinyl) So. Ufomammut‘s 8. That’s not the same as New Model Army‘s Eight, though both are the eighth albums by their respective artists. This is 8 as in ∞ turned on its side. Eight seamless tracks of endless riffs — sounds about right.
London 30 November 2017 By the time I get to Heaven, Aluk Todolo are already on stage, kicking out a fine racket. I have no idea what to expect from them, but as I enter the venue I’m thinking “Neurosis”. And for the next few minutes, yes, they do sound a bit like Neurosis.
Rock Fuel Media / Cleopatra / MVD Visual Hard to believe Ritual De Lo Habitual is a quarter of a century old, but a quarter of a century old it is, and has taken its rightful place in the pantheon of classic albums. A high point for alternative rock music in the 1990s, which began so optimistically with Nine Inch Nails, Rage Against The Machine and Nirvana and […]