LTW newsletter 50

Welcome warriors to another adventure on the music trail that stakes its way through the lonesome pines of modern culture. As we wait in our log cabin for the intrepid trackers and scouts to return to the roaring hearth of our home hub with their tales of musical genius we compile our feverish weekly missive to you - the good folks back home!

As our scouts, music writers and snappers stake their paths across the wild terrain at the fringes of music culture our intrepid adventurers and carnie barkers have turned up all and sundry to capture a sliver of the ongoing music narrative. Louder Than War never knowingly has a night in and is happy to traipse the trail in the giant redwoods of music culture sifting for nuggets of gold in the tumble down of wild rivers of noise pouring down the mountain sides! ‘What have you found this week!’ we yell hopefully as they return with their faces smudged with the very soil of pop culture and their ripped and torn outfits displaying the dangers of grumpy bears and bad tempered band managers who prevent photographers even snapping their measly proteges.

Yet there is no time to complain! You have every right to ask what’s going on! and its been an interesting haul of old and new that has peppered our pepper-pot and baked our endless supply of beans…!

Teardrop Explodes have released a lavish new box set that compiles different takes of singles, demos and live tracks over six discs. It’s a monster reminder of the innate genius of the band that appeared out of the Liverpool post-punk melee with a lysergic vision wrapped around a soaring future pop. Fronted by the charismatic Julian Cope the band zig-zagged through an unpredictable career that was captivating in its brilliant imagination and spell-binding in its pop brilliance. It may have been a difficult tightrope to somehow balance stuff that messed with your mind and that glorious pop but it made Julian Cope a fantastic flickering pop star with a killer soundtrack.

The Melvins cemented their place in history with Kurt Cobain being a huge fan of his then hometown band and even being a roadie for them. Yet there was much more to it than that. The band pioneered what became known as grunge and have been releasing good records since then. They are now doing a 40th-anniversary tour. Ahead of the gigs, Audrey Golden caught up with drummer Dale Crover to talk drum sets, beaver mugs, and the band’s new record Bad Mood Rising.

Of course, The Sisters Of Mercy are not a Goth band…that much we know about the enigmatic shape-shifting group. The main sister Andrew Eldritch has denied the tag for years whilst stubbornly refusing to engage with the music biz or do the boring stuff like releasing a new album! Somehow, though, he retains a touring unit, and they always seem quite busy traipsing around the world every year. Maybe their loyal drum machine, Dr Avalanche, is quite bossy and demands to be plugged into the electricity in far-flung foreign lands to click and purr the big beat backdrop of the band.  Maybe they feel the primal need to get on stage in a fug of dry ice yet their relentless touring has seen them book a new UK tour that we announced on LTW this week.

Spin Klass are a 3-piece alternative synth-pop band from South Manchester. The band formed in 2021 from a collection of John McClane fanatics, budgie enthusiasts and sub station controllers who couldn’t get enough Devo, XTC and Talking Heads…sounds promising.

Some of the greatest music stories have been from people on the fringes of a scene. The idiosyncratic fringe players who were in the same rehearsal rooms and had the same hopes as the soon to be legends but for whatever reasons of cruel fate never got the payday. Dub Sex were a Manchester band of the late eighties whose jet propelled post-punk was brilliantly original but somehow, beyond a fierce partisan cult audience, they never seemed to connect beyond the John Peel world of avid listeners. Mainman Mark Hoyle has a great story to tell about survival and hardship and how to somehow keep the flame flickering despite everything and his upcoming autobiography will be a key addition to the Manchester music book shelf..

It’s now starting to feel like Sparks are perhaps the real genius of the seventies. Bowie, Bolan and all the glam titans we have loved forever just didn't have the longevity of the Mael Brothers who more than 50 years into an astonishing career are still releasing albums as good and as innovative as in their prime. God knows how they do it . God knows how Russell retains that magical voice and God knows how Ron still finds new ways of writing their astonishing songs but they do and the new album is as great as anything they have ever released.

We have always loved Rancid at LTW - any band that swims against the whims of pop culture with their own defiant vision is always popular with us. Of all the American punk bands who broke into the mainstream in the nineties Rancid were easily the best. They had a thrilling, raw edge and also a knack of writing great pop songs. They also loved the punk iconography and the speed thrills chassis but they also remembered that punk itself was about two or three-minute blasts of pop perfection and their career and aside projects have been littered with great songs. This has not changed and Berkeley’s finest are back with a rocket-fuelled riot of a record. Rancid show that they still have what it takes to rip the world a new one.

Rhoda Dakar’s first album in five years is National Treasure.  A 12-song collection of covers chosen by Rhoda, celebrating her love of Reggae, Ska and Rocksteady. Most of these songs have never before been given proper treatments in these versatile and timeless Jamaican genres. Absolute perfection, says Ged Babey.

We were sad to lose Algy Ward, the distinctive bassist, who contributed to the sound of two of the greatest punk outfits The Saints and The Damned, and who has just passed away.

Real name, Alasdair Ward started his playing with The Saints in August 1977, shortly before the band began recording their second album Eternally Yours and then played on the Damned's third album - two iconic records in the form.

Chrissie Hynde is one of our great songwriters. When I say that I know she is really from the American midwest but she had been in the UK for so long that she feels threaded into our pop culture narrative. Her voice is still something to behold and her full of attitude has never dimmed from the early days of the Pistols where she was a key part of their coat of many colours coterie to her massive hits to her defiant rock till your drop non-stop tour that she seems to be on now. A multi-faceted diamond…we love Chrissie!

It’s great to Siouxsie back out on the boards and at some point it was inevitable that she was going to catch up with some old chums. After 32 years her and Billy Idol had a mini Bromley contingent meet-up that captured an older version of the two punk rock icons but who have both defied age on their own terms.

Another punk icon whose journey could be even more fascinating is Pauline Murray. Whilst the London crew had the advantage of being in the thick of it in the capital city Pauline was doing in in pit villages in the northeast of England. A glam rock fan who followed the Doctors of Madness and other bands that emerged in the post glam fall out it was the most unlikely Sex Pistols gig of them all in a working mens club in Northallerton that sparked her journey into punk and her own band Penetration. The group managed to make their own remarkable music in a total isolation and are much loved by those that get the adventure of punk. The story is inspirational and it's great she has written it down and her autobiography will be with us later this year.