Warriors : Newsletter : 28
Hello Warriors!
Welcome back!
As we ease into a new year where the two twos clash!, I'm currently at one of our favourite festivals - Rockaway Beach - which is held in Butlins in Bognor Regis the first weekend in January every year. There would have been a time growing up in the faded tack of my home town Blackpool that a cutting edge music festival in a holiday camp would have been ever so naff but that was wrong! It's a great experience with a great line up of bands and no tents to freeze in!
I there doing in conversations with Porridge Radio and A Certain Ratio and also celebrating finally editing a book of my collected journalism for publication this spring. The book is 40 years of writing compiled into one pretty big book. It's a pledge book and you can still pledge if you are interested from...
https://unbound.com/books/do-you-believe-in-the-power-of-rock-roll/ (Opens in a new window)The camaraderie at Rockaway Beach is off the scale and all the festival go-ers are like hardy veterans trying to have a good time in the dog days of the virus. And fingers crossed, the dog days it seems to be on their way to virus kennel. I know the numbers are still high and there is still a certain level of insecurity about gigs and our music world but there is a general feeling now that we could be on the way out of this seemingly endless nightmare...lets see
January is often the slow month were the year blunders into view with a head-full of hangover but there have been some positive musical sparks so far this year to set an agenda. Burial - the electronic music and post dubstep pioneers - returned with an astonishing new release that pushes the boundaries of music further. The mind-blowing amalgamation of new rhythms and concrete sound and subtle textural melodies was reviewed very enthusiastically here.
https://louderthanwar.com/burial-antidawn-ep-review/ (Opens in a new window)A few days ago I was sat in what has slowly become the LTW main office...a table covered in pots of tea in the bar of HOME the Manchester art and culture space with the aforementioned great steaming pots of green tea and buzzing internet. I was minding my own business but had a piece of paper thrust in my hand by a passing young band called Soup! Of course I checked out all the links scrawled on there by their scratchy hand writing and they are wonderful. They sound like a cross between Franz Ferdinand and Postcard records with an urgent added post punk urgency...
https://louderthanwar.com/new-band-of-the-day-soup (Opens in a new window)/
Jah Wobble is one of there heroes of our operation - his booming bass has been a constant to our lives for decades and it was great to hear it doing its Wobble thing on a new track from a project called Telefis with comprises of the legendary Cathal Coughlan with producer Jackknife Lee. The song is an uneasy amalgamation of spectral energy, electronic sound and an infernally catchy bass dub end playing one of those captivating lines.
https://louderthanwar.com/watch-this-telefis-jacknife-lee-and-cathal-coughlan-brilliant-collaboration-with-jah-wobble/ (Opens in a new window)Our editorial staffs tips for new bands of the year for 2022 continues to be a very popular read on the site. Notoriously hard to call, music often moves in unpredictable directions but our 22 for 22 list is a mixture of pet loves and ideas for bands that may dictate the agenda this year.
https://louderthanwar.com/22-new-bands-for-2022-our-traditional-tips-for-big-things-or-cult-success/ (Opens in a new window)Reeves and Mortimer are pop culture icons and their slapstick surrealism was key in the nineties. Both have become national treasures so it was great to read Bob Mortimer's account of his own life story. The Morecambe and Wise of Wonk where the Ernie Wise was also really funny?
https://louderthanwar.com/and-away-the-autobiography-by-bob-mortimer-book-review/ (Opens in a new window)Speaking of wonk surrealism Cud were always an goofball anomaly. We remember the band well as an art rock cul de sac full of weird ideas and art-full concepts that they somehow managed to shoe horn into Britpop. Their bass player, Will Potter, celebrates all this in a fictional account of a Britpop band done as a graphic novel for. Will and his team have done a great job of this and the fictional Carry On Britpop is an accurate and hilarious account of those fabled times.
https://louderthanwar.com/will-potter-from-cud-has-teamed-up-with-philip-bond-to-create-a-genius-comic-book-pastiche-about-britpop/ (Opens in a new window)Our very own Louder Than War radio station has been booming over the xmas as we try to reclaim the airwaves. Numbers are going up and there are more new shows planned soon...all details here.
https://louderthanwar.com/louder-than-war-radio/ (Opens in a new window)We were really sorry to hear fo the tragic death of Sinead O'Connor's 17 year old son and also of Chris Broderick of folk band the Singing Loins
https://louderthanwar.com/son-of-sinead-oconnor-dies-aged-17/ (Opens in a new window)
https://louderthanwar.com/chris-broderick-the-singing-loins-one-of-englands-finest-folk-songwriters-has-died/
