LTW newsletter 94

Dear Warriors,

We are late with the newsletter this week as we have been bogged down in a trade war with the dastardly penguins of the Heard and McDonald Islands. 

You may laugh and believe that this a trivial diversion but these penguins really don’t care about how they affect the world economy and the musical community by flooding the market with their cheap imports of the back catalogue of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra whilst adding tariffs to CDs and sardines.

This must stop! 

We fully back President Donald ‘painted face’ Trump in his ridiculous trade war, even if it means the cost of orange face paint will go through the roof. These are tumultuous times and thank god that we have idiots in control of the world as a wise person would never think of making such policy as they went along. In the future, we will demand that all people will only be able to dance at gigs like the awkward middle aged man dance of Trump and Musk before they fell out in a case of doge eat doge.

Rise up penguins! You have nothing to lose apart from your regurgitated fish! 

Despite the world going to hell in a hand cart or a gold golf cart driven by a blithering orange faced man, we have managed to concentrate on the musical stuff and report from all corners of the musical world. 

We were shocked and sorry to hear of the passing of Clem Burke, the much loved drummer of Blondie. His drumming was an astonishing hybrid of Keith Moon and Ringo Starr cranked for the punk generation and drove the band with the power of his percussive vocabulary. He was also the cool ruler out of the Blondie and a total dude - everyone remembers this wonderful warm figure off stage who stepped up and gave everything in a never ending series of projects that he played on. 

We were also sad to lose Dave Allen, the iconic bassist from Gang Of Four. His bass lines were key to the band’s game changing punk funk and the glue that held the disparate parts of the group together. His signature sound and style was also all over his next band Shriekback and he remains one on the great bass players of that period. 

One of the most read pieces on the site this week was a live review of glam rock titans Sweet. The band were huge in the seventies and they somehow survived the glam rock era to have hits even into the punk period. Decades later there may only be one surviving original member left but as a celebration of a glorious back catalogue, this hit all the targets. 

Another last gang in town of old stagers having a great romp around the country, Primal Scream, are in the middle of a UK tour and we went to Bristol to catch the band whose wandering through all the cool corners of record collection rock has seen them embrace many different styles over the years and somehow make them all their own. 

Skunk Anansie have been out and about as well making their own thrilling racket. Still fronted by the charismatic Skin they are back after some time out and their message seems even more powerful and prescient in these Trumpoid times . They played Manchester as part of their European and UK headline tour, promoting their hugely anticipated new studio album The Painful Truth…  

The same could be said about waving the freak flag high with Gavin Friday who has spent decades being the key member of the U2 crew.  His own early days fronting the legendary Virgin Prunes saw him as the ring leader of the Dublin post punk gang, the Lipton village, which was made up of the two bands and assorted freaks in the stuffy late seventies Ireland which they all shook up with their glam shock tactics. Gavin has a great new album out of dark disco anthems and his live show embraced this. 

The support band for Gavin Friday was the legendary and recently reformed Au Pairs. They also have some reissues out that celebrate their game-changing albums from the post-punk era.

Mogwai and English Teacher played a great show at the recent 6music festival that pushed the frontiers of what music can be. Mogwai have been doing this stuff for years creating their dynamic soundscapes that pull you into their sonic maelstrom whilst English Teacher are the the newbies who have been grabbing the plaudits with their post post-punk. 

We are now on the verge of festival season and the traditional opener for people in our world is the soon to come Bearded Theory festival which has a great line up topped off with Iggy Pop - we preview the great bill here.

Also on the horizon is Kendal Calling festival - the big north west event that has been going from strength to strength over the years. 

Tallin Music Week is one of our favourite music events and this year the event, held in Estonia, didn't disappoint with a spotlight on the East European music that is learning fast to stand on its own two feet in the dangerous new  world that we are fast forwarding into. 

Our album of the week is from the Dead Pioneers - a new American punk band fronted by a charismatic native American whose witty and incendiary lyrics reflect his upbringing delivered over the kind of catchy garage punk that the Dead Kennedys patented back in the Reagan years. The Dead Pioneers have the potential to be the key punk voice in the Trump era and their music certainly backs this up.