LTW Newsletter 43

Welcome warriors,

Sorry about the delay in the weekly missive but have been in travelling madness as my band Membranes have been on the road with the mighty Stranglers on a European tour.

It has been an interesting experience and the audiences have been great and it’s been lovely to meet people including many of our readers as well!

We have just completed the Irish leg and now we head off to what we now quaintly refer to as Europe.

These days getting out of the UK for band is a nightmare with paying for a grands worth of carnets and paperwork that needs doing. Then we have to go via this strange Kafka-esque deserted carnet check point in Warrington before we drive to the ferry port in lonely old Holyhead or down south for the next ferry to get our carnet stamped. It’s a weird twilight location staffed by people who have no idea of what a band carnet is.

Such fun!

And frolics!

In the mean time as autumn increases its stranglehold on the dying days of summer we have been out and about and engaging with the musical realm and there is much to report back - some key releases, some heartbreaking losses and some genuine oddness…

We mourn the death of the genius jazz sax player, Pharoah Sanders - the tenor sax genius who reinvented what you could do with a sax. His sounds and textures were mind blowing and underlined just where you could go with music. Just listening to his sax is like communing with god. Like all the best musicians the sound just seems to vibrate out of him. I always thought Jimi Hendrix always sounded like he was playing electricity and Pharoah sounded like we was playing air. Wow! All that emotion and kinetic energy coming out in his genius sound.

The Louder Than War album of the week this week is Pixies released a new album and whilst the jury is sometimes out on the reformed line up the band have been great live and the new album is really good according to our reviewer. The iconic group who changed what could be done with rock music have settled into a fascinating late period creative spurt…

The Charlatans played Manchester’s latest new venue The New Century hall - it’s an amazing space and yet another big venue in the city - with a capacity of 2000 in the city that seems to have an endless supply of bands and audiences to watch them. More proof of this is the two new venues opening in Manchester - the 5000 capacity Factory and also Europe’s biggest arena there seems to be into end to potential of live music in the city. The Charlatans were a great choice for the first band to play the new venue and played a great set to remind that their music does the talking for them.

Nico Harmony is an exciting new talent from Manchester. Sounding like a Lana Del Ray from the rainy city her songs are atmospheric and captivating and it will only be a matter of time before she gets seriously noticed…you read it here first!

Gwenno has been getting great plaudits. She is dedicated to keeping the Cornish language alive, playing tracks from her Mercury Prize-nominated new record Tresor, sung almost entirely in that ancient language.

There are only a few hundred people who still speak Kernewek, or Cornish and, luckily for those dedicated to keeping that ancient language alive, one of them is Gwenno Saunders who delivers a great gig tonight. 

Rebellion punk festival have announced next year’s dates for the world’s biggest punk festival held in Blackpool every year. The newly expanded event has nearly 20 000 people going to it now and a diverse and exciting line up that expands beyond its punk core.

Ian Brown has always thrived on controversy and a single minded approach - so single minded that he is now performing on his own without a band! Fans at his first gig back on the road after a few years in Leeds were left confused and split by the show…

Depeche Mode have announced a press conference in October - what could it be about? The band, now a duo, after the sad recent death of Andrew Fletcher are rumoured to be announcing a new album…

Fifty years ago David Bowie released The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust, one of the great classic albums of all time. To celebrate this 50th Anniversary the Moonage Daydream book (endorsed by David Bowie and Mick Rocks estate) has been published. It is a new, uncut large format edition, released to coincide with the launch of the documentary movie Moonage Daydream by Brett Morgen (Opens in a new window)and an exhibition of Mick Rock’s photos at Atlas Gallery (Opens in a new window), London.

Suede have a new album that has brought the house down and crashed into the charts at number 2 and is a reaffirmation of their greatness but with an added punkiness that harks back their own roots as a teenage punks before they got swept up in band world!

Ist Ist have quietly become one of the big break out bands from Manchester without making any fuss about it. Their dark energy music has a whiff of Joy Division about it and the band are consistently brilliant as these sold out European dates reviewed here show.

Blast from the past Dog Faced Hermans death to trad rock skronk and thrilling danceable dischord made them big favourites on the underground scene in the late eighties and early nineties. Read about them here and then go and explore their music.