LTW newsletter 60

Welcome Warriors!

It’s been a noisy week here at LTW, and that’s the kind of week we like. A noisy week of travel and music. I’ve been over in Ireland on my never ending book tour and it was great to meet so many of you dear readers face to face in the Emerald Isle. This never ending book tour has been fab for so many reasons. Of course, it’s always good to be on the road and it’s also really good to meet many of you - the warriors! - the tour is ongoing and more dates are coming up all the way to next May - check the link below for more dates and come and say hello!

Another great thing about being on the road is finding more bands to celebrate on our hallowed site. There is a whole host of fascinating action going on in Ireland, which will be appearing in the next few weeks starting off with Tramp whose combine a potent melodic indie rock with the bliss-out noise of grunge. The Derry based band are quite stunning. They instantly sound like the future by shackling the past with the timeless melodies and hypnotic ethereal vocals of Siânna Lafferty that are utterly captivating

Back in Blighty I found the time to interview the mighty Richard Jobson from Skids and Armoury Show and a million other projects. Jobbo is a creative whirlwind who can't sit still and comes with a thrilling life story that includes somehow gate crashing the punk inner circle of Sid and Siouxsie in 1976 as a cocky 16 year old coming down from Scotland. The interview is peppered full of interesting anecdotes and wisdom.

Public Image Limited’s groundbreaking and brilliant clattering percussive Flowers Of Romance album released in 1981 saw the departure of bass genius Jah Wobble who brilliantly the band made no attempt to replace. They just making the drums louder and the music sparser. It's a glorious melange of huge percussion and histrionic vocal wailings that somehow create an avante grade bliss and a very left field pop sound. Perhaps one of the weirdest records to ever tickle the underbelly of the charts, the album sounds stunning in 2023.

Nick Banks from Pulp has released his autobiography which tracks that most idiosyncratic of British band's weird career that saw them struggle for decades before suddenly becoming the very definition of Britpop - a scene that they has nothing to do with. It’s one of the most heart-warming stories in show biz and proof that somehow brilliant culture will always find a way of percolating into the mainstream.

Echo and the Bunnymen have now entered their regal phase and they have never sounded mightier. Like a post punk orchestra they have taken their classic 1984 classic album Ocean Rain out for an orchestrated celebration. A celebration that pays tribute to their untouchable, timeless legacy with the dramatic power that protects that album from being tarnished by the marks of musical history. A trick that lets them play it in its entirety with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. The Bunnies are one of those rare bands that have never sounded so good even into their later period and their musical legacy remains untarnished and celebrated by these swooping and thrilling glissandos that add to the innate power of their beautiful songs

Bowie may have been the cultural driving force of the seventies but his friend and rival Marc Bolan was his musical equal. The music seemed to have poured out of him in his too brief career that crashed and burned after its amazing heights.  A new film, ‘AngelHeaded Hipster: The Songs Of Marc Bolan & T.Rex’ mixes vintage footage with peers’ anecdotes and recordings from a tribute album is at its best when showing clips of T.Rex in their heyday, says Tim Cooper.

Punk is peppered with inspirational people who made magic out of the mundane and created stunning sonic vistas from the vacuum. Pauline Murray is the singer from Penetration, who formed and created their own version of punk in the small pit towns near Durham in 1976. Her life story is an example of the power and passion of punk and how it inspired people to create on their own terms and not wait for the permission of the then London-centric music biz. She remains an inspiration and her voice is undimmed by the decades and her passion for her music and others is a beacon of hope. She recently released her autobiography and popped into Manchester for a reading and acoustic show.