LTW newsletter 72
Warriors!
Hope all has been good in your world.
I’m typing this furiously on the way back from the rather wonderful Laugharne festival in West Wales.
It’s been a great weekend.
I was there to debut my upcoming my upcoming ‘Do You Believe In the Power of Rock n Roll’ tour (S'ouvre dans une nouvelle fenêtre)where I talk about my adventures in music over the decades.
It went very well which makes the start of the tour this weekend in Selby on Friday and Chorley on Saturday even more exciting (tour details here!)
At Laugharne, I bumped into a fantastically unlikely cast of people running around what looked like a hobbit village in the middle of nowhere. The small village is where the genius Dylan Thomas comes from and they know how to milk (wood) that dry without spoiling the remote town.
Scuttling up and down the high street were the likes of Robin Askwith, the actor from If and also the Confessions films in the seventies and who looks hardly changed as he told us a great anecdote about drumming in the early Genesis whilst they were all at Charterhouse college and how Phil Collins got him kicked out of the band and then got off with his girlfriend at the time!
Jah Wobble breezed in and out of the festival as affable and hilarious as ever, Will Sergeant and was also there as well as many music writers. It’s a great event and I warmly advise you to go there next year!
I'm not sure if anyone has caught The Stranglers yet on this tour, but the band have never sounded better with a crystal clear bass-driven live sound that really underlines their ‘every member of the band plays lead at the same time trademark sound’. Yeah, we know there is only one member left but it is the best bass player ever and with an idiosyncratic set list of weird curveballs and huge hits the band are celebrating their 50th anniversary at a new peak.
https://louderthanwar.com/the-stranglers-o2-apollo-manchester-live-review/
We were sorry to report the death of Steve Harley who was one of the great art glam stars of the seventies. Like many of you readers, we will remember him bursting out of Top Of The Pops and into our lives with his hit single ‘Judy Teen’ in 1974. Even if he only had a clutch of hits one of them was ‘Make me Smile (Come Up and See Me)’ which is one of the all time classics. He also looked great and for a brief flurry of time replaced Bowie in the teenage affections of the moment. Unlike Bowie, he couldn't sustain his mainstream presence, but those clutch of songs will resonate forever.
https://louderthanwar.com/glam-rock-legend-steve-harley-dies-at-73/
Simple Minds breezed through Manchester Arena with a Saturday night brimming with euphoric, uplifting celebration that oozed quality and nostalgia without wallowing in the past.
Arguably the most controversial band in the UK - not because of their antics but their marmite music are Liam Gallagher and John Squire. I guess one of the side affects of being that well known is that everyone has an opinion on your music and often the opinion is negative and typed out over and over again on Facebook! The album hit number one though and the pair of likely lags hit the touring trail and LTW were there to have a gander.
https://louderthanwar.com/liam-gallagher-and-john-squire-the-halls-wolverhampton-live-review/
Awkward doesn’t even cover it. The SXSW sponsor row breaks new boundaries in what music is and what it represents. I guess those halcyon days of the counter culture are long gone but does SXSW even need the money from the sponsorship deal it has with the US military.
Many bands pulled out from the world's biggest music showcase event, but not enough to make it grind to a halt. We already know we are living in strange times but has music now become the soundtrack to the impending world war with Russian bands playing their Putin gigs and SXSW being a musical part for the US military?
https://louderthanwar.com/sxsw-army-sponsor-row/
Better news was the return to the record label frontline of Alan Mcgee who with a bunch of music biz mates has launched Creation Youth records.
https://louderthanwar.com/alan-mcgee-youth-announce-new-label/
In our downtime we have been very much enjoying the Suzi Ronson book. It’s an inside account of the her life with the genius of Mick Ronson as well as the golden days of glam rock - a warts n all account from the indie of the Day-Glo empir. It’s an unfiltered look at the first act of Bowie’s stratospheric fame. Recounted by one of his chief fashionista’s Suzi Ronson.'
https://louderthanwar.com/me-and-mr-jones-my-life-with-davie-bowie-and-the-spiders-from-mars-by-suzi-ronson-book-review/
As the anarcho-punk juggernaut that is the Steve Ignorant Band embark on yet another tour featuring songs from the Crass back catalogue, Louder Than War’s Ian Corbridge caught up with keyboard player and vocalist Carol Hodge. They talked about her musical life that most know as being at the heart of Steve Ignorant’s current band. A deeper dig though will find that Carol also has her own solo albums that underline her own unique and perfectly executed musical vision.
https://louderthanwar.com/life-as-an-independent-singer-songwriter-interview-with-carol-hodge/
Speaking of interviews, we landed a 10,000-word interview with Orbital, which may be the most in-depth piece on the band ever—maybe one for the Guinness Book of Records as the longest online piece written on anyone ever!
It may be long, but it’s a fascinating piece.
https://louderthanwar.com/orbital-interview-green-brown-albums-re-releases-and-tour/
LTW has always been about new talent so we were blown away with this great piece of writing about Swans. The live review was written by an upcoming 16 year old who has a command of language and an in depth knowledge of music that is like a seasoned veteran. It’s a truly wonderful piece of writing.
hanwar.com/swans-die-kantine-cologne-live-review/
The evergreen legend Pete Wylie is back on tour, and LTW were at his show at the Deaf Institute in Manchester to celebrate the effervescent scouser with a heart as big as Liverpool!
https://louderthanwar.com/pete-wylie-the-mighty-wah-deaf-institute-manchester-live-review/
If you still have time then pop over here to catch up with Mark Burgess from the Chameleons interview where he talks about his current recordings with the classic band.
https://louderthanwar.com/mark-burgess-the-chameleons-the-john-robb-interview/
