LTW Newslteer 32

Welcome Warriors!

As Slade once didn't quite sing about the spring weather ‘Oh won’t you tease me, won’t you please me…’. Yet again the promise of the warmth drying out the traditional English melancholy was banished by a quick blast of winter to remind his that nature will always have its way.

Yet again, though, there has been all kinds of musical action to keep us warm in these nippy days of April. I’m sat here on my perch in Manchester’s HOME - the artsy cinema spot in town - drinking their kick ass green tea and listening to a whole afternoon of dub and reggae classics booming around its steel and chrome interiors and typing like a fiend. Twice I’ve been sat here and handed demos by great young bands in the past month and half an hour ago I received a third - described by the messenger as a cross between Rudimentary Peni and Cabaret Voltaire and recorded on an iPad - now that has got me intrigued! Will report back on that soon folks…

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are an odd band - people, including famously Nick Cave, really have it in for them. There have been some gonzoid moments in the bands career that does’t exactly chime with a British sensibility but they are capable of some sublime moments especially with guitarist John Friusciante who is back in the band saddle for the new album and his lightness of touch and exquisite, melodic playing has a whiff of Hendrix about it and the ‘Unlimited Love’ album certainly has some moments as our reviewer points out…

I often wonder if that the genre that is really breaking musical barriers is metal. Indie often gets the kudos and the media attention but quietly (ok not that quietly if we are talking in sonic terms!) metal bends itself into all sorts of new and original shapes without every getting near 6music rain play but selling shedloads of records worldwide. Swedish band Meshuggah - metal’s greatest exponents of crushing technical death metal, have an incredible new album, Immutable and continue to lead the way in producing dazzling and experimental metal.

Jaz Coleman speaks to John Robb about the apocalyptic times, the new Killing Joke EP upcoming tour, the sixth great extinction, his near-death brush last year, his remarkable parents and brother and a passion for moth breeding…and so much more.

Glam legend Suzi Quatro was a game changer. The narrative these days tend to point to punk for the emergence of a tough new breed of women musicians but Suzi had been having number one hits 4 years before that scene and the tough rocker style to match and also the killer bass style. Those first 3 hits were quintessential primal glam and I love them to this day. She has a new box set out encompassing her whole career and a big gig at the Albert hall which she discusses here with us.

The Mysterines are leading charge of grunge laced rock bands coming out of Liverpool. The city has currently a great scene of noisier vibrant bands and the Mysterines album has gate crashed the UK top ten and defied all the trends and should see the band as one of the main festival bands this summer.

Stiff Little Fingers were always one of the great punk bands. They may not have been in the first wave but that added fervent intensity from trying to be punk outside the noisy yet cosy confines of 1977 London added to the extra heavy manners of living in Belfast certainly twisted their musical melons. Jake Burns is a great songwriter with a brilliant flesh tearing voice and deep into the decades their fire has never dimmed as our reviewer reports here.

Speaking of old time punk there is an interesting looking documentary out soon on Holland’s first punk band who were called Panic. The group’s Iggy Pop detonation inspired shows of mess and lunacy have gone down in local history and the doc is a fascinating insight into the sprawling and spiralling influence of punk as it spread around the world in 1977.

The key band that year was the Sex Pistols and with the Danny Boyle TV series looming soon and the surrounding controversy and bitter rows between Lydon and the band and all over Facebook it looks like they have never dimmed their power to opinion-ate onlookers. The latest argument is over the repacking of their albums…

The king of film soundtracks, Hans Zimmer, played an astounding show in Manchester that was full of his moody melodies, themes and sounds that you may know from at least some of the Batman films. The dark melancholy and brooding strings makes for some spectacle…

Dictator are an interesting new band from Scotland who do the widescreen indie electronics of a Primal Scream or even a Kasabian before their wheels came off…

John Otway is about to play his 5000th gig at Shepherd’s Bush Empire. He remains the ultimate cult and his staggering career of musical lunacy has won him a hardcore following and plenty of brilliantly unlikely scenarios as we talk through in this interview…

Vashti Bunyan is an English singer-songwriter who had her first album, Just Another Diamond Day, released in 1970. The album wasn’t a success and she ditched her musical career. In 2000 the album became a cult item, it was re-released and she commenced her recording career after a 30-year hiatus, two more albums followed. Vashti has an amazing story to tell in her autobiography.