LTW newsletter 85

Dear Warriors,

A plague of locusts, toads, hail, and strange lumpen lunatic politicians and snake oil salesmen in post Trump America! The gods have certainly been smiling recently and been slugging on through storms and improbable weather madness. The rest of the country seems to have been drenched and frozen to biblical proportions since the Nick Cave tour which is quite apt as his fire and brimstone performance with a huge added dose of Elvis style showbiz actually made an arena gig feel intimate and enjoyable. The two plus hours whizzed past even in one of those tiny plastic seats that are about as far away from the definition of rock n roll as you can get.

A couple of days ago Massive Attack played one of their rare shows. Liverpool Arena was host to the band and a special conference about trying to listen to music and make our world more zero carbon. Not only a brilliant platform for their dystopian groove but also for ideas for a better futre.

Out of the blue, My Bloody Valentine suddenly announced a show. We love the way this band works - beyond convention and doing things on their own terms at their own speed. Sometimes they disappear for years, retreating to the studio probably spending years with Kevin Shields working on one riff, endlessly honing it down to some kind of beautifully warped perfection and then on a whim, they decide to do a gig…a big gig. The huge Dublin show looks like a one-off at the moment but like we say who knows with the Valentines!

The spell check on here doesn’t love Khruangbin one bit and constantly keeps trying to respell the band’s name which makes them a nightmare to write about. So far its come up with endless permutations of the name in its own Ai atttempt to define them but we went one step further and send a real live human being to their recent sold out show at Manchester Apollo to become spellbound their display of funky, psychedelic tones of their new album A La Sala

One from the archives!

Last week was the 40th anniversary of the debut Jesus and Mary Chain single…I know I know … that makes us all feel really old and reeling in our heads as they still feel like a new band but time waits for no one and in its endless rush what was once shiny and ground breaking and new becomes a dusty relic and antique. Thankfully the song still sounds great but it was a cool reminder of the very first interview that Jesus and Mary Chain did which was with me - spending the weekend at our feral house in Manchester whne they were sent up there by Alaln McGee on the train. Mcgee came as well and we also got to meet the enigmatic Linder Sterling in the greasy spoon cafe by the bus station before going to see Lee Scratch Perry play the Haceinda that evening.

Pop culture is so fractured these days that it's really tricky to know everything that's going on which throws up interesting curveballs like a band selling out Manchester 3400 capacity Apollo that we haven’t heard of like Jason Isbell and the 400…luckily we have a team of writers that operate on its own agenda bringing in all manner of heavy manners. 

Prolapse were one of these few noisier Death To Trad Rock bands in the 90’s that somehow managed to make their explosive discordance into some kind of pop. Often the polish up kills a band but the the Leicester based group were perahaps always an Alt pop band hiding inside a noisier exterior. The rerelease of their debut album puts the spotlight back on the band and it’s with a rush of great memories that we get immersed in their internal monologue, motorik beats and discordant thrills yet again. 

It was interesting to see the Pogues announce a UK tour. Since the passing of their iconic poetic shaman Shane Macgowan it seemed that the sorrow was over but those songs live on and the Pogies always had a lot of strength in depth and were never just a vehicle for their wayward frontman so a celebration of that catalogue and the band proper is something to celebrate. 

Penetration were yet another band that underlined the strength in depth that the punk period had. They may have got halfway up the greasy old of success with a major label deal and albums that charted in the back end of the charts, but they remained a much-loved cult. recent years have seen them getting a much-deserved embrace with the likes of Chris Packham singing their praises and getting their turns on whatever programme he can, and a sold-out gig in Manchester.