The News Review:
- England’s still dreaming
- Pop and Rock Listings
- Nikki Sudden review | CD reviews | Music – Times nline
- zomatli is ready to rock the Rainbow.
- Yuletide Hits: Putting the cool into Christmas
England’s still dreaming
Leeds Today – Dec 8, 2006
“We recorded the drums in our practice room in Leeds everything else in Nick’s flat and Peanut and Nick mixed it. “The technology is so cheap these days that bands can do that kind of thing. “Simon Warner a lecturer in punk and contemporary music at Leeds University says Leeds has proven itself to be an especially fertile breeding ground for punk-inspired groups. “There are quite a few bands around the city who have that punk influence” he says. “The Cribs from Wakefield have a lot of that vehement punk energy then there are bands like the Pigeon Detectives and Black Wire in Leeds. “Even a band like the Kaiser Chiefs who have got a sort of good-natured almost cartoon-like quality that makes them a bit of a latter-day Madness have still got that punk-style quirky irregular approach to the way they write music and perform. “ther new bands being formed in West Yorkshire bear testimony to just how strong a hold punk retains on the modern music scene.
Pop and Rock Listings
New York Times – Dec 8, 2006
(Sisario)DNNA THE BUFFAL (Tonight) Donna the Buffalo is not named for its fiddler and singer Tara Nevins. Its good-natured rock leans toward the Appalachian side of country music though it also dips into reggae and Cajun music with songs that ponder love and humanity’s place in the universe. At 8 Bowery Ballroom 6 Delancey Street near the Bowery Lower East Side (212) 533-2111. (Pareles)ALEJANDR ESCVED (Tonight) Mr… Devoted to leftist political ideals the group chocks its lyrics full of topical allusions and has been known to include 140-page books about the Spanish Revolution with its albums. But in concert the Ex is blessedly all about the beat: a brawny anxious punk-funk that never releases its tension. The effect is unforgettably visceral.
Nikki Sudden review | CD reviews | Music – Times nline
Times nline – Dec 8, 2006
Used on article pages to rotate the images of a story. Though cited as an inspiration by R. Sonic Youth Wilco and Pavement Sudden’s work — both solo and with the Birmingham punks Swell Maps — remains about as celebrated in this country as Gary Glitter’s birthday. But then casting an eye over his back catalogue it’s hard to know what Sudden who died earlier this year would have done with success.
zomatli is ready to rock the Rainbow.
Free with registration – Fresno Bee – AccessMyLibrary.com – Dec 8, 2006
Equally cool is supporting band Los Abandoned. They’re another genre-bender a sort of new wave-meets-Latin pop band that is as in-your-face as a punk band. The music is fun energetic and not. CPYRIGHT 2006 The Fresno Bee.
Yuletide Hits: Putting the cool into Christmas
Independent – Dec 8, 2006
That combined a version of the Bing Crosby classic with “I Was Thinking I Could Clean Up for Christmas” about young Southern criminal lovers on the run. This mixture of the sacred and the profane also applies to Sufjan Stevens’s Songs for Christmas box-set a collection of EPs he has made for family and friends since 2001. “[A roommate and I] both decided we wanted to make music our grandparents would like” Stevens perhaps the most respected US indie star has said. The Christian singer combines respectful covers of a wide range of Christmas songs with self-penned dissections of the season’s mundane reality such as “Did I Make You Cry n Christmas Day? (Well You Deserved It!)”. Pearl Jam will release their annual fan club-only Christmas 7in single adding to earlier curios such as the Jackson Five cover “Someday at Christmas” (2004). Rufus Wainwright meanwhile will restrict his seasonal fascination to a live Carnegie Hall special roping in Lou Reed David Byrne and Laurie Anderson to help. Americana heroes such as Kelly Joe Phelps and Willard Grant Conspiracy have also released Christmas songs in the last couple of years… How else could skinhead bovver boys-turned-glam thugs Slade have become as engrained in many people’s consciousnesses as the Queen’s Speech? (their 1973 No 1 “Merry Xmas Everybody” gets its annual re-release again this year of course). John Lennon and Yoko no’s Vietnam-era “Happy Xmas (War Is ver)” (1972) gives a shiver of chastening perspective if heard in the right mood on Christmas Day (The Beatles it should be recalled had three consecutive Christmas No 1s). For all their rabble-rousing punk swagger meanwhile The Pogues are best remembered for “Fairy Tale of New York”. Held at No 2 in 1987 by the Pet Shop Boys’ “Always n My Mind” it has grown into a perennial. Challenged by Elvis Costello to write a Christmas classic Shane MacGowan’s lyrics finding the remaining sparks of love between a boozing ageing Irish couple one possibly dying of alcoholism allied to Jem Finer’s redemptive melody make a heartbreaking record. It was intended to combat “the torture of packaged party time” Finer told Uncut and every year its mix of harsh Christmas realism and transcendent romance does just that. The Pogues proved beyond doubt that Christmas is as rich a time as any to write about once you fight past clichés; and that you can enter the rhythm of people’s lives if you succeed.