Poetry on the subject of being disturbed when reading; an interactive post in that for a fee of $50 plus travelling and expenses I’ll come round your house and interrupt you while reading it for the artistic irony of doing so (so don’t start reading yet if intending to purchase that option, and if not for yourself then why not as a lovely gift for a loved one or much cherished friend; in which case, read away!).
With thanks to Radu Florin for use of header image (licensing).
Any true believers reading this may well think an atheist like me is trivialising their Lord; but I say unto them: REPENT! for it is you who doth not realise the Good Book for a metaphor!
With thanks to Missy Stinson for use of the header image (licensing). Continue reading
Observations from walking the hood.
With thanks to D. D. Buck^ for use of the header image.
Another night at the Chelsea Inn found me once again watching a band in awe of how accomplished.
BREATHE/RUST, a four piece from Bristol combining members of The Break Out, The Earth & Me, Nietzsche Trigger Finger and Crazy Arm, are tagged as hardcore on the flyer; the epithet is more than deserved, though I don’t envy whoever has to decide given the array of genres to be found across the four track self-titled debut EP. Continue reading
Thoughts on negative reactions to live music; inspired in particular by Billy Nomates / Tor playing Glastonbury 2023 and The Who in Toronto 2016: Continue reading
To mark the commencement of a 2023 US Summer tour, Etran de L’Aïr—which translates to the Stars of the Aïr—have released two live tracks recorded in Seattle earlier in the year; available for digital download, they’re also NYP (name your price, which includes free if you need it to be).
Seattle is a long way—seven-thousand miles thereabouts—from Etran de L’Aïr’s hometown of Agadez, Niger; a city located in the Sahara desert and the country’s fifth largest.
Etran de L’Aïr’s sound is generally described as desert blues. It’s a genre description in much part originating from the epithet desert rock already being taken in the West by a bunch of stoners who liked recording while out of their trees while out in the deserts of the States—some groovy tunes coming from their endeavours, it should be said—while the sound coming from Africa has a vibe and undercurrent distinctive to musicians in the region. Continue reading
Monday the 12th saw a first visit to the Louisiana, Bristol. Knowing nothing of the headliner, it was another case of a flyer grabbing attention in the timeline and hitting interested on the event from there.
Then came a surprise a couple of days beforehand when finding an article on the BBC website singing the praises of Death Pill’s cause; this I didn’t know about.
Death Pill’s story is phenomenal; so much so, it’s humbling writing now to think I got to witness part of it. Continue reading
I don’t know how POHL’s FREAKSPEED found its way to my ears, but I’m sure glad this ecstasy of crushing sludge rock did.
The overall vibe is a heady mix of Alice in Chains, Jucifer and Weedeater.
A question of context, perhaps perspective; maybe a journey through the unwinding impact writing can have: the calm sea at which the stream of consciousness ends having started on a harsh, craggy mountain side . . . Or maybe it’s nothing so dramatic as that and instead just a pondering on whether things were in fact better or worse in the old days.
Header image: Star Lore Of All Ages (1911); licensing. Continue reading
While it’s safe to say Jesus Christ didn’t visit Weston-super-Mare, what about anyone else thought an incarnation of God by followers of a religion?
How about that incarnation of God also being someone once given weapons and ammunition by the Nazis with which to fight a war?
Or to up the ante more so, the person not only being black, but in the same year—2020—as the much covered throwing of Edward Colston’s statue into Bristol Harbour, one of this individual got smashed to bits in a London park with hardly a mention in the press?
N. P. Ryan 