Liam Gallagher is playing drums on my head. I hear a few rhythmic taps, like he’s keeping time on the snare. There’s an occasional swish across the top of the bald napper, casual and cool, Ringo-style. This is happening by the doors of the Astoria on London’s Charing Cross Road and a few music fans are watching, bemused. As they might be. They’ve just been to a feverish gig by the band Ash, but here’s Liam, the most significant face in popular music just now, on the beat with a music journalist.
I’m thinking of a comedy precedent. When I was a child I would watch Benny Hill on the television, taking the rise out of his sidekick, Jackie Wright. The percussive head taps that Benny served out to Jackie were speeded up on film to humorous effect and because of it, the little Belfast entertainer was forever famous. So, this moment on the evening of August 18, 1995, is my own piece of minor acclaim. Continue Reading…
Shellshock Rock – the John T.Davis short documentary film that gives this epic triple CD and DVD compilation its name – has assumed mythical status since it was first briefly released in 1979. Not surprising perhaps, given that it was initially banned from the Cork Film Festival, went on to win awards around the world, and yet has never really had a proper commercial release until now, a mere 41 years later.
Grá mór to RÓIS and her album Mo Léan. This hidden story of the Irish keening tradition has become a shared fascination. She has liberated voices, long silenced by Church, State and Empire. A wonderful coup.
You can’t accuse The Wood Burning Savages of caring less. Every track on their second album is a retort, a legitimate wail, a Ken Loach storyline. They itemise loathing, furious at the major lies and petty cruelties. It’s a parade of militant incels, grasping landlords, party ideologues and the children of immigrants who want to outlaw a system that gave their own families a point of entry. 
Dani Larkin sings ‘She Moved Through the Fair’, reeling with the fever and surprise in the words. It’s a story of intense attraction but it also hints at a love affair that may not be realised in this world.
There are many arresting moments across the new Everlasting Yeah record, but there’s none better than the pure flow of ‘Myself When I Am Real’. Sure enough, you have great musicians with a provenance that goes back to The Petrol Emotion and then further, to Damian’s place in The Undertones. And for this track, they roll and coil for over seven minutes, relishing their simpatico groove, clearly aware that a cool thing is in process.
Ursula Burns has written a bunch of memorable lyrics over the years, from ‘Sinister Nips’ and ‘Continental Boys’, to ‘Small Square Parks’ and ‘Heartbreak Was Heartbreak’. But on the new record, words are banished and the harp has full dominion. It’s a chance to indulge and evoke, to let the maverick style contend with bardic traditions, Latino flourish and semaphore bleeps. It sounds rich and unfettered. As the album title suggests, the tunes indicate roots and blossom, endurance and ecology. 
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