Hippy Alert ~ Gong Are Back ~ Hillage and Allen Reunited
My friend Suey from my college days absolutely bloody loved Gong, the hippy, psychedelic, prog merchants est. 1968, which I always thought a little incongruous given that her favourite band was The Smiths. I’ve not knowingly ever heard a Gong track, I was always a trifle put off/scared by their record sleeves. What I do know is...
Speedy’s News From Nowhere ~ The best Britpop album you’ve never heard
Back in the Great Britpop Wars of the mid to late ‘90s, I used to defend my corner when it came to some of the less successful or popular acts in the genre. I could often be found in an indie boozer, sporting a skinny t-shirt (sigh), providing covering fire for the likes of Rialto, Lodger, Gene, Hurricane#1, Silver Sun, Posh and Speedy....
Pop Junkie Says Don’t Let the BBC Change Radio 2 or 6Music
The BBC is canvassing opinion on Radio 2 and 6Music because they have to keep the licence payers happy. The TV licence payers that is. We’ve got a telly, but Chez Bongo is very much a radio house. From the 6.45am alarm which brings Radio 4 into our lug ‘oles, through the delights of Test Match Special on longwave, the likes...
Pop Junkie Salutes Alan Price ~ The Most Underrated Man in Pop
Today’s Pop Junkie is brought to you by the letters A and P. For no good reason (his birthday was back in April) other than I want to write about Alan Price. I bought his ‘Geordie Boy; The Best Of’ a couple of years ago because I needed to own his version of Randy Newman’s Simon Smith & His Amazing Dancing...
Remembering Brian Jones of The Rolling Stones, 28/2/42 ~ 3/7/69
It was on July 3rd 1969 that Brian Jones, the founder and one-time leader of The Rolling Stones passed away in circumstances that are still shrouded in mystery, conjecture and conspiracy four decades on. Found face down in the swimming pool of his Sussex cottage, once owned by Winnie the Pooh creator A.A. Milne, in the small hours of...
Elvis’ Backing Singers Record with Pete Molinari
The great Pete Molinari is playing a session on Marc Riley’s 6 Music show this evening (Thursday 2nd July) and I just thought I’d let you know. It’ll be available for the next week on Listen Again. In case you’ve not heard Pete before, he’s put out two albums on Damaged Goods, in his distinctive and wonderful...
Moneen Live at the Barfly
Last week I had the chance to check out Moneen at the Barfly, as they headlined one of two shows before kicking off their one-week stint around the UK with Brand New. The show had been organized fairly last minute, and had it not been for the opening act Lights. Action!, it probably wouldn’t have been possible,...
The Screaming Lights ~ Classic Mersey Beat 1981 Style
Having introduced to Pop Junkie The Screaming Lights back in April, I now bring further news of the Liverpool quartet. Apart from being the centre of the universe in 1963-64, Liverpool was very much where it was at in 1981 with your Teardrop Explodes, Bunnymen, Pale Fountains, Yachts and the like. Of course, it was also at Glasgow (Postcard),...
Song and Dance Legend Michael Jackson is Dead
I doubt you’re so dedicated to the charms of Pop Junkie, heading this way before any other form of media, for this to be breaking news, so you will know by now that, on a day when Sky Saxon, Farrah Fawcett and Swells passed away, Michael Jackson is also no longer with us. I have written before on these pages, more than once, that...
Garage Punk Legend Sky Saxon of The Seeds is Dead
Yep, sorry to be the bringer of sad news, as you’re not likely to have heard it on breakfast TV or even Radio 4, but a true music LEGEND, and I am very well aware as to how much I use that label but in this case it’s beyond question, Sky Sunlight Saxon has passed away. He was admitted into hospital in Austin, Texas on Monday...
Forget Glastonbury (Slight Return) ~ Get on Down to Brighton’s Beachdown Festival
Ha ha, am I playing jokes on you today? No, I wouldn’t do that, it’s just the way it’s worked out. Like the proverbial buses along comes another festival in the same Sussex town. Seven weeks after the Wilkommen event, Brighton hosts the altogether bigger Beachdown Festival. This has been put together by Adrian Gibson’s...
Forget Glastonbury ~ Get on Down to Brighton’s Wilkommen Festival
The idea of camping overnight at a pop festival is one of my worst nightmares. Hunting for one’s tent in a muddy field of countless thousands, surrounded by lots of people and their kids… I have close and dear friends who love that sort of thing, but it’s not for me. The sort of festival I like is one that lasts for...
Stuart Murdoch’s New Project God Help The Girl ~ More Songs About Chocolate & Girls
As previewed on Pop Junkie five weeks ago, Stuart Murdoch’s Belle and Sebastian sabbatical project, God help the Girl, was released yesterday (Monday 22nd June) on Rough Trade. Being one of only a dozen thirty/forty-somethings in the country who doesn’t own a copy of Tigermilk, I have come late to the charms of B&S. I...
Sixties Nuggets Punk Legends Play Last Night at the Dirty Water Club
If you’re in the business of playing punk rock 60s style, i.e. anything from half-assed Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley riffs, to lo-fi speeded-up surf, to snotty Kinks, Stones and Yardirds r’n'b, to spaced out psych, or just want to make an unholy racket, then there can be no greater stamp of approval than to be included on a...
I Thought You Might Like to Know ~ Join The Shindig Pepper Psych Sleeve Party Band
Shindig! magazine presents an exhibition of psychedelic and garage record sleeves on 25-26 June in London’s world-famous Carnaby Street, but on the evening of Thursday 25 June they’re going to have a little party and would like you to join them. The plan is to create a record sleeve on site in the style of a Sgt Pepper montage....
Trio of Rare Bert Jansch Albums Reissued
Virgin/EMI have this week reissued three Bert Jansch albums, which were originally released on the Famous Charisma Label in the mid Seventies. Having been unavailable for many years (Bert had to buy his copy of L.A. Turnaround on eBay) and never before on CD, the albums will be sought by all fans of the man’s work, especially in...
Mummies Attacks Nuns in Paris with Devastating Results
Oh boy, you shoulda been there. Perhaps you were? Paris’ finest independent record store, Born Bad, celebrated its tenth anniversary by hosting a festival over the weekend inviting some of the rawest lo-fi punk and garage acts from Europe and America to do their thing. The Swinging Neckbreakers, Cecilia and the Sauerkrauts and...
Refugee Week: Top 4 Refugee Musicians
With Refugee Week starting on Monday, here at Popjunkie we have been thinking about some of the amazing musicians that have had to flee their homeland as a result of conflict, persecution or natural disaster. This year those behind Refugee Week wanted to celebrate the contribution of refugees to the UK through various simple acts. So...
The Brute Chorus Look Set To Splash It All Over
Back in the Seventies, when “the great smell of Brut” was first unleashed, they employed the likes of ‘Enry Cooper, Kevin Keegan and even Muhammed Ali to flog the scent to the nation’s geezers. Well, there’s a London-based quartet called The Brute Chorus, nothing at all to do with aftershave, who are creating...
Britpop - the case for the defence
Rather unfairly, Britpop has become a dirty word. Well, here at PopJunkie we love Britpop – let’s face it; it was the most exciting time in British music since the ‘60s. And if you don’t agree with us, then, frankly, we don’t give a Shed Seven. To mark the 15th anniversary of the beginnings of Britpop, I’m currently listening...
