Recently I attended Midem, the big European music/tech trade fair that takes over the posh French Riviera town of Cannes each January. It’s four days of mad networking, industry discussion and frenetic searching for the Next Big Music/Tech/Branding Thing. It’s also four days in the company of some of the most interesting people you’ll ever … Continue reading »
Welcome, dear readers, to another (hopefully relevant) instalment in the Left of Centre series, in which I put the delightful Lukas Keller, music journalist, event organiser, concert/festival-goer, man-about-town, and all round good sort under the microscope. With his indefatigably excellent taste in music and finely honed cultural and aesthetic sensibilities, Lukas is the Editor-in-Chief of … Continue reading »
What would you buy the birthday boy who has everything – international rock superstardom, adoring fans by the million, a roomful of guitars, luxury brand sponsorship, an iPad, curls & eyelashes to die for, and ‘a voice to make me cry’? Well, if you happen to have seen #MolkoFourOh and/or Molko, Y’Know? around the internets … Continue reading »
Do you remember your first obsession? Mine was David Bowie. I collected everything about him I could get my hands on, every album/bootleg recording and magazine, nicked books from the library, recorded (on cassette!) snippets of songs and interviews on the radio, stayed up all night watching Rage in the hope that they would play … Continue reading »
Thanks to the massive publicity generated by her über-successful Kickstarter album campaign, Amanda Palmer (sometimes also known as Amanda Fucking Palmer) has been lately saddled with the rather burdensome title of ‘the future of music’. Phew! That’s no easy thing to live up to. One gets the sense, though, that Palmer and her Grand Theft Orchestra … Continue reading »
This evening ethereal Icelandic post-rock band Sigur Rós are streaming their new album Valtari (Icelandic for ‘steamroller’, apparently) in full for one hour from 7pm. Click here for the stream. First Twitter reactions can be found under the hashtag #valtarihour. While you are counting down the minutes to the so-called ‘global listening party’, you can … Continue reading »
First up in the Left of Centre series is digital whizz and online maven, Anthony Crook, of Riverman Management (Placebo, Evaline, Expatriate). Here he talks about developing a thick skin, his career highlights, and why retaining an element of mystery is a good thing. Oh and his glamorous lifestyle… Continue reading »
If I were to run away to an island, I’d want Danish band Efterklang (+ The Brodericks, of course) to come with me and make beautiful music in wooden sheds and school halls to keep me company. Guess I’m about to see my fantasy come to life – well, at least on the big screen, … Continue reading »
Belle and Sebastian have released the REAL album cover of their latest album (a false one was released last week), Belle and Sebastian Write About Love, due for release 11/12 October 2010. Head on over to their website for a snippet of one of the songs from BASWAL (hehe, that’s quite a good acronym), ‘I … Continue reading »
