Category Archives: Pop and rock

Lost footage of Rolling Stones at notorious Altamont festival uncovered

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Carlos Santana, Jefferson Airplane, the Flying Burrito Brothers and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young also appear in 26 minutes of home video at event that marked end of hippy dream

Twenty-six minutes of unseen footage of the vast and notoriously violent Altamont music festival held in northern California in 1969 have been unexpectedly uncovered.

The home-movie footage – which is vividly shot on 8mm film, but frustratingly silent – has been published by the Library of Congress on its website.

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Justin and Dan Hawkins of the Darkness look back: ‘People are terrified of us. And rightly so’

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The brothers recreate a family photo and talk about how they came back from a huge fallout – and a best man’s speech starring a puppet testicle

Justin and Dan Hawkins are the Lowestoft brothers behind rock band the Darkness. Puncturing the genteel Dido and Keane-era mainstream of the early noughties with their stadium rock and low-cut catsuits, their music had a short-lived period of ridicule before their debut album Permission to Land went on to sell 3.5m copies. At the peak of their commercial powers they won three Brit awards, an Ivor Novello, and penned the modern Christmas classic, 2003’s Christmas Time (Don’t Let the Bells End). The band split in 2006 after the release of their second album, but they’ve since reformed and released five more records. They are currently on tour.

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Son of Sinéad O’Connor dies at age of 17 after going missing

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Irish musician says Shane O’Connor, last seen on Friday morning, ‘was the very light of my life’

Sinéad O’Connor’s 17-year-old son has died, two days after he was reported missing.

The musician shared the news on social media, writing that he “decided to end his earthly struggle” and asked that “no one follows his example”.

In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org.

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The Wombats: Fix Yourself, Not the World review – noughties indie returns bigger and brighter

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(Awal)
The trio repurpose their sound from post-punk to pop-facing with a polished and snappy fifth album

Scroll down the Wombats’ Spotify page and you come to the section headed “Fans also like”. It features a selection of their mid-00s contemporaries, fellow strivers in the league of what was cruelly dubbed “landfill indie”: the Pigeon Detectives, the Kooks, the Enemy, Scouting for Girls. As everyone knows, fashion is cyclical and this stuff currently lurks at the foot of fortune’s wheel: old enough to seem like yesterday’s news, not old enough to seem appealingly retro. Give it 10 years and they’ll be packing them in at 00s revival festivals, as their Britpop forebears are today, but for now, it’s strictly self-released albums and tours of venues euphemistically described as “intimate”.

By rights, the Wombats should be in the same boat as those bands, more anonymous than their peers (close your eyes and try to visualise frontman Matthew “Murph” Murphy, let alone drummer Dan Haggis), they were dumped by their major label in the same year the NME became a free sheet in the face of slumping sales. But the Wombats’ recent interviews come peppered with unexpected phrases: “their studio in LA”, “forthcoming gig at the O2 Arena” and “produced by Jacknife Lee”, the latter fresh from working with U2. It’s not just that they now play far bigger venues than 15 years ago, it’s that the venues come packed – as every reviewer notes in astonishment – with kids too young to remember the Wombats’ first flush of fame. Last year, their 2015 single Greek Tragedy belatedly went gold in the US: between the original and a subsequent remix by Swedish producer Oliver Nelson in 2020, it’s racked up nearly 175m streams on Spotify.

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On my radar: Moses Sumney’s cultural highlights

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The singer-songwriter on Balenciaga’s visions, the mountains of North Carolina, and the haunting power of Eve’s Bayou

Singer-songwriter Moses Sumney, 29, grew up between Ghana and California and studied creative writing and poetry at UCLA. His piercing falsetto and genre-defying music have brought him critical acclaim, starting with his self-recorded 2014 EP Mid-City Island, followed in 2017 by his debut album, Aromanticism, and the 2020 double album Græ. Sumney has collaborated with musicians including Bon Iver and James Blake and toured with Solange and Sufjan Stevens. His latest project is Blackalachia, a self-directed concert film created in association with WePresent, shot over two days in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina, where he lives.

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The person who got me through 2021: Ami Faku sang the break-up track I listened to on a loop

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I’ve spent 12 months of the pandemic obsessively listening to the song Uwrongo, with its line: “This is not working, go home.” I’m very grateful to its singer

I was born on a farm in northern South Africa. My parents moved nearer to Johannesburg when I was still a baby. They have a photograph of me at maybe six months old, asleep inside my dad’s guitar case. Just picturing it in my mind makes me feel safe. I can hear my dad playing.

When I feel overwhelmed, I need something I can listen to on loop. Not just for hours, but for days, sometimes weeks. I think of these tracks as an aural hood. They hold my head together.

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Denise Ho: the Cantopop star and pro-democracy activist arrested in Hong Kong

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The singer, who was swept up in a raid on people linked to StandNews, has been an outspoken critic of Beijing for years

The arrest of Cantopop star Denise Ho in a raid on reporters and prominent figures linked to the Hong Kong media outlet StandNews has shocked her many fans in the city and around the world.

The artist, who is also a Canadian citizen, was taken from her home in Hong Kong on Wednesday for allegedly conspiring with five others to publish seditious materials in her role as a former director of the independent news provider.

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Three members of K-pop band BTS test positive for Covid

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RM and Jin diagnosed on Saturday, managers say, while Suga was shown to be infected after returning from the US

Three members of the K-pop superstar group BTS have been infected with coronavirus after returning from abroad, their management agency said on Sunday.

RM and Jin were diagnosed with Covid-19 on Saturday evening, the Big Hit Music agency said in a statement. It earlier said another member, Suga, tested positive for the virus on Friday.

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Nirvana seek to dismiss sexual abuse lawsuit concerning Nevermind cover

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Lawyers describe Spencer Elden’s claim of child exploitation as ‘not serious’ and says it fails to meet statute of limitations

Lawyers working on behalf of Nirvana have filed to dismiss a lawsuit made against the band by Spencer Elden, who appeared as a baby on the cover of their album Nevermind.

In the lawsuit filed in August, Elden claimed he was the victim of child sexual exploitation and that the cover artwork was a child sexual abuse image. “Defendants knowingly produced, possessed and advertised commercial child pornography depicting Spencer,” the lawsuit read.

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K-pop star Suga tests positive for Covid after BTS return from US

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Band’s management says singer self-isolating at home and is not showing any symptoms

Suga, songwriter and rapper for the K-pop sensation BTS, has tested positive for the coronavirus after returning from concerts in the US, the group’s management has said.

The 24-year-old, whose real name is Min Yoon-gi, was confirmed to have contracted the virus on Friday during his self quarantine after returning home to South Korea on Thursday, according to Big Hit Music.

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Eric Clapton to waive legal costs against woman who attempted to sell single bootlegged CD

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The artist’s management have issued a clarifying statement after the singer attracted criticism over the David v Goliath win

Eric Clapton has waived the legal costs that a German court ordered a 55-year-old woman to pay, over a single CD containing a bootleg copy of a 1980s concert she attempted to sell.

The musician’s management has also issued a clarifying statement in response to widespread social media criticism over Clapton’s decision to take legal action in the first place, saying Clapton was not involved in the specifics of the case and she “is not the type of person Eric Clapton, or his record company, wish to target”.

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The person who got me through 2021: Huey Morgan comforted me amid a deluge of human waste

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I had plumbing problems and his radio show transported me from the faecal hellscape in my garden. It became the ideal soundtrack for my pandemic reality

It was spring, and human excrement was pumping into our garden. I watched through the window as a perplexed young plumber with a long metal pole excavated the dark, gurgling drain. As if lockdown hadn’t been bad enough, our kitchen was now heavy with the stench of a thousand flushes. No one knew how to stop it. There was only one thing to do: brew weapons-grade black coffee and switch on the radio. That’s how I discovered Huey Morgan’s Saturday morning breakfast show on BBC 6 Music. It made everything feel a little more right in the world.

What started as a way to distract from the tide of hot, liquid excrement on our patio quickly became the highlight of the week for my girlfriend and me. Huey – of Fun Lovin’ Criminals fame – thumbing you through his records: early 90s rap, early 80s disco, and early 70s soul to blow away the cobwebs, with choice modern selections marbling the retro soundscape.

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‘This thing was trying to dismantle me’: Mark Lanegan on nearly dying of Covid

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In this extract from his new memoir Devil in a Coma, the alt-rocker recalls how Covid-19 put him in hospital for months this year – and gave him a series of hallucinogenic visions

I had been feeling weak and sick for a few days and then woke up one morning completely deaf. My equilibrium shaky, and my mind in a surreal, psychedelic dream state, I lost my footing at the top of the stairs. Head over heels over head, I knocked myself out on the windowsill as I crashed down the narrow staircase at my house. Bang. My wife was out horseback riding for the day, and I came to hours later still unable to hear a thing, unable to move, two huge opened welts on my head and my knee not supporting any weight.

For two days I tried to get from stairwell to couch, with no success. I could not move, nor could my wife support my 200lb body, so I lay suffering on some blankets on the hard floor. My ribs were cracked, my spine bruised, battered and sore, and my already chronically messed-up knee gone again, as if some tendons were ripped or a ligament severed. My leg was useless. Every attempted breath was a battle, no matter how hard I tried to take a natural one. Though I refused to go to hospital my wife finally called an ambulance behind my back and I was wheeled out of my yard on a gurney. I eventually ended up in intensive care, unable to draw oxygen, and was diagnosed with some exotic new strain of the coronavirus for which there was no cure, of course. I was put into a medically induced coma, none of which I remembered.

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Go easy on me: why pop has got so predictable

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Adele, Ed Sheeran, Abba, Lana Del Rey and Drake all found success in 2021 by delivering more of the same – a result of how our chaotic lives, on and offline, are informing our taste

The biggest album launch of 2021 began with a social media statement tacitly assuring fans that nothing had changed. Adele was once more in a state of heartbreak – “a maze of absolute mess and inner turmoil … consumed by my own grief” – and that the contents of her album 30 would reflect that, as mired in romantic misery as its predecessors, 25 and 21. It was the musical equivalent, she said, of a friend who comes over “with a bottle of wine and a takeaway” to discuss the disastrous state of your love life.

The second-biggest album launch of 2021 was preceded by its creators proudly announcing they had written it “absolutely trend-blind”. Abba had traversed a considerable musical distance over the course of their original career, buffeted by the shifting musical trends of the 70s and early 80s – from the clompy Europop of their debut album to the sophisticated, chilly electronics of The Visitors, by way of glam and sleek disco – but Voyage would offer them preserved in amber, exactly as they were in the late 70s, unspoiled by any musical trends from the 40 years since their split.

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‘BTS taught me that I am worthy’: readers on why they love the K-pop superstars

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Guardian readers from Scandinavia, the Philippines, Morocco and beyond explain their fandom, which has helped rejuvenate them, heal racial trauma and understand their identity

K-pop boy band BTS swept the American Music Awards last month, making history as the first Asian act to win artist of the year; they were also nominated for a Grammy for best pop duo/group performance for their single Butter.

The seven-member band has a huge global following and their fans, known as Army, are known for their passion and loyalty. Here Guardian readers, who are BTS fans, speak about why the band means so much to them.

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‘I never worked in a cocktail bar’: How the Human League made Don’t You Want Me

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‘Philip turned up to meet my parents fully made up, with red lipstick and high heels. My dad locked himself in the bedroom and refused to come out’

I had intended to recruit just one female backing singer but when I walked into the Crazy Daisy nightclub in Sheffield, the first thing I saw was Joanne Catherall and Susan Ann Sulley dancing. They somehow looked like a unit while being clearly different individuals. I knew they were right.

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Charlie Watts remembered by Dave Green

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2 June 1941 – 24 August 2021
The Rolling Stones drummer’s childhood friend and fellow musician recalls a home-loving connoisseur and collector of ephemera

I first met Charlie Watts in 1946, when I was four and he was five. We moved into new prefabs built after the war in Wembley Park – we were number 22, he was number 23 – and our mums hit it off pretty much straight away. We were very close, Charlie and me, throughout our lives. There was one point after he joined the Stones when we didn’t see each other for years, but when we did eventually reconnect, we picked up where we left off. Our relationship never really changed.

From an early age we were both interested in jazz. It was a mutual thing. I used to listen to records in Charlie’s bedroom, discovering musicians such as Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington and Jelly Roll Morton. Later, when his dad bought him a drum kit and I got a double bass, we’d only been playing for a few months when we heard that a jazz band was doing auditions for a drummer and bass player. We did the audition and as we were the only ones that turned up we got the gig with the Jo Jones Seven and started doing weekly sessions at the Masons Arms pub in Edgware.

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Supermodel Karen Elson on fashion’s toxic truth: ‘I survived harassment, body shaming and bullying – and I’m one of the lucky ones’

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She has been at the top of the industry for decades. Now she’s speaking out about the dark reality of life behind the scenes

When Karen Elson was a young hopeful trying to make it in Paris, a model scout took her to a nightclub. After long days on the Métro trekking to castings that came to nothing, and evenings alone in a run-down apartment, she was excited to be out having fun. The music was good and the scout, to whom her agent had introduced her, kept the drinks coming. She started to feel tipsy. A friend of the scout’s arrived, and the pair started massaging her shoulders, making sexual suggestions. “I was 16 and I’d never kissed a boy,” she recalls. “It was my first experience of sexual – well, sexual anything, and this was sexual harassment. They both had their hands on me.”

She told them she wanted to go home, and left to find a taxi, but they followed her into it, kissing her neck on the back seat. When they reached her street, she jumped out, slammed the taxi door and ran inside. The next day she told another model what had happened, and the scout found out. “His reaction was to corner me in the model agency and say: ‘I’ll fucking get you kicked out of Paris if you ever fucking say anything ever again.’”

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George Michael’s 30 greatest songs – ranked!

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With Last Christmas sailing up the singles charts again, now’s the time to reappraise Michael’s best tracks, from sublime pop to haunting elegies

Tucked away on the B-side of The Edge of Heaven, Battlestations is a fascinating anomaly in the Wham! catalogue. Raw, minimal, and influenced by contemporary dancefloor trends – but still very much a pop song – it gives a glimpse of what might have happened had the duo stayed together and taken a hipper, more experimental direction.

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Belgian pop sensation Angèle: ‘When we speak about feminism, people are afraid’

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A million-selling superstar at home and in France, she discusses her confrontation with Playboy, growing up in a famous family and being publicly outed as bisexual

A few years ago, a popular pub quiz question involved naming 10 famous Belgians. The answers often revealed more about British cultural ignorance than Belgium’s ability to produce international celebrities, given that the fictional Tintin and Hercule Poirot were the best many could come up with.

The game has got easier since the rise of Angèle, a stridently feminist Belgian pop singer-songwriter who shot to fame in 2016 after posting short clips singing covers and playing the piano on Instagram. She was young, talented and not afraid to make fun of herself, pulling faces and sticking pencils up her nose. Her 2018 debut album, Brol, sold a million copies; by 2019, she was a face of Chanel. “I’d always wanted a career in music, but I was thinking more of working as a piano accompanist,” she says, folding into an armchair at a five-star boutique hotel near the Paris Opéra. “I really didn’t expect it to happen like that.”

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