Category Archives: Music

‘Colourful, vibrant, sensual!’ Stars on Jimi Hendrix, 50 years gone

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In awe of everything from his raunchiness to his skill with sheer volume, members of Pixies, Yes, Parliament-Funkadelic, Thin Lizzy and more celebrate the guitar god, who died 50 years ago today

I first met Jimi – he was called Jimmy James then – at the California Club in Los Angeles. He was down on his luck at the time. His wardrobe was shabby and he reeked of Right Guard deodorant, which he used in copious amounts because he couldn’t afford to have his clothing properly dry cleaned. The heels on his shoes were so worn down he appeared to walk bowlegged. When Jimi sat in with us, he was a mediocre guitar player, at best, who was constantly out of tune.

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Laura Veirs on surviving her divorce: ‘My life is strangely awesome’

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After her 20-year relationship ended, the US songwriter refused to believe that she would emerge stronger. Yet against the odds, she experienced a creative and feminist rebirth

In 2018, as her marriage fell apart, Laura Veirs cried and biked all over Portland. “I called myself the crying cyclist,” she says. It was a new, impetuous hobby taken up after years of putting her desires on hold. When some friends asked her to join them on a 100-mile ride, she immediately kitted up and began training: 50 miles, 60 miles, weeping down her Spandex. “That got me through the divorce, honestly,” she says. Another friend wondered whether the optical act of navigation mimicked eye-movement therapy, which is thought to weaken the effect of trauma. “I was surprised by how much it helped get the grieving out.”

The theory – balancing intellect and intuition – hit Veirs in her sweet spot. She is the daughter of academics; a former geology student and a career songwriter beloved for her moving, naturalistic vocabulary. Her voice has a sturdy, earnest clarity: on the superb 2016 collaborative album case/lang/veirs, her freshness contrasted the fiery Neko Case and earthy kd lang.

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Black Sabbath’s Paranoid at 50: potent anthems of working-class strife

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Written off by critics as horror trash from ‘unskilled labourers’, Sabbath’s masterpiece album took beaten-down listeners on a rollercoaster out of their struggles

I first heard Black Sabbath’s second album during the part of my childhood when I was most susceptible to its charms. As a quiet, earnest Catholic school kid – the kind that excitedly whispers “I’m clean!” to themselves after their first confession – it’s not all that surprising that I eventually got bullied. The boys called me names, pushed me into lockers, and dug their pens and markers into my clothes, as if to tell the rest of the pack: “He will let you do this!”

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The night Nirvana played five-a-side with the Chippendales

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From Cobain’s stripper kickabout to Placebo’s run-in with a cake, music promoter David McLean isn’t short of an anecdote. Now he’s turning his career into a film

Scottish music manager and promoter David McLean has staged gigs by Nirvana, Green Day, Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Oasis and hundreds more. Ahead of his first film, Schemers – which tells the story of his early days attempting to book Iron Maiden to play in Dundee – he shares some handy tips for success.

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Salute Toots Hibbert – a reggae pioneer to rival Bob Marley | Kenan Malik

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The late singer was at the heart of an extraordinary collision of music, culture and politics

I can still remember the first time I heard Pressure Drop. The little drum intro. The bass riff. The rhythm guitars. And then the voice of Toots Hibbert, a voice both soulful and raw, comforting but just a little menacing too.

It was a song to bring joy, to get a roomful of Doc Martens bouncing. It was also a song about revenge and karma. That was the way with Hibbert – the melding of the blissful and the rough, the soothing and the sharp.

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Toots Hibbert’s last interview: ‘Don’t take life for granted, be careful, be strong’

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‘My lucky charms are my songs’, the reggae icon told Miranda Sawyer as he promoted his final album, Got to Be Tough

Toots Hibbert brought out his most recent album, Got to Be Tough, in August. What now stands as his final album is a positive listen, with lyrics about overcoming obstacles and needing more love in your heart, and his voice is as soulful as ever. He produced the album himself and it features Ziggy Marley, Sly Dunbar, Cyril Neville and Zak Starkey. He was busy: during lockdown, he was a finalist in the recent Jamaica festival song competition (a big deal on the island), with the upbeat Rise Up Jamaicans. Toots was massively successful in Jamaica: with the Maytals, he had 31 No 1s there, more than any other artist.

I spoke to Toots over the phone (no visuals, sadly). He was in his studio, drinking orange juice and water. Sometimes he chatted to people in the background. Ebullient and charismatic, he laughed a lot during our chat. He was never less than charming, but I noticed he had a knack of avoiding tricky questions by talking in broad terms rather than detail.

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Toots Hibbert, pioneering reggae star, dies aged 77

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Frontman of Toots and the Maytals helped make reggae globally famous

Toots Hibbert, whose glorious songcraft as frontman of Toots and the Maytals helped make reggae globally famous, has died aged 77.

A statement from his family on Saturday read: “It is with the heaviest of hearts to announce that Frederick Nathaniel “Toots” Hibbert passed away peacefully tonight, surrounded by his family at the University Hospital of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica.

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Throwing Muses’ Kristin Hersh: ‘I knew integrity would pull me into the gutter’

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With their 10th album inspired by a near-death ordeal, the alt-rock heroes discuss seeing their peers sell out as they stayed defiantly on the fringes

In 2013, after Kristin Hersh’s 25-year marriage came to an end, she was left broke and without health insurance. The songs she wrote in the aftermath were “about drowning in one way or another”, she says. She means this literally and metaphorically.

Hersh was relaxing by the water in California and – because she was on the prescribed tranquiliser Klonopin – nodded off. The tide came in and she awoke in the water. “I’m a triathlete so I’m a very strong swimmer but this surf just wasn’t moving toward the shore,” she recalls. “I was swimming as hard as I could but the shore wouldn’t get any closer and I started to black out.”

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Auf wiedersehen, techno: Berlin’s banging Berghain club reborn as a gallery

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With nightlife in limbo due to Covid-19, the legendary temple of techno has reinvented itself as art gallery – with works by Tacita Dean, Olafur Eliasson, Wolfgang Tillmans and more

Inside a disused power station in east Berlin, a red-and-white buoy is bobbing mid-air, swooping six metres up and six metres down in rhythm to imaginary waves. The artist who had the idea to hang it there, Julius von Bismarck, has connected an automated pulley system via sensors to a real buoy in the Atlantic Ocean, mirroring its movements.

Usually, the waves crashing over the heads of visitors to these halls are made of sound, pumped out of a custom-built PA that many dance music connoisseurs consider the finest in the world: this is Berghain, Berlin’s mythical temple of bassy industrial techno.

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Slowly does it: chord changes in John Cage’s 639-year-long organ piece

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Fans gather in a German church to hear the first new sound in composition, Organ/ASLSP, for six years

Hundreds of fans have attended a special kind of musical happening at a church in Germany: a chord change in an organ piece that is supposed to last for an entirety of 639 years.

The performance of the Organ/ASLSP (As Slow As Possible) composition began in September 2001 at the St Burchardi church in the eastern town of Halberstadt and is supposed to end in 2640 — if all goes well.

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Why Marc Bolan was ‘the perfect pop star’, by Elton John, U2 and more

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The T Rex singer captivated generations with his strutting music and hyper-sexual charisma. As a tribute album is released, stars explain why he is glam’s greatest icon

In early 1971, a nine-year-old called David Evans was sitting at home in the suburbs of Dublin watching Top of the Pops. He was already a Beatles fan, but, by his own admission, he was completely unprepared for what was about to happen on screen.

“It was kind of challenging,” says Evans – better known as U2’s guitarist the Edge – of T Rex’s celebrated appearance performing Hot Love, frontman Marc Bolan sporting glitter under his eyes, the ground-zero moment for glam rock. “Marc Bolan was magical, but also sexually heightened and androgynous, with this glitter and makeup. It’s funny, the go-go dancers of the era were the legendary Pan’s People – he was way more intriguing sexually than they were. I’d never seen anything like it: ‘What the hell is this? Real lads are not into this kind of stuff – this is clearly music for girls.’ But when I picked up a guitar a year later, Hot Love was the first song I learned to play.”

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Music mogul Akon going ahead with futuristic ‘Akon City’ in Senegal

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US-Senegalese star says smart city will be built in mould of fictional nation Wakanda

The US-Senegalese music mogul Akon has said he is pressing ahead with lofty plans to create a futuristic Pan-African smart city in Senegal next year, built in the mould of Wakanda - the fictional, technologically advanced African nation depicted in the Marvel blockbuster Black Panther.

The 2,000-acre, surrealist, solar-powered “Akon City”, backed by the Senegalese government and funded by unnamed investors, was first announced by Akon in 2018.

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Paloma Faith: ‘I did a whole tour with postnatal depression. I was devastated’

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The singer and actor on her ‘extremely politically correct’ upbringing, the challenges of parenthood and how lockdown forced her to rewrite her new album

There were choirs planned for Paloma Faith’s new album, a swell of voices to fill out the optimistic, celebratory songs. Then the pandemic struck. The album changed dramatically, in just a few weeks. Some of the more upbeat songs were dropped, she says, because in the midst of so much crisis and loss, “it felt like the lyrics could be perceived as a bit patronising”. New songs spilled out of Faith and the other writers, all four singles written in lockdown, then recorded in a studio set up in her basement. The songs sound more solitary now; more suited to the times.

We speak over Zoom, Faith lying on a bed at home in London. Infinite Things is her fifth album; her first was released in 2009, and all have been hugely successful. There have also been big singles, such as Only Love Can Hurt Like This and Picking Up the Pieces. Her latest album is also her most personal, perhaps as a result of this year’s forced intimacy.

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MTV VMAs 2020: Lady Gaga dominates during unusual pandemic broadcast

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Singer reigns supreme in awards show filled with calls for social justice and recognition of Covid tragedy

Lady Gaga dominated an unusual year for the MTV Video Music awards, winning five awards in a strange and disconcerting evening.

The singer, who led the evening with nine nominations and wore a variety of masks through the night, accepted awards for artist of the year, song of the year, best cinematography and best collaboration for Rain on Me and the inaugural Tricon award, which recognizes an artist who is highly accomplished across three or more disciplines.

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Michaela Coel isn’t buying anything new next month. Are you?

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From Chewing Gum to I May Destroy You, the writer and actor has carved out a groove as a true original. Who better to convince us all to shop secondhand?

Michaela Coel could be wearing anything she wanted, right now. As the star and creator of I May Destroy You, the BBC drama that became a water cooler hit even in a summer without water coolers, Coel is the hottest property in town. Any fashion designer would jump at the chance to dress her. But today she is enthusing over a time-pummelled black sweatshirt with faded insignia, sourced not from a Bond Street boutique but from Oxfam’s cavernous warehouse in Batley, North Yorkshire. “I’m here for it,” she murmurs approvingly, pulling it over her head.

She’s here for all of it. She’s here for the pale pink Burberry trenchcoat, another Batley treasure unearthed for our shoot by Oxfam’s senior fashion adviser, Bay Garnett, a nod to Coel’s neon bubblegum bob as Arabella in IMDY. She’s here for the dynamite 80s jeans and matching jacket in toffee-apple faux-leather, a rare Gaultier Jeans find. She’s here for the Fanta-coloured boilersuit (think Ripley in Alien meets Bananarama on Top Of The Pops), for the elegant 70s Jaeger mustard blazer with anchor-stamped gold buttons, and for a knockout pair of Versace high-waisted shorts, illustrated with classic Rita Hayworth film posters.

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Van Morrison blasts Covid gig limits as ‘pseudoscience’

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Star calls for live music to challenge social distancing rules, but faces fan backlash

Van Morrison has denounced the supposed “pseudoscience” around coronavirus and is attempting to rally musicians in a campaign to restore live music concerts with full capacity audiences.

The 74-year-old Northern Irish singer launched a campaign to “save live music” on his website, saying socially distanced gigs were not economically viable. “I call on my fellow singers, musicians, writers, producers, promoters and others in the industry to fight with me on this. Come forward, stand up, fight the pseudo-science and speak up,” he said.

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Your data is not destined for China, assures TikTok’s UK boss

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The controversial app’s users are ignoring geopolitical battle over its digital security, says Richard Waterworth

TikTok’s UK chief has strenuously denied the video-sharing app, which Donald Trump has threatened to ban, shares data with China.

Richard Waterworth told the Observer that the UK and European arm of TikTok was growing quickly, despite the “turbulent” geopolitical battle in which the Chinese-born app has found itself.

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‘We lost the love’: UK nightclubs using Covid crisis to reassess scene

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With 750,000 jobs at risk, some see pandemic as chance to reset industry and dance music

In front of an old mechanic’s workshop in Tottenham a collection of trestle tables, a makeshift bar and a pair of palm trees are being battered by an unseasonal downpour as remnants of a tropical storm soak north London.

The wilted greenery and sodden tables are part of Costa Del Tottenham, a tongue-in-cheek temporary outdoor venue in Tottenham Hale, which Stuart Glen and his business partners have created in an empty space next to the warehouse that houses their nightclub, The Cause.

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Performers could sing or play softly to reduce Covid risk, study shows

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Research suggests musicians can reduce infections by decreasing volume

Sing softly and don’t shout to reduce the risk of Covid-19 spread, new research suggests, offering a ray of hope for musicians who have been restricted from performing in public.

Music makers have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic, with singing, as well as playing of woodwind and brass instruments deemed to be a potential high risk for spreading the disease – a concern fuelled by outbreaks in choirs.

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