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Aug 8, 14 •
11365 Views •
British •
iyswim •
Comments Off on Down In The Tube Station at Midnight
“A distant echo. Of faraway voices boarding faraway trains…” The Jam’s classic single “Down In The Tube Station at Midnight” evokes a very real fear – not completely eroded – of being trapped in a violent
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Aug 7, 14 •
8439 Views •
British, Good Rockin' Tonight •
iyswim •
Comments Off on Move it
I knew all about Cliff ‘cos of Auntie Chris. She’s still going strong, well into her seventies, but I’ll tell you what she lived the life. She married a bloke who was the spit of Stanley Baker and was a big fan of british rock and roll from
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Aug 5, 14 •
8700 Views •
British, Featured •
iyswim •
Comments Off on Motorhead – 1916
Commemorating the great war in song is a serious business, and yet it’s the heartfelt works that spring to mind on the anniversary. Lemmy Kilmister was and still is one of British rock’s legend outsiders. Never taken seriously by critics, he was
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Jul 31, 14 •
4448 Views •
British, Rant •
iyswim •
Comments Off on What do I know about… Yorkshire.
On 1st of August it is Yorkshire Day; when we celebrate the auld county. Eons ago I ran a website devoted to Yorkshire, and once published a charts of the top 50 Yorkshire songs of all time – and I’m highly tempted to roll it out again to remind
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Jul 30, 14 •
4312 Views •
British, Featured •
iyswim •
Comments Off on Shipbuilding
The song Shipbulding came at us quite literally out of left field. Written by a singer still struggling to to shake off a superficial “angry brainic” persona – Elvis Costello – in response to a complicated political war.
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Jul 28, 14 •
3269 Views •
British •
iyswim •
Comments Off on This is England
The last great single by one of England’s finest bands, The Clash. It’s pretty much a solo number by a world weary Joe Strummer, trying to strike a spark beneath the embers of a band whose fire had long gone out.
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Jul 27, 14 •
14136 Views •
British •
iyswim •
Comments Off on The Wolfhounds Cheer Up.
Almost thirty years ago one of England’s best garage acts got lumped into a music mag campaign called C-86. A pre Brit-pop attempt to collect the leading indie acts of the day into a handy British music movement and sell a few papers.
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Jul 27, 14 •
3572 Views •
British, Featured •
iyswim •
Comments Off on Whole Lotta love
As a kid living in a coalfield backwater and getting into punk rock there was a big local problem. Everyone else. At 15 it was clear that all my musically-inclined peers were into traditional long haired rock, and Led Zeppelin were, at the time, considered
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Jan 2, 14 •
2528 Views •
British •
iyswim •
Comments Off on Appreciating Richard Hawley’s Cole’s Corner
My grandma Lily loved those velvet voices. Visits to gran’s house were so often soundtracked by her favorite crooners from the late 50s. Nat King Cole, Harry Belafonte, Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra were the cornerstones of her musical appreciation and of
A blog for me to let off steam about music.
I've had this idea for a while that there's nothing new under the musical sun, so this blog puts me on a mission to travel through music I haven't heard before, and to re-examine the songs I know and love.