ffletcher has written the following articles:
I really don't want to be here. I'm in a bad mood, I'm PMS-ing to all hell, and I'm trapped in a smoky basement rammed to the gills with fashionistas and the Prada Meinhoff are out in force. Sure, I could amuse myself perving over the Dirty Dronerock Boys milling about the place, but honestly, most of them look like»
The Bangles, responsible for such classics as 'Manic Monday' and the recently covered 'Eternal Flame' have reunited for a worldwide tour in promotion of their new album, 'Doll Revolution'. Rising out of the LA garage scene during the 80s, The Bangles were pioneers in the accept»
"Here's some songs from the next album" Nikki Kaito writes, scrawled inexplicably on the back of an ad torn from a fashion magazine, accompanying some demos. She adds, charmingly self effacing, "they're not mixed/mastered yet coz they were recorded in a real rush." Recorded in a real rush. Ne»
Donna Mathews is standing next to me, getting psyched to go onstage. Hang on a minute, this can't be right. Donna Mathews is a certified fuck-off famous Pop Star. She should be swanning around Soho or whatever certified fuck-off famous Pop Stars do, not standing next to me in a basement club on Oxford Street.»
Well, Sonic Mook certainly have their thing. If scratchy garage guitars, stop-start post-punk drums with lots of hi-hat and drunken yelping vocals are your sort of thing, then file this single next to your Richard Hell records, close your eyes, and imagine a little bit of CBGB's heaven (v»
It's a relief to know that not all angsty teenagers listen to Radiohead and spend the rest of their adolescence trying to emulate Muse. Some of them stick Boards Of Canada stickers on their guitars, acquire DD-5 sample pedals and violin bows, and proceed to work the Mogwai-esque quiet »
What the fuck have you done? Filth oozes from the speakers of my stereo. The darkest, thickest, blackest, heavier than heavy sound that I have ever heard. This isn't heavy metal. This is... this is... this is TODD. From the ground up, it's nasty, massive fuck-off HUGE-sounding electric keybass, mons»
It's all too much. I can't take it any more. My mind is all wrong. I'm going back in my room, closing the curtains, and getting back into bed. The real world is too cold, too cruel, too hard. I want to live in a dream. I want to step into darkness. I want to retreat into fantasy, back to that wonderful, warm, hazy d»
I can imagine the scene in the A&R office so clearly. "Scandinavian bands are IN! Mysterious boy-girl duos are COOL! Garage-rock is NOW!" It's really hard to fight the rising suspicion that The Raveonettes are genetically modified popstars, grown in a vat somewhere, designed by robots spe»
Remember the future? No, really, remember Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers In The 25th Century, shiny silver jump-suits and pristine space-discos filled with jive robots and hipster aliens that made the future look like such a happening place in 1982? If you believ»
OK, that's it, I'm moving to Sweden. They've got a socialist monarchy, they've got Ikea and they've got Aerospace, five unfeasibly attractive blonds here to bring us snow and an Illustrated History of Jangle-Pop. And yes, I mean delightful, gorgeous, floppy-haired C86-style jangle-pop, not this Axis of Tweevi»
Genre Music is more interesting when it is made by people who do not belong to the culture associated with the genre. No, think about it. Abandon all your notions of "authenticity" being urgent and key in music; they are wrong. The best Prefab Pop is not made by well-tanned teenagers from Florida, it's made b»
Look, up in the sky! It's a club... it's a promoter... it's a record label... it's Legendary London Indie Club/Label/Music Obsessives Track and Field's fourth annual 'Winter Sprinter' festival, a sure-fire cure for the post-holiday blues. From heart-breaking alt.country to challenging electronica, there's something»
Christmas. Joy To The World and all that. Rock and Christmas don't generally mix, because rock, with its dark shades and leather jackets, is about cool. Christmas is about JOY - uncontrollable, screaming, leaping up and down on the balls of your feet, waving your hands in the air IDIOT JOY, and it's »
I don't know when this album came out. I found it in a pile of promos that I mistakenly kicked under the bed, but it's one of the best things I've heard all year, criminally ignored.
Let's get this straight. Yes, French Kicks are from New York, they wear white belts, and they share a record company with
Three times, I have tried to write this review and twice, the computer has inexplicably eaten it. There must be a conspiracy afoot. The Arbiters of Taste don't want you to hear this record. They do not want you shaken out of your complacency of actually believing that the records you hear on your radio c»
In the interest of conserving space and not confounding individuals unfamiliar with the genre, I have made up this handy guide to some of the abbreviations which I will be using as shorthand for some of the more traditional elements of dronerock: MB = Motornik Beats, a la Krautrock greats like Ne»
O season of mists and mellow fruitlessness. It's autumn, and the permanent crankiness that comes with perpetual cold and damp has set in. I'm feeling melancholic and broody so I'm in the mood for some haunting and beautiful mope-rock, please. I like seeing bands "in the round" at the Spitz; you can sit down t»
This week, I will be mainly attending clubs with the words "rock'n'roll" in their names, to find out the new future of rock'n'roll or whatever. So I'm at On The Rocks, which I swear was once a lap dancing club. They've still got a giant catwalk style stage protrusion complete with pole. This space i»
Women in pop. It's my pet alligator. You know, your issue that you harp on and on about until all your friends roll their eyes and stuff donuts in your mouth to get you to shut up. But seriously! Where are the girls these days? On one hand, you've got the screaming harpies of vengeance that comprise the Riot Grrl movem»
