Although they’ve kept up a seemingly relentless touring schedule over the years, City Mouse have never been the most prolific band when it comes to studio work. An enjoyable self-released digital EP in appeared in 2004, but it would be seven more years before they returned to the studio. An excellent four track EP in 2011 was swiftly followed by split releases with The Homewreckers and Weekend Dads, but obviously, these only gave fans brief glimpses of a great band at work.
Monthly Archives: December 2021
The Sky & The Moon: A Real Gone Sampler 2021
It’s been a busy year at REAL GONE. Over the past twelve months, we’ve shared over 150 reviews, a truckload of streams and videos, and countless news items. In the usual style, we’ve tried to mix the populist with the obscure and the new with the old, to bring a typically varied source of entertainment. It was great to get back to live gigs in the second half of the year too, and our piece on Martin Rossiter’s farewell show in London proved to be very popular. Overall, it’s been the site’s most successful year to date. We hope you’ve found something to enjoy.
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Home Fires Burning: A Holiday Compilation From Red On Red Records
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who love Christmas music, and those who don’t. For the former, December can be a brilliantly nostalgic time, with various staples – Nat ‘King’ Cole’s ‘The Christmas Song’, Mike Oldfield’s ‘In Dulce Jubilo’ and the contents of Phil Spector’s ‘A Christmas Gift For You’ – helping to reawaken thoughts of yesteryear. For the festive music fan, there’s always time to discover something new, of course, and Justine Couvault’s Red On Red label brings something extra to the yuletide table with ‘Home Fires Burning’. In mixing the traditional with the unexpected, it manages to be quite broad in appeal and cover a lot of ground, despite only featuring five tracks.
Real Gone’s End of Year Round-Up 2021
In 2021, Real Gone celebrated its twelfth year online. It’s hard to believe we’ve endured for so long, but that’s down to you – our enthusiastic and still growing audience – coming back every week to explore the more “cult” aspects of a new release schedule as well as continuing to enjoy our occasional dips back into music’s past.
Having long established a house style, our approach remained the same as the past few years: the site has mixed in depth pieces on new albums with occasional “archive pieces”, full length videos, and other bits of musical news and streams. That’s got us through another tricky twelve month stretch. That makes it sound like a prison sentence, but even with the ongoing pandemic hovering over all of us, it’s been far from bad.
HALF PAST TWO – Holidays EP
2021 was a busy year for US ska/punk/rock band Half Past Two. They not only released their self-titled full length – their first new work for a couple of years – and a well received video lamenting the perils of a ‘Scratched CD’, but they also returned to live work after a long spell away from the spotlight. In addition, they also found time to record a covers EP, based around a “holiday” theme.