Returning after three years away, Colorado punks Record Thieves released a long awaited new debut album ‘Wasting Time’ in 2020. A bright spark during a terrible year, the record quickly gained positive reviews from the punk press, with the Brooklyn Vegan website drawing favourable comparisons with legends like Face To Face and Millencolin.
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Monthly Archives: February 2021
Jim Capaldi’s classic 1975 album ‘Short Cut Draw Blood’ to get digital release
Compared to his recorded legacy with Traffic, Jim Capaldi’s solo work has often been overlooked. His first three albums for Island Records – ‘Oh How We Danced’, ‘Whale Meat Again’ and ‘Short Cut Draw Blood’ – were given the opportunity for re-appraisal in 2020 when Cherry Red Records released a box set containing all three albums, plus a selection of welcomed extra materials. Good news for physical format buyers, but it left digital purchasers and serial streamers short, since 1975’s ‘Short Cut Draw Blood’ was omitted from digital services.
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Oh You Pretty Things: Glam Queens & Street Urchins 1970-1976
There are few things as ubiquitous with the 1970s as glam rock. The first half of the decade’s music was shaped by David Bowie in his Ziggy and Aladdin pomp, Marc Bolan’s colourful pixie-like antics on Top of The Pops, and a run of stompin’ great hits from Birmingham’s finest, Slade. Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn penned a truckload of hits for Mickie Most’s RAK label, making the music mogul’s yacht almost as famous as the acts themselves. In full leathers, Suzi Quatro helped pave the way for a generation of female rock stars and self-confessed “navvies in mascara” Sweet hadn’t “got a clue what to do”. On the artier end of things, there were Roxy Music’s appearances on the Old Grey Whistle Test where Bryan Ferry and company looked – and, indeed, sounded – like they’d been dropped to Earth by aliens and Sparks’ appearances between the likes of The Hollies and Wings on your favourite Thursday evening pop show had ability to frighten small children. It was very much a fertile time for new pop music.
LEE KERSLAKE – Eleventeen
Lee Kerslake will be best remembered as the man who drummed on several Uriah Heep albums and occupied the drum stool on Ozzy Osbourne’s 1980 LP ‘Blizzard of Oz’. Those works eventually earned him legendary status among two generations of rock fans. For Lee, it wasn’t enough: he’d more than proved his mettle as both hired hand and full time bandmate, but he yet to put his name to a solo album. That final piece of the musical puzzle began to slowly take shape in 2015 and with sessions taking place sporadically over the next few years, Lee’s solo debut became a reality in 2019. Like most solo albums made by rock drummers – excepting the extraordinary body of work created by Phil Collins – ‘Eleventeen’ (finally released in February 2021) isn’t what you’d call a world beater.
Justine And The Unclean order a ‘Scorpion Bowl To Go’ in new animated video
Just a couple of months after the release of the ‘Love Doesn’t Know A Thing‘ digital single, Justine And The Unclean are back with a new track that really shows off their power pop credentials.