Thanks to a long running MTV show, the idea for rock bands to rework their wares acoustically – or, indeed ‘Unplugged’ – reached the point of frenzy in the 1990s. That MTV show saw appearances from the likely (Neil Young, Bob Dylan), to the more interesting (REM, Alanis Morrissette), right through to the completely unexpected (Nirvana, Staind, Pearl Jam). Naturally, some performances worked better than others – it showed how Staind, in particular, just didn’t have the spark or the songs for the format – but, nevertheless, the idea of the acoustic show proved popular with audiences across the globe. Years on from MTV’s peak popularity, the acoustic format still endures: in 2016, we saw acoustic albums from Status Quo, Peter Frampton, Jimmy Somerville and more… Even UB40 got in on the act – with disastrous results.
Author Archives: Real Gone
The Real Gone Advent Calendar 2016
As is traditional at Real Gone every December, we like to count down to Christmas with various clips. 2016 might have been rubbish, but that’s not going to stop us digging up archive videos!
A new clip will be uploaded here every day until the 24th. Hopefully, something will entertain and inspire you to dig out a long neglected album or three…
DEC 01 DEC 02 DEC 03 DEC 04 DEC 05 DEC 06
DEC 07 DEC 08 DEC 09 DEC 10 DEC 11 DEC 12
RITUAL KING – Elixir EP
Although marketing themselves as a blues rock band, Ritual King don’t always play much in the way of anything too bluesy on most of their debut EP, ‘Elixir’. Their sound is very much of a late 70s rock persuasion, occasionally injected with a very slight bluesy swagger – a sound that, although fairly solid, too often lacks that special something needed to distinguish them from so many other UK bands at the time of release.
EDxKEMPER – Cut Her Head And Love Her
Back in 1986 when the seeds of grindcore were sown, it seemed to take extreme music to a whole new level. Often with a raw sound and fairly low budget, the fusion of extreme thrash metal and blistering punk sounds in the hands of bands like Napalm Death and Extreme Noise Terror created something almost beyond music – a form of short and sharp brutality that was utterly visceral. For something that seemed so niche, grindcore flourished with scenes popping up all over the globe. With bands like NAILS keeping it alive in the twenty first century, almost thirty years on from Napalm Death’s genre-defining ‘Scum’, it couldn’t just be written off as a novelty.
Greek grinders EDxKEMPER are absolutely devastating on their 2016 release ‘Cut Her Head and Love Her’, as they mix the brief bursts of noise from those genre pioneers with more of a crust punk aspect and some extreme metal heaviness for good measure. What’s perhaps most impressive here – without anything resembling actual songs – are the production values. Whereas you might expect something of this nature to hang on to some fairly primitive origins – much in the way an early Crass record could be seen as a snapshot of an afternoon – the production/mix on this disc is stunning.
ALL PEOPLE – Learn Forget Repeat
At the beginning of 2013, All People released their debut EP ‘Communicate‘. The variety within the seven tracks showed the work of a band who didn’t want to be hampered by genre constraints. The mix of reggae, ska, punk and alternative rock proved that the band arisen from the ashes of Fatter Than Albert had a potentially great future.