OK I've just packed the stereo into a crate, so it's a bit hard to write a proper blog today. Uncut is moving to our palatial new home this afternoon, and I'll hopefully get back to proper blogging action next week.
Very quick post today, because the Uncut move has become rather pressing here . But a few things that you might be interested in. Firstly, the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack turned up this morning.
For some reason, I've been struggling to write about the new Dungen album for a few weeks now. They are, if you're in the dark, a pretty rampant Swedish psych band who had a fair bit of success with their "Ta Det Lugnt" album a couple of years ago.
General mayhem here today: Uncut is moving office on Friday, so we're trying to finish the next issue while battalions of removal men swarm around us, emptying our cupboards and leaving great piles of magazines in their wake.
The first time I saw Queens Of The Stone Age, if memory serves, they were playing London's Garage venue just after their debut was released. It's strange, then, that nearly a decade later, they're in front of me at an even smaller venue, the historically sticky 100 Club. In fact, Troy Van Leeuwen is directly in front of me, flicking nonchalantly at his pedals with white strappy shoes.
So this lunchtime we tried being responsible and put on a bit of the Crowded House album in the Uncut office, but quite soon we just had to listen to the new Pissed Jeans record instead. It seemed logical, at the time.
Corny fool that I am, today the hot weather's driven me to put on a forthcoming Beach Boys comp. "Compiled and sequenced by Al Jardine, Bruce Johnston, Mike Love and Brian Wilson," claims the press release, and while I'm morbidly suspicious of anything sanctioned by Love, this is a cracking selection.
I wasn't planning to blog today, since I expected Steve's third report from Coachella to turn up here. But thanks to his fairly quixotic posting strategy, he appears to have turned up on Allan's blog. He's right, of course: I do like Grizzly Bear.
Still waiting for that Phil Collins fan to post a defence of his hero. But in the meantime, Paul Holmes has joined in bashing "Tory Frog Prince Collins". "One half-decent Genesis tune, some so-so work on a John Martyn record and a clutch of Sunny D Motown rip-offs doth not a canon make," he writes. Fair point. Thanks also to Chads, who responded to our talk of Bill Fay the other day by mentioning Simon Finn, another neglected, quasi-mystic British singer-songwriter from the early '70s who, like Fay, was redicovered by Current 93's David Tibet. I must dig out his "Pass The Distance" album, which I haven't played in ages, though I seem to remember some of it being a bit quirky for my taste.
