It's not often, I must admit, that I have a reason to visit Chanel's website. But there's a great video on there at the moment that amounts to an unveiling of Cat Power's new live line-up. It's quite a shock.
Someone’s put up large printed signs all down Stockwell Road and around Brixton Academy, large black letters on a bright orange background, their authorship unknown but their message starkly clear.
You’ll have to excuse me if I sound as hoarse as a hacksaw this morning and seem more than a little rough around the edges, but I am in slow recovery from an extraordinary night in the company of The Hold Steady, who for today at least are officially the best rock’n’roll band on the planet.
Hard to know what to play this morning. My ears are still ringing from a massive night in the company of The Hold Steady, who played an astonishing gig in a Hoxton bar. As I left, Allan was deep in conversation with their singer, Craig Finn. I'm sure he'll be writing something on his blog about it later. In the meantime, I've found a new David Bowie comp called "The Best Of Bowie 1980/1987" in this morning's post and, perhaps out of wilful perversity, I'm playing it now.
I found myself last night for the first time in decades in Ladbroke Grove, an old stomping ground, not much-visited since I lived around there for a year of largely wild times that ended badly in 1977 with a recuperative fortnight in intensive care.
Faintly astonishing news the other day, when it emerged that the new Bloc Party album had entered the American charts at Number 12. I'm personally a bit underwhelmed by that record - Jacknife Lee's production is really bloated and distracting, I think - but it's interesting that arty-ish indie-rock now has serious commercial clout in the States.
If you're American, brandish an acoustic guitar and look a bit feral, chances are your publicist will flog you as a close personal chum of Devendra Banhart.
I've never really had the patience to collect bootlegs, so I'd never heard Neil Young's "Live At Massey Hall", 1971 until the official version turned up the other day.
