Sleater-kinney

US show takes affectionate aim at alt.culture...

Twenty mostly new records for your delectation this week, with particular emphasis on: the Michael Chapman full and free download from Black Dirt Studios’ consistently excellent “Natch” project; Cody ChesnuTT’s plush, upscale return; Corin Tucker tapping back into the punch of earlyish Sleater-Kinney; Jeff Lynne’s weird forensic re-recordings of his greatest hits; that Crazy Horse boot I wrote about yesterday; and Rangda, of course.

The cryptic professor of American indie leads his Jicks to a fifth...

Never personally had much time for Martin Amis’ writing, but I was idling my way through an interview with him in The Guardian the other day, when I came across his predictably splenetic response to The Bookseller’s claim that the new Amis novel, The Pregnant Woman, was a “return to form”.

We count down from 150 to 101...see our choices here

I was just re-reading my blog on the first Marnie Stern album, “In Advance Of The Broken Arm”, from last year. I mentioned plenty of stuff about Lightning Bolt and Sleater-Kinney (and slyly avoided a couple of other reference points, more of which later), and about how Stern had certain similarities with early PJ Harvey.

Pavement man jams into something very good

A bit early in 2008, I think, to start talking about Albums Of The Year and such. But over the past week, I must admit I’ve been completely knocked out by the new Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks album. It’s called “Real Emotional Trash”, and it’s out in March on Domino in the UK.

Around the turn of the decade, I used to go and see a Brooklyn band called Les Savy Fav every time they played London. They were a fantastic night out. The singer, Tim Harrington, occasionally behaved like a cross between Iggy Pop, Salvador Dali and Captain Birdseye.

Conor Oberst makes great, Dylanesque, leap forward