Yes

Earlier, I’d been telling someone that when I saw Pete Doherty at a small Soho club called Jazz After Dark, back in January 2006, it had occurred to me, no doubt somewhat fancifully, that this was to some perhaps small but nevertheless vital extent what it might have been like to see the fledgling Dylan in some bar in Greenwich Village, when the 60s were still young.

Film-lore fantasy gives legend a murder to solve

As regular readers may have spotted, I’ve been droning on about the second Howlin Rain album since the end of last summer, when an early copy reached me by mildly nefarious means. I’ve regularly postponed blogging on “Magnificent Fiend”, mainly because Rick Rubin signed up the band in the States and the release date has been unusually volatile (it’s now due out in April in the UK, possibly a little earlier in the US). The other reason for the delay, though, is that I’ve played it so much, it’s weirdly become harder to write about. It’s time, though, to attempt to do it justice: though I usually try and avoid crude empirical hype, it’s hard for me to imagine many better rock albums will be released in 1974. Or even in 2008.

Bernard Butler’s protégé croaks out some smart slices of dadsoul

Yesterday, I watched a DVD of “Love Story”, a documentary about Love and Arthur Lee. It’s not the most elegant piece of film-making I’ve ever seen, but the research and the storytelling of Lee, Johnny Echols, Bryan Maclaine, Jac Holzman (who should have a film devoted to him and Elektra, I think) and many others make it compelling.

The paranoid fantasies of late-period Kubrick collected

New tour to support release of new album 'Songs In A & E'

Bear with me a minute while I blow away a few of these cobwebs. Yeah, that’s better. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that I went yesterday to a screening of Martin Scorsese’s Shine a Light, his film of The Rolling Stones in concert at New York's Beacon Theatre.

Just remembered: following the blog on Plush last week, Jon Dale has sent me a link to another new Liam Hayes song.

"Good to see you up there Stevie" yells a fan from the crowd. "Well, it's better than the alternative" snarls Steve Earle back. This is how the great Americana survivor began his sold-out show in London Monday night. Singing stories about war, drug-taking and alcoholism, Earle has the look and tone of someone who has obviously stared oblivion in the face and lived to tell the tale. Albeit in a semi-cautionary, I've-been-married-seven-times and I still have to go to AA and NA, but I've bagged two Grammys and a bit-part on The Wire kinda way.