no-cover

Welcome to our new book review column here on Ground Control called I Wanna be Literated! 
We are going to try and keep this column up with not-just-music-related and not-just-brand-new-books. Some will be topical, old, some new, some borrowed, and almost all of them blue. We are proud to start you off with a humdinger, and hope you keep coming back. After all, Punk’s Not Read. Sometimes the line between content and bonus feature gets blurred a bit. For having...

Like
1094
0
Wednesday, 16 October 2013
no-cover

Playwright William Congreve may have been correct when he wrote that “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” but it was Tammy Wynette who proved that the voice and words of a woman scorned could come framed with gold and platinum trim when set to just the right rhythm. Wynette's signature anthem “Stand By Your Man” remains one of the most recognized and best-selling hit singles in Country music history and it sealed the singer's place as one of...

Like
1155
0
Tuesday, 15 October 2013
no-cover

Even a cursory glance at the current crop of artists drawing the most interest in the roots, folk and Americana genres these days illustrates why it has become so difficult for new, untested artists to break through: for the first time in decades, the top artists aren't treating the music like a disposable escape from larger projects. Artists like The Lumineers, John Grant, Lydia Loveless and The High Bar Gang have all released fantastic albums over the last eighteen months...

Like
1216
0
Tuesday, 15 October 2013
no-cover

With the recent, unfortunate passing of Levon Helm last year, interest in the musical history of the Band is at an all-time high. Although they have always been mainstays on classic rock radio, their timeless material is now being played even more than ever. As always seems to be the case when a notable musician dies, Helm’s legacy is being presented as much more important now than it did in the twilight of his musical career. I have no idea...

Like
976
0
Monday, 14 October 2013
no-cover

The beauty of bluegrass music – when it's played well and not with the intention of packing theaters or stadiums (that music usually gets dubbed 'Americana' these days) – is that it has the potential to be some of the most affecting and gloriously inspirational stuff in all creation. When it comes along for the right reasons, it voices and instrumental timbres in the music can capture a listener's heart as well as his mind and be spiritually moving. That...

Like
1074
0
Friday, 11 October 2013
no-cover

For the last thirty-two years, Al Jourgensen and Ministry have been the premier purveyors of a fine form of subversive songwriting which has regularly pulled the rug out from under the genre they were working in at that moment. Be it electronic music or metal, the wit and subversive bent of the music has always been the tie which has bound the music and made it uniquely “Ministry.” Through all those years, there have been plenty of critics who just...

Like
937
0
Friday, 11 October 2013
no-cover

Ever get the impression that you're re-living a part of your life which you'd just as soon forget about? Most of those sorts of feelings revolve around pop music from the Eighties for me; granted, there was a fair bit of really great music recorded during the period of time when the “Me” Generation was ruling the cultural roost (most of it could be found in the underground – to my taste), but there was an inordinate amount of tripe...

Like
1011
0
Friday, 11 October 2013
no-cover

Karl Marx once said that history is forever doomed to repeat itself – the first time as tragedy and the second time as farce. I've written those words in CD reviews before (readers are welcome to draw their own conclusions on the irony of me citing the quote again) but it's particularly pertinent in Kodaline's case; on In A Perfect World, Kodaline seems intent on actively trying to hit a sort of existential 'reset' button again. The first time that...

Like
1066
0
Friday, 11 October 2013
no-cover

In these Aging Punk columns, I often tell stories about musical, or music related, experiences I have had. The point is usually less to talk about myself and more to attempt to illustrate some point about how we relate to music but, sometimes, I just have a good story to tell which doesn’t have any great lesson or moral to it. Such is the case here, I think. There might be a lesson about our relationship with celebrity laced into...

Like
885
0
Thursday, 10 October 2013
no-cover

Elton John returns to basics on The Diving Board, his new CD. Most of the songs are just a trio of drums, bass and piano. It almost sounds like the Elton John of forty-plus years ago, of Honky Chateau and Tumbleweed Connection.  That sense is heightened by the fact that Bernie Taupin is writing lyrics for him again. The album is excellently produced by T-Bone Burnett, perhaps the king of roots rock and Americana in today’s music business. He creates...

Like
1132
0
Thursday, 10 October 2013