Back in 2007 I fulfilled a long-held ambition to see Nanci Griffith perform some of her classic homespun tales live here in the UK. The venue was less than perfect and the audience seemed much smaller than I had envisaged it would be. However, it remains of my most memorable gigs. We’ve also broken another duck [...]

SURVIVAL is the debut album from Forest Fire, four talented individuals who met in New York over the past few years and began making music together in 2008. To record SURVIVAL the band set up a microphone in the centre of the studio and arranged themselves around it. Singer/songwriter Mark Thresher explained: “We wanted to [...]

Some years ago I read a highly favourable Sunday Times review of Tragically Hip’s album PHANTOM POWER (when the Times had some musical credibility) and so went out and bought it. I didn’t like it and never acquired another one. That was before I ‘got involved with music’ and realised that an album should be listened to at [...]

When artists play live, they reveal themselves in a way few of us have ever to do. For the likes of reviewers like ourselves albums are only ever half the story; if we like what we hear on plastic we’ll always endeavour to witness a live performance by the act. Now it happens that I [...]

Well the movie may have garnered mixed reviews but this soundtrack is quite something else. In fact I will state categorically that it’s one of the best I heard in the last ten years. Director Wim Wenders has always been astute when it comes to choosing music for his films, but on this occasion he [...]

You know I wouldn’t sell my letterbox for a king’s ransom… And that’s because through it arrives some pretty wonderful music; often expected, some by complete surprise, some artists known, others complete strangers. Some even arrive with great names like Vienna Teng. This  young lady is new to me but it didn’t take long for [...]