Peter Doherty is back with a new single as a taste of his forthcoming album Hamburg Demonstrations
The Libertines main man had always wanted to record in Hamburg and was referred to Clouds Hill Recordings and turned up on their doorstep unannounced the next day. He fell in love with the studio and based himself there for the next six months. The album will be available on CD, 12” vinyl and digital download.
‘Hamburg Demonstrations’ includes a new recording of the Amy Winehouse tribute ‘Flags Of The Old Regime’(now called ‘Flags From The Old Regime’). The album also features ’Hell To Pay At The Gates Of Heaven’ written after the Paris attacks last November – it laments the fact that young people are now picking up guns instead of guitars “Come on boys choose your weapon J-45 or AK-47?” (Gibson J-45 being John Lennon’s favourite acoustic guitar),’Kolly Kibber’ inspired by Kolley Kibber, the newspaper man who meets a sticky end at the beginning of ‘Brighton Rock’ and ‘A Spy In The House Of Love’ a title borrowed from the Anaïs Nin novel.
Xtra Mile Recordings will release the self-titled album by Non Canon, another side of Barry Dolan AKA Oxygen Thief. It is out on 28 October 2016 on vinyl, CD and download, pre-order links are below. 
Is it really nine years since the sure-footed tones of Stolen Conversations… first washed into my ears? Tempus does indeed fugit but what has changed? Well, in many ways not much. The same alt-country, punk, pop, soul and rock’n’roll influences swirl around this new musical melting pot, a lot of the same team are back on board and the honest reflections and personal narratives that mark Tommy’s work are still to the fore. If that is what you do so well, why change, right? Why not do what you do only …well, more so? Why am I asking you all these questions?
Bands that challenge me as a writer are always those I look forward too the most. Where is the fun in trying to find new ways of describing a band who are ripping off something you failed to get excited about 5 years ago when you can try to put into words music that really is striding into new, greener musical pastures? The Lucid Dream is just such a band.
If the Paisley Underground movement of the early 80’s celebrated the acid tinged folk and country psychedelia of the likes of The Byrds and Love, the self-styled and punningly marvellous Paisley Overground is able to plunder from both the originators and the revivalists. Geography also means that there is also a different set of cultural references at work and they are able to come at the music armed with a quintessentially English eye.
To say that Gaz Brookfield has remained a fiercely independent musician, DIY stalwart and cottage industry enterprise is like saying that he is partial to the odd tattoo or used to have a bit of a thing for cider. Gigs are booked without agents, he chauffeurs himself around aided only by his own assigned RAC man and albums are recorded largely under his own multi-instrumental steam. But there comes a point where it is time to up the game, head into the realms of bigger and slicker production, aim for a fuller sound, work with a band. What is a West Country Boy to do?
I’m always a bit dubious when a predominantly covers band go into the studio. Either the result is a bunch of re-worked pre-owned numbers, in which case what is the point or they record original material, which begs the question as to why are they playing covers in the first place. Maybe it’s a confidence thing or maybe it’s the fact that as a working band they know that the man in the street likes his comfort zones and is happy listening to a live “juke box” and the familiarity that goes with it. Well, the man in the street is an idiot.
There is something wonderfully unhinged about Phasers to Stun, a cover originally by cult Scottish indie heroes Urusei Yatsuraan, an indie-noise attack which mixes maverick outsider pop, art school unconventionality and the “anything is possible” attitude of the post punk point of embarkation. It is joyous and raw, jarring and staccato in delivery, mad and infectious.
British Americana is a strange term, a bit of an oxymoron if you ask me, that is until you look at it from a slightly different angle. I tend to think of it a bit like the languages of the two countries themselves, separated a long way back and allowed to develop along their own different cultural lines, able to communicate, obviously connected yet carrying all the anomalies, traditions, influences and character of the home patch they grew up in.
