BY JONATHAN LEVITT The Music of GM Jon After many decades in the chess world, many people know me as a chess Grandmaster and few know me as someone connected with music. Since the start of 2025 I have developed some fresh skills and produced over 50 new songs on my Suno page. These songs are all created on my computer, collaborating with an AI … Continue reading Music’s AI Revolution
BY JACK WATSON In Fahrenheit-182, Mark Hoppus (bass guitarist for Blink-182, a famous rock band from the 1990s) takes us back to when he grew up in a California desert. Presumably the title is an homage to Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit-451. The book provides an insight into a troubled childhood; how he first met Tom DeLonge and their creation of Blink-182. Then their … Continue reading Fahrenheit-182
BY MAX WALLER If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” – Tancredi Pleasantly surprised by the quality of the new television series The Leopard (Netflix), which has had to contend with comparisons to the aristocratic perfection of the original Visconti movie starring Burt Lancaster, Alain Delon, and Claudia Cardinale, I am currently musing on 19th-century Italy—specifically the Risorgimento movement … Continue reading Risorgimento
BY NIALL McCRAE Everyone knows of the vinyl revival, which has steadily grown since the turn of the millennium. Remarkably, cassettes are now making a comeback too, and the biggest interest is in youth. Indie bands are releasing music on tape, sometimes as the only medium offered. In a backlash against the digital world, anything tangible gives a sense of radical resistance to the Great … Continue reading Audio Nostalgia: The Unexpected Return of Cassettes
BY MAX WALLER I‘m told that if you stand outside the grounds of Gloucester Cathedral late at night and shut your eyes, you may just hear, above the occasional car horn blast and drunk mutant hollering, the faint sound of ghostly music from centuries past hanging in the air, like phantom notes that never die, carried on the sighs of the dead. The vibrations of … Continue reading The Music Of Ghosts
BY PAUL T HORGAN It may be no exaggeration to state that the most eagerly-awaited music album of 2003 was Kraftwerk’s Tour de France Soundtracks. While other acts may have had larger fanbases, Tour was Kraftwerk’s first album of original music for 17 years. Well, that is not entirely true, the title track had been released as a stand-alone single back in 1983. Tour de … Continue reading From Dusseldorf To Albuquerque With No Hats
BY PAUL T HORGAN Buggles’ Video Killed The Radio Star was not the first single to have a music video made for it; that accolade seems reserved for Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. The Buggles’ single was instead the first-ever video played by MTV back when MTV was good. However, music artists had been making promotional films for their singles years before as a way of avoiding … Continue reading Pop Bursts
BY ANDREW MOODY When a 47 year old, heavily bearded Eminem played his “surprise” performance at the 2020 Academy awards of his 2003 Oscar winner Lose Yourself (because he bottled it the first time and spent the Oscars in bed addicted to Percodan) it made the famous phrase “you only get one shot” a tad redundant, a thought I’m sure was crossing Martin Scorsese when … Continue reading Mean Streets
BY ANDREW MOODY The ongoing desperate protests after the fact against the victorious Conservatives have the same flavour of the anti-EU protests the country has had to suffer for years. Just like Stormzy claiming the UK was racist, when it’s been established the UK is one of the least racist countries on Earth, all Brexiteers are classed as thick and bigoted. Ridiculous. “Why do they … Continue reading Down The System
BY ANDREW MOODY There was a genuine and cunning intelligence behind Punk’s explosion in the mid 1970s and in particular Malcolm McLaren’s brainchild The Sex Pistols. “(He) wanted to provoke the state,” wrote Punk journalist Jon Savage, “in the way the Yippies or the Baeder/Meinhof gang had done.” Guitarist Steve Jones commented years after the fact: “I was a miserable sod deep inside…. It came … Continue reading Treason For No Reason
BY ANASTASIA CHOO It’s a warm sunny afternoon and I am sitting in an idyllic converted church chapel in the heart of the Hertfordshire countryside in the delightful company of singer and song writer Holly Rose. Holly was the lead singer of platinum selling band Semisane in South Africa in 2004 followed by a successful solo career in the UK and two outstanding album releases. … Continue reading The Holly Rose Interview
BY JON ALEXANDER Victoria Beckham was given an OBE in the New Year’s Honours list. A woman who at 42 years of age has conquered the world as part of the biggest selling girl group the world has ever seen, had a brief run as a solo artist, established herself as a much sought after fashion designer and largely kept out of any media scuffles – … Continue reading The War on Successful Women
BY MATTHEW CORRIGAN Ho ho ho everybody, it’s that bloody time of year again. So let’s crank up that karaoke machine and sing along with Slade shall we? Are you ready for the Coca-Cola Truck For pubs with signs that say you need to book Are the supermarkets full of Unnecessary tat Does Black Friday make you behave like a twat So here it comes bloody … Continue reading Bloody Christmas (NSFW)
