Turmoil + soul = jazz

So I’m lying in bed, unable to sleep. Some years back. And I’m thinking about money. Not thinking so much as fretting. Probably panicking. So I go downstairs and for some reason stand in front of my bookshelf, looking up at the books I hadn’t looked at or considered or opened for a long time. …

I Am Easy To Find: A soundtrack to my latest long night

It's been difficult to know all week whether I've been depressed or just perpetually hungover. Which seems like the perfect emotional backdrop for a new album release from The National. The National are my ultimate "do I accidentally take too many pills/just listen to some music" kind of band. My darkest times of the past …

A Queen story: You buggers can sing harder than I can

Bohemian Rhapsody was the first song I remember being aware of as a kid. I have a clear memory of us kids singing it in the schoolyard and making up lyrics because, clearly, no one knew what the actual words were. Those memories are filed alongside other powerful ones from the time: the smell of …

Tortured innocence: The year was 1984

We emigrated to Perth, Western Australia, in July, 1983. We left the UK, four of us (mum, dad, brother and me), plus my uncle, who was tagging along for an extended holiday, on Bastille Day, July 14, and flew over Paris as the city exploded in colour and smoke, like a pyrotechnic hydrangea bush. It …

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness: A Bullitt train to the 90s

On the evening of March 4, 1996, I picked up my old mate Al and we drove through Hungry Jack's for dinner before the Smashing Pumpkins concert in Perth, Western Australia, and I say to him, 'What did you do today?' You know, as you do. He says, 'I went and bought the Steve McQueen …

Reissue: Achtung Baby is a double beef whopper

In the early 80s, the best live band on the planet was Queen. It was an undisputed truth, the sort of truth I liked, as a conservative fundamentalist who liked his truth to come in distinctly marked boxes. The liner notes of the double live album Queen Live Killers said that Queen were the best …

There be treasure buried here

Kamasi Washington's Heaven & Earth was already the album of the year for me, well before I walked into a record store on the weekend and saw a sign on the wall next to the album, saying there was a secret record hidden within the packaging.

Kamasi Washington and the glory of counterpoint

I'm gonna try and find some half-adequate words to describe the power of sax player Kamasi Washington's music. I’m on a hiding to nothing though, because no words come anywhere close. Still, let's have a crack. It makes me move, body and spirit. I don't care how I look when I'm moving either. It's like …

Nick Cave: One More Time With Feeling

It must be more than thirty years ago that my interest in Nick Cave was first piqued by a music press article in which the author contrasted the Australian singer-songwriter with U2’s Bono. The latter was a Christian who seemed fascinated by darkness, while the other was the Lord of Darkness who seemed forever fascinated by the Bible and Jesus.