Favourite albums of 2016

Putting togeth­er a list of favourite albums of 2016, I recalled writ­ing last year’s col­lec­tion. What a dif­fer­ent world we now inhab­it. Every­thing feels brit­tle and frag­ile, a sense of per­ma­nence lost. The loss of so many great musi­cians and artists this year has been raw and shock­ing. How­ev­er… there are plen­ty of releas­es I’ve real­ly enjoyed this year, and inevitably…

Read More

Review: Earl Slick Station to Station

At the 02 Isling­ton, Bowie’s long-stand­ing gui­tarist Earl Slick and his assem­bled cast of musi­cians per­formed their fourth night of what so far has been a huge­ly suc­cess­ful run of his mini tour of Sta­tion to Sta­tion. The band includ­ed Steve Nor­man from Span­dau Bal­let on gui­tar, sax­o­phone and per­cus­sion (I saw Steve with Holy Holy in 2014). Also on gui­tar was Luis…

Read More

David Bowie RIP

A wave of dev­as­ta­tion has encom­passed every­one this morn­ing at the news that David Bowie has died. I have to agree with Lau­ren Lav­erne on BBC6 radio who stat­ed that “for those who feel they should­n’t be feel­ing so per­son­al­ly full of grief,  actu­al­ly, it’s OK for us to feel this way.” Bowie is part of us,…

Read More