LTW Newsletter 124

Welcome Warriors!

Welcome one and all to the Easter jamboree!

This is a place where rabbits run wild, and hares elope across verdant green with their twitching faces filled with their xenial marmalade sandwiches clutched under their furry little arms watching cricket on the village greens…a mythical middle England that seems to exist only on the Twitter and Threads feeds and in the imaginations of strange bots with made up names who have gone a bit beyond the vicar writing letters to the Telegraph of yore and turned into fiendishly sinister characters…we truly are living in strange times! 

Times when the most crazed high decibel music maker seems quite sensible, and the formerly starchy guardians of the nation’s morals who occupied the mythical middle of the middle England are starting to sound a tad insane! If Bowie was ever to return to this planet and rerecord Diamond Dogs, his dystopian vision would not be set in some sci-fi inner city with fictional half man half dogs half droog half biscuits but out in a village called Lower something or other with the twitching curtains taking on a new level of quark, strangeness and perhaps not so much charm….

But fear not we have music to entertain ourselves!

And in this world there had been all kinds of scabrous activity…

First and foremost, I will be on tour in May/June not only talking all things website but also my up and coming ‘Punk Rock Ruined My Life and other Stories’ memoirs…there hardly seems to be a market town in dear old Blightly that I will not be pacing around in … all details of the upcoming tour are here…

Public Image Limited have been working hard for the past couple of years…harder than ever since Alan McGee started managing them, and their seemingly endless tour and festival appearances have seen the rejuvenated band change a few perceptions. Maybe they had been coasting a bit before this and even if some of their singers’ interviews are a bit tricky to navigate, the band have morphed into a powerful unit  which has been captured on the new live album which is a limited edition, self-produced live album, called Alive. It captures the highlights from the This Is Not The Last Tour, that roamed with purpose across the UK and Europe last summer. Sean Millard (Öffnet in neuem Fenster) yells “Take My Money!”, drops the needle and relives some of the best live moments from 2025. Multiple times over.

Quebecois mysterions, Angine De Poitrine strike while the iron is decidedly sizzling and release new music hot on the heels of their inevitable viral prominence. The upcoming UK tour is sold out, and MK Bennett is completely sold. 

Led by Nick Saloman, who went to school with Adam Ant and taught him to play guitar, Bevis Frond took a different route from his old school chum and became a prolific band in the underground, psych-rock scene. Returning with the 27th album in a 30-year career,  Horrorful Heights is another magnum opus crammed with neo-psych rock and insightful songwriting. Robert Plummer is happy to be dragged into his world.

It’s the final night of this year’s edition of Teenage Cancer Trust, and Robert Smith has outdone himself in installing Wolf Alice as the leader of his alternative rock pack.  Wolf Alice are on fire. Singer Ellie Rowsell is not just a singer, she’s an experience, with solid backing of her band of “mates” Joff Oddie, Joel Amey and Theo Ellis, along with Ryan Malcolm. It’s doubtful anyone in the Royal Albert Hall tonight will feel anything but completely overwhelmed to be here to witness this outstanding performance. 

In another of the Albert Hall events it’s a night of contrasts with Chvrches lifting the rafters of the Royal Albert Hall with soaring melodies while My Bloody Valentine shake it to its foundations with an immersive wall of sound   https://louderthanwar.com/my-bloody-valentine-royal-albert-hall-live-review/ (Öffnet in neuem Fenster)

Lambrini Girls are long term LTW faves and their high energy politically charged new generation punk rock has crafted them a big following and is about to be supercharged with a new single and tour. 

Taurus Trakker/Mick Jones: Stickin’ Boy ‘A Punk Rock Musical’  Soho, 1977, in the historic underbelly of London.  The vice trade, punk rock, addiction, obsession, violence, street humour. This is the World of Stickin’ Boy.   The late Joe Strummer was a great believer in the power of positive thought and the determination of people to achieve goals via application of such energies. In a recent interview with Taurus Trakker frontman Martin Muscatt, he recalled Joe’s enthusings which most certainly ring true in relation to the band’s latest project, which has been the best part of a quarter of a century in the making…. says Richard David  as he gives LTW the full background to the project..