LTW newsletter 111

Hail Warriors!

I’m speeding on the 7.15 out of London Euston heading back up north after chairing a great in conversation at the Blue Earth conference. From it’s name you can tell its some kind of green and eco event which is great but the even bigger hook for me was that it was a fervent hive of ideas and future think! I love this kind of stuff - trying to find a way forward from this current madness without the slogans and the petty psychosis of modern politics. The in conversation I did was with James Arbib and his book ‘Stellar’, which embraces new tech from AI to AL and also solar and wind energy as the harbingers of new human age as profound and game changing at the Industrial Revolution . It’s a very utopian book but in the dark dystopia of the now a sprinkling of well thought out utopia goes a long way. 

Music used to be a platform for all kinds of ideas but I guess these days everyone is too busy trying to save themselves and no one has the money, time and luxury of revolutionary ideas. Not that artists have to have any idea about anything apart from creating great music and engaging us with their quicksilver magic which we were celebrating this week with…the following interviews and reviews.

There has been a slight delay to this column because I have been in heavy edit and finally finished writing my memoirs which are due out in May. 

If interested you can 

pre order signed copies of the memoirs now! 

This week I caught up with and interviewed Budgie, the legendary post punk drummer from Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Slits and Big In Japan . We talked in depth about his current memoirs and his upbringing in post punk and how the early death of his mother sent him off on a journey through post punk and beyond. It’s a journey of intense velocity and with an even more intense marriage to the iconic Siouxsie and he talks about the journey in the in depth deep dive interview.

New Dawn Fades – A Play About Joy Division And Manchester returns with its biggest tour yet, including dates at RNCM Manchester, Cheltenham Everyman, The Bloomsbury Theatre London and Blackpool Grand. The play has been getting rave reviews…

51 years in and the Stranglers are still moving like a ninja. Louder Than War were there at their recent Manchester show dressed in black. More than half a century in and The Stranglers still have an ability to surprise. At this stage of the game, the band are very much the curators of their own idiosyncratic museum, dusting down the exhibits and reframing their own hallowed discography. 

Perhaps that artful confrontation of the Banshees could be found in the latest play/installation/piece from Balkan artist Marina Abrovomich whose stunning event at Aviva in Manchester has blown everyone’s minds. Balkan Erotic Story is a stunning piece with five stages and 70 performers and the audience free to wander at will. Its very title gives clues to its content which is grounded in the pagan rituals of the Balkans with a big dash of erotica and naked rituals and all manner of weirdness and shamanic energy. Despite its off kilter energy it sold out the huge room at the venue and its mesmerising presentation will leave you stunned and thinking for days. 

Fresh on the back of the Oasis supports Richard Ashcroft has sold out an arena tour and launched a new album of crooned anthems which will be a shoe in for number one despite most music writers being sniffy about his oeuvre. From his wild lysergic early days in the Verve where he would roll around bug eyed in front of jamming Wigan wig outs and a psychedelic melee to his arena croons it’s been a long strange trip for the singer whose album our writers by breaking the journalist code embraces instead of sneers.

There is some great new noise in town from The Dirt whose recent Manchester show had our reviewers hyperventilating at their highly original spoken word in a punk preacher style backed with swirling guitar effects that match the prole like menacing swirl of electric political venom like an AI snake slithering through the crowd.

Venerable bands like Boomtown Rats seem to be here forever and the perhaps underrated band who were eventually swamped by frontman Bob Geldof’s celebrity Live Aid supernova are out on a sold out jaunt of the sort of city halls they were selling out back in the late seventies. It’s easy to think of the Rats as cartoon punk but Geldof could write a great tune with pithy lyrics and in their earlier days cut loose with a bit of art rock as well like on the strangely timely Like Clockword. These days Geldof is as captivating as ever leaping around like catweazle defying the critics and the years freed up to do what he was really boron for and the day job he truly embraces. 

Arguably the key studio in post punk is Rochdale’s  Cargo studios and the list of bands that recorded there goes from Joy Division to Gang Of Four and then through a whose who of northern punk inspired pop/noise. It’s unique history is finally celebrated with a coffee table book and is a trip down memory lane to a time when bands were trying to mangle music into brave new shapes in unlikely studios in semi forgotten Lancashire mill towns. 

From the same era Cabaret Voltaire were very much once the future and in that never ending cycle of life have announced their final tour.

Rising Suffolk alternative-pop artist Caswell unveils her long-awaited debut album Break/Bleed/Bloom, a collection of tracks that showcases the solo artist’s abilities to bring together inventive ambient electronic musicality and compelling, heartfelt songwriting. An artist who has long been highly regarded on her local scene and beyond, the record has been a long time coming and truly delivers on Caswell’s radiant potential.

The Wedding Present  recently played Manchester at a sweaty sold out 1300 capacity Ritz. The gig was a reminder of just how vital they sound with their ability to entwine the noisier end of the frantic undergound with great songwriting. The band’s only mainstay David Gedge conducted his current line up through a set of classic pop/noise in a set that somehow traded in nostalgia by playing the songs in reverse chronological order from a new song and then back through the decades to their debut without ever sounding bogged down in the past. 

With their second single for Venn Records last month, Scots punk duo Bratakus have announced a five date tour in February 2026. We’ve backed the abrasive (in a good way) sisters from their early days so it’s great to hear they are moving from strength to strength, meaning more folks get to hear their no-holds-barred feminist vegan message and an album of ten songs in twenty minutes.

tAngerinecAt music is unquestionably dark and brooding, yet there’s a real sense of catharsis here too. The Irish Sea offers up one such moment of release while Fire burns with a tangible sense of rage and disgust.

It doesnt seem any time at all when Idlewild were the hot young band flailing around on venue doors with their Black Flag influenced noisy core. they swiftly developed into a thoughtful REM influenced crew of songwriting troubadours and new return as veterans in the never ending cosmic wheel of time and its cruel drip drip drip……

The much celebrated Hollie Cook daughter of Pistols Paul has been releasing great records for a decade and her Fifth album of faultless Lovers Rock and Tropical Pop wows our normally cynical reviewer.