I wasn’t born for Beatlemania, I was too young for punk so the first genuine music phenomenon I can recall is Frankie Goes To Hollywood who stormed the UK in 1984, I was the perfect age, thirteen. I had already started my musical snobbery so other acts who were getting to number one, Flying Pickets, Lionel Ritchie and Jim Diamond were of no interest to me, apologies to any of their fans. A dramatic operatic voice welcomes us in before Holly speaks and laughs but this is the

The Shins have been around since 1996, that’s thirty years, wow, they managed four albums in their first sixteen years but we have only had one record in the last fourteen back in 2017 and lead singer and songwriter James Mercer is the sole original member of the band, he also records with Danger Mouse In Broken Bells having released three records which may impact on the output of The Shins. A song from their debut album Oh Inverted World called New Slang was used in the fi

Joe Strummer had jumped into The Clash from The 101’ers and within six years was in a worldwide huge band the problem was the drummer was a heroin addict and Joe and Paul hated lead guitarist Mick Jones. Both were sacked and the problem was Topper was a powerhouse drummer and Mick wrote all the music. Within three years The Clash released one of the most slated albums ever and split up, Joe apologised to Mick, they came friends again but Mick wouldn’t reform The Clash. Joe re