When Lily Allen first arrived in 2006 I was thirty five and although I didn’t mind her number one single Smile I certainly didn’t listen to the album as I was too old, I thought. One of the greats to me in music is Mick Jones and when I heard he was teaming up with her for a cover of one of his songs Straight to Hell (does that make it a cover?), I had to hear. Lily takes the lead but Mick is there on vocals and it doesn’t have the brooding intensity of the original but is e

Can you please review Ivy Apartment Life? No problem, thanks for the request. Mr Knowledgeable wants to ask one question is Ivy a band or a female solo artist?   Quick type on phone, a band, of course,  I thought so….   Brief history, Ivy were a three piece band featuring two multi-instrumentalists Andy Chase and Adam Schlesinger and singer Dominique Durand (Chase and Durand are now married) and between 1994 and 2012 released six albums.  Sadly, Schlesinger died of Covid in 2

As far as I am concerned Machine Gun Etiquette was/is a triumph and even though the band lost bassist Algy Ward due to him and Rat Scabies not getting along they returned within a year with their fourth record The Black Album. Paul Gray joined on bass and although there have been many line up shuffles through the years The Black Albums line up has been the current band for the last three years and even though they are now gentlemen of a certain age they are astounding live. W