The news came through a few weeks back, that San Francisco punk firebrand and vociferous political activist, Jello Biafra, had suffered a hemorrhagic stroke. Fortunately, he seems to be on the mend and starting to regain the use of his always active vocal chords. Since he fronted what was probably the most globally renowned and infamous of the west coast punk bands, Dead Kennedys, we will celebrate the start of his recovery by having him lead off our occasional musical meand

I remember reading about Grant McLennan’s death in Rolling Stone. “Grant’s first love was words, but his true genius was with a tune.” (Robert Vickers, 2006) Having read the British music press a lot in my late teens (1980s/90s), I was aware of so many bands and knew so much about a great many of them, without ever really knowing anything about them. That was because much of the stuff being written about would not be played on daytime (or even early evening) mainstream radio

This edition of The Essential 10, our quickfire introduction to a wide range of my favourite artists, features The Kinks; an act that managed a staggering 26 studio albums over a career that spanned 1963 to 1996. I have trawled their catalogue to come up with ten of my favourite tracks by them, including a few surprises (although, if you don’t know much about them, they may all be surprises). The Kinks came into my life very early on, as there were several of their singles am