Musical Essays

A post that cropped up on one of my social media feeds, gives us the idea for today's story... and it's not entirely music based, but an interesting one nonetheless. Rhoda Dakar was at the heart of the 2 Tone ska scene of the late 1970s and 80s. She had hits with the all-girl ska band, The Bodysnatchers , who toured with The Selector - and then teamed up with Jerry Dammers in his post The Specials band, handily named The Special AKA . Later on, she released solo work, worke

It's mid autumn, getting chillier and damper, and that can only mean that over the pond, the NFL is getting towards the business end of its season. So, I wondered if we could make a playlist out of it? The two teams I mostly follow (49ers and Chiefs) are both having something of an up and down season, but our official family team - the Denver Broncos - are having a stormer so far and are well on track for the play-offs. So, just in case it all goes wrong, we are running with

At times it felt like Courtney Love’s infamous relationship with Kurt Cobain was more of a circus sideshow than a marriage built on love. The pair were seemingly drowning in their drug habit, yet somehow trying to raise a small child at the same time. For many fans of Nirvana, it seems that Love has always been very much a persona non grata; a bad influence and possibly the ultimate ruination of Cobain. So, was it as simple as that - is Courtney Love really a manipulative, ta

It was an interesting, and potentially pivotal time, for the rising stars of Scottish rock music. The four years leading up to the release of Once Upon A Time, Simple Minds eighth studio album, had seen a massive commercial boom for them, but also witnessed a few seismic changes to the band. You could go all the way back to 1981, when founding drummer Brian McGee broke up the original dynamic when he quit the group after recording what would become the fourth and fifth recor

In the UK (and the northern hemisphere more generally), we have truly entered that autumnal time of year (a.k.a. fall) - the temperature has finally chilled a bit, the air seems damper and most of all, the nights are becoming way too long. So, to help with that, we have gathered ten more songs broadly (and occasionally tenuously) about this season. It's not everyone's favourite time of year, so these songs will help ease that pain..... possibly. 1. Weezer: Undone (The Sweater