Harry’s Place Arts

There was a happy little story on the BBC news this morning - between the depressing weather report and the even more depressing current affairs. Yes, in the gap was a story about seven inches of joy that, after sixty years, is still with us and apparently experiencing something of a revival.
The 7″ single - [...]

Stereogum is giving away legal free mp3s from top bands like British Sea Power, the Fleet Foxes, MGMT, Sigur Ros, Stereolab, the Kooks and Radiohead.
Go for it!

Hello dear Harry’s Place Arts reader.  As you will have noticed, there have been no reviews by me the last two months.  This has not been a capitulation to the enormity of the task, merely a re-grouping while I was enjoying adventures in the housing market.  These now completed, I shall soon be returning to [...]

In the recent thread on Christmas songs, it occurred to me that nobody mentioned what is sure one of the most class-conscious holiday tunes of all time– a song about the possibly-illegal expropriation of goods so as to distribute them equitably among all sectors of the population.
I refer of course to (then) Little Brenda Lee’s [...]

Well that’s the question a jury will be asked to decide. According to Reuters:
Rock guitarist Joe Satriani has sued British band Coldplay, accusing the Grammy-nominated stars of plagiarizing one of his songs.
Satriani’s copyright infringement suit, filed on Thursday in Los Angeles federal court, claims the Coldplay song “Viva La Vida” incorporates “substantial original portions” of [...]

I have an opinion piece on the music/culture ezine, The Quietus about censoring and banning music… which, despite being an ardent supporter of free speech and artistic expression, in some cases I fully support. Here’s a short extract:

Where is the line where bigotry becomes hatred and hatred becomes incitement? Racist Oi! bands have been flirting [...]

Last night I went to see Tel Aviv garage rock power trio Monotonix at the Luminaire. It was the second time I’d seen them - the first time was at a bit of an artwank gig at the Corsica Studios a few months back.  I had enjoyed them massively that time, but I couldn’t quite [...]

So here we are at the end of the series of Junkbox Juries. Over the past few months, we have liberated a range of interesting-looking CDs from various sale-racksand clearance bins around London. All of the CDs cost £1 or less and the rule was that they were chosen purely on the basis of “it [...]

My friend Jo’s band Sugarmonkey have just released their new video which I hope you’ll like.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEEnrXeVln0

In fact. I hope you like it enough to head out to the Roadhouse in Covent Garden, London on 23rd November 2008 to catch the band live at a benefit gig they’re playing to raise funds for Pilgrim’s Hospices, which provide [...]

RIP Mitch Mitchell
Jimi Hendrix died in 1971, Noel Redding died in 2003, and now the last surviving member of the rock powerhouse, the Jimi Hendrix Experience has died, aged 61, apparently of natural causes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLx0sJymw-Q

It seems that the rock pioneers of the 50s and sixties - the ones that didn’t burn out ealy - are now [...]