It’s usually only the most dog-in-a-handbag of divas who try to police their interviews, so I’m slightly surprised when a request comes in from Gary Clark Jr’s people on the afternoon before I’m due to meet the American blues musician. Could I please steer away from any mentions of Jimi Hendrix, as he comes up…
Slick operation that it is these days, I miss the days of surprises at the BRIT Awards. There probably won’t be any assaults, sweary speeches or mooning at next Wednesday night’s ceremony, but it would be wonderful if Rudimental, a grinning gaggle of ex-pirate radio DJs from Hackney, could scramble past Coldplay, Adele, Robbie Williams…
It’s ironic that the Hollywood actor John C Reilly has granted me an interview to talk about his music, given that one of the main reasons he started his bluegrass band was to relieve the tedium of movie press junkets. Jetting into London to promote his star turn as Wreck-it Ralph, the arcade game smasher…
If HMV’s woes suggest that recorded music is no longer important, here’s the proof. Modestep are doing so well on the web, with their bouncy single Sunlight scoring almost 22 million YouTube views, that their debut album barely seems significant. “We got really serious YouTube numbers very quickly, on videos we’d made ourselves. Record companies…
To a glittering list that includes Adele, Jessie J, Florence + the Machine and Emeli Sandé, we can soon add the name Laura Mvula. It’s tipping season in pop, when the stars of the next 12 months are picked before 2013 has even started. The shortlist for the next Brits Critics’ Choice Award was announced…
After a gala year in which his band provided the soundtrack for the Olympics and toured the nation’s arenas, Guy Garvey of Elbow is bracing himself for a break. This garrulous northerner, proud possessor of the freedom of Bury, is becoming a New Yorker and taking time out from his industrious quartet. “In 22 years,…
I remember thinking when we wrote our first songs: ‘With music as good as this we could definitely headline the Camden Barfly.’” Justin Young of The Vaccines has had to readjust his ambitions since those heady days of summer 2010. This weekend his band will perform in front of 10,000 fans at Alexandra Palace, and…
One of the most powerful aspects of Twitter is the way it can change people’s stature in your eyes if they’re good at it. Example didn’t really register on my pop order of preference until I started following him online. Now it’s all I can do to keep from putting at least three LOL-worthy…
It’s not a question you would expect to stump a band that is the jazz nominee at next Thursday’s Mercury Prize: “Who would you recommend catching at next month’s London Jazz Festival?” at which they are also performing. “Um… I don’t listen to that much jazz,” admits Roller Trio’s dreadlocked guitarist Luke Wynter, who grew…
NE-YO’S fifth album, a certain hit when it is released next month, is called R.E.D., which stands for Realising Every Dream. That’s not an ambition, he tells me with the characteristic humility of a major American R&B singer, but a fact. “Initially my biggest dream was just to do music for the rest of my…