On Saturday 23rd July 2011, the newest member was inducted into the hallowed halls of the legendary 27 club.
As is the norm these days, most people found out via facebook, twitter or text, that Amy Winehouse had been found dead in her Camden flat.
In the hours and days since, many have commented that Amy Winehouse's death was 'sad news', certainly it was, we have lost a real talent at an unbelievably young age, yet no-one seems to have been shocked by it.
Her problems with drink and drugs were played out across tabloids, paparazzi were there to capture every intoxicated stumble, and increasingly worrying liveshows saw crowds bearing witness to mumbled lyrics, erratic behaviour and a performer in need of serious help.
And sadly it will be these memories and the everlasting lineage of youtube videos that will continue to define her for years to come, creating yet another rock'n'roll legend whose mythology will be as closely intertwined with drugs and tragedy as it is with their musical back catalogue.
It is a shame that with only two albums to here name, Amy Winehouse doesn't leave more music behind, yet it is easy to forget now that these two collections have helped to shape today's musical landscape dramatically.
As always, posthumous sales have rocketed and her past hits are played out as some mourn her passing and others celebrate her life.
But I'm sure that behind the scenes, the pressure will now be on to polish any demos and unfinished recordings that were being lined up for album number 3. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a new Amy Winehouse album rush-released before Christmas, but it is questionable whether her personal demons will have served her well until the end or eventually tainted her natural talent.
If the loss of Micheal Jackson to my generation was comparable to Elvis, then it is possible that Amy Winehouse will now be immortalised as the 21st century's Kurt Cobain; leaving behind a small, yet significant musical body, complete with the the cautionary tale of the dangers of drug-addiction and the tragic trappings of fame.
4th of July weekend and i'm on The Strip with my girlfriend, as the whole of Las Vegas is buzzing with a party atmosphere, all the pretty people are out in force in a destination already renowned for it's hedonistic reputation.
And of course there was no shortage of place to be or be seen, the only problem was picking one popstar's party over another.
Rihanna was performing at Mandalay Bay before 'hosting' an after-party back at our hotel's exclusive club, also 'hosting' further down the strip was B.O.B and Wyclef Jean would be putting in an appearance at another of Vegas' many nightspots.
But i'd already been tempted by the name daubed large across the Hard Rock Cafe's neon guitar frontage, one whole floor of gift shop and musical-related merch, the next floor the ubiquitous rock themed restaurant, and tonight, Busta Rhymes would be hitting the stage of the restaurant's intimate top floor venue.
The steep $60 price tag for tickets seemed somewhat justified after making enquiries, sincere staff said that it would be 'a proper performance' as opposed to a money-grabbing club appearance, with a full support and 11.30pm headline slot promised we handed over our foreign currency and looked forward to the night ahead.
As expected, DJs threw down some crowd-shaking hip-hop bangers and a jubilant vibe was in the air by the time a local live-rap band took to the stage, whipping up a tangible excitement in the room and putting in a respectable performance to boot.
What followed should have been the highlight of an already amazing holiday, but as the filler DJ set drew out longer and longer, the mood in the room dramatically changed.
it was later still when another DJ took over and a compère's promises that Busta Rhymes was 'in the building' and that he would be onstage 'in around fifteen minutes' were swiftly proved as dishonest as time dragged on and the previous DJ switched back again.
As the time stretched on with no indication of a headliner forthcoming anytime soon, DJs and compère were both booed and scuffles in the crowd broke out as impatience and growing unease spread throughout the building, a number of people even walked out in disgust as DJs resorted to playing the very same tracks they had already played earlier in the evening, proving them to be fatally under-prepared for the job they were there to do.
When Busta Rhymes did eventually take to the stage infront of an agitated and diminished crowd, the performance was far too brief and wholly unsatisfactory to have warranted such a high price tag, rapping over a distorted backing track that hadn't even had the vocals removed for the opening salvo, before moving onto two of his own tracks.
His talent is genuinely not in question, a quick run through of a couple of old hits was hardly 'crowd-pleasing' but were proof of his exceptional skill and inimitable style.
Then we got two guest verses from other artist's tracks and then it was over.
it really was far too little, far too late.
For an artist of Busta Rhymes' calibre, with an impressive back catalogue spanning fifteen years, to simply saunter up and essentially grab the money and run is a disgusting example of hip-hop stars trading on their own success by putting in as little effort possible, whilst still receiving a handsome reward.
This practise should not be tolerated any longer, it is disrespectful to the very fans that have put them in such lofty positions and graced them with lavish lifestyles, but in this culture of celebrity worship i fear that worse is yet to come, and that paying good money is simply not enough to make us worthy of Busta Rhyme's precious time.
today i should have been woken by a rather stupidly early alarm after holding down discussions as to when my best friend would be round to pick me up
it wouldn't have really mattered as the build up of excitement would have kept me awake and the momentum of the day would have kept me going until i finally retired to our tent in a field in Sommerset amidst the familiar smells of camp fires and bbqs
but not today
sadly, this is the first year that we have taken the decision not to go to Glastonbury
it wasn't a decision any of us took lightly, but after failing to actually get hold of tickets at the very first hurdle we were distraught, but slowly came to accept that perhaps 2011 just wasn't gonna be our year
it all seemed perhaps for the best, me and my girlfriend had bought a house and, useful as the deposit scheme is, it would all come at the wrong time, and as the ticket price has increased eash year, we would have struggled slightly with it leaving our now-joint account
and my best friend was planning on doing some travelling this year and would be paying out a lot for that
we then took into account that, since they had split up, a couple of friends that we usually camp with would not be going this year, neither would their friend, and another couple that have joined us the past few years didn't manage to get tickets either
last year's Glastonbury, bathed in glorious sunshine for the whole time was a perfect way to leave it, we'd witnessed floods in our times going and we have had one particular wet and miserable weekend that nearly drove us to the edge of sanity (and led me and my girlfriend to give Benicassim a go)
but it felt like those years that we had stuck with the festival had really paid off, as 2010 saw us camped with more friends than we ever have before, we didn't have to suffer a single drop of rain, and the intense sunshine changed the whole dynamic of the usually soggy Sommerset bash
the temperature was up, high spirits were soaring and every single person battled dehydration as we rejoiced, caught up in the giddy throes of a laid back, serotonin enriched festival that England so rarely witnesses
so we bowed out on a high!
i know coverage shall be hard to avoid, and i've cringed everytime there is even so much of a mention of this year's glasto, completelly racked with jealousy and sentimentality for the good ol' days
i've tried to ignore the innevitable stage line-up reveals, and tried telling myself that Beyonce, Coldplay and U2 won't be much of a line-up anyway
but Glastonbury is so much more than just the headliners, and it is so much more than just the music.
my memories of times, good and the bad, at Glasto are innumerable, but i shall have to leave it to all of this years ticket holders to create their own unique take on Glastonbury 2011 as i sit at a desk typing out this blog, considering putting the tent up in our garden, instead of being sat in a car filled to bursting with all our kit, eagerly awaiting the sight of Stone Henge and the requisite stop-off at Countess Services
i finally take my seat in the NME offices and relax at the desk.
sadly, this is not the first day of a new job plying my wares for the UK's premier weekly music magazine.
instead, i have been summoned to their HQ in Southwark as part of a focus group.
much less rock n roll than i'd anticipated, it seems obtuse that these sterile offices were home to a music juggernaut that makes and break careers and has been key in hyping and tastemaking bands and scenes.
but it was early evening and perhaps every hint of excitement and joyous musical rebellion had clocked off at half 5 - regardless, the small group i was joining soon settled in the bland surroundings and were further relaxed by the offer of beers and pizza.
i for one had it clear in my mind as son as i'd had the call-up that i was keen to let NME know where they had been going wrong.
i admitted to have given up on NME many years ago, around the time Arctic Monkey's debut album was released and the front cover heralded another feature on them for the third time in a month, the bands assualt on the mainstream was well and truly underway and the over-saturation left me jaded.
they had once been the most exciting and heralded new band around, but as the magazine churned out another article i wondered if there was possibly anything more that i needed to know about Arctic Monkeys, and thus i turned my back on the gospel according to NME
finally given the appropriate platform to make my feeling known i did not shy away from voicing my dissenting opinion on a frustratingly overwhelming reliance on lists
on the occasions that an interesting cover feature has lured me back over the years, i've often found that good quality articles have now made way for a ridiculous array of lists on almost every conceivable nuance and sub-category of music.
i fully expect end of year polls and speculative new year/ new bands runthroughs, yet is seems all too often that so-called journalists have taken an easy option of compiling a handful of brief opinions and assigning each banal blurb a numerological value.
even of the 3 issues sent to each of us for research purposes, we were subjected to 3 lists.
top ten buzz bands of the great escape.
top 25 band logos.
and 16 pages of NME's top 70 cult heroes.
apart from my moan about this brazen lazy journalism,Other topics breached included our feelings towards a number of regular features and a discussion on whether Lady Gaga and other 'pop' acts deserve to be on the cover of NME, or deserve to be featured at all (I believe they do), a general consensus that the 'funny' cartoon is possibly the most hated part of the magazine and a lively debate for and against Popjustice's 'Peter Robinson Vs' interviews (for which i was firmly and vocally for).
As well as existing features, we were given a sneak peak at possible contributions, of which the most offensive was a sloppily thrown together piece on how to achieve Alex Turner's 'look', shouted down and derided by everyone in the room for turning what should be a respected music magazine into the indie Heat.
as a newspaper columnist perhaps i should not draw attention to the plight of print media, but it is obvious to all that the sheer quantity and variety of information, opinions and recomendations available online has seen publishers suffering, and those conducting the session were equally interested in how we recieve and percieve new music and recommendations in this modern world where the internet is usurping a former great's all-powerful hold.
Even though I hadn't been called upon to shape the future of NME with my own journalistic talents, it was still a unique opportunity to witness the market research and pitches that everyone involved hopes will keep NME vital and interesting in the 21st century.
Having read the magazine religiously for around 5 or so years from the age of 17, and having NME itself shape me in some of my formative years, it felt right that I could try to return the favour. Lady Gaga - Bad Romance (Dj Fuego Vs. Skrillex Remix)
perhaps it is slightly old fashioned to pass on a demo CD to someone.
i like to think of it as nostalgic instead.
and this is the story of how, with clammy palms, i handed over my CD to Eddy Temple Morris yesterday:
so perhaps my own self-promotion has been a little bit lax of late, perhaps my own musical work ethic has been a little lax of late, i have become accustomed to the truth of the mater that these things will happen when moving into a home, my own home, with the other half (well, half hers too actually)
the spare bedroom has one blue wall and one white wall that i have taken it upon myself to paint, the remaining wall is still that nasty possible-magnolia-really? colour that it has been since we moved in, i would have painted it except she has talked about stripping the textured wall paper from the walls and i don't want to have painted it all for nothing
and yes, the room does actually have four walls, but one is entirely taken up by fitted wardrobes, although i did once consider painting them
but this isn't a case of decoration, this is more a matter that i fully intend to move all my kit into that room and it become my little haven to hide in and create whilst she watches television downstairs, but for now the computer still sits around downstairs, leaving my creativity rather stunted when she turns the tv on
plus, once you consider all the time i actually end up watering the garden, cleaning this, washing that, cooking something, and a whole bunch of other household chores that i hadn't really anticipated yet feel duty bound to complete so i don't end up living in a complete shit hole, there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to fire up the machine and start manipulating sounds
and with all this repeatedly happening since last september, why should i waste an opportunity to burn a number of tracks i am proudest of and pass them along to one of my all-time musical heroes?!
Eddy TM would be DJing as part of Akira The Don's album launch party, and Eddy TM is a DJ that i have huge love and huge respect for, and i am extremely proud that he has played one of my remixes on his long running Xfm show, aptly named The Remix
so i pondered the structure of the CD, settling on an equal mix of original material and remixes, including The Enemy remix that he had already aired, and a rejigged Akira The Don track, since it only seemed appropriate
now, i have been training myself to not act like a complete fanboy when meeting famous people, but those that i hold in the highest esteem still cause an outbreak of hysterics in me, and it was no different when Eddy walked past me, i wasn't even facing him, and yet i felt his prescence (or perhaps caught him in the corner of my eye) and my heart skipped a beat
the plan was to grab a little chat with him and try and retain a sense of composure, but the gig moved swiftly and i would have felt that i was disrespecting the performer and Eddy himself if i tried to catch his attention and hold a conversation during a gig
and so there was nothing left to do but approach him whilst he DJed, seriously, the guy is a consummate professional, graciously accepting the CD from me and even holding a slightly disjointed rhetoric as he cued up and mixed tracks whilst observing that i wasn't going anywhere just yet
i introduced myself, told him how much i thought of him, allowed him to do what he had to do, and then continued to tell him that he had played a track of mine before, at which point Eddy took a little more notice, looking over the almost unreadable tracklisting in the poor lighting and acknowledging that, yeah, he remembered it
he then remarked that he thought we had met before, blimey! either he is an extremely gracious person making a lucky guess, but i believe that i saw recognition in his eyes, i didn't expect for him to remember at all, it must have been a good couple of years ago at least, but i'll quite happily live with the belief that Eddy TM not only is a great DJ, but also a great human being with superhuman skills of recollection
we briefly discussed the artwork of the promo, that he loved, and that i admitted to half-inching and not really being able to claim as my own, and then i said i would leave him to it, he had a job to do after all, and i left beaming...
i hope that he will give it a listen and i hope that he will enjoy it, i would be bloody ecstatic if he saw fit to air anything from it but that is regardless, the most important thing is that he is something of a hero of mine and that in the two brief moments that i have been able to converse with him, Eddy has been nothing less than a complete gentleman and an all-round nice guy
and i couldn't ask for anything more than that when meeting a personal hero
perhaps it is a slight cop-out to shuffle readers off in other directions when i haven't had proper time for proper music blogging
but i suppose it is more like providing a service
you may have missed out on recent reviews of mine surfacing on glasswerk, and this way i can also tie them up with embedded players, so that you get a fuller effect of what i've been listening to and what i've really been feeling
and it was MC Chris in particular that was an absolute revelation to me, an absolute comedy genius and a talented rapper that tackles such hard hitting subject matter as Neville Longbottom dealing weed, ninjas, more weed and obscure references to Star Wars bounty hunters that really endeared him to me
I'm not much into slating bands that have obviously put their hearts into producing music, and try to live by the motto that if you haven't got anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all, but when you end up with a bunch of CDs sent out that need reviewing then i guess you're not gonna love them all
The Cymbals fall into this category, not a bad band exactly, but they failed to have much of a lasting impact, hence my creative criticism in this review and a lack of embedded mp3 for you to trial, check them out if you think that they'll appeal, but i've got more tracks to showcase here that are more interesting than a throwback to 2006
much more interesting in a rather chin-stroking manner is the Leicester based electronica experimentalist (with a rather un-Google friendly name) AFS, whose single, The Prince, was released to coincide with last months royal wedding, despite having nothing at all to do with it other than the tenuous title, but i could quite easily forgive that, as you'll find in my review
and after checking out a little more AFS online i also found this, his previous release entitled Mothers Day, that samples a message from a father to his sons that was found on a mystery cassette tape by a friend in Canada
and the last artist artist i want to feature is Barbara Panther
Barbara Panther's self titled debut album was released earlier this month, and in the time i have spent listening to it for the purpose of reviewing i have became quite a fan, recommending her to friends (and blog readers alike) and have continued to go back to the album, purely for the reason that it is a great listen
The easiest way to sell Barbara Panther would be as a mix of M.I.A and Bjork, then throw in a bunch of other strong female frontwomen and brave electronic production that still retains a pop sheen and you're probably thinking along the right lines.
