2013 is littered with unfinished business. There’s much for me to write about that I have just not had the time to share. Like seeing the Pixies tear through an awesome set at Music Hall of Williamsburg (with a highlight as staggering as it was surprising: ‘Bagboy’). Or Janelle Monae lighting up the Apollo as […]
Author: James Poole
I can’t bear arrogance on stage. It puts me right off even the most over-achieving band. Clearly, there are some exceptions, where the arrogance is so utterly deserved that you’d happily sit through an hour of self-indulgent introspection because the artist is so bloody good. Step forward, Prince. But, at the other end of the […]
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2013: Top ten albums
In any other year, the 2013 releases from Laura Mvula, Disclosure or Unknown Mortal Orchestra may have made the cut for the ‘best ten’. But, 2013 was about as solid a year for music as you can hope for. Even a rejuvenated and frankly otherworldly David Bowie didn’t make the list this year. And, I […]
Williamsburg may be a ‘hood with a reputation for the ‘quirky’. People don’t appear to bat an eyelid when a besuited bloke walks down the street playing a ukelele and singing to himself, or when a guy uses the bike lane for his unicycle. And so, in this ‘blink and you’ll miss it’ time of […]
Walk down any street in Williamsburg, and your odds of passing somebody wearing a Joy Division T-shirt are pretty high. Admittedly, I’ve done my time in helping this cause – but it does sometimes feel that Joy Division are the unofficial mascots for Williamsburg. I frequently make the point that New York and Manchester have […]
I worry about the youth of today. Gig etiquette is simply not something that they understand. A case in point: as James Blake took to the stage for his Sunday afternoon slot at Latitude, it was almost as though anyone under the age of 20 had been ‘activated’, and their gormless trudge to the stage […]
Every word was savoured. I started the book, read the first hundred pages, and had to start again – just so that I could drink in the words again. In my mind, The Narrator’s distinctive growl enunciated each word with absolute clarity and authority. I’ve taken months to complete the book, despite it being barely […]
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Weller in Brooklyn
When Paul Weller rolls into town, I take notice. He’s probably the person I’ve seen perform live more than any other artist – I can honestly say that I’ve lost count. So, while I never had the pleasure of seeing either The Jam (in fairness, I was seven years-old when they split – so I […]
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Better than Mick
I often think that the UK’s Smooth FM should run with the advertising slogan: ‘where you’re never more than 30 minutes away from Simply Red’. It’s truly the place where music comes to die. I consider it to be the opposite of freethinking. So, let’s just talk about Simply Red for a minute. I recently […]
I recently came across someone saying that they only played mainstream music when they DJ. Their rationale was insightful: popular music is popular because it’s good. It’s useless looking for unearthed music, as the reason that songs became popular is because they’re ‘the best ones’. I say that this is ‘insightful’ because it really does […]
seek out the new celebrate the innovators It’s a pretty crisp mission statement. It’s not about playing obscure tracks one after another, for the sake of ‘appearing cool’. It’s not about analogue versus digital. It’s not your typical Williamsburg night. No – this is where Sheffield’s own ABC will be played next to The Breeders. […]
Last week, there was an article in The Guardian which made reference to Williamsburg as being ‘The World’s Hippest Neighbourhood’. It was fortuitous timing, for on Friday night the claim on this title could not have been any clearer. The substantiation of the claim wasn’t based on the creatively hirsute twenty-somethings, or the skate-boarding dads. […]