Nick Green 'Where Love Is Found...'

Nick Green was in a band called The Circle, who went on to become Subjagger after Nick left... He recorded solo, working with Dave Stewart and released one EP called 'Why Do I Need To Know'. Saw him live a few times where he was accompanied by a fellah called Gem Archer - wonder what happened to him ;-)

The few times I met Nick he was a warm and friendly character and hugely talented...

Leave the light on...

stanleylucasRevolution at The Copper Door, Santa Ana on June 9th 2011.

Euphoria take my hand...

Glasvegas at The Troubadour, June 8th 2011...

Reviving the living dream...

Banksy from the MOCA exhibit 'Art in the streets'...

RIP Chris Sievey

The comic, whose best know character was Frank Sidebottom, was 54...

RIP Peter Quaife

The original bass player for The Kinks was 66...

Hey Charles!

Nice viral video for the Indie Peddler book release Thursday at Detroit Bar, Costa Mesa. Music is from the full length version of 'Hey Charles' by stanleylucasRevolution...

RIP Marvin Isley

The Isley Brothers bassist was 56...

RIP Stuart Cable

The drummer and founder member of  The Stereophonics was 40. He was sacked by the band in 2003...

RIP Brian Duffy

The photographer who shot the iconic 'Aladdin Sane' picture of David Bowie was 76... He also shot Bowie's 'Lodger' cover...

RIP Dennis Hopper

 The legendary American actor was 74... Hopper starred in a plethora of iconic movies including Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now and Blue Velvet...

RIP Ronnie James Dio

The rock singer, who had a varied career including stints with Rainbow and Black Sabbath, was 68. He had been suffering from stomach cancer...

The bitterest pil...

For anyone less than overwhelmed (myself included) with the current PIL reunion, this is how it should have been...

Flower in the desert (Coachella 2010)

Another year, another Coachella... Great music, managable weather and appalling organization.

Let's get the bad stuff out of the way, first the wristband fiasco: getting into the carpark was worse than previous years - our usual back route led us past our regular parking spot which seemed to be occupied by a few camper vans and tents. Once we finally parked we waited in line an hour for our three-day wristband. Waiting in a mad scrum is never fun, particular in sweltering heat - indeed a girl next to us collapsed and I'm sure this wasn't an isolated incident. I guess we were lucky to get a wristband at all as Goldenvoice (allegedly) sold 85,000 tickets, which would explain why the wristbands ran out (the capacity is 75,000). Day 2 it took us an hour to get into the carpark due to the incompetence of the fool who was directing traffic. Inside the venue there were noticeably less stewards, and trash/recycling bins, making it impossible by nightfall to walk without stepping on an empty water bottle or worse. Finally, there were the cancellations of some of the UK and European bands (Gary Numan, Bad Lieutenant etc) because of the volcano. At one point there was a rumour Ash was flying over from Iceland... (I'll get my coat...) Oh, and the main stage caught fire during Coheed & Cambria but unfortunately there were no casualties...

As far as the music goes I think this was my best year so far:

The Best:

The Specials - seeing them twice in two days (they played Club Nokia Thursday) was brilliant. Terry was at his deadpan best, with Lynval and especially Neville running around the stage with boundless energy. The music sounded amazing, much better than the sometimes dodgy production on the LP's... Quality...

Grizzly Bear - playing tracks from a complex LP like Veckatimest would be fraught with danger for most bands but Grizzly Bear were more than up to it. Brilliant vocal harmonies from all 5 members and a really dynamic set - I've only seen The Dears match their intensity when they rock out at the end of songs...

Beach House - wonderful set from Grizzly Bear cohort Victoria Legrand (composer Michel Legrand's niece) and band... 'Zebra' and '10 Mile Stereo' were the highlights of their set, the latter building in intensity towards a climactic finale...

Thom Yorke - Atoms of Piece played through the gripping Eraser before Thom came back for a solo acoustic rendition of 'Airbag' and piano version of 'Everything in its right place'.

Gorillaz - really cool set with Damon taking more of a front man role than previous Gorillaz tours, ably backed by a band featuring Mick Jones and Paul Simonen. Some great guest appearances by De La Soul, Yukimi Nagano from Little Dragon, Bobby Womack and Gruff Rhys; all reprising their parts on Plastic Beach.

Charlotte Gainsbourg - gained momentum as the set went on finishing with a delightful version of her father's 'Couleur Cafe'. Charlotte is the coolest woman in rock and she looks more like Jane Birkin than Serge now, which is probably a good thing...

Charlotte:

Camera Obscura - enjoyable set from the Scottish jangle popsters

Local Natives - I had an open mind about the much hyped LA band but they were really good. A more rocky Fleet Foxes, with appropriately less facial hair...

MGMT - opinions have apparently been divided on the new LP but I liked what I heard. When we saw them live before they had a whiff of Pink Floyd about them but the new stuff is more indie glam, sounding like Of Montreal and even The Auteurs in places.

Echo & the Bunnymen - I only caught the last four songs but McCulloch/Sergant were on fine form. The former was in good spirits, telling some crude Knock Knock jokes, describing 'The Killing Moon' as the best song ever written and 'The Cutter' as the second or thrid best song ever written. The Bunnymen sounded good but when I see them I only hear what's missing rather than what's there...

De La Soul - really got the crowd going at an early time slot... 'Me, Myself and I' was classic but they didn't play 'Three is a magic number' so points deducted for that...

She & Him - actually pretty good. Zooey Deschanel sounds like Nancy Sinatra, which I guess makes M.Ward the new Lee Hazlewood... Anyways, it was poppy and cute...

Pavement - sounded great but overall the crowd just didn't seem that into it. Maybe they had all had their fill at the Fox Theater in Pomona on Thursday night... Anyways, great to have Pavement back on the scene...

The Rest:

PiL - predictably there was a lot of wailing from Mr Lydon and the effected guitar was a little tiring after while. 'Poptones' was brilliant but we were well on the way back to the car when the wind carried us the epic refrain of 'Public Image'...

Hot Chip - the Londoners put on a lively set but to me it sounds like dance music for people that don't like dance music.

Vampire Weekend - it was ok, didn't despise it as much as I wanted to...

The XX - dull x2... The fact that the best thing they've ever done is a Florence & The Machine remix says it all really... Mind you, it is brilliant...

See you in 2011...

RIP Malcolm McLaren

The legendary manager of the Sex Pistols in their meteoric rise to fame and ultimate implosion was 64. Along with partner Vivienne Westwood and designer Jamie Reid, they nurtured the look and style of the British punk explosion of 1976. After the Sex Pistols McLaren became a performer on his own right - using influences from Africa and the Americas and was a pioneer in popularising hip-hop outside of the USA...

McLaren and the Pistols signing for A&M outside Buckingham Palace...

LA Font at Spaceland

Kazai Rex! were entertaining. However, much of the stage presence was at the expense of a reasonable standard of musicianship which was at best shoddy, and in the case of the drumming, particularly (sorry Richie) ramshackle...The songs were kind of theatrical, like if The Magic Numbers wrote a bad musical...

Kazai Rex!

Sacha Baron-Cohen wearing a Fez may not be the look Josh Charney is going for, but after a bland opening number the set gathered momentum with the addition of a cool trumpet player, a great jazzy drummer and an ok bass player. After the non-descript opener the set turned jazzy with a touch of 'Riders on the storm' - Charney's keyboard licks right out of Ray Manzarek's repertoir...

Latin Meds

LA Font sounded excellent, Spaceland's sound system highlighting their brilliant rhythmn section. Singer Danny Bobbe was at his surly best, stalking the expanses of the Spaceland stage like a menacing caged lion, all jagged guitar licks and fractious vocals. Great set from one of my favorite bands on the local LA scene...

LA Font

LA Font, David Shane Smith, stanleylucasRevolution and Robert James at Where 3/26/10

They say a picture paints a thousand words...

Slowly becoming strangers...

Brookline played their final gig this week at La Cave in Costa Mesa - the Orange County band calling it quits after 6 years... Falling somewhere between Pink Floyd and Radiohead, their melodic rock lacked a contemporary edge and was sometimes over-written and somewhat self-indulgent. Having said that they are all great guys and accomplished musicians who I'm sure will be playing in other bands soon. Indeed, a couple of them have already played bass in the hipster rock band Railroad to Alaska...

At La Cave, they threw in a nice version of 'The Killing Moon' although the sound quality on the video is distorted...

RIP Alex Chilton

The Big Star frontman was 59...

Times New Camera

Testing the HDFlip at the LA Font show Monday night... Audio isn't bad considering it was a loud show and I was close to the speakers...



Compare the audio to the distorted audio from the Canon Powershot footage. Shame because I love 'Evening Tea (on the balcony)'...