mon 30/06/2025

New Music Buzz

South Bank goes Brazilian for the summer

Peter Culshaw

As Jude Kelly put it today, the Southbank Centre’s Festival Brazil this summer is about a country "living its future now" (link here...

Read more...

Wizard of Oz goes deluxe

graeme Thomson Gurrumul: "A different way of seeing things"

Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is an unlikely star. A 39-year-old blind singer and multi-instrumentalist from Elcho Island, a remote indigenous community off the coast of Australia’s Northern Territory, Gurrumul’s eponymous solo album was Britain’s best selling world music album of 2009.

Read more...

Birthdays on the Tube: 7-13 February

Peter Culshaw

This week's birthday musicians include Gene Vincent singing "Be Bop A Lula" in his first TV appearance, Sergio Mendes with "Mas Que Nada", soul balladry from Roberta Flack, Carole King and a couple of composers - Alban Berg and Leopold Godowsky. Some seriously groovy videos, below.

Read more...

The Who play Quadrophenia for Teenage Cancer Trust

Adam Sweeting Roger Daltrey at full blast

Tickets go on sale today for this year's Teenage Cancer Trust benefit concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in March. The Who's Roger Daltrey, a patron of the Trust, has been the driving force behind the concerts since they began in 2000. Having failed to find any willing younger...

Read more...

So farewell to the Foundry

joe Muggs Raging, but not always pretty, creativity is everywhere in The Foundry

My abiding memory of The Foundry is being held aloft by my throat by the landlord, Falklands veteran and notorious band manager Alan "Gimpo" Goodrick, as he accused me of stealing a Shirley Bassey album. I had been DJing for a book reading by Mark "Zodiac Mindwarp" Manning, and there was a lot of absinthe being drunk thanks to some fellow from The Idler. I knew at that point I shouldn't have begun the evening by playing the line "there may be trouble ahead" from Bassey's version of "...

Read more...

Original Cultures London announced

joe Muggs

Original Cultures is an artistic collective with bases in the UK, Italy and Japan, dedicated to audiovisual collaborations inspired by street art, graffiti, hip hop and electronic music. It is staging its first London event over the course of a week from 27 February to 5 March this year, in which artists Ericailcane, DEM, Will Barras, Hiraki Sawa, Om Unit, Tatsuki and Tayone will be joining to create new works in a series of public events and workshops in and around the Old Truman Brewery,...

Read more...

Jim Moray - new album free through Songlines

Peter Culshaw

On April 30 2010 award-winning folk artist Jim Moray will pre-release his new album exclusively through the June issue of Songlines magazine.

Read more...

Birthdays on the Tube: 30 January-6 February

Peter Culshaw The 5th Baron Haden-Guest aka Nigel Tufnel

This week's birthdays include a trio of incandescent rock legends – Axl Rose musing about recording a triple album and sacking his drummer, Alice Cooper on corrupting the youth, and Nigel Tufnel, lead guitarist of Spinal Tap, pushing the amp up to 11. There’s musicologist Alan Lomax on prison songs, a clip of a film melodrama with violinist Jascha Heifetz, a tour of the world with Bob Marley on...

Read more...

Birthdays on the Tube: 24-30 January

Peter Culshaw Tom Jobim: The Man from Ipanema

This week, the great Brazilian songwriter Tom Jobim, in a duet with Elis Regina, as well as teaching jazzer Gerry Mulligan bossa nova and in a version by Ryuichi Sakamoto. It's also the birthday of songwriter Robert Wyatt, and trip-hop pioneer Tricky, who shares a birthday with Mozart.

Read more...

Kate McGarrigle, 1946-2010

sue Steward

I’m no folky but I fell for the songs of Kate and Anna McGarrigle the moment I first heard their album Dancer with Bruised Knees, and it’s remained a companion ever since. It never struck me that their songs and the eclectic backing music was "folk", as it was often categorised; the tag presumably arose from Kate’s accordion and banjo playing, their acoustic guitars and, of course, the French-Canadian chansons they sang at home as children - and thankfully...

Read more...

Pages

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

latest in today

'We are bowled over!' Thank you for your messages... ...
Le nozze di Figaro, Glyndebourne review - perceptive humanit...

Over 100 years ago, John Christie envisaged Wagner’s Parsifal with limited forces in the Organ Room at Glyndebourne. He would have been...

Quadrophenia, Sadler's Wells review - missed opportunit...

The red, white and blue bull’s-eye on the front curtain at Sadler’s Wells tells us we are in the familiar territory of Pete Townshend’s...

Fidelio, Garsington Opera review - a battle of sunshine and...

Sometimes, as the first act of Beethoven’s Fidelio closes, the chorus of prisoners discreetly fade away backstage as their brief taste of...

Summer Laugh review - five comics gear up for the Fringe

Appearing at the Edinburgh Fringe has long been an expensive gig for comics. But while stand-ups may need only a microphone to ply...

Album: Brìghde Chaimbeul - Sunwise

The first five-and-a-half minutes of Sunwise’s opening track “Dùsgadh / Waking" are taken up by a drone. Played on the Scottish small...

Music Reissues Weekly: Rupert’s People - Dream In My Mind

Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” was an instant phenomenon. Recorded in April 1967 and issued as a single on 12 May after pre-release play...

Intimate Apparel, Donmar Warehouse review - stirring story o...

The corset is an unlikely star of the latest Lynn Nottage play to arrive at the...

theartsdesk Q&A: director Andreas Dresen on his anti-Naz...

Andreas Dresen directs socially engaged realist films that invariably relay personal and political messages; the result can be tough but is...

Hercules, Theatre Royal Drury Lane review - new Disney stage...

Many years ago, reviewing pantomime for the first time, I recall looking around in the stalls. My brain was saying, “This is...