sun 29/06/2025

New Music Galleries

Boys on Film: Duran Duran's '84 tour

Matthew Wright

In 1984 Duran Duran were at the height of their fame. Seven and the Ragged Tiger, the band’s third studio album, became their first (and only) number one soon after its release in November the previous year, and announced a sharper, more dance-friendly, synth-driven sound. The world tour (apparently the band wanted to spend a year abroad to avoid tax), began in Australia, but was mostly spent in Canada and the US.

Read more...

PUNK+ - Sheila Rock's portraits from the frontline

theartsdesk

The historians of punk are in full flow. Jon Savage's book England's Dreaming and the BBC Four's documentary series Punk Britannia have documented much of what needs to be said. But punk was as much a visual statement of intent as a musical one, which is why a new book of photographs by Sheila Rock is such a welcome addition to the punk library.

Read more...

theartsdesk at the Latitude Festival 2012: Squeeze, Squelch

Steve Clarkson

As a giggling toddler posed for a photograph next to a pink sheep, a man in a Barbour jacket moaned about losing his garlic-crusher. On the lake, smitten newlyweds enjoyed a gondola ride, while, somewhere else, an elderly couple watched a show so moving it made them cry. Yes, this could have happened in one place only – the leafy surroundings of Henham Park, near Southwold in Suffolk, at Latitude Festival.

Read more...

Gallery: Hop Farm Festival

theartsdesk

Brand-free, eschewing sponsorship, and letting kids in for free, the Hop Farm Festival in Paddock Wood, Kent, has risen steadily in stature to become one of the major fixtures on the UK festival circuit. If the festival is young, most of its audience and stars are of a certain age. Last year saw Morrisey, Patti Smith, Lou Reed and Manu Chao headline, while Prince played his only UK show there.

Read more...

Photo Gallery: Moby, Destroyed

Thomas H Green 'Unattended Luggage Will Be Destroyed': Moby makes stark photographic use of an airport sign

As well as a new album, Destroyed, Moby is putting out a book of photographic prints under the same title. The idea of the book is to capture the essence of being on a global tour, from the mundanity of waiting in airports to the majesty of landscapes and cities, from the explosive excitement of stadium-sized crowds to the solitude of hotel rooms at night. The images will also be on display in the Proud Gallery in Camden Town, north London. theartsdesk showcases a...

Read more...

Art Gallery: Guitar Heroes - Legendary Craftsmen from Italy to New York

theartsdesk String theory: Detail of a guitar by James D'Aquisto

From a guitar by Matteo Sellas dating back to Germany before 1630 to one made in New York by John Monteleone in 2008, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Guitar Heroes exhibition is will go down as the longest guitar solo slot in history. Including one of the four surviving models by Stradivari, it monitors the guitar’s development in Italy and the instrument’s...

Read more...

Photo Gallery: Portraits of Keith Richards 1963-71

Jasper Rees

The lens loved Mick. Those child-bearing lips, to use Joan Rivers’s ripe phrase, always came up a treat in photographs. Did it ever love Keith quite so much? Ever since he started creosoting himself in eyeliner and crumbling like an oxidising mummy before our very eyes, he has been the incarnation of the photogenic rock wreck. Once upon a time, though, when The Rolling Stones were at their creative zenith, the Human Riff presented a young and even ingenuous mug to the camera.

Read more...

Art Gallery: Ray Lowry - London Calling

howard Male

It’s hard to believe that it’s 30 years since the release of The Clash's London Calling, an album that sounds as vital, immediate and relevant today as it did then. Yet there are probably people who remain more familiar with London Calling’s iconic cover than the music contained on the two discs of shiny black vinyl that came with it.

Read more...

Resonances at the Wallace Collection

joe Muggs 'Classical babe' Natalie Clein is expressive with Walton and Bach

It's an admirable project: to recast the interiors of stately homes as immersive artworks, a musical recital combined with sound installations designed to make the viewer look anew at their surroundings. Certainly as I entered the hallway of Hertford House in Marylebone, where the Wallace Collection is housed, the rich, shifting tones of Simon Fisher Turner's electronic sound manipulations filled the air like perfume, amplifying the opulence of the surroundings and making me – and others –...

Read more...

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... ...
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...

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...

Alfred Brendel 1931-2025 - a personal tribute

Alfred Brendel’s death earlier this month came as a shock, but it wasn’t unexpected. His health had gradually deteriorated over the last year or...

Chicken Town review - sluggish rural comedy with few laughs...

Fans of the character comedian Graham Fellows will possibly turn up for this British film starring the man who created the punk parody...