Archive for June, 2009
The self-proclaimed King Of Pop Michael Jackson was pronounced dead yesterday after suffering a fatal cardiac arrest. The 50-year-old singer suffered the heart attack at around 12.30pm California time and was pronounced dead three hours later. This is shock news from the US, where Jackson had been preparing for his upcoming shows at London’s O2 Arena. The star leaves behind three young children - Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince ‘Blanket’ Michael Jackson II - his large family and a worldwide fanbase who will all be in mourning…
Unlike most celebrities, Moby looks the height you’d expect in the flesh: small. As he shakes my hand he looks reserved and wary, pulling up a desk chair to sit on while I stick to the plush sofa I’ve just got up from. He’s just done a load of local radio interviews - “It’s not the most glamorous side of the industry” - and looks tired after his show at London’s Meltdown festival the night before. Throughout the interview, Moby listens intently and answers my questions in a clipped New York accent. He crosses his legs, fiddles with his socks and doesn’t smile much. But then, what did you expect from a man who recently said that his new album Wait For Me is a record to “get depressed to”? Here, he talks Meltdown, making sad music and how everyone in New York has it in for him…
Blur, Cliffs Pavillion, Southend-On-Sea - June 21st
The first time we went to see Blur in concert sometime around 1992, Damon Albarn was wearing a Fred Perry top. So when the still lithe and youthful-looking Albarn strutted onto the stage of Southend’s Cliffs Pavillion on Sunday in the same top, we wondered if it was a uniform of sorts: back in Blur, must dress appropriately. It did the trick though because the foursome were back on song in this Essex heartland, the old tunes coarsing through them and out into the auditorium, punching and licking the crowd in equal measure…
Skint & Demoralised, Water Rats, London - June 18th
Matt Abbott - aka Skint & Demoralised - has been creating quite a poetic stir in his native Yorkshire and now he’s on a mission to spread the word south and beyond. So it was that he took to the stage on a breezy summer night in a King’s Cross pub with his relaxed manner, flowing lyrics and way with a tune - think The Streets but less laddy, more northern and hairy…
