Tag Archive: Antony


The prettiest stars of Glam Rock

Filed under: Books, Gender, Music — Leave a comment
October 31, 2016

SHOCK AND AWE – GLAM ROCK AND ITS LEGACY by Simon Reynolds (Faber & Faber,2016)

“Got your mother in a whirl ‘cos she’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl” – David Bowie (Rebel Rebel)
“Even the greatest stars live their lives in the looking glass” – Kraftwork (Hall Of Mirrors)
“There’s something in the air of which we will all be aware yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah” – Sweet (Teenage Rampage)
“Whatever happened to the heroes?”- The Stranglers (No More Heroes)

glamIt’s fair to say Glam Rock has never really been taken all that seriously. Being casually dismissed as a joke genre is partly what drove Simon Reynolds to write this impressively weighty tome.

In so doing, he proves that this musical phenomenon deserves to be more than just an amusing footnote in the story of popular music. The author doesn’t claim that all the music tagged as Glam (or Glitter is you’re American) is of a universally high standard yet, even at its most crass and commercial, Reynolds endorses the viewpoint of Noel Coward who once wryly observed : “It’s extraordinary how potent cheap music is”. Continue reading →

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WHAT WILL WE BE

Filed under: Music — Leave a comment
October 31, 2009

I wonder if Devendra Banhart is just too damn happy to make another record to match the brilliance of  2004’s ‘Rejoicing In The Hands …..’ , an album which IMHO still stands  as his masterpiece.

Banhart has always been the personification of a red rag for bullish hippy bashers.  Consequently, the backlash against his freaky brand of folk has been substantial. Added to this are the insidious snipes over his high-profile dalliance with Natalie Portman and ,now, comes his switch from the hallowed Indie ranks of XL Recordings to the major label Reprise Records of  Warners Music Group (boo! hiss!).

Verily, not the actions of a back to basics treehugger. Continue reading →

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SEPEDEH RAISSADET

Filed under: Italy, Movies — Leave a comment
December 29, 2008

Hers is not yet a well known name but I would stake what remains of my reputation on the fact that this time next year Sepedeh Raissadet will have found an audience well beyond her native Iran origins. She has contributed to three albums distributed in Iran but, not surprisingly, these are not the kind of releases that would be scrobbled on Last.FM.

Her website tells me that she was born in Tehran in 1980 and is currently studying musicology at Bologna University.

Her link with Italy explains how she comes to feature on Franco Battiato’s excellent new album Fleurs 2.  On the track ‘Il venait d’avoir 18 ans‘ she can be heard singing in Farsi (Persian) for just 45 seconds but this is enough to make an impact.

To say that it gives  an equivalent level of  goose bumps effect as hearing Antony Hegarty singing in Italian on ‘Del suo veloce volo‘ from the same album will give some measure of the impact. As with Antony, it’s a voice that carries an emotional weight which  is both fragile yet instantly mesmerising.

On her website you can download three tracks and see a you tube video featuring her but hopefully it will not be too long before a wider selection of her work is made available.

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