Joyriders Gazette

The Kooks formed at the Brighton Institute of Modern Music, where they were all students. Lead singer and rhythm guitarist Luke Pritchard, got bassist Max Rafferty involved in a college project, which formed the base of the band. Next to be recruited were lead guitarist Hugh Harris and drummer Paul Garred. The Kooks took their name from the 1971 David Bowie song "Kooks," which appeared on his album Hunky Dory. Written by Bowie fir his son Duncan, the song has become an anthem for outsiders.  The Kooks were signed to Virgin Records just three months after forming, releasing their debut album Inside In/Inside Out in 2006 on the label.

Its been ten years since this absolute cracker  of an album was released.  Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote at the time, "The first new album from the reformed Libertines is better than anyone could have possibly dreamed. It may be a new beginning or a complete finish, but it's a vast improvement over how the Libertines' narrative appeared doomed to end". Thankfully it wasn't an epitaph, but a new beginning. The Libertines are top of my list of bands I want to see live. One day, when family commitments aren't keeping me away, hopefully I'll get to finally get to see them play live. 

"Mulder and Scully" was Catatonia's second single released from their second album, International Velvet on 19 January 1998. The band were on the verge of breaking up when they found success, and this song perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the time, without it feeling corny and forced, and catapulted them, and especially singer Cery Matthews into the limelight. It's hard to picture now how big a deal the X-Files was in 1998. But for reference, it is not the only song mentioning the show released that year. "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies also references The X-Files in the lyrics; "Watchin' X-Files with no lights on We're dans la maison I hope the Smoking Man's in this one." Cerys Matthews though,  admitted that she was not really a fan of the show, but that she only used the line because it epitomised the strange kind of relationship she was singing about. In an interview with the Daily Record, she explaine...

Which singer-songwriter and his group have had hit records,  written multiple TV show theme tunes, songs for films, sung backing vocals on a Robbie Williams song, and written possibly the best comedic song about a horse ever... This man has. Neil Hannon is a singer-songwriter from Northern Ireland. You'll know him better though as the frontman of the Divine Comedy. Hannon though is the band's only constant member since its inception. The Divine Comedy first came to most people's attention in 1996 with their record "Something For The Weekend," although this lucky break was by a stroke of luck, or maybe it was fate?  In an interview in the Guardian, Neil Hannon explained: "Chris Evans said something on his Radio 1 breakfast show about having been blown away by a song he’d heard at a friend’s house, by Divine something-or-other. My plugger, listening in the shower, battled travel chaos as he rushed to get a copy to the studio. He handed it in about 1...

The video for the Beastie Boys song Sabotage isn't just one of the greatest videos made in the 90s. It's one of the influential music videos of all time.  In the DVD commentary for the 1996 film Trainspotting, Danny Boyle credits the film's opening credits to those used in "Sabotage." Actress Amy Poehler reviewed the music video for Sabotage in 2018's Beastie Boys Book saying that "there would be no Anchorman, no Wes Anderson, no Lonely Island, and no channel called Adult Swim if this video (Sabotage) did not exist." If you haven't seen it, you should watch it twice. Once with the subtitles on, to fully appreciate the lyrics and humour of the song beyond the angry delivery. And secondly to marvel at aesthetic the video itself. It feels like something you've seen before. In fact, it feels like every 70's snd 80's american cop shop you've ever seen.   The song was first conceived when Adam Yauch (MCA) played ...