Tuesday 28 February 2017

Retrosonic Podcast Episode 26: "You Sing Badly, But No One Cares, You Are Elvis"


Welcome to Episode 26 of Retrosonic Podcast. Steve from Retro Man Blog and rock photographer Paul Slattery with the usual eclectic mix of Psych, Punk, Power Pop, Mod, Indie and well...just good old fashioned Rock 'n' Roll. Plus waffle and chat about Paul's forthcoming photo book on The Skids and working with Mark E Smith and The Fall. There's music and reports on recent gigs with Michael Head, The Fall, The Blue Aeroplanes and lots of brand new releases including The Past Tense, The Fallen Leaves, John Hoyles, French Boutik, TV Eye and an EXCLUSIVE track from 5 Billion In Diamonds - an amazing collaboration featuring Garbage drummer and 'Nevermind' producer Butch Vig, James Grillo, Andy Spaceland, Ebbot Lundberg, Damian O'Neill and various members of Spiritualized, Massive Attack and others! There's oldies from Shack, The Bit 'A Sweet, Johnny Thunders, Tours and Manufactured Romance...Enjoy! 



The Bit 'A Sweet "Out of Sight Out of Mind" 1967 MGM Single.


The Blue Aeroplanes "Elvis Festival" taken from the new album "Welcome, Stranger!" Review of the Islington Academy gig on January 21st can be found in the Blog archive here.


French Boutik "Le Casse" taken from the current album "Front Pop". Review of the Retro Man Blog Night featuring Paul Slattery photographs of French Boutik can be found here.

French Boutik photographed by Paul Slattery
Five Billion In Diamonds "Broken Wing" exclusive track featuring Ebbot Lundberg on vocals from the forthcoming debut album to be released by 100% Records on July 14th. Paul Slattery photographs from recording sessions with Ebbot at Press Play Studios can be found here.

5 Billion In Diamonds photographed by Paul Slattery
Shack "Dragonfly" taken from the 1995 album "Waterpistol". Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band will release their debut album "Adios Senor Pussycat" on Violette Records later this year. Review of Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band at St. George's Hall Liverpool last December can be found in the Blog archive here. Photos and videos of Michael Head at The Social on January 25th can be found in the Blog archive here.

Michael Head & The Red Elastic Band - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
The Past Tense "Never Enough" new self released limited edition 7" vinyl single available now, for more information check out the band's Facebook page here.

The Past Tense photographed by Paul Slattery
TV Eye "Repartee" taken from the limited edition red vinyl album "TV Eye 1977-1978" to be released by Seventeen Records. The album can be pre-ordered from Easy Action Records here.


The Skids "Circus Games" 1980 single. Paul Slattery & Ronnie Gurr's Skids photo book will be available at the merchandise stall on the band's forthcoming 40th anniversary tour. For dates and ticket info please check out The Skids official web-site here.


Tours "Tourist Information" 1979 Virgin Records single, can be found on the compilation album "Album of The Year (That Never Was)".


The Fall "Wolf Kidult Man" taken from the 2008 album "Imperial Wax Solvent". Photos from the Southampton Engine Rooms gig on January 27th can be found in the Blog archive here.

The Fall at Southampton - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
Johnny Thunders "Leave Me Alone" taken from the Remarquable Records release of "Real Times" E.P. available from the label here.


John Hoyles "Talking About You" taken from the brand new album "Night Flight" available from Crusher Records here.

John Hoyles - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
The Fallen Leaves "Funny World" taken from the new album "What We've All Been Waiting For" available at the band's regular Minimum R'n'B Club nights at The Hope & Anchor In Islington or from the band's on-line store here.


Manufactured Romance "Time of My Life" 1980 single on Fresh Records. The band's vocalist Nina Spencer is starting up a new musical project entitled Stella and there is a crowd funding page here
R.I.P Nick Medlin.


Retrosonic Podcast has a valid PRS licence. You can subscribe for free on iTunes, Mixcloud or at our official archive at Soundcloud.

Wednesday 15 February 2017

The Fall & Bo Ningen - Photos from Southampton Engine Rooms Friday January 27th

The Fall at Southampton Engine Rooms - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
The last time I saw The Fall was at a rather shambolic show in Stockholm - Mark E Smith was in a foul mood and the amp-fiddling, annoying his band-mates and constant walking off stage wound everyone up. At one point he got himself trapped Eric Morecambe style in the curtains behind the stage and then proceeded to sing the encore from back in the dressing room. Before that I saw them at the Islington Academy where we were bombarded with the cut-up video DJ Safi Sniper as support, a seemingly endless and hideous nails-scraping-down-blackboards aural and visual assault that drove grown men to try and scale the barriers to inflict actual bodily harm on the culprit as bottles and glasses and foul-mouthed invective rained down on the stage. It's something that still haunts my dreams to this day. I was fearing another similar performance but tonight there was no such shenanigans - first of all what we got was a brilliant and surprisingly high profile support act in the Japanese Psychedelic guitar band Bo Ningen who went down really well with the crowd. 

Bo Ningen - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
Bo Ningen - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
The Fall took the stage promptly and launched into "Wolf Kidult Man" one of only three songs I was to recognise all night, its searing Stooges style riff almost lifting the tin roof off the venue. Mark looked well and I am sure I saw him smile once but that might have been a trick of the light. The amp-fiddling was kept to a bare minimum and I must admit that on one occasion I found myself thinking, "hey, that actually sounds better..!" What followed was a set of mostly new and unrecorded material and it was all pretty intense full-on hypnotic driving stuff. Here's some photos of the gig...

The Fall at Southampton Engine Rooms - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
The Fall at Southampton Engine Rooms - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
The Fall at Southampton Engine Rooms - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog

Bo Ningen - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
Bo Ningen - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
For more information on The Fall please check out their excellent website and archive here and Bo-Ningen can be found at their official Facebook page here.

Sunday 5 February 2017

Michael Head at The Social January 25th - Photos & Videos from the Shack Front-Man's Recent London Show

Michael Head at The Social - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
Ex-Shack and Pale Fountains front-man Michael Head took a break from his current outfit The Red Elastic Band to make a solo acoustic appearance at the Heavenly Social in London and it was yet another stunning show from one of the U.K.'s most underrated songwriters. The Social was packed to the rafters with tickets selling out in minutes and for those of us lucky to find a vantage point we were treated to an intimate performance full of Mick's usual self-deprecating good humour and of course, loads of those great songs. The set-list was another intriguing crawl through the immense back catalogue with some nice suprises such as "Al's Vacation" rubbing shoulders with classics like "Comedy" and "Streets of Kenny". A couple more new songs made their debut live appearances and as previously mentioned in my feature on the St. George's Hall Liverpool show, they promise that the forthcoming Red Elastic Band album "Adios Senor Pussycat" will be something very special.

Michael Head at The Social - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
Michael Head at The Social - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
Here's a video of "Mood of The Morning"



Michael Head at The Social - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
Michael Head at The Social - Photo Copyright Retro Man Blog
And another video of "Stranger", for more please check out our Retro Man Blog YouTube Channel.



"Adios Senor Pussycat " will be released on Violette Records mid-2017.