Nite Songs

Erstwhile frontman of the Urban Voodoo Machine, Paul-Ronney Angel has been a busy man during lockdown. Normally a man who seems to tour every moment he's given, he's used the frustration of being stuck indoors (combined with doing a weekly online show which has often given me some much needed entertainment to stave off the cabin fever when I've badly needed it over the winter) to put together a new solo album with the possibility of getting the nine-man Voodoos together in recent months being pretty much a no-go. The Tom Waits-esque scuzzed up country of 2020 (You Been A Pain In The Ass)  which opens things here, sees Angel writing his manifesto large with a withering tirade against the hellishness of lockdown and Covid. In fact the overall theme here seems to be trying to make the best of a bad situation with the enjoyably sloppy ragtime booze anthem Wild Turkey and Lemonade  (which like 2020  features the powerful vocals of Linda Gail Lewis) seeing Angel looking for an ...

  Compiled by former Gunfire Dance and Waldos guitarist and current Men That Will Be Blamed For Nothing drummer Jez Miller, Hatful of Holloway  is a compilation of covers to raise funds for renowned rockers' drinking joint the Lamb pub in Holloway. With an impressive cast list, for a worthwhile cause, it's certainly something bearing investigation with a good mix of straight up fired up rock and some more out there moments as well. Among the highlights are Flesh Tetris turning in an agreeably crunchy version of Rammstein's Du Hast and Paul-Ronney Angel and Tomirae Brown's seasick Oh Pandemic  which is as darkly ominous as you'd expect. Gunfire Dance's fired up cover of the Kinks' Till The End Of The Day  reminds you what a sadly under-rated band they were and The Men That Will Not Be Blamed... also do a quality raid on Ray Davies' back catalogue with their cover of Victoria  (a live favourite from their gigs). Elsewhere, Miller turns in a competent cover...

  Okay, we've restocked the drinks, got a few new items on the cocktail menu and we're ready to go - here's part two of this month's Singles Bar... Anyway, kicking us off for part 2 is a return to the fray from  Paul-Ronney Angel (feat Tomirae Brown) .   Seven Spanish Angels (🌕🌕🌕🌕🌗) actually reminds me of something that Tyla might have done - a bluesy country lament complete with slide guitar and a tale of two doomed lovers in the old West heading for one last gunfight. Atmospheric and sinister but with a tears-in-yer-pint singalong chorus to power it along, this is another good effort from Mr Angel and is well worth your investigation. Also returning to the fray this month is former Mission and current Wonder Stuff guitarist Mark Gemini Thwaite aka  MGT . Teaming up with vocalist Chris Connelly, the pair have given the old Ace number   How Long  (🌕🌕🌕🌑🌑) a goth style makeover. It's okay rather than brilliant, reminding me of a less fey Gene Loves ...

Another new feature! I know, who'd have thunk it eh? Anyway, there was a time when any self-respecting music mag would have a singles review section every week but, let's be honest, those days are pretty much long gone in 2020 with the Top 40 these days being so meaningless and irrelevant that it might as well count for the number of minidiscs you've sold in Outer Mongolia. Nevertheless, there's still plenty of folks who are still stubbornly putting out singles either as stand alone releases or tasters for new albums and, y'know what, fair play to them. It's also fair to say that while I was taking a hibernation from music reviewing stuff there was a lot of singles piling up in my inbox and a lot of it deserved to be given some good press. So the original aim of this column was to kind of clear the decks and point you good people reading this blog towards some top tunes to make the lockdown a bit more bearable. And then I realised just how much of it there was a...