Nite Songs

  20.     DEXY'S - "The Feminine Divine" Since he resurrected Dexy's a decade or so ago, Kevin Rowland has been on a good run of form and  The Feminine Divine  continues this purple patch. Slinky and soulful, it sees Rowland getting to grips with the passing of time, making peace with his past and celebrating the women in his life while sounding as if he's genuinely loving life to the maximum. The sound of a man who's happy with his lot and making the most of every passing day.  *** 19.     THE HANGMEN - "Stories To Tell" Now in their fourth decade of existence, it’s to the Hangmen’s immense credit that Stories To Tell stands up with their best stuff - 33 minutes of the sort of lean, fat-free rock ‘n’ roll that there’s depressingly little of in this day and age. Simple straightforward scuzz-punk howling at the moon on a lonesome night outside some dive bar, this is the sound of a band on top form. *** 18.     DUNCAN REID & THE BIG H...

  "There ain't nothin' on TV but a preacher tryin' to save me/I'll just close my eyes and make it go away..."  - The Hangmen - Rotten Sunday The Hangmen are one of those rare groups who could have featured in either the Sounds From The Junkshop or Garbage Days Revisited columns as their career kind of straddles both. The group would first rise up in the Sunset Strip era when they were briefly being hyped as the Next Big Thing only for things to fall apart and the group to be knocked on their backs for over a decade before pulling themselves out of the gutter to start things again in the early noughties. (Quick NB - this is the American Hangmen we're talking about, not the UK psychobilly band. Just so we're all on the same page right from the off, like) The group formed in L.A. in 1986 under the guidance of Montana native Bryan Small and, similar to the Joneses a couple of years earlier, gained notoriety as a killer live band in the L.A. circuit who we...

  Welcome once again to the Singles Bar for our final session of 2020. As you'll see throughout today, this month's entry has been a bit of a never-ending saga to put together. The aim was to clear the decks before the end of the year but just when we thought we'd got everything sorted out, it seemed like something else that was of interest came on to our radar. So keep your eyes out for further updates today because rest assured they will be coming. Anyway, here's a blast from the past to start us off -  Grand Theft Audio were one of the few bands I genuinely used to enjoy back in the dreaded nu-metal era (partly I think because of the presence of ex-Wildhearts drummer Ritch Battersby and former 3 Colours Red guitarist Chris McCormack in the fold).   Ruin Your Youth (🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑)   is their comeback single as a three-piece (McCormack is now busy playing guitar with the Professionals) and sees them abandoning a lot of the electronica that marked their sole album from ...