This young lady's writing has a stripped-down feel. It's as raw as you like. I don't know how popular she is with the kids of today, but she ought to be causing a stir. The new generation of listeners are so much more discerning musically than I was at that age so I've got every confidence that they'll pick up on this girl's talents.
"If you get my name wrong/I won't get pissed off/'cause I wish I was somebody else."
Låpsley - "Station"
I've been listening to "Falling Short" - another song by Låpsley - for a very long time. But it's only recently that I've discovered this one. It has a great laid-back quality and feels as if it should belong in a dream sequence. I'm increasingly drawn to songs that gives that listener room to think and this one certainly allows that.
The Dø - "Despair, Hangover and Ecstasy"
I like the European feel to this one. There's a freedom of performance to French singers that you don't necessarily see in England. Camille is an obvious example of another unique French performer (think Sia, but a little more creative). It's just a little bit different, a little more direct, even if it is vaguely cheesy.
Laura Marling & Eddie Berman - "Like a Rolling Stone"
Marling's latest album, Short Movie, has been lauded as her best yet, but my interest has wained ever since "A Creature I Don't Know". Her second album, "I Speak Because I Can" is arguably her best. Ever since then it seems as if she's struggled to forge an identity that is equal in honesty to the one found on her first two albums. I saw her perform at Gloucester Cathedral in 2011 and it was then that I believe she was at the height of her powers. However, it's nice to hear cover songs like this that harks back to the Marling of old - a voice as expressionistic as understatedly powerful as the one I fell in love with.
Slow Club - "Disco 2000"The amount of times I've listened to Slow Club's cover of Pulp's "Disco 2000" is bordering on the ridiculous. Jarvis Cocker has always been a great storyteller, and it is the story that draws me most to this cover. I've been waiting for Slow Club to get their big break for a while. It might have been on the back of the following performance, but they are still relatively unknown. However, they are set to support The Mystery Jets in a BBC 6Music Celebration of Sheffield at the beginning of May, so let's hope that gives the duet the exposure they deserve.
This town used to be rough. You only have to go back thirty years or so. If you came for a night out from a neighbouring village, you’d get your head kicked in for the pleasure of a few pints. You were better off pretending you were visiting from Devon. Somewhere far enough away that a territorial local found you too boring to waste any energy on. These things happened because there was nothing else to do. And the youth were angry. Now all those hellraisers are old and the rage has burnt out and their sons haven’t got the same need to fight. But where does that rage go? Does it just dissipate into the atmosphere? Does it skip generations? This town has changed. For the better some would say. No one fights in public anymore. Not really. Not like they used to. Two-faced battles are fought online and so much of everything else happens behind closed doo...
It was a few weeks into autumn and I hadn’t had a hair cut since before the summer solstice. My beard, long and straggly and in desperate need of trimming, was a week away from having birds nest in it. I unpolished my boots and wore some old jeans that were ripped at the knees and dirty from digging a deep hole on a particularly wet day in Highgate Cemetery. Hanging loosely over the top of those was a baggy grey jumper I spilt half a bottle of bleach over about three years ago. I looked a bit of a state, but there was a method to my madness. Today was the day I was going to ask Moon for a pay rise and I wanted to look as if I’d been trod on. On the morning I was due to ask him, my bike got a puncture not twenty yards down the road from my house. It wasn’t a polite slow puncture so that I might finish my journey on a squidgy but rideable front tyre; the thorn tore through that poor inner tube like a javelin through jelly and it had me riding on a stee...
Life-living letter carver, carve me a letter crisp on my headstone and fill it with wonder I'd like to carve it, but you would do better, for you stand above this earth and I am laid under. - Tom Wiggins My new letter carving workshop is now open for business. Taking bespoke commissions such as memorials (including headstones and cremation tablets), opening plaques and heraldry. If you're looking for fine hand-carved lettering designed and carved by a fully trained stonemason and letter carver, please get in touch. I'd be very happy to talk you through the process from design stage right through to installation. Telephone: 07791969667 E-mail: tomwiggins86@gmail.com Website: www.tomwiggins.co.uk A bit about me: Born and raised in Gloucester, I now live and work as a letter carver in the beautiful market town of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire. My journey in stone began in 2013 with a three-year Diploma in Stonemasonry at The City of Bath College. Th...
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