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Category: Reviews
Books, music, international literary movements.
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This ground-breaking collection of poems represents the beginning of what has turned out to be an astounding career.
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What a nerd I am.
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Thomas Pynchon: “Gravity’s Rainbow”
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3 min read
What better way to mark yesterday’s 100th anniversary of Bloomsday than to admit I have never read more than twenty pages of Ulysses, due in no small part to the Leavisite method of critical textual analysis introduced in my first days of undergraduate English. Don’t get me wrong: I respect the man, and having heard…
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Pavement: “Naked, naked, foul!”
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4 min read
At last we come to a band who could be considered serious contenders for EP of the 20th century. I’m talking Pavement, I’m talking Watery, Domestic all over town. With a title that’s almost as cool as my brother’s “spartan, militaristic” tag, this EP is a ripper, clocking in at around ten minutes but boy…
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The Undertones
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3 min read
Now here’s a blast from the past: the Undertones, “Derry’s finest” etc kicked some major label teenage butt in the late 70s, while Wire did the art rock collapse. 1978 saw the Undertones’ first EP, containing the just-not-so-subtly-alluded-to track, “Teenage Kicks”, a track that would see John Peel become their finest spokesperson. Fronted by the…
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The Fauves
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3 min read
It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of The Fauves – just take a look at my interview with lead singer Andrew Cox, featured in the current issue of Cordite. I first got into The Fauves as an undergraduate. My friend Dom had bought their first EP, a woeful effort called This Mood Has…
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Wir(e)
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3 min read
As mentioned previously, one definition of an EP is a record whose length is between 10 and 35 minutes. If this was the case (and I think we’re all pretty clear on where I stand re this definition), then Wire’s first three albums would all be considered EPs, despite the fact that each one contains…
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Theatre of Gnomes
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2 min read
Don’t get me started about Tumbleweed. Theatre of Gnomes, their first major release, was a five track EP. Enough said. Ask anyone who’s from Wollongong if they’ve heard of Tumbleweed. Then ask them if they’ve heard Theatre of Gnomes. If the answer’s yes, you’ve just discovered a true ‘Weed fan. And of course it was…
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Holy Bloody Hell, It’s David Bowie
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2 min read
Enough said. The man is an alien. I’m talking the Station To Station release which for the sake of a technical obsession with record lengths I’m going to call an EP. I ask you: does it get any better than this? One word: “Wild Is the Wind”. Two words: “Station To Station”. Three words: “TVC15”.…
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Glide
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3 min read
The sad story of Glide perfectly encapsulates the highs and lows of the early 1990s in Australian music. Glide, fronted by the extraordinary singer-songwriting talents of William Arthur, burst onto the Sydney scene in 1991, releasing two breathtaking EPs – Pretty Mouth in 1991 and the huge Shuffle Off To Buffalo in 1992 – to…
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Verve, not “The” Verve—get it right!
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3 min read
Back in the early 1990s ‘The’ Verve were still called Verve, the Charlatans didn’t have a UK tacked onto the end of them and Suede still sucked the big one. Pardon me for sounding monotonous but Verve were further proof that the old ‘the early EPs were great but the later work is like drinking…
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Swervedriver: the good guys of early-1990s UK indie
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3 min read
As Crowded House said, “Now we’re getting somewhere”. Swervedriver were one of the greatest bands of the early 1990s. Full stop. And you know what? Their early success, like that of Ride, hinged upon a series of phenomenal EPs: Son of Mustang Ford, Rave Down and the incendiary Sandblasted EP, all of whose title tracks…
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Ripe—Cherry Ripe
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3 min read
Last night when I was thinking about who I would profile next in my exhaustive catalogue of early 1990s bands that have, sadly, disappeared, I became aware that I was perhaps being a little too shoegazer-centric. Hence the inclusion of Ratcat whom, to be honest, I was never really that into at the time, except…
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Ratcat ain’t that bad (and that ain’t bad)
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3 min read
You may notice a pattern appearing: the last two posts have mentioned the seminal influence of a particular EP—namely, Ride’s Play and MBV’s Glider—on my musical tastes and palette. Well, here we go again. It’s time to talk about Ratcat. I cannot emphasise enough the impact of Ratcat’s Tingles EP on both myself and the…
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“That band is Ride”
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4 min read
Of all the sad remnants of the early 1990s, you’d be pretty hard pressed to find anything sadder than the lead singer of Ride undertaking a tour of Australia, ten years after the band fizzled out, like luke-warm piss floating down an alleyway behind the Punters Club. That’s because the Punters doesn’t exist anymore, and…