Browsing Posts tagged Sub Pop

First of all, a heartfelt “Happy 25th Birthday!” from this idiot scribe to the lovely people of Sub Pop Records.  Which feels kind of strange in a way as, to put everything in an awful “how on Earth did that happen?” historical context, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon was a mere 15 years [...]

The other night’s Old Grey Whistle Test-a-thon on the ludicrously-endangered BBC4 was a lovely throwback to those rare nights where a very young me got to stay up very late to watch this strange programme.  Lots of beards, lots of Whispering Bob Harris, and lots of music that simply didn’t get played anywhere during hours [...]

*cracks fingers* Right.  Due to a combination of a bunch of vouchers and a rush of high-quality releases of late, I have A Backlog.  And with more stuff arriving in the mail today and a lipsmacking array of goodies due over the next fortnight, I’d better get a shift on.  Although I promise I won’t [...]

Something that is becoming increasingly rare in today’s music industry is the Short Album.  With CD capacity expanding and digital space almost limitless, artists seem hellbent on filling as much room as possible with their thoughts and ideas whether or not all of those ideas were especially good ones.  It’s as if a fear has [...]

It’s been a strange, serendipitous last few days. I was watching political argument show Question Time on the TV last Thursday, broadcast from the lovely surroundings of the De La Warr Pavillion in the English South Coast town of Bexhill-on-Sea.  It was in this venue in December 2008 that I saw a brilliant Isobel Campbell [...]

Blimey, this album’s twenty years old this month… I didn’t pay an awful lot of attention to this album when it came out, mostly due to the cover – nothing wrong with it, but when almost all of Sub Pop’s other covers had been kinetic, frantic onstage affairs, this pic of Mark Lanegan sat on [...]

Following on from last night’s rant, here is something from this year that similarly wears its heart on its sleeve in terms of being angry about specific issues, but puts its point across in a more gently reasoned way. It’s also one of my favourite albums released so far this year, and stands out for [...]

Getting hold of this record was definitely a pivotal “right record, right place, right time” thing for me.  Those early days of Sub Pop were a genuinely exciting time, as with so much to pick and choose from in those heady days before the internet came along and spoilt every last vestige of surprise, you [...]