Hall of Ukrainian Rock’n’Roll
In our traditional support of the Ukrainian rock scene, we would like to offer you a story about a remarkable event that took place in western Ukraine in the small town of Manevychi. Every year, at the end of May, all the world's museums hold a night at the museum, and such a night took place in Manevychi, where at the same time the soft opening of the first hall of the future Rock Capital museum took place. The hall is called The History of Ukrainian Rock and Roll and is the first of seven planned halls of the Rock Capital Museum. Perhaps it would not have been so attractive if the Rock Capital Museum had not truly been the first rock museum in Ukraine.
Do you know at least one Ukrainian punk rock band?
Do you know at least one Ukrainian punk rock band? Of course, no one asked me such a question, but I sometimes ask it to my friends. Talking about the glorious traditions of Ukrainian rock n roll, I don't want to miss punk itself. The first thing that comes to my mind is the band Borshch. Some people will say it's not punk rock, and maybe they're right. But musically and lyrically, Borshch has a spark that only lives in this style.
David Bowie’s first address
It remains interesting that even such alien rock stars as David Bowie had his parental home on our unfortunate planet. The future star lived the first 6 years of his life in 40 Stansfield Road, Brixton, London.
Formation of the Ukrainian rock n roll scene
2022 has become too difficult for one of the largest countries in Europe. It is about Ukraine and its heroic people. The passing year has brought devastation and tears, pain and suffering to the country. In its fight against the invaders, Ukraine is choosing its freedom and the right to a democratic future. Today we wanted to remember the glorious past of this musical nation and especially, we are interested in the development of the rock scene in Ukraine, in a country with its ancient roots and culture. How it was and how it was born.
Ooberfuse – Electrify
Pop music has always had a talent for smuggling awkward ideas past the doorman. Ooberfuse, the London duo of Cherrie Anderson and Hal St John, have built a career on this trick. Their collaborator list runs from Snoop Dogg to Cameroonian musician Abdel Tchatchet. Their conscience stays on the dancefloor, and it has rarely been dressed more sharply than on "Electrify".
Dynasty Four – Yes Chef!
Most of us have, at some low ebb, sought comfort in the misfortunes of strangers. Nikkole Stone, the Toronto singer-songwriter who is Dynasty Four, did it with unusual thoroughness: all twenty seasons of *Hell's Kitchen* in two months, a sustained act of self-medication by shouting. Where others would have emerged with a sourdough starter and a vague sense of shame, Stone emerged with a single, and a very good one.
JFK Blue – Why ?
Seven players, one question, and nearly seven minutes to chew it over. JFK Blue's new single is a slab of blues rock that has no interest in being polite.
Susan Mohini Kane – Ready For The Wonderful
Phoenixes are a staple of the pop songbook. Most singers who stage a rebirth do it with a smoke machine and a lawyer on retainer. Susan Mohini Kane does it with a stomp, a clap and a crowd.
Josh Orange – The Fire & The Call
Twenty-one years is a long time to be a secret. Josh Orange, a Sydney folk-rock band, have spent that stretch writing, recording and playing for the faithful few, and their sixth album, *The Fire & The Call*, finally gives that patience somewhere to land. It runs to ten songs and thirty-nine minutes, with nothing wasted, nothing padded and nothing apologised for. It is the sound of a band who know exactly who they are.
Pennan Brae – Studio
Rock and roll has a habit of attracting people who want to talk about it more than play it. Pennan Brae, a Vancouver singer-songwriter who writes his own songs and scores independent films, belongs to the other camp. *Studio*, his latest album, is a record made by someone who has spent a great deal of time in a room with amplifiers and wants you to hear what happens when they are switched on.
appetiteapple – Gratitudes
Britpop was always an act of imagination before it was an act of geography. Damon Albarn never lived in a Cockney music-hall song, Jarvis Cocker watched the English from the edge of the party, and half of Oasis's mythology was built from a Manchester that sounded bigger on record than it was in life. So it makes a certain sense that one of the warmest tributes to the genre in years arrives from Seoul, from a bedroom-scale operation whose maker goes by appetiteapple and credits no one else because no one else was in the room.
Wade Easy – Honey Venom
Wade Easy has now made three albums in under a year, which in the current climate of careful, focus-grouped rollout strategies is practically an act of insurrection. Most musicians agonise for half a decade over a record nobody asked for. Easy simply sits in a room in Morgantown, West Virginia, plugs in, hits record and lets the fog roll in. *Honey Venom* is the third dispatch from that room, and it is the best yet.
The House Flies – Lost Literature
Post-punk has spent forty-odd years learning how to dress for a funeral, and the more interesting question is whether it can dance at the wake. The House Flies, four men from Moline, Illinois, answer with "Lost Literature", the second single from their forthcoming Lions and Ore. It is gloomy, gripping and very hard to keep your feet still through.
Danny Lu – 我渴望 ( I Long for You)
Pop music has grown so loud, so eager to be liked, that a song willing to wait for you feels almost impolite. Danny Lu's "我渴望," a Mandarin single written in the high desert of Santa Fe and finished many years later, does exactly that. It sits there, unhurried, with its coat still on, and lets you decide whether to come in.
Prem Byrne – Here In America
Protest songs tend to fail in one of two ways. Some shout so loudly that nobody can hear the argument, and others tiptoe so politely that nobody notices there was one. Prem Byrne's "Here In America" avoids both. It is a song about the lingering damage of slavery, and it trusts a warm voice, an unhurried guitar and a plain tune to do the work that bluster usually botches.
JF Roy – The Morning Light
Dawn is rock music's oldest trick, and the genre has been squinting into it since the first amplifier warmed up. Canadian singer-songwriter JF Roy, born in Atlantic Canada and now settled in Alberta, takes it on with "The Morning Light". He does so with a lack of irony that is almost radical, and the result is a rousing, big-hearted record that leaves a rather better mood behind than most of its more fashionable neighbours.