Updates

Its been rather quiet of late on this here blog, mostly because I'm spending my hours on Tumblr. Follow/RSS me there for all the usual CRA news. Also, while I'm here, the new issue of Q magazine is out, and contains x3 album reviews by yours truly: Cocorosie's Tales of a Grasswidow, Jenny Hval's Innocence is Kinky and  Ensemble Pearl's self-titled debut. All excellent records, I might add. Cop it! 

NICO

Nico would have been 75 y/o this year. I'll be giving a small talk about her at Club Des Femmes' Fringe Fest event, Happy Birthday Nico, on Sat 13th April. Join us.

Everything's cool and everything's fine

I reviewed the new Meat Puppets' album, Rat Farm, for this month's Q. Zero carping about the band's influence on a certain radio-friendly unit-shifting grunge act, plenty of dues for those sweet, country harmonies the Kirkwoods still do so well.

All the gods hang around where you are

I reviewed Marnie Stern's Chronicles of Marnia album for The Guardian. File this record under BMO2013 (in non crit parlance: best music of 2013).

The wind was sweet and smelled of home/the sea was rough and felt unknown

I reviewed Woodkid's excellently sad debut album, The Golden Age, for The Guardian. The themes - mourning yr childhood, general existential yearning, facing/fleeing adulthood through escapism, fairy tales and fantasy - are ones I totally dig, especially this year. So many end-of-an-era changes afoot, so many emotional rites of passage to traverse! I know this is all rather cryptic; Hold tight for a blog or two sometime in the near future.

Love Yr Money

It's '92 up in here! I wrote about Daisy Chainsaw's Eleventeen for The Guardian's hidden treasures series. 

All that matters is love, love, your love

I wrote a thing about love songs and break-up songs and howmusic stays the same/changes.

Don't blush when I rip you open

Another one of my queer rites of passage chronicled in more! magazine this week. Sh! get a mention, which should give you a reasonably good indication of what to expect.

This marks my penultimate column for the mag. Stoked that I managed to intrigue the more! readership enough to warrant 3 extra weeks (making good on the originally planned 6 week run), and am pleased to say that we've decided to wrap things up with a readers' questions answered-style piece the week after next. Got a query for yr gal? Lookseehere for details on how to take part.

Well I think the good book is missing some pages

Part 7 of my more! magazine column is out! You'll find T Swizzle on the front cover, and my pale self in leopard print tights, red lipstick and snazzy gold shoes on page 52. This one is super personal, since its all about loving someone who isn't totally out, and the pains of navigating queer love/coupledom under the black cloud of religious, homophobic family/in-laws.Compacting all those important life experiences into 500 word articles can be a challenge, but I was glad of the word count boundary when I wrote this piece; Its a delicate dance, committing yr intimate life trials to print, and more so when those experiences are weaved in with yr nearest and dearest's. I had to meditate a fair bit on how much I was willing to share with this column, and in the end I decided that including the messy, sad, challenging truths was important. I'm proud of what I/we have managed to forge out of those things.

I wanna get sick/I wanna catch everything you've ever caught

I reviewed Veronica Falls' new record, Waiting For Something To Happen, for the Feb issue of Q (out now). I expect it'll be one of spring/summer 2013's most beloved indie soundtracks, which'll take on a  sweet transformation for me since I rinsed it lovingly to death back in bitter, wintery November, a month that didn't quite suit some of the sunburst, coming-of-age guitar magic that's at work on the record. Tell Me, the opening track, is especially lovely, and filled with the kind of inquisitive, wide-eyed desire/hunger for experience and adventure that growingpainspop sounds like when its at its giddy, aching best.