This post was originally published on the Mumubl.com Newsletter. For updates and recommendations direct to your inbox don’t forget to subscribe.
Hi – It’s Dave here at Mumubl.com, welcome to our recommendation email where I give you some tips on what’s great to listen to and watch.
A weird week for me being very light on social media whilst having a nice break abroad, it’s rather refreshing to take a step back from the hustle and bustle of it all for a bit. A Beatles, karaoke type, tribute in Spain was great fun and just before Everything Everything with a cracking live show in recent weeks.
But it’s back from abroad and back into it with some tips for what to listen to. Let me know if you have any recommendations to share via any of our social media channels.
As always – tell all your friends – every little share helps
Currently checking out – The new Muse album “Will of the people” and Brett McKenzie’s “Songs without jokes”
In this edition
The History of Alt Rock / Speakeasy Zine / Sh1ts & Gig(gles) / MoFi / Elvis / MUMUBL.COM
The History of Alt Rock
Ah yes, my ongoing quest to find new music podcasts continues and well, we’ve found a doozie here. I’m familiar with music historian Alan Cross from his One minute music bookclub posts on Instagram and I was vaguely aware he did a podcast. I finally sought it out and I’m very glad I did.
Having listened to a few random episodes I dove into the series of episodes he’s currently doing on “The History of Alt Rock” and I have to say that at a little halfway through I’m loving it. From the very start of “Rock music” in the US with Elvis (more below) weaving through to punk and onward to new wave just to start.
The series packages up a lot of stuff that most music fans know but in a great presentation and sprinkled with enough new facts and expert knowledge to make it interesting to even die hard music fans. Alan’s presentation is fantastically polished and a joy to listen to.
Speakeasy Zine
Speakeasy Zine has a proudly low-fi production that will remind any nostalgic fans of 90s indie of the very fanzine’s of the era the magazine focuses on. It’s a glorious read with some great articles, nostalgic kick backs mixed in with recent interviews.
The latest issue has a look back at Massive Attack’s “Protection” album, a great article on 90’s indie band covers and interview’s Peter Hooton of the Farm and Mark Cope of The Candyskins amongst others. All finished off with a “New amusements” piece of new tracks to get into your ears, and all coupled with handy Spotify codes to scan and get straight into the right playlists.
Now going quarterly meaning a years worth of issues is less than a tenner I can’t see any reason why anyone with a musical interest wouldn’t be picking this up.
A quick side shout out here “So Young” magazine, another favourite, who have just dropped their new issue but that I haven’t had time to read yet despite a nice holiday!
Sh1ts & Gig(gles)
I wouldn’t have landed a copy of the aforementioned Speakeasy on my doorstep had I not checked out the Sh1ts & Gig(gles) podcast which you can listen to on In Your Ears Music. It is quite a simple straightforward format of a few people getting together for a chat about music – there doesn’t seem to be much more of a premise than that – what do you need?
The music magazine’s issue makes you realise how many once great publications have fallen by the wayside and will again give a good nostalgia dose for those old enough to remember NME, Q, Melody Maker and, yes, Smash Hits.
MoFi – All listening is analogue
In my last blog post “What matters when we listen“, I talked a bit about the MoFi scandal of including digital steps into what was marketed as an analogue only process. If you didn’t check out the linked article on the Dada Drummer Almanach SubStack email then I highly recommend you go and give it a read.
Talking a lot more than I did about technical aspects and how the goal of listening to a version of album that is a close to the original masters as possible is in of itself a goal that is “questionable to start with”. An insightful article as always from a consistently good newsletter / blog.
Elvis
Elvis, we all know him right, the hip shaking, sneering lipped, quiff wearing (slightly naff?) early rock star of the 50s / 60s? The caricature is strong in this case and it turns out a lot of what I knew was all that, impersonators and caricature. This was a fascinating look at an artist I knew little of in depth. As with any film biopic I assume there are some creative liberties taken but this certainly added layers and repackaged some great music.
A great turn by Austin Butler as the titular Elvis and everyone’s favourite wholesome American Tom Hanks treading a different path as a villainous Colonel Tom Parker underpin this Baz Luhrmann film.
From Mumubl.com
Some new posts on the site see Linkin’ Park showing up as well as one of my favourite albums of the 90s, The Prodigy’s “Fat of the Land” – check them out at  mumubl.com/posts/
This post was originally published on the Mumubl.com Newsletter. For updates and recommendations direct to your inbox don’t forget to subscribe.
