Some wonder why Harry Webb became Cliff Richard, Richard Starkey became Ringo Starr and why the hell Bryan McFadden became Brian McFadden. It’s simply because musical performers need a half decent name. After all McFadden is… well not doing much nowadays; thus proving that a mere letter substitution is never as effective as a wholesale [...]

So we’ve got a bit more guitar music nowadays, it doesn’t mean everything is tickety-boo. Katie Melua never leaves us thanks to the vacuum-heads at Radio 2; the Brits believe it is ‘street’ to nominate a satirical cartoon group as ‘best band’ and Richard Ashcroft is somehow still seen as credible despite sounding like an [...]

Who can honestly claim to have heard of Sparks apart from occasionally hearing the 43rd re-recording of This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us? These old geezers, including that one resembling an agitated Nazi, have been floating around since that deliciously quirky hit, but they’ve now managed to produce Hello Young Lovers, [...]

The Koko is packed out and buzzing with excited fans tonight, it’s Babyshambles’ first gig of the year, the first of three dates announced only last week – in true ‘shambles style. Babyshambles as we see them now are not without merit, but still not entirely reliable due to Pete Doherty’s reputation for sometimes failing [...]