Features
Maybeshewill interview
Maybeshewill. Four syllables, three words mashed into one. Three Leicester lads, John Helps, Robin Southby and James Collins, making instrumental music of epic proportions – and they’re visiting our shores this weekend thanks to the good folk behind the Club AC30 nights. When State speaks to John Helps, the band are preparing for a Greek…
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Interview with Girls
How many bands must there be around the world that are searching desperately for a record deal? If you think about it, you probably know at least one, but Girls – a quirky lo-fi rock duo who, despite the name, are 100% male – picked up an offer for debut album Album… without even trying.
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King Khan and The Shrines interview
‘… spiritually, I feel like the story of Lucifer is still — ‘ Silence. Twenty five minutes into a phone interview with Berlin-based Arish -King’ Khan – voodoo-loving frontman of the Shrines, former member of the Spaceshits, founder of the Kukamonga Death Cult – and talk has turned to the devil. ‘I think rock and…
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Zero 7 interview
Despite fourth album Yeah Ghost… being due in only a few days, when State caught up with Zero 7‘s Sam Hardaker, he was once again on his way to his London studio. Down a crackling phone line, we quizzed Sam about the album, his cohort Henry Binns’ newfound role as a some-time lead vocalist, and
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Dance/Electronic roundup Sept 2009
Tired of uninspired Michael Jackson mash-ups? Good old Jacko had a life before -Billie Jean’ and the Moxie crew have dusted off some trusty breaks by the Jackson 5 that used to rock Bronx block parties back in -73/’74.
Credited to the High Five as the -artists’, -Ain’t No Words’ is a massively extended edit…
Frank Turner interview
Since leaving successful UK post-hardcore outfit Million Dead, you can track Frank Turner‘s musical progress by following his career at Reading Festival. Having stepped up by one stage per year for the past three (a record which, should he continue, will put him in the main stage next year), Frank’s new style – a witty,…
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William E Whitmore interview
Unless you count curvaceous women singing studio-altered ballads written by someone else, and aimed at prepubescent teenagers, it’s fair to say that a surefire route to European musical success is something that’s yet to be discovered. A good thing that is, too. But if ever there was a recipe for failure, William E Whitmore may…
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Love Music Hate Racism
The Love Music Hate Racism campaign was set up in the UK in 2002, with the aid of Unite Against Fascism and the Anti Nazi League, to combat the rise of political parties such as the BNP. Inspired by the 1970s movement Rock Against Racism, it launched with a special gig in Manchester featuring Doves…
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The Beatles – Remastered and Reappraised
Anyone who has any love for any tiny fraction of the millions of hours of pop music that has come out since 1970 has to have a tricky relationship with The Beatles. The Clash’s staggeringly incorrect prediction that ‘phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust’ was an early expression of this; another was the Sex Pistols’…
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Interview with Spencer Krug (Sunset Rubdown)
Over a crackly delayed phone line to Montreal, JP O Malley managed to catch up with Spencer Krug (of Wolf Parade, Swan Lake, Frog Eyes and Sunset Rubdown), the most prolific indie musician since Mark E Smith. Krug’s band Sunset Rubdown have two Irish dates this weekend.
How do you manage your time to write, …
Stereo MCs interview
Of all the bands playing the Cois Fharraige festival this coming weekend, Stereo MCs have had a longer, stranger journey than most (except maybe the Saw Doctors). Formed twenty years ago by Rob Birch and Nick Hallam, they battled through the apathy of the UK music scene to homegrown hip-hop to achieve massive success with…
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Mercury Prize – Place Your Bets
Tonight sees the annual awarding of the Mercury Music Prize with its now traditionally eclectic list of nominees. Following the victory of bookies’ favourite Elbow last year, the judges may well plump for something a little more left field but the general consensus seems to be that the prize will go to a female artist…
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Electric Picnic 09 – The Sugarhill Gang
‘I’ll wrap this up nice and pretty for you,’ says the massive frame of The Sugarhill Gang…‘s Wonder Mike, ‘I left Sugar Hill Records so that I could buy a hot dog. I didn’t like the way of working, I’ll be that succinct.’ State hadn’t realised just how touchy a subject the band’s former
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Moonshine Travellers
You see them at every gig – they might be wearing a grubby pair of jeans, old Converse trainers and a stained tour t-shirt dating back to the 1980s; they’ll invariably be carting around amps and bass drums. If you’ve been to a gig just once in your life you’ll have noticed them: the roadies,…
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