Hello, there. I’m Darren, and this is a collection of stuff I’ve written over the years, mainly about music but there’s some other stuff too, such as film, TV and merch. You’ll also find the odd bit of promo for videos and music I’ve made. Thanks for dropping by.
I mean, Dan Baird just played London for the first time in seven years! I’d still be rubbing my eyes in...
“Stop doggin’ meeeeeee…”
The final note of his vocal goes on forever. Babies are conceived, born and reach school age; governments rise and fall; continents drift. And… relax.
Ginger lights a cigarette with what’s left of the match.
“Aw, he’s too cool, isn’t he?” says a smiling Roger Tebbutt, the engineer for the SilverGinger sessions. I can see his point.
The lights in the recording area are dimmed (for atmosphere, I presume)....
Chance would be a fine thing for the 100 or so people who don’t have anything approaching a front row view of tonight’s proceedings. I’m thankful almost to the point of disbelief that I do have such a view, though I start to panic when a seven-foot tall guy (no kiddin’) dressed all in leather pushes his way past my left shoulder. Luckily, he’s heading...
Having finally...
“Sorry, but you can’t take your drinks outside.”
“Okay, fine, we’ll go back in.”
Danny McCormack - attempting to lead me, Tara and Yo-Yo’s guitarist Neil Phillips past the Garage’s front-door security to the pub for an interview sesh - turns on a sixpence and marches back inside… straight through the backstage door and out the rear exit, drink still in hand. Something about the unruffled, unthinking way in which he performs the...
Tommy Hale surveys the situation from the bar: “I think this is amateur band night or somethin’.”
It certainly looks like it. The band currently doing their thing on stage are somewhat less than inspiring. The crowd seem more suited to a karaoke night in a wine bar. Rock ‘n’ Roll Central this is not.
“The King’s Head was the same kind of thing,” says the Swank Deluxe frontman, leaning in towards me to make himself heard above the sub-Jamiroquai funk-lite lounge muzak. A few days before tonight’s second-on-the-bill Mean...