Sound and fury signifying nothing
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HOLLYWOOD VAMPIRES / THE DAMNED, 14TH AUGUST 2026, CARDIFF CASTLE Yet another hot, sunny evening at the Castle in this eternal summer, and Julie Andrews is sweetly announcing that the hills are alive with the sound of music. " Turn that shit off! " bellows Captain Sensible in his red-and-white-banded Monster Raving Loony Party shirt. The Damned still know how to make an entrance, half a century…
In this Huck article on her street photography in London in the 1990s (now published as a Cafe Royal zine ), Joan Piekny makes an interesting observation: " Back in the '90s, the vibe was different. People would hang around on the streets, taking a break from work to smoke a cigarette, people watch, and sometimes strike up conversations. There was eye contact, communication, and people were more…
It's often overlooked, but sport is as much about losing as it is about winning - and the former can arguably generate even more dramatic images. This Guardian gallery bears out the truth of Greg Whitmore's assertion that Chris Smith " wanted to portray the moments when dreams are broken as well as when they are realised ". The late photographer's most powerful pictures are of sporting superstars…
It's one thing to openly release different versions of the same song or album; it's quite another to deceive fans into thinking they're buying the finished product when in fact it's still a work in progress. The Guardian 's Adam Benzine has shone light on " the year's worst pop trend " - one of which Charli XCX, Olivia Rodrigo, Raye and more are all guilty: " fans paying the highest price to…
When it comes to musicians and fans, the former are (inevitably) more often in the spotlight, literally and metaphorically, than the latter. And yet fandom - its forms, its eccentricities, its excesses - can be fascinating, and books such as Molly Tie's Rebel Grrrls productively shift the focus from those on stage to those in the audience. The Holy Pop! exhibition currently on display at Somerset…
There's something strange and unsettling about empty shopping centres and big-box retail units, and about the general air of vacancy (cultural, architectural, spiritual) of these bleak, identikit nowheresvilles they create. By contrast, in Up All Night , Imogen Willetts sees such spaces more positively, as a blank canvas and an exciting opportunity, endorsing their colonisation for cultural…
Ghanaian film posters - painted by artists who hadn't seen the films, and designed to attract audiences who hadn't yet seen them either - have become the stuff of legend. But I hadn't realised that they were still being made today - albeit to order, for the benefit of collectors. Not for nothing is the process called " imaginative painting ". The artists conjure up things that simply don't appear…
Popular wisdom has it that the gig that lit UK punk's blue touchpaper was the Sex Pistols' show at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall in June 1976 . Not so, according to Simon Price. In a splendid long read for the Quietus , he's made a convincing case for the Ramones' first trip across the pond (and indeed first shows outside the US) exactly a month later as being more energising and…
Late last year came the unexpected and extremely exciting news that punk veterans and long-term pals Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye had teamed up to record new music together . I haven't seen or heard anything more on that front - but at least one of their other joint projects is about to bear fruit. The pair, whose impressionable teenage minds were blown by attending a Cramps gig together in 1979,…
As someone who enjoyed pottering around Pontypridd in the company of Daryl Leeworthy and felt an irrepressible urge to go to Middlesbrough for a parmo thanks to Ben Benton , I was always likely to take pleasure in Chris Moss' book Where Tourists Seldom Tread . And so it proved. It's staggering to me that people can be so uninterested in exploring their own country, and Moss is a kindred spirit, on…
