It’s been a bit of a sad month in the music world. Firstly, there was the death at 47 of Mark Linkous, the singer-songwriter behind Sparklehorse. Guardian journalist Tim Jonze described Linkous as “[taking] the cruel, the twisted, the ugly and [making] them beautiful”, which is a pretty good summation.

Linkous leaves behind an impressive back catalogue, including four studio albums - Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot, Good Morning Spider, It’s A Wonderful Life and Dreamt For Light Years In The Belly Of A Mountain. A collaborative effort with Danger Mouse and a plethora of guest singers called Dark Night Of The Soul was curtailed for legal reasons, but may get an official release later this year.

Each Sparklehorse album has moments of brilliance, but my particular favourite is his third album, It’s A Wonderful Life, which has guest appearances from PJ Harvey, Tom Waits and Nina Persson from the Cardigans.

Linkous’s death was followed 11 days later by the death at 59 of Alex Chilton, the lead singer of the Box Tops (who had a 1967 top ten hit with ‘The Letter’) and the cult rockers Big Star. The latter group never had much commercial success in the 1970s but gained a critical renaissance following the band’s split, becoming particularly influential on future generations of alternative rock bands, including REM, the Replacements, Teenage Fanclub and Primal Scream, to name but a few.

For a sample of Messrs Linkous and Chilton’s brilliance, go here and here respectively.

Paul Bovey

Great gig at the O2 in Bristol, thought I would record this song as its only a few minutes long on the album…. 8 minutes later and an extended version has provided many smiles, laughs, sing-a-longs and a cheeky cover version, plus a mention to big Jeff who danced away the whole gig

Not much to say, simply just watch this, its classic loving Animal and Beakers parts.

… called Concerto for Constantine and they have just put up their debut EP on their myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/concertoforconstantineofficial

The sound is rocky and relatively raw and unpolished which gives it an emotional feel. Greaneys voice is distinctive and you could be forgiven for thinking JJ72 were back with new materal.

To summarise if you liked JJ72, especially the voice of Greaney then check out the link and listen to what he is up to now. Currently unsigned its unclear wether the EP will get released officially so make the most of it while you can.

Sadly, there’s no cover version of Neil Hannon’s ‘My Lovely Horse’ on the Priests’ new album; maybe they knew that they could never live up to this definitive version.

Freddie reflected upon learning he'd failed the audition to become the face of Oil of Olay

An alternative Halloween playlist

The Birthday Party - Release The Bats
Siouxsie & The Banshees - Halloween
Grooverider - Where’s Jack The Ripper [Origin Unknown Remix]
The Cramps - I Was A Teenage Werewolf
The Phantom Band - The Howling
Ebsen & The Witch - Skeleton Swoon
Aphex Twin - Come To Daddy
David Bowie - Scary Monsters And Super Creeps
Tricky - Hell Is Round The Corner
Aim - Demonique

Paul Bovey

For Belgian band dEUS, The Ideal Crash marked a glossier, more commercial production than its two predecessors, Worst Case Scenario and In A Bar, Under The Sea. Fortunately, this didn’t mean the band had lost its identity; there was still the same crunching guitar noise and dissonant jazz flourishes. But now these elements were done with more subtlety, with a broader musical palette (synths, harmoniums, theremins) and a clearer sense of melody (summed up by Mojo magazine as “Semisonic go Beefheart”).

Upon release in March 1999, The Ideal Crash received plenty of positive reviews from the music press: Q and Select both awarded the album 4 out of 5 and the NME rated it 8 out of 10. Yet despite the initial acclaim, the album had disappeared off most critics’ radar come December and failed to appear on any of the major music publications’ albums of the year lists; this coming in a year not blessed with definitive album releases.

Paul Bovey

This claims to be the first excel based music video, its a snippet of an AC/DC song “rock n roll train”. It was designed for people who cant stream video etc… apparently. That or some good advertising to co-incide with the release of their new album Black Ice. Anyways its pretty cool and there is a video on youtube so you dont even have to download it…