The Fat Angel Sings

The Dirty Knobs, the band fronted by founding Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell, have released their third album ‘Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits’ . The group treads similar sonic ground as Petty & the Heartbreakers, with influences including 1960s British rock, The Byrds, heavy blues and Southern boogie.

That being said, Campbell says that he made a concerted effort to create songs that didn’t mimic the music of his late friend and band mate. “[Tom and I] grew up in the same area, have the same inflections,” Mike notes. “And I noticed that, so I tried, and I think successfully, to filter a lot of that out and try to find my own voice. Of course, some of it comes out ’cause it’s in my DNA.”

Regarding how The Dirty Knobs differ from The Heartbreakers, Campbell says, “It’s a four-piece band. There’s no keyboards, just two guitars, bass and drums, and we turn the guitars up a little bit to fill out he sound…So it’s a little more over-amped maybe.”

Mike Campbell made his bones as the lead guitarist for one of the great working bands in rock & roll, so it should come as no surprise that the Dirty Knobs — the group that’s become his main gig since the 2017 death of Tom Petty and the subsequent disbandment of the Heartbreakers the band are hitting a groove three albums into their career. “Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits” arrives two years after “External Combustion“, which appeared two years after the group’s 2020 debut, “Wreckless Abandon”. During those four years, the Dirty Knobs underwent some visible changes — Campbell’s name went on the marquee for “External Combustion” original guitarist Jason Sinay was replaced by Chris Holt, who makes his debut with the band here, as does former Heartbreaker drummer Steve Ferrone — which isn’t turbulence so much as what a working band does: they persevere.

On “Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits”, the Dirty Knobs sound rougher and richer than they did before, expanding upon the roots they laid down on their first two records. All of Campbell’s signatures remain in place, not just from the Dirty Knobs but from the Heartbreakers, too: the group graft psychedelia upon the heavy blues crunch that’s their specialty. The slight studio trickery and willingness to float away on the Byrdsian chime of “Innocent Man” make “Vagabonds” a lighter, livelier affair than its predecessors, yet the Dirty Knobs still drive headfirst into down-and-dirty rock & roll: “So Alive” barrels forth on a heavy blues buzz, “Shake These Blues” stomps like a greasy “Jean Genie,” while Chris Stapleton and Benmont Tench help “Don’t Wait Up” boogie with abandon.

Campbell does drift into serious territory, such as on the bruised ballad “Hell or High Water,” but the fact that “Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits” ends with the riotous drinking song “My Old Friends” is telling: ultimately, the Dirty Knobs are about having a good time, all the time, a dynamic that this record achieves.

New album ‘Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits’ available now

Jesse Malin has long been one of New York City’s best kept secrets. A rock troubadour from Queens, he forged a sound rooted in punk, and rounded out with the melodic grace of a Tom Waits song about carnival rides. He began making noise in the 1990s with his band D Generation. But it was Ryan Adams who helped Malin develop the sound he has been known for since 2003’s brilliant “The Fine Art of Self Destruction“. There he found his voice, and he wrote songs that moved from fiery rockers to slow burns, and dealt with topics like lost love, lost faith, and the power of hope.

It’s his music that fans have now long leaned on during the most difficult of times, turning to the inherent optimism that can be located even in the darkest of tunes.

Now he has been forced to do the same. Last year he suffered a paralyzing spinal stroke that left him unable to walk. Since then he had been in Buenos Aires, undergoing experimental treatments that now have him able to move with the assistance of a walker.

Argentina is Jesse Malin’s latest single, out now on Wicked Cool Records.

A band of artists with the mindset of creating and playing music with the passion and focus that once was, and now is. Sounds and feel of the past made present once again. This group nods at the blues, jazz, and rock & roll roots of St. Louis, stirs in the experimental revolution of the 1960s, and incorporates the vast array of sounds introduced by British hard rock and Laurel Canyon that defined the sound of the 70s – intertwining to become what is now known as The Band Feel. 

The band has been making a name for themselves opening for Cheap Trick, 38 Special, Rival Sons, and John Waite, and they’re excited to be back on the road supporting their new single.

Bruce Springsteen, joined by The E Street Band, members sat down for a special live interview on The Howard Stern Show to promote his upcoming Hulu documentary, “Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band.” The interview with Howard Stern, spanning over two hours, featured Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band performing various songs.

Before the band — which includes his wife and longtime E Street band member Patti Scialfa — joined Bruce live in-studio to chat and perform a mini concert, the Boss discussed some of the fun he’s had as their boss over the years. “Torturing the band is the bandleader’s prerogative,” he laughed. “I used to keep them playing for hours during a soundcheck while I walked around the entire arena making sure every seat had the optimum sound.”

While Bruce is the Boss in concert, that all changes when the band is off the clock. Scialfa made that clear as she explained their dynamics to Howard. “I always tried not to be a wife onstage,” she noted. “But as soon as I get my foot off the stage …”“It’s over, baby,” her husband added. “I’m only Boss [for] three hours and then I surrender the title, happily.”

Collectively, the couple made a point of not bringing their work home with them. “You walk into our home, especially when the kids were growing up, you wouldn’t know what anybody did for a living — there was nothing [that] indicated there’s somebody famous in the house,” Scialfa revealed.

Their oldest of their three children, Evan, didn’t know what his parents did for a living until he was in the second or third grade. “’Hey Dad, “What’s ‘Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out?’” Bruce remembered him asking.

“I think what we do that the kids would sometimes complain about is, instead of talking, we’d sing everything back and forth to each other,” Patti said before demonstrating in song, ‘I’m making the pancakes!’”

On the subject of songwriting — which Springsteen called “pure torture” — the singer revealed he’s endured extended periods of non-productivity. “Writing is really hard, and you’re failing. Ninety percent of the time, you’re writing stuff that’s mediocre or worse,” he told Stern.

Springsteen likened songwriting to “soul mining” and noted that only once in his entire catalogue has music come to him in his sleep, with “Working on a Dream’s” “Surprise, Surprise” the “only song I’ve actually dreamt and then woke up, got up, and written.”

Bruce Springsteen: “Max Weinberg is the hardest working drummer in show business.” “He’s a phenomenal drummer.” “I mean, Max, how old are you man?”

Max Weinberg: “I think Nils is a month younger than me. 73.” Bruce Springsteen: “I mean, he’s doing something, first of all, it could kill him.” Howard Stern: “Well, literally you’re not joking, right?”

Bruce Springsteen: “No. You gotta give him a gold star for pure balls and bravery every night. Second of all, the guys stop a little bit in between songs. Max Weinberg does not. Max Weinberg plays from the minute we get on stage for three solid hours, pedal to the metal until we get off, and he’s doing things that are simply incredible.”

Howard Stern: “And he puts his hands in ice after the show because they hurt so much after drumming for three hours. 

“It’s really hard… 90 percent of the time you’re writing stuff that’s either mediocre or worse… The only good thing is I’ve learned to recognize what’s mediocre and worse sooner,” Bruce Springsteen admitted. “I’ve gone for two years without writing a song and then written an entire album in three weeks.”

Springsteen said songwriting has always been a grind. “You’re soul mining, is what I call it,” he explained. “You’re down in the soul mines, and just like any mine, you’re chippin’ away looking for a vein. I’ve been lucky. I’ve hit a lot of veins in my lifetime, but you do not know if you’re going to hit another one.”

“Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band” debuts on Hulu Friday, October 25.

Manic Street Preachers have announced details of their fifteenth studio album “Critical Thinking” out on January 31^st 2025 on Columbia Records. The band have also released a new single, called ‘Hiding In Plain Sight’ and also announced a run of UK tour dates. The band will perform the new single on Later…with Jools Holland on Saturday night.

Recorded at the band’s Door To The River Studio and Rockfield, Monmouth, for the first time in their career a single features a lead vocal by Nicky Wire and added soulful vocals by Lana McDonagh. It was produced by the band with regular collaborators Dave Eringa and Loz Williams and mixed by Caesar Edmunds (St Vincent/Wet Leg).

Initially inspired by a line from the poet Anne Sexton (“I am a collection of dismantled almosts”), ‘Hiding in Plain Sight’ contrasts a wistful vocal ripe with fearful midlife nostalgia – one in which the writer longs to “keep the curtains drawn all day” – with an uplifting melody, and soaring string stings and a super guitar riff from James Dean Bradfield, with echoes of their “Postcards from a Young Man” album, they say it “draws on classic ’70s rock’n’roll of The Only Ones, Cockney Rebel and the loose flow of Dinosaur Jr’s ‘Freak Scene’”

Manic Street Preachers’ Nicky Wire on “Critical Thinking”: “This is a record of opposites colliding – of dialectics trying to find a path of resolution. While the music has an effervescence and an elegiac uplift, most of the words deal with the cold analysis of the self, the exception being the three lyrics by James (Dean Bradfield) which look for and hopefully find answers in people, their memories, language and beliefs.

Recording could sometimes be sporadic and isolated, at other times we played live in a band setting, again the opposites making sense with each other. There are crises at the heart of these songs. They are microcosms of skepticism and suspicion, the drive to the internal seems inevitable – start with yourself, maybe the rest will follow.”

Speaking to Mojo Magazine, James Dean Bradfield said “Sometimes just to have your best songs is enough, just putting a record out and not trying to describe a big overarching concept, even though there is a thread there.”

The record is available on LP, CD, hardbook CD and cassette with two brand new songs available on a limited 7”, a remix of ‘Decline & Fall’ by Steven Wilson and demo versions of all the new album tracks on an extended CD. 

A kaleidoscopic collection of 10 songs spanning dark but danceable guitar pop, euphoric electro and low-fi introspective ballads. Lyrics explore themes of self-identity and the notion of truth in a bewildering world where our lives are lived increasingly online. A collection of abstract visions that question reality, celebrate love and long for connection.

One of Manchester’s best-kept musical secrets for over a decade at this point, The Slow Readers Club present their seventh studio album “Out Of A Dream” to coincide with a big UK tour in late 2024. Featuring the single ‘Technofear’, the band explore themes of identity in belonging in the context of a life increasingly lived online, set to a backdrop of noirish indie rock. For fans of The Killers or The National.

The Slow Readers Club are here for SoundON 009! We’re so excited to have one of Manchester’s finest acts on for an exceptional live performance! Performing songs from ’91 Days in Isolation’ their second album released in 2020 that was written in lockdown, as well as tunes from the monster ‘The Joy Of The Return’ alongside some of their classics!

The Slow Readers Club are completely at home performing live and tour the UK & Europe