Eric Saeger Oh ho, so now it’s an “appointment with death” you want to foist upon the world, Lizzy? Back when the only low-rent-spectacle competing against Lizzy Borden shows was Triceratops vs Tyrannosaurus in the steel cage, you guys sure sounded like Motley Crue. You are so bagged. All the thrasher kids took up the […]
Sia – Some People Have Real Problems
Eric Saeger If Zero 7 is your choice of quasi-electro chill, Aussie chanteuse Sia Furler’s sort of an old homie. Her last sounding was on the 2006 Zero 7 album The Garden, where she was assigned a few knuckleball tunes, though none that come close to revealing her more barmy (and original) side; the Z7 […]
Led Zeppelin – Mothership
Eric Sager The latest in a long line of remastered Zep classics is all rehash apart from the remaining three band members (in other words, Jimmy Page, with Plant and John Paul Jones sipping brandy at separate tables somewhere within driving distance of the studio) having done a little re-engineering of the overall sound. I’ll […]
Genesis – Live Over Europe 2007
Eric Saeger Okay, stop thinking about whatever you’re thinking about and think about Genesis and all the memories you associate with them. “Follow You Follow Me” playing softly in the background while the dentist peers evilly at your sleeping tooth roots. The GMC commercial with the seminal 80s synth line from “Turn It On Again” […]
Blake Lewis – Audio Daydream
Eric Sager American Idol-watching potato chip addicts love exploding their phone bills into smithereens through the act of repeatedly voting for mildly entertaining people they view as critical cogs in the cultural ecosystem. Not enough of them voted for Blake Lewis to get him past Jordin Sparks (expectant parents, would you kindly consult dictionary.com for […]
Bigelf – Hex
Eric Saeger By now I can’t begin to guess how many times my hopes have been dashed when an album comes in from a band slotted to warm up your local middling-big crowd, not that UK crew Bigelf are on the calendar yet, but they’re probably the only mid-sized, well-promoted indie-metal band that isn’t. And […]
Raine Maida – The Hunters Lullaby
Eric Saeger The single nicest surprise so far this music-product off-season is, perplexingly enough, Canadian. Maida, the singer for Our Lady Peace, watched his band run the table at Canadian awards shows and rack up sales everywhere but here in the US, where their biggest exposure came via the song “Whatever,” which, as luck would […]
Ed Harcourt – Until Tomorrow Then: The Best of Ed Harcourt
Eric Saeger So here’s the Ed Harcourt best-of, and… who, you say? A limey music prodigy in the eyes of NME scenesters, Harcourt was accused of running out of ideas by his third LP or somewhere around there, but when one confines himself to a Badly Drawn Boy space with extra 70s thrown in, the […]
Steve Dupont – Therein Lies The Problem
“… the plot sounds like a collaboration between George Orwell and Roald Dahl, but the large cast of curious characters gives the novel a tone that’s more in keeping with Kurt Vonnegut or Philip K Dick. They sometimes tread a fine line between caricature and outright fantasy, but once you buy into the slightly strange world that Dupont has crafted he takes you on a rollercoaster ride quite unlike anything else in modern fiction… “
Sir Oswald Mosley: Blackshirt – Stephen Dorril
“… Mosley is inexorably entwined with the story of twentieth century politics as a whole, mirroring the highs and the lows, ricocheting from the machinations of high society to the violent desperation of the underclass, and taking in every major Parliamentary player in between… ”
Austin Grossman: Soon I Will Be Invincible
“… While there are surface similarities between Soon I Will Be Invincible and that TV show, however, the tone of the novel quickly shifts towards the more fantastical end of the spectrum. Grossman makes no attempt to explain the world that he describes – a world where superheroes, and supervillians, exist as a widely accepted everyday reality – but instead he takes this death-defying, spandex-wearing ball and runs with it… “
Douglas Coupland: The Gum Thief
“…Relating the relatively humdrum tale of two ‘associates’ in a Staples stationary superstore, it often sounds like a soap opera rather than the latest offering from one of contemporary literature’s most intriguing voices. The Gum Thief’s relatively mundane surface hides an intriguing study of the epistolary form – and a commentary on the nature of the novel itself. “
William Trevor: Cheating At Canasta
“…It’s no hollow claim to compare his work with Joyce’s Dubliners, and in Cheating At Canasta he’s proved once again that there are few who can come close to him in terms of subtle nuances of feeling and understated epiphanies. “
Caroline Smailes: In Search of Adam
This story is distressing and difficult. It contains no humour that I could detect. It is unstoppably depressing. And yet…”
Rory MacLean – Magic Bus: An Interview
Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail from Istanbul to India is Rory MacLean’s retracing of the Hippie Trail that marked the beginning of the modern travel industry in the Sixties and Seventies, a six thousand mile trek that now leads through war zones and some of the world’s most chaotic cities.
Patrick Humphries: The Many Lives Of Tom Waits
…despite its considerable size, Patrick Humphries’ attempt to delve into Waits’ life only just manages to scrape beneath the surface…”
Matt Ruff: Bad Monkeys
“…the ending almost certainly won’t be what you expect, and it will either convince you that Bad Monkeys is a wonderful tour-de-force, or make you regret having spent so many hours reading it…
Pedro Carolino: English As She Is Spoke
“…This whole book is of course, a “mistake”, and a very extreme one too. But every progression of language develops from mishearing, from distortion. While undoubtedly funny, the undulating incongruity of the language is enough to stimulate realms of the mind previously unexplored…” Ben Granger Some of the best-loved writing in the world has been […]
Dan Rhodes: Gold
“…across all of Rhodes’s books, short fiction or novels, there’s a strong vein of humour closely entwined with brutality and tragedy…”
The Fall: Reformation Post TLC
“…very much into the bellowing apparently- random- words- as- associational- poetry mode. “Cheese-sticks!” “Goldfish bowl!” “No Newsnight for you Baby!”…” Ben Granger Reformation Post TLC – The Fall See all books by The Fall at Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com Chapter 303: In which our hero, the greatest lyrical visionary of the past century to spring from […]
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil: George Saunders
“…Saunders manages to amuse, entertain, and shake out thought on a great variety of subjects, and does so in a subtle, sideways style which could so easily be annoying but isn’t…” Ben Granger The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil – George Saunders See all books byGeorge Saunders at Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com Someone once wrote […]
Someone To Drive You Home: The Long Blondes
“…with this far less feted CD, the Long Blondes definitely made the best album of that year, on every level…” Ben Granger Someone To Drive You Home – The Long Blondes See all albums by The Long Blondes at Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com To be one of the immortals, one of the greats, a band needs […]
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Please note: From February 2012, Spike Magazine is on hiatus. SpikeMagazine.com is a website about books, culture and ideas. Spike has been online since 1995 and, thanks to a small army of contributors, has hundreds of features, reviews, and interviews with writers, artists and musicians. There is a complete list of Spike contributors and their […]
Spike Contributors
Regular Contributors: Trent Aitken-Smith Dolly Delightly Thryza Nichols Goodeve Kevin Fitzgerald Vanessa Libertad Garcia Ben Granger Jeanette Hewitt Jacob Knowles-Smith Russell Mardell Chris Mitchell Tsering Norbu Robert O’Connor Jonathan Reynolds Sourav Roy Eric Saeger Kes Seymour Joseph R. Spencer Maria Beatrice Tonini Jason Weaver Mary-Claire Wilson Chris Wood Vanessa Zainzinger If you wish to get […]
Francis Ellen : The Samplist
“…its appeal will be limited to those like a good fart joke to round off a discussion on Bach as the composer’s composer…” Ian Hocking The Samplist – Francis Ellen See all books byFrancis Ellen at Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com Mr Francis Ellen, author of The Samplist, has been ruffling the feathers of the literati – […]
