Don’t need a hand, there’s always arms attached

The next Brain of J headline gig is fast approaching – grab your ticket via this page to join our grunge buds for some Pearl Jam goodness on Saturday 12 November at the West Hampstead Arts Club. Support is courtesy of the RHCP Experience – the UK’s own Funky Monks (check their shoes for virtue).

Like they put the whole thing together in the dark

Radio Seattle are back in action!

We’ll be unplugged again at Slim Jim’s on Friday 9 September. Admission is free and the selection of whiskeys is bounteous; let us know you’re coming here and we’ll keep an eye out for you. Expect some old faves in the setlist.

An old winter coat

After the best part of eight years, 54 gigs (including 9 as Soundguardian) and 63 songs by 13 artists, Radio Seattle are wrapping things up with one last gig before the Space Needle stops transmitting. 55 must be a lucky number.

It’s raining icepicks on your steel shore

Grunge is NOT dead is back next week – new venue but same grungey music, old and new.

Come down, and waste away with me

Spring is here again – it keeps happening every year seemingly – so what better way to celebrate nature’s perennial revivification and those lengthening evenings than a grunge night. Radio Seattle is kicking the year off with an unplugged set courtesy of Jonny and Mark (and a couple of new songs, including one pushing the grunge envelope a touch but which you’d be foo-lish to gainsay…). Yes, Croyattle is back, at a new venue, The Scream Lounge, and the line up includes Superfecta, Trevor’s Head and Alice in Chains UK (you can catch them doing Sunshine at the last Croyattle here). Tickets £5 (door).

No matter how cold the winter

On 4 March 1861, just shy of 156 years ago, Abraham Lincoln stood before the Capitol to deliver his first inaugural address. Seven southern states had recently seceded from the union, and the country faced imminent conflict. In a febrile, fissiparous atmosphere, Lincoln presented a clear-headed account of his determination to preserve, protect and defend the United States Constitution following his recently sworn oath as the 16th president, and concluded with an eloquent plea that conflict be avoided. The language might seem florid to modern ears, but there is no doubting Lincoln’s ability to combine a lucid message with a poetic ear.

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

A riddle so strong

Grunge is NOT dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. … Grunge was NOT as dead as a doornail.*

You can’t be neutral on a moving train

Riot Act turned 14 earlier this month, along with its immediate predecessor Binaural a somewhat underrated album in the middle of the Pearl Jam pack.* Both albums were critically acclaimed on release, but over time their lustre has seemingly dimmed for many (though not for me; they remain strong personal favourites). Unsurprisingly, perhaps, it’s the early albums, along with the more overtly straightforward rock contained in Yield, that continue to have find more favour generally, as evidenced by this Rolling Stone readers’ poll from July 2013.**

Like a bird without a song

On the face of it, there’s seemingly little to connect Prince Rogers Nelson, whose tragic death at the age of 57 occurred on Thursday, with the Seattle grunge scene. Funky, funny, sexy, sensual, soulful, playful, vibrant, colourful; these may not be words that necessarily first spring to mind when thinking about grunge. For those who want to party like it’s 1999, an Alice in Chains gig might not be everyone’s first port of call.

So much depends on the weather

Radio Seattle are back in action, at The Edge in Croydon on Thursday 7 April. You’ll find the event page here, where you can get us in a frothy lather simply by clicking “going”, or even just “interested” in a non-binding but hopefully positive, life-affirming manner. Free admission; you just have to haul your weary, grunge-starved bodies down to Croydon for some vital grunge resuscitation.*