Think Tank: DJ Paula Frost's new single Oxygen Tank

International DJ, radio presenter and reviews editor at Vive Le Rock and Louder Than War -
DJ Paula Frost, drops in to give us the lowdown on her explosive new single Oxygen Tank out on the 20th March......



Hey Paula - how would you introduce yourself to the PM blog readers?

I’d say I’m a DJ from London who used to play drums in bands. I’m also the reviews editor of Vive Le Rock and Louder Than War Magazines. I’ve been DJing for three years now and I have been on a world tour playing in 14 countries including New Zealand, Croatia, Russia and Japan. Right now I’m about to drop my debut single ‘Oxygen Tank’ on 20th March so pre-order here!




Did your parents records or music you grew up on have influence on you?

Yes definitely. My parents are music lovers but not musicians. My mum got me into reggae and indie like Bob Marley and The Cure. My dad got me into punk like Killing Joke, The Clash and Crass. I asked for a harmonica when I was about 4, a guitar age 6 and a drum set age 7. But I had to show I was serious by practicing every day on pots and pans and taking lessons at school until they got me the drum kit! There’s a musical bone in my family, my uncle is a great guitarist and my Irish grandma was a fantastic piano player. Both self taught.

What inspired you to start Doing and was there a lightbulb moment? 

I was working as a radio show producer on Kane FM and all my friends were DJs. When my band split up and I wasn’t drumming anymore, the DJs encouraged me to get my own radio show and start learning the craft. I was interviewing at first and just playing records one after the other. Then I started to pick up the techniques and get serious. Now I’ve played all over the world and had loads of amazing shows so I decided to start writing my own music.

What was your first gig?

 My first show was actually a really great ‘I was there’ gig because it was the first ever Art’s Cool in Margate held at a pub on the seafront which is now part of Dreamland. I DJed old school tunes like The Clash and The Jam and people loved it. Then a new band played called SLAVES. They are major label big shots now signed to Virgin Records. Art’s Cool has now become a club called Elsewhere. So I consider that gig as a very good starting point of inspiration because everyone there has gone on to great things.

Is there a country where you especially connected with the audience?

I have played a lot of shows in a lot of different countries over the years so I’ve picked up a lot of new music and I feel that I can connect with audiences wherever I go. Its about doing your research and putting your own stamp on it. People abroad want to hear the kooky British records they’ve never heard before so it’s a bit easier! I definitely connected with audiences in Russia and I find European audiences absolutely brilliant. But shows in England are always wild too. We like to let go at the weekend! I’ve had a guy come up to me after a show and say “Tonight was special. I haven’t connected with my wife like that in years.” Moments like that are amazing to think you’ve got these people on the dance floor who are in their late 30s and have been working really hard to raise their family and you’ve just given them a night to really let go any enjoy each other’s company completely. That’s beautiful!

You’ve gigged globally - do you have many places left on your checklist?

I do have a lot of countries left on my checklist! It’s endless really. I’d love to spend the rest of my life playing shows all over the world. An American tour, Mexico, China, more countries in Europe and all the incredible festivals that pop up each year. You can never say you’ve done it all. There’s always a way to raise the bar! Do you see crossover between the energy of punk and electro/drum n bass? The crossover is that its rebel music. It’s party music and its youthful. I love big gatherings of likeminded people, they are so powerful. Peace is the most powerful tool we have and music seamlessly brings us together.

Have you got any tips for aspiring DJs?

I get asked this fairly often and I’d say it helps to build up a collection of the very best music from each decade and genre. Like I have a disco and funk playlist up my sleeve as well as a punk ’77 playlist. You never know. Also just be a decent, humble person and be tolerant of others. I don’t like diva DJs who need this and that and demand creature comforts. As long as I have food in my tummy and bottled water on stage I can’t ask for much more so lets rave :D

Check in with Paula at www.djpaulafrost.com

Radio Podrophenia - Let It Rock

As The Ramones sang Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio? The March edish of Podrophenia brings you special guests, model, designer and boutique owner Bernie Dexter and Teddy Boy legend and Rockabilly Hall of fame inductee

Levi Dexter.. Levi and Bernie give us twin-fisted tales ranging from Southend to San Diego covering Bernie's modelling career, designs and the new shop in Leigh, while Levi's chats about 'Ted Town/Southend' in the seventies with tales from the tour-bus featuring cameos from Brian Setzer, Malcolm McLaren, Johnny Rotten and Freddie 'Fingers' Lee on the way

We close out with Levi choosing fave tunes from his impeccable collection of rockers and rollers...

While Piley and Mondo pop some puns and a pop quiz your way. Download and dig in here...


Download 

Stream...



Or via iTunes...

Howling Black Soul's debut promo - Soul to Lay

If you've never been to a Howling Black Soul gig at Peggy Sue's - Carl Hawkins has distilled the essence and sweaty energy of our Saturday night shindigs there..

Huge salutes to Carl for the filming, editing and production - and to the assembled drinkers and dancers seen shaking their tail-feathers herein..


here:

Vive Le Live

Rockers, rollers and rascals - your recommended reading is the new Vive Le Rock - 

A Joe Strummer special, which features in the reviews section, some scribblings from me: T Rex box set, Sharpies comp, Shandy (new Aussie rockers) and a couple moreThumb through the live pages and you'll find a thumbnail summary of Howling Black Soul supporting Barrance Whitfield at The Railway on page 103

Available at Tesco, WH Smiths and all in the know newsagents..

Vive Le Rock - Q's Next and The Payoll Union...

Buckle up rockers and rollers - Issue 27 of the UK's boomiest music mag Vive Le Rock  has just hist the shelves. Featuring, The Who at 50, Brian James on his new band and life after The Damned, gig, new music and reissue reviews - including a a critical ear from me on Suzi Quatro's Greatest Hits...

One review that didn't make ish 27, is The Payroll Union's new album.. but nothing goes  to waste so dig in and taste test below...

Paris in America - The Payroll Union 

Philadelphia freedom. Virtue, liberty and independence - from South Yorkshire! 

From ‘Sgt. Pepper’ to SHAM’s ‘That’s Life’ to Beck’s Grammy winning ‘Morning Phase’ – the appeal of the concept album is format that’s never faded – certainly not for frowny-browed song-scribblers . Although Payroll Union take an unusual spin on the medium of story-arcs-expressed-through-music, aligning themselves more with Jeff Wayne’s ‘War of the Worlds’ than your usual long-form haul.

An album produced in collaboration with University of Sheffield, where folk ‘n’ roll meets battle re-enactment. ‘Paris in America’ takes as its source – ‘a narrative of Philadelphia in the 1840s and '50s, based on the antebellum with its tales of violence and conflict’, for an authentically academic take covering a specific time-slice of American history (with annotated sleeve notes), which could act as a metaphor for today’s current political climate.

Sonically it’s a Philadelphia experiment shifting between shades of Handsome Family meet Fleet foxes and Divine Comedy communing with Arcade Fire

Last Ramone Standing...

The latest edition of Britain's most rocking, rolling mag  - Vive Le Rock has just hit the shelves - and worra walloper it is. Going heavy on the Sex Pistols and spin off related projects...there's also Bauhaus, and Ian McLagen remembered..

You'll find tucked away in the back pages me scribbling about Bruce Joyner and Atomic Clock. One review that should have been, but never made the final print is my take on C. J. Ramone's revved up newbie Last Chance to Dance...

But, nothing goes to waste - so dig in below.....

Punk fact: Glam Rock Super-Yobs, Slade were a major influence on The Ramones. Vocalist and black-leather mantis Joey once said 'I spent most of the early 70s listening to 'Slade Alive!' - thinking this is what I want to do'. And check the Da Brudda's barnets - pure Dave Hill. Bassist CJ may have been a late addition to The Ramones’ line-up (replacing Dee Dee in 1989), but he’s kept the band’s integrity intact - backtracking to Slade's romper-stomping roots, fusing it with authentic Lower East Side slam-handed riffs and rumbling thunder. ‘Long Way to Go’, ‘Won't Stop Swinging’ and ‘Mr Kalashnikov’ are classic Gabba Gabba updated with a twenty first century clout. While ‘One More Chance’, ‘Undertand Me’, ‘Pitstop’, and ‘Last Chance to Dance’ sit alongside key period Ramones bankers and in the back catalogue. An album that will keep hardcore avids and casual fans blitzkrieg bopping

Dixieland, that's where he was born, early Lord one frosty morning

Elvis actual birth certificate - photo by me

Elvis' death was my JFK assassination moment. I remember precisely where I was when the news was first whispered around the room - at my paternal Aunt Shirley's, well her ladies hairdressing salon in Salisbury (the glamour!). It was like being caught in a morbid tornado hearing this omnipresent superstar had faded, flat-lined and was now, gone forever.

Although I was too young catch the sonic boom of his Rock 'n' Roll years - the aftershock of Elvisness was still resonating in my era - the seventies. His films were repeated in the schedules during the summer holidays, record shops and department stores had endless variations of compilation albums (Separate Ways was a standard) in the racks (including budget tribute LPs - 'insert name here' sings Elvis). Regular radio play for hits from the fifties to the seventies, while Live via Satellite gave a white-suited Elvis the aura of a rock 'n' roll astronaut.

But more than this, his influence was at the core of popular culture: from ginger quiffed, crepe-booted Teddy Boys to prime-time impressionists - whether comic (Freddy Starr) or musical (Alvin Stardust, Cliff, Les Gray) and any number of white suited popsters The Osmonds, showaddywaddy, The Rubettes. At the more respectable end of R.O.C.K  Bryan Ferry and Bowie both lent heavily on Elvis' legacy...

An indicator of Presley-power is: long before I had any real awareness of The Beatles, Stones or in fact who any of Rock's heavy-hitters were - Elvis seemed - to me anyway - like an untouchable international idol with a seemingly god-like presence and super-hero stature, revered across the world - while other rock and rollers had come, copied, gone or been forgotten. For perspective, thumb through David E. Stanley's The Elvis Encyclopedia and you'll find Clapton and Led Zeppelin desperate to get an audience with Elvis..

Should you (and you really should, as it's his 80th birthday this year) fancy coming as close as possible to The King, book yourself a trip to Elvis at the 02. It houses the largest collection of Elvis' items ever to appear in the UK, all imported from Graceland and overseen by Priscilla Presley.

Items that include.....

The Heartbreak Hotel Acetate

Dress down casual Elvis-style

 The American Eagle suit cape

Front detail 

 Suits you 

68 Special 'Trouble' outfit

A gift from Ali 

The Vegas Room

A defining performance is, of course the 68 Special - where you could lucky dip any clip for pure-brewed musical-boom. Although this medley, with Elvis in full flight, revisiting his Rock 'n' Roll back catalogue with a renewed and unrelenting energy is explosive. 

              

But for the essence of Elvis - this outtake is the key to his magic as I wrote a few years back..

' While the offstage boffins were making technical tweaks and possibly 'checking levels' between takes, Elvis asks for his guitar, kicks off the riff for 'Baby What You Want Me To Do' the orchestra jump in, start jamming and the audience go wild'


If you're a Bookfacer - you can see the full set of my Elvis 02 pics here 

My Top Five from 2014....

An annual tradtition at Vive Le Rock HQ is the writers' Top Fives of the year. No surprises from me really - as these are names getting mutiple mentions on the blog, podcast and various scribblings and mags for the last four years...

Dig around the back pages and you'll also find reviews from for  Marriot and Lane's Magic Mijits and The Quireboys

In case you have hadn't had the chance to check out any of the above - dig in below....

As heard on Wilko Johnson's last album, Steve 'West' Weston - is live in session on Radio Podrophenia tonight

If you've read about, rambled your way to or rocked and rolled at one the Railway Hotel's, blues-blasting Sunday Sessions, there's a strong probability you'll have beheld the double-barrel combo of Martin McNeill on guitar, and West Weston on harp..

Both players are Grand Masters of their musical medium, and regular fixtures on the Essex/London blues scene. In the past week - Martin shared a bill and stage with the 81 year old Mississippi ledge Leo Bud Welch.. While West has completed a European tour with Mud Morganfield (Muddy Waters son) including two nights at Ronnie Scott's. Earlier in the year he added his signature sound to Wilko Johnson/Roger Daltrey - which followed on from his previous work with Dr Feelgood..

So rewire your dials to Podrophenia tonight as Martin and West join us live in the SFOB studio from 8pm. A wing-ding is guaranteed for all...

For a taste test of what's a'popping tonight - tune in below..

And join us here from 8pm Ship Full of Bombs - or chip in with the chat at Chatwing 

Vive Le Rocking

The minty new edition of that most Rock 'n' Roll of magazines is now on sale at all in-the-know newsagents and records shops..

Vive Le Rock ish seventeen brings you up to date with all the latest news from punk, rock and new wave heavy-hitters. The Stranglers, Adam Ant, and Marc Almond interviewed by Friend of the PM Blog - Barry Cain.. You can catch a second part of the Marc interview on Barry's always excellent Flexipop! blog here

As well as Sid vicious, the Stones and Wilko features  there's an update on what's a popping with our pals The Mutants mentioned last in the summer of '13

Contributions from me include reviews of newbies from Nightmare Boyzzz and The Peckham Cowboys re-issues by Daniel Ash and The Damned's Tikki Nightmare DVD/CD combo, a spitfire set with one of my cherished Damned tunes - at their most psych-poppily splendid..

Radio Podrophenia - the letter R , with live rocking 'n' rolling....

Tonight's edition of Radio Podrophenia is sponsored by the letter R: Lou Reed. Rod Stewart, Little Richard and Rocket 88 are possibles for the playlist -

We'll also be asking for your recommended Rock and Roll reads, with live music winging your way from Estuary legend Steve Hooker ..



Being Halloween we'll have some horror related rollouts. Join us from 8pm live at Ship Full of Bombs - or chip in for a chatterbout at Chatwing

And for previous Podrophonic spook and spell, grab our ghoulish goings on here...

Podrophenia Halloween Special (open, then right click and save as)

Radio Podrophenia - with horror author Syd Moore

Vive Le Reviews

Forget the NME's 500 shades of Arse albums list - instead, grab the blockbusting new Vive Le Rock. 

Steve Marriott, Jesse  Hector, Small Wonder Records and Gary Numan are all featured within, as well four reissues reviewed by me: Alice Cooper, Dr Feelgood, Mickey Jupp, Status Quo. 

The Shuffled scores are 6/10, 4/10. 6/10, 8/10 - but who gets what? All is revealed in the reviews section.

Grab your copy here....

The Sunday Sessions - Mix 'n' Match

I've had something of a run of DJ sets at The Railway over the last few weekends, with every session having a different fitting, variation or twist

Mo Fingers - I leant heavily on the Hammond, soul and funk Last Friday - three and a half hours straight (with only 3 drinks and 1 comfort break) - was mostly a medley of Motown, New Orleans and northern until 11pm - followed by indie, 90s and assorted nuttery til 1 (including the Joe Loss Orchestra's Steptoe Twist)



While last sunday, for the Marc Cecil Soul Session, groovers and shakers with everything from AWB to Louis Jordan and Prince Buster were pitched into the ad-hoc playlist.

This coming Sunday, Martin McNeill is back for his regular residency with West Weston and his harp - (last seen on hooting and honking on Jools' Later).

So expect some bluesier tunes from me starting at 4 and high-firing live music from Martin and the Bottletop Blues boys from 4 30.

Lowell Fulson - Everything That I Took Away 

Sunday Sessions: Roll out the Barrelhouse Woman and the Blue Coat Man..

A full afternoon of leg-kicking (literally), chair-standing (literally) PA-quaking (literally) rock 'n' roll 'n' soul - was had last Sunday as West Weston tore up the assembled Sunday Session jivers and dancers for another Sabbath shindig. The rhythm section of Orlando Shearer and Mike Thorne slinked with a Stray Cat strut, and Paul Garner's blues runs, riffs and sweat-fingered solos seemed to be pulled from his very boots.

Wrapping up from 7:30 -  Mo' Fingers  whipped and whistled along, blazing through a setlist of heavy-handed Hammond melters

This week, the Grand Master of jazz and blues guitar - Martin McNeill is back with his Bottletop Blues Band and Steve West Weston sitting in on harmonica. Come along and park yourself at The Railway Hotel from 4:30 for a full afternoon (and evening if you've got the stamina) of musical doings...

I'll be sharing DJ duties with the boy Marmite. A sneak preview of a couple likely rockers likely to be popped into my playlist are...

Champion Jack Dupree - Barrelhouse Woman



Eddie Boyd - Blue Coat Man





And it just wouldn't be Sunday without at least one Lowell Fulson tune..

Looking Back at Wilko...

Take a stroll to the bottom of this post and you'll see the cover of the latest issue (# 8) of Vive Le Rock, an edition frothing over with interviews: Richard Hawley, Kevin Rowland, Steve Jones, Wayne Hussey - also album, book and gig reviews.

Take a thumb through the reviews section of VLR and you'll find me holding up score cards for the New York Dolls, Suzi Quatro, Dirtbox Disco and Zoe Howe's Wilko Johnson biography - written in collaboration with Wilko himself.

Understandably with such a packed programme, editorial tweaks and changes were  necessary to keep to the word count. So, here's my submitted review of Looking Back At Me - and the published version. A tip of the titfer is due to all at VLR HQ for trimming it down, and, keeping the essence intact.

You'll also notice a couple of questions pitched at his Royal Wilko-ness, click on the VLR cover pic to get the rest of our chat and natter...

It's no overstatement to say I've probably ploughed through too many rock biographies in my time. Although only a handful are so supremely sculpted that they will stay with me forever. Looking Back At Me is one for this hand-picked library. Much more than the sum of it's parts - and larger than a life story, this is John Wilkinson walking and talking you through an oral and pictorial history (school reports, rare paintings/photo's memorabilia) of all that is Wilko: academia, anarchy, art, rock 'n' roll and carrying forward the tradition of journeymen blues musicians handing down their tales of troubles and travels.

If you've been lucky enough to have met Wilko ( I have, several times as we drink at the same pub) you'll know what you see onstage is exactly what you get offstage, an explosion of arm flailing, bug eyed-expressionism, intellectual theorising and raconteurism. Wilko isn't someone who knows stillness in anyway. There is no off button.

Zoe Howe's sensitive positioning of all the multi-faceted pieces that make up her study, perfectly renders Wilko's unrelenting restless energy and constant forward motion - she's pulled off the impossible trick of bottling Wilko's (smokestack) lightening. There's blood on the scratchplate, Canvey mud under his nails and the Thames Delta blues runs through him like a stick of Southend rock. Looking Back at Me is a stunning reinvention of the rock memoir format - a combination of compendium and confessional - creating a new standard which all future music biographies should measured against.

To catch the rest of our Looking Back chat - click on the VLR pic

As mentioned at the top the page, the New York Dolls blitzing new album Live From The Bowery is lent a critical ear in VLR - taste test one tune from it here....

New York Dolls - Funky But Chic

When TV Smith can't take the call, Dial M for Mondo...

Ahead of the Retroman/Southend Punk/Radio Podrophenia team up that brings you a Punk Britannia Live on Friday 22nd June, at our town's most rock 'n' roll - The Railway, Southend's finest news provider the Evening Echo, was after a few words with Mr TV of Smith - who, proving his platinum plated punk credentials was:  unavailable for comment/on tour/fatigued (actually he was on holiday).

So who got the call for chat about the event - me! You can read all about it in the Scene section of next Wednesday's Evening Echo, courtesy of southend's jazz-singing journo Hannah Marsh.

Piley and I are on decks duties for next week's shakedown - what can you expect to hear from our combined playlists? Some glam, punk, garage, ska, rock oddities - perhaps even a bash of baggie and big beat. But be warned, I may try and whip this one in from my 'crates'..

And a nod for all the dad's past and present with Father's Day coming up

Joe Loss - Steptoe and Son



If you fancy a warm up for the TV Smith gig, fill your ears with this excellent podcast a TV special from the Retrosonic team..

The Sunday Sessions: soul, blues and Black Belles

 

What a full and frothing menu of musical doings are afoot at Southend's Railway Hotel this coming Sunday - bringing together a mixed bill of blues, soul and black-hearted all-girl garage.

Spread across two floors: upstairs Mod Club Almost Grown thumps out the funk with a soul all-dayer. While from 4:30 in the main bar downstairs - Martin McNeill's Bottletop Blues Band will be stomping through a set of jump blues, boogie and raw-rooted R 'n' B.

Following this, it's new band on the block The Other Ones (formed of Tom Burgess and Seasider Paul Hill)...Literally capping off the event are Snow-White-meets-the-Wicked-Witch girl group (and Jack White signings) The Black Belles dropping in as part of their debut UK tour.

From 4:30 between-the-bands in the downstairs bar I'll be pitching in a few platters ranging from Big Joe Turner to Big Boss Man and Merry Clayton to Mae West.

Should you happen to be in the central Southend area, or fancy heading there - come on around The Railway and shake a Sunday leg. One tune that's proved to be a recent rumbler at various shindigs has been.....

Amos Milburn - I Done Done It

The Sunday Sessions: West Weston

If you happen to be round or about near Southend's Railway Hotel on Sunday - drop in to hear the hootin', tootin' Wes Weston - one of the UK's premier harpists - as he brings his own band the Bluesonics to Southend for a rare hometown gig. While they're setting up and between the bands - I'll be spinning some tunes from the CD box marked 'Rockadoodledoo'.

Expect to hear Freddie King, Little Walter, Fania Latin releases, Lowell Fulsom and suchlike

We're there from 4:30, so come on in and shake a leg.. West Weston - Jumping at Deke's

It's all happening at the 100 Club..

Draw a big red ring around this Thursday: July 14th,  for a night of glam anthems and black leather beats as The Wolfmen launch and play live - tunes and tracks from their summery sounding new LP Married to the Eiffel Tower. Of course there'll also be some old faves from Modernity and also a few exclusive doings for this one night only.

Bringing some high speed angular clang to the bill are long-haul favourites around these parts - Silvery. Along with some special guests and DJ spots we can't mention - all brought to you by the good people at Vive le Rock magazine.

If you're local to old London Town - polish up rocking boots and I'll see you Oxford Street way this Thursday.

If you haven't experienced The Wolfmen's live wall of wallop - be prepared for this style of thunderous rumbles - Thieves and Liars which is on the set-list: all Bhangra beats and two-fisted riffing..



To taste another new tune - redirect your ears to Radio Podrophenia tonight from 9, where The Wolfmen's July 20 is on the playlist - a playlist fitted around this week's theme of 'Time'. Or for some back catalogue  - grab this limited edition cover of Eno's solo opener

Needle in the Camel's Eye

Ant Music For Sox People

Picture from the always excellent Like Punk Never Happened

He was the UK's last proper pop star. I've got the albums, the singles, the box sets and even worn the t-shirt (Frontier Tour 1980). But in just over 30 years I've only hit two Adam Ant gigs. The first at Chelmsford Odeon - when Adam was simmering up to Ant Music's boiling point and the audience still a molten mix of snarling skins and spitting punks, who would break into random bouts of head-cracking and high flying fist-fights at the spill of a pint or any period of extended 'bogging'.

The second was last Wednesday. In a loaded, low-key Southend sweat-box venue where Adam reanimated a patchwork of his former personalities: King of the Wild Frontier, the Dandy Highwayman, Prince Charming - rendering them into a multi-sided composite of the characters that's almost Johnny Depp meets Axl Rose with a Bolan-ish tone. Read what you will into that..

Dig through the Ant Music back catalogue and all the hits are 'bankers' - perfect pop constructions. But for me, the magic always lay buried (pirate style) in the muscular punk of the early works, the B-sides and the bootlegs. If you'd asked me to rattle off a fantasy set-list..Fat Fun, Fall Out, Beat My Guest,  Lady,  Vive Le Rock would have been a few of the tunes. And as if by magic - Adam beat me to it, drafting up the dream set-list of hits, oddities and obscurities.

You can't help feeling slightly sorry for the those only there to hear the hits. This being a playlist pooled from the fanzine-era and Dirk days of darker matters: Cleopatra, Plastic Surgery, Physical, Deutscher Girls

Adam  now moves at a more stately pace and doesn't present with the same breathless energy, or the full frontal attack of the young  up 'n' comer he once was, but the presence is just as punchy, the voice is still intact - switching from crowd-rousing growler to crooner boom. The jawline and cheekbones are still sword sharp, while the band (with double drummers) blitz it like a Spitfire.

Unbelievably Adam Ant is nudgingly close to his sixtieth birthday.

Adam Ant at Chinnerys - Picture by Piley

An overlooked oddity is the still unreleased title track of Dirk Wears White Socks



Adam and The Ants - Dirk Wears White Socks

You can catch a snatch of the lyrics on this Dirk era tee - and while we're at it, the BBC only recording of Ligotage is worth bagging...