Engine Room Insights

Part of me thinks U2 can’t fail, they took chances with Pop and Achtung Baby but not with the same impact as The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree, well not for me anyway. It’s good that they are prepared to do that and probably the only band alive that can but in this day [...]

Bruce and the E -Street band really tore things up at the Superbowl half time show and I think he inspired both teams because they came out and treated us to a spectacular second half. A few of those players genuinely Born to Run with some amazing sprints. I can’t use the correct jargon because [...]

Tampa is awash with Superbowlites, they’re everywhere and all to see the men with big shoulders running around shouting until eventually throwing an odd shaped ball out of the ground. Everyone jumps up, play stops and an entire new team runs on. I don’t understand American football and I don’t think I ever will.
Nevertheless it’s [...]

I’ve been moving furniture around and I’m knackered. I’ve lost half the stuff I put in places to make it easier to find them but I suppose it’s bound to get easier when I eventually do find them. Nevertheless good things happen and Facebook once more re introduces figures from the past and more glorious [...]

We need stars, we don’t have them any more and the ones that we do call stars are different, they’re train wrecks, they’re misfits, they’re tortured ‘artists’. But Lindsay, Britney, Madonna even, aren’t tortured like Janis was, Jimi Hendrix or Brian Jones were they are just people craving attention. It doesn’t matter if it’s they [...]

So Robbie Williams wants to return to Take That, now there’s a suprise, I wonder why? Well Robbie, nothing lasts forever and I think you’ve had the best of your days so slipping back now in to a band you walked out on is a little too convenient, especially when their success and comeback has [...]

OK it’s time to own up, writing about bygone days makes me pick up books written from that period, and fortunately I have a nice collection of freebies I managed to blag from friends who also happen to be authors! I know it’s the wrong way round, I should really brush up on the facts [...]

The Stiff Chiswick Challenge that April night in Manchester had left everyone wanting….Tony Wilson and Alan Erasus a label, more immediately a venue to put bands on…. Rob Gretton managing a band, Ian Curtis a chance to be on TV, and me to go home because it was ludicrously late and I needed my bed! [...]

Even though no one knew it at the time, the Stiff/Chiswick challenge became a historical moment in music. It was the night most people either ignored or missed Joy Division, though speaking for myself I couldn’t be accused of ignoring someone I was too knackered to wait around for! As one might expect with Stiff [...]

I was just talking with an old old friend who tracked me down on Facebook ( really no one does get out of there alive ! )He was asking me if I still lived at The Edge, when in fact I told him I hadn’t even lived in the country for 5 years and The [...]