Don’t Hang The DJ

I urge you all to take action to try to save BBC 6 Music, especially as its Freak Zone show was the first radio programme to feature The Untied Knot. 
Losing a channel such as 6 Music which is willing to expose marginalised music with often little commercial potential will be detrimental to both listener and emerging musician.

On that note, The Untied Knot continues to be grateful to the shows which have exposed its music to a wider audience. In particular, Jeffrey Davison’s  Shrunken Planet show on WFMU which has recently played “Requiem For The Thirteen” and “Pelham Street” and possibly our biggest fan outside the UK, Fernando Pérez Herrero who has spun “Low Tide” and “Spanish Pine” in the last few weeks on Cielo líquido . It’s especially nice to hear our music amongst such great company…

[audio:http://www.theuntiedknot.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Low-Tide-on-Cielo-Liquido.mp3|titles=Low Tide on Cielo Liquido]

New York Knot

WFMU logoMore airplay, this time from WFMU-FM – an independent freeform station broadcasting at 91.1 fm in New York, at 90.1 fm in the Hudson Valley.
Jeffrey Davison played “A. Corns” on his Shrunken Planet show on Sat Feb 6th. Nice to see it was in the company of some of my personal guitar heroes, Jack Rose (rest his prematurely departed soul) and Voice Of The Seven Woods. You can listen to the show here.

el nudo desatado

“Larus argentatus” was played on the Cielo líquido (liquid sky) show on Spanish radio channel canal extremadura last night – technically on Tues 19/1/10.
Fernando Pérez Herrero hosts this 4-times weekly show and lists John Peel amongst his heroes which is reflected in the diversity of his musical taste.

The Knot unTies on iTunes

iTunes“Sketches For A Lost Summer” is now available on iTunes with individual tracks at £0.79 each.
Forget your apps, get yourself a fix of music…

Memory of a free festival

fables-review At the turn of the 1990s I was living in the South West London district of Tooting on a street which contained a row of housing association houses/ flats now sadly demolished to make way for a car park. Every summer, the adjoining gardens of the residents made way for a stage and a day of music, booze and general good-mannered mayhem known as Maybury Fest (and subsequently Longley Fest).
Like the Field Farm Festival, this was a fantastic event that ran on community goodwill and enthusiasm. The police would usually show up and stick their heads round but cheers to ’em, they never intervened.
I have particularly fond memories of the Maybury Fest as I made my debut musical performance there playing a mix of Stones, Velvet Underground and Doors numbers in a combo tragically (but also brilliantly) named, The Velvet Underpants. The following year I returned as guitarist with The Fables (see review right), making their live debut. Continue reading

Mick Jones’ Rock n’ Roll Public Library

Pink-portraitNo, it’s not a comic strip from Viz, it’s a real life exhibition of stuff – books, magazines, clothes, instruments, posters etc. from Mick Jones’ personal collection.
Imagine The Clash/BAD/Carbon Silicon guitarist/front-man went on holiday and asked you to house-sit for him. Well, this is what it would be like – free to root around in his vast collection of music mags, poke about at his samplers, drum machines and synths, sit down and watch his videos, go through his wardrobes and nose around in his office.

Continue reading