It’s now been a week since I returned home from a my first ever trip to Israel and Palestine, and my head is still trying to make sense of everything I saw, heard and felt while I was out there. Two Saturdays ago, a disparate bunch of arty types (and one seriously cool reverend) got [...]
All posts by George Luke
In conversation: Wicked Aura
As promised, I’ve started packaging the artist interviews I did at Midem a couple of weeks ago into podcasty radio features for your listening enjoyment. Here’s the first one; an interview with Budi, lead guy with the Singaporean drum ensemble Wicked Aura. He was great fun to talk to, and as for the band… well, [...]
Posted by George Luke on February 11, 2012
http://georgeluke.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/in-conversation-wicked-aura/
MIDEM Day 1: “It’s a lot of things…”
Saturday night, in an apartment somewhere just outside Cannes… It’s been quite a full day today, and a very productive one – which is great, given that I didn’t have much planned, but came ended up doing about ten interviews. I’m back in my apartment with the NRJ Music Awards on the telly as I [...]
Posted by George Luke on January 29, 2012
http://georgeluke.wordpress.com/2012/01/29/midem-day-1-its-a-lot-of-things/
“Je suis un Rock journalist…”
It’s the last few days of January – and for various movers, shakers, schemers, skeezers, grafters, grifters and other types of character you come across in the music business, it’s time once again to decamp to the south of France for MIDEM, the international music industry conference. For a third time, I’ve managed to blag [...]
Posted by George Luke on January 27, 2012
http://georgeluke.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/je-suis-un-rock-journalist/
Mally & Me
I’ve heard stories in the past of some hip hop superstar or other who started their climb to the top by selling copies of their debut recording out of the boot of their car. But until Christmas Eve, I’d never actually seen it happen in real life (and anyway, after so many years as a [...]
Posted by George Luke on January 1, 2012
http://georgeluke.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/mally-me/
Ladysmith Black Mambazo: In their own words
Sometime in the late 90s (maybe ’96 or ’97), I was privileged to spend an afternoon in a pub in west London with the members of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. We had lunch together, and then Joseph Shabalala, the group’s leader, sat with me and my big ole Pro Walkman (sorry about the Americanism, but I [...]
Posted by George Luke on December 29, 2011
http://georgeluke.wordpress.com/2011/12/29/ladysmith-black-mambazo-in-their-own-words/
NaNoWriMo: the Morning After
Thursday 1 December 2011, sometime before 6.00am… It’s not November anymore. So why am I still getting out of bed at such an unearthly hour and firing up the laptop? I’ve already had a whole month of this… Yep – I signed up once again for that exercise in complete madness that is National Novel [...]
Posted by George Luke on December 1, 2011
http://georgeluke.wordpress.com/2011/12/01/nanowrimo-the-morning-after/
“Never meet your heroes…”
One of the funny things about being a music journalist is the completely opposite ways the people in your life view your job. On the one hand, you have those friends and relatives who imagine that it must be really glamorous getting to rub shoulders with the stars (trust me, it isn’t – well, not [...]
Posted by George Luke on November 8, 2011
http://georgeluke.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/%e2%80%9cnever-meet-your-heroes%e2%80%a6%e2%80%9d/
Novel-writing madness:
