Last night I saw my very first childhood music hero in concert, the third time I’ve now seen this most unfashionable of pop stars in a live setting. When I was five years old, Cliff Richard was it. Sure, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon were up there too, but top of the pile as a…
Tag: Music
Richard Ashcroft Sampling The Bee Gees – 10 Years Since Maurice Gibb’s Death
He was the glue, the joker, the multi-instrumentalist and the rock ‘n’ roll of the Bee Gees and today, it’s 10 years since Maurice Gibb’s sudden death. Thinking back to the news headlines after Maurice died (due to complications from a twisted intestine), so many stories referred to him as “the quiet Bee Gee” which…
The Timeless Genius Of Paul Simon’s American Tune
Over the last couple of weeks, Pam Corkery and I (Newstalk ZB’s The Two) have been doing ZB’s weekday evening show and have loved bringing what we do (which is normally once a week on Sundays between 9pm-midnight) to an even wider audience. For us a hugely important part of our shows is the music, even…
Fun. With The Underrated Song Of 2012
Often there’s no rhyme nor reason as to why some songs become hits and others not. Take the band Fun, best known for the fairly poppy We Are Young (a massive US #1 hit) as well as the far more interesting Some Nights (US #3), complete with its schizophrenic Simon & Garfunkel meets the Eagles meets a…
The Barry Gibb Interview 2012 – The Full Transcript Plus Another Forgotten Bee Gees Classic
A few weeks ago I interviewed (alongside my co-host on Newstalk ZB’s The Two, Pam Corkery) the last remaining Gibb brother, Bee Gee Barry Gibb. A feature article based on this interview will be appearing in New Zealand’s number one current affairs magazine The Listener in January ahead of Barry’s concert at the Mission in…
Pink’s Domestic Violence Ballet ‘Try’ – Her Greatest Song Yet
A still from the video for Try. Just a short post to follow-up on a discussion Pam Corkery and I had on last night’s episode of The Two (Newstalk ZB, Sunday evenings, 9pm-midnight) about Pink’s latest song, Try. I don’t know a great deal about what constitutes pioneering dance choreography, but as far as I can…
When A Great Band Gets A Good Album’s First Single Wrong #U2 #TheKillers
Apologies for the hashtags in the headline, but two of my favourite bands have erred in recent times with their new album’s first single and somebody needs to come forward and tell them. Pick me! Today I was at JB HiFi and was reminded of just how brilliant and inspirational U2 can be. Lots of…
4 More Years For Obama – The Irony Of Springsteen’s Campaign Theme Song
It’s almost a week since President Obama won a second term so it’s about time I loaded up a relevant song to The Roxborogh Report to mark the occasion. I’ve gone with what became the campaign theme song, Bruce Springsteen’s We Take Care Of Our Own from his most recent album Wrecking Ball. The song…
Why Rod Stewart’s Shag-tastic Autobiography Is Genuinely Inspiring, Plus A Forgotten Early Fave
I’ve just got home from four nights in Melbourne and in between a reunion with a dozen of the best Aussies I’ve ever met, taking in Derby Day at Flemington, playing (and losing) tennis with a long-time rival and catching up with my sister and brother-in-law, I found time to read Rod Stewart’s brand new…
The Greatest Album The Band Never Recorded – Bee Gee Barry Gibb Joins ‘The Two’.
This Sunday evening’s episode of The Two (Newstalk ZB, 9pm-midnight) features my biggest hero as our special guest. Barry Gibb is the last man standing; the only surviving Gibb brother; a man who has experienced success so astonishing as to make him the second most successful pop songwriter in history after Paul McCartney (according to…
How To Win Over People Ignorant About The Bee Gees
The good news: Barry Gibb has included a concert in Napier, New Zealand on February 23rd as part of his Mythology world tour. The bad news: Idiots still have access to the internet. I know I shouldn’t get defensive about online nonsense written about the Gibbs, but every now and then it’s fun to engage…
Barry Gibb’s First Solo Tour – The Time The Bee Gees Did Simon & Garfunkel Better Than Simon & Garfunkel
With advance tickets to Barry Gibb’s first solo concert tour (Australia, February next year) having just gone on sale, I couldn’t not draw attention (yet again) to one of the lesser known treasures in the Gibb catalogue. The Mythology tour will be tinged with sadness with Barry coming to terms with the fact he is…
