** · Aphex Twin ·
The Cornishman with a taste for the leftfield, or just plain wierd, seems to have found a home on the World Wide Web.
The Ben Folds Five
Take a traditional rock trio, replace the lead guitar with a mini grand piano and a lead singer who can play it with anything that comes to hand. The Ben Folds Five looks, brains & everything, a good place to discover this brilliant band.
** · Black Dog ·
Ken Downie's site for whoever or whatever Black Dog maybe at the moment. And none of that irritating polished website shite either.
Chumbawamba
Purveyors of sometimes political, sometimes heavy rock, the Leeds based 'Wamba have been going for years, not always easy to listen to, but when they do pop they almost always strike gold. See 1997s "Tubthumping" and '95's "Ugh! Your Ugly Houses!" for details.
** · Coldcut ·
Godfathers of British Dance Oldcut as they call themselves, and their Ninja Tune imprint, have been shuffling their site around of late. I know these links are out of date I'll sort it soon.
Depeche Mode
Early 80s electro group, Depeche Mode, discovered guitars, drugs and that death stinks, managing to stay on the credible side of cool, their most recent album "Ultra" was perhaps their most experimental.
Enigma
Ambient electro grooves have made Enigma an integral part of the 90s, this site is essentially an ad for the 3rd album but does more than say "buy me, but me, buy me."
· Future Sound Of London ·
Arch futurists (who would probably put the emphasis on 'arch') FSOL always seem to be able to produce something new and diverse. Go and see what Virgin think of them.
Garbage
Garbage delivered a stunning debut album, dragging scary/depressive/other rock music forward a decade (even if the "Vow" remix sounds like New Order's "True Faith").
** · Global Communication ·
Founders of the Dedicated label, the first site in '94 was at Brunel, which is very dead now, the newer one is placed at their Universal Language Productions home.
Jamiroquai
Emerging from London's Acid Jazz scene in the early 90s Jamiroquai are still on a mission to funk (ooer), now if only sony would stop insisting on those house-by-numbers remixes. BTW the original, un-copywritten non-trademark, material on the old J's Joint Home Page is still there.
Jellyfish
Now sadly defunct, Jellyfish have since split to form Imperial Teen, The Moog Cookbook and maybe more. The site contains information on both albums and all tracks and has areas dedicated to splinter groups and side projects.
** · The KLF/JAMMs ·
Dedicated to the arch pranksters of dance the KLF Mainpage is one of many fanpages dotted around the globe.
** · Kraftwerk ·
Kraftwerk's web site at Klingklang, in-keeping with the band, is very sparse and says very little, which is what we've come to expect from them. For a more informative place why not try the Kraftwerk unofficial infobahr, hmm?
Kula Shaker
The official Kula Shaker site, it has a large amount of fan pleasing info, competitions even, but very little on flaming swastikas, strange that.
· Oasis ·
If it's anything like their music, Oasisnet will be in black and white with a moptop and flares. Don't get me wrong, I fully acknowledge that Noel can rewrite some very good tunes, but he seemed to run out of new ones after four singles and one album, to quote Saidflorence "I'm sick and tired of Definatley Maybe"
** · Orbital ·
The brothers own web space, maintained by fans (loopz) and programmers alike, the Orbital site has info on tours, releases, merchendising and interviews, definately well worth a visit.
· Plaid ·
Splitting from Black Dog in 1995 the Plaid boys had been very quiet for three years until "Not For Threes", described as more musical than their previous incarnation.
** · Portishead ·
Portishead's site, very flash, and in-keeping with their image. I'm bored with polished sites, a fully self-produced site would do for a change, anyone know where I can find one? (I Still don't know why Go Discs dissapeared, anyone care to elaborate?)
** · The Prodigy ·
Hmm... where to begin, well the official Prodigy site is a good start. For a comprehensive, informative, impressive and lots of other words ending in 'ive' try The Underground Prodigy archive, (you'll need the name and password from the mailing list to get in) if it's working as I hoped most of the related sound samples and pics should be coming from here, I don't know for how long but you can still get to the old underground (don't tell anyone i told you, OK?). Another site built with dedication and an eye for style is Earthbound Central, sadly this has dissappeared, so if I may redirect you to Andreas Nylin's muli-layered site and the Prodigy Links page which has a huge number of links to other dedicated sites marked out of ten with a short description of each. like the 'Very Heavy' site in Sweden.
· Radiohead
Radiohead's own site with humour and hard, sometimes worrying, facts liberally scattered throughout the site. Now Showing: 'OK Computer'.
· The Shamen ·
Subject to very few fanpages (I've managed to find one, which consisted of the album cover alone) The Shamen's Nemeton site is the place to find the 'techno-tribal' band who do what they like, because they can.
Sunscreem
Essex based Sunscreem emerged from the techno-rave scene in '91, their site has greatly increased the ammount of information covered over the last few months, but still pales in comparison to the excellent Screeming a good source for news & all things Screem.
· Underworld ·
Romford's Underworld have taken the dance world by the scruff of the neck and shaken it up to such a degree its eyes are still spinning in their sockets. This is a rather convoluted way of saying that Underworld are good mmm...underworld i love you and its European mirror pay tribute to this and to their design company Tomato. Check out the dirtysite too, along with the dirtylyrics page for an ever-growing list of Hydeian lyrics supplied by Dirtylisters.
White Town
One massive hit and two albums down the line, the White Town Homepage, even after its transformation into a TV, Joti is someone who makes music for himself, and if other people like it, it's a bonus.
Indie Band Search Sites
Its a strange thing, but, for some reason the popular names for indie lists are Oasis song titles like The Supersonic Guide or the Won-der-wall, somewhere 'Acquiesce' or 'The Master Plan' could be doing the rounds, so it comes as a refreshing change to find The British Indie Band List or Strangeways as its also known. If you want something more comprehensive there's always The Ultimate Band List.
Record Labels
· 4AD: One of the homes of British Indie music with Kristin Hersh and Lush on their books, and Colourbox and M.A.R.R.S. in their back catalogue.
BPI: The British Phonographic Industry (?), backbone of the UK record industry, they police piracy on the high streets among other things. It's a bit slow.
· Deconstruction: Poppy/clubby label home to Kylie Minogue, K-Klass & M People, also has the rather large Heavenly and Concrete labels as subsidiaries.
· Dedicated: Global Communication's outlet for all things blippy.
· Geffen Records: A huge company with Nirvana, John Abercombe & The Simpsons on their books.
· Hard Hands: Leftfield's own progressive house label releasing more than just their own material.
Island Records: a nice site, sometimes tricky to navigate, but a fine(/huge) history from label inception to i'm not sure when (like I said it's just a tad long.
MusicBase: home to the Deconstruction group of labels, Platipus and William Orbit's... err.. Thingy label, and many more...
· Mute: Progressive, fiercely independent label, on the cutting edge of pop music throughout the 80s.
· One Little Totem Pole: One Little Indian's presence, complete with full discog, shop, news updates and links (if you can find them) to subsidiary sites.
· Ninja Tune: Coldcut's own imprint on a par with Mo' Wax in the unspeakably cool ratings.
Perfecto: Paul Oakenfold's outlet for Goa Trance and his own work under a myriad of disguises.
· PolyGram.com: Umm.. well PolyGram's site, owners of Go! Discs, London, ffrr. As a rule if it isn't a Sony label it's either PolyGram, BMG or Warners.
Radio Real World: Peter Gabriel's eclectic area - lots of experimental things, musical & otherwise to be found here.
Sony Artist Information: American based artist index, includes licensed artists.
TVT Records: US label sistered/owned? by Wax Trax Records and seeming to specialise in goth/dance/TV themes, a company with a strange brew of talent.
· Virgin Records (Virgin Music Group): trying to sell as many records as possible.
· Warp Records: Home to the Steel City's own dance label who's roster includes: Aphex Twin, Autechre, LFO & Jimi Tenor.
· XL Recordings: Home to the Prodigy, Empirion & Winx, a dance label that's not afraid to try anything (sometimes to its detriment). I've had trouble getting through before, but until I can have a full site-wide test the official URL remains.
· WipeOut 2097/XL:Promotional pages for the album of the game complete with samples, links and stuff.
** Be apart of the future, be a Net-potato, don't move from your screen for days and shop from the comfort of your own mouse, try it for your self at Record Collect.
Events
Whatever this links to now it's certain it won't be Reading '97 anymore.
I keep the SoundCity 96 address around just to see how long they'll leave it, so far it's 1 year 6 months and counting.
The Acorn computer user WWW Server. is an excellent site by the girl Poppy with links and documents pertaining to all things Acorn. Most if not all the next batch of links could also be found here and are fair guaranteed to be more up to date.
Acorn User is one of the two news-stand publications now exclusively aimed at the 32-bit Acorn market, recent developments in set-top-boxes and franchise deals a-plenty seem to have been the news for the past year.
Acorn Demos Server is a nod to the past of the Archimedes range of machines out-performing and pinching the best bits from the former might of Atari and Amiga.
Acorn Gaming in a similar vein, PD and shareware games linked across Europe and the Antipodes.
From PD coders to fully fledged software house, DoggySoft still keep a toe in the PD scene and produce top quality programming utilities. This whole site was prep'd on their !Webite application
FTP wise i've found Acornet, The Archiemedes Gopher pages and Hensa's Acorn section fine mines for good progs and demos (though the Hensa pages seem to be in a constant state of flux).
Hexmesh are a part of the whole Coldcut/Ninja Tune machinery who've produced games and software with a graphical bent for several machines.
And for all those windoze users who are sick of 'Pling', 'cher-ching' and whatever other sounds those boffs at MS thought were "peachy", try Wavs, wavs and more wavs for nostalgic film & TV samples galore.
Matsushita, if Sony were shy they'd be Matsushita, owners of several smaller companies including MCA Records for a while.
Panasonic, makers of fine audio equipment among other things, owning the Technics name has to help.
Philips, they invent the CD, they're not from the Far East and, if "Psyché Rock" is anything to go by, competing with Sony in the Electronics/Record Company stakes again.
· Roland International and Roland UK?, along with Boss purveyors of fine musical instruments, amplification and effects units. And I don't mean very thin either.
TDK; They've got it taped! Sorry
The Yorkshire Internet and Yorkshire Information Centre sites are primarily aimed at attracting and promoting business and tourism throughout the county, but why would you want to go anywhere else? aside from the stunning scenery and wealth of resources two huge bonuses are that a: it isn't London, and most importantly b: it isn't Lancashire.
I'm probably located nearer Meadowhall, Sheffield's largest and Europe's longest shopping mall, than Rotherham Town Center (not that you care). Built, like so many things in the area, on the site of former steel works Meadowhall, it was hoped would rejuvenate the area after the Steel and Coal industries in the region all but disappeared, this it did and with the addition of the Sheffield Arena, Meadowhall Industrial Estate and the Don Valley Stadium the area is again on it's feet and Sheffield is trying to establish itself on its sporting facilities as much as its industrial ability. Sheffield has loads of links and i'll put a few more up soon however, ShEP - Sheffield Electronic Press is an excellent resource for entertainment and news in the area, listings include The Leadmill, one of, if not the best club(s) in the area.
HumorNet: British joke archive, with somewhat scary laughter samples.
LaughWEB: American joke archive so immense something is bound to make you laugh (no guarantees though).
Mad Science: Useless contraptions, deadly experiments and the key to taking over the world (unavaliable to a Mr. B. Gates, for security reasons)
Moose Mansions: The Man from Psion, he say "curmudgen"
PythOnline: Monty and friends in America, Ni.
Mixmag and the MixMag - Discussion Zone. I'm not sure whether the latter is still up and running but the 'Mixmag' site itself is very slow, the monthly section has very few things in it (last time I looked they were plugging their latest Ritchie Hawtin mix CD and had a few articles over a year old), however the 'Update' section has a selection of news stories, recommended track of the week and the latest 'Buzz Chart' (hyped or otherwise) compiled from DJ/club reaction within the previous week.
· New Musical Express former Jazz mag (read the history section), the 'NME' and the 'Melody Maker' are, and have been for a long while, the indie music bibles for the devoted music fan. Although very slow to pick up on dance music the balance is slowly being redressed but with the focus towards indie/dance i.e. dance with guitars.
Select is a sort of monthly 'NME', though that is officially the 'Vox' line, not sure about their history but a stonking web site.
Q, a grown-up 'Select', 'Q' started in the mid-80s its roots in AOR/MOR secured with Paul McCartney on their first front cover. I've not visited for a while but I suspect their site is as good as others on the erack site with a slight upper hand for compuserve users.
Erack is the home of 'FHM' (Loaded type mag), 'Select' and 'Max Power' (Car mag). The web presence of the Emap Metro empire with a helping hand from compuserve.
· Independant Music Press: Publishers of pop music biographies on acts ranging from Oasis to The Mission. Includes section on Martin Roach's 1995 Prodigy biography "Electronic Punks"
Phillips Publishing International Inc, a publishing company I came across when looking for Philips the electronics company
Sonic State is a collection of about a dozen separate areas related to music incorporating music news/gossip, technical profiles, studio & production tips, discussion forums and the nude star gallery.
New World Destruction, The Electronic Music Pages. Similar to Sonic State but focussing on dance & electronic music alone.
The Sound Connection Web Site. Ermm. The American mobile disc jockey resource and information page (no musical bias, honest).
Atlantic 252 are officially a pirate station in Britain AFAIK, broadcasting from Dublin they took over where Radio Luxembourg left off, only more commercially and all day.
· Radio 1, the BBC's national pop music station currently enjoying a boom in popularity. The site has quite a few shockwave toys, links & backup for several programmes and RealAudio downloads of shows.
Hallam FM is Sheffield and South Yorkshire's main independent broadcaster, delivering everything you'd expect from a commercial station (adverts and a safe playlist to get advertisers queuing at the door mostly).
Magic 828 Leeds based MW commercial broadcaster.
Rick Dees: Although I can no longer receive his shows, I remember him being humorous and entertaining but most of all, I got to hear tracks weeks in advance of release over here and to see (well, hear) how UK acts were fairing in the States.
Radcliffe and the Boy Lard, both called Mark, both on Radio One's afternoon show, both very funny broadcasters, both from Manchester, ah well three out of four ain't bad. The Unofficial Mark Radcliffe and Lard Site and Mark Radcliffe and the Boylard both contain prodigious amounts of info, facts and bits pilfered from their shows, and look far better than my little den of iniquity (but thats not hard now, is it?)
See City.Net and find out where you are.
CUSI; ICU2
UK Plus little bits of land here and there.
Yell and Freepages, the web arms of the 'Yellow Pages' and 'Talking Pages' respectively, fast and easy to use business search engines.
" "For those who don't know, Channel 4 was started in 1982 to serve minority interests on British TV. Some excellent dramas and documentaries have come from this newest station, but the author considers the American imports to be the best stuff: Cheers, Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere for example."
Richard K. Lloyd, April 1990.
Author "Pretty Channel 4 Clock"
Channel 5 Broadcasting from Easter '97, the channel has still yet to define itself for anything much other than it's 'stripped and stranded' programming which it's considering dropping, or sticking to less vigorously. The channel's programming relies on cheep shows, re-runs and imports, not surprising when their annual budget is a quarter of a local ITV station and it seems half of that was spent on advertising, retuning and setting up the site. Give it time.
ITN (Independent Television News) is the news provider for the ITV, C4 & C5 television networks.
· MTV: Um, like, music (mostly rock/r&b) all day. Slow.
TalkBack Productions is the creation of comedians Mel Smith and Griff Rhys Jones, the site contains details of their latest success "The Think It's All Over" amongst other things
Teletext is ITV & C4's national teletext service provider. On-line now; Holidays, Digitiser and On-Line. Regional/Channel specific pages (600/300 respectively) are handled by Intelfax.
Got a favourite show? Would you like to know more about it? Have you got three hours to spare? Then try the Ultimate TV List.
cyber.cafe was ITVs late night show dedicated to all things 'net, since replaced with "Cybernet", a show concentrating on the more commercially viable games market (at 4am?) c.c's future seems uncertain.
Back in 1965 ITC produced "The Prisoner" a series which ran short at 17 episodes due to being decommissioned because of its difficult subject matter. The show was neither extremely violent or explicit, which may have been its downfall. A prerequisite the programme was that you HAD to think about what was going on and accept some of its more bizarre moments (of which there were many). All of these factors have led to its current cult status, though anything but sci-fi, some of the gadgets in the show were an extremely accurate picture of things to come. Anyway, Prisoner Links will take you around The Village. Be Seeing You
Tomorrow's World - 8 December 1995 featured an item on Colin Angus from The Shamen demonstrating music generated by DNA strands. The link may be out of date.
Bureau of Federal Investigation - X Files Division: Just one of a myriad of X-Files dedicated sites.
ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha - Official DNA Fan Club
The Jiggly Room - A "Married With Children" Fanpage
Welcome to Duckula's Kitchen...
They're Dinky, They're Pinky and the Brain
Kaleidoscope: Other Sites of Interest Index