Tag: ancienne belgique
Rodrigo y Gabriela
The story goes that Rodrigo Sánchez and Gabriela Quintero played in a thrash metal band in their native Mexico. Presumably having failed to thrash the charts the band split, jettisoning our nimble-fingered duo to Dublin, the buskers’ paradise. There they were spotted and snagged by the festival circuit. Massive success followed, with an album produced …
Lambchop
Before I saw the band in concert, I would never have called the music of Lambchop romantic. Somehow, within a couple of tracks from their new release OH (Ohio), I found myself feeling the lurve. It could have been the semicute gaucheness of singer/guitarist Kurt Wagner, though he is rather an acquired taste. It could …
Seun Kuti & Africa 80
Seun is the youngest son of the late Fela Kuti, the politically active leading light of Afrobeat. Having grown up in the thick of that scene, Seun now heads Africa 80, the second incarnation of his father’s band, playing the same energetic mix of funk, jazz, rock and highlife that electrified West African music in …
Arthur H: L’Abondanse
H, the son and nephew respectively of eccentric singers Jacques Higelin and Brigitte Fontaine, is something of a musical lacuna himself. Throughout the course of thirteen albums, the Frenchman has pinballed between jazz, rock, pop and disco and on L’Homme du Monde his latest effort he’s done all of them.
Looking like a cross between Joe …
Matthew Herbert Big Band
After an awkward warm-up from studenty noodlers Wixel, who might be the Flemish answer to Sigur Rós, the stage of Brussels’ Ancienne Belgique was quickly cleared and rearranged for the main event of the evening. Matthew Herbert, renowned for the idiosyncratic music he records under a schizophrenic array of monikers, led on his jazz band …
Elsewhere on MikePadgett.com …
American Beauty
Director: Sam Mendes United States, 1999 In a year of superb films, American Beauty was one of the very best of 1999: the auspicious film début of Donmar Warehouse director Sam Mendes, the consolidation …
- Originally published: 12 Feb 2007 in Film
Body Worlds in Brussels
The art of the Ancient Greeks and of the Renaissance shares a common concern for anatomical accuracy. It comes as no surprise, then, that these were also periods in which anatomy itself …
- Originally published: 5 Oct 2008 in Museums & Galleries
Matthew Herbert Big Band
After an awkward warm-up from studenty noodlers Wixel, who might be the Flemish answer to Sigur Rós, the stage of Brussels’ Ancienne Belgique was quickly cleared and rearranged for the main event …
- Originally published: 3 Oct 2008 in Concerts
Grotesque
Natsuo Kirino Harvill (2007) After I recently moaned about the commercial fetishization of Haruki Murakami’s work, I can see this happening again with Natsuo Kirino. Kirino apparently has a back catalogue of well over …
- Originally published: 14 Oct 2008 in Books
How to wash your hands
Good to know that, in these difficult times of swine ‘flu, bird ‘flu and just plain old ‘flu, there’s always someone there with timely advice. So just in case you’ve forgotten since you …
- Originally published: 8 Oct 2009 in Humour
Who is that guy?
Hello you. I'm Mike Padgett and I work in the technology sector as an Information Designer.
I also enjoy travel, concerts, films and walking.
I'm based in Brussels, Belgium. My current favourite Belgian beer is St Feuillien Brune.