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THE RODEO

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Most of my recent writing has been for The Rodeo, an independent online and in-print music magazine. I have been published regularly in the magazine since Volume 2, interviewing artists such as Alfie Templeman, Ezra Furman and Marika Hackman - I most recently wrote the cover interview for Volumes 13 and 15, where I interviewed ​The War On Drugs and MUNA respectively.

While print content is exclusive to the magazine – which you can buy here – below are some examples of written pieces I've had published on The Rodeo's website. 

Alongside the writing itself, I have been an Editor for The Rodeo since June 2019, starting out with the online pieces and moving more recently into the proofreading and editing of each magazine volume. 

Visit their main site here, or my author's page here.
MUNA for Vol. 15. Credit: Caity Krone.
MUNA for Vol. 15. Credit: Caty Krone.

We watched The Mercury Prize

1/4/2021

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The Mercury Prize winner was announced on The One Show last night.

September: now six months since Bojo clamped down on all things fun and populated, and gig-less we remain. In half a year, no one has felt the bass of a speaker thud across their chest, nor begrudgingly sacrificed next month’s rent for a pint of ‘whatever’s cheapest’. Withdrawal symptoms settled in across the nation: better hearing, fewer crowd-induced bruises… nasty stuff, really. Thankfully, just before bucket hats began to see a new life as makeshift face coverings, we were gifted a taste of what once was.
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The Mercury Prize Album of the Year is an annual excuse for any British melomaniac to spend the night in with a few drinks, a few mates and quite literally some of the finest new music around. While watching the ceremony often risks major audience-envy as the crowd screams applause after each set, this year was significantly more personal to watch. Naturally, live performances were out of the question, but many of the shortlisted artists were able to deliver pre-recorded sets specifically for the BBC’s coverage of the event: an hour-long compilation of these performances, presented by Lauren Laverne and uploaded to iPlayer. Not a bad deal, all in all – in fact, many of the videos made it feel like I was standing at the front row of an actual gig, too engrossed by the musicians to notice anyone else around. It’s as close to a concert as I’m getting, anyway, so here are the highlights from The Mercury Prize 2020.
Read the full article on The Rodeo here.
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GIRLS: our top five music moments

1/4/2021

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​The world is bored. I am bored. So bored, in fact, that I’ve been watching horror films just to feel something besides the monotony of my new existence (cheerful, eh?). When that failed, I turned to nostalgia, a bittersweet remedy which many of us will have pulled upon of late: the film we once knew line-by-line; the playlist that soundtracked last summer; the Monopoly board reeking of Christmas fallouts.
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A strong contender for my favourite TV shows, GIRLS was what I returned to… again. I like to consider it a sort of Sex & The City for twenty-somethings who don’t have it figured out yet. Hannah, Jessa, Marnie and Shoshanna were my Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda: relatable, honest, funny and also (as chance would have it) living in NYC. The lines are iconic, the characters are as unique and complicated as you can imagine, and – needless to say – the music is also a fucking treat...
Read the full article on The Rodeo here.
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Ezra Furman releases ‘Sex Education’ official soundtrack

28/2/2020

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In case you forgot, or have been mining in Central America and somehow missed the news entirely, Sex Education returned to Netflix last Friday, 17 January 2020. For most of us, though, the show’s season two release date was marked in our calendars long before we remembered it was also someone’s birthday. Sorry Gran.

The show’s first season was praised for its honesty and inclusivity, approaching the deliciously awkward world of teenage sex in following the humility and hilarity encountered in its characters’ bedrooms. Covering sexual identities, desires, troubles and mistakes, Sex Education manages to tackle each question of ‘who am I?’ with poise, acceptance and – above all – humour.

Despite better intentions to savour the new season and its encompassing joy, I binged it. Like a small child wolfing down an entire Easter egg in one sitting, I gave in to self-indulgence and now it’s over too soon. Or so we thought.

​As announced earlier this week, Ezra Furman is here to prolong our Sex Education high with today’s release of the show’s official soundtrack...
Read the full article on The Rodeo here.
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Nessa, Easy Life and Me: The Tricolour of 2019

28/2/2020

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I bought a bike this year. She was a white, vintage-style old thing that I got for €60 off the French equivalent of Gumtree, and I felt very proud and European of my new mode of transport. I named her Nessa—after the Gavin and Stacey character, oui—and for several months she and I went zooming all over the gorgeous city of Nantes. It quickly turned out she wasn’t worth half that €60: the gears didn’t work, the brakes had a dangerous knack to them, and I frequently had to borrow a spanner to fix the handlebars, which had a nasty habit of moving mid-ride. The French for ‘spanner’ is ‘clé à molette’, in case you were wondering, and no, they don’t teach you that in school.

But I loved her anyway, quirks n all; she was my ride to work every morning, and my faithful companion home after a few sunset beers by the river. She and I were two peas in a two-wheeled pod, but we weren’t alone by any means: accompanying us on every trip was a compilation of tracks that came to define my time in Nantes. Billie Eilish’s ‘bury a friend’ put the attitude in altitude (steep hills and no gears is a vile pairing—10/10 would not recommend), James Blake would keep me going steady at night with ‘Don’t Miss It’, and ‘Feeling Lonely’ by Boy Pablo had me dancing in my pedals no matter how tired I felt.
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One track sticks out, though, one that takes me back to Nessa in a heartbeat; Easy Life’s witty lyrics and lo-fi hip-hop feel soundtracked a huge portion of my time in Nantes, but their single ‘Frank’ was one I particularly vibed with. It made it onto several playlists I had going at the time, would be one I queued relentlessly, and always seemed to play on the same strip of road as I cycled to work...

Read the full article on The Rodeo here.
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Lord Huron took me on a journey out West

28/2/2020

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To celebrate National Album Day, we’re going through the albums that mean something to us and telling the stories behind what makes them so special.

I like to think I have a broad scope for music, traversing both decades and genres in what has become a rather confused Spotify collection. Playlists a-plenty, of course, but I count myself as a big believer in the strength of a well-thought-out LP. Running themes and song reprises make me want to do cartwheels on the side of the road; I would fight a mighty dragon for the fair hand of a ‘concept album’. Luckily, we’re not short of them: artists have been desperate to prove they can pull it off ever since The Beatles started the trend with Sgt Pepper back in ’67, with varying success among them. I’ve browsed the board, partial to many, but no album has ever branded itself into my heart quite so deeply as Lord Huron’s sophomore LP, Strange Trails.

In an unknown land, somewhere between the barriers of life and death, fiction and reality, we join Lord Huron on a journey out West. Driving through the night, heart-broken and lost, we enter a world of distinctive characters and profound magic: men come back from the dead, hell-bent on revenge as they roam the desert; romantics pick fights and trek for miles through dangerous terrain; mortals play with dark forces and suffer the consequences.
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​While fictional in many aspects, there is no struggle to be had in relating to the album’s recurring themes: lust, love, fury, heartache. Haven’t we all at some point felt as though under some unshakable spell, no longer in our right minds at the hands of a lover? ...

Read the full article on The Rodeo here.
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A SONIC BOOM FROM LIAM GALLAGHER? OF COURSE NOT

4/6/2019

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Hi. Are you stuck in the 90s? Have you been involved in a music evolution that wasn’t your fault? Why not try Liam Gallagher's newest single, ‘Shockwave’.
"LG is back and is still ‘fucking mega’, but only if you ask LG himself; fantastic news for all those die-hard Oasis fans who can’t let go. Fuck Noel with his clever albums, his commendable song-writing and his High Flying Birds, we want the same old shit we’ve heard since 1994. 

It’s just as well, then, that Liam has teased a clip of his awaited new track, ‘Shockwave’..."
Read the full article on The Rodeo here.
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"OH MY CHRIST" GAVIN AND STACEY IS BACK!

4/6/2019

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​"Everyone has something they revisit each Christmas. What is it, Love Actually? The Muppet Christmas Carol? It’s A Wonderful Life? (very original, well done you). All valid answers, but all wrong. Christmas is a time for Gavin and Stacey.
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Its Christmas special has sparked annual joy since it was first broadcast in 2008. Now – almost a decade later – Christmas has come early, as co-writers James Corden and Ruth Jones announce a one-off Christmas special, due to hit the BBC on Christmas Day 2019. Fuck. Yes. 

SO, as the good news settles in, let’s look back on some of the most iconic scenes from G&S in the only way we know how: with its soundtrack..."
Read the full article on The Rodeo here. 
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