Darren Saunders
I was born at an early age, and discovered music a bit later. The first song I remember hearing properly was Tears For Fears- Everybody Wants To Rule The World, which says more about me than I’d care to admit. Most of my life has been spent in the artistic dead spot of Southampton, where we know all about siege defences and ships, but very little about decent music. Unless you consider Craig David to be decent. Which I don’t. When I was 27 I had a mid life crisis, got divorced and signed up to a radio production degree at Bournemouth university. Given that I’d never been in a radio studio before in my life, this was a pretty rash decision, but one I’m glad I made. These days I live in London, as everyone does, desperately trying to catch the ear of the controller of 6 Music, in a vain attempt to find never ending employment at the BBC. In the meantime I make podcasts for my own amusement (because no other bugger listens to them), and write the odd review for Echoes And Dust. I am a Virgo, but this means nothing.
Articles by Darren Saunders
Yesterday the culture secretary Maria Miller claimed that British art should be marketed as a commodity. Like highland beef, or Welsh coal, our culture should be packaged in neat, homogenous boxes, labelled up and shipped out to the highest bidder. Our response to that comes from Darren Saunders.
Norwegian punkrock by The Good The Bad and The Zugly, which brings back everything of the 90s Epitaph records and makes you want to go straight into the circle pit.
As I said, if you like them, then this will fit just nicely. As it happens, I like them, so this sits well with me. In a way, they stand for so much that I could never judge them harshly, but even I sometimes yearn for variety.
Hands Out are a punk band based in London, consisting of three full time members, and a fourth part-timer who provides loops and noises, and things that are usually extraneous to punk. Well, traditionally anyway.
I was working for Domino’s last year, delivering overpriced, bland pizzas to people who, on the whole, *really* didn’t need them. It was a pretty crap job, with terrible pay, but it had the one saving grace of allowing me to listen to 6 Music while I p …
Scranton, Pennsylvania; home to Dunder-Miflin’s Pennsylvania branch, serving the American Midwest’s paper needs with far better customer service than Staples could ever manage. Scranton is also home to The Menzingers, the latest band from Epitaph to ma …
Short, brash and noisy. That’s how you describe this EP, and given how Holy have managed to shoehorn 8 tracks into 12 minutes, it seems fitting to not spend too much time dissecting it. Classic, shouty hardcore punk, giving a nod to Crass, Black Flag a …
So, Ronin eh? Not the cracking movie with the awesome chase sequence, starring Robert DeNiro, Jean Reno, and some other types, but a post rock band from Italy. It’s obvious that they’re post rock, on account of the lack of vocals, excess of noodling, a …
Every now and then, a band come along who remind you that new music isn’t all a procession of identikit nonsense. It’s not all about bands who want to be Kasabian, Razorlight, or the most watered down version of Mogwai you’re ever likely to hear. Somet …
A lazy reviewer will listen to the album to which they have been assigned, and try to think of what clichés will fit it. This usually comes in the form of “a stunning return to form”, a phrase used every time Madonna releases an album (which begs the q …
