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Read the latest from Spidewriter, Spencer Ide

Is Electronic Music in trouble?

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Experimental Electronic Sounds Society: EMS Improvisation Group, 'Vacant Possession' Viewing and The Last Toadsmen Of The East Norwich University of The East Monday 24th October, 2026 PLUS!!! E.M. Arson Debut Album Review - CLICK HERE 5th November 2026 ~ Experimental Electronic Sound Society I came away from Norwich University of Arts with the thought that electronic music is in trouble.  The session in the Performance Theatre at NUA was organised by Liam Wells , who is course leader for the Electronic Music and Film and Moving Image Production at the arts university.  Liam pulled some strings to provide a space for The Experimental Sound Society to meet, after the Norwich Puppet Theatre arrangement ended.  As the evening wrapped up, I headed out not sure that the exercise had been entirely worthwhile.  Electronic sounds and performance do not seem to have progressed much beyond the 1950s and 1960s electronic experimental sounds, despite the now widely available ...

Graduates of the Rock N’Roll High School

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The Jump Cuts Voodoo Daddy's Showroom, Norwich Tuesday 27th October 2026

Showtime For A Suburban Love Story

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Gavin Bowers and Friends Voodoo Daddy’s Showroom,  Norwich Tuesday 27th October, 2026

Storm Wendy Woos Them

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Nothing You Won't Have Heard Before Transvision Vamp at  Epic Studios, Norwich 25th October, 2026 “Norwich! We never knew!” Wendy James beamed on seeing the packed Epic Studios on Saturday last. Very few of the thousand-strong crowd had been deterred by the howling gale whistling down Magdalen Street.   They were there for her and a trip down Memory Lane, NR3. "I think we did play UAE when we first started out." she suggested, getting all the right letters for University of East Anglia's abbreviated initialism right, just not necessarily in the right order.  Wendy would go through the evening being a bit vague between songs, but in her dulcet tones, sounding like she was straight outta Norwich's Golden Triangle, no one particularly minded. I did wonder myself, how could Transvision Vamp sell out one of the city’s larger venues when The Undertones did not? Transvision Vamp were a pop-rock band who sold a stack of singles during their pomp of the late 1980s. They p...

Such Charming Men, The Undertones deliver an Epic Show

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The Undertones and Ranking Roger Junior at Epic Studio, Norwich 15th October 2026 There is a scene in the Stanley Kubrick movie, The Shining when the supposed novel writer’s days of splendid isolation are revealed to be nothing more than a descent into darkness.  Day after day, he has repeatedly typed one line over hundreds of pages: "All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy." Well, I kind of understand where he was mentally, as all I want to type for this review is: SUPERB SUPERB SUPERB SUPERB SUPERB SUPERB SUPERB SUPERB SUPERB SUPERB You get the idea. This is a picture of the set-list handed by an amiable security to a young lad being taken by his dad to see what his father was so excited about.  It made the boy’s day and it is a beautiful piece of memorabilia to be gifted. It may well be framed and displayed in mint condition for more than fifty years, which would see The Undertones being lovingly remembered in Norwich during 2076 and beyond. They deserve to be...

Viva La Underdog! - Micko & The Mellotronics New Single Plus other Norwich Music News

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Viva La  Underdog! Micko & The Mellotronics If you missed the release of the third album Trinity by 21st Century social-docu-pop-songster Micko Mellotronico and his band Micko & The Mellotronics earlier this year, take a moment to enjoy his latest single from the album. Released tomorrow, Friday 16th October , the single is accompanied by a typically quirky video. Viva Le Underdog is Micko’s take on the most unlikely cover star of modern days, a glove puppet called Sooty .  This TV character known to children of the 60s / 70s / 80s and early 90s had a look of permanent surprise, which anyone would if you had to go on TV with someone’s hand up your backside.  But that surprised look means a lot to Micko. It is the  bewilderment felt by us all at what complexity Life brings us, particularly how Life impacts on the innocent minds of children.  The Sooty look is the expression of an innocent child, the essence of innocence, he explained in an inte...