Here it is at last! Our little chat with Graham in Austin. He talks about his new folk direction, and, more importantly, the one thing we’ve all been dying to know. Are Blur going to do Mr Robinson’s Quango at Glastonbury?

Better late than never, day three of our SXSW blog. Jam packed full of bands, can you spot them all? Highlights have got to be us getting together with the legend that is Steven Van Zandt (aka Silvio from the Sopranos) to chat about his Underground Garage night, and that weird Wu Tang/Black Lips collaboration…

There’s more to come from Day Three, in the form of a hilarious video interview with Ian St Pe from the Black Lips, stay tuned. xx

ROTR’s SXSW headquarters. Pure glamour.

We’re here. After ten hours on a plane, then forty minutes on another plane, we found ourselves in sunny Austin yesterday afternoon, speeding down the Interregional in a cab driven by an 83-year-old gospel blues piano player.

Now we’re getting ready to head out for the first day of the music festival – frantically scouring invites and flyers, kidding ourselves we’ll be able to do anything but go with the flow.

Bands we’re excited about seeing: Cursive, Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson, The Pack A.D, Sebastian Grainger, the Hold Steady, The Black Lips, King Kahn and the Shrines, the Sonics…seeing as the list of bands playing exceeds 2000 it’s hard to pick a handful. Needless to say we’ll most likely be running around like headless chickens within an hour of leaving the hotel this morning.

Remember we’ll be armed with a flipcam as well as a camera, so we’ll be uploading our video blog of the day tomorrow as well as a few photos and our lowdown on what was cool and what sucked.

Stay tuned.

Sian B Rockin’

xox

Guess what – ISSUE #4 is now here for you to view and download. And let me tell you, it’s gorgeous. Interviews with The Black Lips, The Pack A.D (plus their guide to tour snacking), Sebastian Bach, Diagonal, Pulled Apart By Horses, Bo Ningen and the Cut in the Hill Gang. All brilliant, all pretty, all Riot on the Rocks.

Click the link on the right to download the pdf!

Within a matter of hours we’ll be on a plane to Austin so by Wednesday our blogs will start to come through from SXSW – video interviews with every musician we can lay our hands on plus reviews of all the best shows and our own little festival diary. Superb. Superb.

If you want a hard copy of the zine then drop us a line and we can send you one with a lovely free badge.

Sian B Rockin’ xox

This is a segment of a review I started writing of ATP Vs Pitchfork last year… never got around to finishing it off posting it. As you will see I didn’t get very far. 

ROTR were nothing short of jubilant when it was announced that the first of this year’s ATP weekends was to return to its roots at Camber Sands, after growth led the festival to the sprawling and soulless Minehead in 2006. Rather than doing a blow-by-blow run down set by set, ROTR have selected their highlights. Enjoy.

 Thrown in at the deep end on the opening afternoon, Memphis’ garage punk wunderkid (although he’s now 28) Jay Reatard’s set became instant legend among those there in time to catch it, and a sore point for those who were not. Ploughing through an album’s worth of material – which didn’t make for a long set given most of his tracks are around a minute long – he cut quite a figure, all long brown curls and thrashing flying V. Garth-a-like drummer Billy Hayes and  bass boy Steven Pope sealed the deal on this Bermuda-triangle of fast-forward Adverts-inspired punk noise, heavier in the flesh than on record, and over before you had time to wonder what he looked like under all that hair.

 The other day a friend asked me “Is it okay to like Vampire Weekend? I can’t work out if it is or not”. A few months previously I had faced the very same internal struggle when the band’s self-titled debut found its way on to my iPod. If they were from London I would hate them. I really hope they don’t wear trouser braces. Are they posh? There must be a reason for me to hate this band. All these issues scuttled through my mind.  The fact is that when I was asked the question, I didn’t even take a breath before answering. “Yes. Of course it’s okay. They’re amazing.”

And amazing they were taking to the main stage Friday teatime. Ivy League indie dressed in head-to -toe Gap (with the possible exception of the keyboard player – American Apparel til he dies) doesn’t look too good on paper, but in practice Vampire Weekend are nothing short of boy wonders – writing superbly crafted, catchy African-tinged pop songs  laced with witty observations of college life. Live the tracks are stripped back yet maintain detail where it is important, and a set that is essentially a shuffled run down of the album in its entirety falls together perfectly.

Yeah that’s it.