Simon Charterton News Today

Post-punk funk pioneers THE HIGSONS are to have their recordings for 2Tone reissued for Record Store Day. Formed at the University Of East Anglia in Norwich in 1980, the hugely influential band released several singles and shared stages with the likes of Bow Wow Wow, The Fall, Scars, Simple Minds and James Chance &

Former Specials and Bodysnatchers singer RHODA DAKAR has announced the release of her first new album in five years. Version Girl takes it's name from the 1970 single by legendary ska, rocksteady and reggae musician and producer Dandy Livingstone, whose ‘Let’s Do Rock Steady' was a Top 30 hit for The Bodysnatchers in M

London indie outfit This Is The Deep make wonderfully eccentric but catchy music. The Best is Yet to Come (Part 1) is a mini-album that plays at 45 RPM, whose eight songs mingle quirky post-punk dub-funk with something altogether poppier and frothier. They are unafraid of utilising quirky sound effects and stylings that, in others hands, might lead to a kitsch novelty factor, but in theirs the results range from outright pop to the skronk-punk-jazz abstraction of “Eyes on You” to a weird s...

Punk-jazz supergroup/power trio THE N.J.E. have announced the release of a new mini-album for the first of this year’s Record Store Day Drops. Formed in Whitechapel, the band features Terry Edwards (PJ Harvey, Gallon Drunk), Mark Bedford (Madness, BUtterfield 8) and Simon Charterton (The Higsons, Alex Harvey). Following on from 2019’s Afloat In Dub, their collaboration with On-U Sound guru Adrian Sherwood, “Nought To 60” takes its name from the trio’s single released late last year....

A book has been published about Norwich band The Higsons who formed in the city in 1980 and went on to be signed by 2 Tone Records.