Douglas Wolk
Douglas Wolk is a Portland, Oregon-based author and critic. He has written about comics and popular music for publications including The New York Times, Rolling Stone, The Washington Post, The Nation, The New Republic, Salon.com, Pitchfork Media, The Believer. He has written two books: a volume in the 33⅓ series on James Brown's Live at the Apollo and Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. Wolk was the managing editor of CMJ New Music Monthly from 1993 to 1997, hosted a radio show on WFMU from 1999 to 2001, he maintains a blog and a record label, Dark Beloved Cloud. Lacunae, Douglas Wolk's blog circletheglo.be, Douglas Wolk's tumblr Reading Comics' Publishers Page Dark Beloved Cloud Records
NME
New Musical Express is a British music journalism website and former magazine, published since 1952. It was the first British paper to include a singles chart, in the edition of 14 November 1952. In the 1970s it became the best-selling British music newspaper. During the period 1972 to 1976, it was associated with gonzo journalism became associated with punk rock through the writings of Julie Burchill, Paul Morley and Tony Parsons, it started as a music newspaper, moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s and 1990s, changing from newsprint in 1998. An online version, NME.com, was launched in 1996. It became the world's biggest standalone music site, with over sixteen million users per month. With newsstand sales falling across the UK magazine sector, the magazine's paid circulation in the first half of 2014 was 15,830. In 2013, the list of NME's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and the way it was conceived was criticized by the media; the printed magazine NME was relaunched in September 2015 to be distributed nationally as a free publication.
The first average circulation published in February 2016 of 307,217 copies per week was the highest in the brand's history, beating the previous best of 306,881, recorded in 1964 at the height of the Beatles' fame. By December 2017, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, average distribution of NME had fallen to 289,432 copies a week, although its publisher Time Inc. UK claimed to have more than 13m global unique users per month, including 3m in the UK. In March 2018, the publisher announced that the print edition of NME would cease publication after 66 years, leaving it as an online-only title. NME's headquarters are in Southwark, England; the brand's current editor is Charlotte Gunn, replacing Mike Williams, who stepped down in February 2018. The paper was established in 1952; the Accordion Times and Musical Express was bought by London music promoter Maurice Kinn, for the sum of £1,000, just 15 minutes before it was due to be closed. It was relaunched as the New Musical Express, was published in a non-glossy tabloid format on standard newsprint.
On 14 November 1952, taking its cue from the US magazine Billboard, it created the first UK Singles Chart, a list of the Top Twelve best-selling singles. The first of these was, in contrast to more recent charts, a top twelve sourced by the magazine itself from sales in regional stores around the UK; the first number one was "Here in My Heart" by Al Martino. During the 1960s the paper championed the new British groups emerging at the time; the NME circulation peaked under Andy Gray with a figure of 306,881 for the period from January to June 1964. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were featured on the front cover; these and other artists appeared at the NME Poll Winners' Concert, an awards event that featured artists voted as most popular by the paper's readers. The concert featured a ceremony where the poll winners would collect their awards; the NME Poll Winners' Concerts took place between 1959 and 1972. From 1964 onwards they were filmed and transmitted on British television a few weeks after they had taken place.
In the mid-1960s, the NME was dedicated to pop while its older rival, Melody Maker, was known for its more serious coverage of music. Other competing titles included Record Mirror, which led the way in championing American rhythm and blues, Disc, which focused on chart news; the latter part of the decade saw the paper chart the rise of psychedelia and the continued dominance of British groups of the time. During this period some sections of pop music began to be designated as rock; the paper became engaged in a sometimes tense rivalry with Melody Maker. By the early 1970s, NME had lost ground to Melody Maker, as its coverage of music had failed to keep place with the development of rock music during the early years of psychedelia and progressive rock. In early 1972 the paper found itself on the verge of closure by its owner IPC. According to Nick Kent: After sales had plummeted to 60,000 and a review of guitar instrumentalist Duane Eddy had been printed which began with the immortal words "On this, his 35th album, we find Duane in as good as voice as ever," the NME had been told to rethink its policies or die on the vine.
Alan Smith was made editor in 1972, was told by IPC to turn things around or face closure. To achieve this and his assistant editor Nick Logan raided the underground press for writers such as Charles Shaar Murray and Nick Kent, recruited other writers such as Tony Tyler, Ian MacDonald and Californian Danny Holloway. According to The Economist, the New Musical Express "started to champion underground, up-and-coming music.... NME became the gateway to a more rebellious world. First came glamrock, bands such as T. Rex, came punk....by 1977 it had become the place to keep in touch with a cultural revolution, enthralling the nation's listless youth. Bands such as Sex Pistols, X-Ray Spex and Generation X were regular cover stars, eulogised by writers such as Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons, whose nihilistic tone narrated the punk years perfectly." By the time Smith handed the editor's chair to Logan in mid-1973, the paper was selling nearly 300,000 copies per week and was outstripping Melody Maker, Record Mirror and Sounds.
According to MacDonald: I think all the other papers knew by 1974 that NME had become the best music paper in Britain. We had most of the best writers and photographers, the best layouts
Catatonia (band)
Catatonia were an alternative rock band from Wales who gained popularity in the mid- to late 1990s. The band formed in 1992; the first major lineup featured Dafydd Ieuan on drums, Clancy Pegg on keyboard, Owen Powell on guitar and Paul Jones on bass. They recorded two EPs, For Hooked. Pegg was fired prior to work on their first studio album, Way Beyond Blue, while Ieuan was replaced with Aled Richards shortly afterwards; this new line-up remained for the rest of the lifetime of the band. The single "You've Got a Lot to Answer For" received radio airplay and became the band's first top 40 single in the UK Singles Chart in September 1996, their breakout success came at the start of 1998 with the International Velvet album and the release of the single "Mulder and Scully" some two weeks apart. The album went to number one in the album chart, sold more than 900,000 copies being certified triple platinum by British Phonographic Industry, while the single reached number 3 in the singles chart, the highest any Catatonia single would chart.
The follow-up release, "Road Rage", reached number 5 in May, was nominated for best song at the Brit Awards and the Ivor Novello Awards, winning at the Q Awards. The title track of the album International Velvet received additional attention, the band performed it at the opening of the opening ceremony of the 1999 Rugby World Cup on 1 October in the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff. While in Catatonia, Matthews collaborated with Space on "The Ballad of Tom Jones" in March 1998 and with Tom Jones on a cover of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" in December 1999, their final top ten single came in April 1999 with "Dead from the Waist Down" off the following album, Equally Cursed and Blessed. Rumours began to circulate about a breakup, but a further album, Paper Scissors Stone was released in 2001 following a two-year break from live performances. Matthews' drinking had long been reported in the tabloids and gossip columns, she entered rehab in mid-2001 for drinking and smoking; the tour to support Paper Scissors Stone was cancelled, a month the band announced that they were breaking up.
Matthews has subsequently released solo albums, while Powell has become a radio presenter and joined the supergroup The Stand to release a charity single. Critics have highlighted the use of metaphors in Catatonia's work, songs have been compared to poetry by critics. Writing duties had been shared across the band, although had been led by Roberts, they disagreed with being labelled an indie band, with Powell saying they had only sought to write pop music. The story that Catatonia were formed after Mark Roberts spotted Cerys Matthews busking in Cardiff in 1992 was an invention for the media in order to give the band a newsworthy biography. While the duo did go busking, they didn't meet this way. Matthews had been a fan of Roberts' previous band Y Cyrff, they began dating as well as writing songs together at the end of 1991. For four years after this they remained in the relationship, many aspects of this being played out publicly in their lyrics, they took the name of the band from Matthews' experience working in a mental health facility as well as the novel The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley.
They believed it to mean a sense of extreme pleasure and sleep, wrote the song "Sweet Catatonia", subsequently naming the band after the song. As Sweet Catatonia and Roberts recorded a series of demos at the city centre youth project in Cardiff, nicknamed "Grassroots". Roberts and Matthews encountered Owen Powell during this time, in Robert's Y Cyrff and now had a band called Colour 45. Both bands entered a band competition to play at the Cardiff Bay Music Fiesta, while Colour 45 came tenth and was given a place on the bill, Sweet Catatonia placed 45th. Roberts and Matthews hired a drummer, Stephen "Frog" Jenkins from the band U Thant, continued to record bilingual Welsh/English tracks; the band began to play live, with Roberts busking to support their income. They were spotted by the girlfriend of the lead singer of the band The Pooh Sticks, who thought that Matthews would make a good female voice for the group, but after seeing Sweet Catatonia perform, the band members didn't agree and so Matthews remained with Catatonia.
Further recordings were made, with Guto Pryce joining the trio. This session included the track "Gyda Gwen" which attracted the attention of Rhys Mwyn at Crai Records; the band line up changed as they signed to Crai, with Jenkins and Pryce departing for other projects. Mwyn arranged for Roberts to be joined by Dafydd Ieuan on drums. Another member of the new shortened "Catatonia" was former Y Cyrff member Paul Jones on bass guitar; the final member was Londoner Clancy Pegg on keyboards, who had befriended Roberts and Matthews after moving to Cardiff. Mwyn used his contacts to get Catatonia onto Welsh language television, strove to move their live performances away from Cardiff so that they weren't playing in front of their regulars the entire time, they had their first overseas gigs in Germany. Catatonia were hired by political party Plaid Cymru to headline a Welsh language concert at Builth Wells in August 1993, but they performed in both Welsh and English. Despite being signed to Crai, this was more as promoter than.
It was only when Roberts suggested that Catatonia record some extended plays after two months with the label that Mwyn made the arrangements. The first, entitled For Tinkerbell, had a cover photo taken by Roberts and Matthews' housemate Roland Dafis. Mwyn got the record on BBC Radio 1 after sending a copy to radio prese
Music genre
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Academics have argued that categorizing music by genre is inaccurate and outdated. Music can be divided into different genres in many different ways; the artistic nature of music means that these classifications are subjective and controversial, some genres may overlap. There are varying academic definitions of the term genre itself. In his book Form in Tonal Music, Douglass M. Green distinguishes between form, he lists madrigal, canzona and dance as examples of genres from the Renaissance period. To further clarify the meaning of genre, Green writes, "Beethoven's Op. 61 and Mendelssohn's Op. 64 are identical in genre – both are violin concertos – but different in form. However, Mozart's Rondo for Piano, K. 511, the Agnus Dei from his Mass, K. 317 are quite different in genre but happen to be similar in form."
Some, like Peter van der Merwe, treat the terms genre and style as the same, saying that genre should be defined as pieces of music that share a certain style or "basic musical language." Others, such as Allan F. Moore, state that genre and style are two separate terms, that secondary characteristics such as subject matter can differentiate between genres. A music genre or subgenre may be defined by the musical techniques, the style, the cultural context, the content and spirit of the themes. Geographical origin is sometimes used to identify a music genre, though a single geographical category will include a wide variety of subgenres. Timothy Laurie argues that since the early 1980s, "genre has graduated from being a subset of popular music studies to being an ubiquitous framework for constituting and evaluating musical research objects". Among the criteria used to classify musical genres are the trichotomy of art and traditional musics. Alternatively, music can be divided on three variables: arousal and depth.
Arousal reflects the energy level of the music. These three variables help explain why many people like similar songs from different traditionally segregated genres. Musicologists have sometimes classified music according to a trichotomic distinction such as Philip Tagg's "axiomatic triangle consisting of'folk','art' and'popular' musics", he explains that each of these three is distinguishable from the others according to certain criteria. The term art music refers to classical traditions, including both contemporary and historical classical music forms. Art music exists in many parts of the world, it emphasizes formal styles that invite technical and detailed deconstruction and criticism, demand focused attention from the listener. In Western practice, art music is considered a written musical tradition, preserved in some form of music notation rather than being transmitted orally, by rote, or in recordings, as popular and traditional music are. Most western art music has been written down using the standard forms of music notation that evolved in Europe, beginning well before the Renaissance and reaching its maturity in the Romantic period.
The identity of a "work" or "piece" of art music is defined by the notated version rather than by a particular performance, is associated with the composer rather than the performer. This is so in the case of western classical music. Art music may include certain forms of jazz, though some feel that jazz is a form of popular music. Sacred Christian music forms an important part of the classical music tradition and repertoire, but can be considered to have an identity of its own; the term popular music refers to any musical style accessible to the general public and disseminated by the mass media. Musicologist and popular music specialist Philip Tagg defined the notion in the light of sociocultural and economical aspects: Popular music, unlike art music, is conceived for mass distribution to large and socioculturally heterogeneous groups of listeners and distributed in non-written form, only possible in an industrial monetary economy where it becomes a commodity and in capitalist societies, subject to the laws of'free' enterprise... it should ideally sell as much as possible.
Popular music is found on most commercial and public service radio stations, in most commercial music retailers and department stores, in movie and television soundtracks. It is noted on the Billboard charts and, in addition to singer-songwriters and composers, it involves music producers more than other genres do; the distinction between classical and popular music has sometimes been blurred in marginal areas such as minimalist music and light classics. Background music for films/movies draws on both traditions. In this respect, music is like fiction, which draws a distinction between literary fiction and popular fiction, not always precise. Country music known as country and western, hillbilly music, is a genre of popular music that originated in the southern United States in the early 1920s; the polka is a Czech dance and genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the early 1950s, developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and particular
TommyD
Tommy Asher Danvers, better known by his stage name TommyD, is a British producer, arranger, DJ, multi-instrumentalist. He is best known for his work with artists such as Right Said Fred, Catatonia, KT Tunstall, Corinne Bailey Rae, Graffiti6. In addition, his career as a songwriter and/or producer has led him to work with a number of artists, including Kylie Minogue, Janet Jackson, Noel Gallagher, Sophie Ellis-Bextor, Kanye West, Jay Z, Beyoncé, Emeli Sandé, fun. Born in London, to an actor father and a chef and restaurateur mother, he credits his initial interest in music to the varied sounds and cultures of his family home and the surrounding capital city. TommyD's musical career began at the Elliott Comprehensive School in London. While in school, he performed as a guitarist, keyboardist and singer in a number of South London-based bands of varying styles. Upon finishing his studies, he worked as an assistant in a commercial studio and additionally sold musical and studio equipment. At the age of eighteen, Danvers began a thirteen-year career as a DJ by performing in a local South London club.
Within a year, he made a name for himself, becoming a resident at The Wag Club and The Limelight, running several successful nights with DJ DB. He created his own record label in 1988. Through his friendship with Justin Berkmann, TommyD helped to develop Ministry of Sound, where he became a resident DJ in 1992 and toured with the likes of CJ Mackintosh, Masters at Work, Todd Terry, Roger Sanchez, he described his DJing style as underground soulful house, similar to the new house of Disclosure and Duke Dumont. He was a regular DJ in venues such as Cream and Back To Basics in the United Kingdom, Space in Ibiza, Danceteria and Twilo in the United States, his DJ career included tours of South America and the Far East, including a gig at the wedding of Adbullah II ibn al-Hussein and Rania al Yassin of Jordan. He collaborated with the British dance, acid house, techno group E-Zee Possee with Jeremy Healy, producing their album The Bone Dance. While DJing at a club in South London, Danvers became friends with two brothers and Richard Fairbrass, who one night approached Danvers with a cassette of songs.
After producing a demo and playing it for the Fairbrass brothers, who recorded as Right Said Fred, the trio worked together to record the song "I'm Too Sexy", which reached the top ten in nine countries. Danvers went on to produce and perform on their debut album Up, including follow-up singles "Don't Talk Just Kiss" and "Deeply Dippy."TommyD received remix credits for a number of artists' club and radio releases in the 1990s, including Heaven 17, Björk, A Tribe Called Quest, Billy Ocean, Michael Jackson, Jethro Tull. In 1993, Danvers, in collaboration with house music DJ Roger Sanchez, co-wrote and produced the single "D-Day" as a duo of the same name, he collaborated with Little Louie Vega and Kenny "Dope" Gonzalez of Masters at Work on their track "Voices in My Mind," released in 1994 under the name Voices. Additionally, he partnered with DJ Fat Tony to form the duo Fierce Child, releasing an EP titled Men Adore… in 1995 and another single, "Gonna Getcha," in 1996. Combining his studio knowledge and his DJing experience, Danvers began to produce other bands.
His work with Wales alternative rock band Catatonia led to two chart-topping albums, 1998's International Velvet and 1999's Equally Cursed and Blessed, which produced five top-ten singles and resulted in nominations for the Mercury Music Prize and the Brit Awards. For his work on Equally Cursed and Blessed, Danvers earned a Best Producer nomination at the Q Awards in 2000. Additional production credits followed for artists like Finlay Quaye, Eagle-Eye Cherry, Jennifer Paige in the early 2000s. In 1999, Danvers produced a cover version of "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Cerys Matthews and Tom Jones for Jones's 1999 album, Reload. In the early 2000s, Danvers wrote and produced "More More More," the opening track from Kylie Minogue's eighth studio album Fever, he wrote and produced "I Believe" on Sophie Ellis-Bextor's debut album Read My Lips. Danvers went on to help develop the careers of new United Kingdom artists KT Tunstall and Corinne Bailey Rae, with credits on each artist's chart-topping debut albums.
He co-wrote two tracks, "Under the Weather" and "Stoppin' The Love," on Tunstall's 2004 debut album Eye to the Telescope, "I'd Like To" on Bailey Rae's self-titled 2006 debut. While continuing to work with different artists as a producer and songwriter, Danvers met singer-songwriter Jamie Scott, who had just released the album Park Bench Theories under the name Jamie Scott and the Town. While Scott was looking to work with new collaborators to repackage the album, an A&R executive at his label, suggested he meet with Danvers; the two wrote the song "Stare into The Sun" together on acoustic guitar. Graffiti6 first released their debut album, Colours, on their own independent label, NWFree Music, in October 2010. In April 2011, the duo signed to Capitol Records and re-released the album the following year, with the single "Free" reaching radio charts in the United States, the Netherlands, Belgium. Music from the album received syncs for a multitude of TV series and advertising campaigns, including Grey's Anatomy, CSI: NY, Covert Affairs, Victoria's Secret, Heineken, MTV, VH1, The Sun.
A second album, The Bridge, was released independently in April 2
Alternative Press (magazine)
Alternative Press is an American music magazine based in Cleveland, Ohio. It provides readers with band interviews, information on upcoming releases, music charts, it was founded in 1985 by Mike Shea, the president. Joe Scarpelli is the general manager. Jason Pettigrew is editor in chief; the first issue of Alternative Press was a photocopied punk rock fanzine, distributed at concerts in Cleveland, Ohio beginning in June 1985 by AP's founder, Mike Shea. He disliked the music, being broadcast on radio stations and believed that bands playing underground music should be given more media coverage "all in the same spot", he said; the name for the magazine, Alternative Press, was not a reference to the alternative rock genre, but referred to the fanzine being an alternative to the local press that wasn't covering the music that Shea felt deserved to be heard. He said, "It has always been about covering music for the misfits". Shea began working on his first issue in his mother's house in Ohio. Shea and a friend, Jimmy Kosicki, targeted the Cleveland neighborhood of Coventry.
"I offset print. I'd walk into these flower shops and Hallmark shops, I'd say'We're going to put out an entertainment publication, it's going to be for kids and only $25.' And they'd look at my high school newspaper and say,'It's professional...' That's how we got enough money to make the first issue". Financial problems plagued AP in its early years. Of the fledgling magazine's struggles in 1986, Shea said: "After the last few punk concerts we promoted that year failed to make any money to help finance the magazine, I had to start begging my mom for money to keep AP going: $1,500 here, $2,500 there. My mom was super-supportive of the whole endeavor, she seemed to enjoy having a bunch of punkers over at all hours of the night putting together issues on her dining-room table and getting spray mount all over her nice tablecloths and on the carpeting, which resulted in our socks getting pulled off as we walked over it". However, by the end of 1986, publication had ceased due to its financial problems, not resuming until the spring of 1988.
With the growth of alternative rock in the early 1990s, circulation began to increase. AP's covers included bands such as Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden, prior to each band's mainstream success. By 1994, the magazine was doing cover stories on Henry Rollins and Love and Rockets. Norman Wonderly, now the publisher, was credited by Shea as having "made most of these happen and the more Norman got what he wanted, the more artists wanted their cover shoots to look the way Norman wanted, so on, it wasn’t always easy. Did we sometimes protest too much? Maybe, but we were up against a lot. Nobody takes you unless you take yourself and that's what Norman brings to his position to this day". By the early 2000s, after resisting attempts to purchase the magazine, Shea shifted the focus of Alternative Press to the newer punk music associated with the Warped Tour; when asked the magazine's audience, Shea said, "It went from heartfelt emo, to screamo, to post-hardcore, to metalcore… but, there will always be a suburban kid full of angst.
They will always want music". At the time of its 20th anniversary in 2005, AP had grown to an average size of 112 pages per issue averaging between 198 and 220-plus pages a month; the magazine's current monthly columns include "The AP Poll", "In the Studio", "AP&R", "Chalkboard Confessional", "Musician of the Month", "My Favorite Gear", "Next Exit", "Gig Bag", "1000 Words", "Beauty and the Band" and "10 Essential." AP sponsored a radio show aired on XM Radio, a podcast featuring in-depth discussions on various topics with people such as Fall Out Boy's Pete Wentz and Kevin Lyman, a compilation CD, has been a major sponsor of tours including Warped Tour, Taste of Chaos and its own "The AP Tour." Official website The AP Tour
Road Rage (Catatonia song)
"Road Rage" is a song recorded by the Welsh band Catatonia, taken from their second studio album, International Velvet. It was written by band member Mark Roberts, with the production credit given to the band. "Road Rage" was released as the third single from the album, following their break-out success with the song "Mulder and Scully". The title "Road Rage" was based on the murder of Lee Harvey by his girlfriend Tracie Andrews in December 1996, something for which singer Cerys Matthews apologised to Harvey's mother. "Road Rage" was received positively by the press, with particular praise given to the way that Matthews rolled the r's in the chorus of the song. Commercially, the song peaked at number 5 on the UK Singles Chart gaining silver certification from the British Phonographic Industry, it reached the top 30 in Ireland and the top 40 in Australia. It received nominations for best song at the Brit Awards, the Ivor Novello Awards, winning at the Q Awards. "Road Rage" was released as a follow-up to the success of their single "Mulder and Scully", which became their break-out hit.
"Road Rage" was the third single from the album International Velvet."Road Rage" was included on the American release of the album Equally Cursed and Blessed in March 2000. It appeared on the best of collection by their label Blanco y Negro Records, Catatonia Greatest Hits. Ian Hyland gave "Road Rage" a rating of nine out of ten in his review for the Sunday Mirror, he said that if "Matthews sounded any more Welsh she'd be a dragon but this is a excellent tune in any language." Richard Wallace called the single "magnificent" in an article for the Daily Mirror and praised the "seductive rolling Rs in the chorus". Paul Cole, for the Sunday Mercury, described "Road Rage" in 2002 as the best of Catatonia's greatest hits and "the perfect pop song". In 2002, "Road Rage" was ranked as the third best song by a Welsh artist of all time, behind "Delilah" by Tom Jones and "Sixty Eight Guns" by The Alarm, in a list compiled for the Guinness World Records British Hit Singles book. However, none of these songs featured in the overall top 20."Road Rage" was nominated for several major music awards.
It won the Best Single award at the Q Awards in 1998, with Matthews picking up the award on the night. It was nominated for Best British Single at the 1999 Brit Awards, but lost out to "Angels" by Robbie Williams. "Road Rage" was nominated for Best Contemporary Song at the 1999 Ivor Novello Awards. After the award was given to Tin Tin Out instead, Matthews left the ceremony but returned; the title of "Road Rage" was based on the murder of Lee Harvey by his girlfriend Tracie Andrews in December 1996. She stabbed him more than 30 times with a penknife, claiming that this had been committed by a stranger in a road rage-type attack; as a result of the song's release, Lee's mother Maureen said that "It is disgusting that people are trying to make money from such a tragedy. My son did not die in a road rage attack, he was killed by Tracie Andrews. We do not need songs like this". Catatonia's lead singer Cerys Matthews said that while the title of the song was based on the case, the lyrics were about advances in technology.
In her book Pure Evil, Maureen Harvey stated "... at least the group's singer Cerys Matthews had the decency to return my call and explain that she hadn't intended to cause any offence. She tried to convince me that the song showed how Tracie had gone crazy and that it didn't do her any favours." Catatonia played at the Barrowland Ballroom in Glasgow, shortly after the release of "Road Rage" as the support act for Travis. Neil Cooper at The Scotsman said that "the way rolls her R's" on "Road Rage", "you can forgive her anything." A similar comment was received in the Birmingham Evening Mail for the performed at the Wellington Rooms, saying "the way she rasped and rolled her R's on Road Rage was delightful". Returning to the Barrowland Ballroom in March 1999, the audience joined in with the rendition of "Road Rage", causing the review in the Daily Record to describe the atmosphere as not "all that different to some huge, back-of-the-bus knees-up". At the London-based show shortly afterwards, the song was sung with "more force than finesse" according to Adrian Thrills of the Daily Mail.
After the breakup of Catatonia, Matthews performed "Road Rage" solo at the Inspirations for Barretstown Camp concert on 30 March 2012. Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
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