Sid Smith
LightNews LightNews
banner
sidsmith.bsky.social
Sid Smith
@sidsmith.bsky.social
2K followers 480 following 2.7K posts
Freelancer writing about music & musicians in print & online. I share an office with a cat called The Bug.
Contact me here or via [email protected]
Posts Replies Media Videos
Pinned
sidsmith.bsky.social
Sid Smith @sidsmith.bsky.social · Nov 11
My King Crimson biog is available here:
burningshed.com/sid-smith_in...
“Vivid and incisive” Mojo
"Beautifully written and engaging" Classic Rock
“Properly indispensable” Record Collector
"The most compendious, exhaustive history of the band that anyone could want." Stuart Maconie BBC Radio 6.
sidsmith.bsky.social
The Bug interrupts play for some urgently needed fussing.
January 17, 2026 at 10:44 AM
sidsmith.bsky.social
Remembered Sky
Whitley Bay 2020
January 17, 2026 at 8:08 AM
Reposted by Sid Smith
jamesmcnairwrites.bsky.social
Guess they knew Motörhead were signed to Bronze.
January 16, 2026 at 6:35 PM
Reposted by Sid Smith
sidsmith.bsky.social
Remembered Sky
Northumberland 2018
January 16, 2026 at 8:53 AM
sidsmith.bsky.social
The Music Improvisation Company ECM 1005
Bristling with coarse textures, energetic bursts, and Jamie Muir's atomised clattering, the microscopic hurly-burly of what, in 1970, felt bruisingly new comes with a cover that hints at something insurgent and wild about to break through.
#ECMFirst100 #ECM
Manfred Eicher’s survey of contemporary music turns its attention to the UK’s free music scene for the label’s fifth release. On first listen, it’s as if one has stumbled into a chaotic brawl; nothing seems fixed, everything is in constant motion. Yet those volleys of fragmentary notes and noises surge with an unrelenting energy throughout these incandescent performances. Six Degrees of Separation fans can fill their boots with the players here whose individual credits forge links, in no particular order, to the likes of Stockhausen, King Crimson, Talk Talk, The Rolling Stones, and Morecambe and Wise, to name but a few. The group represents a kind of partial snapshot or distillation of the scene that began life in the mid-1960s around The Little Theatre Club, which would spawn the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, Gentle Fire, Isra 1903, and other ad hoc groupings whose work is generally referred to in hushed, revered tones. For King Crimson fans, there’s a frisson to be had in being able to hear the baking tray, metal sheet, chimes, and sundry other percussion and all sorts that would still be part of Jamie Muir’s rig on Larks’ Tongues In Aspic three years after this album was made. I didn’t hear this album until at least ten years after that, and certainly didn’t own a copy until the early 2000s. This one is a US pressing - the original German being hard to find.
January 16, 2026 at 4:08 PM
sidsmith.bsky.social
Into the afternoon shift with a recent #ECM arrival. I'd not heard of it before, but added it to a Discogs order simply because it was a fiver. Cello and a massive church organ start off serene, then go full-on end-of-the-world batshit crazy. In other words, right up my strasse.
January 16, 2026 at 1:39 PM
sidsmith.bsky.social
Remembered Sky
Northumberland 2018
January 16, 2026 at 8:53 AM
Reposted by Sid Smith
sidsmith.bsky.social
Remembered Sky
Whitley Bay 2017
January 15, 2026 at 8:06 AM
sidsmith.bsky.social
Enjoying some Family time
January 15, 2026 at 5:41 PM
Reposted by Sid Smith
davidallengreen.bsky.social
"Look. don't provoke Trump and his circle, else they will invoke the Insurrection Act."

Trump and his circle want to invoke the Insurrection Act anyway, one way or another. Just a question of how and when.

Appeasing them ain't going to work.
January 15, 2026 at 5:25 PM
sidsmith.bsky.social
Remembered Sky
Whitley Bay 2017
January 15, 2026 at 8:06 AM
sidsmith.bsky.social
This
maryepworth.bsky.social Mary Epworth @maryepworth.bsky.social · 2d
Why would anyone let something else research for them? Research is the fun bit.
January 14, 2026 at 10:35 PM
sidsmith.bsky.social
First full track released from the forthcoming Soft Machine album, Thirteen.
youtu.be/NhLtS7jvsJ4?...
Open Road
YouTube video by Soft Machine - Topic
youtu.be
January 14, 2026 at 7:18 PM
sidsmith.bsky.social
Into the evening shift with the strange and sometimes beautiful sounds from Vault Of Blossomed Ropes. You can find out more here:
vaultofblossomedropes.bandcamp.com/album/etidor...
January 14, 2026 at 6:27 PM
sidsmith.bsky.social
I thought I'd give Soused another go. I wasn't convinced the first time around in 2014. After the previous and brilliant SW releases, it seemed a bit ordinary - even when played at the recommended ear-bleeding volume.
January 14, 2026 at 5:29 PM
Reposted by Sid Smith
sidsmith.bsky.social
Remembered Sky
Whitley Bay 2020
January 14, 2026 at 7:18 AM
sidsmith.bsky.social
After a day spent time travelling between 1970 and 1971, I'm now in the office accompanied by the gently spacious sounds of Maceij Obara's quartet from 2019.
The cover of Three Crowns by the Maciej Obra Quartet sits on top of the LP cleaner. Yeah, I know, but I don't make the rules.
January 14, 2026 at 4:18 PM
sidsmith.bsky.social
Remembered Sky
Whitley Bay 2020
January 14, 2026 at 7:18 AM
Reposted by Sid Smith
sidsmith.bsky.social
Remembered Sky
Whitley Bay 2017
January 13, 2026 at 7:24 AM
sidsmith.bsky.social
There are some days when I think that Save Me from this album is the best sound in the universe. Today is one of those days.
January 13, 2026 at 5:43 PM
Reposted by Sid Smith
sardonicus.eu
The Black Hawk Nightclub, San Francisco
Leigh Wiener, 1961
street scene at night, people stood outside a club, neon signs and street lights illuminate it all, traffic blurs by.
January 13, 2026 at 8:49 AM
Reposted by Sid Smith
iammilliam.bsky.social
*in the voice of Jake Thackray introducing one of his songs* "This is a very good episode of Backlisted all about Jake Thackray, and if you like things that are very good, perhaps you will enjoy it. See what you think." @backlisted.bsky.social www.backlisted.fm/episodes/255...
255. Jake Thackray - The Unsung Writer by Paul Thompson — Backlisted
Biographer and singer-songwriter Paul Thompson joins us for a new episode of Backlisted devoted to the life and work of Jake Thackray, the so-called 'Yorkshire chansonnier' who died in 2002. Thackray ...
www.backlisted.fm
January 13, 2026 at 7:08 AM
sidsmith.bsky.social
Remembered Sky
Whitley Bay 2017
January 13, 2026 at 7:24 AM
Reposted by Sid Smith
sidsmith.bsky.social
Remembered Sky
Whitley Bay 2015
January 12, 2026 at 9:39 AM
sidsmith.bsky.social
It's getting dark...
I love her earlier albums and acknowledge their place in the pantheon, etc. However, this is the one that truly, madly, deeply speaks to me the most.
The cover of The End...by Nico stands next to the turntable playing the LP
January 12, 2026 at 5:41 PM