PHONOGRAPHIC 10th April 2026
Big, loud and fun, Rich Ragany’s The Sideshows are glam-punk-rock. Think Hanoi Rocks meet the Sex Pistols meet The Wildhearts. Anthems abound and riffs cluster in flurries. Other musicians are Sami Yaffa, sideman for Jesse Malin, Michael Monroe, New York Dolls and Hanoi Rocks, and Simon Maxwell, who’s worked with Wildhearts members. There’s a lot of New York history, London history and assorted side-projects but it’s enough to say the trio have individually worked everywhere and know everyone, now teaming up for old fashioned rock and roll fun.
Hooks and big choruses fill the album, power chords flash by, drums thrash mercilessly. Quite how they managed such a scuzzy, screaming album in the Majorca countryside, I don’t know but I can only assume the DNA of grotty sticky-floored venues runs so deep it doesn’t wash off. There are ballady songs too, like ‘Say Goodbye On A Night Like This’, pop-punk melodic work with catchy tunes and lyrics worthy of Ash’s Tim Wheeler. A song like the following ‘This Could Be Everything’ folds a Graham Parker-ish melody into mid-seventies pub rock and makes for a lighter-waving anthem. Check out the banging chorus, “shine so bright”, of ‘Our Love In The Shadows’ if you want a quick taste of the set. Or the Jesse Malin-esque closer, ‘Not Sorry’, a classic of tuneful glam pop-punk with attitude.
A lot of fun – I hope they tour.