Best Indie Rock

Yesterday, moments before the cameras started rolling on my interview with Jay-Z , the rapper shared an emotional and sincerely heartfelt moment with a woman he had never met before. It was right after Jay-Z held his press conference announcing his momentous Madison Square Garden concert on September 11, 2009. We moved upstairs to the bar to interview the rap legend one-on-one, and as we sat down, a well-dressed lady came up to Jay, introduced herself, took his hand and began to tell him a story.

Amember of the rock aristocracy joins me this week in the form of Pete French, original singer with the groups Atomic Rooster and Leaf Hound. With both groups he recorded classic rock albums: Atomic Rooster’s In Hearing Of and Leaf Hound’s Growers Of Mushrooms – original copies of which are trading for over £3,000. In 2004 Pete reformed Leaf Hound, and three years later their new album, Unleashed, met with universally good reviews, with Kerrang! calling it ‘as good a rock album as you could hope to hear.’ Leaf Hound play at the Latest Music Bar on Friday 4 September (and you can catch them again at the Eel Pie Club in Twickenham on 16 September).

We’re making some changes to ChangeForge… For our ChangeForge community, we’re adding a few features: We’ve added a Google search widget to the website which offers a little cleaner search options. Feel free to use either the embedded WordPress search, or the new Google search. Don’t forget about the CF series archive . It’s a great way to find some rock solid series features. … and remember you can listen or subscribe to the audio feed of ChangeForge if you prefer, thanks to OdioGo .