What does it sound like?: Keith Jarrett is the pre-eminent solo piano performer of his generation. His Köln Concert is legendary, a remarkable improvisation, despite, or because … [Read More...] about Keith Jarrett – New Vienna
Musings on the byways of popular culture
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What does it sound like?: Keith Jarrett is the pre-eminent solo piano performer of his generation. His Köln Concert is legendary, a remarkable improvisation, despite, or because … [Read More...] about Keith Jarrett – New Vienna
What does it sound like?: It’s 11 years since Suzanne Vega’s last album of self-penned original material (2014’s snappily titled Tales from the Realm of the Queen of Pentacles). … [Read More...] about Suzanne Vega – Flying With Angels
What does it sound like?: This is the first standalone release of the soundtrack to the 1972 film, available on double cd and double vinyl. Although you don’t get the excerpts … [Read More...] about Pink Floyd At Pompeii MCMLXXII
What does it sound like?: This 3cd plus bluray set rounds up the music produced in the early eighties from a collaboration between Fripp and Summers. I Advance Masked was the … [Read More...] about Andy Summers & Robert Fripp – The Complete Recordings 1981 – 1984
Venue: The Beacon Date: 15/06/2025 I haven’t heard anything of Robert Cray for at least 30 years. He still has the same band and, remarkably, looks exactly the same. I’m not a … [Read More...] about Robert Cray, Bristol
Venue: The Royal Albert Hall, London Date: 16/06/2025 Bonnie Raitt at The Royal Albert Hall? It’s always one of my favourite gigs of the year, when it comes around every couple … [Read More...] about Bonnie Raitt
Venue: Utlilita Arena, Newcastle/BP Pulse Arena, Birmingham Date: 05/06/2025 The initial viral reaction to the opening Australian dates of this tour were pretty scathing and, it … [Read More...] about Kylie Minogue -The Tension Tour
Venue: Bridgewater Hall Manchester Date: 02/06/2025 Cat Power has been touring her song for song live performance of Bob Dylan’s 1966 tour setlist for the best part of 18 months. … [Read More...] about Cat Power Sings Dylan 1966
By Twang 41 Comments
Tiggerlion joins Twang in the pod, seizes the microphone and subjects the podmaster to a barrage of questions. Much laughter ensues and Tig denies we all have a little emo in … [Read More...] about The Afterword #109: Tiggerlion takeover!
By Twang 32 Comments
Steve T joins Twang in the pod to discuss which of his favourite tracks, book and luxury he would take to a desert island should fate place him there. If this format reminds you of … [Read More...] about The Afterword #108: DID with Steve T
By Twang 83 Comments
Twang, Tiggerlion, FentonSteve and Dai blow the cobwebs out of the pod and convene to discuss remixes and remasters. Fenton talks for approximately 3 hours about Sadie and dynamic … [Read More...] about The Afterword #107: Remix/Remaster
By Twang 61 Comments
Twang joins Tiggerlion, MosleyMoles, Leeds Boy and SteveT in the pod to discuss the lockdown. The team consider what cultural gems kept them sane in this difficult period, … [Read More...] about The Afterword #106: The lockdowncast
Twang finally finds the key to the pod and virtually gathers with Tiggerlion, Dave Amitri and special guest Hilary to discuss the 80s, a decade beloved and reviled by equal numbers … [Read More...] about The Afterword #105: The 80scast
Tiggerlion on Cupid & Psyche 85 by Scritti Politti
Green Gartside and his co-conspirators created this shimmering beauty of a pop album right in the middle of the dire eighties. It was the decade of Margaret Thatcher, economic recession, crippling unemployment, the miners’ strike, “the most bitter industrial dispute in British history”, UK military personnel dying and injured in an actual war, the dreaded Poll Tax and riots in most major cities. Sinn Féin began to stand in elections and The Troubles reached the most powerful in the country, the cabinet itself, at the Brighton Grand Hotel bombing in October 1984. HIV/AIDS was recognised and soon became widespread across the world. Mad Cow Disease appeared in British cattle. Princess Di produced an heir and a spare. Mobile phones, home computers, CDs and the Nintendo Entertainment System went on sale to the public, Eastenders appeared on the BBC and Channel 4 came into being. Live Aid changed the relationship between pop stars and the public. Rapidly developing synthesisers dominated the charts, along with gated drums, reverb, and jangly guitars as typified by the Rickenbacker 330. MTV transformed pop music into images, songs into cultural touchstones, and artists into icons. Michael Jackson’s » Continue Reading.
Year: 2025 Director: Christopher McQuarrie And so we arrive at the End Of A Major Film Franchise, now traditionally requiring a two-parter finale of bottom-numbing length. And so … [Read More...] about Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning
Year: 2025 Director: James Griffiths Finding ourselves in the Stratford Westfields shopping centre at 10:30 in the morning on a Sunday having dropped off our daughter to an all … [Read More...] about The Ballad of Wallis Island
By Clive 5 Comments
Year: 2023 Director: Mustyslav Chernov I’ve only just got round to watching this and I’m not sure if it’s been reviewed already. As the name suggests it covers the first 20 days … [Read More...] about 20 Days in Mariupol
Year: 2025 Director: Ísold Uggadóttir Well, it’s not often that I see a film, let alone see it the day after its release. Fair play to the Curzon in little old Knutsford for … [Read More...] about Bjork’s Cornucopia
Author:Jeremy Eichler Time’s Echo by Jeremy Eichler is a brilliant account of four composers’ musical responses to the horrors of the Second World War and the Holocaust - … [Read More...] about Time’s Echo
Author:Matthew R Davis, Pete Woolliscroft, Brent Waltz Last year saw the first studio album by The Cure since 2008, and showed the band have lost none of their vigour since their … [Read More...] about On Track – The Cure / Music in the 80s / Phish – The Baker’s Dozen
By Skirky 3 Comments
Author:Mark Stoneman A quite extraordinary memoir – not quite in the league of Owain Mulligan’s The Accidental Soldier in terms of This Is Going to Hurt-style larks – but … [Read More...] about Driving Around, Waiting to Get Blown Up
Author:Stephen King Stephen King certainly seems to like the character he created in Holly Gibney. After a bit part appearance in the first novel in the Mr Mercedes trilogy, the … [Read More...] about Never Flinch
Platform:Nintendo Wii Age Rating:3+ Year of Release:2015 Review:It all started in pre-COVID days. My kids were playing MarioKart8 and invited me to have a go. I was awful. I … [Read More...] about How MarioKart8 gives us hope
Platform:XBox, PC/Mac Age Rating:3+ Year of Release:2019 Review:I'm in need of a new game or two. This year I have played - 1 PUBG - I like it generally but I feel that I'm up … [Read More...] about Game help!
Hey everybody, I have a small favour to ask. Mrs. Paws is currently at the end of two years studies at the university of please yourself, California and is carrying out a bit of … [Read More...] about A small favour- gratitude
01/04/2025 Vulpes Vulpes berated me privately about not promoting the Dick Gaughan box set aggressively enough here... Trust me, I've been busy throwing track down in front of … [Read More...] about Nine days into 30, Dick Gaughan crowdfunder nears $100,000
30/05/2025 Few bands have left as distinct a mark on the musical landscape as Horslips. Emerging in the early 1970s, they more or less created ‘Celtic Rock’, drawing from Irish … [Read More...] about Horslips at the BBC
06/03/2025 Who'd have thunk it, eh?!? This evening, live at five UK time, will see the 200th show of Songs From Under The Floorboards. "I have to confess, I'm proud as hell of … [Read More...] about 200 Shows!
19/03/2025 Dick Gaughan – R/evolution: 1969–83 Advance notice of Kickstarter campaign (due in mid-March) Music biographer Colin Harper is launching a Kickstarter campaign in … [Read More...] about Dick Gaughan 1969-83 box set via crowdfunder two weeks away
21/02/2025 Available from an internet near you from Friday 21st February, ‘The calm beyond the storm’ is a single lifted from the recent ‘Infodemic’ album. A spokesperson for … [Read More...] about ‘The calm beyond the storm’ by The Eisenhowers