The kids in yr 8 are doing a project on dystopian fiction. I do enjoy a bit of post-apocalyptic entertainment – whether novels comics tv movies or music. How about you? What do you like?
Amanda Palmer and her dad do Richard Thompson
with art by David Mack (Kabuki Daredevil). I like Amanda Palmer but can take or leave this to be honest. The piano playing is pretty fab not woild about hurt dads voice. Or the song. Anyway. Enjoy.
ATM Apple Music
Anyone use it? Any good? Comparisons with Spotify etc … Thanks in advance
Eels Love Wings
Apols if this was mentioned elsewhere – I didn’t read all the Blogger Takeover posts this month – but I know theres a fair few Eels fans hereabouts. The fourth ep of the Judd Apatow Netflix series Love is entitled Party in the Hills. Mark Oliver Everett is the host of said party and he jams a version of Jet – the Wings tune. The series itself is growing on me – Ive liked Gillian Jacobs since Community.
Short Lived but Brilliant
I’ve been listening to a lot of Long Blondes today. They were fab but split pretty quickly due to the illness of the guitarist. While I’d like more music from them, the fact that what they left behind is pretty much perfect is enough.
Any more?
Oz magazine online
Apols if the heads already know about this, but apparently every page of every issue of Oz magazine is online.
Harper Lee
I don’t think anyone has commented on the passing of Harper Lee. To Kill a Mockingbird is the only book to make me cry. The main characters are superb, but I love the supporting cast too – the town drunk who isn’t for example. Such a rich and yet relatively short novel.
the best rock performance ever?
isn’t by a rock star:
A Pinch and a Punch
Thread ideas: Songs about November Songs with months in the title. Guitarists changing axes mid song. Awesome contemporary drummers. Brothers in bands Bands featuring two pairs of brothers Just how long can a mic lead be? Fuck it – here’s Mr November by the National. Song starts at about 1.30. It’s ace.
Locke and Key free audiobook – act fast!
Maybe you know the wonderfully creepy series of graphic novels, Locke and Key – written by Joe Hill with art by Gabriel Rodriguez. Well, there is an audiobook – and it’s free until Nov 4th at Audible (.com or .co.uk). Cast includes Orphan Black’s Tatjana Maslany, Haley Joel Osment and Kate Mulgrew. Should be worth a listen.
Oh God – Emma Kennedy’s done one too
and Danny Baker’s hasn’t even finished yet.
Succumb to the Beat Surrender
wasn’t Weller weird when he was on ToTP? Remember the backwards Heinz tomato soup apron, how about the banjo and accordion in the Style Council days? This performance is well-weird. It’s Beat Surrender, the final single. The band is lined up backwards – drums to the front, Weller has decided to forego the guitar and frug with the young Tracie who seems to be wearing one of his nice jumpers. He’s a very poor dancer, she pretends not to notice. Foxton mimes the alternate lines – even though it’s Paul’s voice. He mimes more convincingly than Weller, yet Weller can’t hide his smirk after Bruce’s first line. Perhaps weirdest of all is the delivery of the line ‘that bullshit’s just bullshit – it just goes by different names’ from the first verse. If I remember correctly the radio edit went ‘that rubbish is rubbish’ – in this version Weller has re-recorded the line as ‘that bullfrog’s a bullfrogs they just go by different names’. I don’t know what my point is. I suspect this will be a very short thread.
To5 5POT
I saw a car today – a black, super-car, poss a ferrari – with the number plate UL05 ERS with the space altered to read as U L05ERS. What a super – successful chap he must be, I thought to myself.
drummers on ringo
drummers or fans of the Beatles may enjoy this (apols if posted before):
Hip hop family tree
Wes Craven
Sad to hear of his death. In Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream he created two excellent date movies that were simultaneously appealing and terrifying. They were game-changers too in the effects used in Nightmare (Freddie stretching through the wall as though it were latex) and the deconstruction of the medium in Scream. Numerous sequels have undoubtedly diminished the franchises – but those first two films are so much preferable to the recent slew of torture porn.
Heinous calumny
Just felt the urge to type that.
Emoji music quiz
Podcasts redux again.
Whilst cleaning the house today I was entertained by a series of podcasts entitled The Black Tapes. It takes the superb Serial as it’s template and tells the story of a number of paranormal happenings – which seem to be connected. It’s listed as a docudrama – but is quite convincingly carried by most of the leads, Serial meets Blair Witch with a tiny amount of True Detective. The tropes are familiar – exorcism, insane asylums, mysterious ‘Sumerian’ daubings on walls but the format gives it a certain freshness. Sadly, I have heard all the shows so far and still have work to do. Can anyone recommend any podcasts that tell fictional stories to keep me entertained?
Pop! – the bubble bursts
Talk of Muse elsewhere reminded me that back when that Super Massive Black Hole cd came out, I really liked it – silly sci-fi drivel, but good fun nonetheless. Then someone pointed out how Matt Bellamy takes huge, ugly sounding gulps of air at the end of almost every line and the bubble burst. I stopped listening to the song and started hearing the swallows – the music sounded (even more) ridiculous and I haven’t played anything by them since. A similar thing happened with the Decemberists – I was a huge fan 5 years or so ago – all the albums, all those live cover versions Fraser linked to in the Word newsletter, watching live shows on Youtube, NPR etc – then someone (no names lest he should re-appear here) on the Word site said ‘pssst – that Colin Melloy? He sounds like Porky Pig’. And he kind of does – a cross between PP and Elmer Fudd maybe! I tried to carry on loving the band, bought the next album, saw them live, but couldn’t shake thoughts of that wascally wabbit hunter and his porcine pal. I haven’t – couldn’t – listen to the last two releases. The » Continue Reading.
another chameleon stroking thread
This evening, my son stroked a chameleon on a field trip with the Beavers. A few weeks ago he sat in the audience whilst a tv show was being filmed (Swashbuckles on CBeebies). He’s six. I am much older but have never done either of these things. What have your kids done that you haven’t?
Tom Waits on Letterman
Plenty of Tom Waits fans here, I believe. This is a song he played live on one of David Letterman’s last shows. I found it on Stereogum – see URL – which also links to the whole Letterman interview. Tom looks like someone who looks a bit like Tom Waits these days, a little like Mickey Rourke too, maybe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKBFSU-LUw0
Gove
Gove. Justice. (God help us)
Thoughts?
Games
As a piss-poor excuse to post this lovely Travis Pitts Pacman illo, I’d like to ask which video games are occupying your time these days. I’m just an occasional player – I get frustrated easily, but I have enjoyed Monument Valley, 1010 and Limbo a fair bit on my iPad. As a card game, Scooby Snacks is a great variation on Blackjack/Pinochle that the whole family can enjoy. It’s very cheap too.
http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r139/badartdog/pacman2_zps3pzcjtku.jpg
Nadine Shah – Stealing Cars
Just heard this on Radio Four and liked it a lot. It reminds me of something though … any ideas?