The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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Best Paul Simon Songs

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I’m not agnostic when it comes to Paul Simon, I have always loved him.. I think Simon and Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits was the first album I bought with my own money. Ironically, he appeals across so many boundaries that he is slightly dismissed, All his albums have at least one good track. Here is my favorite, what’s yours?

Am I a music snob?

by 60 Comments

Dear Marge, I am writing to you because I think I may have a problem. I like to think I am open minded, inclusive and liberal guy. Why, some of my best friends have music collections that consist of Adele’s last album and Abba’s Greatest Hits, they even like Ed Sheeran.

And yet, yesterday while listening to the dancer Wayne McGregor’s very Afterword friendly choices on Desert Island Discs, he introduced one of his choices as”George Michael’s cover of the Roberta Flack song First Time I ever Saw Your Face“. No its not I mumbled to myself, and from that point onward he was dead to me.

Please can you help me: am I a music snob?

Best Song by Elton John?

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I am agnostic on Elton John.

I grew up through his imperial phase when LPs like Goodbye Yellow Brick Road were carpet-bombing the international charts and the John-Taupin axis occupied the singles Top 10. However, facile stuff like the maudlin Daniel just irritated me. And why Taupin is supposed to be such a great lyric writer defeats me. BUT….

Like Queen, EJ has had some stonking highlights. My nomination for his best is this. What’s yours?

Magic Alex RIP

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One of the more intriguing members of The Beatles floating world of artists and scammers died on Friday. I always thought he relationship with the Fab Four would form the basis of a good book, play, or film. Given that he was so litigious I guess that was going to happen in his lifetime.

Fascinating little video at the end of this Billboard obit.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/obituary/7655255/magic-alex-mardas-beatles-dead

Rogue One

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Year: 2016 Director: Gareth Edwards

Christmas Eve, the BJB clan are staying at my mum’s. Usually we go to the theatre, but since Mary Poppins was booked up months ago we decided on a visit to The Pictures.

None of us are real Star Wars nuts. My daughters were more into Harry Potter. I was a little too old to surf the first Star Wars wave. In fact, Mrs BJB is the biggest fan in the family as she took her youngest brother to see Episode IV on its original release. Anyway after a bit of to-and-froing, the family decided to see Rogue One while it was still on a big screen.

I had caught up with Gareth Edward’s first film Monsters a year or two after its release. I enjoyed its noirish atmosphere but wasn’t entirely bowled over. So I wasn’t expecting too much from another chip off the old franchise. Hence, being bowled over by R1 was a real surprise to me.

First off, the cast are all proper quality actors and although most of the characters are off the shelf action stereotypes – the seemingly cynical soldier who hides his principles, amoral hustlers who » Continue Reading.

USA: isn’t it great?

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There seems to be a lot of despondency about the fate of the USA at the moment. I wanna send the people of that fair country some love. Who knows? It may all work out really well. I mean Bricameron seems to think like that.

So, here is a young Donald Trump with a blonde wig, rehearsing his future inaugural speech. Anymore positive American mental vibes? Maybe the emphasis shouldn’t be on the mental eh?

Haven’t I see that Cover somewhere before?

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Here is a interesting game: albums with similar art.

I don’t often flick through my albums arranged in alphabetical order. But today I was doing just that on iTunes and noticed for the first time that two albums from completely different eras and genres had very similar cover images. One is the Caravn image shown here. The second one is in the next post.

http://i1220.photobucket.com/albums/dd449/jimathomas/For%20Girls%20Who%20Grow%20Plump%20in%20the%20Night.jpg

Best name for a beer?

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When I was a youngster in Cardiff there was Bitter, Dark, and SA, and that was it. Unless you were a discoor footie boy; they drank Carling. Nowadays? Well, I blame the Americans for everything, because I am a stinking liberal.

But to get back to beers: although there are some silly names, my local Thornbridge Brewery not only does great beer (check out their IPA, Jaipur), but has an American pale ale called Otter’s Tears. My mate liked the name so much he drank about 6 pints last time we were out to see a band. A bit of a bad move as it is 6%.

Any other memorable beer names? They can be imaginary – I will try to work out the real ones.

Ole Doggie songs

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You’ll end up in tears listening to this. If you are hardhearted it may be tears of laughter.

Is there a better song about a dog than this?

Let Them Eat Chaos – Kate Tempest

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What does it sound like?:

The latest release from multi-hyphenate (and much derided herein) Tempest is a state-of-the-nation concept album. In the spoken word prelude to the main event, Picture a Vacuum, a planet emerges from the darkness of space:

“There is our Earth, Our Earth, its blueness soothes the sharp burn in your eyes, Its contours remind you of love “

Swooping down like GoogleEarth onto one street in London at 4.18AM the stream of consciousness of seven residents float over the beats. In a city split between have-nots and oligarchs, Tempest focuses on the generation renters: a sound engineer, a PR, a carer, chancers; as they think about nights out, nights in, drinking beers, gigging, smoking fags, taking drugs, but mostly worrying.

Yes it takes in the personal, but it’s angry, ambitious, and political: the attraction of religious fundamentalism, War in Syria, zero-hour contracts, and the housing crisis, all get a call-in. But, it isn’t all the usual suspects, Tempest picks at the scab of her own self-obsessed generation and finds it wanting:

t’s the BoredOfItAll generation The product of product placement and manipulation, Shoot em up, brutal, duty of care, Come » Continue Reading.

Robin Williamson

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Venue:

The Greystones, Sheffield

Date: 15/09/2016

The last time I saw Robin in a small venue was about 20 years ago. Twenty five seemingly indifferent people turned up, poignantly he introduced The first Girl I Loved by saying “we played this at Woodstock.”

This time he all but sold out the -admittedly small – venue. First thing I noticed is that he’s lost a lot of weight and is now back to a skinny Wee Tam era profile. With his thinning, still long, white hair and thick glasses on the end of his nose, he now more than ever looks the part of a bard. His voice though, is better than ever. It was always reedy aural Marmite, but the years have put timbre into it, and his efforts at raga style melisma are more restrained,

He kicked off with a couple of unaccompanied harp tunes which included the traditional Pretty Girl Milking a Cow. The set that followed was peppered with distinctive covers that included the expected (Bob Dylan) and the less expected (Foghat and Jerry Lee Lewis). His own songs were all from his more recent solo efforts, including touching versions of Wheel of Fortune and I Always » Continue Reading.

American (Country and Western) Gothic

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GeoffBS7’s “Just because… ” C and W question, reminded me to dig out this Tex Ritter piece of Grand Guignol. It is the first (and maybe only?) track on my forthcoming Best of C&W Gothic compilation album. Anymore tracks to add?

New reggae please

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I have just been acquainted with Protoje. This is off his last album released at the end of last year:

Blinking heck it is good. Any more stuff like this?