The Afterword

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Pick Of The Flicks

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Finding ourselves, as we do, in the midst of awards season, much cultural bandwidth is currently being taken up with endless squabbling as to which movies are being cruelly overlooked/dramatically overpraised/insufficiently woke.

Personally, I prefer to think that these things are ultimately fairly meaningless, and that the amount of energy expended on hammering away at what are, after all, mere industry backslaps, could better be spent on more worthwhile pursuits, such as – well, watching/talking about more movies. They’re only movies, after all, and they’re meant to be fun.

With that in mind, I’d like to ask: what are the five best new (by which I mean “new”, rather than “new to you”) movies you’ve seen in the last 12 months? Apart from Gary, whose steadfast refusal to agree with me on matters celluloid is both wearying and distasteful.

Please feel free to symbolically link arms with an activist from the field of your choice while posting.

I’ll start:

1. Call Me By Your Name

A truly beautiful movie that has stayed with me over the months.

My initial prejudice was that this was mere homage to the sort of high class, mildly erotic European cinema that you couldn’t » Continue Reading.

I’ll Mean Something To You

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I was reflecting recently that, push come to shove, Nikes by Frank Ocean is (perhaps predictably) my favourite track of the last ten years.

I’ve banged on before about why it’s so great, so I won’t do so at length again here. It’s just sort of stayed with me – I listen to it all the time, and it always brings me this weird serenity, like it’s mine from way back. The segment where all the auto tune falls away and Ocean’s voice rises out of the haze to deliver some of the most fabulous lyrics I ever hope to hear, the switch from singing to rapping… it’s just so lovely, and inspiring and of the moment. It gives me so much hope for what music could do.

Anyway, what prompted this post is that footage has emerged this week of Ocean rehearsing the track.

His voice is just utterly gorgeous. I enjoyed it. You might too, particularly if you struggled to get past the auto tune on the main version.

Any other shouts for your favourite track of the last decade?

» Continue Reading.

Resolve – Poppy Ackroyd

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Just a very very quick post to give a major thumbs up to the Poppy Ackroyd album that came out at the end of last week.

For anyone who enjoyed Penguin Cafe’s The Imperfect Sea (and I know there were a few of us), this is well worth a listen. It has a similar vibe.

Apols if this has already been covered elsewhere.

Between this and the new Andrew WK material, already a strong start to the year – and thankfully an opportunity to step away from the Brahms!

Mis-Shapes

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It’s been a strange old start to the year. An odd mood has descended and I’ve found that my music listening, never prodigious compared to some on here, has all but collapsed to a narrow furrow comprising nothing but Cab Calloway, Brahms and an old Spotify compilation of stuff that you don’t hear about the place all that often these days.

I’ve decided to post the latter comp on here, partly because it may be of interest, comprising as it does music that I’m not sure I’ve heard echo previously through these hallowed halls, and partly in the pursuit of a sort of catharsis that will enable me to shake off the January blues and listen once again more freely.

The compilation is a mishmash with no real rhyme or reason to it. I’m not even sure it flows particularly well. And yet, it’s doing the trick right now. Some of these are gems.

Here it is, then, with a few notes on each track. Hopefully it might do something for someone.

1. Return of Crooklyn Dodgers – Crooklyn Dodgers

First encountered on the soundtrack of Spike Lee’s immortal “Clockers”, way back in the 90s, this record was a hardy » Continue Reading.

Bingo’s Best of 2017

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As has become custom, it’s time for me to cast adrift my end of year “Best Of” playlist into a harsh sea of bemusement, indifference and outright contempt.

This time round, I thought I’d do things a little differently. In addition to posting below the unspeakable horrors of the playlist itself, I’m going to give a run down of my top 10 new musical “moments” of the year, in descending order of excellence.

There were quite a few other contenders that didn’t make the list (“Des…..pa…..cito”, Desiigner’s howling on “Outlet”, the chorus from Bad and Boujee), but these were the ones that made me really glad I listened to music in 2017.

10. Battered At A Scramble – Mogwai

I love Mogwai. They’re probably my favourite band. But they don’t rock out enough. The early records really hammered the quiet/loud dynamic, and because I’m a simple soul that remains a primary part of what I want from them.

Sure, give me a lovely, delicate record of twinkling guitar pieces to soundtrack some movie or TV show, but for goodness sake don’t spare the roaring guitars when it comes to the albums proper.

Battered At A Scramble felt like the » Continue Reading.

Tunes That Brook No Cover

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Someone sent me this video earlier.

It’s two young kids playing Smells Like Teen Spirit in a garage. They’re not that bad, all things (e.g. the absence of bass) considered, but (unsurprisingly) their version is about a million miles away from the tumbling molten ferocity of the real thing.

It got me reflecting on something we touched on briefly last week; tunes that should not be covered. There are some songs that are so perfectly nailed by their originators that there’s really no room for a re-imagining, no space for tribute. You don’t want to hear anyone else’s “take”, you just want them to back up and respect the real deal enough to leave it alone.

Partly, this can be a function of performance; it doesn’t matter who you are, you aren’t going to be able to perform God Save The Queen with the nerveless vim and absolute clarity of purpose that John Lydon brought to proceedings.

Partly, it can be to do with virtuosity – ain’t nobody ever going to play Voodoo Child (Slight Return) like Jimi.

And partly, it can be down to timing. A Change Is Gonna Come, in addition to being the greatest song ever recorded, » Continue Reading.

JEFFERY – Young Thug

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In the last three years, three albums have been released that I consider to be all time classics that will be listened to for many years to come (by me, anyway).

I’ve written previously about two of them, Deafheaven’s superb “New Bermuda” (2015) and Frank Ocean’s immaculate “Blonde” (2016), but I’ve held off writing about the third because I find it very, very hard to put into words what exactly I find so wonderful about it, and because – if I’m honest – it’ll probably sound really fucking stupid.

Young Thug’s “JEFFERY” (2016) is a really, really weird record. It’s not as self-consciously arty as the other two, lacking either the sturm und drang of New Bermuda, or the icey minimalism as Blonde. Nor is it as overtly worthy. In fact, on the face of it, it’s just a massively dumb Trap record about sex and drugs. It’s a really unpromising base from which to build, and yet…..

Jeffery Lamar Williams, aka Young Thug/Thugger, is a rapper out of Atlanta. He grew up in housing projects and in and out of gangs. The protégé of Gucci Mane, he’s a hyperactive presence, releasing at least two records a year since » Continue Reading.

We’re The Monster Squad

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The year was 1987. The place, London. A nine year old Bingo Little had successfully nagged his mother into renting a movie he’d had his eye on for some time. Its title? The Monster Squad. The tale of a gang of pre-pubescent boys (and one little sister) uniting to take on a pack of Universal’s most heinous monsters: Dracula, Frankenstein, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Werewolf and the Mummy. Think the Goonies meets Ghostbusters, the stuff of celluloid dreams.

Watched with a close and enduring pal, it proved to be a cinematic awakening for young Little, and remained lodged in the memory for years thereafter.

Flash forward nearly ten years. Despite his best efforts, Little has never managed to lay hands on a copy of the movie. No VHS release, no rental availability, no hope. It is nearly 1am the night before his History A- level, and he’s just set down his revision notes and is preparing to get some shut eye ahead of the exam. He flicks on the TV for a couple of minutes, just to wind down, and is immediately confronted by the opening scene of The Monster Squad. Unable to resist its siren » Continue Reading.

The Beautiful Ones

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A thread in which we will determine the most good looking band of all time.

No solo artists permitted. All time periods welcome. No adjustments made for failure to adhere to contemporary grooming mores. Can be boys, girls or a mix (tell me about the ladyboys). Any genre, but at least one band member has to be playing an instrument (to avoid a total boy/girl band whitewash). No exceptions – all band members must be counted towards the total aggregate handsomeness of the collective (aka “The Coors Clause”).

GO!

2017. What. Is. Up.

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We’re pretty much three quarters of the way through 2017, and it strikes me that it’s turning into a really quite excellent year for those of us who believe in the basic concept of new music.

We’ve had great albums from the likes of the XX, Julie Byrne, Young Thug, Vince Staples and Japandroids. Great tunes from Sigrid, Mikey Mike, Stormzy and Harry Styles.

There’s been new Mogwai, new Clark, new Four Tet and new Ryan Adams. Hans Zimmer released his best ever soundtrack work (which is saying something), we had a smattering of Frank Ocean releases and Surfer Blood delivered on their potential.

It’s been a year where I’ve found certain records have entwined themselves with the books I’ve read, to the point where I find them quite hard to separate. Father John Misty soundtracked the new George Saunders, the excellent Penguin Cafe album was on repeat as I ploughed through the His Dark Materials trilogy, and more recently the new Godspeed You! Black Emperor has proved a suitably apocalyptic backing to Niall Ferguson’s The Pity of War.

Recent weeks have seen the music coming thick and fast. I was still picking my way through the Mogwai » Continue Reading.

ANDREW WK NEW ALBUM KLAXON

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I don’t want to cause the blog to combust in an orgy of dribbling expectation (that’s a lie, for openers), but I’ve just been informed that Afterword Royalty Andrew W.K will release his first new album in 8 years on 2 March 2018.

Full details here:

“I’m going for the sound of pure, unadulterated power; every emotion, every thought, every experience, every sensation, every fear, every joy, every clarity, every confusion, every up, every down… all extruded and concentrated into one thick syrup of super life-force feeling, and then psychically amplified by the celebratory spirit of glorious partying.”

https://pitchfork.com/news/andrew-wk-announces-first-new-album-in-8-years/

Here he is giving the greatest interview ever….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCPZiDb81SI

And here he is making young people happy once upon a time, in scenes later captured for posterity by Hieronymous Bosch….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fC7oa6J8-Q

Roll on March.

Ending The War On Error

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On a recent thread, Bob made the point that there seems to be a contemporary trend for being very very sensitive about criticism of one’s opinions.

In an era where differing points of view have never been available in greater quantity, variety or vapidity, it seems curious that their perceived currency should have multiplied, rather than reduced, but that does rather seem to be where we are just now. Attack the opinion and you attack the author, the two are simply indivisible.

Perhaps it’s a function of the tendency for the ad hom in Internet debating – the impersonal is never more than inches from getting personal. Perhaps being given a platform for our thoughts has give us delusions of grandeur. Perhaps we’re all just narcissistic tossbags who’ve spent too much time navel gazing and expect the world to roll out the red carpet for us and our pathetic musings.

It seems a great shame to me. Very few of my own views are worth getting seriously aggravated over, other than for the sport of heated discussion. They’re just opinions, everyone has them, they don’t mean much to anyone else. Plus, if you’ve an audience of a hundred people, it’s » Continue Reading.

Nothing You Can Do Can Make Me Be Untrue To My ‘Gwai

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Yes, there’s a new Mogwai album out today (“Every Country’s Sun”).

I’m not going to review it, because I’m too busy listening to it a lot, but I will say that, based on the couple of spins it’s had so far, I think this may be the best thing they’ve done since the very early days.

After the career low disappointment that was “The Rave Tapes”, ECS appears to have seen the band head back to basics: there’s more loud/quiet, more drums and a much greater sense of impact and propulsion.

There are also tracks called “Coolverine” and “Don’t Believe The Fife”, the latter of which would be worth the price of entry alone in my book.

Oh, and there’s this – “Battered At a Scramble”. My favourite thing they’ve done in a long, long time – FINALLY, a return to that whole “great lost Siamese Dream instrumental” sound they had on “Young Team”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8ucOEj0Kr8

Current Earworms

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A thread in which to name the tunes you’ve got on heavy rotation at the moment.

I’m splitting my time between Bobby Shmurda’s 2014 classic “Hot Nigga” and “Come Down To Us” by Burial.

Hot Nigga was very much the sound of the Summer three years ago. It made my end of year “Best of” playlist, because it’s got an absolutely sick beat, and I quite like the guy near the start who solemnly intones “Shmurda she wrote”, like it’s some sort of unassailable fact of life we’re all just going to have to get used to.

What I hadn’t realised was that it also has one of the best “here I am with all my mates in the street making gang signs and generally acting the goat” videos of recent years, that Shmurda had developed a dancing style that was subsequently copied by everyone from Beyonce to Swizz Beats, or that he’d been jailed for a pick and mix assortment of crimes (most of which he’d explicitly extolled in “Hot Nigga” – the head of the unit who nicked him described it as “almost like a real-life document of what they were doing on the street”) in late » Continue Reading.

If Afterworders Had Theme Tunes

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RobC’s would be Children of Rarn by T.Rex

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Haalpo9JHDI

Moose’s would be Boom Tiddle Tiddle Bing by Chief Inspector Jean Paul Zatapathique

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vL8XYBo2gPQ

Bargepole’s would be Mr Writer by Stereophonics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwOMnIuAGOY

deramdaze’s would by Fings Ain’t Wot They Used T’Be by Max Bygraves

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg-Ycc-yKqY

Go!

Notes From The Front Line

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FULL DISCLOSURE: This is going to be a post about a particularly full-blooded evening of karaoke I enjoyed on the Friday just past. It can be considered to be of relatively niche interest, perhaps even provocatively self-serving. It will probably not invoke feelings of warm nostalgia for your lost youth, nor will it enlighten, entertain or satisfy you in any material aspect. You proceed at your own peril.

Fans of intermittent Afterword contributor, incomprehensible hip hop enthusiast and shameless dilettante Bingo Little will doubtless recall with mixed affection and concern said individual’s oft-noted enthusiasm for the noble art of karaoke.

It was, perhaps, inevitable, that Little’s dalliances with that second most masturbatory form of evening entertainment would lead him to darker corners, and so it has proved. A chance meeting with an old colleague some months ago lead to the formation of a crack squad of Karaokeists, each bringing to the table their own unique style or lack thereof, and a commitment to tackling vocal challenges of increasing bombast and splendour.

First blood was drawn back in April, when the team undertook a punishing six hour marathon of howled choruses and botched verses, spread across no fewer than three » Continue Reading.

Summoned From The Deep

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I see you poor souls are still in the grip of an nasty looking beatle infestation, so I’m just going to drop this here and go about my biz. Blame Moose.

Music. It’s great, isn’t it? All those sounds and lyrics and feelings. But you know what I really like? That new shit. That inconsequential, disposable, all been done before and better, kids don’t know what they’re doing shit.

So, I’m over here in 2017 (visitors always welcome), and – I gotta say – there’s some ace stuff going on. I think this might prove to be a really, really good year. Yes, that Lorde tune is an authentic banger. Yes, the xx record sounds even better in the sunshine than it did in the cold. Yes, muthafreakin Japandroidsfuckyeah! Yes, Julie Byrne, Laura Marling, Penguin Cafe and all that other music I play at bed time.

But I want to talk about the last couple of months. Because the last couple of months have given us some absolute gems. Gems which I will now scatter across this blog, pearls before swine, because music is great, and great music should be shared.

Hold tight, here we go…

I’m A Professional Cynic, But My Heart’s Not, Innit: Pure Comedy and Lincoln In The Bardo reviewed

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INTRODUCTION

I was on holiday last week, which gave me an opportunity to enjoy what had long promised to be two of the great cultural highlights of 2017: new work from, respectively, Father John Misty and George Saunders.

The former’s “Pure Comedy” has, I gather, been discussed elsewhere passim. I think most Afterworders are now reasonably well acquainted with Master Tillman’s schtick, and have probably already gone some way towards determining where their regard for said schtick most comfortably resides along the tremulous and sometimes illusory line that stretches all the way from love to hate and back again.

Saunders is probably more of an unknown quantity in these parts. He is the author of numerous books of short stories, including the quite superb “Civilwarland in Bad Decline” and “Pastoralia”, and has this month debuted his first full length novel; “Lincoln In The Bardo”. Saunders was recommended to me by an astute bookshop clerk three years ago (“the Twain of the 21st Century”, breathlessly expounded said clerk), and I have subsequently devoured his full output. If you’re in the market for tales of experimental drugs that make theme park workers actually believe they’re living in medieval times, trafficked women from » Continue Reading.

New Father John Misty!

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Some new songs have emerged, the best of which is attached below. New album (Pure Comedy) out on 7 April. Sounds even more Laurel Canyon than before.

Lyrics may be familiar to anyone who’s spent time on social media ever.

Naturally the dying man wonders to himself: Has his commentary been more lucid than anybody else? And had he successively beaten back the rising tide Of idiots, dilettantes, and fools On his watch while he was alive Lord, just a little more time

Oh, in no time at all This’ll be the distant past

So says the dying man once I’m in the box Just think of all the overrated hacks running amok And all of the pretentious, ignorant voices that will go unchecked The homophobes, hipsters, and 1% The false feminists he’d managed to detect Oh, who will critique them once he’s left?

Oh, in no time at all This’ll be the distant past

What he’d give for one more day to rate and analyze The world made in his image as of yet To realize what a mess to leave behind

Eventually the dying man takes his final breath But first checks his news feed to see what » Continue Reading.

The One True Tune To Rule Them All – RESULTS!

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It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for, no doubt.

After a week long process of intensive debate, and a voting process that has baffled pollsters, tried the patience of the electorate and lead to the permanent shattering of several friendships, and at least one marriage that we know of, we have finally arrived at the very Apex of all Afterword culture: The One True Tune To Rule Them All.

Henceforth, from this day on, when we discuss music let us do so united in the common recognition that there is one song that stands apart from all its brethren. A tune that pleases all ears, and confounds none. A song that has the entire Afterword singing along, arms aloft, with nary a nay-sayer in sight, and only brotherly love and bonhomie in evidence.

There are those who said it could not be done. That such a tune, quite simply, did not exist – COULD not exist. To those people, I say: Ha! Read herein, without your own eyes, the evidence that musical consensus is not just an arcane theory, or an ancient rumour, but an actual, practicable science, with results you can touch and feel. Recognise that man can » Continue Reading.

The One True Tune To Rule Them All Thread – Vote Now!

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The bell has now rung on the “Is there a song that no one dislikes” thread.

We appear to have rounded up a surprisingly long and varied list of tunes against which nobody here is willing to speak out. So, we know they’re not disliked: but are they truly loved?

We now shift into the second and final phase of our mission to find the song most likely to unite the Afterword. The rules are simple. Select from the list below the one song you love the most, and post its name.

At 5pm on Wednesday 22 Feb, voting will close, voting will be collated, and we will identify, once and forever more, The One True Tune To Rule Them All.

One vote per person, please, all multiples will be discounted (tigger). In the event of multiple votes in a single post, the first named song will be counted.

If you’re struggling to decide, I recommend this mental exercise: imagine you’re in a vast room, with all the other inhabitants of the Afterword, drinks in hand. Suddenly, the tannoy sputters into life, and begins to play a song. What song would you most want it to be?

Looking » Continue Reading.

Is there a song that no one dislikes?

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The Afterword is a broad church, running the full gamut of musical tastes from A to D.

Over by the fireplace, you have your “course, it were all green fields round here in my day” types, trading stories about the Incredible String Band and the Summer of Love.

By the pool table gather the sneering 90s kids, who don’t, like, believe in genre, and still sometimes listen to music that gets reviewed in Pitchfork. They’ll never get old and closed-minded, no sir.

Propping up the bar, drinking real ale and comparing vintage tour t-shirts, are the vinyl obsessives. They like music you’ve probably never heard of.

And, of course, there’s the car park. Where deramdaze is busy shouting at pigeons and trying to work out whether or not he should like The Doors just now.

Many tribes. Many ways of consuming music, many ways of seeing the world. But is there a single song that can bring them together and bond them? A piece of music that, when played on the jukebox, will see everyone in the pub stop what they’re doing, link arms and perform a stomping karaoke singalong that threatens to tear the roof off the sucka? » Continue Reading.