(Apologies if this has already been posted but I couldnt’ see it)

I just wanted to acknowledge the passing of Dave Cousins of the Strawbs at 85. I first heard “The Hangman and the Papist” as a small lad, probably on the Alan Freeman show, I thought it both very disturbing and rather marvellous.

Im sure we all been part of this conversation:

“What are you into to?” Me: “Errr, I like music” “What kind of music” Me:”Errr, all sorts”

… and thats the end of the conversation thankfully, because I dont want to explain that when I say “all orts” I dont mean everything. Far from it. I mean things like 60’s psych, early 70’s soul, pre-war jazz yada yada. If I tried to go into more details I would be considered an insufferable bore and rightly so.

Recently however I have been thinking that if my feet were held to the fire, and I had to name my absolute favourite genre what would I pick … and I’ve decided that, at least today it would be anything that ticks the following boxes:

1. Generally cheerful (at least superficially), sunshiny pop. 2. Chamber/Baroque, often orchestral, with obvious roots in Pet Sounds 3. Particularly with a Herb Alpert-y trumpet solo.

The 60’s give rise to this kind of thing. After Pet Sounds came Love, and lots of Burt Bacharach. In the 90’s and 2000’s there was a bit of a resurgence. The High Llamas have obviously built a whole career on just this » Continue Reading.

I’ve been doing Wordle for > 600 days according to my stats. And although I cant help myself and do it everyday – its become a little jaded. My mate and I have started adding a bit of extra fun by developing a cryptic clue for each daily wordle word, and I wondered if folks here might be interested in getting a similar thread going.

A cryptic clue in my mind means a cryptic crossword clue broadly in the style of the Guardian daily cryptic, the SMH or the Everyman with, usually, a cryptic part and a definition (and sometimes and &lit). There is a round of applause for the best/cleverest/funniest.

As an example my attempt for today was “Big Rap homie overwhelms chart.” My mate’s was “Winemaker drops an Ecky, picks up heroin trace.”

My favourite this week was ” topless nun with bottomless clergy. Includes relative”.

Im sure you get the idea. Anyway post yours here if you feel like it, and I will gladly admire it.

This very clever ad from the French makes the point brilliantly. Sadly the games of the two teams I follow (England and Australia) have not lived up to the hype so far

Im very late to this – but im very much enjoying Andrew Hickeys’s “History of Rock Music in 500 songs” podcast and trying very hard to catch up. Im sure members of the Afterword will find a lot to like here.

Its a herculean undertaking – he’s been at it since 2018 – and with 150+ episodes he’s currently only up to the mid sixties. I have found each episode to be comprehensively researched with a thorough exploration of the history of the song and artist, in the context of the musical and political landscape at the time. The episode on Hey Joe was two hours long.

Andrew’s delivery is not the most engaging and unfortunately rather soporific I’ve found, but so far I’ve found the content really interesting and entertaining.

https://500songs.com/podcast/

Im once again trying to gather songs for a particular theme. In this case it;s “Vivaldi” style choppy strings backup – most famously heard on Eleanor Rigby. The only other song I’ve come up with in the 10 mins thinking I’ve done is John Cale’s Paris 1919 (and that might be piano and “keyboard” strings) – but there must be loads. Any others spring to mind?

For ‘not very interesting’ reasons I’m putting together a playlist of songs characterised by lots of words sung quickly. The sort that makes you run out of breath when you try to sing them yourself. Not rap (which is almost all rapid-fire words) – but actual songs. An example would be “Ive just seen a face” by the fabs – so you get the idea. “Subterranean Homesick Blues” is another I guess but I’m a bit stuck for more. There must be hundreds. Any ideas?

You wonderful folks have helped my daughter with her homework before you may remember (finding a british comedy skit ), so if it’s OK I would like to ask for you help again. This time she has to perform, on the violin, a tune but in a different genre. You know the sort of thing – rock to bluegrass, pop to classical, classical to rap even classical to folk. She is an accomplished fiddle player (grade 8 ish) so quite able to do fairly tricky things. She can sing but hates singing. Im thinking a well known pop song in a classical style – Smells like Teen Spirit for example, although that’s been done loads of times. She knows how to play both classical and folk well, Anybody got any interesting ideas? Once again, grateful thanks for your consideration.

Im sure we must have done this before – but after reading the “Definitive masterpieces” thread, I feel I need to play “Humiliation” with you lot. As you probably know Humiliation is a game invented by David Lodge and described in his novel Changing Places, in which a player (English Lit academics in the novel) names a book they haven’t read and gets a point for everyone in the group who has read it – the purpose is to admit to not reading a classic that one would assume that everyone (in academic English Lit circles at any rate) has read. So as proud members of a music cognoscenti of sorts, I can assume with confidence that everyone here has heard Sgt Pepper, Who’s Next etc. My nomination though is – “Close to the Edge”. A definitive prog classic according to some here. Not only have I never heard it – I cant name a single track on it. I have heard Fragile several times, but cant stand Jon Anderson’s voice so never bothered with anything else. How about you? Surely somebody has not got around to Bryter Layter or Sticky Fingers or Automatic for the People.

My aforementioned 17 year old daughter is always keen to discover new old music. She loves the Beatles natch, Monkees, Paul Simon, Fleet Foxes and Abba (mum’s influence) and I’ve recently introduced her to CSN&Y (“like fleet foxes but not as good”). She came to me today asking which Bob Dylan albums she should listen to first. She had heard “Like a Rolling Stone” and astonishingly liked it a lot. So where to start. I’m thinking “Blood on the Tracks” as the best and most accessible . But then “Blonde”? – the early folky stuff? – “Desire” maybe? – surely not the new stuff. Anybody got an opinion? How do you introduce a newbie to the Bobster.

Moose’s “Encounters” thread which bemoaned the lack of music progression in the last couple of decades reminded me of an incident a couple of weeks ago when my 17yr old daughter told me she had been invited to a party with a 2000’s theme and asked for dress-up advice. Honestly I was stumped. A 1940’s, 1950’s, 1960’s 1970’s and 1980’s themed party would suggest some obvious iconic and cliche fashions …. from wartime – “Rosie the Riveter”, through Teds, hippies, tartan and flares, punk, new romantics and baggy – but what was iconic about the 2000’s or the late 90’s for that matter. Is it just that things are moving too quickly? Is it still too close (although I did 60’s parties in the 70’s for sure). Any ideas?

Some years ago, at the recommendation of this site, I began to listen to a podcast which was effectively a mixtape of interesting tunes, fading into each other, with no talk at all. I stopped downloading it as life became to be busy, but I’m currently spending a lot of time travelling and tried to find it again – but cannot for the life of me remember what it was called. It was something like “retro radio” or “radio rocket” but not those. Does anybody have any ideas – is it still available even.

I’ve just come across Jonny Trunk’s “spotify digs” podcast. I’m really enjoying it and thought others here might too.

This link is to the episode with Stewart Lee talking about his love of Spaghetti Western soundtracks which is right up my street. There is an associated playlist of course and Im still experimenting with ways of pausing the podcast to listen to the tunes. Noel Gallagher and Danny Baker also appear.

During one of my current episodes of insomnia I decided to try to create a quiz for you all which would be a least difficult to Google. So here it is. Below I have take the first word from each of the lines of a section of ten Beatles songs for you to identify. The songs are well known (ie from the main albums and singles) and the lyrics are from significant and recognisable sections of the song. They were chosen by random more or less. Now I know that the start and end of lines in lyrics can be ambiguous but I think not so much in these particular cases as they are distinctive and form part of the rhythmic structure. I’m also hoping that each case is unique. Finally I’ve ignored any “oos”,”aahs” , “heys” etc. There is no prize other than the respect of your peers.

By way of example the opening lines of Lucy in the Sky would be “picture, with, somebody, a”

1. the, the, the, the

2. if, if, if, if

3. hold, look, when, help

4. every, every , it, it, it

5. well, you, and, was, so

6. I, while, with, » Continue Reading.

I hate to post another RIP – but lets remember J Geils for some of the great stuff he did before “Centerfold”. Post away.

Hadn’t seen this noted here before. Sad to see that David Axelrod of “Songs of Innocence” and “Songs of Experience” fame has died. I discovered his music late (I think from the “freak zone”), but regularly play “Experience”. Very much of it’s time which is a good thing in this case.

That’s terrible if true.

Ridiculously topical.

My 14 year old daughter is looking for some help and advice. She and a couple of her drama oriented friends want to perform a comedy sketch or two for the school. She has already had some success with an external small drama group who did the Python’s “Michaelangelo and the Pope – Last Supper” sketch but she thinks this may be just a bit edgy for her conservative all-girls school (“too jewish”).

So does anyone have any ideas? British sketches are generally preferred. As the audience is pretty young even hackneyed Python sketches are fresh to these new ears – however I am looking for something a bit more obscure. Fry and Laurie perhaps, the Two Ronnies (the “bad breath sketch” is a particular favourite of mine), or Victoria Wood (which may be more suitable given the all female actors and audience). All suggestions gratefully considered. Here’s an old Douglas Adams radio sketch with some potential.

I’m excited. “since I left you” has been a family favourite for a very long time. Its been a 16 year wait with lots of false expectations. I hope it lives up to the hype. This first song is pretty great.

Let me be the first to wish you all a lovely Easter. Here’s a song that never fails to make me both very happy and reduce me to tears for reasons I haven’t quite figured out.

Ouch! I’ll just post this without any comment on the particulars.

Tim Minchin does have a way with words – “I hear the tolling of the bell and it has a Pellian knell.” It’s not Richard Stillgoe for sure.

(Non Australians may want to Google “Cardinal Pell.”)

I’ve never been a huge Waterboys fan but I think Whole of the Moon is a wonderful, classic song. Inspired by the Glastonbury appearance I decided to try to work it out on the piano and while googling for clues, came across this video. Its Mr Scott playing for kids in a school. Apparently he was recording nearby and a teacher asked him to pop along. Its really rather lovely so I thought I’d share it. Apologies if its been posted before.