Interesting Guardian article about the music Charlie Hollis is making with musicians who played with his dad on Spirit of Eden, Laughing Stock and the Mark Hollis solo album – ‘heavily inspired’ by Talk Talk.

Also references the below-mentioned House of All and Lizzy offshoot Black Star Riders.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/nov/15/we-cant-all-retire-because-someone-died-the-new-bands-honouring-the-spirit-of-old-ones-from-talk-talk-to-thin-lizzy

I was so excited to get my ticket back in November, for only my second ever visit to the festival (my first being over 20 years ago). Going on my own, so have complete freedom to wander around to my heart’s content. But oh dear, the line-up. There’s *no one* I want to see. Just a load of uninspiring or totally unfamiliar names.

Actually that’s not quite true – I have a handful of acts in my itinerary, but it’s slim pickings over four days. And yes, yes, I know the joy of Glastonbury is in stumbling upon bands rather than seeking them out, but it would be nice to seek at least a few.

Anyway, below are the acts I DO plan to see, to give you an idea of my tastes.

The Bootleg Beatles Bernard Butler Haircut 100 The Feeling Arooj Aftab The Go! Team Two Door Cinema Club Jamie XX

I like melodies and big choruses. Not a huge folk fan but can manage it in small doses. Vaguely metallic I can dig, provided you can sing and dance to it. Not keen on long guitar solos.

Who should I add? Or – regardless of my tastes » Continue Reading.

I was 13 in 1989, so the perfect age for De La Soul and Public Enemy – but, aside from a brief flirtation with Dr Dre in the early 00s, drifted away from hip hop, and convinced myself that it was often the classic soul being sampled that I really liked. (Case in point: give me ‘Footsteps’ by the Isleys over ‘It Was a Good Day’ any day.) Plus, a lot of what is seen as the best in the genre today leaves me cold. I tried with Kendrick Lamar, really, but Damn and To Pimp a Butterfly did nothing for me.

Then two things happened. First, my 12-year-old son has discovered a taste for classic hip hop, and keeps rushing into my room with his phone to play me tracks he’s discovered by the likes of Slick Rick and MF DOOM. I’m liking what I’m hearing, particularly by the latter.

Secondly, in the Q 90s review threads, I keep seeing the rap albums of those years mentioned, and it’s prompting me to check them out. I’m really enjoying Illmatic and 36 Chambers so far… and Knee Deep in the Beats by London Funk Allstars (posted by Bingo Little I » Continue Reading.

Long time lurker, very infrequent poster. Many many years ago I recall someone of this parish saying words to the effect of “Bryan Ferry looked cool in every photo ever taken of him”.

“We’ll see about that,” I thought – but not only did the poster provide plenty of evidence in the original thread to back up the claim, but in every picture I subsequently saw of Ferry, I thought, “yep, have to agree”.

Until this: https://mobile.twitter.com/TOTPCharts/status/1646951459471216655

https://mobile.twitter.com/TOTPCharts/status/1646951459471216655

It only came out yesterday and there are ten discs’ worth, so I haven’t given it the requisite six listens – in fact I haven’t even got to the end yet – but boy does it contain some gems so far.

I’m not one of the people who shelled out for the sold out ‘deluxe’ CD box set and nor will I be forking out for the ‘retail’ edition at £120 – for which you get three discs most NY fans, or at least those who prefer to obtain the physical product, will have already bought (Homegrown, Tuscaloosa and Live at the Roxy).

But then, I’m happy to stream. NYA2 is yet to appear on Spotify so its over to Neil’s dedicated streaming service on his Neil Young Archives website, which I’ve resisted till now. I initially baulked at signing up for a paid service (charging for music, in this day and age!) but it’s just $1.99 a month, so over the course of a year not much more than you’d have paid for a couple of CDs in the old days.

The player is a bit glitchy and clunky and there’s no option of creating playlists, which » Continue Reading.

According to Wikipedia, “L’esprit de l’escalier or l’esprit d’escalier (“staircase wit”) is a French term used in English for the predicament of thinking of the perfect reply too late.” The French philosopher Denis Diderot originated the term after being unable to think of the perfect retort until he had descended the staircase to leave his host’s home.

We’ve all had witty rejoinders never said, either because inspiration struck too late or because we simply lacked the nerve to say it to someone’s face.

Here’s my best one. My wife’s best mate is quite a bit younger than us and has lots of tattoos. She also happens to be a big Tolkien fan. She was pointing out an inking that involved a lot of runic symbols.

“It’s the lyrics to my favourite song,” she explained, “in Elvish.”

“Shushpicious Mindsh?”

…I sadly didn’t say, but wish I had.

What’s yours?

The new lineup of Fleetwood Mac, featuring Neil Finn and Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell, has made its TV debut on the Ellen show playing The Chain and Gypsy. It somehow sounds both exactly how you’d expect Fleetwood Mac to sound with Neil Finn yet also surprisingly good.

Nice to see the Hep bopping along in the front row at 3:18.

Every once in a while I have a go at getting into comics and it never quite happens. A previous ATM many years ago – possibly on the original Word site – pointed me towards Watchmen, V for Vendetta, The Dark Knight Returns, Hellboy and League of Gentlemen. All excellent works, I’m sure, but they didn’t connect with me.

Recently watching Thor: Ragnarok and Guardians of the Galaxy – pure, colourful knockabout fun with little assumed knowledge – has inspired me to try again, and using the free (and not necessarily legal) resource readcomiconline.to as recommended by someone here, I have set off in search of the source material.

The original Guardians books look gorgeous and thrilling and all the reasons I wanted to get into comics in the first place. But they are also – to me – fairly impenetrable. I dipped into ‘Annihilation’, which is apparently where the modern iteration of the Guardians first appear (I realise they are different from the movie characters) but didn’t really have a clue what was going on.

Then I found out there was a prelude to that story in two other collections, ‘Thanos’ and ‘Drax the Destroyer’ so have » Continue Reading.

I won’t put any spoilers in this post but we can discuss with spoilers in the thread, right?

Anyway the critics seem to love it unanimously – but looking at the comments below the line on, say, The Guardian’s review, other filmgoers seem much more scathing (don’t look at these comments if you don’t want to know what happens, by the way). And these aren’t Comic Book Guy ‘worst episode ever’ types but people who enjoyed the previous instalment and were genuinely disappointed by this one, and perplexed that it could have thrown away such promise.

Me, I can kind of see both points of view. It isn’t prequel-level bad and if you’re taking kids to see it you can still expect to have a good time. But after an amazing opening ten minutes it did feel at times like the film was losing its way – including one scene where I thought “this is getting ridiculous”. Many moments didn’t add up, weren’t adequately explained, or stretched the boundaries of credulity even for a film about people who make rocks float. But, overall, I feel there is just enough magic to carry it through and will probably go to see » Continue Reading.

Take a song and its polar opposite. Can you insert a song in between them to make them flow perfectly?

This is to do with the perfect segue rather than any other link.

The thought popped into my head while listening to an ’80s mix’ CD. The first track is Love Will Tear Us Apart, followed by Small Town Boy, followed by We Close Our Eyes by Go West. I mean, can you imagine two more different songs (performed by two more different acts) than Love Will Tear Us Apart and We Close Our Eyes? Yet with Bronski Beat in between, it kind of works. Almost.

Failing that – do you have any playlists with jarringly different songs right next to each other which somehow just sound right together? When I was a kid I put Girl by The Beatles and Tainted Love by Soft Cell next to each other on a tape. Shouldn’t have worked but did.

Here’s 5-year-old Reuben playing on his new Christmas present. I’m looking for the Massive’s recommendations of simple drum parts for him to attempt.

So far he likes Bad Moon Rising, Old Man by Neil Young and We Will Rock You. What else can he try?

As you can see he lacks a hi-hat (I’m rectifying this!) so I’m really looking for simple bass-snare tracks with the occasional crash.

Did you know that the rhythm guitar part on Like a Prayer was by Prince? I didn’t until recently. The piano glissando on Get It On is Rick Wakeman running a finger along the keyboard – his sole contribution to the track, he says. Apparently Lionel Richie, Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder are all in the choir on Donna Summer’s State of Independence, not that you can tell.

Do you have any other examples of wasted backing musicians?

A couple of people mentioned H&O on the ‘Music you love…’ etc thread. I’ve only recently come to them after picking up their best of comp and the Abandoned Luncheonette album. So where next? I definitely plan to investigate the ‘Silver’ album and – though H&O themselves apparently never rated it – War Babies. Is anything else worth checking out after that point?

Nice video too.

Yes, that’s me. I’m one of those annoying types who’s suddenly jumped on the vinyl bandwagon. Blame the missus: she thought I’d like a record player for Christmas, and I dug out the few records I had in the loft to humour her. But here’s the thing: it’s transformed my listening habits. I’m focusing on the music in a way I never did before. Meanwhile, the rationing of choice available in the local record emporium actually makes it easier to select something to listen to than the unlimited options presented by streaming. It’s all new to me – as a kid I mainly played records for the purpose of recording them to cassette.

So here’s the query. I’ve noticed that some of the records I’ve picked up lately sound worse than others. It’s not just a question of pops and crackles, but the actual audio quality of the LP itself. The Fleetwood Mac ‘White Album’ for example sounds almost muffled – Hatful of Hollow too. Almost like a dodgy cassette recording. On the “defence of CDs” thread someone mentioned duff pressings – could it be that? Or is it that they’ve accumulated decades of dust and I need to invest » Continue Reading.