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Aretha’s Amazing Grace movie (Slight return)

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When was the last time a concert film left you a blubbing quivering mess? In my case, last night. It’s been discussed on the AW previously (including Aretha’s ‘ complicated’ relationship with her father) but now it’s on Amazon Prime in the UK, & if music means *anything* to, I urge you to see it asap. I have the soundtrack, but to say the film has enhanced the listening experience is an understatement. Once in a while it does us good to be reminded of why performers became household names, transcending genres, marketing etc & boy is this an example of that. The film itself is full of tiny gems – plenty of extremely funky outfits in the congregation ( this was ’72 don’t forget!) – there are spare seats on night number one!, all the techies are longhairs & the mic covers are split & pretty grotty looking – something unimaninable today. Consider me blown away- fantastic!

Mongo Shakers -‘This Is Four’ – Please give this music a spin

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Mongo Shakers are musical collaborators who’ve worked together for around 30 years in East London. The core members have been Matt & Chris, who have mostly tinkered away in various home built studios, drafting in pals to play on recordings, but also playing the odd gig. Over time I’ve seen the sophistication of their work increase to the point where I class myself as a fan who’d happily buy their stuff. Anyhow, very sadly Chris died in February 2017 & Matt has crafted a labour of love to complete their final work together as a full album & as a tribute to Chris. If you think soundscapes, Moby, Holger Czukay with a sprinkle of KLF, you won’t be far off. If that’s your bag, have a listen. Any and all feedback would be appreciated by the numerous musicians on the work.

You can now access it in many different ways: you can stream it for free on soundcloud here: https://soundcloud.com/mongo-shakers/sets/this-is-four

you can pay to download it from Bandcamp: https://mongoshakers.bandcamp.com/releases

you can stream it on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3APvCNA3seTZdL4eiFdRAX

you can buy it on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/this-is-four/1324416989

I love it, maybe you will too. Apologies that for some reason, I can’t make the » Continue Reading.

Sam Shepard

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Simon Day summed him up pretty well on Twitter. Terrific writer, great actor and ridiculously good looking. Last seen onscreen as the father in ‘Bloodline’ on Netflx but probably best known for his portrayal of Chuck Yeager ( sp?) in the screen version of The Right Stuff ( an Oscar nomination). I knew several people of the lady persuasion who confessed to almost literally swooning watching him onscreen. If you ever get a chance to see a production of the play ‘Buried Child’ that he won the Pulitzer for, grab it., it’s powerful stuff. RIP etc.

George A Romero

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Saddened to learn of the passing of the zombie meister bar none. Dawn Of The Dead did it for me as a 14/15 year old at the flicks. Terrifying & thrilling in equal measure, I didn’t realise there was a satrical or cultural significance to any of it for ages but it is so clear in retrospect. By all acounts a lovely, principled man regarded with huge affection by all who knew him or workrd with him. A great body of work & a massive influence on popular culture.

ATM: Robyn Hitchcock

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I only have 2 Robyn albums ( don’t laugh), ‘Ole Tarantuala’ & ‘ Love From London’ both of which I love. Determining to drill down deeper I have ordered ‘ Fegmania’ on the strength of online reviews & it being quite haed to find, thus easily missed. So, if you are of the RH cogniscenti, which say, 5 albums could you not live without. I’ll do a bit of totting up & purchasing based on the feedback. Many thanks peeps.

Hot Lady Writers

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To clarify the OP title, that’s female authors, not…oh please yourselves. I’ve decided this year to devote my fiction reading to female authors. I reckoned a concious decision might be interesting in terms of broadening my perspectives on stuff. So far I’ve enjoyed the excellent young SF writer Becky Chambers ‘Wayfarers 1 & 2′ & am currently into Edna O’ Brien’s dark ‘ The Little Red Chairs’, with ‘White Teeth’ by Zadie Smith to follow. I’d appreciate any recommendations from the Massive that fall into the ‘you have GOT to read this’ bracket. I’m already a fan of Ursula Le Guin, Marge Piercy & Kate Atkinson among others but know I’m missing out & loads more, so hit me! Cheers.

25 Best Screen Actresses of all time (Battleship Pretension podcast listeners vote)

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As a follow up to the (ahem) hugely popular thread on actors, here’s the list of actresses. For clarity’s sake, listeners were asked to vote for their favourite 5 people in each category & the results were cobbled into a top 25. The presenters have conceded that a bigger list (say fave 20) would have probably have yielded better results. Like the actors list, pretty interesting – good to see most chosen for their actual craft rather than for their sex appeal – which I think may have been notably different in days gone by.

Whaddya think? Vent your approbrium etc. below

1. Meryl Streep 2. Ingrid Bergman 3. Katharine Hepburn 4. Barbara Stanwyck 5. Cate Blanchett 6. Julianne Moore 7. Gena Rowlands 8. Ellen Burstyn 9. Bette Davis 10. Liv Ullman 11. Frances McDorman 12. Audrey Hepburn 13. Juliette Binoche 14. Catherine Deneuve 15. Kate Winslet 16. Kathy Bates 17. Deborah Kerr 18. Tilda Swinton 19. Maria Falconetti 20. Jodie Foster 21. Sissy Spacek 22. Judi Dench 23. Viola Davis 24. Gong Li 25. Sigourney Weaver

25 Greatest Screen Actors of all time (Battleship Pretension podcast listeners vote)

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Forget Sight & Sound, Empire and the BBC, it’s obvious that podcast listeners hold sway with taste making these days. I think it’s quite an interesting list, as much for what it reflects about the tastes of a youngish ( generally sub 30s US) audience as anything else. For the record, I listen to every show, but didn’t vote – way too hard if not impossible to rate actors in this way. Here’s the list 1. James Stewart 2. Phillip Seymour-Hoffman 3. Daniel Day-Lewis 4. Cary Grant 5. Marlon Brando 6. Robert De Niro 7. Jack Nicholson 8. Toshiro Mifune 9. Humphrey Bogart 10. Charlie Chaplin 11. Gene Hackman 12. Tom Hanks 13. Peter O’ Toole. 14. Kurt Russell 15. Buster Keaton 16. Robert Duvall 17. Denzel Washington 18. Orson Welles 19. Robert Mitchum 20. Al Pacino 21. Dustin Hoffman 22. Peter Sellers 23. Jack Lemmon 24. Gary Oldman 25. Spencer Tracy

Definitely some shocking omissions. No Henry Fonda, Michael Caine, Burt Lancasterr, Paul Newman, Kirk Douglas?

Pile in with your outrage as only lovers of lists can do! For anybody interested in the discussion of the list , you can find it on Episode 495, with input from » Continue Reading.

ATM: D-Day book – Beevor or Hastings?

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As the Autumn nights are drawing in, I’m lining up a non-fiction break between Vols 2 & 3 of a chunky novel trilogy. Naturally, for me, non- fiction usually equates to war ( must have been all those dreadful comics I read as a kid) & D-Day it is. Both Beevor & Hastings have covered D-Day, & both have good write ups & I’ve been satisfied by both of them in the past. I’m not going to read both offerings though, so can anybody advise me which is best, ideally havong actually read both, but any input wecolmed. Many thanks.

ATM: ‘ Proper’ reading lights – your thoughts etc.

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Just received a circular from the best known company that makes ‘proper’ reading lights – the one that’s always touting in the Sunday supplements. I cannot decide if I’d be making a worthwhile investment ( akin to a really decent pair of shoes) or if the whole pitch is essentially blowing smoke up the customers’ backside & flattering them that having bought one they’ll be deemed by their peers as a ‘real’ reader. FWIW I don’t give a fig if anyone even notices it. Anybody forked out their hard earned loot for one of these wotsits, & if so, are they worth it?

Sexy Voices

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My favourite current ‘voice crush ‘ is Avery Truffelman from the 99% Invisible podcast. I could listen to her velvety, slightly rasping tones all day. I don’t know what she looks like, though I could find out online easily enough if I wanted, but I prefer not to. Got me to thinking, my tastes in in this area are very much if a type. Ronnie Spector, Rachel Nagy from the Detroit Cobras, Annie Nightingale back in the day. So far so obvious. So what are yours & who floats your boat? Is it Barry White? Ian McEllan? David Beckham? VICTORIA Beckham? Upper crust or rough trade, foreign or domestic? Obvs this doesn’t infer you want to actually get jiggy with your choices, but whose vocals do you love luxuriating in?

Movie Recommendation: Wild Tales (2015)

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Not a review, just a nod to any interested parties, having seen it yesterday. Superb hilariously dark anthology movie from Argentina. A handful of short tales of excess, frustration & revenge that gripped me from the first reel. Currently available on Amazon Prime amongst other sources. I’d happliy part with money to see this. A+.

Yet ANOTHER WTF Klaxon (sorry) William Friedkin

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Maron does it again, I’m afraid. You want a 2 hour conversation will the decidedly eccentric director of The French Connection, The Exorcist & Sorcerer? You’ve got it! Friedkin doesn’t do interviews these days, so this is something of a coup. Plenty on Gene Hackman , Linda Blair, Roy Scheider, the Turin Shroud – I kid you not – & why 35 mm prints are shite. Maron of course remains as whackable as ever for those so inclined, but even if you loathe him, this is a chat with the guy who set up a 90 MPH car chase through NYC in regular traffic with no permission, the cameraman in the car protected by a mattress!

Umberto Eco RIP

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Very clever bloke & a writer who helped sharpen my reading & thinking after reading his stuff ( & yes I did see the Sean Connery film before I read The Name Of The Rose). I can’t think of many writers whose essay collections were often as interesting as his novels.

Read a crap book lately?

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I have, or rather I have wasted several lunchtimes ‘giving it a go’ before bailing out at 42% on the dreaded Kindle. I don’t mind a middle or even low brow page turner, especially as a palate cleanser between ‘proper’ big reads so I found The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker. It’s apparently a best seller & its young author has had the French language original widely translated already as fans of the book gush their praise over every available medium. Trouble is, even allowing for the possibility it could be a very clunky translation, it is palpably shite to the point of being nigh on unreadable. A murder mystery set in a John Irving-by-numbers New Hamphire investigated by a young writer it is so bad I honestly am confident I could do better ( a very poor sign). Stunningly wooden dialogue, tracing paper characters, a plot that would make Dan Brown seem like [insert good writer here]. I had to stop as it was starting to make me angry. Shed loads of sales point to others loving it. I had to wonder if it was the first book most of them had ever read. So, » Continue Reading.

ATM Trying to find/ remember recent artist posted here

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Saw a terrific song recently on here by a red haired lass called Adlon or Aldon ( or something) titled something about a tropical island / holiday paradise ( or something). Dying to investigate further, but can’t for the life of me find it. Can you help? ( apologies for resemblance of bloke in record shop you asking for ‘the one that goes, nah nah nah ner ner bah bar’ or whatever. Thanks

Which one piece of art would you have on the wall at home if you could?

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Prompted by thoughts on the Classic Albums thread – i.e. stuff which may be excellent but you don’t fancy hearing it often, if at all – it made me think, what would provide long term contemplative satisfaction if you could the original to lose yourself in at your leisure? I thought a couple of conditions ŵere reasonable – you would have it for 5 years & then return it, you can’t sell it or charge admission, but if it was a whopper ( such as big Picasso) arrangements would be made to make your living space big enough to accommodate it comfortably. At the moment , mine would be View of Delft by Vermeer, just because it would. So would you have a Hopper, a Rothko, a Turner? Or maybe a Lichtenstein, a Picasso or a Cezanne? Perhaps a tearful clown or white horses in the surf are more your bag. Get all cultural & let us in on your inner art appreciator.