The Afterword

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How many times have you left a cinema with a song or piece of music indelibly ingrained in your memory?

That certainly was the case when I saw John Carpenter’s Assault on Precint 13. That menacing, synthy theme tune he wrote is a killer. And I think it is also true for many people who see Miyazaki’s 1988 anime masterpiece My Neighbour Totoro. We had a school cinema screening yesterday morning at Bio Reflexen. 180 lively, bubbly six and seven year olds. And more than a few of them came out singing the insanely catchy theme tune.

Re-watching the movie yesterday made me realise how much the music contributed. I had to google to find out that the composer was Joe Hisaishi, who has had a long career writing music for Studio Ghibli. Now I want to know more about him.

Grease? The Sound of Music? Battleship Potemkin? Hair? The Producers? Amadeus? Cabaret? Which film soundtracks left made the greatest impression?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZ4c8TQpDRg

Absolutely Ooky! A tribute to Vic Mizzy, Ian Stott and all the other household names whose names we don’t actually know.

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I was at the flicks this afternoon and there was a wonderful moment at the end of the Addams Family reboot. The original theme tune played and the whole audience (youngish kids and their parents) started finger snapping along. The most famous finger snap in popular music?

Another moment of musical magic occurred on Sunday afternoon. Biograf Reflexen, where I am a volunteer, was hosting a sneak preview of SVT’s Vår Tid är Nu (an enormously popular Swedish drama series). It is set in the 1960s and the audience were encouraged to dress up in period gear. To add to the he atmosphere we had booked local combo, the Flåset Brass Octet, to play outside the cinema. Really into the spirit of things, they turned up in uniforms that Sergeant Pepper’s band would have been proud of. And their repertoire was ace: Yellow Submarine, Putting on the Ritz and many more vintage faves.

What was especially pleasing was how much the children in the square were digging the band. Particularly memorable were two tiny tots dressed in bright yellow raingear who were really getting into the groove and moshing around joyfully.

To my delight, Flåset played the Wallace and Gromit » Continue Reading.

The people who get your record played on the radio in exchange for cocaine and sex. Or perhaps in this case haggis and a wee dram?

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Sometimes the most wonderful things crop up on YouTube as the result of me watching something else.

Recently, I was treated to a clip of an intimate 1983 gig by Randy Newman at the Odeon in NYC. To help him out on Rider in the Rain, he is joined by Ry Cooder and Linda Ronstadt. Three great musicians clearly having a lot of fun together. That put a big smile on my face too.

And there are many more unexpected things out there. Tom Jones singing with C.S.N & Y. Rhianna live with Calvin Harris at the Brit Awards. Beth Orton and Terry Callier singing Dolphins on Later. Not to mention Rammstein feat Ken Dodd and the Diddymen plus Jools Holland on boogie woogie piano.

Scorchio! The list just goes on and on.

Anyway, all this got me thinking of putting together a dream evening of music for my own pleasure. And for yours too of course! We are in Dreamland so artists being dead is no obstacle. The Taybridge Bar would do very nicely as a venue. And as I have been listening to a lot of Shetland and Scottish stuff recently, there will be a » Continue Reading.

I’m sorry Bryan! You are not the only ferry in the harbour!

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Using my monthly Stockholm public transport season ticket, I can take a ferry from Gamla Stan, the Old Town of Stockholm, over to the Gröna Lund Funfair. The journey only takes about 15 minutes, but there is something rather magical about it, especially if I am making the journey in the early evening to see a gig.

And every summer they have some marvellous gigs. Madness, Patti Smith, Lady Gaga, Veronica Maggio, Jimi Hendrix, Ry Cooder, Bob Marley and the Wailers… to name just a few past triumphs.

Leaving the stately buildings of the Old Town and sailing towards those flashing funfair lights with a boat full of people who are all psyched up for a great evening is a thrill.

Of course, I could take a far larger boat, sail eastwards all night and wake up in Helsinki. With the Stockholm archipelago to enjoy during the first part of the journey and its Finnish counterpart on the other side of the Baltic.

In this thread I would like to hear about ferry rides. Mundane, extraordinary, exotic, hilarious, terrifying…..

Journeys that you do every day. Trips that you did once that have left a great impression on you. Or » Continue Reading.

Slow boat to the Blasket Islands with Inge Thomson, Jimmy Perez, Bonnie Princes Billie and Charlie, Bob Marley and Harem Scarem

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After all the trials and tribulation, treachery and torment of the past week in Westminster, I fancy a peaceful weekend away from it all. And what better place for that than an island?

I’ve a few bees in my bonnet about islands at the moment.

Firstly, islands off the West Coast of Ireland. Our book circle have just read Roddy Doyle’s Smile, The protagonist, now in his 50s, looks back to his school days and among other things recalls having to read the autobiography of Peig Sawyers at school. This book, written in Gaelic, was compulsory reading for all Irish school kids in the years after independence. Not a cheerful read. Misery, pain and suffering on the Blasket Islands.

It was all so OTT that it inspired that wonderfully amusing writer, Third Policeman Hitmaker, Flann O’Brien, to write a parody of it; The Poor Mouth. It “ relates the story of one Bonaparte O’Coonassa, born in a cabin in a fictitious village called Corkadoragha in western Ireland equally renowned for its beauty and the abject poverty of its residents.” His satire got him into a lot of hot water.

No doubt about it. There is something very unique about those » Continue Reading.

Shaft goes to the Shetlands…and other ones that got away

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This week I’ve become rather fascinated by the music of Hot Buttered Soulman Isaac Hayes and multi-instrumentalist, Inge Thomson from Fair Isle in the Shetlands. These two musical directions seemed incompatible until I read an article this morning about posters for films that never got made.

I had a moment of inspiration. What if, after Shaft goes to Africa, the film company had had the bottle to make Shaft goes to the Shetlands?

Harlem’s most famous private dick dons a kilt and goes undercover in the Highlands and Islands in search of contraband whisky. Get in Brookmyre or Rankin to write the script. How can it go wrong?

Who’s the cat that won’t cop oot, when there’s pipers all aboot? Shaft!

I’ve posted a clip of the Shetlands Fiddlers Society. Their cover version of the Theme from Shaft would be magnificent.

So what are the films, real or imaginary, that you feel ought to have been made?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLUSFAI0vpQ

Nothing so cute as bald as a coot

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John Walters recently described the magnificent cover of Hot Buttered Soul as “the best photo of a perfect, shiny, baldy bonce there has ever been”.

Was there ever a better cue for a thread celebrating the baldies of popular culture?

From Uncle Fester to Skunk Anansie, from Kojak to Errol Brown: who is your follically challened favourite?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIN36NweL6I

Love me Tønder

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Retropath2 and I were discussing Danish music festivals over on the Cambridge thread. We seem to be in agreement that the Tønder Festival, which takes place in the last weekend of August at the town of Tønder in the south-west part of Denmark would be well worth a visit.

If money and time were no object, which festivals would you like to attend? Or which of local of your local festivals do you think we should come along to? The smaller and more esoteric, the better!

Roll up! Give some free publicity to hard working festival folk!

Reggae, jazz, synth, brass band, dansband, electronica, folk, bluegrass, newgrass: all genres welcome

A hurdy-gurdy festival in Hardanger? Count me in!

And just to prove the festival actually exists, perhaps you could treat us to a YT clip…..

I am very gullible, and if someone tells me there is an annual crumhorn festival in Cordoba, I will spend hours trying to find out more

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49BbLNg5wEc

From the prim Penguins of Pinner to the sizzling, scorchio sirens of San Francisco…Time to judge books by their covers!

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I burnt my fingers this morning. Sniffity introduced me to the paperback artwork of Robert McGinnis and I got minor burns from trying to pick one of those books up. Jinkies! A whole series of very fatale femmes, all rather under-dressed. McGinnis is a gifted fellow and there is great variety and skilful pencilwork to be enjoyed.

If the lyrics of Big Shot are anything to go by, Viv Stanshall had read a few. “Hotsie. What a dame. A big, bountiful babe in the region of 48-23-38. One hell of a region. She had the hottest lips since Hiroshima: I had to stand back for fear of being burned.”

What a contrast to the chaste, prim, rather anonymous Penguin paperbacks that I grew up with in Pinner All kinds of shenanigans might have been going on within, but those discreet covers were giving nothing away.

The paperback has been with us for rather a short period. Penguin was founded in 1935 and its first books were sold in Woolworths for sixpence each.

Over on the Poirot thread, Boneshaker mentioned the remarkable covers that Tom Adams did for Agatha Christie’s novel. Menacing, mysterious and memorable. So, tine to ask you: » Continue Reading.

The perennial appeal of a prim, Belgian pedant: Hats off to Hercule!

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Recently I watched an episode of The ABC Murders, starring John Malkovich as a rather twitchy, guilt-ridden, autumnal Poirot. It is directed by Brazilian. Alex Gabassi, and often has a rather brutal, phantasmagorical quality. It is more David Lynch than the genteel Christieville world of cucumber sandwiches at the vicarage that we are used to.

Intrigued, I paid a visit to IMDB and was struck by how many well/known actors have played Poirot. Albert Finney, Peter Ustinov, David Suchet, Orson Welles and Kenneth Branagh. The recent Orient Express movie feels like a vanity project so that our Ken would get a chance to play the great sleuth. Initially it was beyond my ken, why Hercule should be so popular, but on reflection, I began to appreciate the charm of this rather stiff and pedantic Belgian brainbox. And of course a detective with flaws is always appealing.

Agatha Christie was definitely rather fond of her creation who was inspired by the Belgians she met working as a nurse during the Great War. Poirot appeared in 33 novels, one play and over 50 short stories.

By contrast, her other great character, Miss Jane Marple from the village of St Mary Mead » Continue Reading.

Singalong hits for modern fruggers, lovers and rugger buggers?

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There has always been something rather exhilarating about a group of people spontaneously bursting into song together. At a concert, in a chain gang, at a football match, in the check-out queue at Waitrose, at an anti-Brexit demo or a sea shanty on a Tall Ship while hoisting the sails etc etc

But what are the modern songs that are most likely to get people bursting into song?

At this year’s Roskilde Festival there were two rather surprising examples. When Johnny Marr began to play There is a light that never goes out, the enormous audience in the Arena Tent sang along. It is a unique frisson to hear ten thousand people singing along to the chorus.

On the even larger Orange Stage, Robyn had 60,000 or so young Scandos joining in for that anthem for dumpees across the globe: Dancing on my own. Great, Danes! What a stupendous pop song it is. If Robyn is still touring when she is 80, the audience will doubtless expect to hear her sing about being dumped.

Over to you. What uplifting singalong experiences have you had or have you heard about?

I’ll confess I have some prejudices here about who is » Continue Reading.

24 hours from Coolsville. The coolest song never!

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I am greatly enjoying Lemonhope’s Compendium of Cool. It is certainly interesting to see how much we disagree on what constitutes a cool song. Cool for me is definitely a very urban thing.

This thread sets out to show the other side of the coin. Songs that you like a lot that are the very opposite of cool. I will kick with this; a gorgeous setting to music by Mando Diao of a poem by Swedish poet Gustaf Fröding. A scene from the Swedish countryside.

Please warm us up with your uncool delights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXl-jv9rnVA

“Oh, deep joy. Now I’ll trickley out this thorkus to get the storyload in mind.’”

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Last week, Locust pointed out that the characters in The Sims use an artificial language especially created for the game. You can’t learnt it as it is just an appealing gobbledy gook.

Crikey! There really are a lot of synthetic languages knocking around.

Stanley Unwin’s imaginative nonsensical monologues were a joy back in the day.And live on thanks to the Small Faces.

Anthony Burgess wrote A Clockwork Orange in a strange modern slang which was a mash up of Russian and English and also invented a language for the movie,The Quest for Fire.

Burgess’s great idol was James Joyce and his final “novel” Finnegans Wake (prose poem more like it) is written in a polyglot mash-up of many different languages.

Esperanto, along with several other artificial languages, was created in the 1920s to try and unite the citizens of the world. Modern Hebrew was a rebooting of the language of the Old Testament for the new state of Israel. Swahili is also a conlang (constructed language),

Tolkien’s dedication to Middle Earth was so great that he went into lavish descriptions of the different languages that were spoken.

Iceland’s finest, the extraordinary Sigur Ros write all their lyrics in Hopelandic » Continue Reading.

Ones that got away in 2019? Celluloid treats for the cinephiles of Kärrtorp, please!

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Help! This evening I am meeting my pals from our local film club to decide which seven movies we will be screening this autumn. Are there any movies you have seen in the last 12 months that would bring delight to the southern suburbs of Stockholm?

Almost anything goes, but our mission is to screen stuff that won’t get much of an airing at the local multiplex. I would be particularly keen to hear about some good comedies.

Our cinephiles do tend to like glum films. The five most popular screenings in the last two years were:

I, Daniel Blake, Das schweigende Klassenzimmer, Human Flow, Insyriated and Utøya.

All fine films but not many laughs. That last one, a reconstruction of the Norwegian massacre is a particularly grim evening at the cinema.

Some of my personal favourites from recent years were Happy as Lazzaro, Roma, On Body and Soul, Paterson and Le Sens de la Fete.

All suggestions gratefully received!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-3JNRC2gvo

Sumer is icumen in, loudly sing ………Whoo Hoo!

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It was the end of the school term in Sweden this week and parents and children were gathered in schoolyards all over the country . Floral garlands, white dresses, Swedish flags were in abundance and a lot of music was performed by the pupils.

One of the highlights will have been Ida’s Summer Song. The lyrics are by Astrid Lindgren and the music by jazz bassist and composer Georg Riedel.

Previously a hymn was sung, but as Sweden became more secular in the 1970s this became the favourite song to say;

Farewell schoolbooks! Hallo summertime!

Parents can get a bit sentimental at this moment. It is a song so redolent with memories of ends-of-term from before. Several of my female pals confessed they had a bit of a blubber. Did I cry into my hanky? I did not! I retained a stiff upper lip throughout.

So do you have any favourite songs or poems that bid summer a warm welcome? Or perhaps express anxiety about the months that lay ahead?

I am going to kick off with Dodgy’s exuberant guitar pop: Staying out for the summer.

Throw your homework onto the fire (or feed it to the dog!) » Continue Reading.

Bluemoose Books from Yorkshire, the man who invented Scotland and the Little Book of Calm.

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I thoroughly enjoyed our recent excursion into the dusty, mysterious nooks and exotic grannies of the bookshop world in search of long- forgotten authors. So much so, that I would like spend a little more time succumbing to my bibliophiliac urges.

Publish and be damned! One thing that struck me was how pitifully ignorant I am of the world of publishing. What similarities are there between publishing houses and record companies? Are some writers like boy bands: a flash in the literary pan? And do others resemble, for example, Van Morrison, Neil Young or Paul Simon: a long distinguished career with some big hits and a few dodgier efforts.

Is Finnegans Wake the literary equivalent to Troutmask Replica? A work of deranged genius. But please don’t ask me to read it.

Some people know which label their favourite albums are on and who published the books they’ve been reading. Not me! I am currently reading a fine historical The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers. I scurried off now to check the publisher. Now on Bloomsbury, it was originally from Bluemoose Books near Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire. A feisty, independent outfit with a rather nice sense of humour. I » Continue Reading.

Dog-eared Brisbane Penguins, underwater engraver Robert Gibbings and the saintly …… Simon Templar!

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Penpontman is mikethep’s nom-de-plum over there on Instagram. If you are on Insta and not following him, you really ought to be. His adventures in the world of secondhand books are a delight, as are his photos of architecture in Brisbane, Folkestone and elsewhere.

This week Mike really captured my imagination with a photo of Blue Angels and Whales by Robert Gibbings. (see below), a book which was the very first piece of writing commissioned by Penguin in 1938. Gibbings (1889 – 1958) was a very talented Irish writer and engraver who was rather well-known in his time. Read his biography on Wiki! He was quite a character.

Anyway, this got us on to other writers who were once successful household names and now are largely forgotten. What an interesting idea for am AW thread, I thought. Mike was less convinced, Too limited and esoteric! So, please, blow the dust off those neglected paperbacks and help me prove him wrong. He will be delighted.

I would like to hear about those books (and authors) which were once in the bookcase in every home, or in the rucksack of every globetrotter yet are now largely forgotten.

Children’s writers are very welcome. » Continue Reading.

Finished with my teacher cos she couldn’t help me with my mind.Should Sabbath be Curricular or Extra-curricular?

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A couple of pennies that dropped for me this week about the differences between the Swedish and British school systems.

Firstly, while contributing to the AmDram thread I realised that the “School play” is a particularly Anglo-Saxon phenomenon. Locust’s classmates in Vasastaden never got the chance to see her as Lady MacBeth, Edda Gabler or Miss Jean Brodie as there is no teaching of drama in Swedish schools. And no Drama Clubs either. That is taken care of by an outside organisation such as Kulturama, an organisation do a marvellous job teaching music, dance, art.

Next, there are no school sports teams. Once again, this is done by sports clubs, where volunteer coaches do sterling work. So young players are loyal to their club not their school. (On one occasion alone, I played rugby for my school: they must have been really desperate for players. I was Walter the Softy pitched against 15 Dennis the Menaces from Wembley. Never again! I went back to languidly reading Baudelaire.)

Finally, there are no assemblies at any point in the school week. This used to be the starting point of every school day for me. The headmaster would always give a short » Continue Reading.

Am Dram! Thank you Maaaaam!

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Christopher Guest’s Waiting for Guffman did for Am Dram what Spinal Tap did for metal. If you have not seen it you are in for a treat. A group of rather naff parochial thespians from Blaine wait for a Broadway critic to come and watch their show, ( Guest does this kind of thing very well with great affection for his subjects.)

So, this is a thread about amateur drama. Everything from being one of the Three Wise Men in the school nativity play, to playing the vicar in the Padstow Players’ production of Murder at the Vicarage.

I would like to know about your experiences and those of your friends and family in the world of amateur theatricals,

One of my old school friends has been a stalwart of the Pinner Players for many years, revisiting Agatha Christie, Noel Coward etc. Another has become part of the Am Dram scene in Hong Kong. Performing in The Rocky Horror Show for all the ex-pats was a career high spot.

What gets chosen as the School Play in 2019? Is the whole concept a very British or American one? They have nothing of that kind in Sweden.

Have you supported » Continue Reading.

The Great British (and Irish!) Songbook 1066 – 1966

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Now is the Month of Maying! The Kings Singers in Nashville performing a tune from the It was a lover and his lass Hitmaker Thomas Morley. What more topical way to start a further exploration of some of the forgotten musical gems of the British Isles?

Ganglesprocket got us started when he asked for pre-Beatles songs a few weeks ago. That led to the mentioning of several composers that I had never heard of. And the discovery of many tunes that are still being sung or deserve to be.

Hats off to all the artists like Peter Skellern, Bryan Ferry, the Watersons and Richard Thompson who are still performing these songs. Dick T deserves special praise. Not only for his 1000 years of Popular Music project but also for the song, Al Bowlly’s in Heaven, which immortalises one of the great voices of 20th century pop music. The crooner from Mozambique who conquered British hearts.

Here are some of the names that cropped up.

Ewan MacColl – Dirty old town, The first time ever I saw your face

George Leybourne – (The lion of the music hall) – Champagne Charlie, Daring young man on the flying trapeze ( which was » Continue Reading.

Acker is in Devon, Al Bowlly is in heaven, Boorman and Corbijn are filming S Club 7

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This is a kind of “Hollywood goes to Frankie” thread. A few reflections about the peculiar relationship between the glamorous film industry and the magical world of popular music.

It all began at the weekend when @mikethep posted a clip of early 1960s chart topper Helen Shapiro. What an extraordinary voice she had and what a meteoric jump to the top of the charts.

That led me to the discovery that Richard Lester had made a film in 1962 It’s Trad, Dad starring Helen and Stranger on the Shore Hitmaker, Acker Bilk. (The first Brit to top the US singles chart.) Lester received a thousand quid for a movie with a flimsy plot but a wide variety of performances. It turned out however to be a real snapshot of its time. And it landed him the gig, directing the two Beatles movies.

Anyway, that is how I would like this thread to be. Unbelievable plot. Wooden acting. But several rather enjoyable musical interludes.

What do One Direction, Status Quo, The Pet Shop Boys, Madness, The Beatles, All Saints, Herman’s Hermits, S Club Seven, Cliff and the Shadows and the Dave Clark Five have in common?

They » Continue Reading.

I’ve been from Tucson to Tucumcari, Tehachapi to Tonapah

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You’ve heard the song, now read the novel!

I am currently reading Willy Vlautin’s excellent novel: Don’t skip out on me. It starts in the small town of Tonapah in Nevada where a young ranch hand, Hector, is planning a future life as a boxer. 100 Pages in and I realise that it is a continuation of the ideas that Willy had when he wrote a song of the same name for his band Richmond Fontaine.

I knew that he had a dual career as both a songwriter and a novelist What interests me is that he does not keep his two careers neatly separated. He started by writing a song but realised that there was a far longer tale to be told here and let one genre spill over into the other.

Vlautin is one of those talented people, like Sweden’s Love Antell (thanks Locust!), who can balance two careers. He is successful as both a songwriter and a novelist

Any other examples of works of art that started in one medium and ended up in another?

» Continue Reading.

Not so many Valkyrie down at the chip shop

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A shiny necklace of perfect pop pearls is adorning the Afterword on a current thread. Said thread asks us about how important pop music and that wisest of scribes, The Venerable Tiggs, points out that it is at times of uncertainty and bewilderment like these, that we really need pop music.

I have nothing against Mozart, Brahms, Liszt or Wagner. But did Tristan and Isolde ever have to sign on? Do the Valkyrie fly down to their local chip pie for a fish supper?

Chuck Berry, Ray Davies, Jarvis Cocker, Half ManHalf Bisuit, and other great songwriters of rock and pop push the envelope about what you can sing about in a pop song.

This is a thread to honor them.

Your examples please of songs by these pioneers of the popular song.

Too graphic marinaters need not apply!

Last Picture Show’s down the drive-in..

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I was doing the ironing at 6.00 am first morning, prior to the school run. when, for no particular reason, i started to sing Virginia Plain. Roxy Music’s first single is a perennial favourite, so why not?

Bryan was certainly firing on all cylinders with his cinematic references in the lyrics. Flying down to Rio, Whatever happened to Baby Jane and Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show from 1971. Who remembers that fine film today? (It featured a young Cybill Shepherd and Jeff Bridges and was rather good).

Anyway, I would like to hear about any other songs which refer to movies. Interpret that as broadly as you like. It might be name dropping of a film title or could be something more obscure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tFF2oB4n6M

Do a Barack! Tell us about your favourite films of the year!

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What do ex-President Obama and my pal DuCool have in common?

Well, along with being dapper style icons, they both enjoy producing a list of their favourites of the year. Barack has just published his on Facebook.

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As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a…

Posted by Barack Obama on Friday, 28 December 2018

Here are his favourite films of the past year:

Annihilation, Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, Blindspotting, Burning, The Death of Stalin, Eighth Grade, If Beale Street Could Talk, Leave No Trace, Minding the Gap, The Rider, Roma, Shoplifters, Support the Girls, Won’t You Be My Neighbor

I was very pleased to see he enjoyed Debra Graniks Leave no trace, which was one of my faves.

So what about you…

I have no doubt that the Trumpster is sitting in the White House at this very moment, listing the films he enjoyed most.

» Continue Reading.