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George Orwell, Bing Crosby, Anthony Powell…..Not all fanclubs are teenage!

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By George! I was fascinated to discover at the weekend that there is an Orwell Society dedicated to spreading the word about the Animal Farm Hitmaker.

So now, I have a question. Do any of you belong to (or know of) societies, associations or fanclubs dedicated to writers? All nationalities accepted!

That discovery was followed by another surprise. DuCool informed me that there is an Anthony Powell Society. They have pub evening, lectures and other events in honour of the writer of the 12 volume masterpiece “Dance” (as it’s known to the fans).

And while we’re on the subject of fanclubs, a Stockholm pal of mine is a keen reader of BING. A wonderful, glossy publication which would be the pride of any Space Age Bachelor Pad coffee table,.It comes out three times a year and is published by International Club Crosby, founded in 1936 and the world’s longest running fan club.

What have the Orwell Society achieved? Well, they have funded a rather fine statue of the great man which stands outside Broadcasting House.

Their site explains the background:

“Martin Jennings was chosen as the sculptor because Ben Whitaker admired his sculptures of John Betjeman at St » Continue Reading.

Greta Gerwig and Christopher Nolan present…. Barbenheimer! It’s beyond my Ken!

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Today is the opening day for two extremely different summer blockbusters: Greta Gerwig’s frothy, bubbly, extremely pink Barbie and art-house wunderkind Christopher Nolan’s stunning (but slightly po-faced), Oppenheimer.

Wags all over the world are delighted with this juxtaposition and humorists have been having a field day. The memes are alive with the sound of mashups.

Barbenheimer lives!

Have any of seen any of these that have tickled you funny bone?

And more importantly for the film industry: are you planning to see either of the films?

Needless to say, both Christopher and Greta must be vey pleased about all the extra publicity these mash-ups have generated.

My pal DuCool and I are great fans of Greta Gerwig, so it should be a fairly easy choice…….

R.I.P. Rita Lee: President Lula has declared three days of mourning and there’ll be an enormous public wake in Parque Ibirapuera

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A sad week for Brazil. The enormously popular rock singer Rita Lee has died of cancer at the age of 75.

In Europe, she’s probably best known as the singer of Os Mutantes, the trail-blazing 60s rock band. In Brazil she had a long career and achieved great popularity. Always outspoken and provocative, when she got the cancer diagnosis, she nicknamed the tumour “Jair” as a pique to the appalling Bolsonaro.

We could all learn a lot from how the Brazilians behave at a moment of sadness like this. President Lula has written in praise of Rita on Instagram and declared three days of national mourning. There will be an an enormous public wake for her honour in Parque Ibirapuera in Sao Polo.

Fat chance of anything like that ever happening in the UK! Will there be flags at half-mast when Sir Ozzie of Osbourne pops his clogs?

Believe it or not, King Charles was a great fan. At an embassy disco (!) in Paris back in the day, he specifically asked the DJ to play Rita’s Lanca Perfume. Respect! His record collection is perhaps more interesting than I realised.

“Past the bridge, past the square, to the Abbey it’s planned. On a gathering storm comes a tall handsome man …

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…..In a dusty black coat with a red right hand”

My observant pal @DuCo01 has pointed out to me that one member of the official Australian delegation at Saturday’s coronation will be none other than Nick Cave, OA from Victoria. To my great amusement, he commented:

“Nick’ll know what to wear: his standard black suit with a white shirt. Classic Cave.

Maybe he’ll get invited up to the front to do an impromptu version of “People Ain’t No Good”?”

The obvious choice for the Aussie delegation would have been the late, great Cultural Attaché, Les Patterson. Or even the wonderful Kylie Minogue.

But no! The Aussies are going their own way. Are they taking the mickey?

Otherwise why would they invite one of the most charismatic, unpredictable, explosive rock stars of our time to this otherwise lacklustre affair.

The wonderfully charismatic Mr Cave is not a man to be upstaged. Things could get interesting….

I’m almost tempted to watch a few minutes. Naaah! If the sun is shining I’m off to Kungsträden to see the cherry trees in blossom.

Seriously though, are there any celebrities, living or dead, who you would like to see on » Continue Reading.

The Bonny Moorhen. Neo-Jacobite ornithologist, Alasdair Roberts, gives a fine song a boost with a modern vid.

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Here’s a pleasant surprise. Thanks to Folkradio.co.uk for bringing this clip to my attention-

That excellent Scottish folk singer, Alasdair Roberts, has a new album out: “Grief in the Kitchen and Mirth in the Hall. ” There’s also a “single”, an old Jacobite song, The Bonny Moorhen. And what’s more there is a wonderful stop-frame video by Jonathan Farr, which really complements the song.

“The Bonny Moorhen” is a fond paean to a waterbird whose regal profile compares to none other than Bonnie Prince Charlie, the rebel Scottish king who dared stand up against the redcoats. Imperilled by events, the bird’s beauty only grows – a song of Scottish pride, played with processional grace and a wink of shared secrets.” (folkradio.co.uk)

In our post-MTV era, I would be very interested to hear about any other artists who have produced unlikely and unexpected videos to accompany their songs.

No question about it. An imaginative vid can really bring out the splendours of a song.

If your Ya-Yas go saggy, then get our your Gagas!

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Surprise of the week was to find myself thoroughly enjoying a concert clip by the Rolling Stones (posted here on the AW by @chrisf). That has not happened for a few years. The main reason for my sudden flush of excitement was the spirited contribution of Lady Gaga who joined them to sing Gimme Shelter. She was clearly having the time of her life and she brought out the very best of Mick and the band. I hang my head in shame. How did I manage to forget what a fine rock band they are.

Top marks for Gaga’s style. She was dressed liked a refugee from one of Tim Burton’s wackier movies or one of those CB Beebies more psychedelic offerings.

Over to Sweden now for another very unexpected combination. SVT’s popular Friday evening quiz show managed to book Benny Andersson’s Orkester as houseband for four programmes. If that wasn’t enough, they then combined them with that dynamic duo of Swedish electropop: Icona Pop for Gaga’s Bad Romance.

BAO also played with Swedish pop princess, Laleh. Her Swedish version of Against all Odds is stunning. Benny looks like the cat that got the cream.

» Continue Reading.

Lördagshjärtat – Sundry chaps sing the Tom Waits Songbook

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This thread is intended as a complement to Foxnose’s excellent thread which highlighted female artists singing the songs of Tom Waits.

I was delighted with the large number of fine covers that were

uncovered.

But it made me curious to hear some of the chaps who have covered Tom.

I’m kicking off with a now defunct Waits covers band from Gothenburg: Bad Lever och sin Brustna Hjärtat (Bad Liver and his Broken Heart). They didn’t just translate the songs to Swedish, they even transposed the songs to Swedish settings. They sent a demo to Tom early on and he was pleased to give them his blessing.

So who else is there? I suspect it is more difficult to a bloke to do a Waits cover. The songs are so idiosyncratic, it is tough to make them your own.

Will we get any surprises? Ken Dodd, Van Morrison, Metallica???

Ö!

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Guernsey, Tasmania, Jersey, Menorca, Isle of Wight, Capri, Fire Island, Majorca, Ibiza, the Isle of Dogs, Gotland, Öland, Trinidad, Åland, Eigg, Iceland, Tenerife, Gozo, Fiji, Ireland, Cap Verde, Malta, Innisfrere, Sicily, Corfu, Crete, Sark, Rhum, Corsica, Bali, Isle of Man, Anglesey, Jamaica, Cuba, Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard, Hawaii, Blåkulla, Lindisfarne, Madagascar, Lanzarote, Mont Saint Michel, Santa Helena, Elba…….

The Lofoten Islands, The Balearic Islands, the Channel Islands, the Inner Hebrides, The Outer Hebrides, Indonesia ..

Ö is the Swedish word for island.

This morning I was listening on Spotify to Recordings from the Åland Islands by Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer. As you all know, it’s bubbling under at Number 17 in the Duke’s 50 Best Albums of the Year. ¨

The story behind the recording is unusual. Two avant-garde musicians from California visit the Åland Islands in the middle of the Baltic Sea, halfway between Finland and Sweden in order to help some friends rebuild a hotel. While they are there they give a recital in the beautiful, local church in Kumlinge, St Anna ‘s, which has been there since the Middle Ages and is famed for its beautiful. Frescoes.

”The concept of recording music there came » Continue Reading.

A quirky, antiquarian bookshop. A folky maverick from East Neuk. A pop princess from Jönköping. And a raggle-taggle combo of joyous, second-hand iconoclasts…

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On Friday evening, on my way to a gig, I had to walk along a long, rather spooky pedestrian tunnel that started just a stone’s throw away from the spot where Olof Palme was murdered.

Oddly appropriate. I felt was going back in time. Back to an age of paper tickets and gigs that cost next to nothing or were even free. An era when pop stars were also novelists, and perhaps even actors. An age of mysterious, exciting raggle-taggle bands who never had enough time to rehearse and as a result never played exactly the same gig twice.

The ticket said it all. A slip of green paper. No bar code. No reference number. Price 200 kronor: twenty quid.

James Yorkston and the Second Hand Orchestra were back in town.

The previous time I saw them play was at the Pygmeteater, a diminutive venue at Odenplan that specialises in puppet shows for small children. An audience of Stockholm hipsters sat on hard, low wooden benches intended for rather small bottoms.

There are few smaller venues in Stockholm. But James found one! The wonderful Rönnell’s Antiquarian Bookshop. By day they sell esoteric volumes to hard-core bibliophiles. Niche is their » Continue Reading.

No mufas, por favor! Las cábalas de Senor Bingo? Whatever you do: don’t say the C word!

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Last Saturday evening my daughter and I were in Sergelstorg in the middle of Stockholm enjoying the various artworks which were part of the Nobel Week Lights. Suddenly I became aware of a group of young guys shouting, clapping, dancing and waving a red flag with a yellow star.

Ignoramus that I am, I had to ask which team had won a match.

Even in the maddest of moshpits, I have not seen such joy and exultation. Their happiness was very infectious. There were Maroccan girls here too but their enthusiasm was slightly more restrained. I even ran into a homeless lady who is always there selling Situation Stockholm (our version of the Big Issue) at Skanstull who was ecstatically happy. We always exchange a few words when I buy the mag. I had no idea she was from Marocko. Marrakesh, she told me, next time I saw her.

Anyway, here’s a very enjoyable article from The Observer about the Argentinians and their enthusiasm and their superstitions. Difficult not to think of our very own @BingoLittle and the marvelous piece he wrote about Maradonna

So Bingo, do you have any cábalas?

What about the rest of you?

Any sporting » Continue Reading.

(Flaming hell! It’s White Nighty Day again!) Are you one of the 24 Hour Polyphonic People?

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Today Sweden celebrates Santa Lucia. Turn the telly on early in the morning and you will get the Full White Nighty/Flaming Candles/Gingerbread Monty. And most big workplaces, schools and pre-schools will have a Lucia procession followed by gingerbread and glögg.

The music is gorgeous and there is something wonderfully pagan about it all. Most peculiar how a Catholic saint from Syracuse became the focal point for this Nordic Midwinter celebration!

There’s nothing quite like the sound and sight of large choir of young lasses in white nighties with candles in their hair accompanied by Starboys and Gingerbread men, all singing their hearts out.

Choirs, with or without the Arthur Brown flaming headgear, are such a big part of December. It doesn’t feel like Xmas until I’ve heard some Xmas Carols.

This year in fact, after seeing Stile Antico live, I’ve been bingeing on choral music all November and discovering all manner of new names:

Voces8, Theatre of Voices, The Sixteen, Ars Nova Copengaen, I Fagiolini, The Clerks Group..

So now I’d like to ask you:

Do you sing in a choir

Do you have any favourite choirs, ensembles, choral societies, glee clubs etc?

Have you any favourite carols or » Continue Reading.

Flaming hell! It’s white nghty

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Today Sweden celebrates Santa Lucia. Turn the telly on early in the morning and you will get the Full White Nighty/Flaming Candles/Gingerbread Monty. And most big workplaces, schools and pre-schools will have a Lucia procession followed by gingerbread and glögg.

The music is gorgeous and there is something wonderfully pagan about it all. Most peculiar how a Catholic saint from Syracuse became the focal point for this Nordic Midwinter celebration!

There’s nothing quite like the sound and sight of large choir of young lasses in white nighties with candles in their hair accompanied by Starboys and Gingerbread men, all singing their hearts out.

Choirs, with or without the Arthur Brown flaming headgear, are such a big part of December. It doesn’t feel like Xmas until I’ve heard some Xmas Carols.

This year in fact, after seeing Stile Antico live, I’ve been bingeing on choral music all November and discovering all manner of new names:

Voces8, Theatre of Voices, The Sixteen, Ars Nova Copengaen, I Fagiolini, The Clerks Group..

So now I’d like to ask you:

Do you have any favourite choirs, ensembles, choral societies, glee clubs etc? And have you any carols or seasonal songs?

While your are thinking….

» Continue Reading.

Prog Ballads Volume 2 – Prog goes to the dogs, has sprogs and inspires some Proggy Noggies

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Last week Feedback_File launched an excellent thread in which he set about creating a playlist of favourite Prog Ballads. He didn’t make life easy for himself: he allowed only one song per artist. It resulted in an excellent 34 song playlist.

Slightly to my surprise, I really enjoyed the music people were posting. Prog? Moi? Surely some mistake? But then I just looked at the playlist and the penny dropped.

Family, Soft Machine, Caravan, Pink Floyd, Yes, Roy Harper, Traffic, King Crimson, The Nice, Genesis, Jack Bruce, Curved Air, Matching Mole, Kevin Ayers and the Whole World, Focus, Bonzo Dog Band, Hatfield and the North, Stackridge, Procol Harum., Pete Brown and Piblokto, Robert Wyatt….

That’s a list of the musicians who provided the soundtrack for my teenage and early adult years. I hadn’t listened to for years but suddenly I was once again enjoying all that music.

So why did I and the gorgeous Progtalina bust up? Why did she not become the mother of my sprogs? Why, when I left the UK to work abroad in 1979, was my suitcase full of scruffy punk singles and not a prog album in sight!

I’ll put those questions on hold for » Continue Reading.

Gal Costa (1945 – 2022)

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Obituary

A sad day for Brazil. Gal Costa, the much-loved, sensual, versatile yet unmistakeable Brazilian singer has left the building. She was booked to play Nalen in Stockholm tomorrow evening. Sadly the Grim Reaper had other ideas.

Gal was a key figure in the Tropicália movement of the late 1960s, along with Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Maria Bethania and Tom Ze.

”Costa’s self-titled album from 1969 was ”a madcap constellation of Brazilian pop music, psychedelic rock and the avant-garde, her voice not so much the glue but the liquid gold swimming through choppy arrangements and unconventional structures by Veloso and Gil.” (Lars Gorich, NPR)

“Departing with her are the tender voice [and] the encanto do canto, which were always her trademark,” Gilberto Gil shared in Portuguese via video. “Remaining for us is saudade, the sadness, the grief.”

President Elect Lula has posted an elogy on Twitter: a smashing photo of himself hugging Gal and a comment where describes her as “one of the greatest singers in the word.”

Stile Antico sing Thomas Tallis and William Byrd and suddenly I’m Eight Miles High

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You can’t wait too long for something good.

NPR’s Tiny Desk sessions have opened to my ears to all manner of excellent artists and not least of these is Stile Antico, the magnificent, London-based, Early Music ensemble who played their first ever concert in Sweden here in Stockholm on Sunday afternoon.

That Tiny Desk session was such a revelation: an unexpected sight and sound. Twelve classical singers in mufti, looking very relaxed in their everyday clothes rather than the more sombre togs they wear for concerts, gathered around Bob Boilen’s desk, creating music that transfixes and transports this listener to another dimension. Completely a capella: their performances are a testament to the beauty of the human voice.

Credit where credit is due. I’m sure it was my pal DuCool who first mentioned Stile Antico to me. He also has converted me to a regular attender at the Stockholm Early Music which takes place every May. The moshpit is slightly less energetic than Roskilde but the music is stupendous.

On Sunday Stile Antico sang Toward the Dawn: a programme of compositions by Renaissance composers such as Talllis, Taverner, Allegri, Monteverdi, Byrd and Allegri.

The only modern composition was » Continue Reading.

The Yield by Tara June Winch – Here’s an imaginary soundtrack to the novel featuring music by Archie Roach, Ruby Hunter, Gurrumul, Yothu Yindi and…..

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I’ve just finished Tara June Winch’s second novel which won the prestigious Miles Franklin Award in Australia. It tells the story of August Gondiwindi, a young woman of Aborigine origin from New South Wales, who returns from London to her small hometown to attend her grandfather’s funeral.

Intertwined with August’s story are two other plot lines. One consists of pages from a Wiradjuri dictionary that her late grandfather, Albert, had been writing. In describing the meaning of the words, he tells his own life story.

The third strand consists of the memoirs of a Lutheran missionary, Ferdinand Greenleaf, who lived in the local area from 1881 to 1916. A decent, honourable man, confronted with the vile cruelty of the white settlers against the aborigines: his chapters provide a valuable and horrific history lesson. Winch has a great descriptive ability regarding Australian flora and fauna, creates a gallery of interesting likeable characters, and tells the story of the injustices inflicted upon her people very movingly.

Reading some reviews, I thought for some reason The Yield might be rather dull and worthy, terribly PC and a bit of a slog. Not at all! There’s lots of warmth and humour and a gallery » Continue Reading.

Cold War Steve Joins the Longest Queue

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Rumour had it that the Elizabeth Line, the longest queue on the planet, could be seen from space.

The media were having a field day coming up with statistics about it. Five miles long, !5 hour plus waiting time. Longer than the Great Wall of China.

Watching it all on the Swedish news, it all felt rather unreal. (It was difficult to relate to as there is no public figure who could inspire this level of devotion. And anyway, “lagom” is the name of the game in these parts. Noe excesses of emotion)

And what do other species of birds and beasts make of the current behaviour of homo sapiens angliensis? I can imagine lemmings chortling to themselves: “They make all that fuss about a few of us jumping off cliffs! Huh! How dare they?”

One artist captured the atmosphere very well for me: Cold War Steve.

Anyway, I suspect many of you already know this wonderful satirical illustrator and his irrereverent collages.

I discovered him when NigeltheBald posted his wonderful portrayal of Life on the Line.

He publishes his stuff on Twitter, Very entertaining, Take a look!

Are there any other cartoons, articles, songs which you felt captured » Continue Reading.

Morrismen in Mariatorget! As unlikely as a herd of reindeer in Rayners Lane?

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Mrs KFD came home yesterday evening after enjoying an al fresco drink with a pal on Södermalm and had a rather surprising photo to show me.

As the girls had sat there enjoying a bite, a group of chaps dressed in white, waving their hankies and jangling their bells had suddenly appeared. Morrismen in Mariatorget! Now there’s a sight I never expected to see. One chap has a very find set of whisker and really looks the part.

Maybe I’ve underestimated how cosmopolitan Stockholm is in 2022?

Thanks to a friend in Edinburgh, I’ve just discovered brilliant Irish comedy trio, Foil, Arms and Hog. So I was pleased to see they are playing Söder teater in a few weeks time. But it is completely sold out.

So out of touch! File me under Fogey!

Anybody else here seen, heard, drunk or eaten anything recently that you would not have expected to find in your neck of the woods?

Morrrismen of Mariatorget

The Meg! Locking the stable doors after Thee Stallion has bolted.

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It’s 3.00 am. It’s rather warm, And out there in the forest there’s a rave party going on. The music is bouncing off the buildings and keeping me awake here in Bagis but it would be very difficult to find whereit’s coming from, even if I tried.

And I’m sitting here thinking about Megan Thee Stallion, the new rap star from Texas who I saw at Roskilde,

Correction! The new star from Texas who I did NOT see at Roskilde.

She was so unspeakably loud that I clutched my ears in pain and demanded that my pals drag me away! Thee Stallion made Simon and Garfunkel sound like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Which shows what a pathetic old codger I am. The Guardian’s Kitty Empire really enjoyed The Meg’s show at Brixton.

It’s pop, Jim, but not as we know it!.

Meanwhile, Nicki Minaj is currently topping the Billboard chart with Super Freaky Girl. I don’t know if that gets played on Radio 1. Lord Reith would self combust.

Nicki brags so outrageously about her skills between the sheets and it’s all so wonderfully shameless, I rather like it.

Last but not least, I have to mention Lizzo. » Continue Reading.

At dawn, a country lane on Öland is suddenly illuminated by a voluptuous, vulpine epithany…

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I saw a fox. Very early on a sunny Tuesday morning, as my teenage daughter and I were walking along the Öland lane where we spend our summer holidays, suddenly Vulpes vulpes stepped out from a field, looked at us for a few brief seconds and then made a rapid exit into a cornfield.

And that was that! No time to observe him or to take a photo. It felt like a rather perfect encounter . Now you see him, now you don’t. Reynard is famed for being mysterious and elusive. By contrast, we saw a herd of cows later in our walk. They immediately came shamelessly galumphing over the field to stand there by the fence and stare at us.

My late father used to tell me about looking out of his kitchen window in Pinner and seeing an urban fox doing its rounds from garden to garden early in the morning.

However, the only other time I have ever seen a fox in the wild was on a windswept path under Benbulbin, County Sligo. Equally dramatic. Equally short!

And Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard dared to call their meeting a Brief Encounter. Compared to my run-ins with » Continue Reading.

Skål! A Midsummer Night’s Dram!

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Recently, one of my FB pals from Holland, folk singer Linde Nijland, wrote about how much she was enjoying a folk festival, Ransäterstämman, that she was attending in Värmland. I was surprised. A festival I’d never heard of!

I asked a few friends and no one else had heard of it either. But then I asked my pal, Astrid, and she knew exactly what I was talking about. And she wasn’t surprised that no one knew about it. It’s a “spelmannsstämma” and it was taking place at a “bygdegård”. It wasn’t the kind of event that normal members of the public would know about. The majority of those present would be “spelmän”.

Linde’s reaction and seeing what excellent folk bands were playing at the event (Ranarim, Groupa, Väsen Duo, ) made me very curious to know more. And I soon realised that there were a lot of Swedish words about the whole folk music subculture that I did not understand. And when I did understand them, I realised that they were infernally difficult to translate. There’s something about the folk music scene in Sweden and the other Scandinavian countries which is very different to the UK. But what a » Continue Reading.

Expect garotas galore when bossa nova princess Adriana Calcanhotto visits the Jazz Café

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I’ll kick off with a couple of questions. How many of your favourite artists sing in a language which you don’t understand at all or only partially comprehend? I have lots: Julie Fowlis, Tom Jobim, Sailif Keita, Mari Boine, 9Bach, Elis Regina, Madredeus, Les Negresses Vertes, Pino Daniele etc etc

Have you ever been inspired to learn a little of another language to understand an artist’s lyrics?

I’m not sure quite what percentage of visitors to the AW are shapely, vivacious, young women from Brazil. I suspect the Admins have that kind of info at their fingertips. Anyway, this thread is for them. And anyone else here who enjoys modern Brazilian Bossa nova and MPB. On 7th and 8th June, the wonderful Adriana Calcanhotto from Porto Alegre, will be playing the Jazz Café in Camden. Singer-songwriter, author, illustrator and lecturer at the University of Coimbra in Portugal: she’s quite a Renaissance woman.

I had an excellent night out when I saw Adriana at the Fasching Jazz Club on Thursday. I had to constantly pinch myself to remember which country I was in. It was a gathering of the tribes for all the Brazilians in Stockholm and there certainly were not » Continue Reading.

The ETAs have landed! Life has returned to normal in Parkes, NSW

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I am constantly grateful to @Junior Wells and the other AW Australians for brightening our lives with tales from their neck of the eucalyptus woods.

Here is another contribution to that wonderful sub-genre: some wonderful photos and anecdotes from the Parkes Elvis Festival in NSW.

Oh for a ticket on the Elvis Express from Sydney Central Station!

Some wonderful anecdotes in the text.

“We have the Blue Mountains Elvis festival, a smaller wintertime affair, and in Coolangatta, there is a 50s festival called Cooly Rocks On, which the Elvii are slowly starting to infiltrate.”

It sounds like an episode of Dr Who!

Now there’s a future plotline for you! The Doctor performing Heartbreak Hotel performed in the Tardis. With the Cybermen on backing vocals! I hope Jodie’s replacement has a good set of pipes.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/apr/24/this-is-my-escape-scenes-from-the-elvis-festival-that-takes-over-a-small-town

A night out at Nalen with Neil Hannon and the Divine Comedy

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So very unusual for me to be going to a gig on a Saturday evening. And I wasn’t the only one, who was enjoying the possibility of being out on the town again. Thee was a buzz in the air.

Nalen is one of Stockholm’s oldest and most stylish venues for live music. Back in the 30s and 40s it was famed for ballroom dancing and later for jazz concerts by the like of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. With its high ceiling, velvet curtains and art deco embellishments; it was a perfect choice of venue for the wistful, bitter-sweet, nostalgic sounds of the Divine Comedy.

There was quite a queue to get in. As we waited, my Austrian pal, Wolfgang, and I got chatting to a lass from Chile. That surprised me. There is something so very British about Neil Hannon’s songs, I hadn’t expected an international fanbase. She’d heard a song on Spotify by chance, really liked it and then explored further. I can understand that. The songs are moreish. This was the last night of a quite extensive European tour. TDC I read are rather popular in France and several other places that you would not » Continue Reading.