The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

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Retro baby names

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So, the Mitchell Corens have called their new daughter Barbara Elizabeth June. I don’t imagine any of those are in the current top 100. But somehow fitting for that quirky couple.

If you were having a child in the Sixties or Seventies right now, what name would you choose?

Eurovision: The Way Ahead

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I know you lot don’t really care. To be honest, I’m not that funked myself. But I was bored. So I got to thinking: How do we win this thing, assuming we want to?

I reckon… Get Matt Bellamy to write the song – big, hooky, cheesy, obvious, dramatic, his stock in trade. Get Mark Ronson to produce it – he can turn stuff into gold, and he’s got some cool mates. Get Adele and Tinie Tempah to sing it, with manipulated ghost backing vocals from Amy Winehouse.

Dynamite!

I’m half serious, oh yes.

By this shall I be known – lyrical signatures

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When I hear Morrissey’s voice, whatever the song may be, it is only a matter of time before one particular lyric is rattling round my head.

“I would go out tonight, but I haven’t got a stitch to wear.” I think that line encapsulates what he is all about more than any other [although “I am human and I need to be loved” has a fair shout] and indeed what that era was all about.

Similarly, Bowie’s “Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly”: the artist and his time, in a few words.

I think of them as lyrical signatures. Does anyone do this for you?

Heaven Adores You

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Year: 2014 Director: Nickolas Rossi

This beautifully compiled montage of landscapes, portraits, new interviews and archive footage is a tribute to the late Elliott Smith – a celebration of, rather than an investigation into, his life and times in Dallas, Portland, New York and Los Angeles.

The focus is far more on his development as an exceptional musical artist than on his decline as a person. Drug abuse figured relatively late in Smith’s career, but when it did it took him to the brink of despair. He pulled back a couple of times, only to die in October 2003 from stab wounds to the chest – suspected to be self-inflicted, but left open to doubt by the coroner’s report.

Nickolas Rossi’s film doesn’t probe beyond this speculation but simply charts Elliott’s long, slow rise to recognition – peaking at the 1998 Oscars ceremony with a white-suited performance of “Miss Misery”, which had closed Gus Van Sant’s “Good Will Hunting” – and subsequent capitulation to his demons.

This movie has plenty for the fans in the way of music, images and opinions they will probably not have heard or seen before, along with heartfelt remembrances from family, friends » Continue Reading.

“Heaven Adores You” screenings

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For anyone who has been waiting to see this Elliott Smith documentary in the UK and who missed the poorly publicised screenings in Brighton, Hackney and Manchester recently, it now seems the film is getting a wider release and nationwide dates have just been announced for May. They include eight at The ICA and elsewhere in London, plus Edinburgh, Glasgow, Newcastle, Bradford, Leeds, York, Liverpool, Derby, Norwich, Cardiff and Brighton. Full details at http://www.specticast.com/titles/heaven-adores-you

Who’s who?

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Looking at The Afterword home page at the moment, I’m not sure whether Joan is channeling Nile or Nile is channeling Joan.

Celebrities and the bands they should have been in

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I caught snooker star Ronnie O’Sullivan on the telly the other day – with the sound off, which perhaps helped the illusion – and I couldn’t help but see him as a member of Oasis.

That got me thinking. Benedict Cumberbatch clearly belongs in Sparks and Jonathan Ross in Spandau Ballet.

Any celebs strike you as having gone missing from a band?

Unexpected fit

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I was fiddling around on the piano, working out the chords to Elliott Smith’s “Happiness”, and as I cracked the chorus I suddenly realised that the guitar solo from the Carpenters’ “Goodbye To Love” could be played perfectly over the top of it.

Wow. Unexpected fit.

Debate

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“Yer mum.”

“No, your mum.”

“No, yours.”

“Yours.”

“Chicken.”

“No, you’re chicken.”

“No, you are.”

Take a look at the row over the TV debate during PMQs, it’s on the BBC website. Good lord, Cameron is an arrogant and obfusticating c**t. I’d love to see BFJ Prescott smack him in his mealy mouth. I’m beginning to think that’s what it might take to put this country right again. It’s going to take more than poor weedy little Ed, that’s for sure.

What’s the opposite of the Emperor’s New Clothes?

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Blimey, it’s “Wolf Hall”. It really is as good as I’d hoped it would be and as good as the reviews say it is.

I am a huge fan of both books [and can’t wait for the third, still to come] and had wondered how on earth they could make “a period drama” that would feel as authentic as Hilary Mantel’s novels. With no way of knowing, really, how everyday conversation sounded in the Tudor era, having only written accounts and public records to go on, Mantel nevertheless concocted dialogue which had me convinced I was hearing the genuine article.

The makers of the BBC TV production had the luxury of being able to employ Mantel’s brilliant verbal interplay, which formed the basis of a readymade script, albeit one which would have required heavy editing to bring it within a six-hour span. Visually, though, it was all down to them. They had to try and recreate the mental landscape conjured up by the novelist’s subtle word-paintings. And they succeeded consummately. This seems to me the most brilliantly evoked version of Tudor England ever realised on screen.

That I am awaiting the final episode with such relish and excitement, even » Continue Reading.

Catastrophe

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For those who didn’t catch it, this was a six-part comedy just finished on Channel 4, co-written by and starring the brilliant Sharon Horgan [“Pulling”] and Rob Delaney [no, me neither]. Sharp script, great acting, fast-moving but simple story arc, with a great line in awkward moments. Recommended, still available on 4OD.

Britpop: An Accidental Convergence Of Nostalgia

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madfox on Britpop

AN ACCIDENTAL CONVERGENCE OF NOSTALGIA

How Suede, Blur, Oasis and Pulp came to define the UK’s youth-driven commercial music scene in the 1990s

“Britpop” is a term commonly used to group together up to a dozen musical acts which emerged in the UK in the early years of the 1990s and which would reach their creative and commercial peaks later that decade.

It’s tempting to regard these bands – chief among them Suede, Blur, Oasis and Pulp – as being part of some coherent movement. But this was not really the case: on closer inspection, there are significant differences in the musical and lyrical styles of each band, and in the social backgrounds, political interests and cultural fashions attached to them. Indeed, the key players could be seen to represent several of British popular music’s favourite genres from the past – 1960s beat, 1970s glam and pub rock, 1980s art-school pop – while a number of the also-rans dipped their toes in surf, folk rock and punk.

Britpop is a collection of divergent bands who just happened to become active or achieve recognition around the same time – when the extreme poles of grunge and rave » Continue Reading.

Anybody got a towel?

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Very close to exhaustion, having trodden water in the Ocean Of The Lost And The Damned for three months, I spotted the Salvage Vessel and hauled myself aboard, only to lie on the foredeck waiting for someone to rub me down. Has anybody got a towel? In the meantime, I’ll be popping over to Rafferty’s cabin to have a fruit tea, so you know where to find me. I think I can hear a few voices I recognise…