Musings on the byways of popular culture
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From my local area’s BBC online news pages.
City of London Police said it discovered more than 6,000 fake records worth an estimated £260,000 at a large warehouse in Luton on 22 April. Police are working in conjunction with the BPI on this.
“Vinyl has seen a strong resurgence in recent years, increasing its commercial value – as ever criminals are quick to exploit emerging trends for profit,” said police sgt. James Kirk.
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According to reports, 80 Labour MPs have now called for either immediate resignation or a timetable towards his resignation. Starmer is resisting – at the moment. Not sure that Streeting or Rayner in charge would change anything much.
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No more support for Kindle Fire up to v7. No option but to buy another new one if you want to buy their e-books. For no good reason other than their desire for profit.
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Coming soon (April 18th) Bill Evans At The BBC. The previously-bootlegged “Jazz 625” session from March 1965 gets an official release at last. Double vinyl for Record Store Day or on CD. Featuring Bill’s only appearance on BBC television, with bassist Chuck Israels and Larry Bunker on drums. Intro. by Humphrey Lyttleton.
A link to a review by Andrew Cartmel should appear here, but if it doesn’t I’ll put it in a comment after.
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Obituary
Leonard Cyril Deighton 1929-2026. Author of spy and historical novels and cookery books. WW2 historian. Talented and prolific illustrator/cartoonist. Lover of good food.
In 1996 he decided to take a year off from writing, at the end of which he stated that writing was “a mug’s game” that he did not miss and did not have to do and only very occasionally went back to, retiring completely in 2016.
He said “The best thing about writing books is being at a party and telling some pretty girl you write books, the worst thing is sitting at a typewriter and actually writing the book.”
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Donald Trump is suing so many people and organisations now that it’s becoming a badge of honour. What can we, The Afterword Massive, do to pique him enough to join that throng?
Perhaps we should sue him for overlooking us?
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An article by journalist Carol Cadwalladr yesterday (16th November 2025).
The circularity of the finances of it all and of the attention the media give to it. Also an interesting comparison to the Epstein Circle Of Influence Bubble, which has well and truly burst with a Bang!
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Due to Spotify founder and CEO Daniel Ek’s investment (partial funding of AI military defence company Helsing – 600,000,000 Euros) in the arms trade, I don’t wish to give Spotify any further support while he is associated with them. I have closed my Spotify account today and deleted all of my playlists there. I will not be clicking any Spotify links from anywhere any more. Sadly, that includes from this site. There are alternatives to Spotify out there.
https://support.spotify.com/uk/article/how-can-i-close-my-spotify-account/
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I decided today that it was time to migrate my collection of Spotify and Tidal playlists to Qobuz. I’m about to cancel my Tidal subscription because I’m no longer using it, so I’m just wasting money on it. As for Spotify, I cancelled my subscription years ago and my account reverted to the Free level. I used to find it occasionally useful as lots of people still put up public playlists there. Now that Spotify’s CEO has seemingly put a very big chunk of his money into the Arms Industry, I’m no longer willing to support them in any way. Thus I wanted to migrate my playlist collection off Spotify so that I can then delete or unfollow them all on that service.
I realised today as I made a start that there are a large number of Word Magazine playlists on Spotty. I think at one point they were putting one there for every issue of the magazine. Also year-end Best-Ofs etc. Also a few from Saint David Hepworth and even one from Fraser Lewry.
Anyone else here collected them?
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Due to a brain fart back in early January, I managed to buy myself a £20 standing ticket for this gig, then forgot that I’d bought it and bought another one a week later. Didn’t discover my error until it was too late to request a refund for one of them. Anybody here interested in going? Message me if so.
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A few days ago I was mistaken for film composer John Altman by jazz bassist/music educator Gary Crosby, when I greeted him and wished him happy 70th birthday. This is not the first time it’s happened. The third in recent years, in fact. There is indeed a resemblance, as can be seen in the photo in the first comment.
Does anyone else here have a double? Who is your evil twin?
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Of course those outside the UK moight have to use devious means to watch this but..
The four finalists of this year’s competition were saxophonist George Johnson, bassist Ursula Harrison, pianist Nils Kavanagh and trumpeter Klara Devlin. Playing their pieces in front of an audience at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London’s South Bank, the house band accompanying them was pianst Zoe Rahman, bassist Alec Dankworth and drummer Sophie Alloway. First up was George Johnson playing a seamless set. He was very accomplished but I was not engaged by what he was playing. Drummer Sophie Alloway didn’t really seem that engaged too. A difficult thing, being the first one on in a live show. He drew the short straw, warming up the rhythm section.
Next was bassist Ursula Harrison replacing Alec Dankworth and playing three distinct pieces. The first and third were her own compositions, the middle one was her arrangement of Wayne Shorter’s “Speak No Evil”, which is one of my all-time favourites and her arrangement was superb. The house band really perked up on that one. A great choice to play and it went down really well with the QEH audience.
Third on stage was pianist Nils Kavanagh, » Continue Reading.
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Jazzy goodness on the streaming service of your choice. 69 tracks. More than 8½ hours of the stuff. I’m going in ..
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Clips. Got one you want to share? Stick it here.
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The Onion has bought Alex Jones’s “Infowars” site at the court-mandated auction of his assets and plans to fill it with silly stuff and ads supporting gun control. Jones is reportedly unhappy about it. “A total attack on free speech”, he said.
HaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa
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Obituary
A soulful, bluesy, funky player as you will hear in the clip I’m putting in comments. Blue Note Jazz that you can wiggle or even dance to.
Photo copyright Todd VanHoosear.
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One of the finest cult comedies ever shown on TV (IMO). Johnny Vegas stars as small-time Salford dope dealer Moz, in an icreasingly bizarre and surrealistic 7-season series created by and featuring Graham Duff.
Those of you unable to access iPlayer by standard means are strongly advised to fire up a VPN to avoid missing out.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b006w7b3/ideal?seriesId=p008vhpq
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This is one I’d love to go to, but sadly beyond my current spending limit, what with car and computer repairs coming along at the same time as needing a new freezer. Some here may not have heard about this and will want to go. I well remember seeing them on a double bill with The Passions many, many years ago at Acklam Hall, underneath The Westway near Ladbroke Grove. That was a very good night.
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It has been drawn to my attention that it’s possible to walk from London’s Bank tube station to Waterloo station without crossing any roads. How?
A couple of definitions seem necessary. By “walk” it is meant that the journey must be solely on foot and no other means of conveyance are allowed. “Crossing” a road in this case refers to directly stepping onto a road to get to the other side of it.
So how can it be done? The answer will be posted in a while after you’ve had some time to ponder.
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Dreamed that I was assisting in the refilling of several ATMs (bank cash machines) just now. For some reason the last one of these also involved de-seeding a much, much larger than usual orange pepper.
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Computer magazine staff writer Michael Crider has a good old rant. Article © PCWorld. (The magazine, not the retail outlet). There are links you may not want to click on and he has a favoured ad-blocker that you don’t have to try if you don’t want to. I use an ad-blocker (not his one) which I find very effective on YouTube. Most of the time. It’d be nice to find what I’m actually looking for without having to scroll past loads of crap that doesn’t interest me, though. The article is quite a long read, but personally I’m in complete agreement with him on how Google have ruined it. YouTube sucks! Almost all the time.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/2419276/i-block-every-ad-on-youtube-and-im-not-ashamed.html
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Obituary
Very influential and prolific saxophonist, particularly in the ’70s and ’80s.
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Friday (today, May 3rd) is the last Bandcamp Friday until September and I’ve just heard that Jazz In Britain are offering 30% off all physical and digital products in their catalogue. The offer lasts all through the weekend until Midnight on Sunday 5th and also applies to the few CD and vinyl items that are already on sale at a discount, so some real bargains are to be had!
Let us fill our boots!
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Article origin is Agence France-Presse.
What does the AW hive mind make of this? Is music getting dumber, angrier and more self-obsessed? Across the board, all genres, the article claims. I can think of reasons that this might be so.
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A musician friend, part of the Joni-covering band Hejira, posed this question on FB.
… I’m delving into the world of carnets etc for a 3 gig trip to Ireland. The official advice from the excellent Musicians’ Union pages and the London Chamber of Commerce is get a carnet, as we’re travelling in a splitter van with 7 musicians and full backline. But tales from colleagues on the road say just drive over and show the border your contracts for the gigs. How risky is this strategy in Republic of Ireland? Anyone done it recently? Thanks for your collective wisdom!
Most replies from other friends of his suggest that if you’re travelling with all your gear, instruments etc. in the vehicle with you, you probably won’t need a carnet. You’d only need a carnet if the gear etc. was in a separate truck or van. But that word “probably” leaves room for quite a bit of doubt. And some possibility of disaster. Another suggestion was to cross to NI initially and then head south, as border checks are much less strict on land crossings. Anyone here with post-Brexit experience of Irish touring or can get information from someone who has?
