The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

Navigation

A New Song For A New Day

by 1 Comment

Author:Sarah Pinsker

How many sci-fi novels about the music industry can you name? Not many, which is why I thought you’d be interested to hear about A New Song for A New Day. Published in 2019, the set-up of this novel is eerie prophetic as one half of the historic shift in American society is a new highly transmissable, and in some cases fatal, virus. The other half imagines a 9/11 style terror campaign targeting sports and concert venues. Put the two together and Pinsker imagines a US in 2030 in which fear of congregation and strangers are the most powerful forces in a new social structure. Who could profit from this you ask? A thinly veiled A****n who can drone virtually everything to your door meaning you never need to leave the house. Almost all education, socialising and work now takes place online after a huge flight from cities to small communities, and a generation has grown up at the start of the novel for whom living virtually is normal. One of our two protagonists, Rosemary, is a young woman working in customer services for the above mentioned corporate behemoth, called Superwally in the novel.

Where’s the music » Continue Reading.

The Snowflake Generation pt. 94

by 22 Comments

The article itself makes one universal point: that in your thirties you have less free time with careers, young children etc. than when you were 18. Twas ever thus.

And he’s a bit sad that he’s not got as many friends to go and see the Libertines with as 20 years ago.

But the BTL comments are great, including a prog-loving poster that must almost certainly be an Afterworder by another name.

But really…I’d almost call him a c#######n except he’s got an article on music published in the Guardian and I haven’t. Pull your socks up man!

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/aug/16/bring-that-beat-back-why-are-people-in-their-30s-giving-up-on-music

Baby it’s cold out there…on ticket sales at the grassroots

by 62 Comments

A fair few of us here are in some way ‘involved’ with the grassroots live music scene – whether folk or jazz clubs, grassroots venues or a bit of promoting that artist we know and love in our hometown. In the dynamic tickets thread there was a comment about ticketmaster pricing for yer big gigs impacting on sales lower down the food chain. From the things I’m involved in….

1. Artists and agents are still cautious. There’s both a lot of acts wanting to tour, and not enough of the acts that you’d jump to put in the programme.

2. For events with a pre-COVID comparator we are on average 25-33% down on pre-COVID levels. This is not uniform, and gigs with an appeal to the under-thirties are doing fine…

3. Conversely, gigs where the core audience was over fifty are really suffering. With several very high-calibre artists we’ve said we’ve been slightly disappointed at the audience we’ve got, only to hear it’s the best attendance of the tour.

So this is a bit of rant/therapy session thread. I’d love to hear from others what it’s like out there – good, bad or ugly No need for names, musings on » Continue Reading.

Your long and varied Spotify playlists that you can put on just like the radio

by 32 Comments

Whatever you think of Paul Morley, there’s no question he has listened to a lot of music and loves a list. I’m currently rereading his 2003ish history of pop, Words and Music, which spins out many a theory from Can’t Get You Out of My Head and the seminal electronic track I’m Sitting In A Room by Alvin Lucier. The latter is truly amazing, just go listen. Luckily some kind soul called Gary James on Spotify has put all 2000 tracks referenced in the book into one playlist (just search for Paul Morley Words and Music). I’m 200 tracks in and have already discovered as well as Lucier great tracks by Tweet, Roy Harper, Autechre and Laurie Spiegel. It’s so long and varied that you can put it on just like…radio. There’s tracks you know, tracks you don’t but no between song chat. So… (continued in comments)

Phoebe Bridgers

by 7 Comments

Venue:

Academy, Birmingham

Date: 26/06/2022

If this gig is anything to go by, Phoebe Bridgers is coming up fast on the rails as a spokesperson for a generation. Second album Punisher was everywhere during lockdown, and her hushed acoustic tales of twenty-something depression, therapy and relationship breakdown resonated mightily.

Three thousand souls gathered at the Academy, hugely excited to be part of the much-postponed Punisher victory lap tour. Fronting a full band kitted out in her trademark skeleton tops, we got a focused 90 minute set that saw almost all of Punisher played together with the highlight half of debut Stranger In The Alps.

The Punisher songs, on the whole, were beefier and filled the venue out impressively. Some of the delicacy and poise of the absolute best of …Alps however I felt got lost in the transition from headphones to stage. Opener Motion Sickness fared best, prompting a huge singalong from the get-go, while my personal favourite Scott Street (has anyone recorded a better single song in the past five years?) fell a bit awkwardly between acoustic and electric, solo and band. If you record a song that good, expectations will be high. Predictably but effectively the » Continue Reading.

Films To Stop Watching Half-Way Through

by 130 Comments

We chuckled our way through Alexander Payne’s Downsizing yesterday. Well, to be exact, we chuckled our way through the first half. Taking a bonkers premise – Norwegian scientist invents a process for shrinking people to four inches high – the first half is a riot. Endorsed by governments as a solution to overpopulation and resource depletion, downsizing is a pretty sharp hour of gags following this premise. Sort of ‘Honey I Shrunk The Kids but think of the Lifestyle’ it plays well on the idea that if by being downsized with our current purchasing power, we can afford all the material possessions and lifestyle ‘Big Life’ denies us, then lots of people would. So you can have a Mcmansion, live in a fabulous gated community, drink champagne and never work again. But then, half-way through, it pivots in the space of fifteen minutes into a super-serious end-of-the-world ecoplyse now. Out go almost all the gags, in come scientists now saying ‘We’ve done the modelling and the outcome is extinction for humanity’. This second half works less well, let’s say.

So, when exactly should you stop watching a particular film?

Wolf Alice vs Chvrches – some musings while standing around in the Academy

by 7 Comments

Seeing two bands at the Birmingham Academy in just over a week has inevitably prompted comparisons and contrasts in the brain space between the support and the headliner – so here is a double-header review. Wolf Alice are perhaps the current holders of the ‘Hottest Guitar Band In Britain’ cup. We got some returns (one thing Ticketmaster has sorted) as the gig sold out in about a minute. Chvrches tickets still on sale a few days before but felt just as busy on the night.

Audiences for both were completely invested – singing along to all the lyrics, filming it all on their phones and generally having the absolute time of their lives. While not the sound of 18-year old Britain, both bands have a pretty firm grip on the playlists and aspirations of twenty-somethings around the country.

Both cleave at first glance to the Sleeperbloke format, WA being three blokes plus the insanely charismatic Ellie Roswell, Chvrches two faceless musos plus the insanely charismatic Lauren Mayberry. It’s not quite that simple with Roswell: she’s at times content to fade into the background, and has a somewhat diffident stage persona, unlike the bass player who throws rock shapes for the » Continue Reading.

Let’s spouge!

by 15 Comments

An extraordinary article in The Guardian describing the (to me anyway) completely forgotten genre of spouge which was huge in Barbados and the Caribbean from the mid-sixties for a decade then disappeared. No, it’s not April 1st yet. The Draytons Two album referred to is on Spotify, though the other stuff isn’t and I’ve been playing it for the last thirty minutes and it’s great.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/feb/28/spouge-forgotten-music-genre-jackie-opel-barbados

Great arrangements – a dying art?

by 19 Comments

If artists get paid once their song hits 30 seconds on Spotify then no wonder they are tempted to put all the musical goodies upfront. Hooks, choruses, riffs they all need to hit the ground running. And while lots of great pop works like this – Motown anyone – I can’t help but feel that the producers and arrangers arts are narrowing somewhat. So here’s a couple of examples where not everything is put on the table right at the start.

Firstly, The Long white Dress by Tracey Thorn. For 2 mins 13 the arrangement sets Tracey’s voice against acoustic guitar and keyboards as she muses on marriage. Then in a glorious moment the whole band comes in as the song’s line ‘Or is it all in my head ‘questions the last two minutes, the Chorus melody kicks in, and the whole song lifts into another level. I cannot tell you how satistying this moment is, for me at least, and when I heard it recently I had to stop walking and rewind my Fiio to hear it again. All the more so for being held back. Exhibit B, a bit more conventional, is From the Night by Stars. The » Continue Reading.

Kindle monthly deals for December – scifi special

by 2 Comments

I think the monthly all-in 99p sweep may have run its course, but you’ll still get occasional updates. This month the estimable imprint S.F. Masterworks has a big chunk of classics on at 99p.

A Scanner Darkly – Philip K Dick Inverted World – Christopher Priest Doomsday Book – Connie Willis Roadside Picnic – Arkady Strugatsky Mockingbird – Walter Tevis The Forever War – Joe Haldeman Rendezvous With Rama – Arthur C. Clarke The Dispossessed – Ursula K LeGuin

plus in other editions Neuromancer – William S Gibson Altered Carbon – Richard Morgan Revelation Space – Alistair Reynolds

Bicep

by 1 Comment

Venue:

Forum

Date: 03/12/2021

The Hummingbird, no the Carling Academy, no the 02 Academy, no the Forum lives again. Its latest incarnation is heavily skewed to club culture. There are club nights, and after Mike Skinner opened the thing the jewel in their autumn lineup is surely Bicep. I’ve written about their first album here, and their second album Isles is on my list of albums of the year. Support was from an excellent DJ, whose name I cannot trace anywhere. But after perhaps one of the longer openers,as he was on for about an hour and a half, it was Bicep time. Their stage presence was in the great tradition of all electronic duos: walk on, stand behind keyboards, walk off. No rockin the decks or working the crowd. Just a couple of dancefloor engineers at work here. Visuals were shapes and colours, all very abstract and geometrical. They gave the eye something to focus on besides two men in t-shirts. But it was really all about the music: an hour of seamless mix followed by an encore featuring two tracks (Glue and Apricots) played in a more conventional manner. And what a great hour it was. Their » Continue Reading.

Beyond The Hallowed Sky

by 3 Comments

Author:Ken Macleod

Every since his debut The Star Fraction Ken Macleod has made it his mission to write the future of Scotland into his work, and so it is here in what is one of the first overtly post-Brexit works of sci-fi. In 2070 the world is split between the Union ( Europe including Scotland), the Alliance (England, the US, India) and the Co-ord (Russia and China). Macleod sets three plots in motion: in Scotland a mathematician proves that faster than light travel is possible; on colonised exoplanet Apis the authorities struggle with a first contact scenario; and on Venus a scientific outpost is infiltrated by a spy determined to keep a lid on new discoveries on the surface.All these events are happening at the same time – and the cleverness of this novel’s construction is the working out of the contradictions between the three. If an FTL drive is being now developed in Scotland, how can a colonised planet have been already reached using it? If aliens are already talking to humanity on Apis, then what is the point of trying to cover up evidence of their existence on Venus?

His strengths of well-drawn characters – from a Clyde » Continue Reading.

That Adele eh? Making you listen to tracks in the right order. Whatever next?

by 55 Comments

So Adele’s outed as a secret Afterworder, raging on the great unwashed on Spotify shuffling her album, possibly even putting the best tracks on a playlist called ‘sad bangers’. This I think is the most Afterwordy article yet and the BTL comments are split between ‘chill out, I’ll do what I want’ to Screamadelica/OK Computer/Hounds of Love MUST be listened as sequenced.

My favourite comment is about being able to skip the tracks you don’t like. How on earth can we appreciate the gems (Love Spreads for example) without suffering through well quite a bit of the album.

Skippers or sequence fascists? Playlist ripper?

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/nov/22/adele-is-right-an-unshuffled-album-is-the-proper-way-to-listen

Dune

by 16 Comments

Year: 2021 Director: Dennis Villeneuve

I am surprised that no-one has yet reviewed Dune, so here we go. We saw it at the IMAX in Birmingham and would certainly recommend that you see it on the biggest screen possible. It’s an utterly immersive visual and sound experience. It will be no surprise, and has been much noted, that Villeneuve can craft a visual world like no-one else currently in film. Whatever you thought of the plot of Bladerunner 2049, it looked amazing from start to finish, as did Arrival in turn before it. There’s very little actual outer space , and the visuals of the movies are dominated by the vast open sand and rock scapes of Arrakis, appearing even dryer by contrast with the lush Northern European grasslands of the Atriedes homeworld, and the murky storm and rain of the Harkonnens. Moving through these three worlds are armies, medieval in feel, transported by enormous spaceships whose weight is so oppressive they appear to be sculpted from stone rather than metal. By contrast the ornithopthers hop, buzz and flit around the world.

In terms of plot Dune is so well known that there’s perhaps not much to add here. I » Continue Reading.

Kindle monthly deals for October

by 3 Comments

Here we are, with a whole fortnight before the roster changes. As ever 99p the bar.

Novels Offshore – penelope Fitzgerald The Lamplighters – Emma Stonex. This got great reviews, one of my 3 purchases this month. Another lighthouse mystery.

Scifi Hold Up the Sky by Cixin Liu – short stories by the Three Body Problem author, thoroughly recommended having read that. Semiosis – Sue Burke. Not an easy read especially at the start, but this ‘lost colony’ novel is a great spin on how humans and plants might co-evolve. Prince Charles a big fan I hear. Winter’s Orbit – Evarina Maxwell. Big stir as self-published, taken up by proper publishers. LGBTQ+ scifi is having a moment. The Kraken Wakes – John Wyndham. I reread this recently, not up there with Triffids and Midwich Cuckoos but very entertaining. The Memory Police – Yogo Ogawa. The Ocean at the End of the Lane – Neil Gaiman

Non-fiction I’ll Never write my memoirs – Grace Jones Life and Times – Benjamin Zephaniah Postcards from the edge – Carrie Fisher The Guns of August – Barbera Tuchman. Classic history of the outbreak of WW1.

Thrillers/Detective The Long Goodbye – Raymond Chandler The Black » Continue Reading.

The Virus Diaries – Hartnoll and Young

by 6 Comments

What does it sound like?:

The first pandemic concept album is here. Wait! It’s not like that at all. Half of Orbital and marmite poet/writer etc Murray Lachlan-Young (yes he!) have combined for an unclassifiable and very enjoyable album exploring lockdown life.

If I tell you that sample song titles are Baking and Jogging, Garden Centre (Push The Trolley) and Home Hairdresser then you can be rest assured that this is not a searing indictment in protest song form of Matt Hancock, but a quirky and humourous look at things that life revolved around in 2020 that we’d never thought of before COVID. He’s excellent on the ‘inner voice’ we all perhaps spent way too much time with, driving us from sourdough to meditation to cope with lockdown.

Behind Young’s words (spoken and semi-sung) Hartnoll fashions a low-key set of electronic beats that bring to mind Yello as much as Orbital. Almost as if he wanted to keep the music light too. It all feels quite rushed in a good way, to get something out while it’s fresh rather than spend months sculpting the perfect sound.

I’m not sure who needs to buy this, but it’s flown fabulously low » Continue Reading.

Your Kindle bargains for September – leaves on the line

by 9 Comments

I’m blaming the site speed but actually it’s just work, kids going off to uni, nice weather and all that. But here with a whole 3 days to go are your kindle bargains for September! 99p bar as usual, up until 30 September.

Novels The Flood – Maggie Gee At Freddie’s – penelope Fitzgerald the Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. A stonecold classic by Michael Chabon. If you’ve not read you are in for a treat. Papillon – Henri Charriere Freedom – Jonathan Frantzen. Possibly the most lauded writer in the US, of Big Important White Male Books, but given that another great novel.

THRILLERS/DETECTIVE Get Carter – Ted Lewis The Siberian Dilemma – Martin Cruz Smith, yes a Renko. Adam Dalgleish – PD James, many many of her detective series are on at shock 1.19

NON-FICTION Just for One Day: Louise Wener. the Road to Wigan Pier – Orwell A year at the Circus – Jon Sopel. Enjoyed his US election coverage, this is the book. Lonely boy – Steve Jones (of ver Pistols) Rommel, Gunner Who – Spike Milligan. Actually uncategorisable but will leave it here.

CLASSICS Code of the Woosters – PG Wodehouse. AKA the one » Continue Reading.

Harlem Shuffle – Colson Whitehead

by 9 Comments

What does it sound like?:

Apparently after Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead had wanted to write in a less gruelling genre and planned a crime thriller, paying homage to greats like Walter Moseley and Chester Himes. However black people kept getting shot, and so he wrote Nickel Boys instead. Now we finally have Harlem Shuffle, providing an even greater contrast to the two novels than precede it. This is Whitehead in cruise mode, showing us how well he can play with and subvert our expectations of the crime novel, while providing the genre thrills we expect along the way.

Ray Carney is a furniture dealer in late fifties Harlem who as well as running a straightforward business handles radios and settees of questionable origin, while also providing connections between thieves and fences for some side hustle income. Around Ray are his feckless cousin Freddie, often the source of dubious merchandise, and a collection of businessmen, hustlers and crooks.

Ray’s hard-earned lifestyle is challenged by the three heists that make up the plot: in the first a hotel strongbox theft goes wrong; in the second Ray takes revenge on a Harlem grandee who fails to deliver an entree into legitimate » Continue Reading.

Your Kindle bargains for August – one week to snap them up

by 7 Comments

Not so much commentary. Classics all in recognised publisher editions, as ever a purely partial selection for 99p. Apart from the Murakami which is so good it’s worth a whole 1.99, possibly more if you are a runner.

CLASSICS The Great Gatsby The Decameron Classics from the 1001 Nights Germinal – Zola The World of Blandings – Wodehouse

NON-FICTION What I Talk About when I talk abour running – Murakami. Don Delillo is apparently a runner too (fits) and I’d love his slim volume on 10k’s but this is delight for us runners. The Dreamer – Cliff Richard. I dream of helicopters over my house…oh hang on. A Dream about Lightning Bugs – Ben Folds Catch Me If You Can – Frank Abagnale – inspro for the film This your Brain on Music – Daniel Levitin – great medical/psychological investigation into how music works on us.

NOVELS About A Boy – N Hornby Anathem – Neal Stephenson Brooklyn – Colm Toibin Post Office – Bukowski Amy and Isabelle – Elizabeth Strout

SF Martian Chronicles – Ray Bradbury

THRILLERS The One from the Other – Philip Kerr

Your family Venn diagram (whatever family)

by 21 Comments

Your Family Venn Diagram (any kind of family)

So…what gets to play on the kitchen bluetooth speaker. What gets turned off the second your other half walks in the front room? What can you only listen to on headphones lest the jokes descend (‘Kate Bush milk bath’) in my case. We’ve been mulling this over as a family for a week and here are the preliminary results:

Our cast:

Me Son Daughter MrsM

Son: basically its jazz and only jazz. Big band, swing and above all Buddy Rich. Son and me: Bebop. Son, me and Mrs M: Blue Note fifties and sixties, LTJ Bukem and classic melodic jungle (no vocals).

Daughter and only Daughter: Megadeth, Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer, Rammstein. Daughter and Mrs M: early Floyd, Ozrics, Gong, Clapton, Purple, Crimson, Sabbath – aka hippy proggy stuff, very early Bowie Daughter and me: The Jam, Husker Du Daughter, Mrs M and Me: Aphex Twin, Glass, Reich, Riley, Oasis, Beatles, Stones, Who, Doors, Dylan. Son will just about tolerate some Glass or Reich but would never choose to put it on.

Mrs M and only her: Vocal jazz (Ella Fitzgerald, Holliday,Piaf etc) Mrs M and me: acid house, Britpop, Smiths, New Order, » Continue Reading.

Kindle monthly deals for July

by 4 Comments

I’m going to make these posts briefer for a couple of reasons: the world is opening up, at least for the moment, so reading perhaps is falling back into a more natural place, and there is a lot of repetition in the offers. So more emphasis on new offers, just listings for the offers on repeat.

Novels A Dance to the Music of Time vol 1 – the first three volumes of Antony Powell’s 12-volume masterpiece. Vol 1 (school) and 2 are atypical, but by 3 Powell has hit his stride.

Skagboys – Irvine Welsh. Not a massive Welsh fan, but sure there are many on here.

Talented Mr Ripley – Patricia Highsmith. First of the Ripley cycle, and so influential on the ‘charming psychopath’ gentre.

Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson. I remember this as epic but worth it, the first of his many doorstep novels.

Non-Fiction And In The End….by Ken McNab The end of the Beatles. An extra 30p.

Back on at 99p London a countercultural history by Barry Miles Empire Falls by Richard Russo Franchise affair by Josephine Tey A Dark Adapted Eye by Barbera Vine Leviathan Wakes by James SA Corey

Kindle monthly deals for June

by 7 Comments

Terribly late but here are your Kindle bargains for June. In my defence I’ve been to the Test Match at Edgbaston and an actual gig. Usual rules: 99p only, 1.99 in exceptional cases. Strong month for classics and scifi, less so for novels and thrillers. And Keef! On sale until the end of the month, so another ten days.

CLASSICS Tolstoy – Anna Karenina (Penguin) Wodehouse – Carry On Jeeves JG Farrell – Siege of Krishnapur Olivia Manning – The ‘Balkan’ Trilogy

NOVELS Jonathan Coe – What A Carve Up Nick Hornby – High Fidelity

SCIFI Temi Oh – Do You Dream of Terra Two? Peter F Hamilton – The Reality Dysfunction Neal Stephenson – Snow Crash

NON-FICTION Keith Richards – Life Richard Coles – Fathomless Riches. The Commundars star and reverend autobiog.

THRILLERS Philip Kerr – Greeks Bearing Gifts

Put the solo first? You talked me into it.

by 33 Comments

One of the many wonderful things about Cortez the Killer by Neil Young and Crazy Horse is that they just start with over 3 minutes of guitar solo. It’s also there in reduced form for the coda. If it’s this good then why not. So other songs (must have vocals) in which they decide to go with the solo first (if it’s flugelhorn or harp even better) and make the vocalist sit on their stool for a bit.