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The AW Chain (Radcliffe & Maconie™)

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I am sure there are a few Six Music listeners on this site – the Venn diagram overlap must be quite large, and the subset of those tuning in to Radcliffe and Maconie may not be much smaller. They have a feature called the Chain, whereby a song is suggested by a listener and then other listeners are invited to send in a subsequent song that in some way links to the previous one. And so on, And on, and Ariston. It’s still going this year when I accidentally tuned in.

Having successfully completed the Return/Back AW Swap, which you graciously took part in after I suggested it, how about a new game?*

the AW Chain

Rules To avoid a complete jamming up of the thread with endless YT clips, my rules would be these: 1. Listen to the first song** 2. Think of a great follow-up (Back On The Chain Gang would be my choice) 3. Send it as PM to the AWer who chose the last song 4. That lucky AWer gets to choose which one to post on the thread as a new main comment. 5. The baton gets passed. 6. Subcomments to the » Continue Reading.

Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys / Marathon

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Venue:

Harmonie, Bonn

Date: 19/03/2026

You may be familiar with vintage YouTube videos of bands playing on German TV with the logo “Rockpalast”. Kind of like their equivalent of The Old Grey Whistle Test with rock, metal and jazz acts from the mid 70s onwards. Well apparently WDR, the host channel based in Cologne, hosts a twice yearly music festival in Bonn.

Thursday night saw two bands play the Bonn Harmonie, which can’t have a capacity of more than a few hundred. I didn’t know either band before the start of the week, but Godspeed You Black Emperor! had sold out a venue in Cologne on Friday, so I was looking for something alternative.

The headliners, Lucy Kruger & The Lost Boys*, normal rock instruments plus viola, are described variously as art pop | tender noise | post punk | minimal wave. Lucy made for an intense lead singer, coming onto the stage in a white dress, looking somewhat like Polly Harvey, to ambient guitar and viola drones and tones, prowling around voicelessly, looking out into the crowd like a general surveying her troops before grasping the microphone and, to the rising beat of the drum and » Continue Reading.

Happy St Patrick’s Day! Are these the best 100 Irish songs?

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An Irish colleague posted the link below on our team chat this morning, after giving us the top 10 as YT links sequentially.

What do you reckon – are these 100 (as voted by the listeners to Today FM) the Greatest Irish Songs? I have no idea. But I suspect you do.

https://www.todayfm.com/best-bits/today-fms-100-greatest-irish-songs-100-51-revealed-2239126

Free drugs!

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The Green Party policy is to legalise all drugs. Starmer said it was ‘disgusting’. Polanski said it’s a public health matter. Is it irresponsible populism or a credible approach to the problems that prohibition brings? As the Greens rise in popularity, will this be a badge of honour or a millstone for them?

I raise it a a topic because it’s often mentioned in recent AW comments about the Greens, without addressing these questions.

https://www.independent.co.uk/bulletin/news/cannabis-labour-green-drug-policy-b2924913.html

Do you talk to strangers?

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In my post on seeing Yasmine Hamdan, I talk about the audience, as it is one of the standard questions for the ‘Nights Out’ posts that we have on here. I was able to go into some detail, because I set out to chat to those around me. Getting to know a little about their life stories, why they came to the concert, made the whole evening a friendlier event than if I’d turned up, nursed a couple of beers, watched the band, then left, like a Smiths lyric. I’ve done that too many times in the past, and it’s so dispiriting. This time, though I didn’t spend all the evening chatting, I had broken the social distance barrier, and there was no bristling at strangers. We had made a connection. I’ll probably never see those people again, and at the end I left on my own, but I enjoyed the familiarisation.

This post is prompted by a Guardian article (attached), which explores the idea of talking to people in public. It revisits some of the many ideas in an excellent book by Joe Keohane (The Power of Strangers), which was one of the catalysts for me to be » Continue Reading.

Yasmine Hamdan

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Venue:

Club Volta, Cologne

Date: 21/02/2026

Yasmine Hamdan is a Lebanese singer who first cashmere to attention in her early 20s as part of an Arabic electronica duo, Soapkills. Later she had a cameo in Jim Jarmusch’s 2013 film Only Lovers Left Alive.i first heard her when I was doing a scrape of a much Arabic music as I could find in 2023.

I was in two minds about going. I haven’t been to a live gig with a crowd in more than a decade (kids, you see). It was in the burbs of Cologne and a good 15 minute walk from the nearest train station. Did I really like the album I’d heard tracks from? (I Remember I Forget)

My daughters persuaded me to go, and was i pleased they did! The support act, The Shift, a German Australian art pop act, were whacky and tremendous fun, with enough beats to get me wigging out with a couple of women next to me.

Yasmine herself, when she came on, exuded enormous confidence and assurance, and was cheered loudly by an expectant crowd. She did not disappoint. With a band of drummer/percussionist (manhandling his toms with » Continue Reading.

CD Swap neuf?

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Doing a bit of archive dipping, I noted the history of the CD swaps, which I can post in the first comment below.

Did anyone know there seem to have been 8 of them, going back to May 2017? So only 8-9 years ago, nothing in Afterword years.

Any appetitie for doing another, the last being in 2023?

Soundtrack your saunterings with something soothing

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Bagging Area is a music blog targetting in on my kind of era – indie dance, with a strong remix dose of Andrew Weatherall et al. For NYE, Mr. Bagging Area offered this hour long mix of ambience.

Maybe you’ll enjoy its easy vibes as much as I do.

As Spring slowly wakes its head from the pillow of Winter, what other pleasant drowsiness is there out there?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1z5nht0DfQ5e3aCfyK80xdmD8wNnWT92q/view

Burnham would to high dunce – inane

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OK, I’ll admit to mid-week sub-NME headline Shakespearean wordplay for the sake of it.

But sometimes such foolish serendipity gives rise to interesting thoughts. Given the madness and social media overplay of much national-level politics, wouldn’t the mayor of Manchester have more gravitas staying put? Like Khan in London, Mamdani in New York, even Newsom in California – isn’t there often more sense, more pragmatism and more value in regional and urban politics, than in the grandstanding on the national and international stages?

Best of 2025 – world/non-English language albums?

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Prompted by a tag from KFD in Fatima’s rather impressive rollcall of personal best albums of 2025 to a new album last year from Yasmin Hamdan, I realized there might be other non-English language acts who released interesting and impressive albums in 2025.

I did a quick search for best Arabic albums of 2025 and Arab News had a rather fine collection of 8 different albums which I am listening to now.

Particularly wonderful is a compilation Al Anhar Wal Oyoon – seven womxn artists from across the Arab world. Blending traditional Arabic songwriting with experimental soundscapes, it’s a great listen.

Also really good is ‘Sametou Sawtan’ by SANAM ‘a poignant, unsettled collision of noise rock, free jazz, and Arabic folk that fizzes with tension’.

I’ll probably try to add some more Arabic and Latin discoveries in the comments below. I’d also welcome posting of any of your discoveries from beyond the Anglosphere from 2025

ATM: disposing of old books

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I’m spending the week with my aged ma, before the Christmas spree, and apart from working remotely via MSTeams, etc, I’m also helping her declutter more than a century of possessions from earlier generations of our family. They were all avid readers, and there are still collections of books from those who were visiting the equivalent of Waterstones in the early years of the 20th century.

The easiest thing to do with the collection of ‘slightly foxed’ Trollopes, Austens, encyclopedias, other novels, religious tracts and fact-based books from before yesteryear would be to dump them in a skip. I don’t suppose the charity shops of mid Essex would care for them.

A valuer came round and was only interested in pristine first editions and unique curios, so we know they aren’t worth much. But a quick image search on Google suggests there may be an interest in these repositories of previous generations’ cultural mores.

Any suggestions on how to get these tomes to suitable homes? Or is it into the bin for ’em?

alliterative adjectives and addresses

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It’s a quiet start to December, and I wondered if anyone wanted to fill an idle moment with some creative thinking?

Describe a band or artist AND the place they come from. You can make it a game by leaving the name of said act out of your comment.

I came up with these in the Joy Division oven gloves thread:

○ The Mancunian miserablists ○ The Cantabrigian concept album creators ○ The bringers of badinage from Birkenhead

I’m sure you can do better!

Top Billing

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WIlliam. It’s a flexible name. Will, Willy, Bill, Billy, Billlie. Even Guillaume, Wilhelm, Weilym, Guillermo. Does any other name have as many forms? And such variety in nominative determinism?

In its full form, it’s a serious name, the name of kings, of presidents and prime ministers (McKinley, Pitt), of philosophers (Ockham), earnest and important writers and actors (Shakey, Wordsworth, Blake, Faulkner, Boyd, Burroughs, Yeats, Baldwin, Dafoe, Hurt, Macy, Shatner).

Shortened, it’s a name of action – Kemp, Smith, Sergeant, Ferrell – I’m too busy for the full name

Sweetened, it’s a bit silly – Bragg, Goat, the Kid, Childish, Connolly, Corgan, Fury, Joel

Feminised, it stands its own – Holiday, Jean King, Jo Spears, Piper, Ray Martin, Whitelaw

But it’s as plain and simple, rough, tough ‘Bill’ that it really stands up to scrutiny. A rugged, honest, dependable name – a sign of unshowy quality, someone who has put in the effort and performed. Look at this list and marvel at the strength of characters presented: Bailey, Berry, Bixby, Browder, Bruford, Bryson, Clinton, Evans, Frisell, Haley, Hicks, Laswell, Maher, McKibben, Murray, Nighy, Oddie, Pullman, Shankly, Ward, Watterson, Withers, Wyman.

Who deserves top Billing? Which Bill to pay the highest compliment?

Starmer, Saucecraft, Beatles – who would win at Wordle? AW clickbait

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Seven tips for success in generating views and comments: 1. Post on a Friday or Saturday (even among the many AW retirees, the weekend is when the browsers come out)…

2. Put a currently popular name or topic in the post title (to grab extra views from the easily distracted goldfish among us)…

3. Choose a theme that everyone has an opinion on or experience of…

4. Invite YT clips around a familiar word, theme or genre…

5. Mention present or past AW regulars, preferably in the title…

6. Mention a band/artist who’s been on the front cover of Mojo/Uncut many times…

7. Put ‘Wordle’ in the title…

8. Specifically ask for examples/additions to the points made in the OP…

9. Make a deliberate error in the OP to encourage corrections and clarifications…

Any more?

Fantastic fiddling

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It’s been quite a week of violin music for me. In short, I want to hear more – please post clips.

On Saturday I took my older daughter to the last concert of the annual Beethoven Festival in Bonn to hear Ludwig’s 7th symphony. The 2nd movement was as sonorous and rhythmic as peak Joy Division, elevated by 4 double basses perched vertiginously at the back, overlooking all the other players, and providing a steady rhythmic backing to the polyphonic melodies spilling out from the other strings and woodwind. But it was the 4th movement which was a wow. If you don’t know it, it’s the audible equivalent of the Return of the King – pretty much a rolling sequence of climactic endings, one after the other, building and building through multi-orgasmic bliss until the whole orchestra explodes. The different violin sections threw the main melody back and forth between them, faster and faster, like Neil and the Horse, or Quicksilver, or Television – fantastic!

Tomorrow evening, our family is golng to hear (and watch) the Philharmonie der Soloisten, a quartet/quintet/sextet of orchestral soloists playing the 4 Seasons and other Baroque favourites. So familiiar, so cheesy – right? Middle » Continue Reading.

Fiftly Towers

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Fawlty Towers is 50 years old. I know because it said so in the Guardian today. An institution, widely credited as the greatest sitcom of all time, and probably loved by many. I remember pissing myself at the swivelling rat in the biscuit box at the end of the Rat episode. Maybe you were like me and had the audio cassettes which were played on repeat in long journeys like anti smoking devices, until the dialogue was hammered into your cortex, to remain there forever?

“Is this a piece of your brain?”

The fragments of script come back at me from the most unlikely of prompts.

It is a source of almost unending richness, clearly honed and honed until perfection. Even the names – Basil=Sabil, Sybil=Bysil – a tight contortion of false anagram and Notlob palindrome. Manuel, the manual labourer. Polly, the polyglot, capable of all Major, the constant minor character Miss Gatsby, heiress to the F Scott Fitzgerald legacy of faded gilded age splendor Miss Tibbs, the grey furry tabby

I could go on. I probably will. It’s an achievement of monumental wonder, crystalizing the post-imperial English angst, the damaged psyche, that still touches at the heart of » Continue Reading.

2025 – Artificial Incoherence

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I just noticed the new strapline – No idea how long it’s been there, but – nicely judged.

“It plays off the familiar phrase “artificial intelligence,” but subverts expectations. That contrast naturally grabs attention” chat GPT

“That’s a brilliantly provocative slogan, Sal. “Artificial Incoherence” flips the usual narrative on its head—most AI branding leans hard into ideas of precision, intelligence, and clarity. This, though, feels like a rebellious wink at the chaos, ambiguity, and unpredictability that can come with machine-generated content”. MS Co-Pilot

Six degrees of… Bill Laswell

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Bill Laswell is someone who has been on the edge of my musical consciousness ever since the 1980s when he produced and played bass on albums by Laurie Anderson, PIL, The Golden Palominos and one of my favourite albums – Swans: The Burning World. Some more adventurous of my friends had albums by Material, Painkiller, and some of his ambient dub albums in the 90s and gradually I became aware of the wide scope of his musical collaborations and explorations. It seemed there was barely a country or genre where he hasn’t been involved in drawing together different musicians and forms. Here are just some of the more familiar ones:

Afrika Bambaataa, Bob Marley, Brian Eno, Carlos Santana, David Byrne, Dub Syndicate, Gil Scott-Heron, Ginger Baker, Herbie Hancock, Jah Wobble, John Zorn, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Manu Dibango, Mick Jagger, Miles Davis, Motorhead, New York Gong, Nona Hendryx, Paul Bowles, Peter Gabriel, Pharoah Sanders, The Ramones, Robert Miles, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Sly and Robbie, Sting, Talvin Singh, The Last Poets, Tom Verlaine, Tony Williams, Whitney Houston, William S. Burroughs, Yoko Ono, Zakir Hussain

His inventive and uninhibited spirit seems not just to draw out the best of others, but also to » Continue Reading.

Randomizer Whodunnit!

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When fitterstoke started the latest Randomizer thread, I was happy to join in – I like the serendipity of chance that brings up tracks that sometimes complement each other, or that are strangely revealing about the poster.

We all, I think it’s safe to assume, have a wide collection of music from which to draw from, and so 5 tracks chosen could be from anybody. And yet, we all have musical fingerprints. Could you tell just by looking at 5 tracks, which venerable AWer is baring their soul, or at least rolling the musical dice?

That’s where Randomizer Whodunnit comes in. Send me by PM your list of 5 tracks. When I have received 5 sets, I’ll post all the sets in a comment below, then list the posters in alphabetical order. The challenge for those competing is to correctly match the set with the AWer.

You can just do that, but it’s more fun if you explain your workings, (e.g. only Rigid Digit could have posted the Kinks and the Quireboys).

Let’s see if this has got any life! I think I’ll just let each set play out until all the right answers are guessed/deduced.

Immigration and demography

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I don’t often put my face to the fire of constantly flowing social media updates that is Bluesky, but the post from Russ Jones (attached) seemed unchallengeable – either the UK lets in immigrants at current rates or higher, or the country will age out and face economic disaster – no matter what twaddle Farage says about Ascension Island and Eritrea.

Or is there another way of addressing future demographic changes?

(Text of Bluesky post in the comments below)

https://bsky.app/profile/russincheshire.bsky.social/post/3lxakpl2sw22o

Numero Due!! More of your polyglot pops – live footage

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KIDS numero uno post caught fire with lots of clips of non-English language songs that AWers know and love. It’s a broad remit, and at over 100 comments and counting, he wisely called it a day – its hard to load now.

So this is to take up the slack and continue the shared pleasure of foreign language music.

I’ll post a bit of Lebanese singing in the first comment. If I can make one request – where possible, can you post live footage? It makes the music more impactful if you can see the singers and musicians. It’s not essential, though.

Glastonbury 2025

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Digging into the Word archives, there was always at this time of year a Glastonbury thread. A bit like the Eurovision thread, only spread over three whole days. Despite quite a lot of naysaying from AWers, will there be anyone either under canvas or before cathode ray for the event? I hope so – with so many acts, I’m hoping for good recommendations from others for what to watch.

HInt – that’s your cue to post content below…

View post on imgur.com

https://glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/line-up/line-up-2025/

Claude is here to entertain you

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Having been a bit suspicious of AI last week, I have dipped my toe in to AI waters by downloading Chat GPT, Deep Seek, MS Co-Pilot, Perplexity and Claude.

The first four give varying responses to questions, trawling the internet to give summarised content. Co-Pilot is wooden and reverts to MS products a lot, Perplexity is OK on content but also a bit rigid, Deep Seek is fairly neutral, Chat GPT is ingratiating, eager to please, wanting to start co-designs and frequently inaccurate or just wrong.

The interesting one is Claude, which promises to be ethical (it won’t research how to kill people, for example) and is designed to answer queries in a session, but won’t remember anything after the session ends – no long-term memory. It is rather entertaining. I put into its suggestion box the idea for a mash-up of two UK sitcoms, and asked it to produce a script. It’s rather fun – I’ll share it in the first comment.

Anyone else had any experience with these ways to augment your intelligence? Give Claude a go. It’ s quite seductive.

https://claude.ai