Musings on the byways of popular culture
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Southampton kicked out of the Championship Playoff Final (It’s the most lucrative match in the world, dontcha know…)
They have admitted to spying on at least 3 different teams training sessions, including their opponents in the semifinal who they subsequently beat , Middlesbrough.
They’re not really been a precident so it is big footie news tonight.
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This is a fantastic piece by Will Sheff about a Dr Hook live DVD. It’s an astonishing piece of writing, full of love and humour and showing how one man’s treasure can be found in the most ephemeral fluff (a couple of band members show up in the comments and essentially say that they had forgotten all about this show).
Until I came here to post this, I had no idea that Dennis Locorriere had died this week. Perhaps that’s what prompted it to surface, perhaps it’s just a cosmic coincidence. I did toy with adding it to the RIP thread, but I was hoping to use it to provoke some links and reminiscences of some other great music writing that’s buried away somewhere on the internet. Any offers?
What links Michael Nyman and Richard Jobson, Gavin Bryars and Josef K? I first came upon the Belgian label Les Disques du Crépuscule in Hungry Beat, an excellent book about Scottish post-punk. A lot of Scots oddballs ended up on the label. Spotify has quite a comprehensive playlist of its roster, and what a playlist it is. Would interest anyone who’s into arch crooners, sophistipop sirens, ambient classical dabblers and, well, Richard Jobson. So, was anyone in the Massive a fan? It would seem unlikely given that one of the bossa pop girls on the label has a grand total of 34 monthly plays on Spotify. But I don’t know, it might have been quite celebrated in the 80s; Ian Curtis’s girlfriend Anik Honoré was a co-founder. So much good music: a truly admirable and largely forgotten aesthetic and sensibility.
I am currently sorting through boxes of 7″ singles with a view to culling the items no longer wanted. I came across this flexidisc which I acquired about 40 years or so ago. I never knew who the artist was at the time, and Shazam has been of no use in identifying the singer, so I’m hoping the accumulated knowledge on here can help. Video is in first comment.
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From Saguenay, Quebec, an area I have visited a few times. Interested in opinions from “across the water”
Apologies in advance if this sounds like a bad soap opera, but legal minds amongst The Massive (or at least some who might have gone round the same loops) might point us in the right direction…
My wife’s mother died in a nursing home earlier this year, and had suffered for a few years with dementia. My wife has two siblings, both older, but for many & various reasons she has been out of touch with them for a number of years, and relations are hostile to the extent that my wife sadly felt she couldn’t even attend her mother’s funeral for fear of a confrontation…
My wife had been expecting to hear about her mother’s will (her father died over 30 years ago) but when she didn’t, she paid for a search, and has been told the last registered will goes back to 2003, but she can’t get an actual copy of the will without the approval of the executors, who are (you guessed it) her siblings, both of whom have refused (though intermediaries) to oblige to date, and my wife, not necessarily unreasonably, suspects they might try and somehow cheat her out of any bequest.
My queries are » Continue Reading.
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I visited my son this weekend and due to age and stupidity I couldn’t remember if I’d locked the car.The mirrors looked as if they folded in but I wanted to check. I pressed the key fob to no avail as I was too far away. My son said to put the key fob to my head and press the button. As we enjoy trying to make each other look stupid I decided I’d not fall for it. “No it’s genuine and it works” said son.
I tried it and lo and behold it worked. I checked it out later and there is some scientific reason it works, something to do with salts and electricity in the brain.
I just wanted to share this with you all.
Any other things you thought was total rowlocks and turned out to be true?
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I posted this interview with the rather excellent Anthony Mason on the Emmylou thread as someone mentioned Simon’s frailty. This is before he started playing live and discusses managing the issue, setting up speakers, what he can now play etc.
Certainly talks a lot slower.
His tour of UK getting very mixed reviews. Read of one guy walking out in Liverpool.
YouTube in comments.
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Author:Stuart MacBride
Following hot on the heels of the recent short form novel ‘And The Corpse Wore Tartan’, we have here a full length story featuring DI Roberta Steel and her trusty sidekick ‘Tufty’ Quirrel. With retirement just a few short weeks away, all she wants to do is quietly see out the final days of a thirty year career policing Aberdeen’s seedy underbelly before riding off into the sunset. However, it seems the North East of Scotland doesn’t want her to go gently into the good night. A body is discovered in a wheelie bin, there’s a violent protest to deal with and the unwelcome presence of a populist far right politician looms large, all made more challenging by a large proportion of her colleagues being off sick. It seems these final few weeks may be the death of her! This is another darkly comic tale from MacBride, which simultaneously manages to incorporate a captivating police procedural while making some pertinent points about today’s broken society. There’s even a cameo appearance from Logan MacRae along the way, so what’s not to like? All in all, another really enjoyable page turner from one of the masters of this genre!
Length » Continue Reading.
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I’ve been sorely tempted by the Kraftwerk “Radioactivity “ Blu-Ray (BR) since reading @Tiggerlion’s review – but it has also left me with some questions…
If you play BR discs, what do you play them on? Dedicated BR players? Universal disc players?
If you have a universal disc player, do you still use a dedicated CD player?
And do you have full Dolby Atmos set-ups? Or 5.1 or 7.1 surround? Or plain vanilla stereo? Or a Hafler Trio?
All of which leads me to ask: are BR discs worth the outlay, if (on the face of it, at least) one can’t exploit their full potential?
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Planet Rock listeners voted for their best 20 songs last week…..list in comments. Paschendaele is a bit of an odd choice and personally can’t stand Bring Your Daughter ….give me The Clairvoyant or The Evil That Men Do any day of the week. Very skewed to their 80s material which overlooks a lot of good stuff after that.
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Obituary
The former Dr Hook singer has passed at age 76. He was a fine singer with a very recognisable voice. The only one of his gigs I attended was in 2008 when he was a member of Bill Wyman & the Rhythm KIngs. He gave a fine performance.
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Are we the last generation to…. Read a physical newspaper Post a letter Watch linear TV rather than streaming on demand Fill a car with petrol or diesel Buy a cd
Any thoughts or any other candidates for the scrap heap…
“Judas!”
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It may mean nothing to you, but this year’s context is underway in Vienna.
5 songs down so far, 20 to go. Israel’s song passed without incident and also without leaving any impression at all, so I don’t see it as a contender. I’m always wrong with my predictions though, which is part of the fun.
My big flexi disc collecting feature in the Scottish Courier paper/magazine has been put back until 30th May (curse you Alan Cummings article!) but you can see it on the newspaper’s website right now if you like. I do look a bit worried in one pic but I’m not, I’m just an old record collecting obsessive.
Carnoustie collector Shane on lifelong vinyl obsession including rare Slade Christmas invite
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I’ve become keen on small bluegrass/not quite bluegrass bands – couple of guitars, mandolin, fiddle, banjo, bass, invariably a gorgeous Eartrumpet mike. Stumbled on these guys doing an absolutely beautiful cover of Harvest Moon – so simple, so musical, and very cool. They are all about covers, but they seem to smash them all out of the park every time.
The two brothers are the core of the group, and there seems to be a shifting group of people who pop in and out. A. J. Lee has a band called Blue Summit – they do a hilarious shitkicking cover of I’m a Believer.
F***ing AI eh?
Incidentally, I actually quite like the song…
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This post will probably fall on deaf ears (especially after all the recent hearing related threads), but I continue on my mission to sing the praises of the Japanese group “Mono”…
With all the crap in the world right now, what you need is this gloriously uplifting track “Gerbera” – the second track released from their forthcoming album “Snowdrop”
Video in (probably the only) comment on this thread 😉
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He was an original member of the Coronation Street cast, playing Ken Barlow’s brother. He turned up in Brookside, where his character NIcholas Black married Heather Huntington (Amanda Burton) before shockingly revealing he was a middle class heroin addict. But, I most fondly remember him from presenting Picture Box, whose theme seems to have inspired the entire career of Boards of Canada.
He’ll have a head full of steam reading this.
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What does it sound like?:
Autobahn was Kraftwerk’s break through album, a top ten hit in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Germany but Radio-Activity was their proof of concept for a complete LP. It’s their first entirely electronic album and it brought together the Fab Four that would see them through their biggest successes. Klaus Röder, and his guitar and violin, was ditched and replaced by Karl Bartos on electronic percussion. Wolfgang Flür abandoned analogue percussion altogether for electronic. The original founders, Ralph Hütter and Florian Schneider, tackled the vocals and synthesisers and composed all of the tracks. Their friend and fellow conceptualist, Emil Schult, contributed lyrics and artwork. The most significant change was Hütter’s deployment of the Orchestron, an instrument he bought in America when they toured Autobahn. The Vako Orchestron is a keyboard that produces its sound through electronic amplification of sounds pre-recorded as an optical track on a disc. It was meant to be an alternative to the mellotron. There were only eight discs for the Orchestron: Violin, Hammond B3, Flute, Cello, Vocal Choir, Saxophone, Pipe organ, and French horn. Vocal Choir is all over Radio-Activity. It was lo-fidelity as scratches on the disc were audible on pressing the keys, » Continue Reading.
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Venue:
Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool
Date: 11/05/2026
Emmylou Harris released her first album in 1969. Long deleted, ‘Gliding Bird’ made little impression when it was released and it wasn’t until 1972 that she surfaced again, duetting memorably on Gram Parsons’s first solo album ‘GP’ and subsequently on his posthumously released ‘Grievous Angel’ in 1974. Her next solo album, ‘Pieces of the Sky’ was released in 1975, was a commercial success, and was the first of a string of magnificent albums she released in the 70s. She came to the attention of many of us in the UK with a couple of Old Grey Whistle Test performances, and she toured here with the Hot Band, that incredible ensemble featuring the likes of Glen D. Hardin. James Burton and then Albert Lee, and a young Rodney Crowell. She was like no female country singer we’d ever seen – in jeans rather than rhinestone covered dresses, wielding a large acoustic guitar, beautiful, undeniably. But beyond that, her voice, her selection of material, and her band were all captivating.
She kept working through the 80s and 90s but with less commercial success, her music moving sometimes uneasily between bluegrass and country and more MOR » Continue Reading.
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As some of you may know, today, the 13th of May, is INTERNATION DYLAN THOMAS DAY and around the world various activities have taken place to celebrate the great Welsh poet. I discovered thIs fact yesterday when I went along to Rönnells Antiquarian Bookshop to listen to a reading of UNDER MILK WOOD. Completely free of charge.
Rönnells is exactly how I want a bookshop to be. Piled high with wonderfully obscure books, it’s staffed by enthusiastic bibliophiles with an impressive level of arcane knowledge, It’s a marvelous venue for smaller, more intimate gigs, poetry readings etc. I’ve seen concerts here by both James Yorkston and the Secondhand Orchestra and Welsh guitarist Gwenifer Raymond.
However I was apprehensive. Would anyone turn up? Does anyone in Sweden in 2026 know who Dylan Thomas was?
Would I be able to understand the poem in Swedish?
Would the translation capture the lyricism and the humour of the original?
I needn’t have worried about any of these things. The bookshop was completely packed. I coped quite well with the Swedish. And the seven readers who brought Llaregybb to life did a splendid job.
What an extraordinary gallery of characters Thomas created. Dai » Continue Reading.
