Musings on the byways of popular culture
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Today was the last day in my office for some people before Xmas , so we had the Xmas team meeting / quiz / secret Santa pressie swap . And my coworker Taps on the desk when he is thinking or working something out so I bought him chocolates and some drumsticks pencils . Then we had the Xmas quiz , and now I’m surprised to find out 1) there’s 4 Home alone films !!!!!
And 2 Destiny child’s sang. ‘ the eight day of Christmas’
You’ll be surprised to here I didn’t win the quiz . Merry Xmas
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Just had a heads up that Tom Paxton is playing at the Hall for Cornwall in Truro. Is he worth seeing?
The great man is 70 on Saturday. A glass is raised…
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I may have the cart before the horse in the title, but the other day I picked up a second hand copy of one of the On U Sound Pay It All Back Compilations (in Bristol’s rather good Centre For Better Grooves shop), and I found that it includes this tribute to our very own @jackthebiscuit (warning – it’s a bit weird). Have any other Afterworders inspired musicians to name a song after them?
https://youtu.be/H5RkhRv5V4s
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Hotel California’s not hard, is it? Any fool with an acoustic can crank out its circling chords. But for a charity show on Sunday David Ford decided to attempt a full band version using a series of loops. David’s built his own loop station which can run six (I think) concurrently. Watch his feet – it’s a technical exercise as much as a musical one, but no less enjoyable for it.
I made this video from audience clips so any timing mistakes and bits deliberately left out are mine not his
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Bob Dylan is my musical hero and I have spent 2016 listening almost solely to rap music, so surely if you put the two together it should be music nirvana?* I thought I had explored hip hop music quite deeply, but it seems there are some things lurking in depths that I hadn’t yet reached.
*It isn’t. It’s horrible. Listen with caution!
I stumbled on this newly uploaded vid for Hilary James’ wonderful setting of Will’s ‘Winter’. Good Will to all men (and women)!
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On a rather touching note, the Just Giving page set up yesterday to support the 70+ staff who were laid off without pay has gone past the 50K mark. The target was 20K.
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Harvey looks remarkably well all things considered
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This 7 minute interview is getting a bit of coverage at the moment. It’s embedded in a story from the interviewer about the interview.
JL has always had a reputation for being cantankerous but to take an hour so set up for an old pro was a bad way to go.
And the questions, in the main are closed questions, enabling yes or no answers from Jerry. Honest yes or no’s too. Interestingly where the question is a bit more interesting he does think about the answers. The mimicking of the nervous laughter was rather cruel but what a sharp mind for 90.
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Any tunes to mark the winter solstice today…..
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Time for the cinephiles and couch potatoes to have their say. No points, no poll. Just a chance to point the rest of us in the direction of films and TV shows that we might enjoy. It doesn’t matter if you watched them on Netflix, at your local fleapit, in your own private cinema at home or at a film festival out in the Arizona desert. As long as they were released in your country in 2016, they are in.
As several of you know, I have joined a film club at Bio Reflexen which is five minutes walk from home. Two hours of child-free film-going every fortnight: a luxury beyond words. And at the end of the evening there is the moment of truth. We each get a marble and have a choice of five buckets in which to drop it. Bucket 1 for indifferent, Bucket 5 for wonderful.
The last film I saw there, Toni Erdmann, got 5 points, A German comedy (!) about a father who has lost touch with his high-flying daughter. So, what does he do? Dresses up a kind of Teutonic Sir Les Patterson and pays her a surprise visit in Romania where she’s » Continue Reading.
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Surely the whole point of the human race is to aspire in body as much as soul?
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Greetings, Afterword brothers and sisters,
We’ve all read so many “Albums of the year” lists now, that we’re full to bursting. But I hope you have room for at least one more helping. Because here comes the duco01 Favourite New Albums of 2016 list, and I like to think that it’s worth at least a quick glance. When I’ve done lists of previous years, I’ve restricted myself to 40 albums, but 2016 has been such an outstanding 12 months full of fine records that I’ve been compelled to expand the chart to an unprecedented 60 titles. And I still found there wasn’t room for albums by perennial favourites like Paul Simon and Lucinda Williams in the sixty. Looking at the list, I see that 40 out of the albums are wholly or almost wholly instrumental, while only 20 are basically albums of songs. I don’t know why this is. I’ve certainly never made a conscious decision to seek out more music without the human voice on it; it’s just happened that way. One’s tastes mutate and evolve. So here we are. I’ll start with the also-rans, numbers 41 to 60. But 2016 has been such a gem of a musical » Continue Reading.
Few modern guitarists have done more to keep the spirit of late 60s blues alive than Joe Bonamassa.
Joe lives and breathes the blues 24/7. Here he takes us through just some of his massive vintage guitar and amplifier collection. Oh yes, Joe has a few amps – multiple examples of every Fender guitar amp from the 50s and 60s in pristine condition, in fact. Plus Cream/Hendrix-era Marshall stacks and much more besides.
Then there’s his guitars, hundreds of them, including at least three examples of the most desirable guitar in the world – the 1959 sunburst Gibson Les Paul, each one valued at close to half a million dollars. Finally we see an original Gibson Flying V, one of only 100 made between 1958-58 and even more valuable than the Les Paul.
I watched this twice straight through and enjoyed every moment. I’m sure @Twang and other vintage guitar fans will salivate over it too.
WARNING: contains guitar nerdery of the highest order.
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Slightly delayed after a short-cut via the Crab Nebula, we open the doors of the Aftertardis once more – and after fleeting visits to the birth of rock n roll and the dark heart of the eighties we’re at officially the Most Important Year Ever: 1966 and all that. There’s really very little I need to add here – and Jon Savage has a whole book on How Important It is. It’s the year Beat became Hippy, the year the Beatles stopped touring, Bob had an accident with a motorbike, and generally everything famous to do with rock happened. As ever we kick off with some stories from the NME Rock N Roll Years, and then it’s open house on a thread for anything and everything from 1966. I am one so no gig stories from me for this year. Any sightings of the Macca soundtrack to Wedlocked welcome.
Scott Engel of The Walker Brothers entered a monastery on the Isle of Wight for ten days retreat. However, he left after only seven days at the abbots’ request as fans had arrived to besiege the monastery gate.
Australia and US Censor UK Discs Two current UK Top 10 singles are » Continue Reading.
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I saw Low last week in Bristol, they played their Christmas album and were fantastic. There were two supports before the main show, the first being Erik Koskinen, who also joined Low for their Christmas set and sang this song. The video shows US GI’s putting on a spread and entertainment for some orphans…..the song and video has been in my brain and heart all week. He has some good albums on Spotify and I just wanted to highlight it to you guys, the massive, who have given me good suggestions for music to explore on this site and the previous one. I hope you all enjoy whatever Christmas break you have this year and get some respite from the utter bollocks that was 2016 Sláinte !
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Tonight we went shopping in the Bullring. Returning to the car park we needed to take the lift. My wife pressed the lift button. It seemed to be taking a long time so she pressed it again. Why? It doesn’t make the lift speed up. I have done it too as I expect many others on here but it is illogical.
Another one – I know drivers averse to putting their headlights on in dim light in the day time because it could wear their batteries out. What,more than at night time?
There must be countless other examples of daft things done for no reason.
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I have no expectations. But just having discovered my Genesis early period box set in the loft whilst on a company call I might reacquaint myself with that and the Led Zep CD/DVD reunion set from whenever that was released, also on the desk.
These are wishes rather than reality!
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A great enhancement to the site goes live tonight! A much requested change is that the “New” indictor is based on when you last looked at a thread regardless of the device (as opposed to now, where it is based on the specific device). From tonight, posts will only be flagged as New once, and won’t appear as New again if you move from one device to another. A superb bit of work by Rich especially as we negotiate the numerous (and long) year end threads. Also there’s a new “New” indicator which now in red on the post which itself is presented in a fetching blue box. A huge round of applause is due for the mod/dev team I think.
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I apologise to @blue-boy for starting a poll on `Your best reissues, live albums, other stuff not allowed in the new release poll…` I did not realise that this poll had been started. I did look if anyone had posted a similar Blog but I obviously missed it. I have contacted Admin asking them to remove my Blog and place Blue Boy`s at the top of the page or near to the top so we can all see it. To the others who commented on my `imposter blog`, thank you for your comments and the time you donated to posting them.
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As the late great Dave Allen said “whichever God you choose to believe or not to believe in may he, she or it go with you”
Happy Festivus everyone
DFB
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Has anyone else had an issue with randomly getting a “skeleton” view of the site on Chrome or Firefox? This happens on my Mac and iPad and doesn’t seem to affect any other site. I loose all headers, colour and layout so it looks like an old style message board. It’s fine on Safari BTW.
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Author:Ed Piskor
Ed Piskor’s “Hip Hop Family Tree” makes innovative use of the comics medium to tell the story of Hip Hop. It’s basically a documentary, but instead of aged talking heads reminiscing over old footage, Piskor narrates the story, with the images showing the main characters and action. This technique takes you back and effectively immerses you into the sights and fashions of the periods covered.
The story starts in the Bronx in the 70s and for a while doesn’t travel very far outside; it’s remarkable how much of the early innovation in Hip Hop happened in such a small, concentrated area. Despite this, the number of characters quickly multiplies, and Piskor has his work cut out managing all the competing crews, DJs, club owners and MCs. Piskor has cited Chris Claremont’s 70s/80s work on the Uncanny X-Men as inspiration for handling an extensive list of characters and it’s there to see in techniques such as introducing characters well before they take centre stage (graphic design student Carlton Ridenhouer is seen listening to early Hip Hop at college, and in a nice touch we see young comics fan Darryl McDaniels reading a copy of the X Men).
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As much as I hate the Daily Mail, I have to confess to occasionally reading the sport section.
I caught up with Matt Lawton’s take down of British cycling (via a recommendation from David Walsh) as well as Paul Hayward’s in the Telegraph.
Lots of unanswered question in what is a prestige sport in the UK; I wonder if we will hold our own athletes to the same standards as we have held others?
