Musings on the byways of popular culture
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Sometimes ad agencies can’t be arsed doing proper market research so you end up with slogans like
Gainsborough Pictures – Fuck Yeah!! Def Jam Records – Totes Amazeballs! Gieves and Hawkes – reet good clobber, thy knows Happy Shopper – Because You’re Worth It Werther’s Originals – Just Do It Anusol – Reassuringly Expensive Pfizer – Vorsprung Durch Technik Vivid Video – Every Little Helps
Any more?
Sadly, another contender for the favourite missed author post.
My first encounter with Discworld was disappointing – I think I expected the gag per line and word play of Hitchhikers. But the series was more than that. They were good fun reads satirising the world we take for granted.
I loved: – the whole night watch series and Captain Vimes – the Machialvellian Vetinari – the satires on racism – the parodies of plots and films from Shakespeare to Gone with the Wind – the humanity ( which is odd as many characters weren’t human)
And then there was the honesty and openness of the man, especially in recent years, facing the fade out of an active mind.
RIP
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Mr Strange has finally passed on, and the ‘Ballet were worthy enough to carry the coffin. I hope the coffin went under in a sea of dry ice and folks singing “it means nothing to me”…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-31837532
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Venue:
The Troubadour, West Brompton, London
Date: 11/03/2015
Despite jet-lag and about three hours sleep in the previous 36 I made it to this gig. After last year’s stupendously good introduction I didn’t want to miss out. Mrs P was too tired out though Hannah made my effort worth it and didn’t disappoint in the least, other than her set was barely 40 minutes. She came on promising new material though she recognised most of her songs would be new to the majority. In the event only the opener and another titled Goldrush were new and a good part of her set came via requests, including mine for Black And White. A brilliant addition to the set-list is Jason Isbell’s Cover Me Up, but for those who know Jason’s work I can testify Hannah’s own songs are equally as good. She just has that essence of star quality about her. With respect to the other acts playing before her, while none were bad, from the very first chord of her first song it’s clear Hannah is a class act and the others comparative journeymen. Last night she was top of a four act bill in a small venue; hopefully » Continue Reading.
Author:Michael Cunningham
A peculiar diversion, it begins with what one would ordinarily expect to be a plot jumping-off point…and then nothing really happens, although that nothing is written beautifully about. There’s a lovely chapter which follows the dramatis personæ through and beyond a New Year’s Eve party, a couple of vignettes set in a vintage store and some light drug taking, but it’s more about enjoying the language than the narrative. I once heard a song which contained the couplet “He’s as bitter as a New York February morning / She just smiles and doesn’t mind” which kept spinning round my head while I was reading. I think I’d rather like to hear that song again.
Length of Read:Medium
Might appeal to people who enjoyed…
Reading some John Irving, or visiting New York.
One thing you’ve learned
Don’t look for conclusions.
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pretty good
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Driving home from soccer training, number 1 son just told me with some enthusiasm that his music homework is to analyse 3 pieces from an artist of the 60s or 70s, colour tone, variation etc. Seems like a nice idea and he’s obviously into it. I have to point out at this juncture that any dialog with a 15 year old is rare, so anything that goes beyond monosyllables and grunts is amazing in the first place, let alone enthusiasm. Car rides tend toward silence usually.
So anyway, he said his first thought was HJH, but it seems like everyone else in the class is going that way. You also have to bear in mind this is in a music department talent night where the boys did a *very* convincing Pat Metheny cover where I wasn’t biting my knuckles, so awareness and choice aren’t an issue. Anyway, I piped up with The Dame (70s, Ziggy era, and he’s a fan), but he was ahead of me….he’d already picked the Kinks, all on his lonesome. Fair bought a tear to the eye it did.
Anyway, his “research” (presumably the first 3 results on Google) reveal that some deranged lunatic reckons “All » Continue Reading.
I once saw the Manic Street Preachers downstairs in Chapter Arts Centre downstairs bar playing in front of about 20 people. (They were rubbish actually and I left after four songs- with my immaculate A&R sensibilities I confidently predicted they’d never get anywhere). Have you ever seen anyone before they were famous in a really small venue?
Just been listening to the programmes about Ivy Benson on the radio. What a great story. Amazing connections from Ivy Benson to Little & Large to The Spice Girls!
You can still hear both programmes on the I-player at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04lp3x7 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0546j3x
https://youtu.be/UhUW-hXt8nA http://www.ivybenson-online.co.uk/Biographies/Lena_Kidd_files/wp_076_Lena-BioPortrait.jpg
A year or two back on the old site there was a thread about or containg The Cambodian Space Project. Can’t remember who posted, but he or she may well be interested in a fascinating Storyville episode shown on BBC4 last Monday evening entitled Rocking Cambodia: Rise of a Pop Diva which tells the story of the group/project from its inception to the present day.
It’s actually several stories in one: the tale of a marriage; a history of Khmer rock and roll and the tragedy of its participants; and the rise, indeed, of a diva from the humblest of surroundings. Thoroughly recommended!
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Our book circle have just been reading Alan Warner’s excellent The Deadman’s Pedal. Tonight, we’re off to the pub to discuss it over a pint or two of heavy.
It’s set in the 1970s and, as in other Warner novels, music plays quite an important role. The protagonist, Simon, makes friends with the wealthy, gauche, bohemian Alex from the posh house through their mutual enthusiasm for the Floyd, Hendrix etc.
Simon really fancies Alex’s very foxy sister, Varie, and In one scene he invites her home and she looks through his albums. (Nowadays she’d just look at his Spotify playlists): She find one she likes the look of but it is never named.
“The cover …was a photograph of robed figures worshipping at dawn, their silhouettes showing through the gaps in Stonehenge.” The centrefold has ” inner, psychedelic illustrations of sacred hearts, eyes in pyramids, bursting stars, Egyptian gods galore.”
“The first side is just awful” according to Simon.
Does this record actually exist? Or did Warner just invent the details?
Any ageing hippies among you who can help out with this?
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Venue:
Adelaide Town Hall, South Australia
Date: 10/03/2015
This was just sublime. The first hour was a continuous succession of improvisations, he’d play a melody or a theme and then rather than take off an extended virtuosic solo he gently explored the ideas in the piece, sometimes setting up a rhythmic groove, sometimes exploring the chord progression. It was all very gentle, meditative but never dull or boring, indeed it was the opposite – endlessly interesting, the sound of a master musician who knows exactly what he’s doing and how to do it. After that first hour there was another twenty minute piece, not quite so inventive, and that was it.
He didn’t speak a word to the audience, and had a folio of music on the piano which I suppose was a reminder of the pieces he wanted to play.
As a footnote, I’d organised to go this gig several months ago – had to leave a rehearsal half an hour early to get to the airport, fortunately the plane was on time but I was 3 minutes late and had to sit in the dress circle, which was OK. I fell over running across the road rushing » Continue Reading.
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Venue:
Adelaide Botanic Gardens
Date: 06/03/2015
OK if you dont like long reviews look away now.
Womadelaide has been going since 1992 and they have got the organisation down pat by now. It is very civilised – book a hotel in the CBD or North Adelaide and take a stroll down for 4 days of World Music. Heat is the usual concern not mud a la Glastonbury in the UK or the other big Festival here- the Byron Bay Blues and Roots Festival. The first festival had Peter Gabriel, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Youssou Ndour , Remy Ongala and a bunch of other greats. The lineups can fluctuate -sometimes too much drums ,other times too many artists backed by a line of French players in black t shirts in ponytails. But this was one of the better line ups and the weather was in the mid twenties , far more comfortable than the mid-thirties. Here’s a bit on a few of the acts I saw. Rufus Wainwright closed Friday.As soon as he started with that slurring vocal I walked off and listened to a blue grass act before returning to hear him sing 3 sublime, slow ,understated songs. Too » Continue Reading.
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This is already shaping up to be a cracking year, with the new Decemberists album, Gretchen Peters’ “Blackbird” and the new Steven Wilson which I haven’t heard yet but am sure will be great. Any other early tips for albums of the year?
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Long before Jonathan Ive there was Dieter Rams. Before Apple there was Braun. I still have this alarm clock. It is unmistakably Braun, looks cool, totally practical and never goes wrong.
What classic design do you cherish? It could be a machine, an item of clothing, anything really.
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My nomination for this melancholy title has to be Iain Banks, of course. This was brought to mind by the Student bookcase thread. Surely no self-respecting student these days should be without “The Wasp Factory” or “Espedair Street” on their shelf or in their bag. Whether in his Iain or Iain M. persona his books were almost uniformly brilliant. I wasn’t overly keen on A Song Of Stone. The others were all cracking reads without exception. What a tragedy that he went so quickly, too, and left no unpublished work to ease our pain.
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Official trailer for the film THE DAMNED: Don’t You Wish That We Were Dead, the authorized documentary of the punk pioneers. Directed/produced by Wes Orshoski (co-director/producer of “LEMMY”), the film features all four original members of the Damned (Captain Sensible, Dave Vanian, Brian James and Rat Scabies), plus appearances by Chrissie Hynde (Pretenders), Mick Jones (The Clash), Steve Diggle (Buzzcocks), actor/comedian Fred Armisen, Nick Mason (Pink Floyd), Duff McKagan (Guns N Roses), Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead), Keith Morris (Black Flag/Circle Jerks/OFF!), Dexter Holland (The Offspring) and many more. Shot around the world over the past four years, the film makes its debut at SXSW in March 2015. The third prong in the holy trinity of UK punk, with the Sex Pistols and the Clash, The Damned were the first U.K. punks to release a single (“New Rose”) and album (“Damned Damned Damned”), and the first to tour the U.S. Having logged hits in the punk, new wave and goth eras, they are one of the only surviving bands from punk’s first wave.
(the above text was nicked from the YouTube page)
One to add to my “Must See” List
I am now as ignorant of contemporary pop culture as the stereotypical High Court judges of yore. Until this morning I’d never heard the song ‘Blurred Lines’ even though it is, according to the BBC, ‘the biggest selling single ever’. Can anyone from the Massive reassure me that they too have similar gaping blind spots?
