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Blogger Takeover CI

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It is the first Friday of the new month, so, please, all gather round and tell us what you have been listening to, watching, reading, or otherwise passing your time.

And – is there anything coming up that we should all be aware of ?

1

Comments

  1. Heard lots of soul, as well as a bunch of older things that I had not listened to for a while. I particularly enjoyed Freda Payne’s “Bring The Boys Home” and Janiva Magness’ “Fool Me Again”.

    The LP I listened to most in the last month was Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington at the Cote d’Azure – a swinging classic!

    Read
    “Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era” by James Barrat – Thoroughly researched, with some alarming predictions about where AI will lead us, but let down by a repeated hammering home of the same points.

    “The Theory of Everything Else: A Voyage Into the World of the Weird” by Dan Schreiber. An amusing collection of weirdness – Things that people firmly believe in, despite the opposing evidence, like the earth being hollow, or the moon landings behaving been faked and filmed instead by Stanley Kubrick. A gentle holiday read, and a good introduction for new readers to topics covered by the magazine Fortean Times.

    Seen
    Thoroughly enjoyed every episode of Poker Face. Excellent depth of characters – everyone had a presence, as opposed to being “Man in Hat”, and the stories were really good.

    AOB
    The Primevals have been gigging a bit, which is great fun. We are in Preston Continental on Friday 25th August and London Hope And Anchor on Saturday 26th.

    We played at Butefest last week, which was great fun – on the Isle of Bute, on a weekend which had some heavy rain, with the bands and most of the other entertainment in tents. As regular readers will already know, I think of rock and roll as an Indoor Sport, preferably conducted after the sun has gone down. We were on the Main Stage, in the Big Tent, at 3pm. Nonetheless, we had a great time – good stage setup, excellent amps (which made me hanker briefly for another 70s Fender Twin until I remembered that even on a big stage, we had to work the Master Volume to “a wee bit below 3”), and a great crowd.

    Life Lesson from the day – we were at the site at 12:30, waiting to hear if the gig was going ahead. We had travelled through dark stormy clouds, and the wind was gusting. The site was muddy, as you would expect. A family group arrived – 2 mums in their early 20s, and 3 children, between 3 and 5, with their faces painted, and bright wellington boots on. The oldest child looked around, starry-eyed, and said “SO MUCH EXCITEMENT” and ran straight towards the entertainment tents. I said to the mums “that is EXACTLY the vibe we need – no worries about wind, or rain, just EXCITEMENT”

  2. Seen

    Only one big day out this month, and that was Folk by the Oak
    at Hatfield House. Last year the sun was parching the grass, it was the day before that part of England hit 40°C, but 2023 was dominated by showers and stiff breezes. We bought the tickets on the cheapest rate before the rather underwhelming line up was announced, and I’m not sure we would have bothered had we known the acts beforehand.

    Sona Jobarteh was excellent though, and due to Mick Mulvey (no, me neither) succumbing to a throat infection the second stage headliners Cut Capers were upgraded to the main stage. Their 80’s British soul horn sound might not have been folk but did a better job of warming up a damp and chilly field than Mulvey would have done, based on what I have heard of his music.

    The headliners were The Waterboys, an act I’d never seen before and had not paid much attention to since the 80s. After a slow start they found their groove with a top notch pairing of The Stones’ Dead Flowers and This is the Sea. Reading about it later it seems their fiddle player has retired so the sound is now dominated by twin organ/piano arrangements. Jolly fine it sounds to, even it is weird to hear Fisherman’s Blues without the swooping violin.

    Out to the cinema next, and if my other half had fancied Barbie we might have seen that, but she much preferred the idea of Oppenheimer. It’s a long film of course, around 3 hours, but it held my attention throughout. It is a film about the invention of the atomic bomb sandwiched between a longer film about Oppenheimer’s security clearance being withdrawn post-war because of his being, if not exactly a Communist, a fellow traveller. Cillian Murphy will surely scoop plenty of awards for his title performance and deserves to.

    If Oppenheimer (and Barbie) won the majority of the laudatory cinema write-ups this month the television equivalent was The Sixth Commandment, Sarah Phelp’s true crime reconstruction of the murder of Peter Farquhar, a lonely, ageing academic whose brains don’t stop him falling for the attentions of younger man. It was terrific, and although Spall was the stand out the whole cast was superb. Very well worth catching up on iPlayer if you haven’t watched and admired it already.

    Read

    I greatly enjoyed Adam Kay’s This is Going to Hurt a couple of years ago and picked up his more recent memoir Undoctored in a charity shop. Though the earlier book was both good and funny it was essentially a collection of hoary old medical anecdotes, most of which were probably gathered from folklore rather than genuine experience. As a result the TV series, which added an angry, moving plot, was better than the book. The newer volume is less funny but much more honest. A couple of the chapters are from Kay’s medical career though more are from his later life, including the remarkable number of serious medical issues he has been unfortunate enough to experience. Of particular interest was his description of encounters with Hunt and Hancock during their stints as Health Secretary.

    The best thing I read all month was Alexander McCall Smith’s The Pavilion in the Clouds. His two Edinburgh series are my comfort reading of choice, though I don’t much care for the Number One Ladies books. The Pavilion … is a standalone novel set mostly on a tea plantation in Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was then called, before the war. It is the story of the drama which develops between the lady of the house, a governess, and Bella, their 8 year old child and charge respectively. The sense of place and the psychodrama played out between the small, female dominated cast of characters make this a very good novel rather than something to be thumbed through before lights out.

    Finally, I don’t like to give negative reviews in these posts but sometimes you just have to as a warning to others. Many of us have probably read and enjoyed Andrew Cartmel’s Vinyl Detective series. He has started a new and related series called the Paperback Sleuth. The first volume is Death in Fine Condition, and the set up is similar to the VD – our heroine trades in vintage paperback crime novels with rare covers while getting into peril. This new series lacks charm of the earlier books, despite the VD and his chums making guest appearances. Please don’t read it. It’s just awful.

      • Your thoughts may differ of course. I don’t think the following is giving away any plot spoilers, but avoid the bit below if you want to come to it completely fresh.

        The book has a particular weakness for alliterative pronouns. In the first couple of pages the protagonist realises that she can enter the house without running into her landlord, to whom she owes rent. She realises because the landlord is never seen without his dog, and next door’s cat is having a dump in the garden. In the space of two lines the cat is both ‘the crafty little crapper’ and ‘this providential puss’. A little of that sort of stuff goes a long way, and there isn’t really anything appealing to make up for it.

          • I noticed that but didn’t want to write Vinyl Detective 3 times, though it hadn’t occurred to me how unfortunate the abbreviation was until I typed it.

    • I went to Folk by the Oak. Very grim day really. Miserable weather and few musical highlights. The bluegrass band from Newcastle were fun to shelter from the rain with. It’s The Kit were nothing like as great as they thought they were and whist the Waterboys were good I was counting the minutes to leaving pre-encore to avoid the rush. The best thing about it was my decision to drive so I was home quicker.

      • We really didn’t take to This is the Kit. When it was announced that Cut Capers would replace Nick Mulvey on the main stage, and that This is the Kit would play an extra set (‘Oh, God …’) on the Acorn Stage (‘Thank fuck for that!) our responses were coordinated.

        A lot of people loved them though, and I’m all in favour of bands which fiercely split opinion rather than have everyone think they were just OK.

        Hatfield is an hour or so from us, so drivable but for the last few years we’ve booked into the Premier Inn in Welwyn instead. Just as well it’s a one-dayer so we didn’t have to climb into a damp tent.

    • Re the Waterboys: it’s as if they are a different band, or, as if they never did Fisherman’s Blues and the long run of records since that disc, bar playing heavy rock fiddle free versions of the songs. Just been watching a clip of the Saw Doctors, whom Anto is playing with again, with added guest slot from Steve Wickham. Guess what song slipped out into the middle of another. Cue audience frenzy.

  3. Heard
    Album of the Month (and a contender for “… of the Year”): Blur – Ballad Of Darren
    Echoes of Blur past, Blur present, and Damon Albarn’s arty-fartyness kept in check. Still not convinced by the title, but the content more than makes up for it

    Read
    Daniel Rachel – Like Some Forgotten Dream: What if the Beatles hadn’t split up?
    where the author imagines a new Beatles album culled from songs written and recorded up to 1971 across 4 sides of an album. Not a new conceit, nor imparting any new stories, but a thoroughly readable exercise. And also got me re-visiting the first McCartney album and All Things Must Pass

    Seen
    The Sixth Commandment on BBC was brilliantly watchable (and a true story too, that I didn’t know)
    Plumbing the depths of iPlayer and ITVx for bingeing TV to watch (I’ve never found anything on Prime, and I haven’t got a Netflix account since losing my “shared” account in the Netflix cull of sharing passwords)

    • Beatles fan here RD, I also had that Beatles book but gave up a third way through. Not that it was bad or not enjoyable, it just made me sad…all good things come to an end don’t they?

    • Have you read Isle of Noises b Daniel Rachel? It is a wonderful read (basically interviews with British songwriters about their craft)? I will pick up his Beatles one as it had passed me by for some reason. He has a book about Two Tone coming up in Jan which I have on preorder

  4. Seen the latest Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One at the pictures. In a few shots I noticed Tom is showing his age but mostly he carries it off. Not a big box office hit apparently but I thought the 2 hours plus flew by. A daft premise and story but great entertainment. Everything is geared up to certain breathtaking action sequences. There is a sequence with a runaway train that is just astonishing which is better than it needs to be. A work of art in it’s own right. I do find this business of making a mask that somehow can transform you into another person rather ludicrous though.

    Streamed a few series including Guilt. Very scottish I thought with it’s grit and humour. By season 3 it’s become a jolly caper. It could have been a movie. Perhaps a bit longer than necessary. Very enjoyable though. Great punky music. Nice to hear a Wire Pink Flag track. You get so much music on TV series these days. 😉

    • I hugely enjoyed Dead Reckoning. In fact, it made me go back and watch the whole series! I think over the last three or four films the series has really hit a good groove, and it balances its ludicrous plots and amazing stunt/fight sequences well. Really puts a lot of other action films to shame.

      It’s good to compare the train sequence in Dead Reckoning with the (eerily similar) train sequence in the recent Indiana Jones film. The Indiana Jones one felt (I think) muddy and unconvincing, whereas the Mission Impossible one felt tight and physical. I winced with fear a few times at the end of that sequence (I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t seen it).

      • If you want pure action and entertainment this film is hard to beat. Worth a trip to see on the big screen despite the chap next to me chomping on his crisps and we paid for VIP seats. He should have been thrown out or the seats should have some form of sound proof encasement. I was able to recline and drop pieces of popcorn on my shirt.

  5. Another month has gone by. This year is flying!!

    Heard
    I have waxed lyrical about the new album by LYR – The Ultraviolet Age & I still think it is wonderful. I am still averaging a listen a day with it. This also made me seek out the Simon Armitage podcast – The Poet Laureate has gone to his shed which I also enjoyed immensely, especially the Johnny Marr, Guy Garvey & Loyle Carner episodes.
    A month of living with the new Jim Bob – Thanks For Reaching Out album has me enjoying it even more than I initially did. It is his best offering so far, his Taj Mahal as he states on the titular track. I would love to see this hit the end of year lists.
    The Blur – The Ballad of Darren new offering is a bit of a grower I hope. I am not wowed by it yet, but there are definitely some songs on there which will be furthered with repeat listening.
    As the resident Carly Rae Jepsen enthusiast, I am a huge fan of her new b-sides/offcuts album The Loveliest Time. The song Kamikaze may well be my favourite of hers

    Read
    I have had a very poor month on the reading front & only managed 2, neither of which I enjoyed. I need to up this drastically to hit my target for the year.
    Mindf*ck by Christopher Wylie
    I have mixed feelings about this one. It’s a book by the whistleblower on the SCL & Cambridge Analytica scandal of a few years ago, when the rampant misuse of data (mainly mined from facebook) was credited with influencing/manipulating elections across the globe, including Brexit, Trumps presidency & up to 6 state elections across India. From this perspective it was an important read & if I hadn’t already deleted my facebook, instagram etc. I would have done so after completing! This side of the book was really interesting & eye opening with lots of cautionary tales about the dangers of social media, particularly with the data we share.
    However, there are lots of issues with this book. The author is full of contradictions & is not quite as heroic as he paints himself. It seems quite far fetched that although he was so heavily involved & had such low opinions of others, that he did not have a moral objection sooner. His take on the media involvement (notably the NYT & Guardian) does not tally with other accounts & he also defends some people who are divisive at best & at worst the exact same people he rallys against in other parts of the book.
    If you want to read a book by a whistleblower I would recommend Edward Snowdens above this.
    Oxblood by Tom Benn
    This is a novel set in 1980s Wythenshawe, Manchester & tells the story of three women, three generations of the Dodds family, a notorious family ruling the criminal underworld. This is not a crime novel, but more a telling of their stories & how their lives have been dominated & ruined by the Dodds men. It is very evocative & you do feel like you are a part of the time with a lot of depth to each character. In this regard it reminded me of Shuggie Bain, but this could also be due to the brutality of the story which at times was tough to read.
    There was a lot to like about this book, but if I am honest, I struggled with the style of writing and it started to irritate me somewhat resulting in my being relieved to finish it (If the word ‘Tutty’ was used to describe makeup one more time I would have screamed!).
    The style was very florid & on occasion I was reading paragraphs 3 times to work out what was happening! However, this was just me personally & I could totally understand why others would love the style & why so much praise has been bestowed on Tom Benn for this. It is just not for me I’m afraid (note, I also had a downer on God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy for this reason, but was very much in the minority)

    Seen
    2 gigs this month, each with a trip over the Pennines. First up was James at Piece Hall, Halifax.; A fantastic venue & one I will definitely go back to. We saw James a few weeks prior with an orchestra which was very special. This was just the band albeit with the choir from the orchestra tour who really added to the fullness of the sound. & it was another great gig with an enforced 25minute break in the middle due to a lightning storm, luckily this didn’t break the momentum too much! Unfortunately it was marred somewhat by the couple we were with having a massive barney with each other, not the best drive home!
    Next was Pulp / Richard Hawley at Sheffield Arena. This was the best I have ever seen them, a great setlist & Jarvis was in fine form. It was also great to see them in their hometown with plenty of local cheers for mentions of Stanhope Road in the ‘Babies’ preamble. I don’t drink at gigs so was quite taken aback at how hammered people were (not helped by the venue encouraging bottles of wine due to the pricing!). We were fairly near the front but must have seen 4 or 5 people passed out from too much drink, all of whom were too old for that kind of thing! Same couple with us at this gig too but it was much better.
    TV wise we have enjoyed The Bear on Disney+. The last 4 episodes of the new series have been excellent, with episodes 6 & 7 (the latter of which has a jaw on the floor performance from Jamie Lee Curtis) the real standouts

    • Yes, that JLC episode was great. And some other surprises throughout the season – cameos and guest appearances from other household names. I liked it a lot, just thought the finale got off to a blistering start (one of those single camera unedited long scenes reminiscent of Boiling Point) and then fizzled out toward the end…

  6. Quick month indeed.

    Watched:

    The Gallows Pole, the latest TV series by Shane Meadows. I wrote a huge big comment about it here https://theafterword.co.uk/the-gallows-pole/#comment-610053 that met with tumbleweed. 🙂 To cut a long story short: I liked it but with reservations.

    The Change – another TV series, and again with some folklore vibes (must be something in the air). I’m sure I wrote about it elsewhere on here but now I can’t find my comment. To cut a long story short: I liked it but with reservations.

    Read:

    Julian Cope >
    I finally finished One Three One, Julian Cope’s strange, meandering tale of time travel, britpop and football set in Sardinia. I gave up on it a few years ago as I just found it too difficult to read (I saw somewhere someone describe the prose as like a bad version of Hunter S Thompson and I can see that comparison). It’s a book that’s badly in need of editing and the plot is all over the place. But in the end I did find a bit of connection with the main character and it has a nice dramatic ending. It might actually make a decent film if someone was brave enough to try.

    Thomas Hardy >
    I’ve been on a mad Thomas Hardy audiobook binge recently. In the last month, I’ve finished Far From the Madding Crowd, The Well-Beloved and Under the Greenwood Tree. I’ve decided I’m a fan, even though it’s taken me years to get here (I read The Mayor of Casterbridge at school then re-read it a couple of years ago, and loved Tess of the D’Urbervilles when I read it last year). He’s a consummate story-teller: I think you could theorise about the themes underpinning his books, but at heart it’s just rich characters and great dialogue. I feel like I have spent time with Dick Dewy, Joseph Poorgrass and other such colourful characters.
    The Well-Beloved is a curious one, and I gather it’s not the most liked or popular of Hardy books. But I found it strangely beguiling. As well as the style seeming a bit Proust-ish (slow and contemplative), I also saw some parallels with Lolita:- it seems to be portraying a particular type of predatory male behaviour that at first feels icky but then (unlike Lolita) your sympathy for the protagonist grows as the story goes on. In the end you feel quite sorry for him as he seems to acknowledge the folly of his ways and the pointlessness of the life he has chosen to lead.
    Not sure what to go for next: Jude the Obscure probably.

    John Cowper Powys >
    I reported a few months ago I was well into A Glastonbury Romance. Well, my progress has stalled a bit but I’m still moving slowly through it. I’ll get there. It’s still compelling, but the slow pace is starting to turn me off a bit. Plot-lines which seemed important just seem to be fading willy-nilly into the background as new ones come up, a bit like a soap opera. But every so often you get a twist of fate or a shocking event that keeps me interested.

    JRR Tolkien >
    Yes, back to this guy again. The Silmarillion had never appealed to me before but I just had a notion for it recently, and I’ve been listening to the audiobook at a steady pace, backed up with frequent background checks of maps, chronologies and character names. You know what? It definitely has nowhere near the readability of Lord of the Rings (it’s basically Tolkien’s Finnegan’s Wake or his Smile) but it has a denseness and poetry that is extremely addictive. I feel totally connected to the world and even though I know how the story is going to pan out (a flood, a war and the departure of the elves from the mortal world) it’s fun to fill in the gaps and see how it all unfolds. Tolkien I think said somewhere all good stories are about death and I think that’s true here: from The Silmarillion to the Lord of the Rings you get a long story about the decay and death of a beautiful world.

    • Interested to read your thoughts about The Silmarillion, Arthur: almost no-one I know has read it – even the ones who seem to like Tolkien are put off by the dense, “King James”-like prose style.

        • I’ve tried and failed, even with the audiobook – yet my shelves are full of Tolkieniana. Currently reading ‘Tolkien’s View’, a collection of essays by Prof J.S. Ryan – who was taught by Tolkien at Oxford and followed his academic path. JS has many connections to make between aspects of things in JRR’s mythical world and things from various bits of European history / language. His style is somewhat dry – nowhere near as readable as (Prof) Tom Shippey, who also brings arcane academic knowledge to the reader of JRR (but with more fun).

        • I had no idea it was so notorious as being unreadable! Maybe I was just in the right mood for it. I’m now right up to the last chapter with Sauron and his rings and all that, setting the scene for LOTR. I loved all the stuff about Numenor being submerged and the big flood.

    • I’m not a Tolkien fan but I picked up a first edition Silmarillion in a chazza for a quid about 4 years ago. It’s not a rare book, even in good condition with the glued in map intact as this one had, and you could probably pick it up a similar copy for about the price of a new paperback. A couple of weeks later my team manager’s wife had their third child and they named her after a character in the Silmarillion.

      Having looked up the unusual name and realised its source I gave him the book as a present for his baby the next day he was in the office. It has just occurred to me that he and his family are Mormons, and I don’t know if Mormons go in for birthday presents and the like. Anyway, it earned me some brownie points and a couple of months later he used his influence to ensure that a colleague and I got wage rises to match our responsibilities. He’s a good manager, and a decent man, so I’m sure he would have done that for his team anyway, but the book certainly didn’t do any harm.

      • Well, Tolkien’s original publisher Stanley Unwin (no, not that one) didn’t see any money-making potential in the Silmarillion back in the late 1940s,* but decades later you’ve proved him wrong! 😀

        * JRRT wanted Unwin to publish both LOTR and The Sil together or not at all. Stanley declined. Tolkien approached a fellow called Milton Waldman at another publisher, writing him a letter almost as long as LOTR explaining what it was all about (a section is in the posthumous ‘The Letters of JRRT’ and another section in another posthumous tome – I forget which). Waldman seemingly declined – or died of old age reading the letter. In 1954, Tolkien belatedly accepted Stanley’s ‘LOTR only’ offer – having been told initially by telegram (he was abroad somewhere) by his son Rayner that ‘It’s a work of genius – but we’ll lose £1,000’. Stanley had famously replied by telegram ‘If it’s a work of genius, then you may lose £1,000’. Hats off to them.

  7. Read
    North face of the heart by Delores Redondo
    It begins like a rebooted Red Dragon / Silence of the Lambs – a serial killer with a very specific MO, an empathetic agent in the behavioural science section of the FBI, a female protégé, with a haunted background and brilliant insights. But this diverges from the Thomas Harris template, as Redondo moves the action to New Orleans as Katrina hits. With the killer sidelined for most of the book, focus is moved onto the FBI protagonists and the horror of the hurricane.

    Seen
    Mission Impossible 7
    I purposely avoided all publicity and trailers so came in cold. The bike stunt is breathtaking – and there felt like a collective holding of breath in the cinema. Whilst the subsequent set piece upon a train left me sweaty of palm. It is a bit baggier than the last 2 instalments (probably because this is the first of a 2 parter) but it’s still brilliant.

    Godless
    Really great Western series, with Jeff Daniels on top form as the villainous Frank Griffin – a man capable of moments of kindness as well as horrible violence. It’s a slow burner that leads to an inevitable (and satisfying) showdown.

    The Bear
    I am a few episodes in and really enjoying the second series. The one where Marcus travels to Copenhagen is just beautiful. Oh, and a shout out for the soundtrack, which so far has included The Durutti Column, Steve Earl, Squeeze and the gorgeous Tezeta by Mulatu Astatke – a favourite of mine since it appeared on one of the CDs that were mounted on the front of The Word.

    Possessor
    As directed by Brandon Cronenberg who proves himself a chip of the old man’s block. A story of corporate assassins that ponders big ideas such as identity, memory, personal agency. And eye watering moments of horrific violence.

    Heard
    I’ve listed to the new albums by Blur and Disclosure a couple for times each – but need another few listens to get to grips, I think.

  8. A quiet month and no mistake.

    Saw/heard: The school I worked at was putting on The Addams Family musical and very good it was too.
    Asteroid City, Wes Anderson and the usual tropes, enjoyable enough. Watched with subtitles which with my dodgy hearing helps.

    Watched: Talking Pictures TV has been showing Maigret with Bruno Cremer in French and Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday and Jour de Fête. New Zealand’s Midsomer Murders aka Brokenwood mysteries has returned, the appalling musical at the start of the first one was hilarious.

    Enjoyed A Spy Among Friends even if I’ve been accused of nit picking too far.

  9. I like big books an’ I cannot lie.
    Read.
    Most of July was taken up with a first time reading of Martin Chuzzlewit. Old Charlie doesn’t half go on a bit for understandable reasons but I found this a little trying over the long haul. It has it’s moments of course which were very enjoyable and prompted me to reach the finishing line. I have Bleak House in my sights for later this month.
    Book of the month for me was A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry another doorstop of a novel that some reviewers have likened to Dickens and having read it I find that understandable. Set in India during the far from felicitous years of Indira Gandhi’s rule it chronicles the intersections and lives of a vivid cast of characters and it’s decidedly far more bleak than anything Dickens wrote. Certain passages are downright gruelling and don’t expect it to all be tied up in a nice big bow at the end. It isn’t. A fine book.
    Feeling the need for some simple escapism after A Fine Balance I picked up The Scapegoat from Daphne du Maurier. Over the course of my reading life I’ve read many of Daphers books and found them most enjoyable this not least amongst them. It’s entirely bonkers. Utterly unbelievable and typical of her oeuvre. Bless.
    Heard.
    Stand out release of the month for me was The Greater Wings by Julie Byrne a set of songs with bereavement and coming to terms with loss at it’s very large heart.
    Also throughly enjoying Multitudes from Feist. More mostly acoustic joy and towards the end of the month Brigid Mae Powers latest Dream From The Deep Well has beguiled me and I was delighted to find Balladeste a string duo comprising Tara Fraks playing cello and Preetha Narayanan violinist have released their third album Conversations In Ritual which is simply beautiful. I’ve been a bit of a fan since their first outing Relic back in 2017 so they couldn’t be accused of being prolific but as with the previous two this one was worth the wait. Beautiful album artwork too.
    Watched.
    As others have already flagged up the second series of The Bear is fabulous especially the sixth episode called Fishes which is simply magnificent. I don’t think any drama series has ever made me feel as stressed out as The Bear in a good way of course.
    A few other things here and there but nothing as memorable as the above.
    A.O.B.
    Met up with Mr and Mrs Retro for lunch and it was easily the highlight of July. Love you guys. Mwah.
    In less happy news for me at least is that my arthritic right hip has seriously deteriorated and is frankly very bloody painful. This has meant sleep has become a bit of a luxury however this does mean lots of headphone action through endless nights so every cloud… easily the most distressing consequence is it means I have had to cease painting due to my needing to stand sometimes for extended periods to do so. This I find extremely upsetting so depression is a bit of a constant as making is my happy place. Painting is so intrinsic to my nature, my being denied it is doing me no good at all.
    Keep on keeping on folks. ✌️🙏

    • If you’re in constant pain from it and it’s seriously affecting your lifestyle, can’t you get your knackered hip “done”? My big sister had both of hers replaced a few years back and is much the better for it.
      Don’t like to think of you being unable to paint.

      • That’s my hope Mike but it won’t be quick. Waiting lists are long. My sawbones is arranging another x-ray for me as it’s been sometime since the state of my hip was last assessed. Hopefully it will move the situation forward. I hope something in a palliative sense may be offered while I wait for a replacement hip as constant pain along with the repercussions arising from it doesn’t half grind you down. I write this in the full knowledge that others on here and elsewhere are undergoing similar problems and worse so I am not complaining, simply reporting.

    • I found lying on my front pretty good for relieving hip pain. That and physio,but I know a time will come when exercise and pain killers won’t be enough.

      • Thanks I’ll try lying on my front tonight. I didn’t get much sleep last night lying with a pillow between my legs with a cold pack on my hip. Sometimes I manage a few hours but I gave up last night and sat on my couch reading and listening to music for most of the night. My sawbones won’t advise until he gets the results of more x-rays and as I have no idea when that will be accomplished life is a bit trying at the moment.

    • For osteoarthritis I found lying on my front helpful in relieving hip pain. That and physio. There will come a time when exercise and then pain killers aren’t enough unfortunately.

  10. Read:

    Desertion by Abdulrazak Gurnah is now one of my favourite novels by him. It seemed unassuming enough at first, but added layer after layer as it went on, and in ways I didn’t expect. As, indeed, Gurnah as an author do when you read more and more by him (I’m currently reading my sixth novel by him – I wouldn’t have predicted that after reading my first!)

    Most of my time in July went towards reading a giant doorstop tome of a biography, in Swedish, about one of my favourite poets/authors; Harry Martinson. A bit too long-windedly detailed perhaps, but thanks to a fascinating subject its 800 or so pages kept me interested all the way.

    And, as debated on a recent thread, I also read seven books for kids/teens, and enjoyed them very much. Bought second hand, from the 50s and 60s, and full of laugh-out-loud fun. An effective cure for old-grumpiness! 😉

    I’m now in the midst of reading Old God’s Time by Sebastian Barry – another book that’s making me giggle a lot – the inner monologue of the protagonist, the conversations…pure gold.

    Heard:

    The “Taylor’s Version” of Speak Now, of course. Great job as usual with the rerecordings and the new vault tracks.

    Swedish electronica band Little Dragon are finally back with a new album called Slugs of Love, and song-wise it is better than it’s been for a long while IMO. I do really like the production as well, but some of it seems curiously “retro” – if UKG can be called that already! The first couple of tracks takes you back to the days of “Gabriel” and similar bangers (so definitely not negative at all), then as the album goes on it turns a bit slower but still full of rhythm. Their old fan Damon Albarn makes an apperance on the most melancholy track. This album is a pleasant surprise, over all.

    The new Brigid Mae Power album, Dream From The Deep Well reminded me how much I like her brand of folk. The album is bookended by two traditional songs, but apart from a Tim Buckley cover the rest is self-penned, and it’s all very good – and her voice is one of my favourites in the genre. I’m not as often in the mood for this type of music anymore, but I always have time for Brigid.

    I also got the new QOTSA and Foo Fighters albums, but I haven’t listened to them more than a couple of times and don’t have much to say. Foo is of course better live than on record, and there are a couple of tracks here that I can see working really well as shout-alongs, but there is of course an underlying sadness throughout this album, the first since Hawkins died.
    QOTSA’s usual schtick is there but has failed to truly excite me so far. I’ll get back to you on the merits of these two.

    Seen:

    I don’t have access to the channels that show the Women’s World Cup, so have only seen the goals…but Sweden is doing great so far and I have high hopes for the 8th’s against the US tomorrow (hopefully not famous last words…) If we do beat them I think we have a fair shot since so many favourites have failed to qualify further, and our team looks sharp and very efficient in front of goal.

    I keep earmarking films and documentaries to watch, but never seem to find the time or energy, unfortunately. But only two more weeks of work until my next bout of vacation kicks in – hopefully they’ll still be available to watch then.

    AOB:

    Typically, I’ve injured my left elbow thanks to having to do much harder physical labor these weeks when everyone else is on their hols. I haven’t had time to visit a doctor, so not sure if it’s the tennis or golf version…I’m now using a brace and it seems to help a little, though pain killers are also in the mix. I’m just happy it isn’t my right arm!
    But it’s been slowing me down a fair bit at home, any further kitchen reno will have to wait.

      • Hmm…is that a challenge?
        I’m certain that I’d enjoy it more now than when I was twelve, but I can’t say that I’m mightily tempted by the task!

        I forgot to mention that during July I also attempted to tackle Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, but had to abandon it because two huge tomes at the go simultaniously was about one and a half tome too many…it seemed amusing enough, but it will have to wait for a better opportunity to be enjoyed.
        The same goes for Silmarillion I think! 🙂

  11. Heard

    Too Much Sun Will Burn – The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1967 Vol 2 (3 CD set)

    The good folks at Grapefruit Records keep churning out these box sets and they’re just a garden of aural delights. This one takes its title from the opening track, Traffic’s sublime “Paper Sun” and then meanders through all manner of obscure B-sides and lost singles by groups whose names or members I have never heard of (until you read the liner notes and discover that the bass player in The Syn (whose single 14 Hour Technicolour Dream describes that famous event which, like Joni Mitchell and Woodstock, they sang about but didn’t attend) was one Chris Squire. And so on.
    I just love it all. I was 13 in 1967 and some of these records made it on to the radio in Wellington New Zealand. There were NZ groups that had ridiculous names (The Kal-Q-lated Risk anyone?) and dressed in flowery shirts and embraced down under psychedelia. Sure it was jumping on a bandwagon, but it was creative, adventurous and often quite silly and that’s always a good recipe.

  12. I usually get all these Psychedelic/Prog boxes from Cherry Red/Grapefruit, I’ll have to check if I have this so thanks for alerting me @Mousey. I prefer the quirky British Psychedelic sets they always throw up a few ‘never heard that before’ tracks.

  13. Another month, another fest, the vastly superior Cambridge Folk Festival, whose roster blew into shreds any even B-road notion of folk, with techno, jazz, hip hop, blues all with way more than a foot in the door. A lot of folk too, and an altogether friendlier and more inclusive gig than Glastonbury. Too lazy to regather my thoughts, so:
    https://atthebarrier.com/2023/08/01/cambridge-folk-festival-2023-live-review/
    Earlier in the month saw Mrs Path and me brave the lakes and mountains of North Wales, with, as the man himself said, a fine pub lunch in Chester with Mr Squeezer to launch us on our way. A wet week in Beddgelert did nothing to dampen our pleasure as we were ther to swim in the glories of Padarn, Dinas, Cwellyn and more. Tippety-toppety!
    Still haven’t read owt bar the music comics and newspapers. And a lot of publicists blurbs, as they peddle their crack to the afflicted. I can share Lodey’s love for William the Conqueror, as well as suggesting the worths of Adam Masterson and Demi Marriner. The former is a tousle headed expat inNoo Yawk, with an ear for Americans in dark glasses, touting acoustic guitars. Marriner is yet another UK americana beacon, selling her rhinestones to Nashville. Very well. Hot off the press is the latest from festy faves, Peatbog Faeries, a fabulous riot of folk, electronica, afro, brassy jazz and the full trad in disarray that Scotland is excelling at.
    Off to Shrewsbury in a week or 3 for my final long w/e under canvas. With Glasto being scorchio, Cambo dry enough, fingers crossed for Shrewsbo, given so much outdoor music has been deluged this dreich summer.

  14. A Lengthy List Of What I Listened To, this past month:

    “It’s Happening” by British jazz saxophonist Paul Booth, from 2003. He was giving away free copies at a gig of his I attended. Details below. It’s a jolly good little album. He said he had loads of copies cluttering his garage and wanted rid.
    Also another of his albums “Forty Four” from 2021. This one I paid for. Good, of course.
    “Blue Soul”, “Out Of The Blue” and “Big 6″by Blue Mitchell, from 1958-1959. I’ve been bingeing on post-bop trumpeter Blue Mitchell recently and enjoying his stuff a lot.
    “Winter In America” by Gil Scott-Heron & Brian Jackson. Revisited this and mostly really enjoyed it again. A slightly-flawed classic.
    “The Complete London Concert” by the Don Grolnick Group, from 1995. Don Grolnick was a frequent pianist with the Brecker Brothers and also composed and arranged for them and others. This album features both of the Breckers with Marty Ehrlich on alto sax and bass clarinet, plus Don Alias on percussion, Peter Erskine on drums and Robin Eubanks on trombone. Fantastic album recommended by my drummer friend, who is an Erskine fan. Also listened to a couple of Don Grolnick’s studio albums, “Nighttown” from 1992 and “Medianoche” from 2005. Both very good.
    “Jupiter Island” by guitarist Chris Allard, from 2013. He was playing with Paul Booth when I saw him. Good guitarist, good album.
    “If You Can’t Dazzle Them With Your Brilliance, Then Baffle Them With Your Blisluth” by Burnt Sugar The Arkestra Chamber, from 2005. I chanced to see these back around the time of this album when they played a double bill with Jaga Jazzist (at the Barbican, I think. Can’t remember) and they were fantastic. Like the Sun Ra Arkestra meets hip-hop with a mad string section thrown in. All the recorded music of theirs that I’ve heard so far is lacking in focus and rather disappointing. This triple CD set was no exception. Fantastic title, though.
    “Time Is Of The Essence” by Michael Brecker, from 1999. This was the basis of Paul Booth and Hammond organist Ross Stanley’s live gig (with Chris Allard on guitar) that I saw mid-month. It’s a great album.
    “Andrew!!” by Andrew Hill, from 1968 was an excursion towards “free improv” that I took and rather enjoyed. Not as wild as some stuff Mr. Hill has recorded. Quite bluesy, in fact.
    “100% Yes” (2020) and “Pray For Me I Don’t Fit In” (2022) are a couple of albums by Melt Yourself Down, who are a right noisy bunch, incorporating jazz and funk elements into a punkish sound. Like Pigbag on steroids with better chops.
    “The Elements” by Joe Henderson & Alice Coltrane, from 1974. Spiritual jazz wonderment from it’s heyday.
    “Sim Sim Sim” by Bala Desejo, from 2022. Brazilian psychedelic pop. Tropicana revisited and revived for the 21st century.
    “Leaning In” by Linus Eppinger, from 2022. American guitarist’s quartet album with piano, bass and drums. Classy stuff.
    “It’s Not Up To Us” by Byard Lancaster, from 1966. American flautist/saxophonist in a free-jazz vein but more melodic (mostly) here. Interesting in parts.
    “Funky Nothingness” by Frank Zappa, this year. Three CDs-worth of studio sessions from a little after the original MOI were disbanded, Hot Rats had been done and he hadn’t yet hooked up with Flo & Eddie for the Vaudeville Band. There’s a lot of stuff in here that would have been best left in the (in)famous vault. And I say this as a big Zappa fan.
    It all sounds a bit aimless and somewhat uninspired to me, like he was tired and marking time until inspiration struck.
    “Brighter Days For You” by Monnette Sudler Sextet, from 1977. Little-known American jazz guitarist, composer and vocalist. Not at her best when singing here, but a very good player.
    “Can Of Worms” by George Crowley, from 2015. Another excursion into free jazz. Two tenor saxes, one on each stereo channel, plus piano, bass and drums. It has it’s moments. Terrible cover.
    “Perpetual Pendulum” by Larry Goldings, Peter Bernstein and Bill Stewart from 2022. Great organ/guitar/drums trio album. Makes many others of that ilk sound second-rate. Bill Stewart is a great drummer I’ve only recently come to appreciate. Already knew Larry Goldings was the real deal.
    “Solo Standards” by Pasquale Grasso, from 2018. Italian guitarist. I knew of him from accompanying singing sensation Samara Joy quite recently. A technically brilliant guitarist but a bit of a showboater. A whole album of him becomes a bit of a slog against the sheer assault of notes.
    “Live At Montreux” by Don Ellis, from 1978. Brilliant trumpeter, big-band leader, arranger and composer. Died fairly young and rather neglected these days. This is good.
    “Man-Child” by Herbie Hancock, from 1975. Further experimentation post- Headhunters. It has it’s moments but didn’t really gel with me.
    “Brown Rice” by Don Cherry, from 1977. More melodic than some of his other albums. Good Grooves.
    “Seventh Sense” (2009) and “Transport” (2012) by British pianist Tim Lapthorn. He’s a regular accompanist at the North Finchley jazz sessions I go to. I love his playing, he’s very melodic with a bit of mischeivousness. He’ll often come out with some phrase that just leaves the other players gobsmacked. Has a tendency to get into the Keith Jarrett-alike muttering/singing when he’s particularly on it, live.
    “Drifting” by Mette Henriette, from this year. A Sami-Norwegian saxophonist/composer on ECM Records. A fairly recent find and I’ve really enjoyed this and her self-titled debut on the label. The ECM “sound” can tend towards blandnessfor me these days, but these two albums do not.
    “Between Us…” by Anoushka Shankar, The Metropole Orkest with Jules Buckley and Manu Delago, from 2022. Indian classical fusion at it’s finest. Lovely.
    “Better” by Larry Goldings (this year) again, in a different trio formation, with bassist/composer Kaveh Rastegar and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Abe Rounds. Excellent.
    “Balanced” by Jan Harbeck Quartet, from 2022. A good, solid sax/piano/bass/drums quartet making a great sound together.
    “Are We There Yet?” by Ed Cherry, this year. Another very good American jazz guitarist. Not flashy, which is good. Nice melodic playing.
    “Amaryllis” by Mary Halvorson, from last year. An inventive, interesting player with strings, horns and a vibraphone on this. A hit!
    “Hit The Road” by the Nigel Price Organ Trio, from 2013. Another artist (guitar) who’s guested recently at one of the jazz sessions I attend. Sans organ when I saw him. I was impressed enough to buy a couple of his CDs and this is one of ’em. Very tasty fare. I’m rather partial to organ trios.

    Seen Live:

    July 2nd, Nigel Price (guitar) at The Elephant Inn, North Finchley, with Jeremy Shoham (alto & soprano saxes), Tim Lapthorn (piano) Dave Mannington (bass) and Rick Finlay (drums). A good night. Sparks were struck and everyone had moments of inspiration.
    July 14th, Singer/songwriter showcase at The Garden Rooms in Market Street, Watford. Café venue serving decent grub. Three acts doing decent-length sets. The guy who organised it was on first and wasn’t particularly inspiring. Second guy on had some good repertoire and was pretty good on guitar. Decent voice. The last guy on had some interesting material that sounded like it would benefit from proper pop production. Plenty of chutzpah though his material was a bit ’90s. I got the impression he’d probably been performing it since then. An enjoyable free evening’s entertainment (apart from the food and drinks). Worth a revisit.
    July 16th, Paul Booth (tenor & soprano saxes) & Ross Stanley (Hammond organ) with Chris Allard (guitar), Jeremy Shoham (alto & soprano saxes) and Rick Finlay (drums). A reinterpretation of Michael Brecker’s “Time Is Of The Essence” which gave all concerned a jolly good workout. These compositions aren’t for the faint-hearted. Paul Booth has a good meaty tenor sound and Ross Stanley’s organ playing was just fantastic. I would rate him as the UK’s best, currently. Everyone was enjoying playing, the audience got quite excited and the music really took off. Probably the best Elephant Jazz gig so far.
    July 28th, back at The Elephant for Dex & Soul Mates, a nice 7-piece funk band with two good singers, Dexter Moseley and Gill Hunte. Bassist Alan Gruner knows how to be funky and adds background vocals. Saxophonist Steve is very good and Dex plays a bit of sax too, these days. Their repertoire ranges fro Stevie Wonder to Chic, EW&F, Sly Stone & Shalamar. A friend of theirs I’d never seen before was invited up to sing a couple. He’s a gloomy-looking quiet little guy with a quite amazing voice. Beautiful rendition of Al Green’s “Since We’ve Been Together” and then later slaughtered us with James Brown’s “I Feel Good”. A very good night out for a fiver in the tin.
    July 29th, Jazz Re:Fest 2023 10th Edition at EArtH in Hackney. Relocated mysteriously at rather short notice from The Roundhouse. Start time was 12 noon with 7 live acts and DJ sets inbetween until about 9pm. In the main hall the DJ sets were mostly not to my taste at all, beside which I cannot last that long these days without being able to sit down and there was no seating. Upstairs was a bar and café with enough seating but constant DJ sets (though better than in the main hall).
    First live act were Golden Mean, a young jazz-rock quartet. Good players but not really my kind of thing. Next live set was drummer Romarna Campbell’s band. More jazz-rock. Is this stuff making a comeback in the 2020s? Again, very musically competent but not very interesting to me.
    Third up was Tyroneisaacstuart (his preferred way of printing his name). Conscious BLM rapping over soul-jazz when not playing sax. Musically more interesting to me than the previous two bands but a bit hectoring. Others there might well have disagreed.
    Act #4 was a complete and utter contrast. Sofia Grant, a skinny white girl in a filmy, floaty dress singing her very white folky-pop songs with a couple of backing musicians and a female harmony singer. Heavy lifting appeared to be being done pre-recorded. Apparently she’s a multi-instrumentalist so it was all probably her, but all she did on the night was sing and her voice wasn’t anything special. I got bored after a few songs and went up to the café for a sit down.
    I ended up nodding off for a bit and thus completely missed act #5, singer Zola Marcelle whose theme, in both studio and live situations, is singing accompanied only by a bassist. Listening now to her Bandcamp album and she can sing alright, but it’s all a bit intense and gloomy. Not sorry I missed her spot. I quenched my raging thirst with a rather pricey can of beer and next up was tubaist Theon Cross and band. Loud raucous and funky. I enjoyed it.
    Last on were Steam Down, who I’d been eager to see. There were 10 of them onstage though not always at the same time. A saxophonist/flautist/singer, a keyboard player, a bassist/singer, a drummer, a percussionist/singer and another 5 singers/vocalists. It was a bit chaotic and didn’t really gel somehow, but then usually they play really long sets and here they were limited to not much more than half an hour. At the end they announced that the thing was being extended until 10pm upstairs in the bar with DJ sets, but I just wanted to get home so that’s what I did. Only paid £10 for an early bird ticket (It was £16 plus fees later) so no complaints but I’m not sure I’d go to the next one.
    July 30th was the one I was excited about. Seven-piece band “Hejira” at the Jazz Café reinterpreting a good deal of Joni Mitchell’s all-star “Shadows And Light” live concert from 1979 (album released in 1980, DVD released in 2003) plus one song that wasn’t in the original concert. Hattie Whitehead replicated Young Joni’s voice remarkably and played rhythm guitar. Dave Jones on fretless and fretted basses had Jaco Pastorius’s licks down very well. Guitar, keyboard, sax, percussion and drums completed the lineup. The Jazz Café audience were obviously enthralled because, unusually, there was no talking during the songs. There was one woman a couple of rows back to my left who got carried away and started singing along (reasonably in tune) at one point, but she soon stopped when she got a few displeased looks. The band picked up on the audience’s enjoyment and used the energy well. A bloody good night.

    Seen nothing of great note on TV.

    Read a few issues of Private Eye to reinforce my cynicism about the state of the UK (and the rest of the world) re-read Len Deighton’s SS-GB which I last read at least 20 years ago. I’d forgotten how good a writer LD is. Nothing else read.

    A.O.B.

    Money continues to be tight and my 15-year-old Cambridge Audio Azur DACMagic unit appears to have given up the ghost since last night, which has put a bit of a dent in my music listening and could cost me some quantity of the folding stuff to replace.
    My car also could do with the Direct Ignition Module replacing, as it keeps flagging a fault to the engine monitoring system, despite the car still running OK, as far as I can tell. They currently sell for about £250 a time plus carriage new, or about £200 from a specialist breaker if they happen to get one.

  15. A p.s. to my post above:

    I have an audiobook edition of The Silmarillion (read by Martin Shaw in his best ac-torly tones) on cassettes published by Harper Collins Audiobooks in 1988.
    Mr. Shaw makes a jolly good job of it, but it’s long. It’s very long. About 15 hours listening on 10 cassette tapes. Not sure I could digest it in paper or ebook form these days.

  16. Bit late to this one but here we go…
    Seen
    The Women’s World Cup… Bit of a slow burner but still highly enjoyable. England seem a bit slow off the mark at times.
    The Sixth Commandment. Superb TV if thoroughly upsetting at times. Baftas all round, surely.
    Heard
    Blur’s new one is proving a real grower revealing hidden depths with each listen. It takes a truly great band to still be able to do that at their stage of career with long breaks between activity.
    The Sound Of Pop Art, “Shapes And Shadows” LP is a summery delight, with a St. Etienne/late 60s/bubblegum influence that may well be to the liking of quite a few here. Chris Free, main songwriter was once signed to Paul Weller’s Reapond label as part of the band A Craze, but don’t let that put you off…
    Read
    Allan Jones’ It’s Too Late To Stop Now is a straightforward, easy read romp through some (mostly) 70s and 80s music writerly adventures. You wonder how Costello, Lowe, Dr Feelgood etc managed to get anything done with all the booze involved.
    No Machos, No Pop Stars by Gavin Butt is a highly academic examination of the Leeds punk and post punk scene. There’s a great book to be written about that scene but due to its highbrow tone this just isn’t it. I’d love to see someone like Dave Simpson have a go.
    AOB
    As suggested last month on here (and people said some really very kind things) I am really struggling with depression and anxiety at the moment and although a lovely camper van break in Brittany helped a bit last week it’s still hanging over me like a huge black cloud. Small pleasures are the way forward though and as I have a knee replacement due fairly soon I will at least have some more very much needed time off work due to the 3 months rehab needed. I’ll be using the time to look at career changes and researching some new hobbies and pastimes.

    • Good luck with the op Nick and I hope you emerge from your struggles quickly and contented.

      Edit: I second what Tiggs* says about getting a dog. Guaranteed to calm you and be an unquestionable friend. Plus once your knees OK it’ll get you out and about.

      *He’s a man who knows his stuff, well apart from musical tastes some of which are OK, others very questionable. 🤣😎😅

      • I would absolutely get a dog tomorrow! We always had them growing up. However, Mrs L had a very bad experience with one when she was young and so isn’t at all keen.

  17. I don’t post in these threads very often as I feel my cultural life is not as rich or current as the tasty fruitcakes you all seem to post. I think the last time was in April, and I’m not sure what I have done in all that time that is worth remarking on. Work and family seem to take up a lot of my time.

    Watching
    In the last month, with my family away for about a week, I started watching all of Red Dwarf – I wanted something amusing and lightweight, and 4 blokes doing immature things in space, with philosophical concepts and dilemnas thrown into the plotlines seemed like a good way to get that. I’d never watched all 12 series before, and it was a bit nostalgic to see episodes I remembered from the early series. It got a bit samey in the mid seasons, before returning to form in the latter series. I’m nearly at the end, and ‘goldfish shoals nibbling at my toes, etc’ is an almost perpetual earworm right now.

    Listening
    My main listen tends to be podcasts, with James O’Brien, The News Agents and The Rest is Politics feeding my soft left/centrist bubble needs. The Skewer is back for a new series, which sometimes hammers home some political topics with film and music samples that are more effective than straight reporting. I think it was Mousey who posted a link to ‘A History of Rock Music in 500 songs’, and with is a short list of other music podcasts with a long back catalogue. Broken Record with Rick Rubin has a couple of episodes on Neil Young that I have started listening to – the two seem sufficiently of a par, musical reputation-wise, that the questions are knowledgeable and the answers given are considered and informative. Song Exploder takes one song and goes in detail through its creation – Dua Lipa and Phoebe Bridgers I have listened to so far, and it sounds promising, downloaded to listen to later are 100 gecs, Maggie Rogers, New Order and Yo La Tengo. BBC’s Soul Music looks indulgent, but fun, with very obvious middlebrow favourites like Who Knows Where The Time Goes, I Will Survive, Redemption Song, Beethoven’s 5th and Albinoni’s Adagio – but sometimes hearing what you already are over familiar with brings up new approaches (it’ll never catch on here, of course…). Sound Opinions goes back to March 2006, so it took a lot of scrolling to go through all the episodes, but I pulled out a few favourites to listen to – Goth, Laurie Anderson, Neil Young and a few recent ones on Sinead.

    Musically, I started the month watching clips from Glastonbury – Christine and The Queens was spectacular – I was rivetted to the performance from start to end. I really really liked Young Fathers – a great mix of vocals and vocal styles and percussion, seemingly taking the Mike Leigh approach of improvisation leading to practised perfection capturing wondrous spontaneity. Only Rick Astley seemed to bring something genuinely entertaining of the hours and hours of heritage acts I tried out – and that was because he was doing something unusual (playing a festival) with a genuine love of entertaining with nothing to prove – there seemed to be an air of tired desperation about all the others. The performer I took away from the event was Maggie Rogers, who I dived into her records and have been getting into over the month (among all my usual random play approach to music listening), though they haven’t yet stuck as much as her joyful stage/commanding performance in turquoise on the Glastonbury stage.

    Reading
    Since finishing “The Power of Strangers” by Joe Keohane some time ago, I have been drawn to optimistic approaches to human behaviour and interaction. “Remember” by Lisa Genova, the author of Still Alice, takes the reader on a tour of human memory, what it is, the different categories of memory and how to improve and preserve good function through life and into old age. One strong message in the book is – Don’t worry, you aren’t necessarily going senile, some memory gaps are just natural. Also, some memory aids are good (for forward planning), some are rubbish (doing Sudoku or crosswords does not keep Alzheimers at bay). It has a special significance for me as my dad is losing his faculties, day by day through Parkinsons-related dementia (why I bought it, really). When I was with my parents earlier in the year, he saw the book and asked if he could read it. Even though I wanted to read it myself, I was so wowed that he wanted to as well, that I left it with him and bought a second copy to finish myself at home. I don’t think he ever read more than the opening chapter before forgetting about it, but it made me realize he still has a curiosity about life when stimulated, and that we are not solipsistic individuals, but social beings, our identity formed by the relationships we have.

    That was a point driven home in ‘The Power of Strangers’, but also reinforced by the second book I finished recently – ‘Happy City’ by Charles Montgomery. One of several books I have picked up by chance from the public book box in the public park outside our house (I swear there is a book fairy who puts there the books I need to read), it is a fascinating read on happiness and cities – what makes for a contented life in cities, starting with the story of the mayor who transformed Bogota from a dangerous, gang-filled, drug-dominated nightmare to a pleasant place where he could ride on a bicycle through any neighbourhood in the city. The motor car is the key demon in the story, transforming urban places into dislocated, isolated, resource-hungry, alienated suburban deserts. Bringing in good public transport and reliable public infrastructure help reduce inequality, poverty, crime and make the city a happy place where human interaction is not corralled by polluting, dangerous traffic routes. The only downside to the varied urban social experiments Montgomery describes is that it can lead to gentrification (nice places attract those with money) and social exclusion of the marginalized, although good urban planning and policy could limit that.

    I’m now reading “Adventures in the Anthroposcene” by Gaia Vance. Nearly 10 years old, its message about the geological age we are creating are both still current, yet clearly to be overtaken by more recent statistics. We have fucked the world and she describes how different planetary biomes *ocean, mountains, farmland, etc) are being affected, and what people can and are doing to slow down the process of inevitable, but slow devastation (artificial glaciers, painting the Andes white).
    ‘
    After that comes a book on degrowth and ‘Afropean’ – a book on emerging black cultures across Europe, another perspective that it feels good to get to grasp with as the waves of refugees from the overheated south will not stop and need to be adjusted to and made part of our emerging and evolving reality.

    Seen
    Unusual for me, in that I almost never get/take the chance to go to live concerts, there are a series of open air events in Bonn this August, leading up to but not part of the annual Beethoven festival in the city. On Saturday I saw the desert blues outfit ‘Anewal’, a trio from Niger with connections to Tinariwen. Not blistering in their performance, they still set a solid groove for an enjoyable evening of hip swaying, which was impressive, given the wet weather that day.

  18. Too late to the show again. I missed last month’s post so playing catch up and hard to know what has been in June and what in July so this is a bit of a mish mash:

    Heard:
    More old than new for some reason. The Frank Zappa Fuzzyness album is very great except for the drum solos. The Gillian Welch/Dave Rawlings album All the Good times are past and gone is exquisite and I really like the new Eliza Gilkyson album which is quite emotional. Also as a result of the Black Deer festival I picked up a couple of Teskey Brothers albums – new to me but really liked their soulfulness and was quite surprised that they are Australian.
    I was introduced to Djivan Gasparyan. Master of the Duduk an Armenian oboe like instrument.
    Deeply mournful but in a nice way. I mentioned him to @Baron-Harkonnen but he was having none of it:

    READ:
    As further up the thread I read the first Vinyl Detective novel. It wasn’t awful but I don’t think I will read any more in the series. The plot was a bit silly and the characters a bit wooden except for Nevada.
    About a third of the way through Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver recommended by @locust and @pencilsqueezer – the writing is absolutely wonderful with a great storyline developing. Really enjoying this – thank you for the recommendation.

    SEEN: Chuck Prophet at the Hare and Hounds was brilliant – was right at the front and great to see him so energised after his recent illness. The Mission Express are such a great live band and a perfect foil for him.
    Bonnie Raitt at Birmingham Symphony Hall was top notch – first time I had seen her and then got to see her again two days later at Black Deer.
    This was my second year at Black Deer – a wonderful Americana biased festival just outside Tunbridge Wells in Kent.
    Highlights this year were Calexico who played a perfect set (I saw them previously at Cambridge Folk and their set was flat), First Aid Kit, Bonny Light Horsemen and the wonderful Allison Russell.
    Disappointments were the Pretenders who were pretty bad. Lukas Nelson was disappointing for a different reason. He and his band came on stage and first 4 numbers were excellent but then the heavens opened and we took for cover. All in all a great festival and tickets already booked for next year.

    AOB`: Have started working part time in the wonderful newly opened Stylus Records in Lichfield.
    Great stock and what’s not to like about listening to music all day, eating bacon butties, drinking coffee and getting paid in vinyl?
    Big revelation is the number of teenage girls buying vinyl and having a good taste in music.
    The future is good if this is something other than a fad.

    • I’ve listened to that Gasparyan fella a few times.

      I then picked 25 albums from my collection. Which one would I not play to listen to that fella instead.

      I’m afraid in all 25 cases the album from my collection won out.

      I used to have a girlfriend who would have liked him, she was into new agey noises.

      • interesting that you regard it as New Age noises and I know what you mean but the opposite is the case as it is an instrument from several hundred years ago.

  20. I haven’t done one of these for a while…

    Heard

    The mammoth Horslips box set is still getting heavy plays here. It is entirely marvellous and despite it being my most expensive music purchase ever, I am glad I bought it.

    Also been listening to Lucinda Williams’ Stories from a Rock ‘n’ Roll Heart album. Though she looks disconcertingly like Teresa May on the cover.

    Read

    Finally got around to reading Tom Doyle’s Running up that hill, Kate Bush biography. Obviously managed to get some semi-approval at least as good access to friends and family. No great revelations but a good read.

    Somewhat behind the curve, I started on Mick Herron’s Slough House novels and couldn’t stop until I’d read my way through them. Something quite addictive about them. Jackson Lamb is a fabulous grotesque but I liked the way we catch glimpses of what is going on underneath. “Who’s the crip now?” Ace. Which brings me to…

    TV

    A free Apple TV sub meant that I watched the TV adaptation of the above. Gary Oldman is perfect as Lamb, I think, and Kristin Scott Thomas almost too perfect as Diana Taverner.

    I also watched the adaptation of Asimov’s Foundation trilogy. No real idea what is going on but it all looks jolly impressive.

    Gigs

    A much postponed Belle and Sebastian at the Usher Hall. A surprising amount of Tigermilk material but none the worse for that. One of my favourite bands continues to deliver.

    Saw Fergus McCreadie trio at the Pianodrome, a tiny 100-seater venue entirely made out of re-purposed pianos. No, I did not dream it. The shows were recorded, so may be my first appliance on disc since Rush’s Exit Stage Left. Part of Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival as was…

    Also saw Belgian trombonist Nabou and band at the Jazz Bar. Love her stuff. She uses a range of effects pedals to produce some expansive and haunting sounds. Check out the You Know album if it sounds like the sort of thing you might be interested in.

    AOB

    Completed a first draft of my (part-time) doctoral thesis. Now awaiting pelters from supervisors but it’s all editing now, right?

  21. Seen
    After saying no more big venues/gigs we went down to London to see Bruce Springsteen at Hyde Park and although he was on top form we watched most of it on the big screens. Maybe it’s because I’m getting old but a 3 hour set is just too long and why after spending a lot of money on the ticket do some people have to get so drunk . On the way out of the venue so saw quite a few people having picnics and just listening to the show ( we might have to do that next time).
    In total contrast we then saw 2 weeks later the marvellous Billy Bragg at Llantony Priory In Gloucester, outdoor event with probably only 500 people and even though we have seen him numerous times he never fails to deliver. Yes he does talk a lot between songs ( I get he is not everyone’s cup of tea ) but when he played the whole of his first album life’s a riot with spy vs spy as an encore I was in heaven.

    Read
    Paul Charles
    Adventures in Wonderland, I only knew of this author through his crime fiction books featuring Christy Kennedy all of which I own and love . I knew he did something in the music business but nothing more but what a story awaits. From growing up in Ulster to booking some of the biggest names in the music world this man seems to have done the lot. Agent, promoter, manager and friend to name just a few Van Morrison, Waterboys, the Kinks, Robert Plant plus loads of others . It’s a compelling read and he does have a lovely way of storytelling. I would recommend to all music fans.

    • When I saw Billy Bragg (at a festival) one of the best surprises for me was how much he talked between songs – I don’t know why anyone would mind, because he’s very funny.
      Great songs, a stand-up show and a political rally – three for the price of one! 🙂

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