Spring has sprung, the grass is riz …. come gather round and tell us what you have been enjoying in the last month, and is there anything else upcoming that we should be alerted to ?
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Heard As usual very little new, but I’m enjoying Keld by You Are Wolf, a lovely take on some new and some traditional folk songs. If your interest is piqued by her on YouTube, or her Folk on Foot podcast with Matthew Bannister, then her album is cheapest on Bandcamp, which presumably gets most money directly to her as well.
Seen We are in one of our occasional golden ages of British comedy, and in ascending order of merit I have enjoyed:
Dead Pixels, an E4 comedy about young people so caught up in online gaming that they can’t see the richer life literally right in front of them. All episodes are online and we binged, which is probably the best way to appreciate the main story arc.
This Time with Alan Partridge was famously rehearsed and rehearsed to perfect every twitch and reaction, and it does rather show. It’s brilliant, of course, but doesn’t all quite hang together as a believable universe. Would Lynne really be in the studio? Would some of his more gauche moments really have made it to air in the roving reporter sections? I’m sure I’ll watch the recording with increased admiration each time, but I would have liked more laugh out loud moments. Martin Brennan seems to have become an instant classic, but my highlight was the British Library swearing sketch.
And of course Fleabag, which has followed up a superb first series with a magisterial second. It has made me both laugh and cringe more than Partridge, being brutal and hilarious at the same time. There can be few comedies which can get away with the line ‘Get your hands of my miscarriage!’ in the first episode. I’ll miss it after the last episode is broadcast on next Monday.
On a grimmer note, The Yorkshire Ripper Files showed how institutional misogyny across the police and media hampered the Yorkshire Ripper investigation, and raised questions about whether things would have changed much in a similar investigation today.
Live, in a single week we saw Frank Skinner in tour of smaller venues to get him match fit for his bigger autumn shows. He started with comments no his age (‘like a wasp still batting against a window in November’) and waning libido, but to enjoy him most you still need to follow him into the bedroom and bathroom too. Wilko Johnson at the Cliffs Pavilion went through the motions a bit, but as others have said Glenn Tilbrook was a great support act. A production of Cose Fan Tutte at Covent Garden was as foot tapping and catchy an evening at the opera as even the opera averse could have desired.
I misread your final paragraph, and thought that Glenn Tilbrook was the support act at Covent Garden, performing Squeeze’s Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti album …
I like the idea that Lynne isn’t in the studio, and she’s just a product of Alan’s flailing subconscious acknowledging that he is lost and out of his depth, looking for something to cling on to.
I’ll throw in another comedy now I remember. I binged on the first 5 episodes of the latest (and last) series of Still Game last month, but have only just watched the final one tonight. To be honest this series hasn’t matched past glories, but my word, that ending brought a tear to my eye.
Thanks El Hombre
Reading: ‘The Heart’s Invisible Furies’ by John Boyne. After reading almost nothing during 2018 I promised myself I would get back to reading every night, even if only two or three pages. Loved this one – it might well be subtitled ‘How Ireland Learned Compassion Over Seven Decades’. It’s the story of Cyril Avery, born out of wedlock in 1945 to a girl from a small village in Cork and given up for adoption to a well-off but emotionally distant couple in Dublin. Cyril grows into youth and manhood, jumping forward seven years at a time, coming to terms with his sexuality. Ireland grows and matures with him, culminating in the Marriage Equality Referendum of 2015. Moving and extremely funny at times with a small group of central characters.
Currently reading Tom Hank’s ‘Uncommon Type’ – not really doing anything for me tbh.
Watching: ‘Roma’ was good, beautifully filmed. Really enjoyed ‘After Life’, despite what I considered a major misstep in episode 4. Redeemed by some great performances, most notably for me Kerry Godliman, Penelope Wilton and RG himself. Bloody loved that dog. Otherwise, even though these are painful and worrying times for all of us, I have to say that the nightly antics in HoC make for facinating television. Mr. Bercow is quite a likeable performer.
Listening: New Joe Jackson album ‘Fool’ does not disappoint. First album in a long while that he has recorded with a touring band I think, and they are fine musicians Only 8 songs, averaging 5mins each so the music is never rushed and no obvious filler tracks. Remember when albums were all 40 mins long?
I have long heard about Lucinda Williams and ‘Car Wheels on a Gravel Road’ but never got around to her until now – it’s very good, isn’t it? I’ll be buying more of her stuff. After being impressed by the backing singers during the Roger Waters tour last year, I picked up ‘Wildewoman’ by their day job band ‘Lucius’. Fantastic harmonies and good players.
Also listening to 2018 releases that I didn’t get to listen to last year. Macca great, RT and EC back to being essential, Villagers and B.E.D. growing on me, but if I could vote in the 2018 albums poll again I think Aimee Mann’s ‘Mental Illness’ would be my top pick of the year – lovely.
Heard
As mentioned elsewhere, I have recently finished listening to (almost) “1001 albums”, and I’m not dead yet. My bank balance has taken numerous small hits over the past three years, but it’s difficult to say no to so many ‘essential’ albums when they’re often less than £2. Today, alone, I’ve listened to the ‘Surfer Rosa’, the Sugarcubes’ ‘Life’s Too Good’ and ‘In The Court of the Crimson King’ – three albums I’d probably never have bought if it wasn’t for that book. I also took delivery of six more CDs to add to the collection, including ‘Moondance’ – which is so much better than ‘Astral Weeks’, ‘Head Hunters’ and two from Miles Davis.
Seen
Mrs Japanese and I are often playing catch-up on the BBC. Our evening schedule over the past few weeks has generally consisted of one or two of the following – ‘The Great British Sewing Bee’, ‘Masterchef’, ‘Money For Nothing’, ‘Only Connect’ or ‘Fleabag’
Read
Having finished ‘Martin Chuzzlewit’ towards the end of February, I am now in the middle of Dan Jones book on ‘The Plantagenets’, having been inspired to read it having watched Danny Dyer’s recent trawl through his family history again on the BBC.
March/April – tricky time of year.
Cheltenham, Red Nose Day, Record Store Day, Aintree, St. Patrick’s Day … not to mention “Brexit” … so many things to actively avoid like the plague. Dodgers everywhere.
Thank God the County Championship cricket commentaries are returning to 5Live Extra.
The local sport is drifting to a bit of an anti-climatic conclusion this year. On a national level, Arsenal have started winning when it doesn’t matter, and Spurs have started losing when it does matter. Just like EVERY season, brilliant! I set my clocks by those two, I really do.
Cinema:
Keep missing things. “The Kindergarten Teacher,” however, was brilliant.
Music:
Bowie 60s and Marvin releases on vinly only, so “no sale.”
Apparently, the Marvin release is on CD (£9.99; about £20 less) at the end of April.
The pre-Motown Detroit CD in Mojo is fantastic and the only “new” release I’ve bought this year.
It sent me scurrying back to old Mojo/Uncut freebies, and I’m (with the help of the brilliant 45cat website) filling in the gaps … recent purchases (about £1.50 each) were Uncut CDs from about 10 years ago on the influences of Nick Cave, Led Zeppelin and, best of all, John Wesley Harding/Nashville Skyline.
Other than that, almost entirely The Impressions and The Doors interspersed, sadly, with Scott, Scott 2, Scott 3 and Scott 4.
Seen
Free Solo and Dawn Watch. Although Dawn Solo had a really interesting side story, it was nowhere near as well made a documentary as Free Solo. It worked more as fascinating companion piece to Free Solo’s gripping tale of a very charismatic protagonist, which was stunning to watch on the big screen.
I thought This Time with Alan Partridge started off badly, with just two funny moments in the first episode. But it seemed to improve with each episode and turned into a superb addition to Coogan’s work.
Read
Just finished a book in Italian (ooh, get me). Due Di Due by Andrea De Carlo. I very rarely read in Italian, but I read this book several centuries ago and thought I’d give it another spin. I don’t find as much pleasure in reading in a foreign language (I never think, for example, “what a wonderful turn of phrase”), but perhaps an added degree of satisfaction.
Heard
Am currently reading Jonathan Coe’s Brexit novel, Middle England. He talks early on about Shirley Collins’ a cappella recording of Adieu, Old England. So I’ve quite got into that. Plus some great a cappella songs by The Temptations, especially Stay.
Seen
The terrible Morrissey biopic. I can’t even remember what it’s called. In fairness, you can have fun spotting the lyrical references, so it’s not all bad, but mainly it’s a bit of a drag. Also Leaving Neverland, like everyone else; After Life, which at one point about mid-way through the season I thought was going to be really good, only for it to not quite deliver on that promise; all five seasons of Luther. Boy, is that a show that improves as it goes along. It was really hitting its stride by season five; Justice League, which isn’t that bad. And, like everybody else, Fleabag and Alan Partridge.
However, the thing I enjoyed most this month was the documentary Hit So Hard, which is all about Hole drummer Patty Schemel. I make no apologies for loving Hole (more than Nirvana, I kid you not) and this was a great film, not just about Patty, her addictions and sexuality, but the band, the scene and Kurt and Courtney. I am, as we speak, tucking into Schemel’s autobiography, although she’s already spelt Gary Numan’s name incorrectly, which is not a great start.
Heard
I made a self-generating Fall year-by-year playlist on my iTunes. 2013 is the only year between 1978 and 2016 that isn’t represented. The new On-U Sound Pay It All Back compilation, which is all killer, no filler. I also listened to Jon Ronson’s two porno podcasts, the one about the industry in general and the one about the death of August Ames. Oh, and as a result of watching Hit So Hard, I listened to a gasp-inducing podcast in which Mary Lou Lord (Kurt’s girlfriend before Courtney) talks about… well, um, her experiences dealing with Courtney, let’s leave it at that. All were excellent. Mainly, however, the month was dominated by a 415-track playlist based on the mixtapes provided by the Beastie Boys in their awesome book. From AC/DC and Afrika Bambaata to X-Ray Spex and Yazoo (except called Yazz in the book) they’re all here.
The month in Drum & Bass: the superb new album Bobby by Lenzman on Metalheadz. Fan-bloody-tastic.
Read
Psychological thriller The Flower Girls which was okay; I’m Thinking of Ending Things, with which I had serious ISSUES; Final Girls, which was shaping up to be dire so I ditched it; Daisy Jones and the Six, which was like Almost Famous in book form and very enjoyable in a sort of Burger King way, and the aforementioned Beastie Boys Book, which is just superb. I always said that if I could be in any band it would be the Beastie Boys. Now I think that if I could swap lives with anyone, it would be one of the Beastie Boys. Okay, maybe not Yauch. I don’t know. Even then I’d be sorely tempted…
Heard:
Heard a couple of tracks on Steve Lamacq before and have now got the whole Humdrum Express album – pretty good (in a North Midlands, Half Man Half Biscuit type way), and not without amusement. Only criticism is the flat(ish) production which can make some tracks drag a bit.
Re-listened to Them Crooked Vultures album from a couple of years ago – a collision of Queens Of The Stone Age, Foo Fighters and Led Zeppelin. Ideal for a Friday Morning.
This months Charity Shop purchase (or one of them): Eurythmics Greatest Hits – they were a fine pop band
Read:
Eric Idle – Always Look on the Bright Side of Life: A Sortabiography
He’s very full of himself, and it does become a bit of a namedropfest, but I think it’s a pretty honest account
Danny Baker – Going On The Turn. Entertaining, but more telling anecdotes (which he does very well) than the previous two. I do admire his candour with the tale of his illness and recovery.
Seen:
The Yorkshire Ripper Files: A Very British Crime Story on BBC4. 3 parter examining what happened and the Police’s filings and catching him sooner (the evidence was all there, but it din’t fit their theory)
This Time With Alan Partridge – Took a while to get going, and maybe doesn’t properly work, but there are many many good points about it. I feel I need to watch it again to make sure I’ve picked up all the subtleties and underlying stuff
Warren – Stock BBC Sitcom (on before Partridge), but entertaining. A bit like Ever Decreasing Circles meets Men Behaving Badly – best line:
“That’s not how Grandma and Grandad would do it”
“OK, I’ll say something vaguely racist and you get Type 2 Diabetes”
AOB:
On 30th March, I became a Grandad – does this mean I have to grow up and stop listening to the the UK Subs?
Congrats Rigid
Now more important than ever to listen to loud music
not at all !! keep up the raucous din!
You’re still younger than Charlie Harper (I assume) so keep going, and congrats!
Just about everybody is younger than Charlie H
Wot … even Jet Black? Everyone knows that the beardy, solidly built Stranglers tubthumper is the oldest man in the world. Probably.
Completely agree re Eric Idle. It’s the opposite of Cleese’s autobiography, which was mostly about what he did before Python. Studying and teaching? How exciting! Yes, that’s what we want to read about.
Michael Palin’s diaries are an excellent read, probably a more reliable account of the Python era than you’d get from the others. Eric Idle comes across as wanting to monetise everything as early as possible. Can’t blame him for that – in contrast to the talk on the John Bishop thread, TV money in those days was pathetic, and Rutland Weekend Television had about the same budget as an OU programme.
All the way through Life of Brian, everyone involved thinks it’s a complete disaster. No revisionism there…
Seen –
Partridge = brilliant
Fleabag = disappoint
Masterchef = excellent
The Dawn Wall = Inspiring
Sopranos = Fabulous [but then you already knew that] and led me down a most enjoyable rabbit hole to this wonderful blog post https://masterofsopranos.wordpress.com/the-sopranos-definitive-explanation-of-the-end/
I think he might be on to something, but it feels like there is still more there.
Heard – The best thing I’ve heard this month is To Each His Own by E.B The Younger. Terrible name, but if you like melodic rock with a hint of Ron Sexsmith meets Nilsson then this may be for you. https://open.spotify.com/album/3xIl52sGNo7InbA3guG63L?si=wWNKWhXxTIGz-FozS1OIug
Also watched the final season of Broad City which ended on a high – goodbye girls, I’ll miss you, but it was time.
And the third season of High Maintenance [Sky Atlantic] which, in case you don’t know, concerns the adventures of a New York pot dealer, although he is mostly peripheral to the plot. It’s a series that constantly delights and is one of those shows that make you appreciate just how good American TV can be and that as good as British TV can be, it could never be made here.
Had me a bit of a spree, courtesy some birthday dosh, hoovering up some new and a little old.
Encore/The Specials really is good and was a surprise for being that. With a much better production and a wider sonic palette than the first (proper) 2, I found myself preferring it. Keyboards and brass to the fore, real echoes of Cuthell/Rodrigues, it had me grinning aplenty. Dammers must be livid. The live greatest hits 2nd cd was a bit superfluous, I though, tho’.
Drift Code/Rustin Man will be a grower and certainly owes more musically to the style of his old band, Talk Talk, than to the more recent album with Beth Gibbons.(One track reprises the choral effect from that album, however, making for a point of reference. As widely commented on, the vocals are very Robert Wyatt. Sometimes a bit too self-indulgent, but mostly hits the mark.
The Imperial/The Delines. Yes, of course it’s good, just not quite as good as the first one, cutting across a few too many bases and becoming a bit musical stagey as a result. The vocals didn’t seem or sound quite so wracked and personal, meaning maybe Vlautin, who writes them for the singer to emote, is in a happy place.
The Unseen in Between/Steve Gunn, the producer of Michael Chapman and another of these young american primitive guitarists so prevalent at the moment. A little unvaried in its songs, it has several moments, mainly courtesy fellow guitarist James Elkington, who plays the plugged in variant for this recording.
True North/Michael Chapman is more like it, and is, like 50, a terrific salvo of songs, new and recycled, but this time, rather than near solo, with ace backing, the aforementioned Steve Gunn on 2nd guitar, Sarah Smout on cello and the inestimable BJ Cole on steel, some muted bass and drums popping up on occasion. Love this to bits and even @Colin-H s fave, Bridget St John can’t sour it. An album of the year.
The Reeling/Brighde Chaimbeul might be a bit purist for most. And almost was for me, unadulterated scottish small pipes backed by harmonium. All instrumental bar the couple of appearances from her bagpipe tutor with the gaelic equivalent of scat, apparently how the tunes are taught. Think those fusion guitar players who sing along with their own note-bending, and translate to slow hebridean airs. Produced by Aidan O’Rourke who is also in…..
Midnight & Closedown/Lau. @thecheshirecat gave this only muted praise here recently. Perhaps as I have been “away” from this band for a while, I found this astonishing and uplifting, a huge progression from their early years, the electronica complementing the traditional acoustica with finesse. And to think they were playing in Brum last month and I missed ’em. Another year end poll top tip from me.
Fool/Joe Jackson knocks his main contemporary into touch, with this masterful band effort and stronger material than Mr McManus can muster. Graham Maby is still on bass and Jackson still has a way with barbed words and latin tinged piano. Best for decades.
Lux Prima/Karen O & Danger Mouse. I have commented before that this keeps on expecting Michael Kiwanuka to pipe up, so full on are the production tropes of Burton. I haven’y yet decided if this is a positive or negative. On the advice of @paul-Wad I purchased the Danger Mouse Norah Jones to add my perspective, enjoying it more, hearing those same production styles slowly beginning their ferment.
Tides of a Teardrop/Mandolin Orange. New to me, this was actually a if you liked that you’d like this type recommendation from the dodgers, glad their algorithm made the effort. A slightly less look at us version of Nickel Creek, contemporary bluegrass of a delightful warm glow, the main singer and writer of the new material having the pleasant tones of a young James Taylor.
Changeling/Camille O’Sullivan. I had to pick this up, having heard her Radiohead cover version for a blog project I was involved in ( http://www.covermesongs.com/2019/03/the-best-radiohead-covers-ever.html if you are interested) All covers, this record is worth entry for the staggering version of Hurt, a song previously thought to be never better than when covered by Johnny Cash. What do you think?
Live performances involved rerun trips to Blue Rose Code and to Michael Chapman, each at the fabled Kitchen Garden Cafe, capacity 80. I added updated opinions to the 2017 reviews posted at the time, but, suffice to say, both were terrific, the latter abetted by sitting inches away from my hero, BJ Cole, watching his every move on the instrument he masters. Fanboi heaven.
Re: Steve Gunn
Yeah, every track on his past four albums has sounded more or less the same.
But I don’t mind too much – they’re all good!
I agree with you that James Elkington plays a blinder on this latest Gunn album. I’ve enjoyed his collaborations with quite a few artists, especially Nathan Salsburg. He really is so versatile.
A long month I think. I managed to pack a fair bit in
Live: Court & Spark – The Joni Mitchell Songbook at Darwen Library Theatre. I was intrigued by the idea of this as the Joni songbook is both wide-ranging and very hard to play. I saw Chris While & Julie Matthews do it about 15 years ago with their excellent Blue Tapestry project, so I know what can be achieved. Sadly 2 members of that band, Maartin Allcock and Pete Zorn are no longer with us. I was even more intrigued to see that 3 out of the 4 sidemen in this new project also play in Mothership, a Led Zep Tribute band very well received by Jack The Biscuit on this here blog. I say intrigued because although I could maybe see John Paul Jones playing in later period Joni tour bands I just can’t imagine Jimmy Page doing it. Anyway I needn’t have worried, the whole thing was terrific and the frontwoman Jade Thunder was very good indeed. If nothing else it reinforced my view of what a massive talent Joni displayed in her heyday
Anu Omideyi at 606 Club , Chelsea – This was a surprise bonus. I went to London to visit my brother and realised my visit coincided with the monthly Gospel Brunch at the 606. I wasn’t familiar with the featured artist but I can tell you she and her band were fantastic. Highlight was a version of Psalm 23 (I Am Not Alone) which I later discovered is a song of praise by the US Christian Collective People & Songs. Anu joined the backing singers in order to showcase her MD Nicky Brown who sang lead and led this from the piano. I got a bit of it in the clip below. I just love the way it’s done in riff sections and they just keep going until the leader moves them into the next section
Eric Brace, Peter Cooper & Thomm Jutz at Twickfolk, Cabbage Patch Pub in Twickenham. My brother had flagged this as gig I might enjoy and he was spot on. Due to its proximity to Heathrow, Twickfolk gets lots of North American artists either at the start or the end of their UK stint. I’d heard of Brace & Cooper who have been around for a long time, but not their mate Thomm Jutz who is a very accomplished acoustic picker. They all sing and write and the sound was lovely
Richard Moss; a Blackburn based singer / guitarist / mandola player, also a member of the excellent Drop The Floor. He was the featured guest at the monthly Acoustic Night at the splendid Bar 39 in Darwen, and very good he was too
Jim Causley – solo at my local Folk Club. He was very good, came across well and kept the audience entertained
Heard: Back to the Yellow Hills by the aforementioned Richard Moss is a lovely album of guitar driven folk songs, mostly from the North West. I’ve also been enjoying The Widening Gyre by Altan which was recorded in Nashville and came out in 2015. I’ve only just come across it. For someone who doesn’t really do Folk Instrumental albums, I’m enjoying this one a lot
Fillums: I saw Green Book after a few people recommended, and enjoyed it greatly. I hadn’t done any research, so didn’t know the identity of the actor who played the driver. I assumed it was some guy who’d caught the Director’s eye after playing minor characters in mafia gangster movies. I was surprised and impressed to discover he is not Italian
Watched: most of the stuff I’ve been watching on the Tellybox has come to an end, of the current series at least. I enjoyed the second series of the Icelandic noir Trapped! and the latest series of Shetland, pronounced Shitland
Read: my pal James Bentley has written 2 books on the mighty Bury FC. I enjoyed the first one The Forgotten Fifteen which was about a team that neither James or I ever got to see, and I greatly enjoyed his second one Things Can Only Get Better about Bury’s mid-90’s rise under Stan Ternent, particularly as I went to a lot of the matches under Stan’s reign. James interviewed a lot of the players and interspersed their comments throughout the book to give a real insight as to how their success was achieved
AOB: Whilst visiting the brother in that London we went to the Eel Pie Island Museum in Twickenham which was lovely; volunteer run with excellent exhibitions on the music scene, the boat building history, and a section about the Island’s most famous resident of recent times, one Trevor Baylis, self-described Inventor and Wind Up Merchant
And finally, after a few years of thinking about it I got my front lawn taken up, had the too-close-to-the-house shrubs removed and the whole thang replaced in blue slate chippings with a cream gravel curved path. I was chuffed to bits with it. Exactly 2 weeks later I got a letter from Cadent, the new name for British Gas networks saying they’ll be upgrading the gas main in my road. It says “you might want to postpone any drive improvement or landscape gardening works, as we may have to excavate through them.” Marvellous!
SEEN
It’s all about the return of LOD. Typing this during Ep 2, but Ep 1 had more than enough twists, new characters, shocks and blind alleys/route to ultimate revelation to satisfy. A Whatsapp debate on its location settled on the fact that the series is still notionally set in Birmingham (there was a big map of the city on the wall) but shot in Belfast.
Also, back from the dead Brooklyn 99. The shot where (spoiler) Jake and Santiago see Holt has turned up on their honeymoon is pure gold.
HEARD
The best jangly, a bit Fanclub a bit Long Blondes type group you’ve never heard of, Night Flowers, have a great new album out. The new crowdfunded Ladytron album is good without being in any way surprising.
READ
Half of A Yellow Sun, about the Biafran war, is the best modern novel I have read in a long, long time. she can really write can Chimamanda Adichie and anyone who reads it will learn a huge amount about modern Nigeria.
Sci-fi: finished the Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons with The Rise of Endymion. He does just about keep a multi-volume saga going without the law of diminishing returns setting in (hi Larry Niven, Arthur C Clarke, Scott Card etc.) but its 700 pages and could be two-thirds of that without losing anything.
Also in need of the editor is The Honourable Schoolboy. By this point Le Carre had sold squillions of books and no editor was going to say ‘Did you really need all the Laos stuff John?’ The bits at the Circus are still excellent, but massively padded out.
I never got round to watching the earlier series of Line Of Duty.
Watching just the one episode so far makes the need even more pressing, but (sensibly?) I should wait until this series is done and the binge like billy-o
Seen:
You know that bloke on the bus/train who has no book or headphones in but just starts giggling for no reason? This month that’s been me ever since I saw a clip on The Majority Report internet thingy. They were discussing a political group in the U.S. called Jexodus, which is encouraging Jewish Americans – conventionally mostly Democrats – to switch to the Republican Party. The MR people were pointing out how daft it was to adopt the Brexit-style compound name in this case as “Exodus” is a term which is pretty Jewish already. They started imagining if Jews simply prefixed everything with a “J” to identify it as theirs until someone said “It’s not as if they called their country Jizzrael”.
Ever since, every time I think of Jizzrael, I giggle. I’m doing it now.
Read:
I’m working on a wee review at the mo. Bear with me.
Heard
I’ve only started to get into this year and a few interesting records have come at once. I’m quite digging, but still digesting the albums by Blick Bassy and Dawn Richard while struggling to get into the newies by The Comet Is Coming and Ibibio Sound Machine. The one I definitely do like is On The Line, the new Jenny Lewis album.
But the record that gets me up and going in the morning is this confection by these nutters –
All together now: BAD MIND, BAD MIND, GET OUT!! GET OUT!!
(Chai – CHOOSE GO!)
I love it when you get a snort worm lodged in your brain, like the Jizzrael one you’re carrying. I’ve been re-watching The Sopranos and Tony’s mangling of Cap d’Antibes into Captain Tibes makes me chuckle every time I think of it – and yes, I’m doing it now 🙂
Read
IQ By Joe Ide
This LA set, modern take on the Sherlock Holmes story riffs on the Hound of the Baskervilles. The book is populated by a cast of weirdoes including a drug addled rapper, his coterie of hangers own / dependents and a dog breeding hit man. I enjoyed it up to a point, but it wasn’t quite as light on its feet as it could be, the characters were a little flat and I found the denouement to be pretty ho hum.
Slaughter House five by Kurt Vonnegut
I remember reading this first as a teen and being enthralled by how Vonnegut interwove science fiction with a devastating examination of warfare (and its inevitability and constancy). It has been great to revisit this strange, lovely, heartfelt and wise book. So it goes.
Seen
Fleabag. Nice and spiky, and filled with monstrous characters. It’s not perhaps as good as The Guardian would have everyone believe but still pretty damn fine Especially liked how The Priest called out Fleabag’s 4th wall breaking asides.
This Time with Alan Partridge. Took me a couple of episodes to warm to this, but I now I think it’s my favourite AP show since the first series of I’m Alan Partridge.
Celebrity Bake Off. Warm, funny and poignant.
The Cleaners. A sobering, suffocating documentary about social media moderators.
Heard
The sad news about Keith Flint sent me back to The Fat of the Land, an album I’ve not listened to in years. It’s much as I remember it, an in your face mix of dance, rock, indie and punk. I remember seeing them supporting Oasis at Knebworth. The crowd had grown weary of the other bands quickly so by the early evening were impatient, distracted and bored. And then The Prodigy arrived on stage and the crowd roused itself as the neon demons charged through their set. It was thunderous stuff and I’m not convinced Oasis could really match them.
Aside from that, it’s been a couple of tracks that have caught my attention rather than entire albums.
Both Harriet Brown’s Paper and Lizzo’s Juice snap and crackle like good pop songs should.
Read:
If you haven’t already; do yourself a favour and read The Book of Emma Reyes: A Memoir (that’s the clunky English title; I prefer the Swedish title “Brev från min barndom” – Letters From My Childhood )! Reyes was a Colombian artist, and she wrote down her incredible story in letters to a friend. Not only is the story fascinating and vividly painted, what I really liked was how she only tells what she knew at the time without unnecessary explanations from her adult perspective. I won’t give any story spoilers, I just highly recommend it!
I went on a shopping spree in my favourite antiquarian bookshop, which is closing down unfortunately (but everything in stock sells for half the price…), so besides that one I’ve read mainly strange old childrens books, which I gathered a big pile of! 🙂
Seen:
I saw Hereditary and liked it a lot, but it was in the beginning of March, so I can’t remember why, or many details…
Didn’t really have time to watch much of anything this month, but I binged Freaks and Geeks on YouTube when I found out it was uploaded there in full (well; it only got one series, unexplicably). I loved that series when it first aired, and taped every episode on VHS (this was in the early 90s, IIRC), and watched it again and again a few times after that, but since the demise of VHS, I hadn’t seen it. But it was as brilliant as I remembered it and it made me laugh a lot (which I needed this month).
Heard:
RYMDEN is the new Scandinavian jazz trio of Bugge Wesseltoft, Dan Berglund and Magnus Örström and their album Reflections & Odysseys is brilliant, if you enjoy modern Scandi jazz. Fans of their earlier work in other constellations will like this one too.
The Specials – Encore really is a lot better than expected, and has made washing up and cooking much more fun for me this month, dancing around and singing along.
The latest album from Aussie psych rockers and Tame Impala backing band Pond is called Tasmania and it didn’t gripped me as immediately as their previous albums did, but has grown on me, at least in parts.
Miri, the new album from Bassekou Koyaté and Ngoni Ba is absolutely brilliant and like balm for the soul. Very beautiful.
I bought a lot more albums, but those were the ones I’ve had time to listen to this far – plus a couple of swap CDs of course – as this month has been very busy both at work and at home. Add to that my pollen allergy and the allergy pills making me even more exhausted; I’ve been nodding off in front of my computer most every night for the past few weeks!
I’ve also been scanning all of my parents’ old photos (and editing them, trying to improve the quality of the worst ones) so that all of us siblings can get access to them and preserve them for posterity. Hundreds of photos…thankfully my scanner can scan several photos at once and figure out on its own that they should all get separate files, or it would have taken me forever! All the scanning is done now, but lots of editing still to do, before burning DVDs for everyone, and probably making a few photo books as well. Worth the effort however – I found some wonderful photographs that I’ve never seen before from my parents’ early lives.
Read – magazines, loads of them. I have a ridiculous amount of books and magazines to read, but I never really get beyond the Readly app on the iPad, where new magazines are added daily. There are about 20 magazines on there that I read each month, which doesn’t really give me much time to read anything else, and I’ve got loads of the special history magazines saved on there too, which are going to take a while to get through. I really need to sort that out, as I still buy books even though I have, quite literally, over a thousand knocking about the house, as well as a pretty impressive collection of Uncut, Mojo and Rolling Stone special issues that haven’t been read yet. The new publication that I’ve enjoyed reading is The European, where I find myself agreeing with most of what they say. The Will Self issue was a tad indulgent though, although it was very funny in places.
Watched – took the boy to watch Shazam! In fact, all four of us went and we really enjoyed it. A superhero story with a similar premise to Big, which they acknowledge in the scene in the toy shop. We also watched Baptiste on TV, but I found it a little dull. Alan Partridge’s show was quite funny in places, daft in others.
Heard – or should this come under watched? Went to see my favourite rapper, Brother Ali, at Band On The Wall in Manchester. Never been there before, but it’s a great venue and Brother Ali didn’t disappoint. Bought a load of CDs the past few weeks, so had to have a major reorganising of the CD shelves, but I love that sort of thing. I have a lot of albums on download only, so, being a fan of the physical product, I went through them and bought my favourite ones, mainly underground hip hop, post-rock and drum and bass, although I managed to track down copies of Drop Out by East Village and Mickey Mouse Operation by Little People on Discogs at much cheaper prices than they are usually listed at on eBay. I’ve been on a Marianne Faithful binge too, so I’ve bought a few more of hers. I had never realised how good her music is, but she makes some great choices of collaborators and her most recent albums have been wonderful.
Best new (to me) artist that I’ve been listening to is Little Simz. Her new record was recommended to me and it’s brill. The second proper great album of the year (after James Blake’s). Her style is hip hop with a contemporary R&B feel. As I listened to the album I decided she was like a British version of Syd (from The Internet, who I really like), so I was pleased to discover that Syd had a feature on Little Simz’s previous album. Anyway, she’s fab and exactly the kind of thing I enjoy listening to. AJ Tracey’s self-titled album is also a good one, as is Dave’s long-awaited debut.
Band On The Wall – that brings back memories.
We used to go regularly when I was working in Manchester after Uni in the early nineties (before I buggered off to Singapore in 93). As well as some great bands, there was also a Sunday comedy night hosted by Steve Coogan and John Thompson.
@paul-wad
Drop Out by East Village! I have that though haven’t listened to it in years. The singles were good in a hip, sensitive male way.
You should dig it back out, cos it’s great. Or, failing that, flog it. The CD is usually priced at £50+, which is why I was pleased to get a copy much cheaper. Or if you have the original vinyl version you could be looking at £100+. The CD was on my list for ages, waiting for it to come down to a ‘still expensive, but not stupidly expensive’ price. The Little People CD was one of those too. I still have a few that I am biding my time for, such as Center of Attention by InI, Beautiful Raw by Qwel & Maker and all the Emancipator CDs, plus loads more at the £20-30 bracket. It’ll take ages to get them all, but I’m very patient!