Springtime? Someday? Anyway, whateffer …. please gather round and let us all know what you have been listening to, reading, watching, or otherwise enjoying. And is there anything coming up we should all be aware of ?
Blogger Takeover LXI
by 25 Comments
I’ve been catching up on my re-organised record collection – actual physical vinyl. Lots of gems that should have had more time on the decks when I bought them. The two leaders are the DSD remaster of Let It Bleed which has been battling with Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions for my listening time.
This is tomorrow calling, wishing you were here.
They both sound AMAZING
I’ve read the first two books in the Cormoran Strike series by J K Rowling (writing as Robert Galbraith) -Cuckoo’s Calling and The Silkworm. Pretty decent detective thrillers. I started the third – Career of Evil – and it seemed much more nasty than the other two, so I put it down. I also really enjoyed Berlin Babylon by Volter Kutscher (thanks to Paddy Hoey of this Parish for the kind gift).
TV – as always, Only Connect.
In Other News – last month I Bilko’d a trip to Chester which let me catch up for beers/curry/blethers with my dear friend Pencilsqueezer. We finished up in a pub in Chester with a new-fangled jukebox that let us play Alice Coltrane, Alice Clark, The MC5 and many others. We had a great time.
Bilko-ing anything is most surely time well spent.
DAMN RIGHT!
Heard –
Kikagaku Moyo – Japanese psychedelia vintage 2020 – lovely stuff!
https://youtu.be/egmECvOCZ8
Terry Slingbaum – Water Games – beautiful “jazzy” imaginative music inspired by Ravel
Ooh – I didn’t know Kikagaku Moyo had a new album out! Love them, need to order it now – thanks!
February is a month whose only virtue is its brevity, so not that much.
First gig of the year was Julian Cope at the Barbican. It was OK. Not great, just OK. I think I would have liked it a lot more in a smaller club venue as the bare set-up (just the Archdrude with a twelve string guitar and a bunch of effects pedals) didn’t carry to the far reaches of the vast hall. Then again, he sold the place out and a number of those present adored his every sound so presumably he or his management know best.
I also went to hear Val McDermid speak at the Essex Book Festival. The light is a big fan but I hadn’t read any of her books for a couple of decades. She was entertaining, straight forward and confident in her views. My favourite point may have been when the interviewer asked a long rambling question about whether she ever found herself writing something which she then realised she had lifted from her voracious reading. ‘No.’
On television I have just watched, actually in March, the latest Coogan/Brydon series of The Trip. A journey around Greece finds them musing on mortality and legacy, with a running theme of Coogan’s father’s failing health. As ever I liked the series but wished they could just enjoy each other’s company more. A little admiration and affection among the constant carping and one-upmanship for would go a long way.
Heard
Ben Watt “Storm Damage”. A little bit disappointed with this one, after reading some positive reviews of it. It all just feels a tad sparse and undercooked to me. Sometimes that can be a good thing but it goes a bit far in some cases here.
Echo and The Bunnymen “John Peel Sessions, 1979-1983”. The Bunnymen were a great band in this era. What the modern incarnation of hired hands sorely lack is the engine room dynamic of of Les and Pete. The versions of the songs on this album range from rougher versions of songs that went on to be well loved to sketches of things that ended up as other songs, but all have their charm and although some have dated a bit, can still send shivers down the spine.
Seen
New series of Better Call Saul. Terrific so far, and great to see one of my favourite characters from Breaking Bad make a return in the latest episode.
Homeland latest…Is it me or is Carrie trying to increase her gurning faces? Still really enjoying it though, even if it does get a touch unbelievable at times.
Flesh and Blood. A decent ITV drama, for once. Actually that might be a bit unfair. Not an entirely unpredictable outcome but enjoyable nonetheless.
Read
“A Whole Scene Going On” by Barry Fantoni. The long term Private Eye staffer and 60’s “face” has written a terrifically absorbing and fun description of what the swinging sixties were like from an insider point of view. He seems to agree with my long held view that the swinging sixties actually happened to about 100 or so people.
“Nico: Songs They Never Play on The Radio” by James Young. Although interesting for Velvet Underground fans and Manchester music scene minutiae followers, this is a grim account of Nico’s last touring days and is enough to make even the keenest think again about becoming a backing band musician.
AOB
Had a fabulous week in Iceland at half term. Amazing sights, great experiences and a unique atmosphere.
I really, really enjoyed Flesh And Blood. I saw reviews of Knives Out describing it as a kind of updating of Agatha Christie. I thought it was ok, worth watching but certainly not worth watching twice. Whereas Flesh And Blood was far more gripping in a sort of contemporary Agatha Christie stylee, what with all the different possibilities and guessing games going on.
Reading – magazines on Readly and not much else. One of my New Year resolutions was to read more books, as I have hundreds waiting to be read, but it hasn’t quite worked out like that just yet.
Heard – still ploughing on with my albums ranking project, just finishing 1992. I’m 5094 albums in and have 1278 left to listen to, so I reckon I’ll be done by next summer. I haven’t heard anything from this year that I’d call great as yet, although Isobel Campbell’s album is probably my favourite and I’ve just listened to Luke Haines’ album with Peter Buck and I reckon it’s the best thing he’s done for ages. My favourite rap album so far is by Charlie Smarts from the fab Kooley High. A couple of ‘new’ old albums I’ve picked up are great though. The Pale Saints’ The Comforts of Madness and Neneh Cherry’s Raw Like Sushi, neither of which I’d ever heard before. My wife doesn’t believe that I’ve never before heard Buffalo Stance!
Seen – took the boy down to London to watch Barnsley beat Fulham 3-0 (huzzah!) and take him to the James Bond exhibition and the Tower of London. He also wanted to see Doolittle (rubbish), so I took him to one of the big cinemas in Leicester Square…where the screening room had 3 rows of seats and was smaller than our living room! It seems they’ve all been split into multiplexes, showing the same films since I lived down there. We did, however, manage to watch our favourite film on the big screen for the first time. I used to love going to the Prince Charles cinema, so when we saw they were showing The Princess Bride on the Saturday night we were thrilled. It capped a great day after the footy. I’ve seen the film so often I reckon I could write all the dialogue down by memory. If you’ve never seen it before make it a priority. It doesn’t matter what kind of films you like, you’ll enjoy this one.
At home I’ve been watching loads of TV series. I’ve watched all 5 seasons of Six Feet Under and have the last 2 left to watch tonight (if you are familiar with the series you’ll understand why I was floored with the episodes I watched last night!). I’ve also watched I Am Not Okay With This (great), Locke and Key (great), The Stranger (quite good, but my mate always seems to turn out to be the villain), the latest series of Hip Hop Evolution (brill), The Good Place (fab), the latest series of the excellent Sex Education, I’ve rewatched The Haunting of Hill House (probably my favourite TV series ever) and I’m watching the latest series of Better Called Saul (which I think is better than Breaking Bad), Inside No. 9 (the shows rank from good to ridiculously good), a French spy series called Le Bureau and The Walking Dead (as a fan of the comics I am always somewhat disappointed with the TV show).
Finally, I’ve also caught up with loads of films – Parasite (quite good, but puzzled to see why it has won all those awards), JoJo Rabbit (quite good – big fan of Taika Waititi though), 21 Bridges (meh), The Lighthouse (disappointing, although it looked great), Knives Out (quite good, despite Daniel Craig’s accent), Zombieland 2 (nowhere near as good as the first and a bit daft really), Terminator: Dark Fate (surprisingly good), Uncut Gems (quite good) and Doctor Sleep, which was very good, as you would expect from the writer/director behind The Haunting of Hill House. I get nervous when they make sequels to my favourite films, so long after the first film(s), cos I can remember squirming through Godfather 3, but Doctor Sleep can go on the list with Mad Max: Fury Road and Blade Runner 2049.
Having written all this down though, I think I’ve realised why I’m not finding time to read. I need to spend less time in front of the TV and at the pictures!
I honestly wonder when/where you and Tigger get the time to, like, do the everyday things, like, get on the bus, wonder why the elastic in my trackies have gone again, god I’ve just touched my face – it’s Covid 19 for me, Norwich are in the quarter-finals, my knees are playing up today, why isn’t Gary responding to my PMs? , etc etc and etcetera
I wonder when Trump made up the word covefe in a tweet if he was trying to tell us something. An idiot Nostradamus.
@Paul-Wad Fulham is my favourite away ground – glad you got the result. Not to be inflammatory but Marc Roberts finally playing really well for us – he wond 22 aerial duels in one recent game. A fine player.
Marc is an excellent player, far better than he even gives himself credit for. When we had him and Alfie Mawson as our centre backs, with Adam Davies behind them, we looked solid. Mawson was the one that went for the big bucks and got the England call up, but I always preferred Roberts. It was a horrible mistake he made on the televised game a couple of weeks ago, but he made up for it over the 90 minutes.
We’ve had some good young defenders at the club in the last 7 or 8 years, from John Stones and Kieran Trippier to Mawson and Roberts, then Lindsay and Pinnock and now we have Halme, Odour and, although a bit older, Solbauer, who’s one of the only players over the age of 21 that we’ve signed in recent years. We just can’t keep hold of them cos we can’t afford to pay them as much as everybody else does. Although a recent study of the finances of the Championship clubs shows that we are one of only 3 teams who haven’t lost money over the past 5 years, so I don’t know how the other clubs manage to pay the players what they do.
If I had to pick one of those defenders above all the others, it would be Ethan Pinnock, who we sold to Brentford for a pathetically low £3.5m. He’s probably the best centre back I’ve seen at Oakwell since the late, great Paul Futcher. He’ll be in the Premiership very soon, with or without Brentford. And if they sell him, I bet it’s for way more than £3.5m!
And yes, Fulham is a lovely ground. Having both sets of fans using the same turnstiles and mingling behind the stand, using the same snack bars and facilities just wouldn’t work anywhere else. I guess they didn’t do that when they played Millwall though.
I completed the 92 last year and would put Fulham up there with Exeter City as my favourites. The very best though is Accrington Stanley. We went to watch a random game a few years ago to cross it off the list and fell in love with the place, but when we went back with Barnsley last season it was even better. They laid on a fanzone for us, with reasonably priced drinks and food, as well as a singer to keep us entertained. They gave us half of the ground, so it was almost like a home match. And the stewards and staff were all really lovely. I guess we’ll get to go there again next season.
We also liked Fleetwood when we went there the first time a few years ago. Again, it was a lovely little ground and all the stewards/staff were great. However, with Joey Barton and Ched Evans at the club, not to mention the incident when Barton assaulted our manager and was caught trying to flee the scene, they’ve blotted their copybook somewhat. I am surprised Barton is still employed there and not residing at Donny nick. His case is up before the beak in July I believe.
July, hmmm, time for the `FREE JOEY` banners, such a nice guy!
Just listened to the Peter Buck/Luke Haines LP and it`s quite good Paul. I`ve enjoyed all of Peter Bucks post REM albums but never been a fan of Luke Haines. Buck`s guitar work on the album is superb.
Paul, only done about 40 of the 92. Did have a memorable night at Oakwell when you beat us over 2 legs to get to the play offs finals.
I retire in about 2v years and have thought about trying to do all the Scottish grounds as an alternative. Would take longer because of the distances but it might be fun.
Either that or Ghost train stations in England.
And yes Barton is a knob but was a half decent player that could have done better with a different temperament.
Lots of postponements in Scotland in the winter months, so be prepared for some wasted journeys. I was around 100 metres away from Easter Road, less than half an hour before kick off, when Hibs called off our pre-season friendly due to a waterlogged pitch. And that was in July!
Me and my mate that I did the 92 grounds with have been wondering whether it would be possible to do them all in one season. All the Premier League and most of the Championship can be on Friday night/Sunday/Monday night, or even Thursday night for UEFA Cup games. And with the Football League Trophy every League One and Two team will have 2-5 midweek home games. Occasionally you can get two games in a day done as well, with lunchtime kick offs. We did both Bury/Accrington and Notts County/Burton Albion done in a day each.
When we finished, at Exeter, an Exeter supporting mate of ours got in touch with the club, who gave us complimentary seats and special ‘92’ Exeter away shirts, presented on the pitch at half-time. It made journeys like a Tuesday night round trip to watch Stevenage v Swansea U21s (17 away fans, I counted them, although I think they were all family of the players) in the Football League Trophy all worthwhile. Especially as they shut the A1 just as we were trying to get home and we nearly hit two deer (half a mile apart) on the winding road to the M1!
Heard
Green Day – Father Of All … was the first CD with a 2020 date stamp, and pretty good it is too
(see review elsewhere in these pages)
The Humdrum Express – Ultracrepidarian Soup provided relief from the storms, cold and damp
(again, see review elsewhere)
Rick Wakeman – on a whim bought a compilation of solo material. He does like a twiddly organ, but I’m (surprisingly?) enjoying it.
New Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbot arrived this morning – haven’t listened yet, but the first single is largely inoffensive, and just what you expect from the pair (as is the video)
Read
The Joe Strummer biog (Redemption Song by Chris Salewicz) is a weighty old lump, and taking longer than I expect. Not completely sold on his Godlike status, but I have got The Mescaleros back in the CD player.
Seen
Eric Burdon doco on BBC4 is worth a watch.
I never used to like The Professionals – I believed the best episode was the Comic Strip film The Bullshitters – but I have started to watch them and get a bit hooked.
Acting is a bit wooden, some of the scenarios are a bit unlikely, and it does come across as takng itself a bit too seriously, but it’s a great way to spend an hour when in need of limited brain activity
(My Friday mornings when not at work consist of: Minder, The Sweeney, and The Professionals. Only after that do I think about switching my brain on and doing something (vaguely) useful)
CINEMA:
Been good, and may get better now James Bond (still going, who knew?!) isn’t going to hog a screen throughout April.
“Show Me the Picture,” a film about Jim Marshall, the Dylan, Beatles, Jimi et al photographer, who (a) didn’t seem a barrel of laughs, and who (b) lost the plot with the advent of the dreaded word “cocaine” into the narrative. “Oh, now everything’s going to be shite.” This was sometime in the late 60s. Still, by then he had photographed everyone who was worth photographing.
“Emma,” “Greed,” the brilliant “Parasite,” and the even more brilliant “Portrait of a Lady on Fire.”
I’d also highly recommend “Dark Waters,” which brings me to ….
HEARD:
“Times They Are A-Changin” …. haven’t listened to this Dylan album for ages – it’s 56 years old! – and it could serve as a soundtrack for the above film, and reads more like a critique of Trump, Johnson, and big business of 2020.
The lesser known songs (listening Tony Blackburn?) are the jewels, aren’t they always? ….
Ballad of Hollis Brown, North Country Blues, Only a Pawn in their Game, Boots of Spanish Leather, When the Ship Comes in, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll ….
Hey! and the Record Fair came which meant getting a Twinkle compilation, as earlier in the month it had strictly been Dusty, Sandie, Kiki and Tandy b-sides.
Radio
The repeats of Alexei Sayle’s Sandwich Bar and Round the Horne, which is far funnier than what the Python crew were getting up to at the same time (’67).
Sport
When I lived in London, all my teams used to lose; now I’m in Cornwall, all my teams win!
Pirates, Redruth, Camborne …. they may not always play well, but they always win.
Must be something to do with the opposing teams being too knackered to play after the journey.
Read:
After getting through The Outsider last month, I kept going with the unread Stephen King books on my shelf and read The Institute (OK, but a bit too fantastical and a premise better used in Firestarter IMO) and Sleeping Beauties, written with his son Owen (as always with King it’s a fun ride, but I thought a lot of it was quite silly). If you only read one of those three, definitely choose The Outsider.
Then, like most other Swedes, I read Klubben (“The Club”) by Swedish journalist Matilda Gustavsson, a book based around her series of articles during the #MeToo beginning that led to a trial and a prison sentence, big drama and upheaval in the Swedish Academy, and much debate. A very interesting book, a proper pageturner. It left me with a bad taste in my mouth regarding some people in the debacle, and an increased respect for a few others.
Another very popular book here at the moment is the new biography about brilliant Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf; Jag vill sätta världen i rörelse (“I want to set the world in motion”), by Anna-Karin Palm. Deserving of all its accolades, very interesting and well written, with the right mix of admiration and critique.
And I also just finished my latest commute novel (after finishing the Jane Austen letters a week ago) Crossing the Mangrove by Maryse Condé, found at the big annual book sale. Good, but not great.
Heard:
The latest album from the genius that is John Moreland doesn’t disappoint. LP5 may not be his very best yet, but it’s not far behind and miles ahead of most other artists of the genre. If you like (alt) country/Americana and haven’t listened to Moreland yet, please start investigating – you won’t regret it! Here’s one of the best tracks off this album:
Another really good album this month is Andy Shauf – The Neon Skyline, telling the story of a failed relationship and getting to grips with it in a charming storytelling way and a thick Canadian accent. Shauf was the main participant in my inofficial favourite album of last year with his Foxwarren band project (which didn’t make my official list as it was released in late 2018…) and this is musically very similar and just as good. I need to investigate his earlier stuff.
Swedish artist Alice Boman finally released her debut album Dream On, six years after her EPs of demos and home recordings were released on CD – everyone who heard those have probably waited as impatiently as I have for this next step. Dreamy and sad, slow pop songs have been given a shimmering but sparse production that lift them but don’t weigh them down. Musically it’s brilliant, I find that the lyrics (describing the emotions around an unhappy relationship falling apart) are a bit same-y and if I listen to them all back-to-back I find myself thinking “Oh do stop moaning about that guy already”…but I’m an aromantic and probably very heartless creature… 😀 Still, I’d absolutely recommend this album for any lovers of dream pop and heartbreak!
The latest Tame Impala album, The Slow Rush is quite brilliant, a slice of dreamy psych disco. Must be something in the Aussie water, or too much eucalyptus… The track “Is It True” may also be the bop of the year (so far at least).
I thought that the Good Harvest debut album showed potential, although I wasn’t overly impressed, but their second album Dream of June is quite a bland affair, IMO. And the lyrics are not great. Their harmonies and voices are as lovely as can be, but they are no First Aid Kit when it comes to writing songs… The folkier moments stand up the best, but still not enough to my taste.
(I haven’t listened enough to the new albums from Marc Almond, Les Amazones d’Afrique, The Haden Triplets, The Innocence Mission or Bill Fay to have formed a reliable opinion of them yet, but so far it’s mostly positive, if not yet blown away by any of them…)
Seen:
Another dud of a “romantic” (?) comedy from last year, The Big Sick, with very few laughs. Why are comedies so unfunny these days?
I also caught up with It 2, and despite its many flaws I did like it better than the first one (I know I’m alone her…)
On YouTube (which is where I catch up on TV) I’ve watched Portrait Artist Of The Year (interesting to see the different styles and approaches of different artists, the results very varied in quality – but amazing that they can get anything good done in only four hours) and The Great Pottery Throw Down (with its crying judge) as well as UC and my usual favourite channels. I was offered a year’s free streaming channel through my internet provider but decided against it. I’ve begun to find the very idea of following any series claustrophobic and stressful…and I prefer using most of my free time (the little there is) creating stuff myself.
Looking at my 88 year old mum who is bright and mostly healthy but having a difficult time walking any further than to the shops and back and spending her days plonked down in her armchair in front of the telly, I’m thinking that the time will eventually come for watching all kinds of TV. My 93 year old dad’s feet are also failing him, though he’s in pretty good shape otherwise, so I’m counting on my own feet to give up if I’m lucky enough to live anywhere near as long as my parents! As long as I can I’m walking everywhere, and avoiding too much TV! 🙂
I’ve been writing a lot lately, which I haven’t had much time to do in a long while. My strange novel is progressing, slowly but surely, for my amusement only. The “two weeks self-quarantine” of the Afterword tagline (down there vvv) would suit me fine at the moment, as I have more ideas than time to execute them (but “be careful what you wish for”…)
1. I’ve been meaning to mention the Andy Shauf album, and you’ve beaten me to it, Locust! I think it’s superb – easily his best record yet, and a glorious realisation of the songwriting promise that he showed on “The Party” album a few years ago. I’ve got tickets to see him on 1 April at Nalen Klubb, but what with the old coronoavirus, I’m sure sure whether I’ll go.
2. Agree about the Good Harvest album. Boring.
3. the Bill Fay album is growing on me a bit.
4. That film “The Big Sick” was from 2017. Tiden går!
Just checked the Nalen website, Frazey Ford is playing May 22 as well…unfortunately neither dates suits me (and what with the virus etc perhaps not a great idea).
But I need to remember to check their site more often, they often have great bookings, and it’s within walking distance from my flat so very conveniant (which is becoming a more important factor with each passing year…)
Read
Ma’am Darling by Craig Brown
A biography of Princess Margaret that could make a republican of the most ardent royalist. She comes across as boorish and boring, petulant and needy. Given her privilege and lack of responsibility at the very least you expect her to have had fun, but her life sounds dreary and shallow.
As I walked out one midsummer’s morning by Laurie Lee
I read Cider with Rosie at school and it was one of the few set texts that I enjoyed. This follow up is lyrical and evocative…a gorgeous read by a lovely writer.
Whisper Man by Alex North
In trying to straddle several genres (serial killer, police procedural, supernatural) it struggles to nail any one of them. The prose is flat and the plot itself is laboured. It’s not helped by the switches between first and third person – such a peculiar authorial choice that always jars with me.
Seen
Better things.
I’ve watched the first three episodes of series 3 and it hasn’t grabbed in the way that the first 2 series did.
VEEP
It’s diverting enough but not as acidic as the Thick of it. There are plenty of misfits and weirdoes but nobody with the dark charisma of Tucker or the weary contempt of Mannion.
Curb your enthusiasm
It’s back and watching it is like chugging a family sized bag of Haribo tangfastics – but in a good way.
Parasite.
Class warfare in Seoul is explored via farce, horror and comedy. Very enjoyable watch, although not as smart or subtle as some gushing reviews would have you believe.
1917
Strong performances, some stunning visuals, ambitious film making and a wonderful score. I was ticking off the films it seemed to echo but the thing that really struck me was that this looked a lot like a third person video game.
Cineworld ran a promotion whereby it showed a bunch of recent(ish) movies on Imax, with tickets at 3 quid each. Took the fam to see Avengers Endgame. I am a very late convert to the MCU. I’d seen a couple of the Iron Man movies at the flicks which I had enjoyed but had really struggled to engage with others I caught on the tv. That all changed when my daughter began to watch MCU films on hard rotation – I found myself getting drawn into them. Endgame is immensely satisfying, not only from a storytelling perspective, but an emotional one too. There is thunderous action but seeing it at the pictures meant I could appreciate the many quieter moments as the multiple characters were allowed some breathing space.
Heard
In the world of podcasts I have been enjoying the new series of Rule of Three (people talk about comedy films, books, records and TV shows), Athletico Mince, Desert Island Crisps and Off Menu.
Deal with it by Mura Masa. There’s a touch of The Streets about this – pungent and jagged, but I like it.
SEEN: A quiet day in the neighbourhood was pretty weird. It started off very whimsically and just as I was starting to think I was wasting my time it started to reel me in and I ended up liking it. It won’t be my favourite film of the year but was certainly thought provoking.
I really like Nicola Walker and to see her in two great series The Split and Last Tango in Halifax at the same time is a real treat for me. I like her range of emotions. Also enjoyed The Stranger which had a nice twist.
READ:
Reading Elton John’s autobiography which is well written, interesting and very funny.
HEARD: Boxsets to the fore this month. First off the Allman Brothers box Trouble no more which is excellent – the long live pieces where they whig out are right up my street- they were almost telepathic in their playing.
The next boxset is the Eric Burdon and the Animals When I was young. It is the period of the band when they had gone from r’n’b singles to a more Psychedelic sound.The first album in the set was a real revelation to me – their version of Paint it black is just superb. Exceeded my expectations as the reviews were lukewarm,
Loving the Cornershop album England is a Garden, glad to have them back.
Agree with @locust re John Moreland lp5 – will be a contender at year end.
The Courtney Barnett live unplugged album is a major disappointment too much in between track
nonsense – crowd noise, rubbish chat and unnecessary interruptions ruin the flow of the album.
My favourite album of the month however is Third Mind which is a collaborative album featuring Dave Alvin, Michael Jerome and others. Psychedlic jamming and extended workouts abound – the album is dedicated to John Cippolina from Quicksilver Messenger service and Rocky Erikson of 13th Floor Elevators and their influence looms large. A cracking version of Fred Neil’s Dolphins appears amongst the jams.
February is so short that it is already mid March before I sensed the change, prompted by hitting my 21st to the power of 3. Self-isolating in the Lake District: Mrs P and I are anti-social rather than ill, it is all shiny slate and stone courtesy the inclement, making the dogs even content to sit and moulder. We have been up Orrest Head, or Hergest Ridge as my head keeps saying, and been nearly blown away, so not a complete waste of location.
I am suddenly on a blitz of Julian Barnes: loving his writing, being currently entertained by Arthur and George, with a couple more lined up.
Musically it has been mostly Hanging Stars: their third, A New Kind of Sky, is really superb, now sounding more like themselves than the roster of their references, but Love and Cosmic Rough Riders still remain clearly on their turntable. Thanks also to the good Baron Harkonnen for sending me a review copy of their currently unobtainable debut. The excellent new Agnes Obel neither disappoints and I am hoping her April tour doesn’t succumb to COVID-19, but suspect it might. I also picked up a best of Arvo Part, a ludicrous concept for a composer, but never heed, it is great, if a bit too classical for my undeveloped taste. Tabula Rasa had me spellbound in awe. In, arguably, similar territory, a Max Richter collection, Voyager, has given me much aural pleasure too. Courtesy the wife, who is on a Lana Del Rey jag, I have had umpteen opportunities to weigh up the respective merits of her output, which tends to confirm NFR is the pinnacle and that she is a troubled and troubling young woman.
Telly has been, like Steve, largely based around Nicola Walker and her face “like a kind potato” (copyright the missus) in The Split. Brought up a boxset of Succession, having earlier decided against it for no reason other than prejudice of the popular. It’s good, innit? A sort of Dallas for the 2020s, if with entirely nastier people. Flesh and Blood was torrid tosh that held attention well, if a bit generically. The new series of Walking Dead has finally and assertively jumped the monkey, or whatever the phrase is, being irredeemably shite.
Nothing live bar Damien Jurado, reviewed accordingly. Am wondering how long before I see anyone in that setting again, my fear being that not only Agnes may not take place, nor the Lightning Seeds the week before. Hopefully all blown over by august, as my ticket for Wickham promises more fun than any other of the summer festivals. Cambridge has belatedly picked some better acts than their opening fusillades offered, but not enough to tempt me.