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Blogger Takeover LXXXVII

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As the rain cascades down, and we wonder if we have skipped straight from a brief spring to Autumn, we find ourselves on the first Friday of the month. So, please, come in to the cabin, hang your wet coats over there, help yourself to a warming cup, sit down by the fire and tell us all what you have been listening to, watching, reading, or otherwise using as a coping mechanism in these troubled times

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  1. As ever, I don’t do a lot of ‘new’ but I did at least make a rare visit to the cinema this month, so let’s start with …

    Seen

    Operation Mincemeat is an enjoyable enough way to spend a couple of hours, though it is at least 20 minutes longer than it should have been (the scenes on the submarine and with Glyndwr’s sister were unnecessary, and the long ‘have they taken the bait?’ section could have been a montage). A very fine cast struggles with some clunking lines of the ‘You will fight your own war!’ school. Although it’s based on a true story [potential spoiler] would Jean really have been allowed into the heart of a top secret mission just because she permitted her photograph to be used as part of it?

    On TV I’ve been binging on some streaming series. I owe the forum for tipping me off about This is Us, but take issue with whoever wrote that it generally avoids treacle. The whole thing is a vat of treacle, laced with honey and maple syrup, generously scattered with purest sugar. Characters have life changing moments every episode, assisted by the time shifting plot-lines, and articulate them. William in particular is given to perfectly formed philosophical speeches on the nature of life and dying. Hugely watchable for all that.

    A couple of US comedies have appealed too. Barry is the story of a hitman who gets involved in an acting class on a job and discovers something new he wants to do with his life, if only he could extricate himself from his old one. The shows creator and lead Bill Hader is excellent as Barry but it’s Henry Winkler as acting coach Gene Cousineau who steals every scene he is in. And Hacks is essentially a culture clash comedy about a young comedy writer, Ava, who is sent to help revive the material of legendary Las Vegas stand up Deborah Vance. There’s a fair amount of earning each other’s respect after initial suspicion, but the central performances are great attraction.

    Finally, it’s great to see Taskmaster back with an audience. I had thought the format might have been flagging based on the last series, but what it needed was a studio crowd. Speaking of improved programmes, both episodes on the new series of Inside No. 9 are far better than anything in the last one, so fingers crossed that it has relocated its mojo.

    Heard

    When I saw Angel Blue play Violeta in La Traviata at the Royal Opera House a few years ago I left floating on air, thinking I had seen and heard the greatest vocal performance I had ever experienced. Of course we went back when she appeared again in the umpteenth revival of the Richard Eyre production this month. I was right. Among a very strong cast she was mesmerising, as moving in her acting as she is thrilling in her projection and tone.

    The gigs I most enjoy these days tend to be smaller affairs, leaning towards folk and Americana, so it’s a surprise that I had never been to The Green Note in Camden before. We put that right for an afternoon session with DG Solaris and Friends. The friends included the likes of Louis Brennan and Salt Moon, who make up a small scene around north London, and it was a hugely enjoyable way to spend the afternoon – exploring the chazzas between Mornington Crescent and Camden Town stations, then taking in the show, heading to Pizza Pilgrims for dinner and still getting home to Essex at a reasonable hour.

    Read

    Talking of chazzas, I picked up a couple of comedians’ autobiographies in recent trips and that has been most of my April reading. Billy Connolly’s Windswept and Interesting and Bob Mortimer’s And Away … have their similarities. Both concentrate on the earlier life and deal with the showbiz success years in the last couple of chapters (though Mortimer’s is interspersed with sections on his recovery from heart surgery). That’s a relief, as these books can quickly become of list of famous people the author knows.

    Both men suffered loss in early life. Connolly’s mother deserted him and his sister to start another family, leaving him to be raised by an emotionally and physically abusive aunt, and a sexually abusive father. Mortimer’s father died in a car crash leaving Bob, or Robert as he always was until his name started appearing on Vic Reeves posters, feeling that as the youngest son his mission was to look after his mother.

    Of the two Mortimer certainly comes across as the more likeable, a shy youth who struggled to make friends and waited to be asked before joining in with anything. He only started appearing as part of Vic Reeves’ Big Night Out when he was asked to do walk-ons as part of a friendship circle which was already attending them. Connolly seems to have decided that having taken so much shit early in his life he wasn’t going to stand any more, though he seems to be happy now, and resigned to his declining health.

    • Re Windswept and Interesting. If you had read Billy, by Pamela Connolly, you would have seen so too had he. Probably at the same time he was dictating his copy. If you can plagiarise a biography, he proves it can be done…..

      • I did, but when it came out 20 years ago. I also recognised some lines from his stage routine, which is fair enough. If he can draw from his life for his comedy he can draw from his comedy for his life story, having already put the thoughts into words.

    • If you can find it, I would recommend the book that Billy Connolly did with Duncan Campbell back in the 70s, called just Billy Connolly. It’s a collection of his memories about growing up in Glasgow, the Shipyards and his early career. It’s very readable and apart from anything else, describes very well a Glasgow that doesn’t exist any more.

      • The growing up stuff might be most interesting to me. He grew up on Stewartville Street in Patrick, and my first address, a couple of decades later, was on Chancellor Street which shares a corner with it. We moved when I was very young, but only half a mile away.

  2. Read – mostly magazines, but I have recently discovered the joy of audiobooks. I’m trying to get some exercise and have been listening to them whilst out walking. I joined Audible and have downloaded several, but to start with I am listening to the ones that are free with the membership. I enjoyed Matt Berry’s Stephen Toast ‘autobiography’, which is all the better for being read in Toast’s fruity tones. I also quite enjoyed Matt Lucas’s autobiography. I’m currently halfway through the second volume of Ian Bell’s Bob Dylan biography. They are good books, but Bell doesn’t really seem to like his music much. I’m just up to Infidels, so recently went through the 70s. He didn’t seem to rate Desire or Street Legal, two albums I particularly like, and when talking about Hurricane Carter, he only just stops short of saying he thought her was guilty!

    Watched – I have so many TV series and films to watch that I will have to live to 130 to fit them all in. That said, my newfound singleness gives me control of the TV every night, so I am rattling through them. I’ve just watched and enjoyed the whole lot of Peaky Blinders, All of Us Are Dead, Severance, Pam & Tommy, Slow Horses, This is Gonna Hurt (THE most realistic hospital drama I’ve seen, although they downplay the role of the midwives, who really run maternity suites) and the new series of Wolf Creek, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Ozark, Russian Doll and a few more I forget the name of. Currently watching Servant on Apple TV, where I have a three month free trial.

    I’m also a series or two into Seinfeld and Parks & Recreation. When do these shows get good? So far they are mildly amusing, but nowhere near as funny as, say, Arrested Development. I recently say The IT Crowd, as I was previously put off by Chris O’Dowd, but he was excellent in Get Shorty, so I watched it and really enjoyed it. I’m on the brink of giving up on the other two.

    As a big fan of Batman and James Bond it’s been brill at the cinema. I saw The Batman twice and after the lacklustre post Dark Knight trilogy films it was good to see a decent Batman film. It’s almost as good as Nolan’s films, but quite different in tone. It draws inspiration from some of my favourite Batman comic books, not least Year One. And Robert Pattinson has really surprised me recently, with some great film performances. He’s fantastic as Batman and his secret alias, Bruce Wayne.

    It was a shame The Batman was a 15 as my 12 year old (then 11) had been really looking forward to it. In the end I bought two tickets to The Batman and two for Uncharted at the multiplex. We went through the ticket check with the latter and then took our seats for The Batman. There’s nothing in it that I wouldn’t be happy for him to see. He knows right from wrong and fact from fiction. Crikey, I was watching all the so called video nasties at 11, although there are a few of those I wouldn’t show him!

    The multiplex are also showing all the James Bond films in order, every Saturday. We have Thunderball tomorrow, which isn’t one of our favourites, but On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is coming up soon, a favourite of mine and my equally Bond loving son. It’s a shame that 2 or 3 of the Bond films are 15s, as again there is nothing I am not happy for him to see. We watch them at home. It may be more difficult to sneak him into those, as the theatre is not as busy. I’ll have to try going in when the lights are already down! It’s been great to see the early ones at the cinema though, because I have only seen them at the cinema since A View To A Kill.

    Heard – Elvis Costello’s excellent new album has set me off re-listening to his back catalogue. He’s turned a few really good albums in over recent years. Pete Flux and Parental have followed up a brilliant debut with an equally brilliant new album. And Sigrid’s new one has just landed on my doormat, so that will be getting a spin once I come back from my walk.

    This month has been all about vinyl though, since my brother in law gave me his old player. I only really kept my Stephen Duffy and Dream Academy collections when I sold all my vinyl in the 90s (I really, really wish I could magic it back!), so I bought a couple of new ones to try. My main concern was that since I last had a record player, 20 odd years ago, I now cannot feel my fingers, so I thought I’d end up damaging all the records. But the phono cable which is wired into the record player is faulty, so I ended up buying a new player, so I chose one which controls the arm automatically, like they all used to when I was younger, so I should be okay. I wasn’t 100% sure I would stick with listening to vinyl, but I bought a player that you can also use with Bluetooth speakers, as my daughters little record player broke, so she can make use of this one too.

    As it is, I’ve got carried away buying new records (who saw that coming?!), so I’m really enjoying it. Not so much having to get up 3 times to listen to an album that all fits on a CD, but that apart it’s been brill. Just got Madvillainy today and a couple from my favourite UK label, High Focus. Had to knock a long weekend in Belfast on the head, cos I’ve spent the money on records, and it’s sped up my plans to flog around 400 comics that I was thinking of getting round to sell. I’ve only done one sound comparison so far, and that was because I was so impressed with the sound of the Moon Safari LP. It’s difficult to tell, but I think the LP sounds a bit better, with clearer bass. The only thing that worries me is that even with an additional preamp in place, I am having to turn the volume way up on my amp when I listen to the record player. I’m a tad scared that I’m going to forget to turn it down when I play a CD and blow my speakers and what’s left of my hearing. I’m guessing it’s cos my 25 year old (but brill) amp only has an aux/phono input, rather than just phono, so it’s limiting the volume for if I connect something else to it via that input. That’s my ‘don’t really know what I’m talking about’ diagnosis anyway!

    So I’ve bought albums across different genres, so I can see what benefits the most from being played on vinyl. I’ve bought…wow, just realised how many, so yep, need to get those comics flogged! I’ve bought quite a few, including some of my favourite albums, like Illmatic, It Takes a Nation of Millions, Blue Train, Overstanding, Madvillany, Unknown Pleasures, Blue Lines, Mecca and the Soul Brothers and To Pimp a Butterfly. So plenty to be getting on with! Looking forward to going for my full spinal cord and brain scans in Sheffield later this month (a precaution, as I’ve had another big dip in symptoms), as I have jotted down where all the record shops are in Sheffield for my post scans treat. Record shopping used to be my favourite pastime and, whilst it could never be as good as it was thirty odd years ago record shopping in Manchester when I still had so much to discover, I’m looking forward to doing it again.

  3. Gigs; 4 this month, all good ones. Calan at Bury Met were very impressive, playing without their fiddler / singer on maternity leave, but if you didn’t know there were usually a five-piece you’d never have guessed. John Smith a couple of days later at the same venue was sublime, absolutely on form, playing mostly from The Fray which I believe has gone back into the charts due to this tour. I booked the wonderful Wayward Jane to appear at my local Folk Club and they didn’t disappoint with excellent great sets of their of old-time Appalachian songs interspersed with some country blues, a contemporary cover of “Elvis Presley Blues” by Gillian Welch and a closing singalong version of “The Frog’s Wedding”. Their trademark rhythmic sound is driven by clawhammer banjo, double bass, guitar and fiddle with 3-part harmony vocals. Lead singer Sam Gillespie (of The Brothers Gillespie) is also a dab hand on the wooden flute. Lastly I went to the Stoller Hall in Manchester to see the Gigspanner Big Band. They were fantastic, but the hall was about 30% full

    Heard: John Smith’s “The Fray Variations” is really lovely; 6 songs from The Fray sessions, stripped back with with added string arrangements. A snip at £3.99. Bandcamp Friday’s foray yielded “Struck Lucky” by Michelle Holding & Bonz, a nice blend of folk, Americana and parlour-style banjo instrumentals, and also “We have won the land” by Rory Matheson & Graham Rorie which is mostly instrumental scottish folk inspired by the crofters of Assynt in Sutherland fundraising in order to buy the estate on which they farmed which was otherwise about to be auctioned. It’s a classy piece of work. Simeone gave me the Taj & Ry album. Like most here I was initially underwhelmed but it’s really starting to grow on me and I think it’s primarily 2 old geezers having fun. And whilst at the Gigspanner Big Band gig I bought their album “Natural Invention”. It’s terrific.

    The final weekend hosted 2 Festivals I’ve enjoyed in the past, Merlefest in North Carolina, and Costa Del Folk in Ibiza. My Facebook timeline filled up with posts from both. Merlefest in particular looks to be in very good form and I have long harboured ambitions to go back there. I’d have loved to have been on the hillside this year to witness The Waybacks & friends perform the whole of Workingman’s Dead and a few bits of American Beauty

    • Likewise four gigs, including the same ever-dependable John Smith at The Met, where Vince and I conspicuously failed to mingle. Was back there for Daoiri Farrell a couple of weeks’ later. It was the first date of the tour and the usually effervescent Mr Farrell seemed subdued, less sure of himself, tripped up by re-tuning. He still has an outstanding voice, especially when unaccompanied, clear, powerful, characterful.
      Better mingling luck when I bumped into Hubert Rawlinson at the Early Music Centre in Leeds. I have waited two years for the live performance of The Rheingans Sisters’ Receiver, and it would have taken a lot more than the Pennines to get between me and the best album of the decade ( I fully expect to feel the same way at the end of 2029). As I reviewed back in 2020, I am the target market for European folk dance music on a long leash, and the live interpretations did not disappoint.
      Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets at The Phil in Liverpool completed the collection.
      Should have added Martin Carthy to the haul, but sadly he wasn’t well enough to come to the club – I hope that he can return later in the year.

      Heard : Rare behaviour for me, in buying a CD on the basis of an article in a national weekend paper, but it has worked. Caroline by Caroline. Sorry, that’s caroline by caroline. They seem to be flexible in terms of band members, depending on the needs of the music at the time, or indeed the sources of inspiration. It feels like instrumental music to me, though that may be because I block out the vocals which are a bit thin and indistinct for my liking. The swelling and riffing, and the dwelling on themes puts me in mind of Penguin Cafe Orchestra – a good thing – and in one particular case they are definitely channelling Evening Star era Fripp and Eno – an even gooder thing.

  4. Heard:
    New in this month:
    Spiritualized – Everything Is Beautiful is a fine listen
    Wet Leg – much the same (with added fun)
    Old:
    Diamond Head, Tygers Of Pan Tang, Saxon, and Judas Priest
    because I have been reading …

    Read: Denim and Leather: The Rise and Fall of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal – initially concerned when I saw the book was a run of quotes. Michael Hann weaves the quotes into cogent chapters and narrative.
    Still not convinced by Venom (the template for Vim Fuego and/or Bad News?) and that Neil Kay is a bit full of his own self-importance.

    Seen:
    ITV Police dramas Grace and DI Ray – both enjoyable, and I continue to be surprised by the quality of ITV dramas- maybe they’ve upped their game so they can flog them to Netflix
    Gazza on BBC2 was pretty good (if not quite as good as the Sky Doc) – you can see why he went off the rails. He’s 19, got the media hassling him, injury downtime, every move is watched – the second part showed the lenghts the media would go to (stoop to) to get a story.
    When fit and happy, he was some player though

  5. Read: Very slowly back through Luke McCallin’s excellent Gregor Reinhardt “Man from Berlin” series. Moody, atmospheric, and human. A+, would recommend.

    Listened: I have a lot of traveling coming up – Alice to Sydney to San Fran to Austin, then two days’ driving to see the kid for the first time in two years. Then taking him, his friend and her Mom to a concert 6 hours away, then the UK, and then reverse back to Alice in August. So I’ve been building playlists, most of which are Brit Indie, or Scottish, or preferably both.

    Watched: We got a free year of Disney +, so working through the Marvekl films. And the most recent season of Balthazar, the French show. It gets more ridiculous, but is a great watch.

  6. READ: Well, against the grain, I have been doing a fair old bit of late. Am thoroughly enjoying A Fabulous Creation, Heppo’s celebration of the album, having studiously avoided his writing until now, on some half baked prejudice around some of his snootier observations when this was “his” website. It conjures up many many memories of those same years and similar albums, whiling away afternoons in record shops. Prior to that I enjoyed very much Andrew O’Hagan’s Mayflies. It’s true, I preferred the second part to the first, finding the hedonism of the young scallywags a little out my experience, but it was written well and I could easily inhabit a few of the characters.
    SEEN: Another number month of the telly, mostly good, some not quite good enough. For example, Russian Doll, first series, brilliant. second, lost interest. Got my teeth back into Better Call Saul and loving it more than ever, half way thru’ the final series and seeing flies slowly drop. It is sooooooo good. Bit nervous about Ozark being at that same stage, but yet to crank up the box and discover. The Rising was an entertaining enough whodunnit from the unusual perspective of the narrative being that of the deceased. Grace I enjoyed, the two new 2 hour episodes, but the plot of the second one stretched credulity and an old expanded trope a stretch too far. I liked the character played by John Simm, and nice to see “Dot” Cottan back on the force, even if he has changed his name. Finally, and best of all, Julia, where an unrecognisable Sarah Lancashire has the role of her life, as the awkward TV cook Julia Child. An absolute delight, the characters fleshed out with enough love to transcend their ridiculous foibles. David Hyde Pierce (Niles from Frasier) gets to play a blinder as her husband, bit is outmatched.
    LISTENED: Busy old month on the old folk and roots reviews last month, and a good one. Plus self sourced selections from elsewhere, some recommended from these pages. Thus the Dennis Bovell compendium, DUBmaster, dropped through my letter box, alongside the new Horace Andy, Midnight Rocker. Each well worth a punt, in different ways. Andy tops the scales, tho’, i would say, between the two. Album of the month, if not the year is the wonderful 72nd release from Willie Nelson, A Beautiful Time, a joyous look back (and forward) on life. The arrangements are exquisite, Mickey Raphael’s harmonica never better. The new Paul Brady, Maybe So, is another belter. Again, perhaps nothing new, the styles all familiar, and the fella is clearly mellowing, but, he still has the voice and the songs, the arrangements all meticulously crafted. Michael Weston King has broken his solo silence, at least on record, issuing a record without the wife. (As in Lou Dalgleish and their duo My Darling Clementine) The Struggle it is called, and it is anything but to listen to, his warm honeyed tone singing, again, apropos Willie and Paul, songs from the elder perspective, thoughtful and tuneful. The Rorie/Matheson album mentioned by another above, is probably this month’s best scottish music, but the second album from Hò-Ro comes close. The final choice worthy of signposting is Stolen Time, by Abigail Lapell, a Canadian chanteuse who can evoke both JJ Cale and Neil Young. Very well worth an exploratory listen.
    GIGS: Just the one, unless you count attending the 40th reunion of my qualifiers at med school, actually 42 years c/o you know what. Similar atmosphere to a good show by a band you used to love, if slightly less singing along. And what happens when 42 Docs meet up? 24 or them, myself included, catch bloody covid. Still, my immune system came up trumps and, having managed two consecutive negative tests, I made it to another two years delayed concert, Tindersticks at the Royal Festival Hall. With a string section and old friends returning to the fold, it was a delight. Concentrating heavily on old, it was two hours of unbridled pathos. (A little too heavily on old, actually, my personal disappointment being that they didn’t even acknowledge the two LPs out since 2019, but, hey.)
    Off to Skye next w/e for Skye live, two nights in Portree, Niteworks topping on Friday and Elephant Sessions on Saturday. Can’t wait. And I will be taking my shorty wetsuit to get a dip in the Fairy Pools whilst there…….
    OTHER: As hinted above, wild swimming has burst into my life with a bore (wave), and I am loving the rivers, lakes and quarries that allow such life affirming activity.

  7. Read:

    First, a retraction from last month’s BT – the last few chapters of The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargrave were so silly and annoying to me that I’d like to un-recommend it!

    This month I read The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld, an absolutely brilliant novel dealing with male violence towards women (and children), through (mostly) three women’s stories in different timelines, centered around a house at the coast in Scotland. This is a wonderful reading experience in every way, an unputdownable novel that manages to capture the essence of large parts of being a woman better than most.

    My third novel by Abdulrazak Gurnah (I bought them as a package-deal…) was The Last Gift, and it’s the one I’ve enjoyed the most, despite being a quite low-key story set mostly in England. We get to know Abbas, an older man originally from Zanzibar, and his wife and children. When he suffers a few strokes it ultimately leads to him finally revealing his earlier life to them, and the shameful secret he’s been hiding. It’s a story about human dilemmas, guilt, search for identity, longing for belonging, the anchoring strength of love. A well told story where we get to know them all piece by piece as memories comes to the surface and feelings shift.

    I then read the very entertaining God On The Rocks by Jane Gardam, a gift from a friend. Very funny, but not without depth of analysis of human nature. Short and fast read, a real pageturner.

    Then on to a minor classic (of ornithology, at least), The Peregrine by J A Baker. Oh, this is such a brilliant read, no interest in birds required! It’s in the form of a journal over six months (though observed over several years and the best bits chosen). The intrepid peregrine stalker walks the landscape from morning to night, disregarding rain, sleet or freezing cold temperatures to describe – in exact detail – everything he sees. Metaphores are not mixed but stacked, into a Towers of Babel of imagery, turning into wonderful poems of scenery that vibrates with life. At times he’s just a lark’s breath from the ridiculous – but then the passage is suddenly saved by a sharp sentence that sticks the landing of the wobbly flight of fancy. There are some unforgettable images here – I’ll never again be able to see a Blackbird without thinking about Calvinists and bananas… And the notes for January 25 reads like the Apocalypse painted by Hieronymus Bosch; described with the near extacy of a doomsday preacher. Very funny, very beautiful, very poetic, very informative, sometimes philosophical. A book impossible not to annotate and underline. The peregrine falcon is the centre that gives focus to everything surrounding them, other birds and animals, the landscape, the weather, the seasons and the man following all of it, binoculars in hand and notebook in his pocket. Baker’s inimitable writing style is what makes this book so endlessly fascinating. Recommended, emphatically!

    Then onto a volume of two essays by Annie Ernaux, a favourite author of mine: A Man’s Place and A Woman’s Story. The first is a portrait of her father and the second one of her mother, both written after their respective death as a part of her grieving process. But because it’s Ernaux, they are of course sharp-sighted, exact, deeply moving and insightful on class, generation gaps, the unwritten laws of behaviour observed among neighbours, parent and child dynamics, grieving processes, ageing etc. As a daughter of two parents who are still alive but in their 90s, it got to me… A volume quick to read but the stories stays with you for a long time.

    Finally, I raided my shelf of long waiting books to be read and picked up The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, which got so hyped a couple of years ago that I sort of lost the will to read it after a while. But now when I did, I do get the hype. It’s a very well written and interesting novel about identity; the ones given to you by the way other people view you, the ones you choose for yourself, the ones you have no choice but to follow to their conclusion, the ones we try on like coats to hide inside of and switch out when we need another style. And it’s about what you gain and what you lose, at what price freedom comes and what new restrictions you have to accept in the place of the old ones. We follow runaway twin sisters Stella and Desiree, one chooses to “pass” as white and cut all ties to her family and past, and the other one marries the blackest man she meets before returning to her hometown and the life she wanted to escape. Also their respective daughters, who ends up meeting by chance as young adults, one of them knowing about the twin sisters, one not.

    Seen:

    A few documentaries, Three Identical Strangers was interesting and upsetting, but IMO it missed a few important strands of questioning, and that, plus the legalities stopping them from getting answers to the questions that were asked, left it feeling a bit unfinished to me.

    The Most Beautiful Boy In The World is a documentary about Swedish actor Björn Andrésen who shot to fame in his teens co-starring in Death in Venice. My cousin is in it, as she worked on the film set. Interesting, sad, but also a bit too arty and all over the place, a bit vague.

    Also a bad documentary about Fred Astaire and half a docu on Devo, and the first episode of Julia, which was fun but I’m not getting the streaming service for it (only watched out of curiosity as it was put up on YouTube to watch for free). Add half a rotten rom-com, some Masked Singer Sweden, AFL of course, and bits and bobs off YouTube.

    Heard:

    Same issues as last month, but added to the “to-be-heard”-pile with a few new purchases, bc why not?
    Had a run through of the new Slowgold album called Kärlek (“Love”), not grabbing me as much as the previous one, but really can’t say yet.

    Same with Trummor & Orgel – Longevity. Promising, but not immediately gripping. However, instrumental music demands more focus from the listener and I’ve not been able to give it that yet. But fans of Hansson & Karlsson and Sagor & Swing should enjoy this, as it’s a micro genre that is very specific! Drums, organ, instrumental noodlings of a slight psychedelic kind over a jazzy beat, basically (with an “X & X” band name).

    The latest by Rosalía: Motomami is a strong grower, only lacking the instant chewing gums of her previous album. Which is not the same as saying it’s lacking great tracks or hits!

    The Yoko tribute album is fine, but not as good as her own versions.

    Agree about the Taj Mahal/Ry Cooder album, it’s fine but these songs have been done better by others and they have made much better albums on their own (well, Taj definitely has, I’ve never been tempted to buy a Cooder album). Still, as a lifelong member of the Taj Mahal Completist Society, I had to buy it!

    After giving his last album (or two?) a wide berth I took a punt on Father John Misty again, seeing the praise for it everywhere… The first track made me swear over untrustworthy reviewers and Tillman being a knob, but thank god it gets partially better after that one. Not enough for a heartfelt recommendation, and I don’t expect to put this anywhere near my Top 20 for 2022, but not as big of a turd as it seemed like at first. The good tracks are better than OK! Wow, high praise indeed… 😉

    Aldous Harding – Warm Chris seems very good, but it only arrived a few days ago and I’ve only heard it once…but I like her groove and her voice. Loved her previous, I suspect this could end up living up to that one’s promise.

    Swedish superstar Laleh has a new album out called Vatten, it’s packed with very catchy pop as always, although she’s become a little less original these days (or perhaps the string of imitators/inspired just makes it seem that way). But the good tracks are still very fun and full of good energy, as always. Better than her previous album, which was as close to a dud as she’s ever made.

    • Brilliant as ever Locust, not least because you’ve invented unrecommending. I wish I did the same thing as promptly as you have – you clearly take your responsibilities seriously.

      About twenty years ago I probably told people that Fight Club is a great film. I unrecommend it now , it’s fascist shite.

      I also unrecommend Kath ******, a woman I had a relationship with in 1995 who turned out to be a maniac.

      Perhaps she was that way because of her strange surname.

      I unrecommend that joke.

      …………It’s addictive!

      • Ha! It’ll teach me to practice patience and not recommend any more books that I’m only half-way through reading…would hate to think that anyone believes that I liked that absurd ending! I take the quality control of my “brand” very seriously! 😉

        Oh, and I’d also like to apologize to the people who read my post and want those ten minutes of their lives back.

    • Re: The Peregrine by J. A. Baker.

      “Wherever he goes, this winter, I will follow him. I will share the fear, and the exaltation, and the boredom, of the hunting life … My pagan head shall sink into the winter land, and there be purified.”

      Yes, the greatest piece of English nature writing ever (along with Nan Shepherd’s “The Living Mountain”).
      An astonishing achievement.

  8. Read
    A session of COVID gave me plenty of time for reading. Thought I’d give Gallic Nobeliste Patrick Modiano a go, and plumped for La Place de l’Etoile, the first volume in his Occupation Trilogy, the occupied place being Paris in WW2. Right up my boulevard, I thought…but no. I can’t remember ever being quite so baffled and irritated by a book that I hadn’t found on the slush pile, but had been knowingly published by actual publishers. It concerns ‘Raphaël Schlemilovitch, a young Jewish man, torn between self-aggrandisement and self-loathing, who may be the heir to a Venezuelan fortune, may have lived during the Nazi Occupation, may have rubbed shoulders with the most notorious collaborators and anti-Semites of the time, may even have been the lover of Eva Braun. or he may have been none of these things.’ Quite. And yet I found the whole thing so gruesomely fascinating that I finished it. It was only 160 pages, but felt like three times that.

    Much better were The Long Drop by Denise Mina, hard-boiled Glasgow noir set in 1958, where being found guilty of murder would earn you that long drop; Fatale by Jean-Patrick Manchette, a brisk roman noir about a female killer who turns up in a provincial town and wipes out all the pompous self-satisfied men involved in a local scandal – a bit sketchy as to motivation but gruesome fun; Circus of Dreams: Adventures in the 1980s Literary World by John Walsh, a literary London gadabout and world-class namedropper I knew quite well back then but apparently not well enough to be in the book, chiz chiz; and '48 by James Herbert, an absolutely barking post-WW2 fantasy in which V2s carried some weird blood poisoning agent which kills everybody except those of a certain blood group, and beastly fascists try to steal the good blood off healthy people, except there's a kind of prototype Reacher getting in the way and killing them back.

    Seen
    Slow Horses of course – by far the best thing I’ve seen for ever. Killing Eve – don’t quite share the operatic outrage of the Villaneveistas, but the ending was pretty strange and disappointing. Roar on Apple TV is brilliant – a series of short, sharp feminist fables, witty and thought-provoking. Haven’t been to the cinema – we live 5 mins away from a lovely old Art Deco movie house, but somehow we can never be arsed. When all else fails I fire up the VPN, which is now sophisticated enough to spoof BBC iPlayer, and watch The Repair Shop. Balm for the soul.

    Heard
    The usual random stuff according to mood. I’ve been amusing myself investigating obscure French composers, inspired by a YouTube video I found featuring the likes of Germaine Tailleferre, Reynaldo Hahn, Mel Bonis and Alexis Roland-Manuel, of whom it has rightly been said, who?

    Gigs
    You jest, of course. Murwillumbah has a couple of venues that regularly feature singer-songwriters, but I’m always afraid they’ll turn out to be wispy and/or weedy, so we give them a miss. Shallow, I know…

      • The trailer clips for that on YouTube look fantastic.
        I really want to see it and thus I’m in a dilemma, because I really don’t want Apple to have even the scent of my meagre monetary resources.
        And those resources are pretty meagre, these days.

        • I got 3 months free when I bought my iPhone…Well, all 6 episodes are up (I had to watch 1 every week for 6 weeks, it was hell I tell you). You can take out a free trial and knock the whole lot off. Just remember to cancel.

    • Yes.
      I have Amazon Prime, Netflix (freebie courtesy of my great-nephew’s fiancee) and Tidal. I recently cancelled my Spotify sub in favour of Tidal, which I’d previously had on a month’s trial for £1.
      There are only so many services I can afford while paying for broadband, phone contract and energy, plus paying rent and running a car.

  11. Devoted – Dean Koontz Audiobook

    My first experience of Mr Koontz. I had heard he was a second rate Stephen King. I found him a second rate Stephen King.

    Shares some of Mr King’s faults, his good guys are so good they sound like they shit ice-cream and his bad guys are so bad they practically tell you they’re evil.

    He does love his deux-ex-machina’s. Towards the end some of the baddies are defeated, disarmed and sent on their way.

    As soon as they are out of earshot the baddies vow murderous revenge. Being a team of professional assassins this is very concerning to the reader. The gooduns had previously discussed killing them so that wouldn’t happen, stupidly they decided against that because darn it they are just so virtuous.

    Luckily for all concerned the baddies get killed in an accident! All of them! What a stroke of luck! Especially since the accident was caused by their previous dirty doings. Boy did they deserve that!

    The story had multiple threads and they all ended similarly.

  12. Reading

    On a whim, I picked up a copy of John Wyndham’s Day Of The Triffids for, y’know, a bit of escapism in a time of global catastrophes. Like War Of The Worlds, I find the special effects in your imagination (and courtesy of terrific descriptive writing) much more scary than movies or tv.
    The Kraken waits on my bookshelf (frankly, it’s been waiting there for a couple of decades) so the momentum might take me there next.

    Heard

    It’s been a frequent refrain of mine down the years that the sort of frothy guitar pop I like is harder to come by every year. One reason for this is the way those with a poppier sensibility who start by picking up guitars seem to inevitably gravitate to keyboards and synths.
    Listening to Further Joy, the new album by The Regrettes straight after its predecessor, I’m reminded of the lively debut and unloved and less rifftastic second album by 90s “Punkas” Kenickie. In places, singer Lydia Knight even sounds a bit like a Californian Lauren Laverne. The best bits really are some of the best sunny pop of the year so far, mind.
    Closer to home, Dave Long formerly of Dublin rockers Into Paradise (even more formerly Backwards Into Paradise) and Shane O Neill, formerly of Dublin rockers Blue In Heaven, who, at certain periods would have been neighbours on Ireland’s version of Stella Street, have got together to make an album which, despite an unpromising title (Age Of Finding Stars) and ghastly cover and the fact that it’s almost all downtempo sludgy guitars, is somehow taking up a lot of my listening time and may actually be growing on me.
    One thing though: Shane O Neill and Dave Long – they should have called themselves Schlong..

    Seen

    Blimey! Better Call Saul, Inside Number 9, Taskmaster and Barry all come back on virtually the same week. Good Times! Barry, in particular, seems to be getting better.
    So, with all that classy stuff, you need the tv equivalent of Pot Noodle to fill the gaps between the five star fare. Hence, I’ve been dipping into repeats of Tales Of The Unexpected.
    My recollection of this series was that the stories were all set in the U.K. with many great British character actors trying to elevate some awful fluff. But we’re on series 7 now and many of the stories are set in the U.S.
    A recent bonkers one featured onetime Mrs Clint Eastwood, Sondra Locke and a parrot. Sondra’s married to this really hunky guy but another quite chubby chap keeps coming around to see Sondra when Hunky Guy’s not home and he suspects infidelity. In fact, he becomes so grumpy from suspicion that the amiable fat bloke begins to genuinely seem the more appealing option for poor Sondra.
    The parrot is an ever present witness, so you think you can see what’s coming. But then, one night, the cute green pet is raped by some demonic bird and dies producing an impossibly large egg.
    The couple look after the egg until it hatches only to find emerge from it a huge malevolent looking dark bird. Hunky Guy tries to get the terrifying creature to speak, but it won’t co-operate until the day Sondra reveals she’s pregnant, when two lines from a previously mute, probably MALEVOLENT BIRD persuade Hunky Guy to go all Othello and murder his wife and then kill himself. What lawks!
    One thing, though: they missed a trick by not calling this episode Fear Of A Black Parrot..

    • I’ve got an Into Paradise album {consults Discogs: it was called Churchtown}. They played a gig at my university. It was a record fair/bargain bin purchase. I can picture the sleeve, but don’t think I’ve played it more than twice in 30+ years.

  14. My son and girlfriend moved to Manchester in March as he works at the RNCM, he’d bought tickets for us to see The House with Chicken Legs (based on the story of Baba Yaga) a most enjoyable evening at Home in Manchester. In the end he didn’t go as he had an interview for a new job on the Wednesday (which he got) and wanted to prepare for that. He drove myself and my wife in and picked us up at the end. It was like being a teenager in reverse.
    Two gigs Jim Causley at the Square Chapel Halifax with two friends who had inspired him to start his career, and then as the Cheshire one has said the Rheingan Sisters in Leeds, in the Howard Assembly Rooms. A most pleasant surprise to meet him as he had introduced me to their work. I also heard my new favourite instrument the Tambourin à Cordes.
    The day before I’d had my hearing aids fitted as my medical condition affects my hearing, which helped my enjoyment of the evening.
    Saw Operation Mincemeat which was a pleasant way to spend a Thursday morning.
    Read some more Bryant and May and other stuff (alas I can’t remember just remembered the Vashti Bunyan book since loaned out to a friend. Another enjoyable read)
    Booked a holiday in Greece for May from which I have just returned.

  15. Well this better be me catching up because last month for the first time ever I didn’t post on here.
    Ennui and a manic business situation contrived to make me too knackered to post after coming home from work. The supply chain is fucked and the price rises everyone is seeing are here to stay for the foreseeable future so buckle up and enjoy the ride:

    HEARD:
    Well the review by @retropath2 up above of the live Tindersticks album was timely. I knew nothing of their music falsely believing their name suggested a heavy rock band. I remember someone on here a while back speaking positively of them. The new expanded 3 cd compilation was duly purchased and to be frank it blew my socks off. So much so that I have bought 3 of their other albums since and will continue to buy more. Where have they been all my life? I get the Nick Cave/Bryan Ferry comparisons but they mostly remind me of the sadly defunct Willard Grant Conspiracy a band greatly missed in this household.

    Like @locust I found the Ry Cooder/Taj Mahal album disappointing. It gives the impression of being cobbled together after a drunken night out where they stumbled upon the idea. Still it did bring back memories of singing Pick a bale of cotton when I was in school all those years ago.

    The new Sharon Van Etten edges the new Aldous Huxley but they are both good.

    I love the Calexico album El Mirador which harks back to their albums Black Heart and Hot Rail that had more of the mariachi sound I love so much.
    North Mississippi Allstars Set Sail carries on from the excellence of their last album – I love the added funkiness that puts a bounce in their step.

    A bonkers release is Saturno 2000 – a compilation of latin cumbia instrumentals deliberately slowed down to encourage dancing in the clubs from 1962- 1983 – still lively stuff and very enjoyable.

    SEEN:
    Finally got to see Nick Lowe at the Glee Club in Birmingham. He was solo but excellent. Highlights were an excellent Lets stay in and make love and Lately I’ve let things slide. Finale was a rendition of mates Alison. You could hear a pin drop.
    Also saw the double biull of Blondie and Johnny Marr – Marr came out the winner in my book. A stunning version of How soon is now.
    Blondie had their moments but got the setlist completely wrong by playing two dirge like wankery numbers to open the encore. Still it was great to reminisce and Debbie Harry looks great for 76 but
    here voice has lost some register.

    Iam sure there has been some decent tv but nothing sticks out in my mind.

    READ:
    Finished Jonathan Coe’s Middle England which I really enjoyed.

    Just started Daisy Jones and the six which is showing good promise

    AOB:
    Off to South of France on saturday for a well earned rest.

    • Have you read ‘Mr Wilder and Me’, @stevet? I’m not a great fan of Coe, and especially not the Benjamin Trotter trilogy, but I really enjoyed Mr Wilder. Perfect ‘South of France well earned rest’ reading, imho.

  16. Seen

    The Delines in Liverpool, as reviewed in Nights Out, were great.

    On TV, two very different series came to an end and did so very well – Ozark on Netflix was stupendous across some 44 hours of television, with utterly memorable characters, brilliantly brought to life by the actors involved. And, across three series, The Split on the BBC was a superficially glossy melodrama about wealthy divorce lawyers which actually quietly had some depth and emotional heft with beautiful writing by Abi Morgan, and, again, some fine performances. All hail Laura Linney in the former and Nicola Walker in the latter; two of the best actors around at the moment.

    Heard

    Very little new this month that I haven’t already mentioned here.

    Read

    Have just finished Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain, about the Opioid crisis, and, specifically, the Sackler family whose US company Purdue Pharma developed and then relentlessly marketed and sold highly addictive Oxycontin pills as a pain relief for any pain as opposed to severe cancer and post operation pain relief. They might as well have been dealing heroin. Meantime they built a reputation for huge philanthropy to museums and other cultural and medical institutions around the world, without anyone really understanding what their wealth was built on. It’s shocking, and a grim subject, but Keefe writes brilliantly and makes it compelling and very readable. Highly recommended.

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