I started taking jazz guitar lessons a few years ago, and I do know the basic differences between the sound of single coil and humbucker pickups and the main effects, but as the music is jazz based, I haven’t r […]

John Lennon played this strange looking guitar, a Sardonyx, on Double Fantasy. Wikipedia tells you about its combination of pickups and so on, which I didn’t really understand. I never really thought of him as […]

There was an article by James Marriott in the Times a few weeks ago which mentioned learning poems.. He is a very interesting and amusing writer, but for a thirty year old, he does seem at times to be sliding into […]

True, but some of his novels have been successfully adapted for TV and film. Beneath all of the wordiness, there are often an interesting story and characters, unfortunately obscured by his style. He does seem […]

The voting age is already 16 for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, and neither use a simple first past the post system. If people are looking for experience of changing the voting age, or […]

My father died in his seventies, but it would have been his 100th birthday a few weeks ago. By coincidence, the daughter of some family friends had her first birthday on the same day, and they sent us some photos. […]

Not a virtuoso necessarily, but someone with practical experience in the line of work, which would help with communication in both directions.

I have always thought of Brian Eno as being along the lines of one of those management consultants who used to be around ten to twenty years ago who an organisation would bring in when they had got to a certain […]

No Archbishop of Canterbury since January (or some might say since 1533). No one seems too bothered about it.

The original name of the NME, Accordion Times and Musical Express, suggests a world of music that has been forgotten. The instrument must have been popular if it had its own paper and even championships but from a […]

I always carry some cash, as some smaller shops still don’t take cards for a payments under a certain amount, and as I work in technology, I always expect a failure at some point. Just before Christmas I was in […]

Ian Leslie has said the idea for the book came after the popularity of his Substack post “64 reasons to love Paul McCartney”. I found that interesting because he looked at McCartney from different angles, whereas […]

It seems to be at least an occasional source for hip hop. Kanye West used 21st Century Schizoid Man on Power. Even none more prog Gentle Giant have been sampled. Their song Proclamation provides the introduction […]

Yes, and I don’t think it was just progressive music that opened up music and the idea of art and literature having something to say about more about life than simply your background to me and a lot of friends. S […]

I remember a few comments at the time comparing Covid to the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, pointing out that afterwards there seemed almost an agreement to forget it, devastating though it had been. Novels, films and […]

I come from Gosport and when I was growing up the most famous musician from the town was Mike Hugg of Manfred Mann, whose family ran Hug’s the Jewellers in the High Street (that is the original spelling of his s […]

Every Sunday round here in North London, there are lots of people of all ages carrying guitar cases and trundling amplifiers on their way to rehearsals or lessons. And in the week, children with their guitars on […]

I think we might have slightly different tastes, but it’s always useful to have a few recommendations in the back of my mind for the next time I am at a loose end for something to read and take a wander around […]

Isn’t this thread, and this site in general, pretty much small talk?

I read contemporary fiction from time to time, mainly written in English, and some translations, but I usually find even the best a bit disappointing. It’s like contemporary jazz in that the artists have clearly s […]