Dit and indeed oh.

If it’s like the Vietnam ones the TV episodes are cut short. The Netflix episodes are twice the length!

His doc on prohibition was superb too.

Yes, I agree. The Icelandic String Quartet are superb too.

Dead right, the exception to my strings dislike is the whole area if soul music which seems to get it right where the rock n pop world just doesn’t.

Agreed. Generally lush strings make me feel queasy but George Martin’s arrangements, e.g. the octet on “Eleanor Right” are superb. Contrast with the syrupy glop ladled all over “The long and winding road” which is […]

Agree up to a point Mike but (say) Cream, Santana or The Allman Bros do very long extended solo workouts without a trace of jazz – they are just long solos. There’s no extended harmonic vocabulary on display, […]

I agree with most of the above. What I’d add is that jazz is a much more advanced and complex vocabulary than folk or pop or rock both in soloing and in chord progressions – for better or worse. Jazz players add […]

I really like “I’m alive” and can recommend this excellent DVD with the band from the album plus interview snippets. One of my better music DVDs (i.e. I actually watch it…).

Going Home [DVD] [2010] […]

6FU of course…

The Wire was very patchy. Series 5 was rubbish.

6FE relaunch was a couple of years ago now.

I enjoyed the relaunch series of Six Feet and bought the box of the original but there’s too much eye rolling, gurning and “sexy” chat. Embarrassing.

The dream stuff is weird but important.

It’s utterly brilliant. Can’t recommend highly enough. I rewatch it every couple of years and always find new things. Deserves its reputation. No shark jumping!

It was bloody depressing though, wasn’t it. We could only do one episode a night. Unbingeable. Also conformed to the BBC PC casting template which is always irritating.

Confusion reigns.

You’ve got me confused now. I’ve got an album by one of them anyway, the Arctic Monkeys bloke side project.

Agreed, it’s less confessional that its two predecessors – Sky and Pretender are almost painfully raw.

Looking hard into your eyes
There was nobody I’d ever known
Such an empty surprise to feel so alone…

How […]

The first JB album I bought on release, having got “Late for the sky” a few years after it came out (which is his masterpiece of course) and “The Pretender” shortly after. I really love ROE though – I know every […]

I saw them at Oxford Poly in (I think) 1979 just after the first album came out and they were great. I stood next to Paul Young in the queue at the bar – he is very tall. I saw Los Pacaminos at The Horn in St. […]