Musings on the byways of popular culture
by 12 Comments
For no other reason than the fact that this is an absolute belter of a tune that cannot fail to lift your spirits and make your feet jiggle, here’s a huge hero of mine, Martyn Bennett, with a song to fill your heart with gladness.
Please feel free to contribute to the sunny sum of human happiness by adding your own WAKE UP! choons in the comments.
Have a great day!
by 14 Comments
The latest indignity as part of the fallout from Cameron’s Folly. That lovely blue oval with golden stars surrounding the proud letters GB wil have to go before I can drive across the Emerald Isle once more. The number plate, with its Euroean band and a little version of GB must also be replaced. Halfords will be chuckling all the way to the bank. Good job my passport is now a deep shade of blue.
by 69 Comments
Apropos of nothing in particular except to say I hope everybody has a pleasant weekend.
This video of Gary Moore and pals rocking out Whiskey In The Jar is a belter.
Find your inner Saxondale, and post your own foot-tapping choice in the comments to hasten the weekend in.
by 54 Comments
@Pajp and @rigid-digit
As promised a step by step photo guide to how I save about 65% of my shelf space by re-sleeving my CDs ina bespoke stylee using 7in polythene singles sleeves repurposed for CDs such that nothing needs to be folded or cut in the process, and the hit-to-the-wallet is minimised compared to using commercially produced options.
The process is illustrated in the comments, as this is rather an image heavy post (er, obviously). Don’t click through if you are using a steam-powered browser and a dial-up modem connection.
/nerdy trivia mode
by 18 Comments
Pärson Sound. Anyone else enjoyed them? I’ve recently managed to source a copy of the CD reissue for a sensible amount of money (i.e. not via the dodgers) and as a consequence I am now selling all of my earthly possessions and heading overland to a remote ashram for chakra recovery and prolonged contemplative meditation.
Care to share your own favourite sonic recipes for mental stimulation and nicely disorienting confusion?
by 40 Comments
Amidst all of the ghastly carnage, the staggering levels of human failure, the awesome natural disasters, the inexorable iterative loss of our musical elders and the debasement of proper cricket, there’s still the balm of music to sooth our hearts. Give thanks and listen, oh ye faithful.
Here’s a lovely little number to start you off, and please feel free to add your own modicum of serenity and peace in the comments below.
by 18 Comments
I shouldn’t have to remind anyone based in the UK of the appalling fiasco of the Post Office’s flawed IT system called ‘Horizon’ that led to many of the Post Office’s subpostmaster employees being falsely accused, and often convicted, of stealing money from their sub-Post Office business accounts. The damage to individuals has been life changingly catastrophic. At least one suicide resulted.
Now that their collective legal challenge has finally won through, and that they can expect some form of financial compensation, the management of the Post Office at the time need to be seriously considered for prosecution on account of their awful, wicked behaviour throughout.
One woman was the chief executive who oversaw all of this and the subsequent cover-up. She’s also an ordained priest, but her moral convictions didn’t extend to offering her employees the benefit of the doubt, and didn’t prevent her from apparently telling fibs to a lot of people. She even got awarded a CBE for her ‘services’ to the nation. She’s a disgrace, and in my opinion ought to go to jail for this. There’s a petition trying to start the process by removing her gong. You may wish to add your signature.
by 8 Comments
I don’t buy much music as downloaded files, but I heard this and I wanted to be able to burn it onto a disc for the car; it’s absolutely brilliant. Can’t wait to get the full album when it becomes available.
https://matsulimusic.bandcamp.com/track/you-think-you-know-me-2
As you were.
by 93 Comments
Avoid predicting the outcome of the final, musing on the attacking play of the Italians, or imagining that Harry Maguire lamps Chiellini in the penalty area, just in case you jinx things.
Instead, in order to avoid becoming a hostage to fortune, use this all-purpose thread to post your vague musings on all manner of subjects. Indecipherable mumbo-jumbo. Random witterings about nothing in particular, or passionate cries for understanding about some irrational nonsense that’s important to you, though you have no idea why it is so.
Just don’t mention that game, ok?
by 76 Comments
What are you predicting the outcome will be? Enger-land to triumph, or more Danegeld to pay than Smaug’s horde?
by 196 Comments
I am not a sports fan. Generally speaking, I just let sporting things happen, somewhere over there. I may be aware of them but I don’t tune in. I certainly don’t participate.
I’m the kind of guy who usually tunes in for the big events only; the Six Nations, The Ashes, the Olympics, the World Cup, that kind of thing. I do a bit of reading up (ok, I just read the sports section in the Sunday papers – the only time I do that – the weekend before the event starts) and gently enjoy the spectacle. Mostly. After watching a game, or a day’s play, I flinch and desist from the achingly predictable return to stereotypical male behaviour surfaced at the next day’s video conferences, where I am suddenly in the presence of several deeply technical experts who waffle embarrassingly for ages before turning to the business of the day. So tedious. So boring. So sad. So infantile.
This last week or two, I’ve paid some attention to the Euro 2020 thing, watching more games of soccer than I’ve seen in the entirety of the last 12 months. On the whole, I’ve been underwhelmed by it all. So » Continue Reading.
by 87 Comments
The rabbit-in-the-headlights look started to fade once the vaccination programme started to gain traction (like the frightened sweatiness apparent on his boss’s face during the same period), but Hancock’s early misdemeanors and blatant incompetence have now been called out at some length.
Will he have to go? Will it wash with anyone if he doesn’t get the shove? Anyone else watching Cummings’ delicious character demolition of this sorry crowd of self-entitled tossers?
by 24 Comments
It must have been here, or at our previous gaff, that someone mentioned the fillum called ‘Coast To Coast’ which was made by the Beeb in 1987 featuring Lenny Henry, John Shea, Peter Vaughan, Pete Postlethwaite, Cherie Lunghi ,Edward Peel,Tony Haygarth,Bobby Knutt and Al Matthews.
The yarn is a nice old-fashioned fairly light hearted (not for all of the characters, it has to be said) gangster caper. What really makes it shine is the outstanding soundtrack. But that’s also the reason why it’s only ever been broadcast, it’s never been released on a keep-your-own-copy medium; the copyright lawyers have seen to that. Which is a travesty – it’s well worth an hour and a bit of your time, and has a huge toe-tapping potential along the way:
“Ain’t That Peculiar” by Marvin Gaye “Heaven Must Have Sent You” by The Elgins “Money” by Barratt Strong “It Should’ve Been Me” by Gladys Knight “It’s the Same Old Song” by Four tops “Just a Little Misunderstanding” by The Contours “Going to a Go-Go” by The Miracles “Danger Heartache Dead Ahead” by The Marvelettes “Nowhere to Run” by Martha & The Vandellas “(I’m a) Road Runner” by Junior Walker & The » Continue Reading.
by 30 Comments
For lo! it’s Saint Ian’s Day! ROCK AND ROLL!!! it is the Eighth of May.
OVERLOAD! Everything up to ELEVEN!
Your best heavyweight bangers please!
by 40 Comments
Dunno about you, but I love the stuff I’ve been introduced to via the Afterword CD Swaps over the last few years. And it’s not just the music that’s been great (well, mostly) it’s also been the packaging. In fact, the best CD cover I own is the one that came on a swap CD. It’s hand knitted!
So the question is, are our Swap overseers sufficiently recovered from the last outing to launch us into another three-way musical adventure? And are there sufficient participants eager to join in and make it a worthwhile exercise?
Whaddya think?
by 2 Comments
This just in by email: “Matsuli Music is proud to be releasing Gideon Plays by Gideon Nxumalo. This 1968 album might just be the most mythologised and sought-after LP in the whole South African canon. A sophisticated bop excursion with a distinctive African edge, it was Nxumalo’s second LP as leader.”
Album link: matsulimusic.bandcamp.com/album/gideon-plays
/PSA
by 14 Comments
This is an ATM really, and it’s a bit UK specific. Can anyone offer any insight or advice as regards selecting an umbrella company to sign up with for the duration of a contract of work?
I’m about to embark upon a short contract that’s ‘inside IR35’ (i.e. I have to be an employee, and pay tax via PAYE rather than pay various taxes via my Ltd. Company).
I’ve been sent a list of ‘approved’ umbrella companies’ by the agency, but they all look like a bunch of parasites and sharks, from what I can glean online (at Companies House and suchlike).
Can anyone suggest a decent, honest lot that they’ve used themselves?
by 10 Comments
…when you stumble upon a band whose name you remember from yonks back, but whose music you’ve never heard before, and then you do hear them play and they turn out to be stonkingly, astonishingly brilliant?
Ladeesungennlmun, I give you The Sadistic Mika Band on the Old Gley (yes) Whistle Test:
Try buying their albums and they are staggeringly hard to find at sensible prices. Re-issues please! Are you listening Cherry Red?
by 85 Comments
The Foxes both got stabbed in the arm yesterday afternoon by a very nice NHS nurse wielding a vaccination in a syringe. We got our first doses of the Oxford/AstraZenica version.
The whole process was incredibly well orchestrated – easy parking, easy progress through varying levels of interrogation, four separate hand-sanitising moments as you wander through and then a swift chat with a nurse about underlying medical things, any unexplained recent symptoms and so on – just what you’d expect before getting the needle. Finally, the jab stage where you get given a neat little card with the batch number and the type of vaccine recorded, so that you can be sure to get the right stage two jab in a few weeks’ time. Another nurse rolls your sleeve up and administers the vaccine in your arm of choice and it’s all over. The procession through the process reminded me in some way of going to Santa’s Grotto in Dingles at Christmas when I was five.
Despite fairly sober warnings from the nurses that ‘a lot’ of people have reported feeling distinctly fluish for a couple of days, all I’ve experienced – so far – is a bruised ache » Continue Reading.
by 42 Comments
Blaady heck. I just got home from a few months working away. The cruise ship we were all isolated on was tied up in Menorca, so I got to go home at last. But by mistake, when I got here I put ‘Mallorca’ on the bleedin’ form, probably ‘cos I was a bit hung over and confused. Now I’m doing a ten stretch! Help!
by 43 Comments
Fifty years since the earth moved for thousands of us who discovered the glories of the album Tapestry. All those decades, and few records since have approached anywhere near it for personal warmth and sympathetic humanity. Hepworth obviously appreciates its particular genius, as do I.
For any other lovers of that place and time, seek out the article and have a wallow with David; it’s a timely reminder of when music was both more important to young people in general, and less starkly manipulative, less part of a cynical dedication to consumptive behaviour for the sake of it. What is more, it’s a reminder of how a great artist can fashion something worthwhile and lasting, something that speaks to human ears even a half century later, and beyond.
by 49 Comments
Well, that’s progress! Yay! Blinding logic from HM Gov. Up to 15 of us can swap viral loads without fear of fines – it’s an £800 wallop for everyone if a 16th person gets past the front door, so we’ll need someone scary to stay in the hallway and look mean. I’ve got some lights for the front room, and a load of mixtapes that will keep us hyperventilating till dawn. Bangin’ choons, breathin’ germs, sharin’ the Covid load.
What planet is she from?
by 20 Comments
Apols if this has been linked here before – if it has, I missed it, and just stumbled across it on ver Tube. It’s a nice half hour of Robert Fripp talking intelligently about his career to date.
by 3 Comments
I just blew what may well be my last Prime purchase – I’m binning the service from tomorrow as I never use anything except the free delivery, and that’s no longer really worth the 80 sovs – by pre-ordering the hotly anticipated (by me anyway) new album from Del Amitri.
To my delight I noticed that if you pre-order it there are a limited number of signed copies on offer. I expect that @Dave-amitri already has his order in, but if you don’t, now is the time to place one.
by 40 Comments
Farewell Gerry, and thanks so much for the tunes. Recording in Abbey road, working with Brian Epstein and George Martin, you were one of the first wave of the Mersey artists who broke free and gave us all your scouse magic. RIP
