New Amusements: 2024

Sunday, 15 December 2024

Was That The Year That Was? 2024

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

This would normally be the fourteenth time I've recapped a year like this (for completists, here are the others) ... but here's the thing. As you'll remember from this, I've been on a blogging sabbatical, and every post you've read here in 2024 was actually written and scheduled during December of last year. So how can I recap the year, twelve months in advance?

Well, I can't, obviously. Instead, as 2023 draws to a close (This might get confusing - Ed.), I'm going to write about the things I'm maybe looking forward to for 2024 and then, when this actually gets published in twelve months time, maybe I'll drop into my own comments section and update with how reality compared with hope. Because there's always hope, right? Even for this desperate blog...

So enough prevarication - let's get the crystal ball out.

Best album?

The Libertines, All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade

Well, if the advance singles are anything to go by (especially Night of the Hunter), then the forthcoming Libertines album All Quiet On The Eastern Esplanade might be alright, and certainly better than the health of its chief protagonists might have led us to hope. What else? Well, by the law of averages Paul Weller will probably have a new album at some point in the year, that I will inevitably buy and find something to like on. And this is in hope rather than expectation but I wouldn't mind another solo album from Graham Coxon, but I might be pissing in the wind on that score. Who knows?

Best song?

This looking forward lark is hard. Most of the new songs that have featured on this blog in recent years have been serendipitous finds, and how do you predict that? So I'm going to take an absolute punt and say that my best song of 2024 will be something I haven't heard even a snippet of yet, by some band that is completely new to me, and will probably be on Bandcamp. I know, brilliant insight, eh? Bet you're glad to be reading this...

Best gig?

Well, this might be a little easier to look forward to, because I've already started booking tickets and planning trips. For example, I already know that I will be seeing The Smyths and From The Jam, and I can confidently state that I will enjoy both very much. I hope to see Sea Power too, touring the anniversary of Do You Like Rock Music? (which is on the Every Home Should Have One masterlist, lest we forget), although the nearest they come to me is on Valentine's day, so that might prove challenging, let's say. There's a chance I may also get to the Suede and Manics double-header tour, which is bound to be something, plus I note Pixies are touring briefly, playing Bossanova and Trompe le Monde in full. Plus hopefully there will also be some festival action, either Latitude (with Duran Duran headlining one day, no less) or CarFest. So there's lots of potential here, basically. More good gigs to go to than I can realistically afford. And I haven't even mentioned the annual pilgrimage to see The Wedding Present, which is bound to happen at some point...

Best book?

Another one that's hard to predict. I know that Stephen King has a new collection of short stories coming out in May, because I've already pre-ordered You Like It Darker. And I already know that I will like most if not all of it, because I always do - even when he's not firing on all cylinders King keeps the pages turning like few other authors do for me. I'd also love it if there was also something new from the simply wonderful Sadie Jones and the criminally underrated Michelle Paver, because I love their respective bodies of work. It might be a bit soon after Amy & Lan for Sadie, but there hasn't been any new adult fiction from Michelle since Wakenhyrst, so fingers crossed there...

Best film?

I'm going to cheat a bit here because Wonka has just come out at the time of writing, but I haven't seen it yet. Based on trailers and the fact that the team behind it gave us the Paddington movies, I'm not really going out on much of a limb here when I predict it will be quite good. But what else? Well, novelist-turned-director Alex Garland's new film Civil War looks interesting (and hopefully not prescient), and stuntman-turned-director David Leitch is bringing The Fall Guy to the big screen, hopefully without dumping on our childhood memories (I'd like a Lee Majors cameo please, David). Amy Winehouse biopic Back to Black will either be terrible or excellent, as will Beverley Hills Cop: Axel F (yes, really). Actually, 2024 looks like being the peak year of sequels, most of which, on paper, leave you scratching your head and wondering "why?" and "please don't be terrible", to whit: Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Beetlejuice 2 (only 30 years too late), Joker: Folie a Deux, Gladiator 2 (yep, really), and an as yet untitled Alien franchise movie. Leave the horse alone, why don't you, it's dead already... And director Richard Eggers is remaking Nosferatu for 2024 ... really, what could go wrong? Oh, and spoiler alert from December 2023 - I don't actually get to the cinema very much any more, so I probably won't even see half of these. Boo.

Best television?

Well, I'm going to need something new to fill the holes in my televisual life left by Ghosts and, since I've just given up my Disney+ subscription because of ridiculous price hikes, Only Murders In The Building. I don't yet know what that something will be. The final series of Stranger Things is coming, and had better arrive in 2024, else the young cast will all be too grown to pass for teenagers. The second series of Wednesday is coming too - so far, so Netflix. In the interests of balance, apparently Blade Runner 2099 is coming to the small screen courtesy of Amazon Prime, with Ridley Scott involved, so hopefully that will be good. Oh, and there's a live action version of Avatar: The Last Airbender coming too (Netflix again) that will be a must-watch for Amusements Minor (and, by extension, me), so hopefully that is better than the famously awful film adaptation from 2010. On terrestrial TV (do people still say that?), the BBC brings us series two of The Tourist, which I plan to watch, and the intriguing premise of Nightsleeper, a six-part real-time thriller set on a sleeper train from Glasgow to London. I have high hopes for that.

Best sport?

Well, I'm going to go out on another limb here and predict that the best sport of the year will also, in a way, be the worst, as England threaten to win the Euros but ultimately fall agonisingly short, probably on penalties. Staying with football, I'm hoping for a Liverpool title in the Premier League, but won't mind if it's Arsenal, not least because my old man's a Gooner. Moving down the pyramid, I'm also hoping that Norwich City will somehow (and despite themselves) sneak into the play-offs, but if so they'll undoubtedly revert to form and miss out, whilst watching their noisy neighbours from down the road get promoted as champions. Sigh. In other sport, I hope that Ronnie O'Sullivan prevails at the snooker world championships in May, to stand alone on eight titles in the modern era. And I'm praying for some kind of comeback from Emma Raducanu - such talent, such promise, hopefully to re-emerge in 2024. And of course it's an Olympic year, so I'm hoping that Katarina Johnson-Thompson scoops the heptathlon gold her career so richly deserves. Oh, and is one more title for Lewis Hamilton too much to ask? Probably, but it doesn't hurt to hope.

Person of the year?

Well, it's Keir Starmer, hopefully. Since the next general election must take place on or before the 28th of January 2025 at the very latest, I really need Keir to have a good year, because we need the Tories out more than ever. I know Starmer is not perfect, occasionally misses open goals, and perhaps lacks some charisma ... but I also think he is, at a fundamental level, a decent man, and that's what we need right now. So here's to a year of no gaffes, no own goals and no scandal, a year of side-stepping the offensives the right-wing press will inevitably launch against him, a year of Labour by-election victories and Conservative implosion, and a year that ultimately culminates in a landslide electoral triumph, with a compassionate party of the people back in government, where they remain for a generation. Fingers crossed. Meanwhile, internationally, I'm also desperately hoping Joe Biden has a good year because otherwise...

Tool of the year?

As I type this post, at the tail-end of 2023, I have an awful and inescapable fear that repugnant man-child and morality-vacuum Orange Don will somehow evade all attempts to rein him in, whether in the courts or in the Republican party, and that not only will he contest the 2024 presidential election as a free man but that he will also win it. It chills my heart to think of him back in power, but I can see it happening, I really can. I just pray that in the twelve months that elapse between me writing this and you reading it, something legal, conclusive and incontrovertilbe happens to prevent him: either he is convicted of something, or the Republican party realise they don't have to remain in his thrall, or the Democrats find a way to beat him, or the US electorate come to their senses. I can't think of too many things more dangerous for the world than a stupid, immoral, entitled person with ultimate power but little accountability and even less care. It is a hideous, but very real, prospect for us all.

Well, that's the future foretold. Hardly a cheery note to end on, but really, what else did you expect from me? I wonder what you'll make of all this in December '24? Blimey, I wonder what I'll even make of it...

Monday, 9 December 2024

People skills

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

'Tis the season. The workplace Christmas "do" season, that is. This, from David Mitchell and Robert Webb, is for anyone with/without people skills, who loves/hates mingling at social events. You know who you are.

May not be entirely SFW, linguistically.

"...as relaxed and friendly as a serial killer doing a police interview whilst still wearing his last victim's skin." Genius.

Monday, 2 December 2024

I'm in the final now, you know

I had hoped not to have to break my sabbatical for any more RIP posts this year but sadly I have to, for one of my first sporting heroes has passed away.

Terry Griffiths was a coal miner, bus conductor, postman and insurance salesman before trying his hand on the professional snooker circuit. He'd had a very successful amateur career but it wasn't until he turned 30 that he thought the sport might be able to support him and his young family. At the time he gave himself three years to make a go of it.

In 1979 he won the world championship at his first attempt, beating Dennis Taylor 24-16 in the final (the last year it was played over so many frames). This was only his second professional tournament, and in winning it Terry became only the second qualifier to scoop the world title (after Alex Higgins in 1972). He went on to win many other tournaments, and became only the second player (I think) to complete snooker's triple crown of world, UK and Masters titles. There are still only eleven players to have done this. He would have won so many more titles too, if not for a certain Steve Davis. Terry once said that, after losing 13-10 to Steve in the 1980 world championships, he had to contend with the idea that there might be someone better at snooker than him ... and he found that hard to accept. Over the years that followed he tried everything to keep up with Davis, tweaking his technique and altering his stance, all in pursuit of technical perfection. In the 1982 season Steve and Terry contested five major ranking event finals - Steve won three, Terry two. But this pursuit of technique kerbed Terry's natural free-flowing play and he became the methodical player he is somewhat sadly remembered as now, as known for slow play and late-night finishes as he should be for his tournament successes in snooker's golden era.

As a boy growing up in the 70s and 80s, yes, I had Kenny Dalglish on my wall but I had Terry's books Championship Snooker and, later, Complete Snooker on my shelf. I read and re-read them, and learnt to play the game from them, and from him. My first cue had Terry's name stencilled on the side. My interest in the technical side of the game was all from him. The occasions I met him, got his autograph, left long and lasting impressions. My love of the green baize has lasted ever since, even if failing eye-sight means I can't play as well as I used to.

With pleasing symmetry, Terry ended his professional playing career by qualifiying for the world championships in 1997, where he was drawn to play fellow Welshman Mark Williams. Terry lost 10-9, though had chances to win what would have been a tremendous upset. I don't think Terry would have been too upset though, as he had been coaching Mark up to that point. I think he would just have enjoyed playing at the Crucible one last time. Coaching became his career from then on, and the list of top players he worked with is as long as your arm. Interestingly, over time his coaching became more about the psychology of the sport than the technical - it is, after all, the cruel game. Maybe that's why Terry never achieved quite as much as his talent deserved - you won't find anyone in world snooker with a single bad word to say about him.

Terry's family announced his death yesterday. He was 77, and had suffered with dementia in the last years of his life. Of course the Beeb and the Grauniad have obits, but for me he'll always be more than just the sum of his professional record. To me, he was a genuine sporting hero. I wanted to do what he did, and I wanted to play like him - not Davis, not Higgins, not White, not anybody else. I'm not likely to ever improve on my highest break, not with these eyes, but if I ever did, even now, it'll still be down to him.

I'll just leave you with this video of Terry returning to the Crucible, 40 years after his world championship win, and then a clip of him doing what he did best, in a different age. RIP Griff, and thank you.

Sunday, 1 December 2024

Saving you from Mariah

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

Those that have been reading this for a long time will remember that I used to make musical Advent calendars for the blog. Well, they were a lot of hard work in terms of coding, so I don't do them anymore.

Instead, to save you from overdosing on Mariah, Wizzard, Slade and the rest, here's a list of the less commonly heard festive songs that filled those old calendars, plus a few extras that I've posted in the years since, all with clickable links...

76 songs! More than enough to get you through even the dullest works do...

Friday, 29 November 2024

Do I Belong Here?

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

It's a little over a year since bass player, backing vocalist and setlist compiler Melanie Howard left The Wedding Present for reasons as yet unknown. Mel's husband Nick Wellauer, the band's then-drummer, left too. Reading between those lines, it is easy and perhaps tempting to surmise that it wasn't an entirely amicable or positive separation. In her statement at the time, Mel talked of refocusing on her solo career as Such Small Hands in the future. Let's hope so, because she is such a talent.

Take today's track, for example. It's an acoustic rendition of Do I Belong Here? from the 2021 Raw Home Sessions version of Carousel. Mel herself described it thus:

Each song is just my voice and my guitar, recorded down one microphone across two afternoons in March, while my cat snoozed next to me in my living room.
I attempted to do everything in one take and keep it as ‘live’ and unedited as possible (with the exception of an odd couple of harmonies and extra parts) - as if the listener was there in the room with me - and so I have intentionally left in any little imperfections because I felt it was more authentic.

To which I will only add, it's beautiful. Sublime, even.

More than a year later, I remain gutted that Mel left The Wedding Present, because she really added to it, giving lie to the old joke that the band is simply "Gedge & three other people". Still, she lasted about five and a half years, which is more than most people do at the Gedge of the sea. Don't keep us waiting too long for new solo material please, Mel.

Wednesday, 27 November 2024

And it's so far...

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

It's easy to look up lyrics these days - a mouse-click or two and it's done. Not so easy 40 years ago, of course, particularly for the sorts of songs that weren't having their lyrics printed in Smash Hits.

Here's one such - Letter Never Sent, by REM. Back then, Stipe's lyrics were wilfully obscure and to sing along the 80s indie boy would often have to content himself with just making the right basic noises - all vowel sounds, mumbling and onomatopoeia.

Here are the lyrics, if you're interested after 40 years. Potentially more interesting: have you ever written a letter and then not sent it? Why not? And who was it to?

Thursday, 21 November 2024

Mistaken identities

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

You know when you can hear a radio on somewhere in the distance, close enough to just about hear but not close enough to really make out?

I heard a radio from afar last night, and although it was really beyond the range of my age-afflicted, gig-damaged hearing, I could make out enough of the rhythm and chord changes of what I took to be the first verse or two to be able to identify it as She's A Star by James ... or so I thought.

So there I was, happily la-la-lahing along (in my head, naturally), until the distant FM fuzz got to what sounded like the middle eight, and I realised it wasn't Tim Booth I was lah-ing along with. So I had to go and track down the radio to see what had such a fundamental similarity. And this is what I found.

Okay, half-close your ears, imagine you can only hear the rhythm section chug and basic chords, and tell me Float On by Modest Mouse doesn't sound like the verses of the James track? Or is it just me?

It's just me, isn't it? It ususally is.

Of course it wouldn't be so bad if this was a unique occurrence. However, not so long ago I could just make out enough percussion from a distant radio to think I was half-hearing the intro to Close To Me by The Cure. Reader, I regret to inform you it was Footloose by Kenny Loggins... time for a hearing aid?

Friday, 15 November 2024

Blue Friday: Bluer Than Midnight

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

You might think, on first listen, that this is an upbeat song. Those piano chord progressions sound quite positive, don't they. But the lyrics ... oh, the lyrics.

Save me, save me, save me
Save me, save me, save me

The candles are lit, the curtains are drawn
There's still no sign of rain nor dawn
Our lips touch, our limbs entwine
But the ghosts that haunt me won't leave my mind

Save me, save me, save me
Save me, save me, from myself

One sin leads to another one
Oh, the harder I try
I can never, never, never find peace in this life
I ask myself where does lust come from
Is it something to yield to or be overcome
I ask myself
Why love can never touch my heart like fear does
Why can't love ever touch my heart like fear does?

Friday, 8 November 2024

Blue Friday: Myth

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

There's a hypnotic quality to Myth by Beach House that feels somehow perfect for autumn - music to watch leaves fall by, perhaps?

Wednesday, 6 November 2024

Liberty at a loss

Tuesday, 5 November 2024

A new hope

A sabbatical breaking post, but important given what's going on across the pond today.

This poster from artist Shepard Fairey isn't quite as striking as the now-iconic Hope poster he created for Obama's 2008 campaign. That said, it is, like Kamala Harris, the best we have.

Fingers crossed for today. Let's hope the orange man-baby retires from all walks of public life after this. Maybe leave politics and world affairs to the grown-ups, eh Don?

Sunday, 3 November 2024

A triple whammy from Uncle Bill

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

On this day in 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first ever living creature into space. Laika the dog (or "an experimental animal", as Moscow Radio described her at the time) was projected into orbit from the Baikonur Cosmodrome aboard the satellite Sputnik II, inside a hermetically-sealed container with oxygen and food supplies. The date of the launch was chosen to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution, and whilst sending a living creature into space was certainly a propaganda coup, animal welfare organisations were not impressed. The Soviet authorities said Laika died painlessly after a week in orbit but in 2002 new evidence revealed the dog died from over-heating and panic just a few hours after take-off. For Laika, briefly the most famous dog in the world, the space race was most definitely over.

On this day in 1975, the late Queen formally opened the UK's first North Sea oil pipeline, serving the Forties oilfield. Far from donning a hardhat and turning a giant wheel to do this, Liz simply had to press a gold-plated button. BP were opening up the North Sea with the help of a £370 million loan from the government - that's the best part of three billion in today's money. And all so that we could chase the dream of energy independence. How'd that work out, anybody know?

On this day in 2004, George W Bush won a second term in office as US president. At the time we thought him beyond satire, and couldn't conceive of a worse candidate for leader of the free world. Meanwhile, Orange Don was making notes and probably thinking, "Hold my beer. It's a great beer, the greatest beer ever. You don't even like other beer, that's fake news and the mainstream media." God help us.

Thursday, 31 October 2024

Pioneering

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

If you can't post some minor key menace and unsettling vibes on All Hallows' Eve, when can you?

This is Pioneer to the Falls by Interpol, from their 2007 album Our Love To Admire ... and it sounds massive, still.

Wednesday, 30 October 2024

This is how I will remember her

An unscheduled RIP post for actress Teri Garr, who has died after a long battle with MS.

She had a long and varied career, often in light, comedic roles, but this is how I will remember her - the put-upon, long-suffering Ronnie Neary in Spielberg's excellent Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Teri Garr in 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'

As ever, the Beeb has a proper obit. RIP.

Friday, 25 October 2024

Can't Help Thinking About Me

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

Someone who knows better will probably correct me, but I think this was just about the first song he recorded as David Bowie (rather than as Jones or under any other name), in 1966. The version featured here, however, was recorded and broadcast on this exact day in 1999, on the Mark Radcliffe show on Radio 1. And it's ace.

Friday, 18 October 2024

Blue Friday: Plainclothes Man

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

This is Plainclothes Man from Heatmiser's final album, 1996's Mic City Sons. If you think the singer looks and sounds like the patron saint of this series, Elliott Smith, well done you, for it was he.

Tuesday, 15 October 2024

"Don't worry, it's not..."

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

So said BBC TV weatherman Michael Fish 37 years ago today, in response to a caller to the station who'd enquired about French weather warnings that a hurricane was on its way.

Of course it was on its way and if, like me, you lived in East Kent you were in for a hell of a night. I woke at around 2am - the power was already off, and the noise! The continuous booming roar of the wind was beyond my sleep-addled, teenage comprehension, to the extent that my first thought was that a nuclear bomb had been dropped close by and this was the shockwave. I know, I know, but I couldn't understand what else would have the power to shake the house like that, and Glasnost was still a couple of years away, after all.

The next morning I discovered a hole in the outside of my bedroom wall, where a roof tile from next door had blown across two driveways and embedded itself in our pebbledash. I also spent some time gathering the remains of our greenhouse, which was in bits all over the garden, before exploring the neighbouring hospital, the hill-top wooded grounds of which were decimated. A particularly massive beech tree had gone over on the print shop, completely destroying it, as I recall. My dad worked at the hospital and had walked to work in pitch darkness at 5am, clambering over fallen trees to get there. He also tells the tale of dodging empty milk bottles as the wind picked them up and blew them horizontally across a yard, like little glass missiles.

I'm not going to embed the Michael Fish clip - we've all seen it before, and it seems very harsh on him. But here he (sort of) is a year later, immortalised in song with a clutch of his meteorological mates. With bonus Wogan content!

By the way, A Tribe of Toffs didn't get the Christmas Number One, in the end, despite the appearance on primetime Wogan - this peaked at 21.

Thursday, 10 October 2024

42 years ago

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

The Internet (never wrong, right?) tells me that this is the earliest professionally shot gig footage of Athens' finest, REM. Recorded on the 10th of October 1982 at the Pier Club in the Cameron Village Underground, Raleigh, by cable channel WYFF-TV of Greenville, South Carolina ("your friend"), this is less than two months after the band's debut EP Chronic Town was released.

The audio has been EQ'ed to within an inch of its life, in a manner that may or may not be to your taste. What's undeniable, though, is the brilliance of both the setlist and the general time-capsulism of this absolute gem of a find. Completists should also note the moment the band's early producer Mitch Easter joins them on second guitar for 1,000,000.

I saw REM live twice, in the blistering heat of the Milton Keynes Bowl in 1995, and in a football stadium (of sorts) in 2005. But oh, to have seen them like this...

Saturday, 5 October 2024

Getting away with it ... all my life

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

I'll be honest, I struggled a bit with Electronic at the time. I didn't really want Johnny Marr songs to sound like New Order, and I definitely didn't want them to sound like The Pet Shop Boys. I was then, as now, more than a little parochial in my tastes, and, if truth be told, was probably not handling the end of The Smiths very well. I tried though, helped by seeing Getting Away With It on 7" for 49p in the Woolworths' bargain bin. I still have that, of course. The vinyl is in great nick, because I didn't play it very often, though the sleeve suffered at Woolies before I got my hands on it, sadly. And it was a great, striking sleeve.

Note the short-lived exclamation mark after the band name

Looking back, I can view Electronic in a kinder light. Certainly kind enough to have invested in their retrospective best of, Get The Message. You could do a lot worse, you really could.

Johnny is barely in this video, a fact I might have appreciated at the time. He does contribute a lovely solo in the middle though. Plus the chorus to this has that killer "clear to see" couplet. All together now...

Sunday, 29 September 2024

Sunday short: 40 Second Song

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

As you can tell from the thumbnail, this little REM curio is from the Out Of Time era. Specifically, it got released as a CD-single filler track for Shiny Happy People. And despite the title, it's about 80 seconds long. Maybe they ran through it twice?

Monday, 23 September 2024

Monday long song: 32 Flavors

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

What do Ray Charles, Bruce Springsteen and Ani DiFranco all have in common? They were all born on 23rd September... so happy birthday. I guess. Others will no doubt write about Brother Ray and The Boss, so I'll go with Ani.

32 Flavors is from Ani's 1995 album Not A Pretty Girl, and takes a pretty direct aim at society's evaluations and expectations of women.

Ani's Wikipedia page is also quite informative - she has been, as Billy Bragg would say, active with the activists. More power to her.

Monday, 16 September 2024

Wiped out

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

It's getting on for thirty years (okay, it's 29) since I first played Wipeout with my excellent friend Tim. The basic premise was ... well, you raced anti-gravity ships around tracks, picking up weapons and other enhancements as you went, and tried very hard to be faster than the computer-driven opponents. The graphics and speed of play were literal game changers back in 1995. As was the soundtrack, which included a selection of high-octance dance tracks. We almost always raced to Chemical Beats by The Chemical Brothers, over and over again, for hours at a time, into the small of the night.

There's a moment from about 2:10 in this where Ed and Tom introduce a sort of protracted phasing of the top-line melody, producing something akin to a Doppler shift. On our favourite race track, this would usually line up with an echoey section of tunnel, in a way that just seemed so very ... right.

Two years later, the sequel came out (Wipeout 2097) and from then we raced almost exclusively to an instrumental mix of Firestarter by The Prodigy. A better track, in most objective terms, but not quite as good for anti-gravity racing (although the intro was great on the starting grid). This little clip gives you a sense of late 90s gameplay, although I can't help but point out the player here, whoever they are, misses the turbo start off the line. Rookie error.

Monday, 9 September 2024

Finally

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

I've been blogging for nineteen and a half years and yet somehow this is the first time I've managed to feature this track on the 9th of September. Honestly. Someone should have a word with my line-manager.

All the way from 1983, this is 9-9 by REM. To my ears it still sounds fresh, different and just plain unusual now, more than 40 years later. Imagine how it must have sounded at the time...

Friday, 6 September 2024

The Big Noise

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

Remember when broadsheet newspapers used to give CDs away at weekends? Those were good times, weren't they? So often the source of new music or, as is the case for this post, rare tracks or curios from established acts.

All of which pre-amble leads us to a cardboard slipcased CD entitled The Big Noise, given away by The Guardian exactly 21 years ago today. It was produced in collaboration with Oxfam, to highlight the latter’s “Make Trade Fair” campaign. Amongst other things, the CD included tracks from Coldplay, Lemon Jelly, The Chemical Brothers, Mali Music (featuring Damon Albarn and Afel Bocoum), The Sakala Brothers and Ladysmith Black Mambazo (featuring, somewhat incredibly, Archbishop Desmond Tutu). That's quite the line-up. However, it was the other two tracks I was interested in. First up, a rare-ish demo version of Where I End And You Begin by Radiohead.

And as if that wasn't enough, there was also a rare-ish live recording of The Lifting from REM. Originally the opening track on the album Reveal, this version was recorded live by Pat McCarthy at the Museum of Television and Radio, New York City, on May 18th, 2001 (four days after Reveal was released).

There, that was good, wasn't it? Which did you prefer? I miss free CDs... I miss broadsheet freebies in general... but then, what don't I miss? Sigh.

Friday, 30 August 2024

Blue Friday: The Other Woman

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

Lana Del Rey's voice belongs to another time. We're lucky to have her now.

Monday, 26 August 2024

"Some of us need to be background scenery"

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

...in which I continue my quest to bring Glenn Donaldson (for he is The Reds, Pinks and Purples) to a wider audience.

Friday, 23 August 2024

Blue Friday: Johannesburg

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

I haven't listened to this for an absolute age but by Christ it's a beautiful, sad thing.

And because I spoil you, and you can't have too much Housemartins in your life, here's a bonus live version from the best part of 37 years ago, highlighting young Paul's excellent vocals.

Sunday, 18 August 2024

Must be funny

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

Whilst browsing through the sad-looking racks of CDs in a charity shop recently, I happened upon a compilation album of various artists covering Abba. Somewhat unimaginatively, it was called Abbamania. It dated from 1999, a fact very much reflected in its roster of artistes: Steps, Westlife, S Club 7, B*Witched, Stephen Gateley, Martin McCutcheon, Denise Van Outen... Heaven help us, right?

Except there at track one, and completely at odds with all the bands and singers I've just mentioned, were Madness. Not peak Madness from the early 80s, not national treasure Madness from the 21st Century, but inbetween Madness. Indeed, some more cynical than I might suggest that their involvement could have been something to do with the need to promote Wonderful, their first new album in fourteen years, but I'm sure that wasn't the case, and that the Nutty Boys had all been devoted fans of Sweden's greatest export since 1974.

Either way, it transpires that the whole project, and all the covers on the CD, were recorded for an ITV special of the same name. Unsurprisingly, this completely passed me by at the time. But I have always liked Madness, and so felt duty bound to find their cover on YouTube ... and it's alright. Not spectacular, not terrible, just a bit predictable, I guess. Anyway, since it might have passed you by in 1999 too, here it is. Enjoy, maybe.

Tuesday, 13 August 2024

Southpaw

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

Yes, more Gene, following on from last week's post. No apologies from me, I loved them then and love them still.

Right, disclaimer done. So, would you believe it, today is International Left-Handers Day. No, me neither, but apparently it was started by American Dean R. Campbell in 1976. More interestingly, and beating Campbell by some eight years, Anything Left-Handed is one of the oldest left-handed stores in the world, founded in London in 1968. They have even run a Left-Handers Club since 1990, which may be of interest to the southpaws among you.

"It's hard to be left-handed," sang Gene in the mid-90s. They clearly hadn't joined the club ... or perhaps it was just a metaphor, eh? Regardless, I need no excuse to post this excellent live performance from them on Mark Radcliffe's much-missed show The White Room. Guitarist Steve Mason in particular gives it the beans here. For all the disproportionately high number of lefties in my life...

What a band.

Friday, 9 August 2024

Blue Friday: Supermarket Bombscare

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

Three and a half wonderful minutes from Gene that will perhaps be new to the casual fan. This is the b-side of the band's penultimate single, Is It Over?

Time was nearly up for Gene, we just didn't know it at the time. Still missed, by me and TMOC at least.

Sunday, 4 August 2024

Gimme shelter

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

I don't think this quite qualifies as timeless but it does feel a little like it could be from any year between 1966 and now. In fact, it is from 2012, and is Shelter Song by Temples, Kettering's finest sons. They're still plying their trade, by all accounts, but I doubt they've topped this, still. Is it homage or pastiche? You decide.

Thursday, 1 August 2024

"Under my bed I keep a steak knife"

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

Don't worry, people. I put that in quotes so you know's it's not me with a serrated edge beneath the mattress. This is Checking Out by Divorce, and it's terrific. I don't know how to ~~pigeonhole~~ describe Divorce - alt-country? Indie-rock? Post-modern ... something? It doesn't matter, I guess. You might find more clues over at their Bandcamp page. What I can tell you is that they are a four-piece from Nottingham, not Nashville as parts of this song might suggest. Checking Out comes from their debut EP, last year's Get Mean, and tells a brilliant, if dark, short story of spousal abuse and a blood-soaked solution.

So, a great video too. Anyway, here's the short story. Sorry, the lyrics.

Bobby works on weekends
And he's got a good hand
But he never keeps his promises
And I'm getting pretty tired of staying up

In the middle of the night
I smell the guilt on him as he
Smothers me with buffers and his
Winter coat that he just won't take off

"Bobby where are you going?
I've got work first thing in the morning"
But he didn't bother answering
Just turned and headed for the door

Under my bed
I keep a steak knife
These kids broke in six months ago
I guess it made me feel a little bold

Your leaving
Made me so uneasy

That I should learn to love myself without a reason or a doubt
And he's always coming in as I'm checking out

I didn't do it gently
Lord knows the man is heavy
But I think I hit an artery
So he never came to get me

Watching him slip
Got pretty tiresome
So I sat down and watched TV
As he finished ruining my mother's carpet

"Bobby look!" (Bobby look!, Bobby look!)
Its the show we liked
When you stopped coming home on weekdays
And I sat alone here every night

Oh baby
I see pretty clearly

That I should learn to love myself without a reason or a doubt
And he's always coming in as I'm checking out

Oh I should learn to love myself without a reason or a doubt
And he's always coming in as I'm checking out
And he's always coming in as I'm checking out
And he's always coming in as I'm checking out

There's nothing but the rain
To wash the blood away
And all those old mistakes
Baby they burn with you today

There's nothing like the rain
To wash the blood away
And all those old mistakes
Baby they burn with you today

There's nothing like the rain
To wash the blood away
And all those old mistakes
Baby they burn with you today

There's nothing like the rain
To wash the blood away

Friday, 26 July 2024

Every day...

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

Having just written about school days, it seems appropriate to remind myself that every day's a school day, still.

I had a bloke in my team at work once who loved Electric Six. He wasn't there for long, just maternity leave cover for one of my regular staff, but to help find some common ground and establish a talking point I thought I'd put the effort in, have a listen and see why he liked them so. Prior to that the only Electric Six tracks I really knew were Danger! High Voltage, which I liked well enough, and Gay Bar, which I thought was okay.

After the requisite amount of YouTubing, I gave up on my conversation-starter project, because I decided I didn't have much time for Electric Six. Also, I couldn't believe how unrepresentative of their wider sound Danger! High Voltage was. And that may be partly because I was completely, dumbly unaware, until a DJ on 6 Music mentioned it today, that additional vocals on that track were provided by none other than Jack White. I know, I know, I have clearly been living under a rock...

Anyway, regardless of such waffly nonsense, this is a terrific video. Frontman Dick Valentine appears to be a bit of a loon, which is possibly why my former mat-leave temp contract guy was so in thrall of him.

Thursday, 18 July 2024

All good things...

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

Today is the last day of the school year for Amusements Minor. Which means it's close enough for government work, as the saying goes, for me to mark the anniversary of when I left school. Okay, I would have to dig out my old diaries (shudder) to be sure of the exact date, but it's pretty much 35 years to the day since I finished the sixth form and got the school bus home for the last time. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since then but I can honestly say I have only happy memories of school days, and only good things to say about my alma mater and its staff. I sometimes feel sorry for people who had a different experience of secondary education, and I accept I was fortunate enough to go to a brilliant school, with a unique spirit, at a special time. Not fortunate to gain a place there, because I earnt that, but fortunate that the place was there to be earnt, I suppose. And of course I met and befriended The Man Of Cheese there and the rest of that, as they say, is history.

There was no end-of-school prom for us, like there seems to be at the drop of a hat for schools these days. No. Instead TMOC, Roachford, a third boy (whose nicknames would no longer be considered appropriate) and I went into the city in Roachford's Allegro, for a spot of lunch; on the way, we popped into the hospital to see another boy - let's call him Horse - who was in for a hernia op, if memory serves, and so was missing the last day. After a fry-up lunch in Sarnies we went back up to school, via a quick pub stop for a pint, for an afternoon of "mingling" on the school field with the rest of the upper sixth and a few staff. I wandered around with a point-and-push Halina camera, taking a few pics of those that had hung around for the end though, truth be told, not everyone had. It was all decidedly low-key by today's standards.

I'm glad there was no prom for us though. I was terribly shy and so almost certainly would not have enjoyed myself. That said, I love this little clip from Spiderman: Homecoming in which Peter gets nervously excited for his prom (and date), perfectly soundtracked by Save It For Later by The Beat.

As I may have mentioned before, I also love the reinvention of the Tom Holland Spiderman era that allows me to fancy Aunt May...

...but enough about Marisa Tomei. When I arrived home from school that last time, Mum met me at the gate and took a picture of me with that same point-and-push. In it, I am trying to smile but look sad. I think I felt life was, if not over, certainly up in the air. I didn't know it for sure at the time but university was waiting, and a whole other adventure that is also full of almost exclusively good memories. But at that precise moment, as I came through the old front gate with my hands in pockets, trying and failing to look cool, I looked like a boy who'd not only had the rug pulled out from under him but had then been forced to watch whilst the rug was trampled on, shredded and finally set alight. That's how much I loved my school days.

Anyway, it's not from 1989, the year we are commemorating here, but it is from the 80s and it is good, so let's hear that Beat track in full:

More to follow, no doubt, when I have another "getting old" anniversary to ruefully acknowledge...

Monday, 15 July 2024

Monday long song: Begging You (Lakota mix)

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

This Lakota mix is a longer version of Begging You, for me the highlight of The Stone Roses' much-maligned second album. The Lakota was released on the CD single but not, for some reason, the 12" vinyl. But whatever the format this sounds huge, and I recommend a proper pair of headphones to fully appreciate the pulsating rhythm section magnificence of Mani and Reni. Plus there's far less Ian Brown "singing" on this version ...

Friday, 12 July 2024

Farewell Wendy

Yes, yes, sabbatical-schmabbatical. But I can't regularly and overly praise my love of The Shining without commenting on the passing of Shelley Duvall, can I?

For sure she had her problems in later life - her mental health struggle was publicly over-documented, I would say. And she had a full and varied acting career beyond Kubrick's 1980 masterwork. But if she had only ever brought Wendy Torrance to life, that would still be something, wouldn't it? He she is, firstly getting some feedback from Kubrick, and then talking to the inestimable Barry Norman about the film.

RIP Shelley, with an emphasis on the "P".

Tuesday, 9 July 2024

Watching from periphery

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

Fallen For You by Sheila Nicholls is just one of many songs that I was introduced to by the High Fidelity soundtrack ... which, in case you were wondering, is outstanding. Go and buy it.

As an aside, can anyone think of a better use of "periphery" in song lyrics?

Friday, 5 July 2024

Now give him a proper chance

Another sabbatical-busting post, to mark the monumental election result from last night. There's only one thing to do at a moment like this...

Of course we should be under no illusion about the size of the task facing Starmer et al. Sure, a colossal majority will help them get their agenda through untrammelled, but they are inheriting a country not just in decline but in a state of collapse. And a country with very little cash to splash on solutions. How long, I wonder, before those that have been clamouring for change turn on those they have chosen to make it happen?

And for all the joyous Portillo moments (goodbye Rees-Mogg, so long Truss, farewell Mordaunt, adios Keegan, sayonara Shapps), plenty of others survived (Sunak, Hunt, Cleverly, Dowden, Badenoch and, worst of all, Braverman). Not only that but the country has had a mirror held up to it, and the reflection shows a massive level of support, in vote-share terms if not elected MPs, for Reform. The batrochoidal pub-bore took his dog-whistle to Clacton and won. Other coastal towns on the east followed suit, with Skegness and Yarmouth letting themselves down. It should be a source of national shame that Reform has four MPs now ... although I take comfort in the fact that is significantly less than the thirteen initially predicted by the exit poll.

On the other hand, we should take pride, and maybe a little hope, in the fact that the Green Party also now have four MPs, with a record share of the vote too. It's tempting to say the electorate are waking up, but of course they're not, just old voters are dying off and new ones are coming of age.

I'm also pleased to see the resurrection of the Liberal Democrats. Whatever you think of them, and their leader, three-party politics is better (and more interesting) than two.

Whatever, On another day, and in a colder light, people will point to how Labour's vote share showed only a very modest increase and that, in reality, the cause of the monumental swing is primarily blue defection to Reform and LibDem. But it seems churlish to point that out, right now. Because right now is a time for celebration. Farewell Tories, you total feckless shower, you heartless, inept, morality-vacuum, you corrupt puddle of cronyism, sleeze and entitlement ... farewell. Don't rush back.

And remember, kids - things can change...

Fifteen

Disclaimer: this post was written in December 2023, and scheduled for future posting. Its contents may no longer be accurate or appropriate.

Ye gods.