I was in two minds about whether to go and see the new movie of David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, probably the novel that’s excited me most in the last decade. Recently, I made it the one set book on NTU’s second year Art of Writing course, and I’d promised to organise a trip for the students. But then the movie was put back until after the course had finished. Their portfolios, returned on Friday, demonstrated that the novel (a Russian doll structure in eleven parts – six stories that are each interrupted by another, perhaps linked, story, then resumed on the other side: what do you mean you haven’t read it?) had gone down well, inspired the students to be ambitious and explore multiple genres.…
Last year, we were listening to ‘Sounds of the Sixties’ while reading The Guardian in bed on a Saturday morning, as we are wont to do, when a song came on that Sue recognised. ‘What’s this?’ she asked, and I explained that it was the number that had opened the terrific play about the legacy of the sixties, ‘Last of the Haussmans’, that we had seen two nights before. ‘It’s a band called Family’, I said. ‘Fantastic group. They split up just after I saw them, in 1973.” She held out The Guardian guide. ‘You mean this group?’ There it was. ‘For one night only: an evening with Family at Shepherds Bush Empire.’ I got up and did what had to be done. I rang…
This review first appeared in Thursday’s Nottingham Post “WE’RE really smoking tonight,” says Animals singer and bassist Pete Barton. And it’s true. An amp has caught fire, halfway through a set of classics from the sixties. Barton replaces Eric Burdon, who sued to get the name from original drummer John Steel. And lost. Keyboard player Mickey Gallagher, best known as one of the Blockheads, replaced Alan Price at short notice in 1965 and returned in 2003. Danny Handley on guitar and vocals completes the new team. It’s My Life, Dimples and others roar by, with covers like I Believe To My Soul. They sound like a terrific tribute band with a fantastic keyboard player, but this is only the warm-up. After a break, they…
My thirty albums of the year, ordered by how much I’ve enjoyed them rather than attempts at spurious objectivity. A terrific top 21 & the best of the also-rans. Downloads of many featured artists in the post below. A tight fight for the top spot, Leonard’s first. Hopefully, Frank will have plenty more opportunities to compete for this coveted honour. 1 Leonard Cohen – Old Ways 2 Frank Ocean – Channel Orange 3 The XX – Coexist 4 Neil Young & Crazy Horse – Psychedelic Pill 5 Dirty Projectors – Swing Low Magellan 6 Bob Dylan – Tempest 7 Aimee Mann – Charmer 8 Bobby Womack – The Bravest Man In The Universe 9 Simone Felice 10= Rumer – Boys Don’t Cry 10= Beth…
Every year since 1988, we’ve given out twenty-odd best of year CDs (formerly cassettes, but a Spotify playlist wouldn’t cut it) to our music loving friends and, for the last few years, I’ve put all the songs on this blog, together with sleeve notes for each song. So if you’re here to find out about my books, scroll down or check out the Beat novels currently coming out as eBooks, with all new afterwords. If you’re an unhappy copyright holder, just contact me, but the point of these downloads and the cds is to persuade people to investigate the new music that I love. And if you’re a recipient of these CDs, you might like to look away until yours arrives (the first ones…