Tracey on Dennis Potter

In Tracey Thorne’s book, ‘Naked At the Albert Hall’ she ranges over a lot of examples of music and song, but here she refers to Dennis Potter’s final interview with Melvyn Bragg in 1994, discussing the use of lip-synching in ‘Pennies from Heaven’ an this echoes what I heard Ray Davies say about the death … Continue reading →

Romantic Songs that Aged Badly

There’s been a lot of scandals in the past few years involving celebrities misbehaving with young people, which makes some commentators ask if anyone was not doing bad things back then, but without condoning any of this, things were different. IN Antonioni’s popular film ‘Blow Up’, the photographer David Hemmings is practically stalked by a … Continue reading →

Heaven Adores You

This is a film about the life of the late Elliot Smith, a man whose music I only recently discovered. It starts rather slowly, with perhaps too much time spent on his early life, and yet I am and I was starting wonder if it was worth staying. I’m still unclear as to how or … Continue reading →

Viv on Class art

Viv Albertine was the guitarist with the punk band The Slits, and still one of the most vocal and opinionated of her generation. This is her take on the loss of working class artists. “The arts are dominated by the middle classes and yes, it does matter. No art is going to change anything when … Continue reading →

The Best Session

Last Saturday would have been the 75th birthday of pioneer DJ John Peel, so BBC 6 music had a dedication to this champion of all sorts of music, who used to have a late night show on Radio 1 which most people listened to under their blankets as it was past their bedtime.  The people … Continue reading →

Eel Pie Island

There is a small island in the Thames, occupied by an old fisherman, who takes charge of the oziers that grow, and the swans that swim about there. The fisherman is as much monarch of his little island, as Buonaparte is of Elba; but he has one advantage which the Corsican islander has not- he … Continue reading →

Musicwood

This film by Maxine Trump is about the efforts NY Greenpeace to save southern Alaskan rainforest from  being cleat felled to extinction, and approaches some of the major guitar makers for help. The bulk of the ancient logs go to make furniture in Asia, buy guitar boards need very old spruce, so they went fact … Continue reading →

Jazz Met Pop

Jazz is generally seen as having gone out of fashion long before pop got going, if in fact it is conceded it was ever in fashion. But there have been some rather interesting  connections, perhaps the most important & interesting being the late Humphrey Lyttleton. I loved his wonderful sense of humour as chairman of … Continue reading →

American Interior

This is the second film by Welsh singer Gruff Rhys ex of Super Furry Animals, and like his earlier, Separado, is part tour, part historical investigation, and is also very strange. He begins in Boston, in search of an ancestor John Evans who went to North America in search of a Welsh speaking tribe of … Continue reading →

1000 Years of Popular Music

This is a dvd & 2 Cd set by English guitarist/songwriter/ folkie Richard Thompson, with Judith Owen on vocals & keyboards and Debra Dobkin on percussion and vocals. It was inspired by Playboy magazine asking Thompson to provide a list of the 10 greatest songs of the millennium. As the ever iconoclastic Thompson writes : … Continue reading →