The Golden Age of Hip Hop
Tuesday, April 8, 2025
A Moment In Time N.M.E, 6th July 1985 - # 20 Budgies in Rock
Budgies in Rock. Budgie from the Banshees. Budgies on Rain Parade and Perdition albums.. Next week The Cockatoo Twins. Another week in Thrills.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 46 Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones
I didn't know very much in 1983. I probably still don't now. But I'd certainly never heard anything like Swordfishtrombones. Ut was like a fork in the road. Would you like to go that way? Wouldn't you like to be like Tom when you, er. 'grow up' . Actually I wouldn't mind. But it's not a process that can be faked. It either happens or it doesn't.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,056 Ball Park Music
Time for the Melbourne Conveyor Belt again. Ball Park Music a five piece bands. Four guys and a gal. Love Life. An album that's Summer of 1971 Indie. Partridge Family meets, Brady Bunch meets Real Estate meet The Decemberists. Song after song of melodic harmonising and positivity.Rather lovely gentle anthem
There's a song called Please Don't Move To Melbourne which comes on as a Millenial take on Don't Go Back to Rockville. I know it might sound strange but I believe I'll be coming back to this before too long.
Monday, April 7, 2025
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,612 The Sound - From The Lion's Mouth
Intensity and vigour, But not to me quite the pachage to persuade that they should have been as critically respected as Joy Division or as big as U2. A lot of these songs seem to slip between the cracks..Ith as a cool organ sound. But that's probably the most distinguishing feature.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 46 The Jesus & Mary Chain - Darklands.
The Jesus & Maary Chain decided they din't want to implode on a falling star or die in a car crash. They decided they wanted to write doomed anthems for the kids and have a career. The songs were very good and you soon realised they were fine songwriters. But it still seemed slightly dull.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,055 Lotti Golden
A fanstastic discovery with which to set sail into the next week. One of those records that if it didn't exist you would feel almost duty bound to invent them. Lotti Golden, fabulous Sixties It girl. Siren. And her debut album Motor Cycle from 1969.
The record is like the party scene in Midnight Cowboy where Joe Buck finally pulls. Lottu gyrates and genuflects under flashing dancefloo lightsr as if there is no tomorrow. This is a Tardis back in time and Austin Powers is coming to the party/
The sleevenotes for the reissue are written by Ruchard Hell. Richard is going tti the party too. Truman Capote. Audrey. Jackie Onassis. Make sure you book your ticket. It's all Happening ! The lady concerned is still with us. Charge your glasses and raise them.
Sunday, April 6, 2025
A Moment In Time N.M.E, 6th July 1985 - # 18 Pat Cash
The centre pages of this weeks NME are guven over to a two page interview with rising tennis star Pat Cash . He gets two pages. As much as cover stars R.E.M. Cash goes into a monologue immediatelyabout how whoever is Number One un the sport at any point in time is also the best athlete in the world too.
The interview and article are fluently written up by Adrian Thrills. It doesn't feel out of place. This is what the NME set out to do at this moment in time. It was fantastic value for moneyThe musical link is rather negligible and less interesting . He likes Hard Rock which is hardly NME's primary currency.
Cash is a incredibly confident and fluent speaker and the back and forth is engaging and compelling. It doesn't feel like a marketing exercise but a genuine back and forth. It's all quite informative..
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,613 Peter Gabriel - Us
A late-ish Gabriel record. Largely for those with a prior investment. Though It certainly has its moments, The record though is quite imitative of early glories.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,054 The Nightingales
Robert Lloyd is not your average Rock & Roll figure to put it mildly. They are forbears and paralells. Most obviously Captain Beefheart and Pere Ubu's David Thomas. Never mind Gargantua and Pantagruel if you're looking to impress your mates. Have you seen them live. You really should? But really he's earned his moment given his committed willingness to step up to the plate and swing for all he's worth for countless years.
Latest album The Awful Truth is a rompathon and no mistake. A mix and match. By turns Glam, Punk, Rockabilly and everything in between. It's damned good fun for the whole Rock & Roll family. The likes of Marc Riley and Steward Lee will be dressing up in their finery to strut their stuff and embarass younger relatives. It's not what you'd describe a coherent listen. But that's never been what you go to The Nightingales for.. Excellent stuff !
Saturday, April 5, 2025
Songs About People # 1,415 Terry Southern
The legendary Terry Southern does a turn on the latest Waterboys record.
101 Essential Rock Records # 50 The Pretty Things - S.F. Sorrow
'a smartly conceived brilliantly excuted musical narrative'.
A Moment In Time N.M.E, 6th July 1985 - # 17 David Lodge - Small World
' Fans of English letters and lore will love this. Herein find the Grail legend transmuted to the groves of academe on the wing, the world of internatuinal lit crit conferences narrated in a post-Marxist, Post Freudian, pot-humanist, post structuralist stylee. It's one of the funnuest books I've read in years.
A successor to the brilliant Changing Places, Small World is not only fuction about fiction, but fiction for people who think about fuction, who find themselves pinballed in a farce whuch knows no bounds of coincidence and improbability. Like a striptease, layers of plot and meaning (a shifting commodity) unpeel towards denouement yet postponed gratification.
But Lodge is no Scritti Politti of English fiction: he pulls out plums of trousers-down-belly-laughter from reams of consistently vigorous writing. PhD phun, a highbrow Tom Sharp, this book is highly recommended.; ' Matt Snow
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,614 George Michael - Listen Without Prejudice - Volume 1
I'm sorry. I'm already prejudiced. I don't care for George Michael's music. I never have. I find his posthumous ubiqity rather difficult to understand. I don't wish to be unkind to the man who by all accounts was a pretty decent bloke. But the kind of music he peddled for the entirity of his career makes me long for Culture Club generally.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 48 Elvis Costello & The Attractions- Imperial Bedroom
'history repeats the same conceits...'
When I was seventeen I saw Elvis Costello and Cait O'Riordan in W.H.Smith's in Richmond in South West London. It was a great place for people spotting. The best place I ever knew. Apart from Hampstead Hill whuch was even posher. And New York. Which was much larger.
Anyway, there he was. A couple of metres away from me on the shopfloor. Looking pleased as punch. Wearing a hat that screamed, 'Look at me, I'm Elvis Costello..' So I looked at him. Then went home. I doubt very much whether he noticed me. Even though I looked at the time very much like a junior version of himself.
I bought Imperial Bedroom at round about the same time. It had just come out and was being critically garlanded by one and all. I listened to it a lot. Tried to inderstand it. But it was beyond my teenage mind. Just as Hamlet and Waiting For Godot which I was co-currently struggling with as set A level texts were. Tender is the Night and John Keats chimed better wuth my romantic teenage mindset. Where I wanted to go. Towards the light.
I'm more in tune with the darkness of Hamlet and Waiting For Godot now I'd say, as I approach my seventh decade. I also tune in to Imperial Bedroom's preoccupations too. It's full of Costello's consistent concerns. Rage, vitriol, bitterness, Jester 's wit. Life's Mad Parade. I wonder if he still has the hat. It was quite remarkable.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,053 The Waterboys
I'm waking with Life Death & Dennis Hopper on my playlist. A couple of very important people from my life on my mind. One of whom I'm walking away from. One of whom I'm walking towards. The person I'm walking away from loves The Waterboys.
I don't blame him. Though I'm not at all happy wuth him. The Waterboys have always been some band. On Life Death & Dennis Hopper they remember and celebrate the lost ones.The mad ones. The fighters. The ones where you're never quite sure if they are waving or drowning. It's a sprawling, restless, raging album that namedrops any number of fallen fighters from Rock & Roll and Hollywood's Golden Decades.
It's a fine and frequently ridiculous record full of tunes and waltzes and anthems that remind you of all these things. All these people, Of life's crazt fury and intensity, Of the decisions we have no choice but to make..It's not easy listening. Well it's nor always easy living. .This is not always a great record frankly. It sprawls. Not always gracefully.Sometimes it staggers and you fear it may be about to fall on its face.
But life is not always an easy ride. And this album frequently pops up moments of astonishing clarity. Of beauty. Choppy waters wherever you look. Ladies & Genltemen, Mike Scott .
Friday, April 4, 2025
A Moment In Time N.M.E, 6th July 1985 - # 16 Propaganda
Propaganda's wondrous A Secret Wish gets a prefuinctory and slightly dismissive review from Cath Carroll. The tone is bitchy and you get the impression that it was ipssed off between lunch and tea. Carroll says that Non English voices are more appealing that British or American ones because they come across as more sincere..
The record gets a mixed review and Carroll draws the conclusion that it's something of a curate's egg. The copywriter tags the pece Gucci Gucci Gander. It's strange reading this thirty years on, Ibought the album at the time and stull treasure it. I shall play it this evening.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 49 The Fall - Hex Enduction Hour
Yes. I know I uss and mon about The Fall quite a lot. But I wouldn't mind this one.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,052 Free Range
The priceless player in the baseball set up apparently is the utility set up. The one you want to get your hands on. The ace in the pack. Swim Into Sound's Blog Page makes the comparison in its review of Free Range's Lost & Found album.
So if you're after a utility player, the go to guy apparently is Ben Zobrist, whose efforts led to back to back World Series Titles for Kansas City Royals and Chicago Chiefs.. Now you know. What about Free Range? Sofie Jensen apparently is one of the unique players in the Chicago Indie Community.
What this means in terms of Lost & Found is that you have an Indie Folk album of rare beauty. One that inhales and exhales with easy grace and no little beauty. Songs of unpretentious with occasional home runs hit into the stand. No doubt by the itility player.
Thursday, April 3, 2025
Songs About People # 1,413 Amadeo Modigliani
The new album from Lucy Dacus struck me as rather inert. It has a song entitled Modigliani. He strikes me as anything but.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,616 Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend
I never really bought into what Wolf Alice brought to the table . It seemed too mannered. Too thought through. A career plan. The narratives I've bought into most readily over the years have never been career plans. There are jobs behind desks for that kind of life.
A Moment In Time N.M.E, 6th July 1985 - # 14 Crime & The City Solution
Buba Kopf, the NME's Nick Cave correspondent at the time does a couple of star turns in this week's NME in addition to the great Kerouac piece I've already referred to, he gets packed off to Holland to converse with Crime & The City Solution, Bad Seeds Junior, featuring Mick Harvey and Rowland Howard.
'It's Ascension Day in Amsterdam.... Everton supporters are bouncing beery chants round the city's rat tail tangle of tiny streets.' The article which follows is a beautifully wrought piece of dark urban poetry. About loneliness. And looking at the stars.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 50 Prince & The Revoiution - Around The World In A Day
Prince was keen, and who could blame him, for showing that he could do anything if he put his mind to ot. Beatles? Pah !
Song(s) of the Day # 4,051 Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp
Just what the doctor ordered. Ventre Unique . The latest from Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp. One to impress your friends with. Your savoir faire Your attachment to the International Socialist Collective.
You don't need to admit that you don't understand every last word or reference in the lyric. You can just don your beret. Swing a string of onions round your neck. Sling on your breton top and twirl around to your hearts content. Un Francais renait.
Geneva Collective playful mischievious politic,l declamatory English and French tunes. Occassionally you'll recignise the lanes they're skipping down. But generally this is hearty, fabulous fare.
Wednesday, April 2, 2025
101 Essential Rock Records # 48 Van Morrison - Astral Weeks
Astral Weeks wears its crown well.'an attempt to ouststrip language. Every breathless phrase, every gibbering cry, seems to be reaching for revelation.'
A Moment In Time N.M.E, 6th July 1985 - # 13 Mark Stewart
Some of the interviews withun the pafes of The NME are incredible encounters. This week Don Watsin goes out on a mission to beet Mark Stewart once leader of The Pop Group. He's a highly paranoid fellow. Watson goes to talk to him in his terraced house in Bristol. Stewart talks about the Mayans, The Romans, The Druids. Occult technologies of power.Stewart says 'There's a lot of people disappeared recently.'
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,617 Tom Waits - Blue Valentine
The kind of record that inspires people to gargle whisky and get a vulgar and inadvisable tattoo when the relationship is doomed to crash within days.
.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 51 The Blue Nile - Hats
One of the most romantic and filmic bands of the Eighties. For people who didn't have life knowlege perhaps bit aspired to it. Records like this gave you directions.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,050 Unrest
Rock & Roll lore has any number of seams of untold narrative to travel down. Rabbit holes. Pipelines. Whatever you will. Or else snakes taking you to the lake. From there take another snake to the foothills of a vast mountain range. To sunlit streams. Forest glades. Music is particularly fertile territory for the imaginitive potential of maps and legends A means of exploring other worlds. Galaxies.
Check out Rock Dreams. Julian Cope's stuff. Any number of Rock related novels and films. It's always been the stuff of dreams and transportation. Fantasy. From the moment you start watching Top of the Pops, cross legged on the family hearth. Listen to Yellow Submarine. Listen again and again with your mum to her Carpenters and Seekers records. Slack jawed and google eyed to the wonders of the universe.
Now decades down the line, there are any number of happy trails to follow and that's what I try to do on It Starts With a Birthstone. I've been kept active and engaged here on a daily basis I hope not repeated myself too painfully for twelve years now and don't worry that I'll dry up of inspiration any time soon.
Every time I pick up a music magazine I find some new source of inspiration. A point of departure. Ariadne's Thread. If that fails me I just need to go into a record ship and start flipping through the racks. Have a coversation with one of the guys behing the counter. Those guys are a font of knowledge They set you off on another journey if duscovery
I bough Perfect Teeth, the third and final album by American underground legends in Monday. From Beatbox. The record shop acriss the road from where I live. I've been playing it ever since. It's a sensational record.. 4AD records. They're such gorgeous artistic objects . You feel like stroking your cheek across its sleeve
The rerelease is in honour of Perfect Teeth's 30th Annuversay. Let's face it this was a record that was barely noticed at the time of its release though listening to it now it damned well should have been . It's 'a guitar in excelsis' record. Was recorded in Pachuderm Studio in Cannon Falls Minnesota days after Nirvana completed the sessions for In Utero in the same studio space.Just listening to the album set me off on a journey of discovery. That Rock & Roll for you.
Unrest formed at Wakefield High School in Arlington Virginia, not far from Washington D.C.. They named themselves after a Henry Cow record, an early indication that they had no plans to drive down the main highway if life. Be stuck in the slow lane.
Unrest's sound on Perfect Teeth is the sound of rolling guitars and spaced out vocals. My Bloody Valentine. Meet Lush. Meet Pale Saunts at Wakefield High School in Arlington Virginia, not far from Washington D.C. And have a picnic And plan a seance. And then a revolution. Lovely stuff. Harmonious. Solendid.
Perfect Teeth has an arresting sleeve with a wonderful picture of Cult Mancunian journalist Cath Carroll. Shot by Cult photographer Ribert Mapplethorpe. The subject of Patti Smith's memoirs Just Kids whuch focuses on their formative love affair in the early Seventies. Mapplethorpe was famously gay inclined but his relationship with Patti was certainly a love affair. Patti had any number of fundamental love affairs across the course if her life which informed her work and sensibility. With Mapplethorpe. With Sam Shepherd. Jim Carroll. Tim Verlaine. Alain Lanier. Fred Sonic Smith
Someone once saw Unrest play at the Duchess of York in Leeds and they played for so long that the cleaners started sweeping the place up during the encore. This is a nice way to remember a band that were barely noticed at the time. But should have been.
Tuesday, April 1, 2025
101 Essential Rock Records # 47 Jimi Hendrix Experience - Electric Ladyland
A sleeve that cannot be printed on Social Media for fear or receiving a ban. An album that it us still almost impossibe to process.
A Moment In Time N.M.E, 6th July 1985 - # 12 The Full Page Ad
Curious marketing. WEA have a singer they'd like to introduce to the British record buying public. They've just signed up distinctive European singer. They keep it simple. The ad reads as follows; 'Mathilde Santing is a singer. She comes from Amsterdam with an LP just released. 'Water Under The Bridge' and a single Too Much. She hopes to come and play live in London soon. Her LP is available on WEA Records' There's something incredibly charming and appealing about this approach. FYI. The album is wonderful. Well worth tracking down.
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,618 Cocteau Twins - Victorialand
Oh flippin Nora! It's The Cocteau Twins. That's the last thing I need. I was having a lovely day.
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 53 The Smiths - The Smiths
I remember beung slightly dusappointed with this. The productions. The choice of songs. The need to uit the singles on when elsewhere there were Jeane, Wonderful Wimen, This Night Has Opened My Eyes. Accept Yourself. These Things Take Time It still sounds slightly inert. As if The Smiths have had their springs confiscated.
Generally I assocate this record with four songs Reel Around The Fountain. You've Got Everything Now, Still Ill, Suffer Little Children. That will more than do. Else there were missteps.
Song(s) of the Day # 4,049 Great Grandpa
April. Come she will. And has. And I wake up with 50 albums that I've liked so far already on a playlist. A couple of months and I'll be able to start a tentative rundown of 200 albums that I've liked in 2025 without a clear idea of where it's heading. Well. We all need a hobby and this seems to be mine.
And this is my fiftieth album on this playlist, Anither good one. Grear Grandpa, a band from Seattle who seem aware and mindful if that great city's musical legacy. One who experienced trying times during Covid bur regrouped and stayed together.
New album Patience, Moonbeam is the legacy of that. It's a powerful Indie Chamber peace which appealed to me in darkness late last night and I'm finding charming as the sun rises in the heavens again the heavens this morning.
Life is a struggle sometimes. There's no point pretending otherwise. Patience, Moonbeam grits its teeth and heads unto the coming gale. It's a determined, and frequently inspiring album..
Monday, March 31, 2025
101 Essential Rock Records # 46 The Byrds - Sweetheart of the Rodeo
'accelerating from zero yo sixty rock's embrace of of one of its long estranged parent genres.'
'accelerating from zero yo sixty rock's embrace of of one of its long estranged parent genres.
A Moment In Time N.M.E, 6th July 1985 - # 11 On The Box / Films on TV
There was much, much less choice. But it felt better. Trust me. You could watch King at Hammersmith Odeon should you please.Or Morecombe & Wuse. Or The Raging Miin by Bryan Forbes, the Morrissey of Film Direction according to Gavin Martin. Best of all Deliverance. A film which 'unleashes the primal urges if the four protagonists... stands up to repeated viewings. A tense, gripping movie.'
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 54 Echo & The Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
A decision seemed to be made in the Bunnymen camp between the making of Porcupine and Ocean Rain. That they wouldn't mind some chart action while they were on the planet. That they might prefer not to bristle quite so much and that they'd pout for the cameras and the Smash Hits set.
At the time I preferred their Cult origins. Standing on the margins and effecting an Existentialist pose. With time I've warmed to this record, and its Parisian Fin De Siecle urges. It's a magnificent record. Pastel poetry..
Song(s) of the Day # 4,048 Hannah Cohen
Yesterday, while I was preparing myself for the working week, I listened through on and off to Hannah Cohen's Earthstar Mountain. It was an album that I initially regarded as generic and slightly nondescript. But as the day went on a spell was cast and I was charmed.
So I'm listening to it again now on Monday morning as I ready myself for the 8.15 to Dussledorf Teams Link to carry me away to class as we sweep towards April.
It's a record that seems to set itself an inreresring remit for itself. Aldous Hardung meets Sheryl Crow at a Fleerwood Mac Convention on The Astral Plane. Sometimes the right co-ordinates and intentions are sufficient to ensure half an hour if plain sailing as we make our way into the breeze of the coming day.
Sunday, March 30, 2025
101 Essential Rock Records # 45 Big Brother &The Holding Company - Cheap Thrills
'In the fall of 1968 Cheap Thrills was the country's top selling LP for eight weeks.'
Best Ever Albums - 2,000 - 1,001 - 1,620 Slowdive - Pygmalion
The critical and commercial resurgence of Slowdive is something that puzzles me. They're one of the dullest bands I've ever heard and try as I might I can't fathom their cult appeal. Here is the Slowdive Paint Drying Experience in full effect. From 1996.
A Moment In Time N.M.E, 6th July 1985 - # 10 Singles
Penny Reel reviews about 80 singles this week. Respect to the guy. Given the task he's set it's no wonder things don't get a proper hearing. That Petrol Emotion's incredible debut Keen is dismussed as a Beatlish durge. James fabulous Village Fire EP gets described as laboured. and 'more concept than content'. Furniture are 'six piece Sweet'.We get Bleak Industrial dance from Dewsbury.
Nothing really lights his fire. Mostly things sound dull. You get the impression it might have been more worthwhile for him to have pucked a few things that excited him most and written about them at greater length. But this is the NME we're talking,
500 Greatest Albums of the 1980s ... Ranked! # 54 The Fall - This Nation's Saving Grace
I had to wait for the right moment. It was a Sunday and the weather was good. Frankly the last thing I wanted to do was listen to another bloody Fall album. I know what they sound like by now. Just as I know what Nick Cave & The Seeds sound like . These seem to be the two great bugbears in my musical life. Maintaining a blog like this.
I wait. Until I've been to church. Had a swim. Then mid-afternoon, with the flat reasonably tidy. I make time and space and put it on my TV and listen through to the album. And enjoy a lot of it.
The cumulatuve effect tof the Fall experience though I find slightly deadening. Yes, great intense atmosphere. Surly, underground But then after a while I just feel. Oh it's The Fall. A rambling shaggy dog story for the outer elite without a pinchline.
Especially The Fall once the more interesting lieutenants who leavened the mix have left the nest and left Mark E. to his autoctacy. It's Enver Hoxha's Albania. I'm sure people lived perfectly happly lives there. But it's still Enver Hoxha's Albania. I go off to do my laundry/
What I Did Yesterday - Reposts for 2025 # 9 Hamish Hawk & Amelia Coburn at Digital
We can't help but be dictated to by the times, the age we are living through. It would be naive of us to think otherwise. Specks of dust in a vast and bewildering universe. We need to orient ourselves to things to help us make sense of what we're going through. I love my partner. I need a lover. I'll focus on my work. I'll listen to that record. Watch that fim. Read that book. Get drunk . Often the alternative is too genuinely bewildering. 'And you may ask yourself. Well how did I get here.' .
The times we are living through are particularly bewidering. Look at our leaders. Look at our media. Music for me remains a still, comforting centre to anchor my day around. I'm up with the larks ready to start my day. Looking for a new record for my Song of the Day on here. A record for me to play while my bath runs. To prepare me for what lies ahead..
I'm teaching online these days. German businesspeople in Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Berlin.That's my primary focus. Don't get me wrong. I care about Gaza. Human Tragedy as a Real Estate opportunity for the one percent. Bundle them off into another space so we can tear it all down and build holiday homes and resorts for elites. 'Now I want a holiday in the sun...' Nothing ever changes. Power just shifts it shape and finds a new way to fleece the masses. You've got to laugh. Or else you'd cry.
Anyway. Where was I? Oh yeah. My bath. My lessons. I spin Stereolab's Emperor Tomato Ketchup while I prepare for my day. I try to avoid comparisons generally when thinking about and trying to write about music. But in this case screw that! Oasis ?!? You must be joking. Why would anyone listen to Oasis when they coud listen to Stereolab. Or Kraftwerk for that matter
Why would anyone listen to a pair of self obsessed bowl headed coke fiends from Burnage who care not one whit for anything but themselves. Then and now. I know I'm not kind when I talk about that band but they started it folks. They decided to go for a career in music rather than just carrying on signing on or roadying for the Inspiral Carpets for the rest of their lives. I know it's worked out well for you lads but what about the universe? Wanton cruelty pure and simple.
Anyway. My students. I've got a sub today for South African Jessica. I don't know exactly what Jessica is up to right now but I've been parachuted in and asked to prepare a lesson on Business Meetings. It's a fun one. One of the best things about my job is meeting new people / students and trying to keep them happy . Make them feel They're getting something out of the experience.
Anyway I like Elena and Sandra and I think they like me. We find out about each other and then I try to help them with their Business Engish and their grammar and vcobulary. That's all there is to it. Plenty of people might try to overcomplicate matters but after 35 years of doing this I'd be fairly insistent.
That's all you need to do. You need to have a certain amount of researching and planning and then you need to teach. Entertain and educate and be educated and informed. Ask questions and encourage them to ask questions to each other. Listen and react. Then do the paperwork to keep the middle managers happy.
That's what I do with my reguar 11.30s too.The conversation goes a different direction to talk a bit about the world outside and what Germany should do about it given that there's a General Election coming up in a few weeks now which I imagine the whole world will be watching with intent concentration. Me and my 11.30s don't come to any great conclusions and bid each other farewell.
I've got a few hours to kill. So I call mum and text friends and play records. KC & The Sunshine Band, Associates and Blondie if you're keeping notes. Which I imagine you are. Darkness falls and it's time to head out to Digital for Amelia Coburn and Hamish Hawk.
When it comes time to go I don't feel like going really. It's cold out and the sky looks forbidding. The thought of staying in and watching The Magnificent Seven yet again is tempting. But I put my coat and hat on and I'm off out into the night . It has to be done. This is why we're alive.
The Digital night club is five minutes from my flat. Across Times Square. Just before the Discovery Museum. Digital has changed since I first went there. To see Sunflower Bean and Big Thief years ago now. It used to be a small venue with a bar and a small stage. Now it's expanded and transformed into a dark and sleek club. Soaking up the audience and the bands and events which used to feature at the Riverside. On erm Newcastle Riverside.
I'm not sure I like Digital as much as I used to, The staff are friendly, the sound system. is great. The crowd are affable too. Slightly older than previously. It's all a bit more corporate. Yeah like so much. Sleek and smooth and slightly faceless. If you want the alternative in Newcastle go to the newer Cooperative ventures. The Cobalt Studios. The Lubber Field. There you'll get value for money. Somewhere to sit. There aren't actual seats here. Just bars and booths where you can check your phones or chat to company.
Stil, I'm here to have fun. New York Dolls and Eurythmics are playing on the sound system and Amelia Coburn is shuffling onstage with her band. Amelia is really the reason I'm here, I don't know headliner Hamish Hawk very well.BBC 6 Music is the key here. I've stopped listening to BBC 6 Music recently. It used to fill my musical horizons. But something changed and now my Record Player and Spotify do that for me.
If asked to narrow things down further I'd mention Wet Leg. A few years ago when I tuned in I found they were invariably playing Wet Leg. I mean I like quirkiness as much as the next person. I have a Lene Lovich record. Plastic Bertrande. But I don't listen to them non stop. I got tired of Wet Leg after 3 listens to each song rued 6 Musics decision to make the best djs at the station Marc Riley and Gideon Coe do a show together to give more radio time to John Peel's son. No John Peel. Let's put it that way.
Anyway Amelia is plucking away at what looks like a mandolin and her band are tucking into choice cuts from her rather wonderful debut album Between The Moon & The Milkman,. And I'm happy. Edging into a space a couple of rows away from the stage and texting to an old school friend. I don't care what my mother says. I can multitask as well as the next person.
Amelia Coburn exemplified for me exactly the kind of artist I'm most interested in. She's articulate and ambitious.Draws on a set of influences that are interesting and broadly inspiried and bode well for a long and productive career. I recognise Jacques Brel, Jake Thakeray and she speaks in interviews of literary inspirations Graham Greene, Romanticism. The Brontes. Victorian Fiction,She's made for my tastes frankly
Between songs she mentions minging lovers she's discarded. Well she is from Middlesborough, Valentine's Day is a couple of days away. She talks about Vinegar Valentines .and suggests it might be an idea to bring them back. In Far From The Madding Crowd Bathsheba Everdene sent a mischievious Valentine Card to William Boldwood and it led him inadvertently to the gallows. Don't do it kids. Be nice !
But the half hour with Amelia is as good as I could have hoped for, Her songs are twisting and nuanced. Fascinating. She's one to watch. I retreat to the bar taking care not to actually walk into a pillar or fall over anybody. It's too dark in here for my liking. I don't care if this place gets an award. It might also attract ambulances.
Hamish Hawk I don't really know though Amelia says he's fab and a friend whose taste I trust has said he's good. He must be on a 6 Music Playlist. Hamish. Not my friend. I'm not quite sure what to expect. When he and his band head onstage I make my way through the crowd and get a decent view of the Hawk experience. I take a couple of close ups of Hawk and his band on my Smartphone to send to others and to record the moment. I wouldn't have dreamed of doing this when I first started going to gigs in the Eighties. But hey, I can go with the times.
I'm not sure about Hamish and his band initially but I'm drawn in. The key to this seems to be persona. Persona used to be a great guiding principle of Art inclined British music. Bowie, Roxy, John Lydon, Edwyn Collins, Bily McKenzie, Morrissey, Brett Anderson. I imagine you can keep the list going if you're that way inclined.
The key reference to Hawk's persona seems to be to be Howard Devoto. He's a suaver and less alien and angular Howard Devoto. An incredibly confident and outgoing performer. Throwing shapes and namedropping to demonstrate his broad reading and education. His cool. It's never annoying and frankly quite impressive. I'll get to know his records better because he's good.
But I've got my money's worth and this is a school night so I'm on my way. Keep an eye on Amelia and Hamish because they'll do well. To BBC 6 Music Playlists and beyond !
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