1 March 2004
Jonathan Creek, Saturday Night, BBC2: Not the best JC, it squeezed two linked mysteries into an hour and it felt a bit squashed, particularly when the main plot ended up very unpleasantly and the sub-plot very comically; the transition from ‘eww’ to ‘ha ha’ was too quick.
BUT I’m not blogging because of that. I’m more interested in the trailer for ‘IF’ that ran just after – lots of dark, menacing images of disaster, societal breakdown etc etc., with no other information, just a title (If) and a date (next Wednesday). Could be the new Threads, could be another reality show, who knows! The BBC site wasn’t telling. Does anyone have any info about this?
Tom in Do You See • No Comments
Updated (after too long) the list of tunes on the sidebar. I feel like I’ve been hibernating, to be honest: miserable weather, bed-ridden wife, mountains of work – I’ve not had much attention left for music, I’ve just stuck some old favourites on the stereo and let them play. But today is the first day of March, and March is when the year creaks into life. I walked out this morning to buy a paper and a sausage roll and I saw a lot of smiles.
When I got home I downloaded “Dude” by Beenie Man, the year’s first stab at a pop-dancehall anthem, a love duet built around a steel drum sample. I’m sure I read somewhere (Spizzazzz maybe?) a piece about how steel drums are the last refuge of the desperate producer: it made me laugh but on a day when the temperature is just starting to gingerly poke above uncomfortable steel drums are exactly what you want to hear. In the Summer they have this “IT’S SUMMER HAVE FUN NOW OK” feel to them and I need something more languid. Ms.Thing steals the show somewhat on “Dude”, she wants a man who can do it in a van – that kind of rhyme-for-its-own-sake you have to like. Beenie’s best moment is an r-rolling verse (especially “nerrrrd”). Such a relief to hear a good new single!
Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments
I was hoping to find something funny on Popjustice talking about the awful, awful UK Eurovision entry (tousle-haired sensitive lad with guitar doing ballad), but no such luck. I can’t blame them, it’s a miserable prospect: the people in charge of doing the UK Eurovision entry don’t understand how much the standards of Europop have risen since the Diggi-Loo days of yore. (France doesn’t have hole in the ground toilets any more, either).
I don’t actually care that much (no really!) but it would be nice to have a good record to cheer on again. Every Eurovision turns into a ‘good guy’/'bad guy’ brawl where the good guy is some sparky bit of New Europe pop eccentricity and where the bad guy is a monstrous lump of sensitive gloop. Jamie Fox may do very well but only by casting himself as the villain.
Tom in FT /New York London Paris Munich • No Comments
Prog Rocking!
Tom Allen’s 2000AD stuff. So much here if you root around in this sticky (fwd/back navigation acts oddly for me) fortunecity site. There’s even a Crisis timeline, details of the Prog 2000 extravaganza (which I never saw), links to large scans from the Prog 500 self-parody stories (inc Halo Jones Book 4) (which I DID see), a Judge Dredd glossary, 2000AD creator index, and so on, plus some sections on Beer, Science and Fonts. ONE OF US!!
Alan in The Brown Wedge • No Comments
#81, 20th February 1959
I always find with ballads there’s a minimum tempo below which the song cannot hold together, like a certain amount of speed translated into centrifugal force is needed to keep a plate spinning I suppose.
(That bit may be cobblers ‘ sorry physicists.)
Anyway below this speed, which we shall call w (for Westlife), a song starts to drift apart. Particular details might be observable ‘ a pleasant string arrangement here, a memorable line there, but it fails to cohere, to capture the listening mind; or rather, to impose upon that mind its entire three or four minute structure. Sub-w balladry works best as drift music, giving the listener the sensation of being subsumed in the ebb and flow of a lover’s mind ‘ check the David Toop Sugar And Poison compilation for some good examples, or the longest song on any Al Green album. But in 1959 the conceptual and vocal technologies needed to achieve this had not been developed, and songs like ‘As I Love You’ devolve into a sort of ballad soup.
Tom in Popular • 2 Comments
#80, 30th January 1959
Elvis acts the teenybop star while a hand-picked band of groovers play musical statues behind him. ‘I Got Stung’ is lighthearted and goofy, all jerking elbows and dipping knees and none of that inbetweeny stuff Presley had traded on before. The intro (‘Holy Smokes and Land Sakes Alive!”) was sampled by Carter USM and I’m gratified by how well it works here too.
‘One Night’, on the other side, is a bleary stomper with a little bit more fire in its belly but a lot less fun in its heart. The heavy, choppy guitar offers one last jagged chunk of nastiness before Elvis finally settles down to the big business of being an Idol, a direction ‘Stung’ seems much more comfortable with.
Tom in Popular • 1 Comment
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