Why, Claudius? – A Touch of Murder

Bec — 9 Mar 2024

The opening credits for I, Claudius (or Clavdivs, if you will and you probably should, so let’s) have long since passed into National Treasure status. No doubt the most aggressive bugle you’ll ever hear outside military boot camps that bookends e[…]

Why, Claudius? – Queen of Heaven

Bec — 21 Apr 2024

No flash-forward this week – instead, we open with a jolly dinner party scene. Titus and Lollia have various honoured guests in attendance, and they’re all enjoying some post-scran belly dancing via a nice lady their hostess found in Antioch.[…]

Omargeddon #39: The Clouds Hill Tapes Parts I, II & III

Bec — 31 Oct 2023

Omar Rodríguez-López is famously prolific, so I knew at some point during this project that my to-review list would increase; my only surprise was that it wasn’t sooner. The Clouds Hill Tapes Parts I, II & III were released during Summer Lock[…]

THIS IS BIS WEEK

Pete Baran — 24 Jan 2010

Here at Freaky Trigger we have realised that January has been a bit slow with output. A new year can put new strains upon our writers and what with Tom’s Guardian column and me embarking on a year without cinema, pickings have been slim. What w[…]

Call For Submissions: THE LONG EGG

Pete Baran — 18 Aug 2006

The man who invented the Gala Pie is a hero of mine. Not just because he took one of natures nicest foodstuff (namely the pork pie) and made it even better. He made it better by the addition of the hard boiled egg. But not just any old hard boiled eg[…]

Omargeddon #40: Ciencia De Los Inútiles

Bec — 19 Dec 2023

By now, it should be abundantly clear that owing to my total lack of even the most rudimentary understanding of music theory or technique, Omargeddon reviews are emotionally driven. As such, I’m forever trailed by a weird sense of, if not outright […]

Films about films (no-one has seen)

Pete Baran — 20 Jun 2005

Last week saw the release of not one, but two films about previous films. And I don’t mean Batman Begins (which should be retitled Batman Starts for Essex). Inside Deep Throat, a documentary about the making of and the effect of notorious porn […]

How to do a cover version

Tom — 10 Aug 2004

Distilled from several years of pop experience, here from the WORST to the BEST are ways to approach a cover version.
The Acoustic Guitar: i.e. “Any good song will sound great on an acoustic guitar”, runs the prized nugget of MOJO wisdom […]

EVERY WORD IS TRUE – “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina”

Tom — 1 Oct 2002

IntroductionIt was about 2 in the morning and I was trying to get a handle on Alexander the Great. I had a final exam coming up and I’d missed half the syllabus – and something else was missing; a way into the man’s head. Alexander […]

Are you local?

Nobody — 13 Feb 2000

England is DIFFERENT (or SPECIAL if you want to be polite) to everywhere else for many reasons, but one is because our music “industry” (it’s not an industry – making baked beans is an industry, and nobody does THAT in their s[…]

The Strange Death of the UK Charts

Tom — 22 Jan 2009

This is a graph – done by anatol_merklich off the Poptimists LiveJournal community, so massive thanks to him – showing the number of new entries in the UK singles chart for each year from 1952 to the present.
(more…)[…]

Do You Feel Real, And If So I’d Like To Know…

Tom — 30 Jan 2000

I. 

The cod-philosophical question at the centre of pop fandom is this: is pop a genre or a state? Not all records designed to be ‘great pop’ – in the sense of being good for the feet, the heart and the bank balance – […]