King William’s College Kwizz 2019. FT Round 6 9 Jan 2020 1 in whose garden can we both gather nosegays? 2 where was the lofty location of Aritomo’s garden? 3 who is invited into the garden to share the musk of the rose? 4…
Let's Be Frank 10 Jan 2013 So the first picture of Michael Fassbender as Frank Sidebottom have appeared on the internet, and the internet is all a kerfuffle. It doesn't look - right - they say.…
King William’s College Kwizz 2019. FT Round 10 22 Jan 2020 1 whose opera was inspired by Virgil? 2 who honoured Queen Anne’s consort with a stimulating voluntary? 3 who wrote music for the attendant to Prospero as he donned his ducal robes? 4…
MANCHESTER UNITED FOOTBALL SQUAD - "Come On You Reds" 11 Jan 2013 As a football-shunning nipper in the 80s it seemed to me that an FA Cup Final song barged its way into the charts every year, swayed through the top ten…
King William’s College Kwizz 2019. FT Round 12 29 Jan 2020 What currency of which country is suggested by: 1 a nip? 2 6.76 metres for gold? 3 a Balkan amphitheatre? 4 a sweet-tasting carbohydrate? 5 a converted Muslim place of worship? 6 a competitive gathering of…
King William’s College Kwizz 2019. FT Round 9 20 Jan 2020 1 who started in the Justinian? 2 as what is the black trumpet also known? 3 upon what is the Lord laughing in the sun? 4 where did Dulcibella run aground, lured by…
ELTON JOHN - "Are You Ready For Love?" 11 Feb 2020 Elton John’s best moment at number one comes with a forgotten track from a barely-noticed late-70s EP, lucked onto years later by someone in Sky Sports’ ad agency, remixed (delicately…
King William’s College Kwizz 2019. FT Round 15 9 Feb 2020 Which dual enterprise:1 could work wonders?2 took over from West and Wyatt?3 gives one a shot at Double Dutch?4 exploited the unique qualities of Siberian Weasels’ hair?5 created 33 complications…
About the Author
writer and editor bit by bit fashioning a history of the UK music press HERE https://www.patreon.com/marksink3r/posts
19 Jan 2002
Everlasting Pop and Dexys Midnight Runners There is pop, and there is popular, and then there’s popular. And there’s also “timeless”. Sometimes when people say that a record is “timeless” – let’s pick on, oh, a U2 album – they mean it will be listened to and loved say twenty years from now. What they […]
4 May 2010
#601, 19th December 1987, video In the comics series Phonogram, there’s a scene in which the – kind of horrible – pop DJ Seth Bingo and his indie collaborator Silent Girl are struggling to work a recalcitrant dancefloor into life. Their solution? “Play the Blondie!” – a copy of “Atomic” which literally glows as it’s […]
10 Jul 2017
#924, 4th May 2002 At The Disco A scene from Phonogram III: The Immaterial Girl, by Gillen, McKelvie and Wilson, published in 2015. It’s the early 00s, at a disco somewhere in the south of England. A group of people who love music so much it’s become their life and the tools of their craft […]
1 Jun 2002
1 The weather matters. Saturday 1st June: 8pm, and the sky out of my window is still fading pale blue, weightless, benevolent. A jubilee weekend of rain would be a symbolic down: but then, we are long used to finding a meaning in the rain. Not just we aesthetes (‘I’m happy when it rains’; ‘You’re […]
8 Aug 2008
#426, 23rd September 1978 On one level the ‘plot’ of “Dreadlock Holiday” is hugely important to any judgement of it. On another, not at all, but let’s recap anyway. The narrator is a tourist in Jamaica – he gets mugged for his silver chain and returns to the comfort of his hotel where a woman […]
4 Sep 2009
#543, 15th December 1984, video “Do They Know It’s Christmas” is significant in one way, and insignificant in another. First, it raised a lot of awareness and money and established the pop single as an excellent mechanism for doing those things. This was significant. Gargantuan “supergroups” like this fell out of favour but charity records […]
5 May 2011
#667, 13th July 1991 Sixteen Listens For Sixteen Weeks: An Everything I Do Liveblog This song got to number one for 16 weeks, so I decided to play it 16 times in a row, writing as I went. Play 1: And we’re off. I’ve honestly hardly heard this in the last twenty years so I […]
24 Dec 1999
Low’s Christmas tree is a simple one, with eight plain wooden baubles. The band write four tracks themselves, offer interpretations of two carols and crooners’ favourite “Blue Christmas”, and nobody’s bothered to take credit for “Taking Down The Tree” (but it sounds like one of Low’s own). The record is packaged – beautifully – like […]