Tesla – Five Man Acoustical Jam
I first heard a snippet of Tesla performing “Signs” on a taped episode
of Raw Power in around 1990/1 – or was it the Kerrang TV show, you know
the one presented by Mosher or Thrasher or whatever[…]

We’ll RAC to it that your career ends in ignominy
Genius retires from international football the day double life is revealed as father of five from Milton Keynes.
The same age, and a separate car so he could get to Madrid for the weekends. And[…]

Free at Last
After 32 long years on the run, justice is finally done in one of the greatest miscarriages of US Military justice.[…]

Great London Books #1: Nairn’s London by Ian Nairn (1966)
“Nairn’s London” is perhaps the about-architecture version of the music book of my (our?) dreams. It’s smart and its funny and it doesn’t bother second gues[…]

London Submerged: “It is a vast stagnant swamp, which no man dare enter, since death would be his inevitable fate.”: short extracts from After London, by Richard Jefferies, a post-apocalyptic Victorian novel which imagines the city choked[…]

A red-blooded birthday to VIC FLURO! (lots more great covers here)[…]

That list of discontinued olympic events in full.
My favourite, cruelly missed out of the OSM list, is still the swimming obstacle race. Apparently Frederick Lane, the Australian winner, had grown up around Sydney harbour and was thus used to clambe[…]

Practical Criticism III
Yesterday’s back-and-forth focussed on the prospects for paid, printed music writing. I like the magazine format because it gives me something to read on the tube, and because a good editor can make already talented writ[…]

Dave Q conquers the world, part 4154145 — in which quite probably the Greatest Living Critic has his say about one Metallica and a recent movie of theirs. The tears of laughter are still rolling down my face.[…]

It was actually the head and upper chest they saved — the ridiculous joy of They Saved Hitler’s Brain isn’t just the title, of course, but damned if that doesn’t have a lot to do with it. It’s a perfect time-killer movi[…]