scaryblog

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's   top 50 films of 2023 #47 :     Nam June Paik: Moon Is the Oldest TV Documentary about the awe-inspiring vocation of the Korean avant garde disruptor, who foresaw the internet and meme culture’s importance in the 1970s. I recognise the name, but that's about it and I do like a good documentary, so I'm looking forward to this - although I'm expecting to be thoroughly confused by it all. Well, what we have here is a pretty straightforward telling of a pretty unstraightforward life.  Nam June was born in South Korea to a wealthy family and he trained as a classical pianist and found himself in Berlin to continue his studies.  At which point, he fell in with an experimental art collective and his life took a bit of a left turn from that point onwards, with him ending up in New York doing a very bizarre selection of things, often with very little money to support himself. The film is full of very earnest arty types who seem very ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 09/01/77 : Forever And Ever -  Demis Roussos Well I wasn't expecting to meet Demis on my travels - I vaguely remember him from back in the day (mostly due to Kenny Everett!) but I've no idea what I'm going to get here, although I suspect it's not exactly going to be my thang. Well, it's certainly different - there's a lot of vibrato falsetto going on, which isn't something you hear a lot of and I've not seen bouzoukis on many other albums either!  I was surprised to actually recognise the title track and "Goodbye My Love, Goodbye".  "My Friend The Wind" is also interesting because it uses "Zorba's Dance" so it sounds very familiar, despite me never having heard it before.  It's fair to say none of this is my sort of thing, but I don't feel I can really be too rude about it because he's just doing what he wants to do and people obviously loved it.  Quite w...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 16/01/77 : Blue Moves -  Elton John Well this is a peculiar week and no mistake!  To get to listen to Elton (again - this is his sixth album visit, along with two singles and two gig write-ups) we have to skip over six consecutive best-ofs from #13-#18 which include 100 (ONE HUNDRED!) Golden Greats from Max Bygraves and a mere 22 Golden Guitar Greats from Bert Weedon.  We then skip over a comedy album from Billy Connolly at #20 and a best of from Lena Martell who I don't remember at all - she did have a #1 single but that was in 1979 and at this point in time she'd had one album that peaked at #34 in '74, so quite who was buying her best-of is unclear.  All of which brings us to Elton, who I'd generally say you know what he's going to serve up, but I do know he delivered some stinkers in the 70s, so who knows... Well, it's not a stinker and it's certainly got some interesting bits on it - he certainly se...

Continuing my trip down The Guardian's  Top 50 TV Shows of 2023   #9 : The Sixth Commandment This devastating four-part drama told the real story of Peter Farquhar and Ann Moore-Martin, and the man who conned them both into fake relationships with him before he murdered Peter and attempted to murder Ann. It could so easily have been another gauche dramatisation of a true crime. But with Sarah Phelps at the helm, it was beautifully and thoughtfully crafted, with the victims and their families always at the heart of it. The performances were outstanding, with Timothy Spall putting in what many viewers lauded as a career best. I wasn't aware of this before I saw it here, but I've read several things since which say it's really good, so I'm looking forward to it.  I'm not generally fussed on "true crime" drama but I've heard this is very victim focussed, so we shall see. OK.  I got halfway through the first episode and that was enough for me.  As far a...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 23/01/77 : Johnny The Fox -  Thin Lizzy Our second visit with Thin Lizzy this year - I was disappointingly unimpressed last time so am hoping for better this time. Yeah, as much as I remember the previous album, at first listen this went down a lot better.  I mean, it's not remarkable - it's pretty standard 70s rock but there's some decent enough hooky riffs and guitar work in there.  And that's all I've got to say about it really - it kinda delivers what I expected it to (in a much better way than our previous visit) and at 36 minutes it doesn't hang around too long doing so. We're at #20 this week on their second week of a thirteen week run which is a decent enough effort by itself but it's actually their second run, with them having spent ten weeks previously before having a two week rest - I assume a single was responsible for the resurgence of interest.  The top five this week were Slim Whitman,...

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's   top 50 films of 2023 #48 :    War Pony The tenderness, wisdom and instinct to survive of two teenage Native Americans is beautifully observed in actor turned director Riley Keough’s debut feature. Following on from a Guardian cliché French film, we have a Guardian cliché indigenous people film - but I'd have to say I generally enjoy these more.  I also know that Riley Keough is Elvis Presley's granddaughter, so I'm not entirely sure that teenage Native Americans is exactly in her wheelhouse but let's see, shall we? The film follows  Bill ( Jojo Bapteise Whiting) in his early 20s  and Matho ( LaDainian Crazy Thunder) in his early teens as they try to hustle their way to success/maturity/whatever their latest goal is.  And so, like hustling often involves, various different strands are followed throughout the film - some of which progress the "story" along more than others.   A sense of foreboding builds a...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 30/01/77 : Luxury Liner -  Emmylou Harris Country isn't a genre that's been overly well represented so far - but I'd have to say I've seen a lot more of it in the 1977 album charts than I was expecting, even if we've only actually met Kenny and Don up to this point.  I know Emmylou is very well regarded by many artists over the years but I can't say I'm aware of anything she's done, so I'm interested to hear this. I'd say the songs are mostly fine if somewhat unremarkable (although I did like "Me And Willie" and I was also surprised to see Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell" on there), but they are hauled up a couple of levels by her voice - it's crystal clear, very polished and not too country (I do like Dolly, but she does overdo it a lot of the time).  The album wasn't really my kind of thing but it was perfectly bearable and absolutely lovely to hear a fem...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 23/02/24 :  TANGK - Idles Our second visit with Idles - last time I didn't mind the music but couldn't get with the vocal style and I have absolutely no reason to assume things will be different here. But... ...either the music is even better and the vocal style less annoying or I'm getting more tolerant in my old age - and I think we all know the latter option is very unlikely.  I really didn't mind this at all - there's all sorts of interesting noises on there.  It's hard to describe as well because I can't think of anything else it sounds like.  So maybe just check if out if you think you don't like Idles - you may be surprised.  I'm intrigued as to how I'm supposed to pronounce it though. We're back in the usual territory of being at #1 with a new entry this week with the rest of the tope five being Paloma Faith (another new entry),  Noah Kahan , The Weeknd best-of and ¥$ and we...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 06/02/77 : Lost Without Your Love -  Bread The lovely Mrs Reed is quite keen on Bread but I've always struggled to understand the appeal of their greatest hits album - it just all sounds a bit wet.  So my expectations aren't particularly high for this. Yeah, I think wet is still a fair description but I guess it's harmless enough, although his voice isn't always top notch (and he sounds a bit like Cliff Richard on some of the tracks, which is never going to help him).  Interestingly though, there's a definite Carpenters vibe to a load of the tracks and I suspect if they'd had Karen singing them I would have been saying I found them quite enjoyable - so maybe I just need to stop being so sexist and let the poor men have some credit from time to time.  I'm loving that album cover though! We're at #17 in the chart this week on their third week of a six week run, with this being as high as it got.  The t...

The latest in a (very) occasional series of musical reviews... Standing At The Sky's Edge : Gillian Lynne Theatre Two musicals in a row - what's going on?   So it's an interesting looking set with multiple levels and the band on display, which I always like - those guys work hard, so let them have some exposure.  After some quick pre-show chat with the guy in the seat next to me about how much we hated Oklahoma! (which ended up with us finding out we live about 5 minutes away from other), the lights went down and I settled in to my very comfortable cheap seat with an excellent view (this theatre is among the best for that) to enjoy the show. And enjoy it I did - very much.  We follow the story of a flat on the Sheffield Park Hill estate through the device of three families that live there in different timelines - initially a newly married couple in 1960, a family fleeing conflict in Liberia in 1999 and a single woman starting anew in 2017 but they all move forward t...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 13/02/77 : A Day At The Races -  Queen Queen have had quite a few write-ups here over the years and it's been quite the mixed bag - one "proper" album , one greatest hits , one live album , one posthumous album and three singles!  So I'm pleased to give them another proper go and quite looking forward to it, whilst at the same time suspecting I'm going to be disappointed. OK - let's start, as one often does with Queen albums, with the well known singles -  "Somebody To Love" is undoubtedly a fine track , whilst "Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy" and  "Tie Your Mother Down" are both listenable, although a lot of the latter is surprisingly Status Quo-ish which I didn't remember.   The rest of the album is the usual mixed bag which didn't quite grab me on first listen but I'm sure the fans loved.  I did feel a lot of it was quite under-produced, which is quite a surprise...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 20/02/77 : Wind And Wuthering -  Genesis I had some back and forth as to whether I should consider Rick Wakeman's White Rock album which is the soundtrack to a 1976 documentary about the Winter Olympics - but in the end I rejected it because it just sounded like the dullest documentary ever and I didn't think I should be encouraging such things.  Which leads us to our third visit with these lads, sitting nicely halfway between their very different offerings from '73 and '83 so I'm expecting it to be somewhere in between the two. Yeah, that's pretty much where we are - we've got the instrumental noodling of the earlier album combined with somewhat hookier riffs reminiscent of the later album .  I didn't mind it - on first listen I can't say any of it stuck with me, but it did feel like it would stand up to (and potentially reward) multiple listens.  It's not a million miles away from Peter G...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 27/02/77 : Boston -  Boston I don't really know much about Boston - I'm obviously aware of "More Than A Feeling" and I can only assume the rest of their stuff doesn't stray too far from the formula, but I guess I'll find out. Well, there's a lot more Hammond organ than I was expecting giving it a bit of a proggy feel at times, but it's mostly good old US rawk.  All perfectly fine if you like that sort of thing and they certainly delivered what a lot of people over there wanted - and more people over here than I remembered, it appears.  But "More Than A Feeling" is definitely the high point. This week we're at #11 in the charts on their eleventh week of an eighteen week run, with this being as high as it got - it also came back for a couple of weeks in '81 for no obvious reason.  The top five this week were The Shadows best-of,  Pink Floyd , the Heartbreakers 60s compilation,  Leo ...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 06/03/77 : Songs From The Wood -  Jethro Tull  Jethro Tull were always one of the heavier bands when I was at school, but I know they've had a few incarnations over their lifespan and believe 70s Tull is very different from 80s Tull - so, let's be honest, I've no idea what I'm going to get here! Hmmm - prog-folk anyone?  It's certainly, errr, different with it feeling much more early 70s than late 70s - I can't say I loved it, but I admire them making the noises they wanted to make and there's certainly plenty of skill involved in making those sounds.  I would have preferred some of the tracks to be a bit shorter (or at least feature less repetition) but I think that's pretty much all I have to say about it.  It's just odd. We're at #13 this week on their fourth week of a twelve week run, which was as high as it got but that still feels like a very generous run for what seems like a pretty ni...

Continuing my trip back through the 1977 album charts. 13/03/77 : Animals -  Pink Floyd Oops - time to 'fess up!  I should have played this about six weeks ago but I've been skipping it because I KNEW I'd already written it up, but when I was looking for the link to include it in a write-up for a completely different album (which fortunately I will be reusing very soon), I couldn't find it, obviously because I was completely wrong.  I do know I've listened to it though and I remember not liking it, so expectations are not high. But - it appears I have mis-remembered AGAIN.  I didn't mind this at all - it's got some interesting sounds and intriguing lyrics which I can imagine resulting in much late-night discussion.  I can't say any one track particularly stood out for me - in fact, I'd be hard-pushed to say how many tracks there are on the album (five, after checking).  But I get the feeling there's a load of meaning in there that totally passed ...