Tag: music

2025 films and stuff

Music contd.

Turns out I was wrong about not listening to as much music this year as last year, but only really because I ended up listening to a lot of music during December. Unsurprisingly my last.fm playback reveals that I listened the most to AFI (my favourite band, who released a new album at the end of October), closely followed by Sleep Token (who released their album in May and I do love them, but they’re not AFI). I also went to 5 gigs last year – Dave Hause (combined with a nice mini-break in Brighton), Deathboy, Sea Power, Viagra Boys (who I don’t even remember seeing) and Samia.

Films tho.

I saw a lot of new films. It was probably time for it after 2023 and 2024 didn’t really have that many. Nature is healing etc.

In reverse order of how much I liked them, as usual:

  • Rose of Nevada – This was interesting, but I just didn’t like what happened.
  • Ariel – Looks good and a cool idea but meandered a bit to boringly to be anything more than just fine.
  • Always – Kind of a painting of a film that could I thought would be more poetry
  • The Amateur – I’m glad I didn’t get around to seeing this in the cinema because it’s firmly a watching from the sofa film.
  • Captain America: Brave New World – My Mum enjoyed it but she doesn’t really follow the Marvel films in any particular way – she just sees what I happen to take her to see and likes action films. I feel like I would have enjoyed it more if it was a standalone film and these were non-Marvel characters.
  • Mother – I particularly liked the bit with Lordi’s Eurovision-winning hit, “Hard Rock Hallelujah”. Otherwise, pretty much what I was expecting from a film about St Teresa of Calcutta.
  • The Fantastic 4: First Steps – This was fine. The 1960s-ish alternate universe setting was good, as was the actual family vibe of the F4.
  • Frankenstein: The Anatomy Lesson – A DVD extra of a film that I don’t know really counts for the list, but it’s there on Letterboxd. Interesting to see the work that went into it, but I feel like social media also fed me the 70% of this via clips before I even saw it.
  • Ballerina – The action in this is really good.
  • BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions – This film grew out of a video art installation and I should probably watch it again but with the internet so that I can look up stuff at the same time.
  • Super Nature – I’m neutral on the whole super 8 film thing but it does provide an interesting limit for all the people involved in making this.
  • Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere – Like the Springsteen film I saw last year, I didn’t learn anything about Bruce that I didn’t already know yet it was still an enjoyable watch.
  • Train Dreams – In some ways this reminds me of Little Forest, which I also saw at LFF and was also a kind of quiet, enduring the passing of time and all that comes with it kind of film.
  • Jurassic World Rebirth – Did I rate this one so highly because it was better than I was expecting? Maybe!
  • Pangolin: Kulu’s Journey – Pangolins are so cool and maybe Kulu is the coolest.
  • The Choral – I still don’t really get what everyone seems to like about Alan Bennett’s work but I did enjoy watching this.
  • Silent Friend – I don’t know what I thought this film was going to be about when I bought my LFF ticket for it, but it certainly wasn’t what I ended up seeing. There’s always at least one like this for me and I’m glad did see what is essentially a film about a tree.
  • The Testament of Ann Lee – I kept hearing that this was a musical but I feel like it’s more like a film that happens to have singing in it.
  • Below the Clouds – I have visited Naples, Pompeii and Herculaneum at least 4 or 5 times in total, but you will not catch me actually go up Vesuvius. I can’t imagine what it would be like to live there. The highlight was the fire department’s call centre.
  • Frankenstein – Astoundingly like my experience of reading the book when I was 15 – starts strong, Victor gets more and more tedious and annoying to hear from and then the Creature shows up to take over and improve the story. Fantastic to look at.
  • The Accountant² – The lack of actual accounting is made up for with line-dancing.
  • Superman – This has a way better Clark Kent than the other recent Superman films – far more sincere and optimistic as a character and way more human.
  • Karate Kid: Legends – I saw this as part of my Mum’s multi-day birthday film extravaganza, so it was all films that she wanted to see or I thought she would like and this film was both of those things. We had a great time./li>
  • Wake Up Dead Man – Benoit Blanc is like if Lt. Columbo had a fashion sense. There are a bunch of moments where I thought “huh, no one Catholic looked at this part of the script” and “are these lighting choices too obvious???” but still a great film.
  • Thunderbolts* – They literally won with the power of friendship.
  • Rental Family – Definitely the film I most enjoyed in a year with actually a whole bunch of films I really enjoyed (at least the top 20 out of all the new films I saw and even the remaining ones on the list were fine). Heartwarming, funny and moving.

The Rest

Went on my usual English seaside town holiday. Ate an incredible pizza with roast potato on it. Visited Norfolk as usual. Read 10 books. Took my Mum to to the Saturday race of the London e-prix and was invited by McLaren FE with a bunch of other fans to hang out for the Friday free practice session. Visited the Wallace Collection and someone took a funny (in a iykyk way) photo of me there. Saw the Tim Burton exhibition at the design museum. Saw Sigourney Weaver in The Tempest (it wasn’t great :/). Saw Tom Hiddleston and Hayley Atwell in Much Ado About Nothing (which was great).

And for 2026? I’ve got a handful of gigs planned, but that’s all so far.

Bandcamp Wrapped 2025

Spotify Wrapped, Tidal Rewind, Apple Rewind etc are all out but since I still mostly listen to mp3s on my laptop, actual CDs or literally just the radio – I must await my last.fm 2025 playback sometime in the first days of 2026. I’m pretty sure I haven’t listened to as much music compared to 2024, but there have been some really great albums released this year which I have super enjoyed.

In the meantime, here is my Bandcamp Wrapped for all the albums where either the musicians just don’t have CDs available or I didn’t want a CD but enjoyed the music enough to think “I would buy these musicians a slice of cake”.

Continue reading “Bandcamp Wrapped 2025”

2023 Films and Stuff

While February 2023 feels like it was only a few weeks ago and I’m sort of wondering what I could have done all year, I also know that I did do some stuff.

I spent Eurovision week in Norfolk and another couple of weeks in Malaysia. I saw Loveless (twice), Asgeir, Dave Hause, Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, Hozier, ThxSoMch and Sleep Token play live (and have already bought tickets for a few gigs next year). I went to the penultimate e-prix of the season in London and saw FE cars whizz about making their souped-up milk float noises (affectionate).

I did not really see that many new films – last year there were 25 and this year there are only 13. Partly, I feel like there just wasn’t a lot I felt like seeing at the London Film Festival but also, I did have kind of a general meh feeling about going to my local cinema. Was there even anything I might have seen in another year? I can only think of “The Marvels” and maybe there wasn’t anything else or I just didn’t hear about other films to make me go and see them.

Anyway, those 13 films in reverse order of how much I liked them, as is customary for such things:

  • The Monkey King – I get that Monkey is kind of annoying, but I’d thought other interpretations had a kind of loveable scamp quality to him on occasion that this one just didn’t have. It was kind of limp.
  • Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine – This was just an hour long documentary about the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which did its job and told me about that but you can see how The Monkey King had to be poor to be less liked than a film that was merely efficient and functional.
  • Behind the Mountains – There’s some weird pacing choices and the main character just kind of gets angry sometimes and doesn’t really seem to talk to anyone about why he does the stuff he does.
  • Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – Kept things going at a reasonable pace but might have benefitted from reusing stuff from previous films a bit less.
  • Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre – I saw this on the flight back from Malaysia, so I expect I must have seen an edited version but this is the same airline that edited out the word “Jew” from Sandman but not the word beginning with C meaning vulva. I don’t think any edits would have made too much difference in all honesty since this film delivers everything you’d expect from a Jason Statham film directed by Guy Ritchie.
  • The Pigeon Tunnel – John Le Carré does have a very interesting life story, and is an excellent storyteller as you might expect from someone who has written so many popular books. I’m not sure I’m entirely sold on Errol Morris’ interview technique generally, but the contrast between them was entertaining at least.
  • One Life – I already knew about the Kindertransport and Sir Nicholas Winton before I saw this film and I’ve seen the relevant clips on youtube a few times – so nothing happens in this film that I did not expect but it was still worth seeing how some man just slogging away at paperwork managed to impact so many lives.
  • The Book of Clarence – Since this one is related to Jesus, I took my Mum to see it at LFF and she had a great time, particularly since the director was there to talk about the film. I liked the choice to make it in that 50s/60s biblical epic style.
  • Fingernails – This was good, but like I’ve said elsewhere, I never want to see it again. I also feel like not everyone in the screening I saw was expecting a science fiction kind-of-dystopia setting.
  • Barbie – I mean…she’s everything.
  • John Wick: Chapter 4 – For a lot of the year, this film was at the top of my 2023 list and it’s only because I saw two outstanding films in October that it’s in third place. Like the previous films, this is full of deeply satisfying action, beautifully shot and exists in a universe where you don’t need to question how John Wick gets to the places around the world that he shows up in, he just does.
  • COPA 71 – FIFA are literally the worst and these footballers are absolute legends. The amount of archival footage was fantastic, especially since the entire event basically got deleted from football history.
  • The Taste of Things – I could live in this film. Ok, not literally in that time period because I do enjoy having a microwave, but just put me at those dinner tables. A film about love, that feels like the smoothest, most velvety chocolate ganache and I would absolutely devour it, if you could make the experience of a film tangible.

Definitely see that last one.

Gigs without phones

The Simple Joy of “No Phones Allowed”

A few nights ago I saw Jack White in concert. It was a wonderful night, and a big part of that was due to a new rule he has imposed on all his tour dates: no phones.

When you arrive, you have to put your phone into a neoprene pouch, supplied by a company called Yondr, which they lock and give back to you. If you want to use your phone during the show, you can go into the concourse and unlock it by touching it to one of several unlocking bases. The concert area itself remains screen-free.

The effect was immediately noticeable upon entering the concert bowl. Aside from the time-travel-like strangeness of seeing a crowd devoid of blue screens, there was a palpable sense of engagement, as though—and it sounds so strange to say it—everyone came just so they could be there.

People were visibly enjoying the opening band, at least in part because that band no longer compete with the entire internet for the crowd’s attention. Even the crowd’s milling around and chatting between acts was so much more lively. People were either talking to their neighbors, or taking in the room. And everyone taking in the room was taking in the same room. It felt great.

This is an interesting article but, for me at least, a weird one. I don’t have a smartphone. My phone is about 15 years old and the reason I keep it is because I have 4 days battery life and really…what do I need a phone for? The odd text message. The odd phone call. That’s it.

Need directions to a place? I look them up beforehand, or ask someone nearby or just like… do what I’ve done on occasion and just… look around and pick the direction that seems right. That last one I did in Paris because I don’t speak French but at the same time I just didn’t want to talk to anyone anyway. Did I get where I wanted to go? Actually yes. Did it take a long time? No, because somehow I picked the right direction.

But back to gigs.

The article says “everyone came just so they could be there” – which I think would have been true even if everyone could have kept their smartphones. I’ve been to the odd gig where the artist performing has been pretty hyped in the press and you can see the subset of the crowd who is there so that they can say that they were there (you can kind of tell who they are, because they tend to be standing in circles talking to each other at the tops of their voices all the way through and it would probably have been cheaper to hang with their friends in a pub or something).

I can’t say that I’ve personally felt the black hole of disengagement from the smartphone using crowd around me. Perhaps it’s the fans that the artists I go to see attract? Anyone who shows up for the support acts is always there to actually see the support act that their ticket money is going towards. Sure, people use their phones between acts – but that doesn’t prevent the crowd doing an impromptu sing-a-long to the Queen song that drifts out of the speakers while we wait.

But yeah. I don’t have a smartphone. I go to gigs on my own. Sometimes I’ll talk to the people around me (nearly all of whom have smartphones in their pockets). Mostly, I like being there and hearing the people chatting around me but I don’t necessarily have anything to say to them. I’m content to sit or stand and just wait – I don’t need the constant entertainment of a phone or conversation with another person. So maybe the change that the author of the article experiences wasn’t because everyone around them didn’t have a phone, but primarily because they personally didn’t have a phone. All of the things they talk about people doing at the gig without their phones, they have been doing at all the gigs where they had their phones – the author just didn’t notice.

On Mass and Moshpits

I’ve thought about this, on and off over the years, and while I tend to be fairly loathe to really get into it about anything to do with religion 1, I figure sometimes you have to gather your thoughts and brain-dump them somewhere.

That and I’ve never been one for paper journals. Child of the internet and all that.

Plus I’ve been reading The Power of Place by Winifred Gallagher which touches briefly on some of the thoughts that I’ve had.

So. What was I thinking about? Mostly, the similarities between the experience of being in a moshpit and of going to Mass. Admittedly,  it is possible that there isn’t an obvious connection. For the most part, I suspect it’s a very subjective thing – which, yes, that is entirely what experiences from my viewpoint are. That’s the thing with personal experience. 😉

To begin: The first proper gig I went to was AFI’s Nightmare After Christmas 2 show at the London Astoria in January 2002 – before that, I’d been to the Reading Festival a couple of times. I would have been 17. It was amazing. AFI were and still are a band that I love with all of my heart – in the way that the bands you love as a teenager stay with you for the rest of your life and for me, it’s not just the music they made then, when I first got into them. I’m lucky enough that the direction their music has taken has coincided with the spread of my own taste in music.

Being there at the front, surrounded by other fans of AFI, was a phenomenal experience. It felt kind of transcendent – like we all had the same joy in our hearts and were all part of the same one thing. Which I suppose we were – we were all in the same crowd, pressed together with all the heat and sweat of the pit, connected by love of the same band. I’ve had the same kind of feeling at other gigs since then – usually when I’ve seen AFI but also at a few Alkaline Trio and Gaslight Anthem gigs. I think there’s something special about the first band to really grab your heart though.

Now, as some of you might know, I’m Catholic. I believe in God, transubstantiation, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, blah blah blah and all that.  I go to church on Sundays and holy days of obligation. I go on pilgrimage to Walsingham every year 3.  I don’t feel especially religious 4, but I guess to a lot of people I am due to my somewhat active involvement with my faith. On the other hand, I guess since I’ve got a foot in the door, I get to see all the other people on the inside who are far more involved and active and who I would consider as “religious”. Now, that feeling of almost transcendent oneness is a feeling that I sometimes feel at Mass – mostly when singing certain religious songs, hymns or particularly rousing requiem Masses in Latin. It’s a thing that happens.

Now, I’m sure I had a point (other than this whole thing being a bit interesting) back in August when I started writing this post – but I remember that I got interrupted halfway through and it’s been sitting in my drafts ever since. I figured I should at least round it off a little and release it into the wild.

To finish, however, is a comment I posted on Frank Turner’s reddit AMA on a thread where someone was asking about reactions to his atheist hymn “Glory Hallelujah”.

I really like Glory Hallelujah as a song. I also really like singing along at gigs – it gives me a comparable high/buzz to when I’m really into it singing in Latin about death on Good Friday at church or like…a really good worship hymn that doesn’t make me cringe while I’m singing it.

I have discovered that I can’t sing along to Glory Hallelujah. At all. I open my mouth and nothing comes out. I think my brain short-circuits at the paradox.

 

 

 

1 Because, hey, each to their own really, so long as it doesn’t impact negatively on others.

2  Which after a bit of searching is apparently the greatest show that AFI ever did. Or so I am told.

3 This one is a story all on its own, involving the unlikely but apparently somewhat miraculous event of my conception. Probably not one for sharing all the details.

4 There’s probably also a story here where I talk about how atheists/agnostics I know have told me how “normal” I seem for a practising Christian, how with the blue hair etc I look a little unconventional and how my faith, appearance and taste in music are all tied into not caring if I’m like anyone else.

Hot Water Music @ The Old Blue Last 2nd May 2012

CONFESSION TIME. I’d never actually gotten around to listening to any of their music. Not really. I had an mp3 of Jack of All Trades somewhere and I’d heard one of the new songs but that was it.

Which is really weird because back when HWM did that split with Alkaline Trio, I got hold of all the Alk3 tracks and liked them and thought “well, you know, the HWM tracks will probably be good too right?” AND THEN JUST NEVER LISTENED TO THEM.

Weird. I know. I even saw Chuck Ragan on The Revival Tour last year and once again (like.. a decade after that Alk3 moment) thought “I should really listen to Hot Water Music, I like all of their friends’ music…”

So yeah. I jumped on getting a ticket for this because…I figured that it was as good a time as any to really listen to a band for the first time and OMGOMGOMG IT WAS AWESOME. :D:D:D:D

Admittedly, that’s somewhat similar to my reaction to the Avengers film when I saw it last week. You get the point though.

And they played the two songs I was vaguely familiar with, so bonus.

HildaMay were cool. I confess here that I didn’t look them up online anywhere so was genuinely expecting a girl band because of the name. I still liked them though.

Sharks were the same as they usually are. I’ve realised that I keep seeing Sharks when they’re supporting someone else. I don’t think I’d put the effort in to see them headline, but they’re ok.

Chapel Club @ Shepherd’s Bush Empire 18/10/11

Confession time. I only really know the one Chapel Club song – All The Eastern Girls. This will be important later on.

So – Elephant. Two guys and a girl. One of the guys had a fascinating jumper & Mr T-style gold chain combo going on, which was a tad distracting. The other guy… he kept disappearing. No idea why. The girl had an elephant pendant on a really long chain. Other than that, and that one of the songs had purring in it… I can’t remember their music at all. Sorry guys.

Other Lives on the other hand were amazing. Everyone in the band appeared to be a multi-instrumentalist. Their music is pretty epic (possibly in part to the breadth of variety of instruments available – kind of sweeping and layered and generally rockin’. I’d definitely see them again.

The main event of course was Chapel Club. I’ve already admitted that I only really know the one song (though I do own it on vinyl and took the trouble to record a mp3 of it for ease of listening), so it’s no surprise that I was a bit wary of the musical plan for the evening – there was a first set of entirely new music and a second set of old music. The new stuff was less guitary than the Chapel Club I’m used to, but ok. The old stuff (if music probably at most 2 years old can be called old) was pretty much what I was expecting. Chapel Club have a sort of warm languid sound – something like being tucked up in a warm bed on a cold day. I left after All The Eastern Girls, even though I think there was probably another song left at least…mostly because I was tired and wanted to buy Other Lives’ album.

All in all, it was pretty ok.

Morning Parade @ The Scala 26/09/11

It was pretty handy that I didn’t have any lectures on Monday, because I discovered on Wednesday that the journey on the train takes a fair amount of time and… I would have missed this gig. Which would have been unfortunate.

Veto were the support band – I had been expecting two for some reason but I was kind of glad that there was only one in the end. They were pretty good – the singer reminds me a bit of a friend of mine, only my friend didn’t have quite such an epic beard.

Morning Parade were aces. Apparently the guy standing behind me has known the singer for TEN YEARS. SINCE THEY WERE THIS TALL. TEN YEARS. YOU KNOW. TEN YEARS.

Yeah. I got the picture after the 5th or 6th time he told me. Mostly that he’d been drinking.

Then after about ten minutes some other guy behind me grabs my shoulders and says “This is your fifth time?”. So I turned round and was BAFFLED by what appeared to be Frank Turner asking me a question, only… Frank’s had a haircut AND he’s on tour in the US. So clearly, this was not Frank Turner. Just some guy. So I told him “no, this is only my third time seeing Morning Parade.” Random.

Incidentally, the first time I saw Morning Parade they were supporting Feeder and Grant Nicholas FORGOT their name. Oops. He was adorable about it though and got the in the end. The second time I saw them… they were also supporting Feeder (do you see a theme here?) and Grant did remember their name.

I’ve got a couple of Morning Parade vinyl singles, but nothing more. I should really sort that out. It’s occurred to me that if the Stereophonics made music that was catchy and danceable and that I liked, they might sound a bit like Morning Parade.

In other news, I’m sure I installed a last.fm plugin into my wordpress blog but it appears to be missing. 🙁

The Kill Van Kulls @ The Social 11/07/11

I <3 The Kill Van Kulls. Really I do. They were an unexpected bonus when I saw The Naked & Famous last year and when I heard that they were releasing a new single and doing a small gig to launch it… well. I was sold. They remind me a little of Tears for Fears crossed with Patrick Wolf, which is actually a pretty nice-sounding hybridisation.

Anyway, they were great. Their music really filled out the venue (yeah, I know it was small, but still… you’ll see what I mean later) and, of course, they played the one song that I really know too. I guess I should really try to hit up more of their music, but have a sneaking suspicious that there isn’t really a lot of it about.

Also, as soon as they have a tangible EP or album out? It shall me mine. Definitely. And yeah, I know, CDs are getting a little old-fashioned now, but I like having music I can hold. Especially when you’ve had several hard drives die on you.

Support came from Ben Burrows and We Human. We Human were OK – as it’s over a week since the event, I don’t really remember much. I know I thought they were OK, but they could have done with being a bit louder somehow or bigger sounding (the music didn’t really fill the place, like I mentioned TKVK’s doing before) and maybe it was down to there not being that many people there… but I don’t know. Maybe there wasn’t enough banter between songs. Maybe the sound needed turning up. They were OK. That’s all I’ve got. They’ll probably be more to my exact taste in time.

Ben Burrows was pretty good. Just him, his guitar and his laptop with a sizeable chunk of “you know, I think he listens to a lot of Jeff Buckley” with a smidgen of “a bit ramshackle” for flavour. In contrast to We Human, he really filled the tiny stage and not just because he’s like… a giant (seriously, he was really tall). There was chitchat, there was poking the laptop to make it work without making it fall off its stand and there was guitary bits with some drum bits. I liked it. There was one song that had a one word title beginning with L, I think, that I really liked and now can’t remember the name of.

So. In conclusion, We Human were OK, Ben Burrows was pretty good and The Kill Van Kulls were aces because I don’t go and see bands I don’t think will be aces. Unless someone else has kindly given me a free ticket.

And now that I’ve had some time not trying to remember that Ben Burrows song? I think it was called “Lariat”.

December 2010 Gigs

I…went to a whole load of gigs and never really got round to blogging about them so here goes:

1. Frank Turner @ Brixton Academy 12/12/10

Frank Turner was ACCCCES.  I’d never seen him before, had an unlistened to album and it turned out that I’d only actually listened to one song. He was rocking. The old songs were ace. The new songs were ace. The cover song was ace. Everything was ace.  Support were Dive Dive and Ed Harcourt. I love Ed Harcourt. He started the evening with a full beard and then he came on later to perform with Frank…and surprised us all (even Frank) by just having the moustache.

2. XFM Winter Wonderland @ Brixton Academy 15/12/10

This was also ACES.  Manics were ace. Suede were ace. White Lies, Two Door Cinema Club, Mona and The Drums were all ok.

3. The Twang @ The Relentless Garage 22/12/10

The support were Tantrums who I really liked. Had to leave before The Twang did their encore because of the snow, Christmas and trains and that but they were fun and played all the songs I actually knew 😀

 

Of course, I would remember more if I’d blogged all this 4 months ago!!!