Lou says you changed your pickup for a Seville

Thursday music corner: Kirsty MacColl (b.Croydon 1959, d.2000 Mexico) was a British singer-songwriter born to Scottish parents in London. Her father was notable Scottish folk singer Ewan MacColl (1915-89). She was signed to Stiff Records before her 20th birthday after impressing on backing vocals duties for punk band Drug Addix, and went on to release five albums during her lifetime, including Electric Landlady, which reached number 17 in the UK album charts in 1991, and Tropical Brainstorm, which later went gold in the year she died. 

MacColl is most famous for the 1987 UK number two single, Fairytale of New York, recorded with the Pogues; producer Steve Lillywhite was her then-husband. The single topped the Irish charts and also reached number 5 in New Zealand. MacColl was killed in a boating accident aged 41 when a powerboat moving at speed in a restricted area struck her while she was pushing her son out of harm's way.

There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis was MacColl's third single release, and the first to chart. It reached number 14 in the UK singles chart in 1981, and appeared on her debut album Desperate Character.    

Kirsty MacColl - There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis (1981)

See also:

Music: Kirsty MacColl - Days (Kinks cover, 1989)

Music: The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale of New York (1987)

Music: Ewan MacColl - Van Diemen's Land (1952)

Come on outside, let me hear those thoughts

Thursday music corner: American singer-songwriter Sharon Van Etten has released seven studio albums since 2009, including her most recent, Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory, released in February 2025. She has also acted in TV series and films. She and her band are currently touring Australia and New Zealand, and performed at Wellington's Opera House on Tuesday, along with impressive support from Los Angeles folk-punk singer Shannon Lay.

Idiot Box is an album track from Van Etten's most recent album, and was written by Van Etten and the band.

Sharon Van Etten & the Attachment Theory - Idiot Box (live, 2025)

See also:

Music: Sharon Van Etten - Afterlife (2024)

Music: Sharon Van Etten & Josh Homme - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love, and Understanding (2020)

Music: Shannon Lay - Mirrors (2024)

And the ground coughs up some roots, wearing denim shirts and boots

Thursday music corner: Singer, songwriter and actor Bobby Darin was born Walden Robert Cassotto in New York, in 1936. In his early twenties he attained fame co-writing the 1958 million-selling novelty single Splish Splash, and then cemented his pop stardom with Dream Lover and his covers of Weill and Brecht's Mack The Knife and French singer Charles Trenet's Beyond the Sea (originally La Mer). He released an astonishing 27 studio albums in his relatively short career, with his second and third, That's All (1959) and This Is Darin (1960) reaching the US Billboard top 10. Darin scored 22 US top 40 singles from 1958 to 1966. He also appeared in 13 feature films, including the 1962 remake of State Fair. From 1960 to 1967 he was married to popular actor, Sandra Dee. Darin died in 1973 aged 37, from a long-standing heart condition.

Long Line Rider appeared on Darin's 1968 album Bobby Darin Born Walden Robert Cassotto, which was his first album release to consist solely of self-written songs. The track concerns the discovery of unmarked graves at the brutal Cummins Prison Farm in Arkansas, where prisoners killed by the titular prison service riders were buried.

Bobby Darin - Long Line Rider (1968)   

See also:

Music: Bobby Darin - If I Were A Carpenter (live, 1973)

Music: Charles Trenet - La Mer (1946)

Music: Stockard Channing - Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee (1978) 

Maria Bamford's workplace trajectory

Given my tendency to reject those who accept me, this is the work pattern that I fight against to this day:

1. I cry in the bathroom at the impossibility or first sign that I am not good at my job (for example, upon hearing, "Did you forget to order creamer?" [receptionist], or, "Can you pace it up?" [voice-over gig]).

2. I start to see the flawed nature of my employers and the unethical moral quandaries of the job. There's a reason the animation is done in Korea! The labor is cheaper and not well-treated! There is hypocrisy in what I thought was beautiful! Now that I'm a part of it, it is BAD!

3. I start to "speak up" passive-aggressively (via comedy). At Nickelodeon, I made a satirical short film with myself and another production assistant killing off all of the Nickelodeon executives in a Masterpiece Theatre-style mystery.

4. I am well-liked but troubling to the people who have hired me. I do a good job, but those in charge sense my lack of respect. As with everything, once I am invited to be a part of it, it is BAD.

I was at Nickelodeon for one year and I was voted Employee of the Month the same month I got fired. After being fired, I won a voice-over role on their new series, CatDog. They gave me a severance of two months pay and with that, I was able to move to a nicer neighborhood, get a dog, and begin earning more from stand-up than from temping. But I would still do anything for cash. I've answered phones for comedy development executives right after having pitch meetings with them. I worked eight hours at NBC4 reception after doing The Tonight Show the night before. The weatherman walked by and said, "You were on Leno last night!" and kept walking. The gradual change into being a full-time performer took about as long as it took me to pay off my medical debt - eight years.

- Maria Bamford, Sure, I'll Join Your Cult, New York, 2023, p.146-7.

I'm burning aviation fuel no matter what the cost

Thursday music corner: Chuck Berry (b. Missouri 1926, d. Missouri 2017) was a towering rock 'n roll pioneer whose brushes with legal pitfalls (armed robbery, transporting a minor across state lines, assault, accusations of illegal filming, and drugs charges) tarnish but do not overshadow his role as a champion of rhythm and blues music and a confident, trailblazing exponent of black musical excellence for national and international audiences. 

Berry scored fifteen US pop chart (top 40) singles in three decades, opening with the effervescent Maybelline (US number 5 in 1955) and closing with the crass novelty number My Ding-a-Ling, which topped the charts in 1972.   

No Money Down was Berry's third single, released in January 1956 and later appearing on his May 1957 album After School Session, which also included Too Much Monkey Business and Brown Eyed Handsome Man. The familiar consumerism of Berry lyrics is epitomised in No Money Down's lengthy catalogue of desirable premium features sought for a brand-new Cadillac, with the loan repayments presumably to be worried about at some unspecified future date.

Chuck Berry - No Money Down (1956)

See also:

Music: Chuck Berry - Brown Eyed Handsome Man (1956)

Music: Chuck Berry - No Particular Place To Go (1964)

Music: John Lennon - Sweet Little Sixteen (1975)

Rum-tum-tum, three times she shot

Thursday music corner: Lonnie Donegan (b. Glasgow 1931, d. Lincolnshire 2002) was a pioneering singer-songwriter who led the pre-Beatles skiffle craze in Britain, interpreting American jazz, blues and folk for British audiences in a low-fi rock 'n roll ethos. Starting with a cover of the plantation spiritual Rock Island Line in 1955 Donegan had 30 UK top 40 singles or EPs through to his final success with Pick A Bale Of Cotton in 1962. Three of his singles topped the UK charts: Cumberland Gap and Gamblin' Man (both 1957) and the novelty number My Old Man's A Dustman in 1960. The latter also reached number one in Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Two of Donegan's albums were major UK chart successes, with 1956's Lonnie Donegan Showcase reaching number 2 and 1958's Lonnie reaching number 3.

Frankie and Johnny is a traditional American murder ballad first recorded in 1912 and with roots in a St Louis, Missouri, murder trial from 1899. The increasingly frenzied and incendiary Donegan version appeared as the closing track on his successful 1956 Lonnie Donegan Showcase album. This performance is from a 1961 TV special.

Lonnie Donegan - Frankie & Johnny (live, 1961)

See also:

Music: Lonnie Donegan - Rock Island Line (live, 1961)

Music: Lonnie Donegan - Cumberland Gap (1957)

Music: Lindsay Lohan - Frankie & Johnny (in A Prairie Home Companion, 2006)

Her eyes no longer study her emptiness

Thursday music corner: Dodgy are a London indie band formed in Hounslow in 1990, and who attained their greatest exposure during the mid-1990s Britpop boom. Their second album Homegrown reached number 28 in the UK album charts in 1994 and was certified Gold, while their third, Free Peace Sweet, reached number 7 and was certified Platinum. Dodgy has released seven studio albums, and has scored nine UK top 40 singles, with the most successful being the breezy Good Enough, which reached number 4 in the UK pop charts in 1996. Their most recent album, Hello Beautiful, was released in September 2025.

The energetic, The Who-influenced In A Room was the first single released from Free Peace Sweet, on 27 May 1996, preceding Good Enough. It reached number 12 in the UK charts.

Dodgy - In A Room (1996) 

See also:

Music: Dodgy w/ the Kick Horns - Making The Most Of (1995)

Music: Dodgy - Good Enough (1996)

Music: Dodgy - Every Single Day (1998)

But first you must learn how to smile as you kill

Thursday music corner: Marianne Faithfull, who died aged 78 in January 2025, was an English singer and actress, famed at the time for her romantic relationship with the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger from 1966 to 1970. She released 22 studio albums from 1965 to 2021, and released a posthumous EP Burning Moonlight this year. Her first two albums reached the UK top 20, and her 1979 album Broken English reached the top 5 in West Germany, Austria, Sweden and New Zealand. Faithfull also had five UK top 40 singles. She appeared in a range of films including The Girl on a Motorcycle (1968), Tony Richardson's Hamlet as Ophelia (1969), and Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette as Empress Maria Theresa (2006). 

Faithfull's interpretation of John Lennon's Working Class Hero appeared on her Grammy-nominated Broken English album and was its third single release after The Ballad of Lucy Jordan and the title track.

Marianne Faithfull - Working Class Hero (1979)

See also:

Music: Marianne Faithfull - Come Stay With Me (1965)

Music: Marianne Faithfull - The Ballad of Lucy Jordan (1979)

Music: Marianne Faithfull - Burning Moonlight (2025)

Interview: 'I always knew I was something quite extraordinary' (1979)

 

If I give you a smile you can sell it for me

Thursday music corner: Whistler were a London indie band formed by ex-EMF guitarist Ian Dench. The band was active from around 1998 to 2000, and released two albums on the Wiiija label, the self-titled Whistler (1999) and Faith in the Morning (2000). The wistful If I Give You A Smile features lead vocals by Kerry Shaw. In 2007 Dench wrote Beautiful Liar, a duet between Beyonce and Shakira, for which he won an Ivor Novello award. He was also nominated for two Grammy Awards in 2010 for production work on Beyonce's album I Am Sasha Fierce. 

Whistler - If I Give You A Smile (1999) 

See also:

Music: Whistler - Don't Jump in Front of My Train (1999)

Music: Bis - Sweetshop Avengerz (1997)

Music: Cornershop - Lessons Learned from Rocky I to Rocky III  (2002)

The Wild West character of Hawke's Bay settler towns

Although harking to British urban ideals, Hawke's Bay's settler-age towns looked distinctly frontier American, in part a function of available building materials. Where stone was available - such as Oamaru - New Zealand's settlers emulated Britain. Where it was not, meaning virtually every other frontier town in New Zealand, the style of the age was usually Wild West. Common build materials lent force to common social values: Napier, Hastings, Wairoa, Waipukurau or Waipawa could have done double duty as Dodge City. All shared the same rows of clap-board buildings, limed, dusty roads, the sense of newness with untamed verges and a landscape where trees had yet to grow, and the piles of detritus dumped higgledy-piggledy in empty sections. Even the hitching-posts outside the saloons were much the same; and inside them, men on both sides of the Pacific did 'full justice' - as the period term usually put it - to whiskey, cards and billiards.

Provincial life swirled around these towns, a complex, sophisticated whirl of events suffused with the values of the time, particularly self-betterment - financially, socially and intellectually. This was pushed along in Napier with the help of the Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute, a library opened in 1863. As McLean remarked, the 'want of such a place' had been felt for 'a very long time'. By 1877 the Athenaeum, solidly housed in in Browning Street premises, owned some 1500 books. Education sometimes doubled as entertainment; one Napier visitor in the 1880s attended a 'free lecture on spiritualism in the Hoadley salerooms' and thought the 'larrikins were so noisy that I almost thought there would be ructions'.

Much evolved around local hotels. Despite the hopes for town halls and athenaeums, social life in New Zealand's rugged colonial frontier inevitably focused on hotels and their public bars. These were the public centres of their towns in practise, offering not just accommodation but spaces for townsfolk to gather and socialise. Business deals were often made in them - and in Havelock North, hotels even provided a public space for inquests. They were, in short, gathering places for their communities, the 'hub of the countryside', as one settler put it. Dozens flourished across Hawke's Bay. In Napier, there were four in Shakespeare Road alone. Others around the district included Wairoa's Clyde Hotel, the Duke of Edinburgh in Porangahau, Waipawa's Empire Hotel, the London Hotel on Napier's spit, the Tavistock in Waipukurau, the Sawyer's Arms in Hampden (Tikokino), and the Patangata Hotel.

- Matthew Wright, The History of Hawke's Bay, Wellington, 2017, p.108.

Singing a jetstream from alive to dead

Thursday music corner: Norwegian singer-songwriter Jenny Hval (b.1980) studied in and joined bands in Melbourne, before returning to Norway to a career as a musician, artist and writer. She released two albums as Rockettothesky in 2006 and 2008, followed by nine albums to date under her own name, including the two most recent releases on 4AD Records. Hval has also published four novels, two of which have been translated into English.

A Ballad appears on Hval's most recent album, Iris Silver Mist, issued in May 2025. The experimental art-pop album was named after a French perfume, and was described by Mojo magazine as 'an exquisite, sometimes spectacular achievement rich with emotive resonance'.

Jenny Hval - A Ballad (2025) 

See also:

Music: Jenny Hval - The Artist is Absent (2025)

Music: Jenny Hval - Year of Love (2022)

Music: Jenny Hval - Conceptual Romance (2016)

Down by the lagoon after work

 

Get in, stay in, 'cos right now you're vulnerable

Thursday music corner: Wesley Gonzalez is an English indie solo artist and founder member of London indie trio Let's Wrestle. The band released three albums and was active from 2005 to 2015. Gonzalez (who is not to be confused with the Filipino basketballer Wesley Gonzales) then went solo, releasing albums Excellent Musician (2017), Appalling Human (2020) and Wax Limousine (2022). His most recent release is the four-track Wild Garlic EP from June 2023.

Greater Expectations was released in May 2021, and features guest vocals by former Pipette, Rose Elinor Dougall. The song later appeared as the opening track on the Wax Limousine album.

Wesley Gonzalez - Greater Expectations (featuring Rose Elinor Dougall, 2021)

See also:

Music: Wesley Gonzalez - Wax Limousine (2021)

Music: Let's Wrestle - In Dreams Part II (2011)

Music: Rose Elinor Dougall - Start/Stop/Synchro (2009)

Dennis Hopper: photographer

The aftermath of Hopper's first film as director saw the global superstar and auteur on a self-exiled binge in Taos, New Mexico. Wrangling footage of his second, The Last Movie, into something approaching coherence while remaining true to shifting principles of incoherence proved predictably tough going - not least for anyone expected to sit through the result. Hopper's banishment was by then complete, but it was not unprecedented. After repeated run-ins with director Henry Hathaway on the set of From Hell to Texas he was effectively blackballed by Hollywood at the tender age of twenty-one.

He went to New York, where he studied with Lee Strasberg and fell in love - with modern art and [his first wife] Brooke [Hayward], James Dean had urged him to start taking photographs when they were filming Rebel Without a Cause in 1955 but Hopper did not get a serious camera a birthday present from Brooke until 1961. Back in LA the couple discovered a simmering art scene that was about to come to the boil. Hopper was in its midst as collector (he bought one of the first Warhol soup-can paintings), participant, friend and witness.

He was shy he said later, and liked the way the camera gave him something to fiddle with. As in a low-budget indie production, the nascent scene had a cast of dozens, some natives of this coastal paradise (like his lifelong friend, curator and impresario Walter Hopps), others, like Hopper himself (Kansas) and Ed Ruscha (born in Nebraska, raised in Oklahoma) from the Midwest. In opposition to the psychological depths plumbed by Abstract Expressionism (Hopper's first painterly passion in New York), LA art relished and reflected the mass visual culture of southern California. 'Pop' may have been a conceptual import, but its raw materials could be locally sourced. The streets were full of stuff that would end up in the paintings (and the photographs): cars, gas stations, billboards for the movie stars whom Hopper counted among his friends. They brought a glamour to the art which, in turn, celebrated the profundity of the superficial. The marriage of showbiz and art has been enduring, as a merger, it has proved stunningly lucrative.

- Geoff Dyer, See / Saw: Looking at Photographs, Edinburgh, 2021, p.80-81.

See also:
Photography: Joel Meyerowitz: the heart of the photographic moment, 9 July 2024

Photography: Cindy Sherman: chameleon, comedian, 15 January 2017

Photography: Ans Westra: Wellington 1976, 30 June 2013

Film Festival 2025 roundup

This year's festival was shorter than usual, just two weekends long, and due to the new 10-trip concession tickets we saw fewer movies than we normally would. In the previous two years I saw 16 films, but this time around I only managed 11. All things considered it was a decent festival, but attending the opening night screening reminded me why I generally avoid the first and last nights - the interminable speeches meant for a late and grumpy start to proceedings. Had to chuckle at the festival manager bod who claimed "It's all about the movies" while the festival leadership spent 35 minutes talking about how much work it is to stage a film festival. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad they do it, but talking about it at length is the height of self-indulgence!

Here's the films I saw this year, in rough order of preference:

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The Ballad of Wallis Island (dir. James Griffiths, UK, 2025)

A real delight - why aren't there more films like this? The most charming musical offering on the big screen since Once, with great songs to boot. Not surprising, given the multi-talented Tom Basden and Carey Mulligan are involved. Tim Key, Basden and Mulligan are all superb and it all wraps up into a charming homage to the healing power of music to bridge the doldrums of loss and regret. Also contains the most definitively British euphemism for undies possible. See it - the film, not the undies, although they are obviously in the film - if you can! And if you want to learn more about the making of the film, Key and Basden's May 2025 podcast interview with Adam Buxton is the perfect companion:

Werckmeister Harmonies (dir. Bela Tarr, Hungary, 2000)

Constructed of long, languid takes, Werckmeister Harmonies proceeds at a stately pace depicting the descent of a Communist-era society into totalitarianism, but is anything but dull. Replete with stunning black-and-white cinematography and a gifted orchestral score, it illustrates the breakdown of a community as insidious superstition and cynical manipulation take hold, to chilling effect. Throughout, the haunted, expressive performance of lead actor Lars Rudolph bears witness to the looming, inevitable dread.

Nouvelle Vague (dir. Richard Linklater, US/France, 2025)

Just the note-perfect fan service making-of-Breathless that cinema buffs deserve and Richard Linklater has always wanted to make. An expert navigation of the rich mine of creativity and the innate and unavoidable frustration of working with the talented and insufferable Godard. Looks beautiful, superb casting (Zoey Deutsch and Aubry Dullin are perfect as Seberg and Belmondo), and it deftly depicts the bemused camaraderie of the cast and crew brought along, willingly and unwillingly, on the fabulist's mad journey that created an improbable, indelible memory.

Prime Minister (dir. Michelle Walshe / Lindsay Utz, NZ, 2025)

A useful antidote to years of self-serving revisionism skewing the narrative of Jacinda Ardern's time in power, and distinctive due to the commendably frank and revealing access provided by her partner Clarke Gayford's personal interviews and the recorded-for-posterity political diary oral history project by the Turnbull Library. Ardern's fleeting reference to Boris Johnson is a timely reminder that, whatever their political stripe, leaders aren't always equal to the tasks placed on their desks, and the skills and emotional investment required in peaceful, prosperous times don't fly for a second in times of sustained, historic crises like the Christchurch mosque massacres and the Covid pandemic. Gayford's perhaps poorly-worded query to Ardern near the end of the film - could she have perhaps delegated more, and by implication protected her own wellbeing better? - is understandably rejected by Ardern simply because of the sort of person she is; while tasks can be delegated, if you take the role of leadership seriously as Ardern does, overall responsibility can never be sloughed off. If anything, Prime Minister reveals it's a surprise she stuck it out in the role as long as she did. Which does her credit, and is a sad indictment of the corrosive nature of modern politics.

It Was Just An Accident (dir. Jafar Panahi, Iran, 2025)

Aspects of Jafar Panahi's NZIFF-opening Palme d'Or winner are intriguing, particularly its searing insights into the brutal repression of dissidents and leftists by the regime, and the lasting trauma that clouds the lives of those who survived their torture. It also benefits from wry shards of social commentary, such as the ever-present and ever-increasing nuisance of requests for baksheesh that Iranians use to make ends meet or extort tribute from those they hold fleeting power over. But the whole is perhaps less than the sum of its admittedly well-honed parts, given the implausibility of so many character actions and the handwavium needed to advance the plot being reminiscent of Jim Jarmusch's 1986 feature Down By Law, in which the jail escape is breathlessly unexplained - because if it was explained the audience wouldn't buy it for a second.


Mirrors No.3 (dir. Christian Petzold, Germany, 2025)

A pleasingly gentle German drama featuring frequent Christian Petzold muse Paula Beer as a woman involved in a rural car-crash who lodges with a lonely older woman living nearby. Examining the trajectories of grief, the solace of companionship, and with touches of pathos as the characters reveal more of their personal demons, Mirrors No.3 improves on Petzold's previous outing, Afire, and may well achieve a wider audience. It also features a well-judged deployment of the 1972 Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons northern soul classic, The Night.


One to One: John & Yoko (dir. Kevin Macdonald, US, 2024)

An effective documentary glimpse into John & Yoko's years in Greenwich Village in Manhattan from 1971 to 1973, spanning their arrival in America til their move uptown to the Dakota Building on the Upper West Side. The highlight is the restored concert footage from the August 1972 Madison Square Garden benefit gig they staged to aid the cruelly neglected children of the Willowbrook institution on Staten Island; astonishingly, the two Willowbrook benefit performances were John's last full-length public gigs. A recreation of the couple's tiny Village apartment with its telly blaring at the foot of the bed is the key to the documentary's use of snapshot TV footage from the era - news reports from Vietnam, hippie radicals expounding, and garish TV commercials speaking to middle America that John, in particular, lapped up after his youth in Britain as an America-obsessed rocker. The political machinations of the time, when the couple were flirting with revolutionary politics while at the same time trying to remain in the US legally under the Nixon administration, and every radical seemed to want them to lend their voices to their increasingly off-beat schemes, are successfully illustrated. A useful companion documentary to Michael Epstein's 2010 ungainly-named film LennoNYC.


Sorry, Baby (dir. Eva Victor, US, 2025)

Eva Victor’s first feature is a lively and sympathetic depiction of twenty-something trauma and companionship with a polished grasp of humour to leaven the serious subject matter and a compelling gift for inspired casting, idiosyncratic character development and pleasingly authentic dialogue. Hopefully this is the emergence of the next actor-director star alongside the multi-talented Greta Gerwig. Also features an excellent kitten.


But Also John Clarke (dir. Lorin Clarke, Australia, 2025)

Clarke's daughter Lorin has assembled an understandably affectionate portrait of a genial comedic polymath who charmed two nations and built a distinctive Antipodean outpost in thrall to the British satire boom of the 1960s that expanded what was possible in comedy terms in both New Zealand and then Australia. Sam Neill is an obvious interviewee, Ben Elton and Oscar Kightley perhaps less so (the latter never met Clarke, but watched him on the telly like the rest of us). I also learned that RNZ's Simon Morris of 'At the Movies' fame provided the backing vocals on the hit Fred Dagg record.  


The Mastermind (dir. Kelly Reichardt, US, 2025)

A perfect downbeat mood-piece accompaniment to Alexander Payne’s The Holdovers, depicting the preparations for and aftermath of an amateur 1970 Ohio art heist that goes awry. The titular mastermind, played by Josh O’Connor, displays flashes of insight into the meticulous planning required for a successful heist but suffice it to say, continually fails to live up to the film’s title, often in subtle but compounding ways. Kelly Reichardt has assembled an excellent cast including Alana Haim as O’Connor’s long-suffering wife, and two young sibling actors as their lively sons, who regularly pop up at potentially inconvenient moments in the criminal process. The film’s second half takes up where Reichardt’s 2013 film Night Moves left off, and adopts a loping, languid pace as O’Connor adapts to life on the lam. While the stakes may be relatively low, Reichard’s script contains welcome flashes of humour and period detail, and there’s a talented jazz score by Rob Mazurek and beautiful muted-tone cinematography by Christopher Blauvelt.

Blue Moon (dir. Richard Linklater, US, 2025)

A delightfully stagey production with a tightly-knit cast and a winning performance as Lorenz Hart by Ethan Hawke acting in shortface (is that a thing?). Able support is provided by Andrew Scott and Margaret Qualley, and the script is laced with acidic epithets, self-deprecation and barbed quips aplenty. Potentially a proud double-feature companion for David and Jack Fincher's Mank.

See also:
Movies: Film festival roundup 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 part 1 / part 2, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2009

We're dashing ourselves against the rocks of a lifetime

Thursday music corner: The Style Council were a 1980s band comprising vocalist Paul Weller and keyboardist Mick Talbot, and are seen as the vehicle by which Weller exited his punk-pop phase embodied by his chart-topping band The Jam, and bridged the gap to Weller's later, Mod-influenced solo career. 

The European and jazz influences of the Style Council were expressed in four studio albums from 1984 to 1988 including 1985 chart-topper Our Favourite Shop, plus one final album delving into house music that label Polydor rejected, and which wasn't released until 1998. The band scored 16 UK top 40 singles, including four that reached the UK top 5: debut single Speak Like A Child (#4, 1983), Long Hot Summer, which appeared on the À Paris EP (#3, 1983), My Ever Changing Moods (#5, 1984) and You're The Best Thing, which appeared on the Groovin' EP (#5, 1984).

The 12-inch extended version of Long Hot Summer appeared on both the Introducing the Style Council mini-LP released outside the UK in 1983, and in the UK on the À Paris EP released in August 1983. It was the band's highest-charting UK single, and also reached number 3 in Ireland.

Style Council - Long Hot Summer (12-inch version) (1983)

See also:

Music: The Jam - David Watts (Kinks cover, 1978)

Music: The Style Council - Shout to the Top! (1984)

Music: Paul Weller - This Is No Time (live, 1994)

Because we'll see the mountains tumble before we say goodbye

Thursday music corner: English pop band Unit 4+2 weren't, strictly speaking, a one-hit wonder, having scored two UK top 40 singles, but their 1965 chart-topper Concrete and Clay is the only indelible contribution the band made to the 1960s pop scene. The single hit number 1 on 10 April 1965, supplanting the Rolling Stones' The Last Time, and the band appeared on Top of the Pops on 3 June 1965. Concrete and Clay also reached number one in Canada and was a middling hit in both Australia and the US. In America its chart success was limited by a pre-emptive cover version by an American producer. 

Unit 4+2 released two albums and 12 singles; the other chart success was Concrete and Clay's follow-up, (You've) Never Been in Love Like This Before, which reached number 14 in the UK. The band dissolved in 1970.

Unit 4+2 - Concrete and Clay (1965)

See also:

Music: Eddie Rambeau - Concrete and Clay (1965)

Music: Martin Plaza - Concrete and Clay (1986)

Music: Jurassic 5 - Concrete & Clay (2000)

The NZ Rowing team's trip to the 1975 World Rowing Champs in Nottingham

This is a special guest post from former senior Beehive official, 1976 Montreal Olympics rowing eights bronze medallist (and my former landlord) Alec McLean, on the 1975 World Rowing Championships in Nottingham. Reposted here, lightly edited, from Facebook with Alec's permission:   

===

Fifty years ago yesterday! The 1975 World Rowing Champs, Nottingham. It was a funny old trip. From memory, Rowing NZ had very ambitious plans for that tour. In preparation for the Montreal Olympic Games, a lengthy North American tour was planned, even some talk of the team getting jobs while away (all amateurs in those days). The squad assembled in Christchurch quite early, anticipating a departure for North America before going on to the UK.

As it turned out NZ Rowing had absolutely no funds - the North American plans fell by the wayside, we would continue training in Christchurch, and fly straight to UK for a very short build up to the World Champs at Nottingham.

So began a very long training period through a Christchurch winter (NZ Rowing didn't move to Karapiro until 1976). We would occasionally turn up for training at 3pm, frost still on the ground, and very occasionally you would see snow building up on the ears of the guy in front of you as we plied the river at Kerrs Reach.

We also had some health issues with the guys, one having to pull out, plus some crew changes, making it hard to get some consistency going. After flying to the UK we settled in, accommodated at Pangbourne Nautical College in Berkshire.

 
We again had some crew changes through illness. The stretch of water on the Thames by the Pangbourne College sheds was not long enough for eights training, so the eight moved up the river to Hobb's boat-yard. It proved to be a great venue, and I have since been back to Hobb's boat-yard twice on visits to England. Despite all our setbacks, we had an amazing black Empacher carbon fibre boat, extremely fast, and great looking. It also hummed! Some sort of harmonic resonating in the aluminium riggers maybe. It was a bit surreal rowing up the Thames on a beautiful English summers day, just the sound of the oars going kachunk, kachunk, then at a certain speed the boat would start humming - unique. But we were running out of time. Rusty had said a couple of times, 'I think there is a better way of rowing this boat', but time was against us, and we were into the Champs at Nottingham in no time. 

We had a perfect row in winning the heat, going straight through to the final. I don't really recall the final - I see from the clippings that stroke Grant McCauley says we got a slightly shaky start, but we ended up with a bronze behind East Germany and Russia. Second bronze for me! I should emphasise that our three crews had travelled from NZ just four weeks before the finals, with three weeks training in the UK, and having had not a single race until the heats.

I must mention our (unofficial) training shirts. A colleague of mine in Customs had done a bit of a cartoon for me (pinched from one those old Ozzie weekly magazines - it was a cricketer). So I had some t-shirts made up for the guys. Well, what a hit - as soon as the boys saw them I had to get another big batch made up. They were also a hit when it came to swapping shirts at the end of the Champs (an age-old custom). Some crafty bargainers were even getting a three for one swap, or a track suit for a scrappy NZ t-shirt. I managed to trade mine for an East German racing singlet (the East Germans were forbidden from trading their rowing gear). I offered him my racing singlet, but he said 'No, I want the one with the club'. So that was 1975!

 
Final crew - David Simmons cox, Grant McCauley, me, Dave Rodger, Athol Earl, Lindsay Wilson, Ross Collinge, Trevor Coker (dec), Pete Dignan (dec).

AM: 'Departing Pangbourne College for training. No money that year - a clapped out Ford Transit with two wooden benches along each side in the back. Lindsay Wilson, me, Pete Dignan (sadly passed away from cancer and few years ago)'

===

The NZ rowing eights came third at Nottingham (time 5:43.61) behind East Germany (5:39.01) and the Soviet Union (5:41.34). Wikipedia notes that 'Beginning in 1974, doping became a blanket policy imposed by the GDR [East German] sports federation' (source).

Cinematic amusements in Wellington 100 years ago today

The Amusements section of Wellington's Dominion morning newspaper for Monday 31 August 1925 carries the usual detailed advertisements for cinema and theatre offerings, illustrating the busy entertainment scene in the capital a hundred years ago. Four cinemas advertised their wares, plus one theatre with a jam-packed vaudeville programme.

The DeLuxe Theatre ('The Finest Theatre under the Southern Cross') 

The Thundering Herd was directed by William K. Howard and featured Jack Holt, Lois Wilson, Noah Beery Sr. and Raymond Hatton. The Paramount film was a lightning-fast page-to-screen journey for a Zane Grey western novel released in the same year. It features the entire bison population of Yellowstone in a climactic stampede scene. 

Howard was a busy director in the 1920s and '30s, and his 1933 Spencer Tracy film The Power & the Glory is now recognised as an early influence on Citizen Kane. 

Jack Holt was at this point a 37-year-old actor best known for his roles in Westerns. His son Tim Holt would also become a Hollywood Western star for RKO in the 1940s. Father and son would both appear in John Huston's The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, with Holt Sr. in a minor, uncredited role.  

One of the WAMPAS Baby Stars of 1922, Lois Wilson was 31 in 1925. The following year she would appear as Daisy Buchanan in the first film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. 

The Thundering Herd, like many silent films of the era, has not survived. The De Luxe was built the previous year and since 1945 it has been known as the Embassy, Wellington's premier cinema.

King's Theatre ('Wellington's Popular Picture House')

Locked Doors was a romantic drama directed by William C. de Mille, elder brother of the more famous Cecil. In melodramatic circumstances a married woman Mary (Betty Compson) becomes infatuated with another man, John (Theodore von Eltz), who is then invited to move in by the married woman's husband, Norman (Theodore Roberts) to forget about another failed love affair. High drama ensues when a house fire traps Mary and John together in her bedroom, and they are discovered by Norman. Like The Thundering Herd, Locked Doors is a lost silent film.

Utah-born Betty Compson was 28 in 1925 and had been a film actor since 1915. Her success in the early 1920s enabled her to start her own film production company. In 1928, the year of the second Oscar ceremony, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in The Barker, but lost out to Mary Pickford in Coquette.  

The King's was New Zealand's first purpose-built movie theatre, and opened on Dixon St in 1910. It was demolished in 1986. 

Queen's Theatre ('The Cosiest House in Town') 

Still enjoyed today, the 1924 silent comedy Sherlock Jr. is directed by and stars silent era comedy legend Buster Keaton. A 45-minute classic featuring a cinema projectionist (Keaton) who, unlucky in love, falls into a dream that he is the World's Greatest Detective. In this dream he solves a great crime to clear his name and win the heart of The Girl (Kathryn McGuire) from a dastardly villain. The Girl's father is played by Joe Keaton, Buster's father.  

One of Keaton's dozen or so silent comedy classics of the mid-1920s, Sherlock Jr. was constructed around Keaton's desire for a regular Joe character to walk into a movie-screen and become the hero. In 2005 Time magazine named it as one of the 100 greatest films of all time. It entered the public domain on 1 January 2020.

The Queen's opened in Cuba St in 1916 and operated as a cinema until 1955, when it was converted into a billiard hall. It is now occupied by Loretta Cafe in the building next door to Slow Boat Records.

Paramount Theatre

The Great White Way was a boxing flick directed by E. Mason Hopper and released in January 1924. Made in cooperation with the New York City Fire Department, the ten-reeler features Anita Stewart as Follies dancer Mabel, who falls in love with prize-fighter Joe (Oscar Shaw). In it, Joe has to win a big bout to secure the funds to secure Mabel's show from an unscrupulous promoter. The film was produced by William Randolph Hearst for Goldwyn Pictures. It is also a lost picture.

Hopper was a prolific silent film director from 1917 until the end of the 1920s. He also appeared in an uncredited role as a doctor in the 1950 classic Sunset Boulevard. Stewart's real first name was Anna but Vitagraph accidentally publicised her as Anita, which she later adopted. For four years until 1922 she had operated her own production company, and shortly after The Great White Way she left the major studios and took roles in 'Poverty Row' studios to stay working; her final film was in 1928. She also wrote a murder mystery novel, The Devil's Toy, in 1935. Shaw was mainly a stage actor, and is now best known for appearing in the Marx Brothers' first film, The Cocoanuts (1929).

The Paramount operated as a cinema from 1917 to 2017. The last Wellington Film Society screening there was Wim Wenders' 1974 road movie, Wrong Move.

His Majesty's Theatre 

Offering a 'brand new bill that for entertainment value has never been approached in the history of N.Z. Vaudeville', His Majesty's presented Australian "Prince of Comedians" Jim Gerald and his titular Revue Company in their production 'Not Likely', which was billed as "A 100 per cent laughing show with Jimmy as a bonus Chemist's Assistant". Also on the bill was the New York comedy novelty act Three White Kuhns, and comedians George Edwards and Molly Hughes. His Majesty's opened in 1912, and since 1930 has been known as the St James.

See also:
Blog: 100th anniversary of the Embassy Theatre, 31 October 2024

Blog: What's on at the Regal Cinema Karori (1943), 27 August 2023

Blog: What's on at the Regal Cinema Karori (1929-30), 10 February 2020

As my name moves across your lips you see a grown man reeling

Thursday music corner: White Denim are an American rock group formed in Austin, Texas, in 2006. The band has released thirteen studio albums to date, with the seventh and eighth, Stiff (2016) and Performance (2018) achieving success in the UK album charts. Their two most recent albums have been released on the British indie label Bella Union.

The soul-funk-influenced Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah) was the second single from White Denim's 2016 album Stiff, an album in which the band went back to basics and recorded speedily in Asheville, North Carolina, after a fortnight's rehearsal. Mojo magazine later named Stiff one of the fifty best albums of 2016.

White Denim - Ha Ha Ha Ha (Yeah) (2016)

See also:

Music: White Denim - At Night In Dreams (live, 2014)

Music: White Denim - Holda You (I'm Psycho) (2016)

Music: White Denim - Crystal Bullets (2021)

As the crowds begin complaining how the Beaujolais is raining

Thursday music corner: Carmarthenshire-born John Cale has experimented with a wide range of musical styles over his long career, which was kick-started by his role as founding member of the enormously influential New York art-rock ensemble the Velvet Underground. He has released 23 solo albums, including collaborations with Terry Riley, Lou Reed, Brian Eno and Bob Neuwirth.

The euphoric, nonsensical baroque pop song Paris 1919 is the title track of Cale's third solo studio album, recorded in Los Angeles and released in February 1973. Cale has performed the entire album live with an orchestra, commencing in Cardiff in 2009.

John Cale - Paris 1919 (1973)  

See also:

Music: John Cale - The Man Who Couldn't Afford to Orgy (1974)

Music: John Cale - Crazy Egypt (Cale / Byrne, 1996)

Music: John Cale - I Wanna Be Around (2001)

Shall I mourn your decline with some thunderbird wine

Thursday music corner: Ian Dury (1942-2000) was an English punk rock and new wave singer-songwriter who, with his band the Blockheads, released 11 studio albums, including one posthumously. The band's second album New Boots and Panties!! (1977) and fourth album Do It Yourself (1979), both on Stiff Records, reached the top five of the UK album charts. A former polio sufferer, Dury was a prominent activist in the music world for disability rights. He died of cancer in March 2000, aged 57.

Sweet Gene Vincent was the first single from New Boots and Panties!! While it failed to chart, it was ranked as number 13 in the NME tracks of 1977 list. The song focuses on the pioneering American rocker whose 1971 death purportedly spurred Dury into pursuing his rock career.

Ian Dury & the Blockheads - Sweet Gene Vincent (live, 1978)

See also:
Music: Ian Dury & the Blockheads - Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick (1978)
Music: Ian Dury & the Blockheads - Reasons To Be Cheerful Pt.3 (1979)
Music: Ian Dury - Profoundly in Love With Pandora (1985)

Is this a human face in the mirror? It looks just like a piece of the sea

Thursday music corner: The Mutton Birds were a New Zealand rock group founded by former Blam Blam Blam and The Front Lawn artist Don McGlashan and associates in 1991. The band first attained prominence with the second single from their 1992 debut self-titled album, Nature, which was a cover of a much-loved 1969 folk-pop single by the Fourmyula's Wayne Mason. It reached number 4 in the New Zealand charts, and was the first of eight top 20 New Zealand singles for the band. The Heater, the opening single from the band's second album Salty, topped the New Zealand chart in 1994. Four of the band's albums reached the New Zealand top 10, and the band won three Aotearoa Music Awards in 1993 (Album, Group and Single of the Year). 

No Telling When appeared on Salty, the Mutton Birds' second album, released in April 1994.    

The Mutton Birds - No Telling When (1994)

See also:

Music: Mutton Birds - White Valiant (1992)

Music: Mutton Birds - In My Room (1994)

Music: Mutton Birds - Envy of Angels (1996)

Notes on a fortnight in Japan

My partner and I were fortunate to enjoy a fortnight exploring Japan for the first time in June. As expected, and as all our friends warned us, it was the kind of trip that quickly became habit-forming - even while we were mid-holiday it was obvious that we would have to return for a second Japan trip, not to mention possibly a third. Of course, we're hardly original in our choice of destination - everyone seems to have been venturing to Japan in the past few years. The exchange rate helps; at 85 yen to the New Zealand dollar, we were able to afford decent, if not elaborate, comforts and not worry too much about the budget. 

Between us, my partner was probably equally excited by the prospect of feeding the deer in the Nara Deer Park and shopping up large in the famous Japanese art supply shops, and I was motivated by the rich opportunities for big-city street photography and the chance to finally ride the Japanese shinkansen high-speed trains. And we were both excited to take advantage of the exchange to shop for clothes at Muji and Uniqlo, neither of which have deigned to open in faraway New Zealand. 

Our time in Tokyo was brief at the beginning of our trip, with only the first Sunday available before we departed. Our accommodation was a tiny room on the 21st floor of the APA Hotel Ryogoku, which had impressive views over the Sumida River. We spent a delightful Sunday in Ueno Park, which is the one place I'd actually been in Tokyo, on my whistle-stop visit in transit many years before. We savoured the exhibits at the Tokyo National Museum and enjoyed walking and people-watching in the park.

Chinese stoneware, 7th-8th century

The next morning we made our way during rush hour to Tokyo Station for the Shinkansen to Osaka, a swift two-and-a-half hours in overcast weather (no Fujiyama sighting). Osaka was to be our base for the next four nights, staying in the pleasant Citadines Namba hotel - a much nicer room than our Tokyo stopover. We joined the throngs admiring the lively restaurant district around the Dotonbori Canal, with plenty of garishly illuminated advertising signs: feisty octopi, belligerent sushi chefs, and a sinister Japanese clown who's been banging his drum since the 1950s. On our second day the rains hit Osaka, but we still managed to enjoy visiting the City Museum of Fine Arts and the Shitennoji Temple. On our third day the sun returned, and the day was devoted to ambling and shopping north of Dotonbori near the Shinsaibashi-suji boulevard, including the Kawachi art supply shop and sampling the lovely wares of the Studio Ghibli shop. Our final day was spent on a busy daytrip by Japan Rail to nearby Kyoto, using our handy Suica cards, and taking in the sights of Nijo Castle and beautiful Kinkaku-ji (the Temple of the Golden Pavilion) on the hottest day of our trip.

Dotonbori lights, Osaka

Our next destination was only an hour away by train, and was a pleasant interlude after the bustle of Osaka. In leafy Nara we stayed at the beautiful and peaceful Miroku Hotel on the edge of the lovely Deer Park. On our day of arrival we met the park's tame deer for the first time, and relished the inspiring artworks at the Buddhist Sculpture Hall. Then on the following day we donned our best (and only) walking shoes for a mammoth day exploring the deer park, during which Mia was able to befriend  plenty of politely hungry deer (they exchange bows with you), and soak in the majesty of the Todai-ji Daibutsuden, the hall of the Great Buddha. Plus we caught a brief but exciting glimpse of a Japanese badger at the Todai-ji Nigatsu-do Buddhist Temple.

Feeding the polite but hungry deer in Nara

From Nara we boarded a local train to cross metro Osaka from east to west, ending up in the port city of Kobe. Staying in the Tokyu REI Hotel on Meriken Rd in the business district we had two days to explore. The City Museum had a diverting collection of ancient bronze bells, pre-European maps and artefacts from early 20th century Kobe business life. We also had lunch at a nearby minimalist cafe, which served me up the world's titchiest ham and butter sandwich. The following day we took the famous gondola up into the hills behind the city to visit the Nunobiki Herb Gardens, admire the view over Osaka Bay (rainclouds permitting) and wander back down the peaceful garden trails to the big city.

Nunobiki Herb Gardens gondola

Finally we boarded another Shinkansen for the two and three-quarter-hour journey back to the capital to round out our trip. We stayed in a quiet, pleasant little backstreet hotel called The Hideout near Uguisudani station at the northern end of Ueno Park, and enjoyed exploring the local eateries sprinkled amongst the winding alleyways. Our first full day back in in Tokyo was spent exploring the bustling shops of Shinjuku, including the holy retail pilgrimage sites of Muji, Uniqlo, Tower Records and the Sekaido art supplies shop. The following day started with an amble around the bookshops in the Jimbocho district and a bite to eat in a lovely, serene cafe bookshop, the Book House Cafe. Then we flipped the crowd switch to check out the world-famous 'scramble' crossing outside Shibuya station, followed by a walk up to Harajuku for the MoMA Design Store and a stroll around peaceful Yoyogi Park. On our final day in Japan we walked through Ueno Park to the Metropolitan Art Museum for the 78th Annual Women’s Art exhibition, and enjoyed an artwork with netball hoops that I scored a goal in. (And won a polite round of applause from the gallery attendants). We rounded off our stay with a relaxing wander through the park, savouring the atmosphere of a myriad food festival stalls before we collected our bags and made our way to the Narita Skyliner train from Keisei Ueno station.

Shinjuku station commuters

Space is neither truth nor lie

Thursday music corner: Hawkwind is an English rock group founded in Ladbroke Grove in London in late 1969, which became a prominent champion of psychedelic space-rock throughout the 1970s. The band have released nine studio albums in the 1970s, six in the 1980s, seven in the 1990s, and fifteen to date in the 21st century. 

Spurred on by the chart success of their 1972 single Silver Machine (a UK hit reaching number 3 in the singles charts), the band's third album, Doremi Fasol Latido was issued in November 1972. It was the first Hawkwind album to feature new members Lemmy and Simon King. (Lemmy would later be fired from the band in 1975 and go on to form metal band Motörhead). The Dave Brock-penned Space is Deep is the second track on the album, appearing immediately after the mammoth eleven-minute opening opus, Brainstorm. It also appears in extended form on the 1973 Hawkwind live album, Space Ritual. 

Hawkwind - Space is Deep (1972)  

See also:

Music: Hawkwind - Space is Deep (live version, 1972)

Music: Hawkwind - Silver Machine (1972)

Music: Hawkwind - Kings of Speed (written by Lemmy, 1975)

When I see you alone, I see what's in your mind

Thursday music corner: The Pizzicato Five were a prolific Japanese pop group formed in Tokyo in 1984, which attained international fame as a duo consisting of Yasuharu Konishi and Maki Nomiya. In Japan the group released thirteen studio albums, seventeen compilation albums, nine remix albums, six video albums, thirteen EPs, and twenty-two singles. Pizzicato Five were also released in America on Matador Records, including three studio albums and eight singles.

Baby Love Child is a 1994 English re-recording of a track from the band's 1991 album This Year's Girl, which appeared on the band's second Matador album Made in USA and in an episode of the American animated series Futurama.

Pizzicato Five - Baby Love Child (LA English Mix Version, 1994) 

See also:
Music: Pizzicato Five - Baby Love Child (Japanese lyrics, 1991)

Music: Pizzicato Five - Twiggy Twiggy (1995)

Music: Pizzicato Five - Happy Sad (1995)

How history minimises feminist achievements

This is another way feminists get screwed over by history. Women like Barbara Castle and Harriet Harman fought great battles to enact legislation which now seems like common sense. So they get little credit. The mainstream tradition of the party, which once regarded their views as madly fringe, instead rewrites them as pushing on an open door. Men get to be radicals. Women are battleaxes and harridans when they are pushing for change, then irrelevant old biddies, or soft-focus saints, once they've achieved it. In terms of achieving her political agenda, Harriet Harman has had incredible success. And yet the current fashion in Labour is to deride her as an irrelevant 'Blairite', while praising the backbench career of Jeremy Corbyn, which has no significant legislation to show for it.

[London labour organiser] Jayaben Desai nearly suffered a similar neglect. 'I'm sure there are tons of really active Asian women in the trade union movement, but we don't really hear about them,' says [Ayesha] Hazarika. 'I thought, if it would be unusual now for a strong woman of colour to be involved in these type of disputes, I couldn't even believe that a woman back all those years was involved, particularly at a time when Enoch Powell had quite recently mobilised the trade union movement to march.'

Hazarika believes that George Ward, the Grunwick owner, employed South Asian women because he believed they would be submissive, with a strong work ethic, and would 'give him no trouble at all'. Desai's protest, then, smashed expectations of both her ethnic background and her gender.

- Helen Lewis, Difficult Women: A History of Feminism in 11 Fights, London, 2020, p.151

Karori winter sun

 

For connecting it word verb subject to the predicate

Thursday music corner: Jurassic 5 are a West Coast hip hop group formed in Los Angeles in 1995, consisting of rappers Charles Stewart, Dante Givens, Courtenay Henderson and Marc Stuart, and DJs Mark Potsic and Lucas Macfadden. The group released four albums between 1998 and 2006, with the first three being certified gold in the UK, and the third and fourth albums reaching the top 20 in the US album charts. 

Quality Control is the title track of Jurassic 5's second album, released on Interscope in June 2000. Released as the album's second single, it reached number 12 in the US rap charts. It contains samples from the novelty / parody performer Blowfly, a.k.a. Clarence Reid.

Jurassic 5 - Quality Control (2000)

See also:

Music: Jurassic 5 - Jayou (1998)

Music: Jurassic 5 - What's Golden? (2002)

Music: Jurassic 5 - Customer Service (2016)

You never cried to them, just to your soul

Thursday music corner: Bronski Beat were a British synth-pop band formed in London by keyboardist Steve Bronski, vocalist Jimmy Somerville and keyboardist and percussionist Larry Steinbachek in 1983. The band released three studio albums during their most prominent phase until 1995. Their debut, 1984's The Age of Consent, was their most popular, reaching number 4 in the UK album charts, and charting in the top 10 in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and New Zealand. Singer Jimmy Somerville left the band in 1985 to join the Communards and later pursued a successful solo career.

Smalltown Boy was Bronski Beat's first single, and concerned a young man leaving home for London after being gay-bashed and receiving an unsympathetic reaction from his parents. Written by the band, it became a major smash across Europe, reaching number 3 in the UK pop charts, topping the charts in Italy and the Netherlands, and hitting the top five in Germany, Ireland and Switzerland. It also charted at number 5 in New Zealand and number 8 in Australia.

Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy (1984) 

See also:

Music: Bronski Beat - Hit That Perfect Beat (1985)

Music: Communards - Don't Leave Me This Way (Thelma Houston cover, top-selling UK single of the year, 1986)

Music: Jimmy Somerville - You Make Me Feel Mighty Real (Sylvester cover, 1989)

Two Wellington sunrises

 

Wellington, 9 July 2025

Wellington, 8 July 2025

Mama get up early, early in the morning, Papa's already gone

Thursday music corner: American R&B singer Lee Dorsey (b. New Orleans, 1924, d. New Orleans, 1986) was a childhood friend of Fats Domino and served in the US Navy in World War II. Having moved with his family to Oregon at age 10, he returned to the city of his birth in his early thirties and began singing in night clubs alongside his car repair day job. He released his first single Rock in 1959, but it was his third in 1961, Ya Ya, that achieved breakthrough success, topping the R&B charts and reaching number seven in the US pop charts. He went on to work extensively with producer Allen Toussaint and backing group The Meters.

The loping funk of Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further is an album track from Dorsey's 1970 LP Yes We Can. A single from the album, Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley, was penned by Toussaint and later became a track and debut album title for Robert Palmer in 1974; Toussaint produced the album and the Meters and Little Feat's Lowell George backed Palmer on it.  

Lee Dorsey - Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further (1970)    

See also:

Music: Lee Dorsey - Give It Up (1969)

Music: The Meters - Handclapping Song (1970)

Music: Robert Palmer - Sailin' Shoes (1974)