Reviews, thoughts and ideas on music, movies and more
I think it's fair to say that Trainspotting is now more famous thanks to the 1996 film adaptation staring Ewan McGregor and directed by Danny Boyle than the book that spawned it, by Scottish writer Irvine Welsh and released in 1993. While the film was a breath of fresh air for the rather stuffy British... Continue Reading →
A couple of months ago writer and broadcaster David Hepworth, contributor and editor to the likes of a The Word, Q and Mojo and presenter of classic BBC TV music show The Old Grey Whistle Test, appeared as part of the Guernsey Literary Festival to give a talk about his career and, of course, his... Continue Reading →
Following on from the albums and movies ‘memes’ on social media came one for sharing ten favourite or most important and influential books, so once again, here are mine with a little more explanation. Again rather than simple going for out-and-out favourites or 'best' in a critical sense, I've chosen books that mean something to... Continue Reading →
The idea of a biography of Jack Kerouac, so-called King of the Beats, is an interesting one given his work is, on first glance at least, almost entirely autobiographical, just with names changed (partially to protect the not-so-innocent and partially to allow tweaks to reality without damaging the sense of truth). So, when I picked... Continue Reading →
A little over six years ago I started this blog as a place to archive some of the freelance writing I was doing for different magazines and newspapers, as well a seeing a place for original articles and entries related to my radio work. Now, as I hit 1000 posts, I thought I'd take a... Continue Reading →
Every year since its inception the Guernsey Literary Festival has included a musical cross over element to its programme from the punk poetry of John Cooper Clarke and Attila The Stockbroker to the comedy songs of Neil Innes or more straight musical performance for Heidi Joubert. For the 2018 festival they presented two events with... Continue Reading →
If you've been following this blog for a while you'll probably have picked up the idea that I'm a fan of Dune - from Frank Herbert's original novel to David Lynch's film, and much of the surrounding lore, both of the fictional world of the books and in regard to other adaptions of it from... Continue Reading →
Hollywood has many faces, as I've recently seen with a rewatch of La La Land and The Decline of Western Civilisation, but its most famous is, of course, the film industry. Famously led by an insular network of producers and 'money men' who employ directors, actors and, here most crucially, writers (amongst others) to create... Continue Reading →
Whether its New York, London, Manchester or anywhere else, the emergence of punk music in the mid to late 1970s is one part of the history of rock ’n’ roll that has always held a certain fascination for me. One story I had heard little about though was how the punk scene had come to... Continue Reading →
