Entertainment For Lively Minds
Thank God it's Friday and the podcast is here at last
Posted by David Hepworth on 27 March 2009 - 1:10pm.
Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Fraser Lewry discuss: how they feel about the Spandau Ballet reunion, people who can sing and people who can't, the day that Fraser's band headlined over Sonic Youth, forming bands from passers-by in Stoke Newington and a plug for Luke Haines's book.
You can subscribe to the podcasts here or stream the latest one below.
One Singer One Song
Just listened closely to Wah! and Mr Ellen is right, your man Wylie's as f as a p throughout. Re. Morrissey, yes it's a unique voice and style, but isn't Mark Ronson's version of Stop Me the e that proves the r? Laughed out loud at Fraser's band and his camel.
Stop Me
Is a pretty fresh attempt at a Smiths cover, I agree, and there are also pretty decent live recordings of Jeff Buckley doing I Know It's Over (sometimes in a medley with Hallelujah) and The Boy With the Thorn in His Side. Any others out there? [edit: clearly there are - and they are further down the page]
Download problem
There's a problem with downloading as an MP3. All I get is the theme and that's it. I've never had this problem before.
It does open as audio file if I want to listen to it on the PC and it is around 42 minutes as it should be.
Weird
Are you downloading from iTunes? That works fine for me...
iTunes
I didn't try iTunes as I have a Xen MP3 player not an iPod. I'm pretty sure I can't play that format on my player.
If it's any help....
.....I don't use iTunes either. I have a little programme called Juice that I use for downloading podcasts. I'm only subscribed to this and the backstage podcasts so whenever I learn there's a new one I simply open the programme and hit update. The file always has a strange name eg jhsafkuhsfuhwf.mp3 but it's simple enough to change. I then plug in my Creative Zen and copy and paste.
Format
The file that comes from iTunes is the same mp3 as the one you get if you subscribe using any other means. It's a regular, un-DRM'd mp3.
Some bands can cover The Smiths ...
and solo artist's
O course they can....
And another
This time The Divine Comedy:
Also, from the same album, Billy Bragg's rather raucous - and to my mind superior to the original - take on "Never Had No-one Ever": http://tinysong.com/3k72
Excellent podcast
Good to hear a bit more from Fraser.
A new Podcast Star Is Born...
... take a bow Mr. Lewry.
Great chatter (that kept me entertained on the graveyard shift to-night).
Is the entire Word office
full of first-rate podcast contributors?
Lewry speaks!
in similar vein
and far too late I realise, but can somebody confirm that the voice of the late, lamented Matt Hall was actually played by James May of BBC's Top Gear?
Having never seen Top Gear
Or ever the one where he gets drunk with Oz Clarke, I haven't got the foggiest what he sounds like. Happily.
We've never
ever heard you on the same podcast together either though. Suspicious...
A few words in defence of
A few words in defence of three-wheel buggies - the point about them is that they're excellent for taking onto grassy surfaces - your average four-wheel model tends to trip over the first dimmock and propel screaming infant flying into the middle distance. I await the arrival of Mr Hepworth and Ellen's first grandchildren - which can't be that long off - and expect an appropriate mellowing of opinion on this point.
As for media types braying, I have never knowingly brayed outside my bedroom, and certainly not on Stoke Newington Church Street. Anyone who suggests otherwise will get their toes run over by my three-wheeler.
PS I can offer an addition to the N16 band outlined in the podcast - one of the Commitments' backing singers now lives in Stokey.
3 wheelers
You beat me to it. Would add that 3 wheel twin buggies are far more manoeuvrable than 4 wheel types. The real statement prams are the transformer types normally in lime green named after some kind of insect. I kid you not.
sorry am I lost in post-modernisms
but are these defences of three wheeler prams deliberately apeing the common defence of 4x4 cars in urban areas ie safety and practicality for comic effect?
As for braying media types in Stokey oh come on throw an artisan made bread stick out a hybrid car's window anywhere along church st and you'll hit someone with a vague job in the media whose loudly reminding a small child called Jocasta that she's not allowed sweets and they'd better hurry up or they'll be late for the under 5's yoga.
Chris, if your prejudices
Chris, if your prejudices are keeping you warm at night, far be it from me to disillusion you.
sorry it must be the after effects
of being cornered at Xmas party in stokey by some one who claimed to be a "thought-leader for leading brand repositioning consultancy "his partner with some ineviabilty was "studying reflexology". Having said that there's some nice pubs and the parks nice too.
Agreed...
The nuts are not just found in Fresh'n'Wild :)
Don't confuse hyperbole and practicality
You try pushing twins around in a fixed wheel 4 wheeled pushchair. Or on anything other than polished marble in the tiny castor wheeled types. 3 wheelers work better.
Buggies and Buzzcocks
Hopelessly late to the debate I know, but for a manager for the Stoke Newington band you wouldn't have to look past the local library, where Richard Boon is librarian. Howard Devoto is also a Stokey resident...
More Fun For The Players
Mark makes a wonderful point about amateur musicians when he asserts that it is invariably more fun for the players than the listeners. I've often thought there are whole genres, played by professionals, where this is also largely true. My principle objections are to that whole jazz-fusion movement, all technically ept but emotionally hollow, and bluegrass.
I think the same applies for
that whole sub-genre of mutual-admiration-society musical collaborations - duets albums and so forth. May have been a right giggle for the participants - all too rarely translates into listener enjoyment. See also: supergroups.
Indeed...
...but you can also say this about most amateur pursuits. I have a friend in a Rock Choir and another in an Am-Dram Soc and they say that the only people to pay for tickets are relatives of those involved.
In fact, as volumes of ticket sales for shows involving child actors are so much larger than shows without kids, that's why you always see repeats of Annie, Oliver, King & I etc.
And there's nothing more annoying
than the local Choral Society doing a concert than involves one song with a large number of local school kids and charging £10 per ticket for the whole show (Well there is but this greed is fairly high up the list I reckon).
Did Mr H say
'Er...I think I have some of their records when asked by Mr Ellen if he had heard of the Auteurs'? `Course you do, Dave, course you do ;-)
I don't know why I rise to these jibes....
...but sometimes I do.
I see you've been working hard...
on your Lou Reed Grim Look of Take-No-Crap Determination.
'sright
It suits me, don't it?
That finger placement is no accident is it?
Ha-haa! Respect to ya, Mr H
- it appears to be still sealed, but then you never said you'd played it, didya.
It also appears
to be a special left-handed edition. Is that why you've never opened it - you want to squeeze every penny of value out of it when you finally chuck it on ebay?
PS - well done for owning the one Auteurs album which Haines, in his book, admits is a bit rubbish.
It has two good tracks
in Lenny Valentino and Daughter Of A Child.
I'd venture...
that Dave's PhotoBooth settings are on a left-right reverse.
The Dead
The bit about singers etc seems to me to be epitomised by two different versions of Uncle John's Band. The original Dead version seems to have all the qualities Mark described so well,
harmonies apparently only barely hanging together and yet stunningly musical c.f. this live version
On the other hand I love the cover by the Indigo Girls, who have the technique to show what the song can be-I am glad to be able to have both
http://www.last.fm/music/Indigo+Girls/_/Uncle+John's+Band