Entertainment For Lively Minds
The "call this working for a living?" podcast
Posted by David Hepworth on 9 November 2010 - 3:04pm.
In which Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Fraser Lewry ponder your suggested names for Tom Jones's skin colour, review last week's brilliant "Word In Your Ear" gig, wonder how you get a bass fiddle on a rush hour tube, admire various elements of the new issue of Word and report back from viewings of Bruce Springsteen's The Promise and Rush's Beyond The Lighted Stage. Plus in the first of an occasional series called "I'm With The Band", Mat Priest talks to the Charlatans' Jon Brookes about what it's like to collapse on stage - and not in a good way.
You can follow this link to get the podcast every week or stream this new episode below.
In mid listen but
Hoorah! Daft blokes chuntering away about everything and nothing!
Return to form, sky dark with hats, sum of human happiness deftly added to.
I do believe we need to start terming this "A national treasure".
Brill..
and skill. What a thrill.
Love the show guys.
Hoorah seconded!
I've been waiting for ages for the classic line up to reform without the guest vocalists.
There is the hair
Mr Hepworth, the haircut at last. I think the family were very unfair.
Thirded
Couldn't agree more, great stuff.
What with this and Ian McMillan on Desert Island Discs on Sunday, it's what my iPod was invented for.
I've just nipped out to buy a hat
-just so I can throw it in the air.
On the subject of Neil Hannon's stage patter
I went to see him the next night at Reading and none of those slips, fluffs and forgotten lyrics were there. All of his stage announcements were different and funny. In fact I think he didn't put a foot wrong all night. The funniest bit being when Cathy Davey came on to sing with him, she was sitting behind him and her microphone kept moving further and further down. The audience was cracking up and Neil was trying to work out what the hell was going on.
I think he was extra nervous to be playing in front of such a small crowd at the Lexington and those errors and adlibs were totally genuine. Or he'd had an ale or two.
Unlike Elvis Costello who told the same gags n song intros both nights I saw him this year
Oh and BTW Reading were crapper at clapping during 'At The Indie Disco'.
I clapped
and didn't stop. But my heart was in my mouth as I thought it had every chance of petering out.
That wasn't you with the monkeys in the bathroom joke was it?
And wasn't the organ encore splendid?
No
that guy was bloody keen to tell his joke, Funny that Neil mentioned the Gateshead incident with the drunk bloke that got blogged about here.
Knew he wouldn't turn down the opportunity to tinkle the organ. ahem. Lovely little room that Concert Hall, much better than the Hexagon.
Concert Hall
is lovely. They built them better in late 1800's didn't they?
Yep
I saw The Unthanks there and only the Union Chapel comes close in terms of fine acoustics
and as Neil pointed out - massive doors!
Crikey
I think the Union Chapel has the worst sound of any venue in London.
Ah well, maybe my ears need de-waxing.
depends
where you sit, there are sweet spots and then there are place to sit if you don't want to hear that day's sermon
I think it depends
More on the kind of artist who's playing. I've been dozens of times, and the room seems to cope with very stripped-down acoustic acts reasonably well, but anything more complicated and that and it's a disaster. Which is what you'd expect in a room made of concrete with loads of natural reverb.
One imagines the acceptance testing of Chartres
"I don't care if it took you hundreds of years to build it mate, it needs acoustic baffles ..."
If you pulled a few strings (and taurus pedals)...
do you think there's a chance you could get Rush for a future Word In Your Ear shindig?
They'd probably be thrilled to be asked and would be content with a sensible rider of sandwiches, chutney and fizzy pop.
If they agree, please ask them to do Cygnus X-1. Ta.
I've heard they can be
very particular about chutney.
Just to say that I got on
Just to say that I got on the tube at the same time as the double-bass boy on Tuesday. I must have passed the boy Hepworth on the way on. Last carriage, Dave? I did wonder what on earth this young chap thought he was doing at that time of day too.
Last carriage
When I'm on the Piccadilly Line, I'm a last carriage kinda guy too. I'll keep an eye out. I may be reading a copy of Word.
Never mind a train - just try to get a bass aboard a plane
Basses on public transport
As a bass player, I loved the comments in today's podcast about the double bass on the tube. I only took mine by tube once (twice if you count the return trip - neither of them at rush hour.) Regarding the comment about affording a cab, I have to say that it's difficult to fit a full-size bass into a black cab - a three-quarter size just about fits if it's in a soft case and angled so it only slightly obscures the driver's rear view!
On the occasions I've played bass abroad, it's been easier and, surprisingly, cheaper to hire an instrument locally in advance (bless the internet) than to even consider carting my own bass abroad. It can be a gamble sometimes, but a reputable dealer should be able to kit you out with a decent instrument, provided you're not the kind of musician who is precious about the instrument you play.
Latest casting of the pod
Excellent - as much as I enjoy the focused/specialised podcasts around one particular guest, I do love the more unstructured "3 men in a pod" rambling about things that have happened in the last week podcasts.
Jon Brookes and The Charlatans
Thank you for that excellent piece at the end there. The Charlatans are not as critically lauded as they should be; yes I know they copy people occasionally but they have written at least 20 or 30 fantastic tunes. And Jon Brookes is a really really great drummer to watch - he dances on his kit and plays it hard when required and sits on his hands when required.
One of my favourite Charlatans songs is this (Just When You're Thinking Things Over) and if I recall correctly, Jon Brookes had broken his ankle playing football when they were due to record this, so he played this song with his hands only.
that McCartney Unplugged story
about rehearsing a song "breaking-down" - he did something similar on his 2003 Back in the US live CD. He did a few bars of "you never give me your money" then apparently forgot the words, making a joke about it in the song, I thought fair enough it sounded quirky enough to include on the CD.
Then I saw him a few months later in Dublin and he did exactly the same "forget the words" routine. It was so calculated that I lost a bit of respect for him. It had the potential to be something really great that night.
Spot the deliberate mistake??
Loudon Wainwright III does something similar on the live CD "So Damn Happy". In the song "Cobwebs", he forgets the lyrics. There are a lot of lyrics in his songs and he does forget them now and again. In this particular song the lyrics are sung very quickly and at the point where he forgets them he sings something like..I've forgotten the words..but carries on with the song till it's end. I always wondered how a version of this song with forgotten lyrics made the CD, though to be honest, it does fit.
I've seen him live forgetting the lyrics. That night in particular someone from the crowd shouted them out and off he went again.
I like to think that in his case it's not deliberate.
Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson
had a rehearsed breakdown in the their Bottom stage show - 'forget the lines', cue laughter, witty banter, breaking the fourth wall etc etc, followed by a 'gather' moment then back to the script.
It also made it onto the official DVD.
Special Guest: the microwave......
Everytime the microwave beeps on any of the podcasts, I'm desperate for someone to interject into their story the line 'I've started so I'll finish....' . I've been playing this game for a while and it's about time I shared it '!!!
Whatever...
...happened to the Sound of Young Islington?
Good point
We used to record at the front of the building, which is on Pentonville Road. Now we're at the back. Hence the sound of the hue and cry doesn't penetrate.
Could Fraser
mix some fx in, for old time's sake?
Good podcast
Very moving piece from Matt From Dodgy (nice dry humour, too) on Jon Brookes' recovery from life-threatening illness