California
Eureka Day, Old Vic review - fun if not entirely fulfillingMonday, 26 September 2022
Can a play peak too soon? That's the quandary that attends the Old Vic airing of Eureka Day, Jonathan Spector's on-point if overextended comedy that was written prior to the pandemic but has absolutely come into its own just now. A skewering of... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: The Sons of Adam - Saturday's Sons: The Complete Recordings 1964-1966Sunday, 11 September 2022
“We played the Rolling Stones concert at Long Beach Arena. The Stones came on, and it was the first time that any band had ever done better than us. I was very angry about that.” Randy Holden was The Sons of Adam’s guitarist. He was pretty... Read more... |
Haim, OVO Hydro, Glasgow review - charismatic siblings personable as everMonday, 18 July 2022
Sweetness never lasts too long at a Haim gig. No sooner had Alana Haim, the youngest of the Californian siblings, finished a speech about her delight about being back in Glasgow by announcing she was going to “smell the f****** roses” then bass-... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Happy In Hollywood - The Productions Of Gary UsherSunday, 17 July 2022
As either a producer or songwriter Gary Usher worked with The Beach Boys and The Byrds, the two most consequential California bands of the Sixties.When he co-wrote “409” with Brian Wilson for the Beach Boys’s first Capitol Records single in mid 1962... Read more... |
Long Promised Road review - another attempt to probe the fragile genius of Brian WilsonSaturday, 22 January 2022
There has been no shortage of documentaries about king Beach Boy Brian Wilson, not to mention the 2014 bio-drama Love & Mercy, so the purpose of this new effort by director Brent Wilson (no relation) isn’t altogether clear. Certainly Wilson (the... Read more... |
Rare Earth Mettle, Royal Court review - one long unsatisfying slogFriday, 19 November 2021
Why are we indifferent to anti-Semitism? In the past few weeks the Royal Court, a proud citadel of wokeness, has been embroiled in an appalling case of prejudice by allowing a character, who is a really bad billionaire, in Al Smith’s new play, Rare... Read more... |
Hahn, Philharmonia, Chan, Royal Festival Hall review – nature's angels and demonsMonday, 08 November 2021
One benefit of the green tide in culture – music included – is that it should allow audiences to approach the arts inspired by the natural world in Britain, and elsewhere, a century ago with fresh ears and eyes. Weary over-familiarity can render a... Read more... |
Music Reissues Weekly: Blow My Mind! The Doré-Era-Mira Punk & Psych LegacySunday, 07 November 2021
Any compilation with a track credited to “Unknown Artist” is always going to entice, especially when it’s one which goes the full way by digging into original master tapes to find the best audio sources and previously unearthed nuggets. In this case... Read more... |
Album: Santana - Blessings and MiraclesMonday, 11 October 2021
Some guitar sounds are instantly recognisable. Carlos Santana blazed a trail in the late 1960s, with incandescent licks that made him world famous. He has traded on that brand – as brand it inevitably is – for more than half a century.He is in a way... Read more... |
Clickbait, Netflix review - fiendishly cunning thriller keeps everybody guessingSaturday, 04 September 2021
It seems Covid-19 may not be the only plague threatening mankind. The virus is nowhere to be seen in Netflix’s grippingly twisty mystery Clickbait, but it’s the use and abuse of social media that drives its tale of malice, murder and deception.The... Read more... |
The Beach Boys: Feel Flows - the Sunflower and Surf's Up Sessions 1969-1971Monday, 23 August 2021
“Add some music to your day,” the Beach Boys urged in their song of the same name, from their 1970 album Sunflower. There’s far more than a day’s worth of music included on this immense five-CD package, which scrutinises the turn-of-the Seventies... Read more... |
Album: Billie Eilish - Happier Than EverFriday, 06 August 2021
Billie Eilish was shot through fame’s looking glass with increasing force right through her teens. A girl’s hopeful artistic dreams exposed her to infinite judgement of her body and soul, social and mass media magnifying every blemish and... Read more... |
