1 Girls’ Morning Light Never ones to shy away from a hot ticket – even if it’s
probably getting a bit lukewarm by now – we’d like to big up San Fran’s Girls
and their fuzzy, scuzzy surf pop. Morning Light’s out next month, but don’t
fret! You can get it on their studiedly unarsedly titled album Album. Album.
2 L'Homme Du Train People quite
often take the piss out of Johnny Hallyday. And to be fair, he is quite
ridiculous. An ageing lion-faced French rocker (though he's actually Belgian),
who has never made a decent song during a 40-year highly successful career. And
yet his performance as an ageing bank robber in L’Homme Du Train is breathtaking,
exuding charisma. And that's only one part of this superbly paced,
beautiful-looking always ignored film. It's just lovely.
3 Jon Ronson On... Anyone who is
capable of writing amusingly about family life without being twee must be
especially gifted. But it takes longer to warm to Jon Ronson as a broadcaster,
perhaps because of his voice. But his new series has been superb. This week's
interview with a man who invented a wife for an internet forum then killed her
off is cringy, sad and hilarious.
4 Field Music (Measure) The Brewis
Brothers, David and Peter, are well-loved in some muso circles – not commercial
ones, of course, but who wants to see them in expensive clothes? Anyway, after
solo-ish projects School Of Language and The Week That Was, they’re back in
harness with a revamped band and a new album of their strangely lovely Wings-meets-incidental-music
hybrid on 15 February.
5 John Harris’s Hail! Hail! Rock ‘n’
Roll Well, this book is as “inventive, untamed and adorable as a John
Squire guitar solo” according to Tony Parsons, who has clearly never heard any
music ever. If the book was plodding, sludgy and derivative (and rare), he
might have a point. Instead it’s a fun font of trivia and anecdote, which you
probably got for Christmas. We did, and we are most diverted.
Our theoretically weekly
selection of things to hear, see, read and think about as we put on our shoes
and get ready for the weekend.
1 A Camp - Love Has Left The Room One day someone is going to come along and give
Nina Persson a present of - not a cardigan, you clever scamps - a big box of
recognition. She's been churning out wide-eyed catchy songs of Neil Finn-like
artistry for some time. This is one of them.
"I'll let go if you just let me/I will forget you if you will forget
me/I'll slip your mind/I will slip your mind".
2 Jonathan Wilson’s Inverting The
Pyramid A football book free of tedious inter-tribe point-scoring or glum
stories of turds in socks written by turds in socks. Wilson's book is a super-readable
history of shape shape shape, starting with the heads-down dribbling at football’s
birth then moving through decades of remoulding by various squat, shell-suited masterminds
to arrive at what we recognise as Soccerball today. Wilson also updates the
book once a month or so in his excellent Guardian column.
3 The 11th Doctor There are only so
many times a man can save the universe, so Russell T Davies has left the TARDIS
– oh, and so has David Tennant. While sci-fi dilettantes the world over can thank
Davies for doing a sterling job bringing Doctor Who back, each “IT’S THE END OF
THE UNIVERSE” series climax was getting hard to stomach. Great things are
expected of new showrunner Steven Moffat and kindergarten timelord Matt Smith,
but can those “great things” be on a more subtle level, please? The trailer shows
promise.
4 Ed McBain All the young people
with their Wires, Shields, Juliet Bravos may be aware that in the past - before
watching murders on laser discs - people used to read crime novels. All of your
Hill Street Blues, Homicides etc began with Ed McBain's Cop Hater in 1956. The
first of the 87th Precinct books and the first realistic police
procedural.As well as writing about 100
brilliant novels, McBain (real name Evan Hunter but born Salvatore Lombino)
also worked as PG Wodehouse's editor and wrote 76 scripts including A Blackbird
Jungle and Hitchcock's The Birds. In short, a genius.
5 E.R. (The Whole Bloody Thing) Snowbound
and with a severe, erm, intestinal complaint, we have been subjected this week
to three full seasons of classic horror-soap E.R. by a life partner with a DVD
controller. No matter how bad you may be feeling, this parade of cradled dead
kids, serial granny-rapists and long and protracted deaths of firemen,
unleavened by any exciting ladies or any happiness at all, is making everything
else seem so much more bearable. CBC! Chem 7! Lytes! Utter Despair! Stat!
Our weekly (well, OK, nearly weekly) tips for good stuff to hear, see, read and splash about in.
1 I Believe (When I Fall In Love It Will Be Forever) It’s
been an idle morning here watching High Fidelity, the movie adapted from Nick
Hornby’s “I’m a record obsessive too!” novel. That’s a pleasant way to spend a
couple of hours, sure, but it was raised to unexpected heights by this Stevie Wonder
jewel playing over the end credits. Quicker to bring a tear to the eye than any
John Cusack/Jack Black brom-com.
2 Fall Be Kind Animal Collective
slip out a trees-off-leaves flipside to their magnificent spring celebration, Merriweather
Post Pavilion. A surprise treat and an excellent stocking filler/treat for
yourself for hauling round the shops.
3 The Twelve So sharply written that
it's almost annoying, it's pigeon-holed as a thriller rather than an excellent
novel about post-Troubles Norn Iron. Still, crime fans should be happy to have
Stuart Neville as one of their own.
4 Come Back To The Five And Dime, Bobby
Dee Bobby Dee Washington D.C.’s Benjy Ferree has made a concept album about
Bobby Driscoll, the ultimately tragic US child star of the 50s who was the
model and voice for Disney’s Peter Pan. To fashion this sprawling tribute,
Ferree chooses a mix of earthy doo-wop, swaggering glam-rock and fuzzy garage
tones – creating a record to get lost in that’s also wall-to-wall fun.
5 A Charlie Brown Christmas/The McGarrigle
Christmas Hour Everyone has their favourite Christmas albums unearthed around
the 12th and buried after the 26th, and these are always the first on while
mince pie-munching in the Shabby house. Genius Vince Guaraldi puts a layer of
magic all over the Charlie Brown Christmas Special with his sparkling, sad
piano pieces, and the McGarrigles harness the wider Wainwright clan to make a
series of baroque, blissful Christmas scenes. Martha's the best. Of course.
Our picks for Friday 27 November, weekly fuel for the weekend.
1 Turbo
Fruits’ Naked With You Heard on the radio, 2 minutes 40 odd of silly
rambunctiousness that could even awaken the dead souls of X Factor contestants.
Dude, it's fucking great.
2 Life It's
a great comfort to know that at any given moment an associate of David
Attenborough is sitting silently in a hut, or under a canopy, or on a log,
waiting for an animal to do something absolutely AMAZING. This series has
thrown up enough animal headlines to keep the Daily Planet busy for a few days.
'Frog Becomes Pebble, Escapes Predator'. 'Randy Fish Date Floating Frond', 'Sex
Change Snake Snares Supine Schmucks'. Thanks patient nature men.
3 Will
Young’s Leave Right Now Will has released a best of, which for most people
might seem like a Christmas cash in, but Will's so lovely it just seems like
something thoughtful he's done. It's full of mellow crooning loveliness, and
this is the highlight, worthy of anyone's repertoire.
4 Schlachthofbronx We have no idea what these are on about, but this is the best stoopid smart
party record this year. It's all sub bass and soca rhythms and silliness.
5 Sean
Lock’s 15 Storeys High Shot like an art film, written like a modern Hancock's
Half Hour. Wallow in its greatness. Wonder at the popularity of Gavin And
Stacey.
Our picks for Friday 20 November, the first in a weekly series of random recommendations.
1 How
tempting is a Spanish festival headlined by both Pavement and the Pixies?
They've been announced as co-headliners of Primavera Sound 2010. If we’re going
to backslide on all our promises to ourselves about paying money for mass
nostalgic bray-fests no spiritually better than an 80s package tour featuring
Dollar and Limahl - if we’re going to do that, it might as well be in Barcelona
in the summer.
2 Spiritualized Electric Mainline - The Slide Song. We’re fully expecting to
regret everything we do tonight, so tomorrow we’ll be using Jason Pierce's high
watermark to nurse ourselves through. Apart from the couple of noisy songs,
might skip those.
3 It's
hard to say who is the better out of Giles and Victoria Coren. They're both
deeply attractive. They're both deeply successful in their chosen fields,
eating and gambling respectively, which are not such bad fields to have chosen.
They both tweet responsibly and amusingly. But Vic has edged ahead in our
affections for bringing to our attention our catchphrase of the year in the
sentence of the year:
“The
clothing, language and lifestyle of poker is, naturally, subject to fashion.
Giant rhinestone hats give way to hoodies. The Wynn becomes more desirable than
the Bellagio. ‘I got screwed in the comp’ becomes ‘lol donkaments’.”
Lol
donkaments. Catch up, Giles. Do another telly show where you eat loudly and say
witty things while dressed silly.
4 Beyoncé's
Little Sister Who Is Sick Of Being Called Beyoncé's Little Sister Solange
tweeted a couple of weeks ago about covering Dirty Projectors’ Stillness Is The
Move. How did this happen? How bloody exciting is that?
5 David
Byrne's Bicycle Diaries, about DB's trips around the world with his fold-up
bicycle, exploring the cities he visits. It's great, and as it's written
somewhere near the style of his staccato lyrics, you can read it and make up
Talking Heads songs in your head as you go along.
