Up at six this morning, as usual, though the Radiohead album didn't arrive to download until, I think, about ten to seven. I played "In Rainbows" for the first time on the bus coming in to the office, and it was one of those records that seems dramatically suited to sitting in traffic on the A10, watching the commuters. Oh, the alienation!
I was talking the other day to an Uncut writer, a hip-hop expert actually, about what a disappointing year it had been for rap in general. I suppose I'm a bit of a dilettante in this area, but looking back over the year's blogs, I can find scant reference to much hip-hop at all; certainly nothing to match the Clipse and Ghostface Killah albums from last year.
Another day, another disc from the Miles Davis "On The Corner" box set, and someone (John McLaughlin?) appears to have turned up with a sitar. Most bracing. Before we embarked on this, though, we played the new Nick Cave & Warren Ellis soundtrack, a musical sequel of sorts to their score for "The Proposition" from a couple of years ago.
Could be a long day, since we've just embarked on the first CD of Miles Davis' "Complete On The Corner Sessions". Not sure we're going to make it through all six in a row, but a good start to the day. Here, though, is what we played yesterday. As usual, I can't pretend we're unequivocally behind every record on the list, but God, that Springsteen album gets better and better.
The third album by Om, a duo from San Francisco, took some pretty circuitous route to get to Uncut, or so it seemed: at least two copies of "Pilgrimage" disappeared en route, as I became more and more anxious to hear it.
Fairly curious listening day in the Uncut office, even by our standards, I think, which reached a pinnacle of sorts with a new Dead Kennedys 'Best Of' (how poppy they sound now) rubbing up next to a Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick reissue from 1966, I think.
I've been spending the past hour or so working my way through this soundtrack to Todd Haynes' Dylan movie, I'm Not There. I must admit to a bit of scepticism about the film, having actively despised Haynes' Velvet Goldmine, and been faintly terrified by the convoluted plotting and detail that was reported here.
When on July 28, 1973, The Band played the Summer Jam festival at Watkins Glen, New York, on a bill that also included The Grateful Dead and The Allman Brothers, Garth Hudson, if he’d been so inclined, could have looked out from the stage onto a crowed of more than 600,000 – at the time, I think, the largest-ever audience for a rock show.
