Features

Two things from the weekend. First, I finally dipped into the Beatles remasters, after several weeks of shrugging, mild curiosity and morbid suspicion of overhype. Oh, and a lot of me reiterating my default position of claiming The Beatles weren’t that great – a position which, yet again, was shown up to be more or less complete idiocy when I actually bothered to listen to them. Come on, “Blue Jay Way”!

Very taken with this one at the moment. Kurt Vile – real name, apparently – is from Philadelphia, and seems to be emerging as my favourite of the current wave of new lo-fi/garage rock auteurs, possibly because he’s the one who appears to be unafraid of cranking out some pretty fierce, relatively orthodox rock’n’roll, amidst all the warped vibes.

The first show by James Blackshaw with additional musicians begins a little oddly. A man plays a brief tuba solo, then settles down to some concerted texting on his phone. It turns out that this is a false start, however. The James Blackshaw Ensemble might contain a cellist, two violin players and a flautist, but the tuba player – warming up, it transpires – is here to accompany the support act, guitarist/pianist Tom James Scott, through a series of hushed, minimal pieces.

It’s been a bit quiet on the blog for a while – apologies, but I’ve been embargoed from writing about a couple of films I’ve seen recently. Anyway, one film I have seen, which I am allowed to write about, is Wes Anderson’s latest, Fantastic Mr Fox.

There’s an interesting snippet in the next issue of Uncut, when the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne talks about Portishead’s “Third”. “It got under my skin,” he says. “From the standpoint of being in a band, they do some fun production things, it’s pretty inspiring. I liked how they embraced more stranger elements of prog-rock, and Silver Apples-influenced drum loops and things like that.”

There were so many people packed last night into the Scala to see Okkervil River that if I’d arrived any later, I probably would have had to watch the show from across the street, on the concourse of King’s Cross Station.

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Just working my way through a batch of seven-inches from Jack White’s Third Man label, as I write; really liking the Dex Romweber Duo one so far. Plenty more good stuff this week, including long-awaited new ones from Lightning Bolt, Broadcast and Rickie Lee Jones.

From Abbey Road to Zappa, 1969 was an astonishing 12 months for music - but which LP was the best?

I mentioned yesterday’s that I was just off to see The Hold Steady at the Islington Academy and I duly went and they were, as ever, duly brilliant – urgent, incendiary, delirious, a symphonic juggernaut, a hurtling thing, a wholly rousing noise.