The last playlist of 2013, I think, and – as you’ll see – a bunch of faithful retainers slipping back in with 2014 releases. Not sure I can believe I’m ending the year with an embedded video of Tears For Fears covering Animal Collective, but there you go.
Reading a magazine this morning, I noticed that there are a bunch of tribute shows to Elliott Smith coming up; ostensibly I guess to commemorate the fact that, horrifyingly, the tenth anniversary of his death is coming up in a couple of months.
I was reading over this interview with Robert Wyatt today, thinking about “The Ghosts Within”, and about how he flourishes as a collaborator with friends, but not as a bandmember. “The trouble with a band is I can’t take orders and I can’t give orders,” he said around the time of “Comicopera”. “So there’s no comfortable role for me in a band, whereas on a project I think, well, if they’ve asked me I shall try and do whatever it is they’ve imagined me doing. As close as possible. There’s no pressure on me. I try and do what they want.”
Now that Masterchef is over – oh, well done James, but rats, I still think it should have been Emily – normal service has been resumed on the blog. I’ve taken the opportunity to catch up on some DVDs, as well as finally getting round to seeing a fantastic Spanish horror film, The Orphanage.
HAPPENINGS TEN YEARS TIME AGO
February 26 to March 4, 1997
On the eve of the release of their album Pop, U2 announce details of their forthcoming PopMart tour, from a makeshift stage in the lingerie section of a K-Mart department store in downtown Manhattan. "We believe in trash, we believe in kitsch," The Edge tells reporters. "That's what we're all about at the moment."
