Quick Takes
2 Tone, Kate Bush, Amy Rigby, Jon Hopkins, The Dear Boys, Chemirocha, Isaac Hayes, and Selhurst Park at 100.
The general consensus when I ran a quick poll about the Midweek Updates on Wordsmith’s first anniversary was that you’d prefer more elaborative posts about a single subject, but sometimes too much of cultural interest passes my way, and none of it necessarily something to justify a full post. However, I’ll try and keep this particular set of recommendations shorter and snappier, and as I consider doing the occasional live chat or other form of interactivity, I’m going to try and provoke some ongoing dialogue from you, the readers. Enjoy! And please partake.
EVENT
I’m really excited to be hosting/moderating this talk with author Daniel Rachel at the ever-wonderful Upstate Films’ Orpheum Theater in Saugerties next Monday, September 9. I have also been thoroughly enjoying the book in question - Too Much Too Young, Daniel’s comprehensive history of 2 Tone - and it has provoked me to dig out my old 2 Tone vinyl (much of it still on the original label). My favourite album from the era is, perhaps, a surprise, but I played it yet again this past week and I just adore it:
What’s your favo(u)rite 2 Tone-related album? Leave a note below.
WIN A BOOK
On the subject of music books, a reminder to all paid subscribers of this page (or
) that, thanks to Omnibus Press, we have a free copy of Graeme Thomson’s remastered, comprehensive Kate Bush biography Under The Ivy to give away. All it requires from any of you is a couple of sentences as to “Why Dan Is Wrong in his view about Kate Bush” when he concluded our latest Crossed Channels podcast by saying of her:“She’s clearly a major artist, brilliant, and I have massive respect for what she’s done, I just feel no compulsion to listen unless it’s an assignment.”
And if you think he’s right, just say so, but take a few words to do so. We know plenty of you downloaded the podcast, so what’s up? Is everyone so used to free that they don’t want to have to do something for their free?
Meantime, a thank you to everyone who has a monthly or annual subscription to this page, especially those who signed up in the past week: it really does keep me going in more ways than you’d know. A reminder that as well as the various exclusive posts and the Crossed Channels podcast, you get access to all the archives, and I hope you who are supporting this page in that respect are making the most of them.
ALBUM 1
I’ve linked to
’s Substack so often you’d think we were best buddies, when we are more just acquaintances with some mutual admiration. But now I have to extend my own admiration beyond Amy’s written musings to what many of you know her for in the first place: her music. Rigby’s long overdue new album, Hang In There With Me, is a wonderfully wry and typically witty treatise to the advances of older age, with songs counting the decades (“Hell-Oh Sixty”) or the frustrations of persisting at one’s commercially fringe craft when we could and should be retiring (“Too Old To Be So Crazy”), while not forgetting to remember that the cure to most of these life-longing ills can be cured by a good hair day and the best fringe of them all (“Bangs”). Though Hang In There With Me was recorded here in the Catskills over the last few years, Amy and her musical and personal partner Eric Goulden (who supplies much of the underlying instrumental menace here), have now moved to Eric’s UK homeland for their foreseeable remaining years. I wish them the very best in Norfolk and encourage not only all of you 60+ years-old bang-sporting female rockers, but also you balding males and indeed young tykes, to hang in there with her: it’s well worth the journey.LAW SUIT
Kudos to the estate of Isaac Hayes for taking a certain Donald Trump to court over the latter’s persistent use of the song “Hold On, I’m Coming” in his current travesty of a political campaign. Many artists are understandably frustrated when their music is used out of context and by so-called politicians whose views they absolute do not endorse; not too often do they take it to the courts and publicize their every move. The Hayes estate has done so via its Instagram feed (and beyond, I presume), which, as of Sep 2nd, declared a victory: “Our family was granted an injunction against @realdonaldtrump from playing @_isaachayes music ever again. We are please(d) with the decision by the court and move to the next phase of this lawsuit.”
What’s your most frustrating example of erroneous/illigitimate use of a song for political purposes?
SINGLE
My band The Dear Boys - if that’s what you want to call a trans-Atlantic partnership with multiple additional floating members that has yet to play a gig - was thrilled this week to find a review of our second single in the latest Record Collector. Then again, on October 9, we will be releasing our fourth single, ‘Gone Viral’ and ‘Scan Me,’ two sides of the same 21st Century coin, for want of a better phrase. To say we are pleased with it would be an understatement. As with our first and second releases, there will be a physical artifact out there for those who appreciate such things and like to support musicians by purchasing them, and if you’d like to get either a taste of what has come before or get yourself on a mailing list for details of this latest double A-side, please visit The Dear Boys at https://thedearboys.bandcamp.com/.
WEB SITE
Where has ubu.com been all my life? The answer is that it’s certainly been there, hiding (from me, at least) in plain sight since 1996, and only deciding to cease with what must have been relentless additions and updates in this current calendar year. At least that gives the rest of us a chance to catch up, for if you have any interest in any aspects of the avant-garde, meaning any of its multiple mediums from experimental music to art films or multi-dimensional performance art, you will find yourself heading quickly down veritable rabbit hole of treasure should you follow this link.
As its “About” page states, Ubu.com consciously collects
“the music of Jean Dubuffet, the poetry of Dan Graham, the hip-hop of Jean-Michel Basquiat, the punk rock of Martin Kippenberger, the films of John Lennon, the radio plays of Ulrike Meinhof, the symphonies of Hanne Darboven, (and) the country music of Julian Schnabel.”
And in case you were curious, the site is named after what is often considered the original avant-garde play by Alfred Jarry, Ubu Roi, just as the group Pere Ubu was named after its major character. Then again, if you knew ubu.com, you probably knew that already.
Know of a rabbit hole/treasure trove web site hiding in plain sight?
ALBUM 2
I love listening to instrumental music while I work; actually, it’s the only music I can listen to while I work – or at least while I try and write, or actively read. To that end, I appreciate that Qobuz points me to multiple (mainly-) instrumental albums of interest every week, in all fields from jazz through classical to experimental and electronica. In that latter camp, Jon Hopkins has been one of the truly reliable artistes (notice the added letter “e”) over the last several decades, and his brand new album Rituals continues that tradition. A seamless 41-minute piece broken into parts i-viii, it’s thoughtful, spiritual, ambient in some places and trippy in most, with (the sound of) acoustic guitars as well as the pertinent synths and other electronic equipment, and it offers listening opportunities both passive and immersive. By this, I mean – I think – that though you can listen while you work, you may just find yourself pausing to take it all in and just listen while you listen. I am linking to it here on Qobuz because while only some of you will have the subscription to this streaming platform, I also appreciate the thoughtful and educated review they commissioned for the album, a process that most other streaming platforms, do not invest in. (For more on the subject, visit this article:)
SUBSTACK MUSIC PAGE
I have been thoroughly enjoying the Music of Africa Substack account and its weekly recommendations. I like its YouTube playlists. I am thrilled to be introduced to the seemingly upside down guitar plying (and playing) of Botswana blues merchants.
But I am especially pleased to have learned about the history of the Kenyan song “Chemirocha,” recorded in the very early 1950s, its connection with Jimmie Rodgers, and why the western cultural imperialists who first told this story had it all backwards. For the full story behind Chemirocha, you’ll need to read this fascinating article via Atlas Obscura, but for the column in question and so you can sign up for a broader musical spectrum yourselves, Music of Africa is here.
Got a Substack music page you’d like to recommend?
NEWSPAPER COLUMN
Of late I’ve had little time to dig deep into my newspaper subscriptions. But I did find myself reading this incredible Washington Post column by 61-year-old Jonathan Clements who learned that he has stage 4 cancer as the result of an incredibly rare defective gene and has less than a year left to live. His lessons learned in the months thus far make for sobering reading – not so much a reminder of life’s last little pleasures as of what actually matters in the remaining time left - and who does not. It certainly helps that Clements is a professional columnist; his writing is unsentimental and yet, inevitably, moving.
SUBSTACK COLUMN
The prevalence of guns in the States is one of the aspects of life – and death – that I absolutely abhor. Writing as much after yet another deadly school shooting, and living with a City district high school teacher, makes me feel no more easy about the future, either. But the prevalence of knives in the UK is, sadly, similar, and though knives do not cause as many deaths as guns, there is no point underplaying or sugarcoating their rampant use in my home country – especially in my home city of London. Quite apart from reading about the horrendous attacks that take place on closed-off estates and in random attacks alike, I have been on a public shopping street in South London in recent years, in a relatively “safe” neighborhood, when a gang youth has drawn a machete-length blade on others in broad daylight, on the pavement, and as Simon Mills writes in a recent Male on Sunday column, “Nothing disperses a crowd, stops traffic, creates chaos and induces absolute panic quite like a big blade.”
Regrettably, Simon is writing from personal experience of being on the receiving end of the threat, and how the random nature of being attacked on the streets he has called home for 40 years has shaken his faith in pedestrianism, in London – and who could blame him if not also in society-at-large. In-between necessary discussion of root causes and possible solutions are the human stories of human victims, and Simon, being an excellent writer, tells his with almost too much vivid detail. Thanks for sharing so eloquently Simon.
Got a Substack columnist you’d like to recommend? Go ahead below…
FOOTBALL GROUND
In a happier discussion of (South) London, The Athletic wrote about my home ground, Selhurst Park, on the occasion of its centenary - August 30 for anyone paying attention. I first went there in 1971, to watch Crystal Palace play Inter-Milan under the floodlights - which were themselves somehow christened a decade earlier by a visit from Real Madrid - and I spent every other Saturday afternoon of the football season and many a Tuesday or Wednesday night there for most of the next ten years or more, and sporadically ever since.
In fact, almost every calendar year I get to revist for a match or two, and though I only went to Crystal Palace away games on my trip back in the UK this spring, and while my visits on that trip to the grounds of Nottingham Forest and Hull City and even, to some extent, of Bromley only confirmed that there are few people who would ever put Selhurst Park at the top of their favourite grounds list when there are so many nicer “stadiums” around, it still tops mine. Per Kevin Day’s concluding quote at the end of an article that quotes at least a couple of former Palace managers and is full of detail even I never knew, “It’s a s***hole, but it’s our s***hole”. Besides, if it’s good enough for Ted Lasso and AFC Richmond, it’s more than good enough for me.
Got a fave old sports ground of your own? You know what to do…
The regular use of "Born in the USA" as an uplifting pro-USA anthem is a complete misunderstanding of the song. It would make me laugh if it wasn't so egregious.
You're one of the people who, by mentioning Qobuz, inspired me to switch from Deezer to Qobuz last week. I am also enjoying the new Jon Hopkins