1970s
Reissue CDs Weekly: FotheringaySunday, 05 April 2015
Fotheringay: Nothing More – The Collected FotheringayComing to the sole Fotheringay album cold undermines received opinion it was a side issue in Sandy Denny’s career: a stepping-stone between leaving Fairport Convention and going solo. The... Read more... |
DVD: Rude BoyTuesday, 31 March 2015
Rude Boy is a rotten film. Nonetheless it exerts an inexorable draw as it includes live footage of The Clash which is amongst the best of any rock group on stage. The performance of “Safe European Home”, caught on camera in July 1978, is white hot.... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The SpecialsSunday, 29 March 2015
The Specials: Specials, More Specials; The Special AKA: In the StudioAfter hearing the three albums credited to The Specials during their formative period with 2 Tone Records it becomes hard to think of them as a single band. Their clanky... Read more... |
The Stranglers, O2 Academy, BirminghamSunday, 15 March 2015
Perhaps it’s because today’s economy often seems to reflect the nightmare of the late Seventies, but recent years have seen plenty of the original punks return to public attention with a renewed vigour. Whereas some, like support band The Rezillos,... Read more... |
DVD: Pictures of the Old WorldFriday, 06 March 2015
Slovak director Dušan Hanák's 1972 documentary Pictures of the Old World (Obrazy starého sveta) is a real rediscovery, another in the remarkable haul that distributor Second Run has brought us from the Eastern European film archives which that... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Bridget St. JohnSunday, 01 March 2015
Bridget St. John: Dandelion Albums & BBC CollectionPigeonholing Bridget St. John is gratifyingly difficult. Although generally categorised as folk, her early albums actually posited her as a singer-songwriter following her own path. Like... Read more... |
DVD: The NightcomersTuesday, 24 February 2015
“We have been doing sex” is Flora and Miles’s answer when housekeeper Miss Jessel asks what they are up to. The brother and sister have seemingly been violently attacking each other on a bed. The inspiration is gardener Peter Quint’s interactions... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Martin Hannett & Steve HopkinsSunday, 08 February 2015
Martin Hannett & Steve Hopkins: The Invisible GirlsWhile acclaimed for his glacial productions for Joy Division and New Order, Martin Hannett was also a musician in his own right. With bass guitar in hand and alongside composer-keyboard... Read more... |
First Happenings: Adrian Henri in the ’60s and ’70s, ICASaturday, 07 February 2015
If you bought a Beatles album in the Sixties, chances are you also bought The Mersey Sound, that best-selling collection of poems by the Liverpool poets Brian Patten, Roger McGough and Adrian Henri. It was launched at the Cavern Club in 1967 to... Read more... |
Inherent ViceWednesday, 28 January 2015
Thomas Pynchon and PT Anderson: too good to be true? News that the director of There Will Be Blood and The Master was adapting America’s greatest and most hiply profound living novelist certainly sounded like a heavenly equation. Better yet,... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Radio BirdmanSunday, 18 January 2015
Radio Birdman: Radio BirdmanLike Magma, last week’s stars of theartsdesk’s reissues weekly, Australia’s similarly black-clad Radio Birdman favoured a uniform look. And also in common with the idiosyncratic French combo, they had a logo – an... Read more... |
DVD: Ganja & HessFriday, 16 January 2015
If coming to Ganja & Hess under the impression it’s Seventies’ Blaxploitation along the lines of Blacula, beware. It does feature an immortal character as its lead. And there is the drinking of blood as well as violence. Instead of doing what he... Read more... |
