Burt Bacharach, Make It Easy On Yourself (1969) Many things have drawn me to the music of Burt Bacharach – that line in the Monty Python film where his music is used as the very embodiment of naff and out of touch; the 90s/00s re-appreciation of his music; the fact that Hal David seems largely […]
and what if there was no way of knowing the truth? i mean, there isn’t, but we tell ourselves there is – we only like to spot the darkness in anyone else, never in ourselves. and that’s a truth right there – that few dare to ever get near. i walked out of my philosophy […]
The Wellington Film Society showed Paris, Texas last week and record numbers turned out for that screening. This week it’s to Usmar Ismail, a pioneer of Indonesia cinema for Lewat Djam Malam – shown internationally as “After The Curfew”. Released in 1954, restored in 2012 this will be a must-see for fans of rare, rewarding […]
Terrific band The Psychedelic Furs and I thought I knew them pretty well, love the debut and particularly love their third album, Forever Now; that’s a go-to for me – Love My Way is the song, one of my all-time favourites by anyone ever, and a DJ-staple. And I had a compilation that covered a […]
Welcome to episode 134 of Sweetman Podcast with support from our sponsors – T Leaf T, Yeastie Boys and La Petite Chocolat. Dianne Swann is known for her time in the bands Everything That Flies, When The Cat’s Away, The Julie Dolphin, Boom Boom Mancini and – most recently – The Bads. She has performed around the world as a headliner […]
Tony Bennett & Diana Krall Love Is Here To Stay Verve Since his son helped reinvent his career some 25 years ago Tony Bennett has played a simple, familiar card: Warm, weathered versions of the standards with which he made his name (the first time around). The Unplugged album was the thing that relaunched him […]
Aphex Twin Collpase EP Warp Records I’ve said this before but I think it bears repeating: you could imagine that all of the Aphex Twin material – and we’re now talking about a nearly 30-year span of music-making – was created in a single weekend; Richard D. James high on herbal drinks and pills and […]
Bruce Springsteen, Born To Run (1975) Maybe this is the very best – and the very worst of Bruce Springsteen all in one. I mean, we open with Thunder Road which is his none-more-perfect song; a song So-Springsteen that any of the other “next Bob Dylans” have framed their copies of the lyric sheet with […]
I absolutely expected to hear a few more duds doing this challenge. But shit it’s been good. A lot of great albums I knew about and therefore kinda knew I’d missed and a lot of things I genuinely didn’t know about or certainly didn’t know just how great they would be. I guess there’ll be […]
Once a month or so I have a chat on RNZ on their Afternoons show with Jesse Mulligan. These things start – randomly and stop in much the same way. I hope to keep doing this. For a while at least. I think I started in December of 2015, so a couple of years into it. […]
Jack Kerouac’s sonorous voice rotted more brains than just his own. Mine was nearly one. Mine was nearly won. Mine was nearly wondering. Mine was nearly one-dimensionally focussed for a time. Old Jack and Bill and Corso too, the best minds of my generation were destroyed by cell phones, internet rage, intermittent signalling all around […]
Money In The Bank 2018 WWE Madman I am so far out of the loop with the current product – this is the first PPV event I’ve watched in well over a year. And it’s the first WWE DVD I’ve reviewed in even longer… But that worked out pretty well for me. I’ve always enjoyed […]
