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July 26, 2022 by Simon Sweetman
My First Ever Single Is Available Now – Second Storey Teller: Don’t Be A Cunt At The BBQ Eh
My first single is available for free/pay what you like over on Bandcamp. It’s called Don’t Be A Cunt At The BBQ Eh. This is part of the soft-launch of my spoken-word+beats side-hustle which is a lark that I’m loving. Earlier in the month I released my first full album, Everybody Wants To Fool The World. But Don’t Be […]Archive
July 25, 2022 by Simon Sweetman
The Mixed Horror Trilogy
I have stumbled upon a great new idea: The Mixed Horror Trilogy. Well, apologies if you thought of it first, but it’s new to me. We start with Halloween – arguably where modern horror starts. The (proper) birth of the slasher. One of the most influential indie movies of all time; John Carpenter’s finest soundtrack […]Archive
July 24, 2022 by Simon Sweetman
There’s Nothing Funny About Post-Rock And That’s Probably Why I Like It
I have no idea when I first heard about post-rock, or even heard it. But I feel like the band Tortoise was the obvious starting point for me. I’d always called them a jazz-rock band, but also knew that wasn’t quite right, so even if post-rock sounds a bit snooty, a bit academic, it was […]Archive
July 24, 2022 by Simon Sweetman
What Was The First Film You Watched As A Family?
My parents didn’t force movies on me. But we were always allowed to watch them – I have no idea how it started. But I’m all about the memories of movies as much as I am the actual movies. You’ll know that from reading any of the blogs and newsletters from across the years. So […]Archive
July 18, 2022 by Simon Sweetman
Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp: 18
Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp 18 Rhino Records Two very real tragedies combine here, on this misguided ‘duo’ album: firstly that Johnny Depp’s last decade or so has been a bizarre own-goal of alcohol-fuelled self-pitying martyrdom, culminating in an embarrassing feeding-frenzy trial by social media where it seems it’s okay to beat your wife if […]Archive
July 14, 2022 by Simon Sweetman
In Cold Blood vs. The Bonfire of The Vanities: Non-Fiction Novels and The New Journalism
Truman Capote released In Cold Blood in 1966; Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of The Vanities was published in 1987. Twenty-one years between them, the two books continue to have lasting effect as influential treatises regarding, what Wolfe confirmed by title in his 1973 text of the same name, as ‘The New Journalism’. These two books […]Archive
July 13, 2022 by Simon Sweetman
Reassessing John Hersey
John Hersey’s “The Legend on the License”, a piece from The Yale Review, winter edition, 1986, shows an interesting – passive – attack on the New Journalism of the 80s, springing of course from the New Journalism of the mid-60s. Not so much an outright attack, as a critical dissection of the confounding issue of […]Archive
July 13, 2022 by Simon Sweetman
Edith Wharton: Tragedy and Satire in The House of Mirth
“The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth” – Ecclesiastes 7:4 Edith Wharton’s novel takes its title from the above-cited biblical call to heed. Published in 1905, at a stage when the writer was still relatively unknown, The House of Mirth […]Archive
July 7, 2022 by Simon Sweetman
My First Ever Album Is Available Now – Second Storey Teller: Everybody Wants To Fool The World
Today, I released my first album. Yes, true story. It is a spoken-word project. Available for free/pay what you like on Bandcamp or you can also listen to it on Soundcloud if that’s your thing. I’d love to know what you think. If you have any thoughts on it whatsoever. I made the stories and poems and […]Archive
July 6, 2022 by Simon Sweetman
Gig Review: The Johnnys (July 6, Wellington)
The Johnnys Valhalla; Wellington Wednesday, July 6 In high school, a friend hipped me to The Johnnys. They had just broken up. The Aussie cow-punk group was described to me as being a bit like Midnight Oil and Hoodoo Gurus at the same time. Whether accurate or not, it was enough to sell me on […]Archive
July 4, 2022 by Simon Sweetman