mintybloggydiarythingy 2.0

SO FAREWELL, THEN... Tony Hall, aka Shelfy The Bear, aka The Entire Top Shelf, aka The Human Craig Douglas, founding father of Johnson's Gridling Band, who passed away shortly before Xmas. His influence on my own 'BEING A PERSON' is immeasurable... from Star Profile No.2, "The Gridler" 1983 THE ENTIRE TOP SHELF or more recently "BOB"... The origins of such pseudonyms for this flaxen-haired doyen of the paste-up set remain unclear, even after a fairly intense and probing interview carried out recently at his residence at the Vicarage of St. Exocet-On-The-Green. Recognised throughout several counties for his outrageous wit and pretty decent talents, he reveals how Gridling grew from its humble origins in the late sixties to what it is today. Now read on... I asked him how being the son of an internationally recognised crustacean has affected his lifestyle, or if, indeed he was under any pressure to follow in the footsteps of the famous Monsieur Le Cr...

Week from Monday 11th December 2023 - In the wake of the new biopic movie, BBC Four 'celebrated' his life and works with an evening of LEONARD BERNSTEIN. Now, I have to confess, I've sort of GROWN OUT of Lenny's own music. His symphonic works are so-so and whereas I used to think that his blend of classical, Latin and 'jazz' was the doggie's doodahs, it now sounds to these ol'lug-oles a bit CONTRIVED in a Hollywood/Disney/Broadway kind of fashion. In short, CORNY! But Lenny long seemed to me to be a musician who spun a good yarn. He was always more interesting TALKING about music than COMPOSING it. He was GOOD AT TELLY. So I was delighted that they included his lengthy essay "Bernstein On Mahler: The Little Drummer Boy" as part of the evening's entertainment, immediately followed by a selection of "DES KNABEN WUNDERHORN" orchestral songs performed by the Israel Philharmonic (sometime in the 1980s, if I'm not mistaken)...

Week from Monday 4th December 2023 - It's been a fairly simple task to choose my "PICK 'O' THE YEAR" albums for this year! Not for me the quandary of having to sift through piles of new releases to consider and select my favourite three(s). Because these were my ONLY purchases for the last twelvemonth (give or take the odd "Name Your Price" freebie from Bandcamp and some other ZAPPA boxes reserved for Chrimbo)... NEW RELEASES 1) SOFT MACHINE : "Other Doors" 2) ANCHOR & BURDEN : "Kosmonautik Plgrimage" 3) P.A.K.T. : "Live In NYC" REISSUES, ARCHIVE & BACK-CATALOGUE 1) FRANK ZAPPA : "Funky Nothingness" 2) STICK MEN : "Umeda: Live In Osaka 2022" 3) P.A.K.T. : "Live In Piedmont" (a.o.) (All releases, whether 'new' or 'reissue', carry a '2023' publishing date to qualify for consideration.) Over the last few years, I've fallen into the prudent habit of ...

Week from Monday 20th November 2023 - I haven't quite started to 'live with it' yet (still caught up with the MARKUS REUTER & STEFANO CASTAGNA album "Sea Of Hopeless Angels"), but last week's episode of "LIVE FROM DARYL'S HOUSE", with special guest ROBERT FRIPP, was an hour of extraordinary musical telly. I 'captured' it as it went out, but you can now watch the whole thing on That YouTube They Have Now... Sky Arts showed another one of those baffling 'music' documentaries in which, although a fascinating 'POTTED HISTORY' in its own right, none of the titular artist's own music even makes an appearance (a bit like the DAVID BOWIE docko they broadcast a few weeks back)! This one was called "THE ROOTS OF LED ZEPPELIN" and it went into great detail about some of the influential names in Delta and Chicago BLUES, various flavours of FOLK MUSIC, even hippy-endorsed nutters like ALEISTER CROWLEY and JRR TOLKIE...

Week from Monday 13th November 2023 - Radio Three's lunchtime "COMPOSER(s) OF THE WEEK" slot should be a goody this week - As it's LONDON JAZZ FESTIVAL time, they've taken a sideways step from the norm to explore the music of JOHN and ALICE COLTRANE... Musically, there's not much that I haven't heard before, but the attendant discussion prompted a lot of fresh interest (i.e. I think I might have one of my CRAZES coming on!) Although I've still no intention to ditch TWITTER just yet, one of my Welsh chums has sent me an 'INVITE CODE' for that newfangled BLUESKY, so I'm going to give it a go. I trust it has more going for it over MASTODON, which is still a bit 'tumbleweed central' as far as reading matter is concerned. It works, but there's just NOTHING THERE. So I've shut down the MASTODON (I can't ever see myself needing both Mastodon AND Bluesky), and I've started exploring THE POSSIBILITIES of Bluesky (which, on...

What's on the Jukebox? - A playlist of top stuff that's currently setting the toes a-tappin', the fingers a-snappin' and the ears a-wormin' and generally shakin' my grooved thang to thrillin' effect. (Click on the wee lozenges to link to related YouTube clips, if you're curious.) Markus Reuter "Stream For Consciousness" (a.o.) ◊ Miles Davis "Big Fun" ◊ Abdullah Ibrahim "Ekaya" ◊ Grateful Dead "Shakedown Street" ◊ Ravi Shankar "In Concert 1962" ◊ Ross Daly "Echo of Time ◊

Week from Monday 30th October 2023 - An Upside To The Lockdown... I've had the time and opportunity to catch up with some BIG, some might say 'classic' MOVIES during the weekdays:- "The Omen", "The Shining", "Blade Runner 2049" (not as stunning as the original), "Midsommar" (disturbing, but short on suspense: I didn't really care for it)... a couple of 'em I'd intended to save for watching on HALLOWEEN. But I've already been ticking them off the list anyway. Because I can. BANDCAMP FRIDAY is still a thing, I see... I'm unable to purchase anything at the moment, but I've come to treat the BFs as a sort of 'listening party'. Not surprisingly, MARKUS REUTER has yet another couple of collaborative projects on the books:- "Mumblecore Failure" with Jean-Philippe Rossi and "Sea Of Hopeless Angels" with Stefano Castagna, along with some further chapters from his own "Stream For Consci...