1960s
Album: Skyway Man - The World Only Ends When You DieFriday, 15 January 2021
When the concept album first properly took flight, in the late 1960s, before it became slave to the bloated artifice of prog-rock, it was an extension of the LSD-soaked times: “Songs aren’t big enough, man, I need a bigger canvas!” Famed albums by... Read more... |
Dear Comrades! review - Andrei Konchalovsky exposes the Soviet pastThursday, 14 January 2021
Veteran Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky has gone back to his beginnings for his latest film. The real-life events on which Dear Comrades! is based took place in June 1962, when social unrest over rising prices saw strikes break out in... Read more... |
One Night in Miami review - black history come aliveWednesday, 13 January 2021
In 1964, Cassius Clay, NFL superstar Jim Nathaniel Brown, soul legend Sam Cooke and political firebrand Malcolm X gathered for one night in a dingy room at the Hampton Motel. It was a meeting that became a symbol of hope for black Americans. A photo... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Charles Mingus @ Bremen 1964 & 1975Sunday, 10 January 2021
Two of the four CDs in this set are of a live performance taped on 16 April 1964. The other pair of discs were recorded on 9 July 1975. Each show issued on Charles Mingus @ Bremen 1964 & 1975 was captured by the north German regional broadcaster... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Lost Innocence - Garpax 1960s Punk & PsychSunday, 03 January 2021
An old saw relating to The Doors says their ambition when they formed was to be as big as Los Angeles-based garage-psych sensations The Seeds. After listening to Lost Innocence – Garpax 1960s Punk & Psych, it’s hard not to wonder where the bands... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Sumer Is Icumen In - The Pagan Sound Of British & Irish FolkSunday, 20 December 2020
The winter solstice occurs tomorrow, 21 December. Stonehenge, one of this island’s most significant structures, is constructed in alignment with the setting sun on that day. After the solstice, the days lengthen and a new cycle of the year begins.An... Read more... |
Small Axe: Education, BBC One review - domestic drama concludes groundbreaking film series with quiet powerMonday, 14 December 2020
The fifth and final film in the Small Axe series is titled Education. At first, it appears this refers to the education of the central character, 12-year-old London boy Kingsley Smith, impressively played by Kenyah Sandy, who’s transferred to a... Read more... |
The Dumb Waiter, Hampstead Theatre review - menace without a hint of mirthThursday, 10 December 2020
Add the Hampstead Theatre to the swelling ranks of playhouses opening its doors this month, in this case with a revival well into rehearsal last spring when the first lockdown struck. Re-cast in the interim, Alice Hamilton's 60th-anniversary... Read more... |
Filmmaker Frank Marshall: 'People don’t understand what geniuses The Bee Gees were'Tuesday, 08 December 2020
Frank Marshall might not be the biggest household name, but his footprint on Hollywood is unrivalled. He has produced hits ranging from Indiana Jones and Back to the Future to Jason Bourne and Jurassic World. He also takes occasional forays into... Read more... |
David Crosby: Remember My Name, Sky Arts review - a rock icon looks in the mirrorSunday, 15 November 2020
Rock documentaries are so often disappointing, the result less a portrait than a whitewash. A J Eaton’s 90-minute rock doc David Crosby: Remember My Name, which premiered on Sky Arts, was an unflinching close-up, utterly absorbing and all the more... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Apple, Jason CrestSunday, 08 November 2020
After their final records were released in 1969, that seemed to be it for Apple and Jason Crest. Releases by both psychedelic-leaning British bands had first hit shops the previous year, and neither oufit made any waves commercially. Of course, that... Read more... |
The Queen's Gambit, Netflix review - chess prodigy's story makes brilliant televisionFriday, 06 November 2020
It’s surprising, perhaps, that the dramatic potential of chess hasn’t been more widely exploited. There was a nail-biting tournament in From Russia with Love, while the knight’s chequerboard struggle with Death was the centrepiece of Ingmar Bergman’... Read more... |
