#country squire radio show

[kaylor]

Oh maddy! Would you share some of those albums? I’ve been meaning to find new music but i suck at it

sure!! some of these i actively sought out and some are random recommendations from spotify, but they're all (mostly) stuff i listened to this year

panorama by hayley kiyoko

flowers for vases by hayley williams

sos by sza

never going under by circa waves

missing person by kelsey karter & the heroines

being funny in a foreign language by the 1975

renaissance by beyoncé

purgatory by tyler childers

superbloom by misterwives

endless summer vacation by miley cyrus

horizons by starset

country squire by tyler childers

disconnect by smash into pieces

sad happy by circa waves

revolution radio by green day

first two pages of frankenstein by the national

that! feels good! by jessie ware

gag order by kesha

let her burn by rebecca black

the good witch by maisie peters

in the end it always does by the japanese house

nosebleeds by misterwives

dead club city by nothing but thieves

the loveliest time by carly rae jepsen

this is why by paramore

euphoric by georgia

soft landing by art school girlfriend

unreal unearth by hozier

guts by olivia rodrigo

the show by niall horan

[maaarine]

Bibliography: articles posted on this blog in 2023

Posted in January

To grasp how serotonin works on the brain, look to the gut (James M Shine, Psyche, Jan 03 2023)

Thousands of records shattered in historic winter warm spell in Europe (Ian Livingston, The Washington Post, Jan 02 2023)

“Il faut que tu sois belle maintenant” : en Égypte, des femmes libérées du voile restent prisonnières des diktats (Aliaa Talaat, Al-Manassa via Courrier International, 20 nov 2022)

Mystery of why Roman buildings have survived so long has been unraveled, scientists say (Katie Hunt, CNN, Jan 06 2023)

Colombia’s surrogacy market: Buying a baby for $4,000 (Lucía Franco, El País, Jan 04 2023)

How to spot an eating disorder (Phillip Aouad & Sarah Maguire, Psyche, Jan 11 2023)

UAE sparks furious backlash by appointing Abu Dhabi oil chief as president of COP28 climate summit (Sam Meredith, CNBC, Jan 12 2023)

Don’t tell me that David Carrick’s crimes were ‘unbelievable’. The problem is victims aren’t believed (Marina Hyde, The Guardian, Jan 17 2023)

Baromètre Sexisme 2023 : "La situation est alarmante", estime le Haut Conseil à l'Égalité (Juliette Geay, Radio France, 23 janvier 2023)

—

Posted in February

Spain approves menstrual leave, teen abortion and trans laws (NPR, Feb 16 2023)

Are Men the Overlooked Reason for the Fertility Decline? (Jessica Grose, The New York Times, Feb 15 2023)

American teenage girls are experiencing high levels of emotional distress. Why? (Moira Donegan, The Guardian, Feb 16 2023)

Figures that lay bare the shocking scale of toxic influencer Andrew Tate’s reach among young men (Maya Oppenheim, The Independent, Feb 17 2023)

Why psychological research on child sex offenders is important (Meetali Devgun, Psyche, Feb 22 2023)

Derrière les chiffres des féminicides, des visages et un continuum de violences contre les femmes (Fanny Declercq, Le Soir, 27 fév 2023)

—

Posted in March

English is not normal (John McWhorter, Aeon, Nov 13 2015)

Are Iranian schoolgirls being poisoned by toxic gas? (BBC News, March 03 2023)

‘Why do we need a supermodel?’: Backlash after Fifa makes Adriana Lima Women’s World Cup ambassador (Henry Belot, The Guardian, March 02 2023)

New Human Metabolism Research Upends Conventional Wisdom about How We Burn Calories (Herman Pontzer, Scientific American, Jan 01 2023)

Polish woman found guilty of aiding an abortion in landmark trial (Harriet Barber, The Telegraph, March 14 2023)

How Diet Builds Better Bones: Surprising Findings on Vitamin D, Coffee, and More (Claudia Wallis, Scientific American, Jan 01 2023)

Met police found to be institutionally racist, misogynistic and homophobic (Vikram Dodd, The Guardian, March 21 2023)

Chinese Dating App Does the Swiping for Singles to Find Love (Nikki Main, Gizmodo, March 21 2023)

Aphantasia can be a gift to philosophers and critics like me (Mette Leonard Høeg, Psyche, March 20 2023)

—

Posted in April

Facts Don’t Change Minds – Social Networks, Group Dialogue, and Stories Do (Anne Toomey, The LSE Impact Blog, Jan 24 2023)

Uganda’s failure to jail child rapists as teen pregnancies soar (Tamasin Ford, BBC News, April 17 2023)

Italy risks ‘ethnic replacement’ because of low birth rate and high immigration, says minister (Nick Squires, The Telegraph, April 19 2023)

Putin, Trump, Ukraine: how Timothy Snyder became the leading interpreter of our dark times (Robert P Baird, The Guardian, March 30 2023)

India overtakes China to become world’s most populous country (Hannah Ellis-Petersen, The Guardian, April 24 2023)

—

Posted in May

Des crèches ferment toutes les semaines, « et ce n’est pas près de s’arrêter » (Le Soir, 5 mai 2023)

People in comas showed ‘conscious-like’ brain activity as they died, study says (Hannah Devlin, The Guardian, May 01 2023)

Chinese woman appeals in battle for right to freeze her eggs (The Guardian, May 09 2023)

Women CEOs: Why companies in crisis hire minorities - and then fire them (The Guardian, DG McCullough, Aug 08 2014)

Glass cliffs: firms appoint female executives in times of crisis as a signal of change to investors (Max Reinwald and Johannes Zaia and Florian Kunze, LSE Business Review, Aug 19 2022)

—

Posted in June

Afghan women in mental health crisis over bleak future (Yogita Limaye, BBC News, June 05 2023)

Support Of Amber Heard Alongside French Feminists & Cinema Figures (Melanie Goodfellow, Deadline, June 05 2023)

Why is Japan redefining rape? (Tessa Wong & Sakiko Shiraishi, BBC News, June 07 2023)

Catching the men who sell subway groping videos (Zhaoyin Feng & Aliaume Leroy & Shanshan Chen, BBC News, June 08 2023)

Netherlands to provide free sun cream to tackle record skin cancer levels (Kate Connolly, The Guardian, June 12 2023)

The Cause of Depression Is Probably Not What You Think (Joanna Thompson, Quanta Magazine, Jan 26 2023)

—

Posted in July

‘Farsighted impulsivity’ and the new psychology of self-control (Adam Bulley, Psyche, Feb 03 2021)

Can a perfectionist personality put you at risk of migraines? (Shayla Love, Psyche, July 25 2023)

—

Posted in August

How Loneliness Reshapes the Brain (Marta Zaraska, Quanta Magazine, Feb 28 2023)

Why religious belief provides a real buffer against suicide risk (David H Rosmarin, Psyche, Aug 07 2023)

—

Posted in September

What Are Dreams For? (Amanda Gefter, The New Yorker, Aug 31 2023)

Rape Cases Seize Italy’s Attention and Expose Cultural Rifts (Gaia Pianigiani, The New York Times, Sep 03 2023)

Councils in England in crisis as Birmingham ‘declares itself bankrupt’ (Heather Stewart and Jessica Murray, The Guardian, Sep 05 2023)

Nearly one in three female NHS surgeons have been sexually assaulted, survey suggests (Jamie Grierson, The Guardian, Sep 12 2023)

Domination and Objectification: Men’s Motivation for Dominance Over Women Affects Their Tendency to Sexually Objectify Women (Orly Bareket and Nurit Shnabel, Sep 09 2019)

In Spain, dozens of girls are reporting AI-generated nude photos of them being circulated at school: ‘My heart skipped a beat’ (Manuel Viejo, El País, Sep 18 2023)

When the human tendency to detect patterns goes too far (Shayla Love, Psyche, Sep 19 2023)

—

Posted in October

My Brain Doesn’t Picture Things (Marco Giancotti, Nautilus, Oct 04 2023)

“Inverse vaccine” shows potential to treat multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases (Sarah C.P. Williams, The University of Chicago, Sep 11 2023)

Poland election: exit polls point to Law and Justice defeat as Tusk hails ‘rebirth’ (Shaun Walker, The Guardian, Oct 16 2023)

—

Posted in November

What I have learned from my suicidal patients (Gavin Francis, The Guardian, Nov 22 2019)

Did natural selection make the Dutch the tallest people on the planet? (Martin Enserink, Science, Apr 07 2015)

Tumblr Is Always Dying (Elizabeth Minkel, Wired, Nov 14 2023)

How accurate is the new Napoleon film? Sorting fact from fiction (Andrew Roberts, The Sunday Times, Nov 19 2023)

Far-right party set to win most seats in Dutch elections, exit polls show (Jon Henley and Pjotr Sauer and Senay Boztas, The Guardian, Nov 22 2023)

Climate change: Rise in Google searches around ‘anxiety’ (Lucy Gilder, BBC, Nov 22 2023)

—

Posted in December

The sexual assault of sleeping women: the hidden, horrifying rape crisis in our bedrooms (Anna Moore, The Guardian, June 15 2021)

Afghanistan: Taliban sends abused women to prison - UN (Nicholas Yong, BBC News, Dec 15 2023)

Longitudinal Associations Between Parenting and Child Big Five Personality Traits (University of California Press, Nov 18 2021)

Scientists Pinpoint Cause of Severe Morning Sickness (Azeen Ghorayshi, The New York Times, Dec 13 2023)

[thelenazavaroniarchive]

24th May 2024.

𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟒. Lena’s second single - Personality was released.

𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟒. In America there was a full page advert for Lena in Variety.

𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟒. In America. Lena appeared on the Mike Douglas Show on Channel 2 at 5:00 pm. She sang Ma! He’s Making Eyes At Me.

𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟗. The Stage reported that Lena would be doing a Sunday concert at the Blackpool Opera House during the summer.

𝐓𝐡𝐮𝐫𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟕𝟗. The Stage also carried an advertisement for Carnaby Cavern who made costumes for Lena.

𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟎. Music Week listed “Jump Down Jimmy” on the new releases page.

𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟎. The Wolverhampton Express published an interview with Lena.

𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟏. Lena starred in Sunday night At The Blackpool Opera House at 6:10pm and 8:20pm. Singing: Happy Together, La Zavaroni, Over The Rainbow, I don’t want to walk without you, Tribute to the young talent of yesteryear, Roses and Rainbows, Going nowhere, Make your own kind of music, Even now. This was Spring Bank holiday weekend at one of the largest Theatres in the country. She was paid £2000. Copy of her contract courtesy of lenazavaroni.com

𝐒𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟏. Shirley Hill photographed Lena from the wings at The Blackpool Opera house.

𝐒𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟑𝐫𝐝 - 𝐌𝐨𝐧𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟖𝟏. Over the Spring Bank Holiday, Shirley Hill photographed Lena signing Records in Blackpool Woolworths, The vast majority of record signings were in Woolworths stores, it is almost certain that the Solomons got backhanders from them. The badge says ; BBC 351 Radio Blackburn and her watch looks to say it is 11:55 am.

being interviewed by Radio Blackburn, which was soon to be renamed BBC Radio Lancashire.

backstage at the Opera House, both alone and with Kenny Ball.

𝐅𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟏𝟗𝟗𝟏. The (Sandwell) Evening Mail reported that Lena’s husband had left her.

𝐖𝐞𝐝𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟑. Broadway World wrote an obituary for Dougie Squires, who choreographed a lot of Lena's shows.

[howdoyoudorevue]

This week, we're still riding high from the Bros. Landreth concert in Churchill last week. And the month of August still has some live music in store for us up north, so we previewed that fun. There's also (obviously) some great shows happening all summer long in Winnipeg, and we previewed that, too! We also got a listen to Sean Burns' newly released single from his brand new album "Lost Country" which is due this fall. Plus our pal Neil Mumby is traversing the island of Newfoundland, and wanted a special request. We were more than happy to oblige! Hope you're enjoying your summer. Only 4 weeks to go!

~joe

HERE'S WHAT YOU HEARD TODAY!

VINCE GUARALDI - Peppermint Patty (Show Theme)

DESIREE DORION - Unlove You That’s How I Know, 2023

BROS. LANDRETH - Don’t Feel Like Crying (feat. Leith Ross) Come Morning, 2022

JOEL PLASKETT EMERGENCY - True Patriot Love Down At The Khyber, 2001

SEAN BURNS - Destroy Me Single, 2023

GOOSE CREEK SYMPHONY - Words Of Earnest Words Of Earnest, 1972

KRISTI LANE SINCLAIR - Super Blood Wolf Moon Super Blood Wolf Moon, 2023

JAYWOOD - Some Days Some Days, 2021

AMOS THE KID - Under Thin Eyelids Enough as it Was, 2023

BOOTER - Island Vibes 10/10, 2022

WASHBOARD HANK AND THE COUNTRY SQUIRES - Marmora Pig Hoorah For Washboard Hank, 2003

SHANNEYGANOCK - The Dundee Cat Live at O’Reilly’s, Vol. 1, 2000

SPIRIT OF THE WEST - And If Venice Is Sinking Faithlift, 1993

VINCE COLLINS - Smash The Window/Geese In The Bog/Mike Bennett’s Tune/Dirty Dirt Out Lifting Out The Stove, 2003

This Week's Episode On... Apple Podcasts Spotify Podcasts Google Podcasts Podbean iHeartRadio TuneIn Radio

This Week's Playlist On... Spinitron

[kiltedpipeguy]

‪A second bowl tonight some more #cabbiesmixture while continuing this weeks @SquireRadio #live show in my #northernbriars bent volcano pipe. ‬

[rpphil96]

Happy International pipe smoking day. As soon as I left work today I lit up some Capstan in my @crappypipes billiard. Now that I'm home I'm smoking Robert McConnell's Red Virginia in my Moonshine devil dog,and listening to The Pipes magazine radio show,and The Country squire radioshow. #pipesmoking #pipetobacco #pipe #internationalpipesmokingday #ipsd2020 https://www.instagram.com/p/B8zuSpEH6uE/?igshid=j1uo59vq06wt

[elizadoolittlethings]

Toby Hadoke’s adaptation of Nigel Kneale’s The Road aired on October 27 to great acclaim. Here, Hadoke talks about the necessary alterations for the story, as well as its tributes to the first production…NB This portion of the interview contains major spoilers for The Road. If you’ve not heard it yet, do so now!

Do we know if Nigel Kneale ever considered The Road as a radio script? It’s clear that what Brian Hodgson and the Radiophonic Workshop did back in 1963 was what he was after from the start – it was never going to be a big visual thing.

One of the big comments I got back from [Radio 4 Commissioning Editor] Jeremy Howe when we first pitched it was: “How is this going to work with the climax relying on a juxtaposition of the sound that we can hear and the visuals of the characters in the time period they are in, and the incongruity of hearing those sounds laid over the image of the people in that period clothing?”

He was quite right about that. Charlotte Riches who’s produced it has been a great advocate of mine and done pretty much everything I’ve done for radio; she’s an extremely experienced producer, and is brilliant and very hot on scripts. She said that the edit on the final five minutes of the play was the biggest and hardest job she’d had, and she’d produced hundreds of hours of radio drama. She gave herself a five-day edit on this because she knew this was going to be a biggie.

When you can see the pictures, you know where you’re supposed to be looking; when you’re listening on radio you have to create the points of view and it’s difficult to go, “Are we now with the haunting, or are we still in the woods, and those in the woods can hear the haunting?” On telly, we can see the people who can hear the haunting listening, so we have an anchor. On the radio, you go, “Why are we suddenly with the haunting?” It was really confusing to work out where the listener’s point of view was.

They say the pictures are better on radio – but when you need to create a very specific one, it has to be much harder. I think it works – there’s a lot of very clear audio cues placing us in the period before we get the stuff that’s out of place. Therefore we know the juxtaposition has to be doing something. In the radio version you’re giving us all their reactions through the haunting…

We had to keep cutting back to them. In the original, the haunting is just a series of fractured sounds, whereas in ours, it was Charlotte’s idea that we needed a narrative in the haunting to follow. We have a mother and a lost daughter character in the haunting who are entirely our invention, so we have a little mini story to follow within the haunting itself, otherwise we weren’t quite sure if it wasn’t going to be too fragmented and too confusing to follow.

All the dialogue in the haunting is entirely new, and we planned that quite hard… apart from the object that you can hear that is taken from the original BBC tapes. Although the play doesn’t exist, I had a bit of a brainwave. I dropped Mark Ayres an email and said, “I don’t suppose in your hall of records for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop the sound effects for The Road exist?” and he said, “I’ve got a tape here that says The Road.” He’s a superstar and sent me what was there, and we seeded a couple of bits in just because it’s a play about sound travelling through time, so why not have sound from the original play travelling through time to us? I thought that was nicely appropriate and a nice nod to the great people who went before us.

The original version was post-Cuba with the threat of nuclear holocaust very present – did you consider changing what the tragedy was that caused the haunting or did you want to keep it as close to the original as possible?

Unfortunately Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un came along and Putin as well in a sense – so I think a nuclear holocaust is something that’s still possible, and I didn’t think there was anything else it could be. It needed to be the present day, sure, but although we’ve got them listening to the news on the car radio, I didn’t want it to be too specific. Although it’s intended very much that the day of the haunting is the day that we’re listening to it – it’s happening to us – I thought it would sound a bit hokey if I embedded it too much in the very present in terms of our immediate references.

I think it would have worked in the 1980s when the BBC very kindly did a nuclear holocaust season and they showed The War Game, and Threads was on. I remember it was the first nightmare I ever had – I slept in my sister’s room because I watched The War Game and it scared the shit out of me. It was a real threat – I lived in the countryside, and my mum still lives there; there was a radar dome on the hill and we’d always talk about that if there was a nuclear attack, they’d take out that radar dome so we’d be in the fallout anyway. We wouldn’t escape by being in the country.

It definitely was a present and terrifying threat and I just think there’s nothing else that would quite match it. The world could be wiped out by flood or famine, but I don’t think that gives you as visceral a kick.

The big difficulty we had was with one of the sounds: I thought we should have one of those nuclear sirens going off, but I made some enquires. I asked a couple of MPs and Andrew Smith (who wrote Full Circle for Doctor Who and is a former police officer), as well as Tom Harris, the former MP, about what would happen in the event of a nuclear holocaust, and the consensus was that sound is now outmoded. That alarm wouldn’t happen.

The argument, though, was people still associate it with a nuclear attack, and we should use it but in the end Charlotte made the decision not to. I would have been comfortable using it, because it’s a really useful shorthand. We didn’t, and I think that helped to divorce ourselves from the 1960s setting, but it did mean we did not have available to an aural shorthand that says immediately, “There’s a nuclear bomb!”

So you have to find a way of doing it in the dialogue without having someone say, “I always thought I’d die in a nuclear war!” Or, “Look Jane, here’s a warhead!”

The mother and daughter bit sells that – as they’re describing the cloud. The bit that’s haunted me [and still gives me goosebumps when I transcribe this a few weeks later] is the mother saying, “Close your eyes and make a wish.”

That’s the bit that Charlotte really loved; she said when she read it she got chills down her spine. That’s nice because I wrote that bit!

The actors in the haunting include some quite well known actors, and the girl is the daughter of the producer. Nigel Kneale’s biographer, Andy Murray, is in there somewhere – he lives round the corner from me.

How much of the 40 minutes up to the haunting did you have to rework for radio, and how much could you keep scenes intact?

Unlike [Matthew Graham’s radio play of] The Stone Tape – which I thought was very good, but was a very different retelling of the story with new characters etc. – I felt we had a slight responsibility to present the play that we cannot experience because the tape was destroyed. In the shadow of Nigel Kneale I am humbly shrouded – I had no desire to go, “And what is Hadoke’s take on Kneale’s work?” This is very much my attempt to bring the brilliance of Nigel Kneale to a current and wide audience.

There are some brilliant lines in there, but by the very nature of radio, there are changes. On telly, if you have someone talking to somebody else for two pages, you can keep cutting back to the other person for their reactions to remind you they’re in the scene. You can’t do that on radio. Some of Charlotte’s notes would be – “Jethro speaks here, he hasn’t spoken since page 32, we need to bring him in beforehand, even if it’s to drop off a drink or cough, or something.”

There were various practical things: when we get to the woods, the cart gets stuck on a knot, and that’s just to bring us into the scene. A lot of that is Charlotte’s producing experience, creating the picture for the listener.

The big thing that we brought in to it was because the scenes were quite long – which they can be on television, and certainly could be on television in 1963. For this we needed all the stuff in the woods between Big Jeff and Lukey. In the teleplay it starts off with them setting up and then they bugger off pretty quickly. In this, the stuff with Big Jeff and Lukey and Tetsy that we keep cutting back to is largely mine, setting up the ghost story and having more of the history of the haunting cut with the philosophical discourse. It was felt that we needed to have a bit more toing and froing and to get in the wood location, where the climax takes place, quite a lot earlier. Most of the stuff between those characters, and the stuff about the bones, was all new just to have a bit of a mystery around the haunting.

I had fewer characters at my disposal so I had to roll a couple into one. In the original there’s a character called Sam, played by Rodney Bewes, who is Tetsy’s sweetheart and they’re in the woods. I think it was Charlotte’s idea we roll them into one, and Sam’s the dog now!  And it gives Tetsy a bigger role now.

There was a whole big team of guys helping the Squire and in my first draft I’d written lots of grunts, and cries of “You up there!” We just pared that down to Big Jeff and Lukey who do all the factotuming, because a big load of extras grunting is great on television to fill the picture but on radio it’s not particularly helpful.

In terms of the characters and the main thrusts of their arguments, the dialogue has been tweaked here and there, but large chunks are 100% Kneale. It was already great, so why mess with it?

How involved with the casting were you?

This is the great relationship I have with Charlotte – she knows I’m an acting geek. I didn’t know you could do this until we first did a play together; she said, “Who do you think?” and I suggested a few names… and they were all in it!

We were originally going to do this in Manchester and we were going to use all local actors for the supporting parts, which I’m passionate about because I think the BBC should use more local actors when they’re recording in a place. But because we’d got Mark Gatiss it looked like we’d have to do it in London, and if we were going to be in London, and it’s only a day [recording], we decided to aim high!

We batted a few ideas back and forth. I suggested Hattie Morahan straightaway just because 1) she’s a brilliant radio actress and 2) her dad directed the original which again I thought was a beautiful tie in to the past. Charlotte knew Hattie because she’d done loads of radio. I hadn’t known their connection. Hattie was a yes pretty quickly.

Mark I mentioned was a fan in the pitch – but I didn’t ask him if he’d be in it until we got the go ahead. He was definitely the first person to be contacted, before I’d written the script but after the commission. It then depended on his availability. We were on standby for quite a while – you can’t cast until you’ve got a date – but then we got a date finally from Mark and we moved pretty quickly.

Knowing we had Mark early on we knew would bring people to it – audience-wise and cast-wise. Actors know they’re going to be in a production that people are going to want to take some notice of and if it’s got the nod from somebody who can pick and choose their work, that helps.

I wasn’t 100% certain Mark would want to do it, because he tried to remake it and wasn’t successful so I thought he might be pissed off that somebody else had. He’d also done a readthrough of it on stage a few years ago, so maybe he’d played the part and got it out of his system. He’s always been very nice to me when I met him, so the approach wasn’t totally out of the blue and I thought he wouldn’t tell me to piss off, he would let me down gently. That’s the fear when you get in touch [with actors] out of the blue: you don’t want them to be rude to you, but I knew from my limited experience that Mark wouldn’t be mean, so I went for it.

Francis Magee is a brilliant actor and an old mate of mine and I wanted to give him a job – not that he needs one! He never stops working! I love him to death and I could just imagine him as Lukey so I suggested him.

I worked with Colin McFarlane years and years ago; he’s got a brilliant voice. I suggested him.

We had a few names in the frame for Big Jeff and then Emily, the production assistant, suggested Ralph Ineson because she always wanted to work with him. I said, “Go on offer it to him. It’s a little role at the bottom of the credits, he’s not going to go for it…” and he said yes. I wasn’t going to argue with that – he’s got the perfect voice for a tall Northern man.

Tetsy was quite hard to cast – Susan Wokoma was the only part I didn’t cast. I’d not worked with her before but she’s very much of the moment and brought a very different energy to it. She was Charlotte’s suggestion.

Then Adrian Scarborough – we had loads of ideas for Sir Timothy and there was an actor in the frame who couldn’t do it. It’s a potentially very boring part because he’s slightly stiff and credulous. I needed somebody who was able to bring a slightly different energy to it. I thought of Adrian whose work I’d always liked – I’ve seen him on stage a lot. He’s an interesting left field idea so I suggested him and Charlotte went, “ooh let’s try him”. I thought he’d be good but he’s even better than I thought. It’s a tricky part and he’s made it really sing. I’m  really happy with what he did with it.

Has this whetted your appetite for more Kneale adaptations?

It’s really helped me with my Quatermass book because [Nigel Kneale’s widow] Judith Kerr came to the recording. I’d been trying to get in touch with her to talk about the Quatermass book, but I’d never been able to get past the agent. She came to the recording of The Road, she was delightful, I chanced my arm and said I’m doing a book on Quatermass. I took her for dinner, and she took me round to the house. She’s got the Thing from The Quatermass Experiment out of a plastic bag in the corner of the office; she took me up to Nigel’s office where there’s a Martian sitting in the corner and gave me access to stuff I had no idea existed.

[Added October 29] Have you been pleased with the play’s reception?

I’m staggered – the response had been amazing. I mean, I knew there’d be a small coterie of people like me who would be keen on it (but then they might have hated it because it’s not 100% the original, so even they were a worry!) but the response has been huge. We trended on Twitter! And loads of people who knew nothing about the play before have got in touch to say how great it was an how floored they were by the ending. Someone even Tweeted to say it’s got his 11 year old son into radio drama which has made me overjoyed!

And then last night I got an email from Judith Kerr saying how much she enjoyed it and that “Tom would have loved it.” I’m not afraid to say that got me a bit emotional. So job done. It’s been a totally thrilling experience from start to finish and I’m very lucky to have had this opportunity.

The Road is available to listen on iPlayer. Read our review here

The first, spoiler-free, part of this interview explains how Toby came to adapt The Road

Photos from the recording (c) Toby Hadoke and used with kind permission.

[opedguy]

Democrats Use Fauci as Foil Against Trump

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Oct. 19, 2020.--Democrats figured long ago that Covid-19 would be the key 2020 campaign strategy against 74-year-old President Donald Trump, using 80-year-old National Institute’s of Health Chief of Allergy and Infectious Disease Dr. Anthony Fauci as proof that Trump’s unworthy of a second term.  Democrats exploit Fauci, often running polls asking voters who do you trust more about Covid-10, Trump or Fauci?, asking him incendiary questions to disparage Trump.  So far, the strategy has worked to give 77-year-old former Vice President Joe Biden as sizable lead in the polls heading into Nov. 3.  Biden and his 55-year-old running mate Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) insist that over 220,000 U.S. deaths are all Trump’s fault.  Nether say what they’d do to stop the spread of the novel coronvirus other that tell citizens to wear mask already required to do business in most U.S. retail establishments. 

            Biden and Harris have no plan for Covid1-19, they have a plan to discredit the president before Election Day, and it seems like it’s working.  But beyond the election if they win, Biden and Harris have said they plan follow “scientists” advice, including shutting down the economy again which would plunge the U.S. economy into another Great Depression. “People are tired of Covid,” Trump said.  “People are tired of hearing Fauci and these idiots, all these idiots who got it wrong,” referring to all the pressure he received in April and May to shut down the economy.  Trump wised up quickly that Fauci was a willing participant in Biden and Harris’ campaign to discredit him before the Nov. 3 election.  Listening to Fauci go on every anti-Trump radio and TV station to agree with Democrats that the White House isn’t following his superior guidance, leaving the country over exposed to the virus.        

     Democrats and their friends in the press have orchestrated Biden and Harris’ campaign talking points to the letter, duping the public into believing they have a better plan.  “Every time he goes on television, there’s always a bomb, but there’s a bigger bomb if you fire him,” Trump said.  “This guy’s a disaster,” referring to his bad advice from the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis.  Dealing with Fauci, Trump found out the hard way his quietly egotistical manner, pretending he’s the nice grandpa type, while wanting to monopolize the headlines.  Trump made an enemy of Fauci after he pointed out his contradictory advice, especially about masks. First, he was against widespread face coverings, then he was for it, always making excuses whey he changed his mind.  But whatever the advice, Fauci showed, beyond anything else, he’s out to damage Trump’s chances of reelection. 

 Facui bristled at the thought of Trump replaced him Stanford University’s Hoover Institution scholar Dr. Scott Atlas.  Fauci helped the media discredit Atlas with their nonsense analysis that he’s not an infectious disease specialist.  Well, judging by the advice Fauci’s given on how to control the novel coronvirus, Trump needed a fresh set of eyes outside the parochial infectious disease paradigm.  Fauci’s advice mirrors that of advise given over 100 years ago in the big daddy of all infections disease events, the 1918 H1N1 Spanish Flu global pandemic.  Wear masks, wash hands and socially distance, and, if necessary, quarantine.  Trump realized long ago that if the U.S. economy, with all its benefits to citizens survives, it’s because it’s open for business, not closed as Fauci recommends.  Fauci collects his $400,000 government salary whether the unemployment rate hits 100%.   

          Listening to “scientists” is how 53-year-old Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) shut down the state’s economy, leading to the whopping $54 billion budget deficit.  Newsom, while privately detesting Trump, publicly placates him, praying that he cuts a new stimulus deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to t bail out the California economy.  Newsom announced March 15 that 25.5 million Californians or 60% would be infected with Covid-19 unless he shut down the state’s economy.  Newsome listened to”scientists” at mega-billionaire Bill Gates-funded Univ. of Washington Institute for Health Care Metrics and Evaluation.  Today, California has 875,557 cases and 16,979 deaths, nothing like “scientists” predicted.  So, had Newsom not listened to scientists the state would not be in a $54 billion hole squandering all the $28 billion surplus squired away by former Gov. Jerry Brown.        

     Fauci’s the first one quoted by Biden and Harris to advance their single campaign issue that Trump botched the Covid-19 crisis.  But they have no plan how they’d do thing differently than Trump other that listening to the “scientists.”  “He’ll listen to the scientists,” Trump told a campaign rally in Nevada.  “If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression, instead of, we’re like a rocket ship.  Take a look at the numbers.”  Biden’s said that you can’t fix the economy until the Covid-19 crisis has ended, something that’s not going to happen anytime soon.  Voting for Biden and Harris puts the U.S. economy into the hands of narrow-minded scientist looking only at infectious disease, not at the social malaise that comes from hurting the U.S. economy.  Biden and Harris will continue to use Fauci to make their case to voters.

 About the Author 

John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.              

[bmer916]

BMer’s Favorite Album of 2019

1. Brooks & Dunn - Reboot

country

Oh man, I struggled to admit that this was my favorite album of the year, figuring y’all would judge me. But here’s the truth, I have been a huge country music fan since elementary school. Back then, you know, back before the internets, I would listen to Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, and Brooks & Dunn on my walkmen, then eventually on my discman. 

Even in Middle School when I started to get into the more aggressive music, punk, grunge, I was still listening to country in my head phones. By the time I could drive I had entrenched myself into punk music, playing in bands, going to shows, acting like I was punk-rock. If I was driving alone and punk was blasting, it was either some westcoast gangster rap that made my 12′s slump, or country. 

I had developed a distaste for radio early on, so everything I listened to was handpicked, and for my country music it was always Garth Brooks: Double Live or Brooks & Dunn: Brand New Man. So good. I loved it. I still do.

Country is a lot different today with country-pop dominating the radio, full of R&B influenced trap beats and bro-country lyrics. It is mostly hollow and over-produced. So when Reboot came out I was all over it. Not only does Reboot serve as a Best Of... compilation, the songs were redone with country artists I respect (well, all but Kane Brown). 

Reboot is basically a reintroduction of these classic songs to the modern listener. The songs sound as big and awesome as they did in the 90′s. Hearing some of my favorite country singers like Jon Pardi, Kacey Musgraves, Cody Johnson, Midland, Luke Combs... singing along with Brooks & Dunn is just perfect. It is also worth noting how the newer, pop-country artist’s performance fell a little flat, Thomas Rhett, Brett Young, and Kane Brown. Not terrible but not an upgrade on those tracks. 

I like how Kacey Musgraves re-worked Neon Moon but also how Jon Pardi didn’t change a thing on Next Broken Heart.  I can’t think of any other Brooks & Dunn track I’d want on Reboot. These are classic country songs that stand up in today’s modern country sound.

Favorite Tracks: “My Next Broken Heart” “Neon Moon” “Boot Scootin’ Boogie” “Hard Workin Man” “Brand New Man”

“The jukebox plays on drink by drink And the words to every sad song Seem to say what I think And this pain inside of me Ain't never gonna end.” -Neon Moon (w/Kacey Musgraves)

2. Ariana Grande - Thank U, Next

3. Sigrid - Sucker Punch

4. The Black Keys - ‘Let’s Rock’

5. Cody Johnson - Ain’t Nothin To It

6. Tyler Chlders - Country Squire

7. Carly Rae Jepsen - Dedicated

8. Maggie Rogers - Heard It In A Past Life

9. Dermot Kennedy - Without Fear

10. George Strait - Honky Tonk Time Machine

[mayoknave]

In this special panel discussion, moderated by Diana Arens, listen to legendary DJs, volunteers, and staff of KAOS Radio: Domenica Clark, Arrington de Dionyso, Kathy Dockins, Steve Fisk, John Ford, John Foster, John Goodmanson, Michael Huntsberger, Juli Kelen, Dean Katz, Erika Lari, Brooks Martin, Bruce Pavitt, Paul Pearson, Steve Peters, Dana Squires, Gary Wessels-Galbreath, and Shannon Wiberg as they spin up the history of KAOS, and the ways the station has empowered Evergreen students, alumni, and community members to create participatory media for listeners in Olympia and beyond.

Formed in 1973 by Dean Katz, under an Evergreen student contract, KAOS evolved into a listener-supported, non-commercial, college-community station welcoming and training Evergreen students and staff; and community members as volunteer DJs playing a wide variety of music with no required playlist. Following former Music Director John Foster’s revolutionary Independent Music Policy, KAOS became a beacon of independent music worldwide. Under the leadership of Michael Huntsberger, the station built new and larger studios, added satellite interconnection facilities, expanded its FM coverage, began streaming on the Internet, trained more than 2,000 volunteers to make radio, and supported more than 300 internships for undergraduate and graduate students from Evergreen and other high schools, colleges, and universities.

KAOS Radio shows currently feature Art Rock, Avant-Garde, Bluegrass, Blues, Bollywood, Celtic, Comedy, Dance, Dub, Electronic, Experimental, Folk, Funk, Garage, Gospel, Grunge, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Jazz, Hip hop, Local/Pacific NW, Music of New Orleans, Native music, New Wave, Metal, Prog Rock, Psychedelic, Punk, R&B, Reggae, Rock, Roots Rock, Ska, Soul, Spanish Language Variety, Spoken Word, Surf, Vintage Country, Women’s Music, World Music, live bands, news, and both locally produced and nationally syndicated public affairs shows.

KAOS Radio 89.3 FM

Diana Arens ’93, MPA ’15 Former KAOS Program Director, KAOS DJ, engineer

Domenica Clark '07 KAOS DJ, Hollow Earth Radio DJ

Arrington de Dionyso '96 KAOS DJ, musician, artist

Kathy A. Dockins '89 Former KAOS Business Manager, KAOS DJ

Steve Fisk '82 Former KAOS DJ, musician, producer

John Ford '97 Acting KAOS Ops Manager, KAOS DJ

John Foster '79 Former KAOS Librarian, Publisher OP Magazine

John Goodmanson '90 Former KAOS DJ, Engineer/Producer

Michael Huntsberger '78 Former KAOS General Manager, KAOS DJ

Dean Katz '75 KAOS founder, former General Manager

Juli Kelen Former KAOS Training/Ops Manager, KAOS DJ

Erika Lari '98 Former KAOS Music Director, KAOS DJ

Brooks Martin '97 Former KAOS Music Director, Production Manager, KAOS DJ

Bruce Pavitt '81 Former KAOS DJ, founder Sub Pop Records, 8Stem

Paul Pearson '95 Former KAOS Music Director, KAOS DJ

Steve Peters '85 Former KAOS Managing Director, KAOS DJ

Dana Squires '79 Former KAOS Engineer, OP Magazine Art Director

Gary Wessels-Galbreath '85 Native American Studies Program KAOS DJ, First Peoples Multicultural Advising Services

Shannon Wiberg '97 Former KAOS Music Director, KAOS DJ

[redcarpetview]

CeCe Winans "Let Them Fall In Love Tour" Kicks off May 31st

CeCe Winans. Photo Credit: Jeremy Cowart.

     Nashville, TN — Ten-time Grammy Award winner and multi-platinum-selling artist CeCe Winans will follow her recently released number one album “Let Them Fall In Love,” with a national tour.  The Fall In Love Tour presented by Medi-Share is Winans’ first solo tour in a decade.

       The Fall In Love Tour will kick off on May 31 in New Orleans with additional dates across the country. A full list of dates and venues is below. For tickets and show details go to: http://cecewinans.com

          Winans is the best-selling and most-awarded female gospel artist of all time and is credited  as one of the most accomplished and celebrated women in modern music history. Her current release ‘Let Them Fall In Love’ (released via Puresprings Gospel/Thirty Tigers last month) was both critically and consumer acclaimed. The album debuted at Number 1 on the Billboard Top Gospel Chart. In addition to heavy airplay across Urban Adult Contemporary, AAA, and Non Comm radio stations, the project’s first single “Never Have To Be Alone,” landed in the Top 5 on the Hot Gospel Songs

     "I'm looking forward to my upcoming Falling In Love tour! I’m excited about sharing Love and Joy through my music. Hope to see you there!,” said Winans.

     “We are honored to partner with Grammy-award winning Christian artist, CeCe Winans. As the best-selling female gospel artist of all time, CeCe has touched hearts and changed lives with her soulful voice and heartfelt lyrics,” said Christian Care Ministry CEO, Ted Squires. “What a privilege to stand beside her as she shares her heart and passion with audiences during her “Fall In Love” tour, featuring songs from her latest album.”  

                   The Fall In Love Tour Presented by Medi-Share Dates & Venue:

    Ticket info visit: www.cecewinans.com

*more dates to be announced

               May 31 New Orleans, LA. -  The Orpheum Theatre

June 1  Sugar Land, TX. -  Smart Financial Centre

June 2  Dallas, TX. -  The Majestic Theatre

June 16 Washington DC - Warner Theatre

June 23 Atlanta, GA - Center Stage

June 24 Bowling Green, KY - SkyPac Theatre

July  13 Grand Rapids, MI -  DeVos Performance Hall

July 14 Detroit, MI – Motor City Casino at Sound Board

July 15 Cincinnati, OH - Taft Theatr e

       ** CeCe will also be joining the famed Boston Pops as a guest performer for a concert in Boston, MA at the Boston Symphony Hall on June 17th

[rpphil96]

Going to a car show later today but I had nothing to do this morning so I decided to enjoy doing nothing. After breakfast I had a bowl of Robert McConnell red Virginia in my Nording queen while catching up on the Country squire show and the pipe magazine radio show. #pipe #pipetobacco #pipesmoking https://www.instagram.com/p/B3zdlrHnMWF/?igshid=rdgdd54inevb

[minkinsmusic]

The following short articles appeared in Mimi’s Magazine October and November issues.  Minkins Music is completing it’s twelfth year of liner notes in multiple publications and on-line media outlets.

“Is there anybody out there? One-two-three on the satellite radio?”  One of the best programs out there is the Hardcore Troubadour Radio show hosted by Steve Earle on SXM channel 60.  With the Rock and Roll HOF nominations being announced this month, a case for Steve Earle’s induction is long overdue.

Since the release of Guitar Town in 1986 through So You Wannabe An Outlaw in 2017, Earle’s music has been relevant, chock full of hits, and at times political.  Emulating the songwriting of Bruce Springsteen, Guy Clark, and Townes Van Zandt, songs like “Hillbilly Highway”, “Guitar Town”, “Copperhead Road”, “Telephone Road”, and “Galway Girl” have been etched into jukeboxes and covered by other artists and garage bands.  Some albums like The Mountain (1999) with Earle backed by The Del McCoury Band dedicated to Bluegrass founder Bill Monroe along with tribute albums Townes (2009) and Guy (2019) are essential recordings within his catalog. He is an exceptional instrumentalist on guitar, mandolin, harmonica, and banjo besides lending his iconic voice to recordings.

His rebellious story can be found in books like Hardcore Troubadour: The Life and Near Death of Steve Earle by Lauren St. John (2003), a great read that you can find for a deuce and change.  The man is constantly touring, frequently playing in either Cleveland or Kent and performing acoustic or electric backed by The Dukes.

My sincere appreciation of Steve Earle has recently been while “taking his class” listening to the weekly radio show.  Earle dons the professor hat while delving into the historical periods of a certain year and the music that defines it.  Other shows have been solemn eulogies dedicated to departed artists who left their mark on the music timeline.

So turn it on, turn it up, listen to the radio and listen to Steve Earle.

  With the holidays and RSD Black Friday just weeks away, it’s time to offer some suggestions for that audiophile on your gift list.  Here are a few favorites released this past year from artists that deserve your listening attention.

The best album of the year could also be the comeback album of the year as Tanya Tucker delivered the goods with While I’m Livin’.  Produced by Brandi Carlile and Shooter Jennings, it’s Tucker’s first album since 2009 with radio singles “The Wheels of Laredo”, “Hard Luck”, “High Ridin’ Heroes”, “Bring My Flowers Now”, and  a cover of Miranda Lambert’s “The House That Built Me”.  Other notable female singer/songwriter releases include Bonnie Bishop The Walk, Julia Jacklin – Crushing, Danni Nicholls – The Melted Morning, and Kelsey Waldon – White Noise / White Lines.  You may not know these names, but once you hear their voices you’ll fall in love with them.

As for the gentlemen, Tyler Childers anticipated follow-up to Purgatory (2017) debuted at No. 1 with Country Squire topping both Billboard’s Country Albums and American/Folk Albums upon release.  Produced by Sturgill Simpson, Childers brings the “hillbilly” back to country western music and is blazing on the single “House Fire”.  An artist that released his sixty-ninth studio album, Willie Nelson continues to record stellar material with Ride Me Back Home.  Another Texan, Joe Buchanan released Back from Babylon that not only is a great sounding record but has some beautiful spiritual undertones.

I loved the documentary film and soundtrack Echo in the Canyon featuring music that came out of L.A.’s Laurel Canyon neighborhood between 1965-67.  Starring Jakob Dylan, beautiful covers like “Go Where You Wanna Go”, “The Bells of Rhymney”, “In My Room”, “Goin’ Back”, and “Never My Love” take me back in time.   When it comes to historical content, the release Bob Dylan (featuring Johnny Cash) – Travelin’ Thru, 1967 – 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15 is an essential addition to your music library.  The latest chapter in bootleg series revisits Dylan’s pivotal musical journeys to Nashville, from 1967 to 1969, focusing on previously unavailable priceless recordings made with Johnny Cash and unreleased tracks from the John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, and Self Portrait sessions.

Stay tuned for some final comments next month.

Fall Quarter – Rounding 3rd on Twelve Years The following short articles appeared in Mimi's Magazine October and November issues.  Minkins Music is completing it's twelfth year of liner notes in multiple publications and on-line media outlets.

[how2to18]

I FIRST MET Lee Goldberg on January 10, 1971, which is the day I was born, nine years after Lee showed up. I don’t remember this meeting, though there are some adorable photos that mark the occasion. Since then, what I can tell you is that I’ve come to depend on him for the kind of advice only an older brother can provide:

How to kill a guy.

How to get rid of that guy’s body.

How to perpetuate a long con where you pretend to be that guy.

That sort of thing.

Such is the benefit of having an older brother with the same profession … which, in our case, is writing crime fiction. Lee’s been on the job for a long time now. His first book, .357: Vigilante (under the pseudonym Ian Ludlow), came out in 1985. His first script, an episode of Spenser: For Hire entitled “If You Knew Sammy” co-written with his longtime writing partner Bill Rabkin, was produced in 1987. In the intervening years, I’ve seen Lee hit the highest highs — number-one best sellers, like his new book, True Fiction, which spent the better part of March and April atop Amazon’s best-seller list, and top-rated TV shows, like Diagnosis Murder, the classic crime drama he executive produced — but also the lowest lows. There was the time he wrote for a talking dolphin. There was also the time he wrote for a non-talking dolphin. And then there was a debilitating fall that cost him the use of both of his arms for many months, a frightening experience for anyone, but particularly daunting for a person who makes a living typing. Through it all, what has never changed is the devotion Lee has had for the crime genre, his optimism that luck is a thing you create for yourself, and his sense of humor for the absurd things in the world. He’s sold millions of books around the world. He’s written dialogue for Dick Van Dyke and David Hasselhoff. He’s inhabited some of the legendary characters in the mystery canon: Nero Wolfe. Monk. Spenser.

Mostly? He’s just my older brother. 

So when I told him about 25 years ago that I also wanted to be an author, that I wanted to take my shot — this was after I’d graduated college and tinkered around in advertising for a few years — he gave me the best piece of practical advice I’ve ever received, which was this: Learn how to do more than one thing. Write short stories, write novels, write essays, write screenplays, write criticism, teach, become flexible, so that you always have a way to tell your story, so that you always have a way to earn a living as a writer, because there will come a time when you can’t sell something, when you need to have a back-up plan that doesn’t crush your soul, because as much as he had succeeded, he’d also failed, over and over again.

He was right, of course. 

I do all of those things now, just like he has at one time or another.

In the last two decades that we’ve had this job — without ever actually working together — we’ve been able to experience a lot of cool things with one another. There was the night we spent with Donald Westlake, asking him all the questions we’d been holding on to since childhood. There were the weeks we were both on the New York Times best-seller list at the same time, Lee with a book he’d written with Janet Evanovich, me with a book I’d written with Brad Meltzer. Or the time we signed autographs for Stuart Anderson from the Black Angus. No, really. We met the Black Angus. 

But also, in all that time, I’ve never read a single interview with Lee that satisfied me. He’s a funny guy, and so I think he gets a lot of questions that are set-ups for easy quips, which is a uniquely Goldbergian trait that I know we share — the ability to take any serious topic and turn it into a joke — but it also makes me feel like his hundreds of thousands of readers only know one side of him as person. So. This one time? We’re gonna fix that.

¤

TOD GOLDBERG: What were those first nine years without me like?

LEE GOLDBERG: My first instinct was to reply with a joke … but I’m going to give you a serious answer. Those were the years when mom and dad were still married, so it was the only time we resembled a TV family. Our parents even had sitcom-y careers. Dad was a TV anchorman and mom was a model/socialite. We were moving up the ladder, from a starter house in Oakland to a brand new tract home in the suburbs. We spent the weekends at a beach house we rented in Capitola. We even had a Ford Country Squire station wagon. All that was missing was a shaggy, Please Don’t Eat the Daisies dog (which we got shortly after dad left … better late than never). We’d eat TV dinners in front of the TV watching dad tell us the news. In that environment, is it any wonder I turned out the way I did? You missed that tiny window of time when mom was, well, a mom and could be a lot of fun … but wait, this is about me, not mom, or the inspiration for all of your fiction. Let’s get back to me and mine.

I spent a lot of those nine years play-acting TV shows like the Wild Wild West and Batman with Karen (for you, dear reader, she is our sister, who is two years younger than me). I got to be James West and Batman … while Karen always got stuck being Artemus Gordon or Robin or whoever the second banana happened to be … and she wasn’t too happy about it.

When I wasn’t doing that, I was staging radio dramas and talk shows on my tape recorder. (I fell asleep each night listening to talk radio and old-time radio dramas.) I cast our neighborhood friends as guest actors (in the radio dramas) and either in-studio guests or callers for my talk radio programs. I would then play the recordings back, recording them on a second recorder, to edit out stuff that didn’t work and to add music (the theme song of my radio show was “Up, Up and Away”).

My pretend play was elaborate storytelling. I suppose I did it because I was imaginative … but probably to shelter/cocoon myself from all the arguments going on in the house (and there were a lot of them). I didn’t know, of course, that I wasn’t just playing, I was rehearsing for my future career … like a guy who plays doctor and then, like, actually becomes one.

I often get asked what it’s like to have a family of writers and artists, and it’s hard to explain, exactly, because it’s the only way we’ve lived. Our sisters are both writers and artists, our mother, after her socialite period, became a newspaper columnist covering socialites, our father — not that I ever lived with him as a sentient human — as you noted, was a TV news journalist, and then there’re all the uncles and cousins and whatnot, too. But you were the first one, really, to make it on a national stage, which I know gave me the confidence to aim big, and which I suspect made it easier for our sisters, too. Did seeing mom’s and dad’s success and, in many ways, eventual failure — both of them had these sort of big-league dreams but ended up never quite getting there, which ended up driving them both a bit mad — provide some motivation for you?

There’s no question that dad being on television and mom being a writer shaped me in profound ways. There is a lot of both of them in me … though more of mom than dad. They were both comfortable in front of an audience, whether it was on camera or standing on front of people. Mom had a big, outgoing personality and great sense of humor. She was a deft schmoozer and a big ego. She was a profound exaggerator in her storytelling, for both comic and dramatic effect. She went after what she wanted, personally and professionally. She was a fighter. I have a lot of those same attributes, though I hope with less of the destructive flip side. For example, I know when I am exaggerating a story and, I like to believe, so does my audience. We’re in on the joke together. It’s like when an audience buys into the franchise of a TV series … no matter how ludicrous it might be (she’s a nun — and she can fly! A detective with OCD! A drug-addicted doctor who hates his patients!) … because they want to enjoy the ride. Unlike mom, I don’t believe my exaggerations are the truth and then exaggerate them the next time I tell the story, and then exaggerate that, until I am heading into something approaching clinical delusion. I know where the truth ends and the embellishment, for comedic or dramatic effect, begins. I’m deeply afraid the day will come, though, when I lose that self-awareness.

I haven’t talked much about dad because he wasn’t really in my life after I was 10 years old (though he was in my life more than you or our sisters). Dad grew up wanting to be a TV anchorman … despite coming from a small logging town and having zero contacts … and yet he achieved that dream. He eventually became an anchorman on KPIX, the CBS affiliate in San Francisco … a major station in a major market … and it should have been a stepping-stone to the national stage. Getting there had to take talent, drive, and confidence … but somewhere along the line he lost his mojo … or, more likely, his backbone. I was too young at the time to know why or how it happened, or if mom was somehow to blame. But he became a weak, wishy-washy, superficial man. He let people, he let life, walk all over him. He stood up for nothing and nobody and lost everything. He showed me it was possible to achieve your dream, but through his failure, he also showed me you had to be strong to keep it. That’s not all I learned from him. Seeing him on TV every night also made television — the industry and the medium — something approachable to me. He made the TV part of my family. He made it small and human. My father was a TV screen, and I knew that I was stronger than he was. So yeah, I could break into TV. No problem. And I did.

One of the nice things about having siblings who are also writers is that they give you the unvarnished truth about your books — so when you’ve told me in the past that a book I’ve written is good, I know it’s good, and when you tell me a book I’ve written is just okay, it validates my impostor syndrome and saves me a trip to the therapist that week, which is also nice. And so I was pretty excited to tell you the other night how much I loved True Fiction, and not just because I thought it was your best book — which it is — but because I thought it marked an evolution in your writing, which is a thing that excites me as the biggest Lee Goldberg fan in the country. This is your funniest book, but it’s also one that lovingly shows an admiration for the thriller genre, and it shows your growth as a writer. In scenes where you might have gone for an easy punch line 20 years ago, you now have something that is funny but has a larger emotional relevance as well. Where you might have held back on a scene because it was too absurd, you now blow scenes up to be beyond absurd, because the genre you’re skewering requires it. Essentially, True Fiction is you at the top of your powers, both in terms of observation but also in terms of execution. Can you sustain that level without becoming a parody of yourself?

God, I hope so. I’m facing that problem now as I plot the third book with these characters. The first sequel, Killer Thriller, came very easily to me and felt like a natural extension of True Fiction. I never wanted either book to be a satire of thrillers, but rather an exploration of the difference between fiction and reality, between who we think we are and who we really are … and how the stories we consume in movies, TV, and books shape so much of what we expect out of life and from ourselves. I wanted to acknowledge the clichés, formulas, and tropes of the genre, confess my love for them, and then totally subvert them … while delivering the same pleasure that thrillers do. But most of all, I wanted it to be a fun, fast-moving, exhilarating novel that felt like watching a great action movie. I wasn’t sure I could pull it off.

Here’s the funny thing, and it’s probably blatantly obvious to a lot of other people, but I didn’t realize until one night recently, when I was talking to you, that I’ve explored these same issues and themes now in three books — The Walk, Watch Me Die, and True Fiction (four if you count the sequel). So perhaps it’s actually too late and I’ve already become a parody of myself.

I think the most satisfying thing for me, as a reader of your books, was seeing how the influence of different parts of your writing life came together to make True Fiction such a joy to read. The influence of your time writing with Janet Evanovich was clear to me in the pacing. Your years writing Monk show up in your ability to make even secondary characters complete, rounded individuals. And of course your life as a TV writer and producer makes the action set pieces come alive (in a way that I, frankly, cannot do — when I was writing the Burn Notice books, for instance, I’d go and look at your books and scripts to see how you choreographed big fight scenes, or scenes where you’re blowing things up, and they really worked as a primer for me). Is that pulling-in a conscious part of your writing process or is it atavistic at this point?

Hold on a minute while I look up “atavistic.” No, it’s mostly conscious. I wanted this book to show off everything I’ve learned from being a screenwriter and working with Janet. That means I wanted it to be as visual and fast-moving as a screenplay, to be driven by dialogue and action rather than by clever prose or internal monologues that get you inside a character’s head (usually to give you exposition). When you write a script, everything has to be conveyed through dialogue and action … unless you use narration as a crutch for bad writing (which it is 90 percent of the time). One of the reasons Janet and I work so well as collaborators is that she thinks like a screenwriter, even though she isn’t one. She believes the writing should never call attention to itself, that the clever lines or observations should be in the character’s mouths, not in the prose, and that there should never be any boring parts (bla bla bla as she calls it). Exposition and lengthy descriptions are cut to their bare essence, usually a single line or two that makes the point. It’s an approach to writing that starts the moment you start plotting the story. I discovered, from writing a number of novels with her, how to take my screenwriting instincts and apply them to writing a novel without losing my voice. Actually, I think I finally found it.

It’s interesting to me that both of us write crime fiction but come at the genre from different angles. You have always written more about heroes — not always traditional heroes, exactly, but people who are invested in fighting crime, at any rate — and I’ve typically written about bad guys or antiheroes. I remember a conversation we had, however, after my second book came out and it lost a bunch of nice awards, but no one read it … and you said, “You could try maybe putting a joke in between the suicide attempts, the carving up of little children, and the murdering of women who look a lot like your wife, see how that feels.” You were being funny, of course, but it was also one of those moments of self-realization that I had that maybe you’ve always known: that people read crime fiction to feel satisfied at the end, not to feel like they want to kill themselves. So your approach to crime novels has always been very satisfying — a love interest, a heist, glamorous locales, a mystery that is solved in 285 pages, the world largely set right again by the time the credits roll. Do you think that comes from your TV background, or is it something more personal? 

I love reading. I want to be entertained. That doesn’t mean a book has to be funny. But it doesn’t have to be unrelentingly dark and bleak. There are a lot of “literary” writers who think they aren’t good at what they do, or won’t be taken “seriously,” unless they are making the reader feel absolutely miserable. There are some readers who might find that experience engaging, relaxing, and an escape from their day-to-day lives … but it’s a very small number, certainly not one that will sustain a lucrative writing career. People can take heartbreak, pain, and continuing tragedy and despair in a novel as long as you also give them some humanity, some heart, and especially some humor. Open the drapes and let the sunlight in now and then. I’m a big believer that there’s always humor in our lives, even in the saddest, most dire moments. You know that to be true in our own lives.

Escaping into books was always how I coped, so I understand entirely. But do you remember the first book you read that made you think, “Oh, I could do this.”

Yes, I do. It was Fletch by Gregory McDonald. The dialogue was so good that the publisher put a page of it on the front cover. It was the first time I read a great crime story told primarily through dialogue. Yet it was every bit as rich, in character and plot, as far wordier and less dialogue-driven books. I studied Fletch and Confess, Fletch the way some Jews study the Talmud. I didn’t have McDonald’s skill, but somehow I knew after reading his book that I could be a writer. (Later, Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novels gave me the same feeling … but Fletch was the revelation.)

So maybe the better question is: Do you remember the first time you thought that you didn’t want to consume a book, you wanted to be the one who actually made the thing? 

Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove. To me, that’s a perfect novel. I’ve read it many times trying to see how he pulled it off. What gives me hope is that even McMurtry isn’t capable of doing it every time he writes a book. It’s a goal he still strives to achieve … with mixed results. But in every book he writes, even the truly bad ones (and he has a few), there are moments of brilliance that I wish I had the talent to achieve.

Last question and then I promise I’ll let you get back to refreshing your Amazon page: I tried to count how many books you’ve written or contributed to, but I have two English degrees, so it got into math I’m frankly not qualified to do. It’s something like 75 books. Plus you wrote or produced 25 different TV shows. And launched a publishing company. You have a wife. You have a daughter. You have friends. You have family. You’ve had a bunch of great pets. You have profoundly odd hobbies, like smoking meats and flying your drone around, which essentially means you’re one step away from being one of those guys with a big-ass train set in the basement. When, in the last 35 years, have you slept?

I get lots of sleep … it’s rare when I get less than eight hours. Sometimes I get a few hours more. I honestly feel like I waste a lot of time, that I procrastinate too much, that I’m too lazy, and that I should be getting a lot more done. I feel like I’m capable of being much more productive than I am and that I’m letting myself and my family down, that I am not living up to my potential creatively. I wish I could survive on three or four hours of sleep a night. Think how much I could get done!

¤

Tod Goldberg is the New York Times best-selling author of several books of fiction, most recently, Gangsterland. He directs the Low Residency MFA program in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts at the University of California, Riverside.

The post The Brothers Goldberg appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

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[musicdish]

Gar Francis Releases A New Album Titled: Gar Francis Songbook Volume One By Various Artists Doing Versions Of Songwriter Gar Francis Songs

Gar Francis Songbook Volume One by Various Artists Album Presale: 3.9.18 Official Release Date: 3.16.18 Featuring the following Songs and Artists: 01. Baby Let's Go - Tom Vicario 2:42 02. Come On Come On - The Easy Outs 3:10 03. I Won't Cry Anymore - Genya Ravan 4:35 (Ten Wheel Drive) 04. Satisfied - Tyce Green 4:17 05. Born Dainty - Kelly Caruso 3:44 (American Idol) 06. Meet Me - Ricky Persaud Jr 4:12 07. Sweet Sunshine - The Satisfactors 3:38 08. Rush On You - Mark Lindsay 2:40 (former Lead Singer of Paul Revere & the Raiders) 09. A Spy For Love - Mia Moravis 2:32 10. A Special Girl - Jim McCarty 4:45 (The Yardbirds) 11. Ballerina Of The Bowery - Jana Peri 4:10 12. Break It Down - Anthony Krizan 4:29 (The Spin Doctors) 13. Fool For Your Love - Crab Bubbles Band 2:47 14. Make Up Your Mind - Inches From Sin 3:24 15. Shine Your Love - Kathryn Shipley 3:53 16. The Hand Of Fate We Hold - The Corridors 3:30 Album Review by The Grouch | In The Rockies Hej America! Today is a bit of a special day here in Grouchland. Why you ask? Well, today’s review is of an album of songs, most of which were composed solely by one of my favorite musicians, Gar Francis. For those who do not know, Gar is a wizard of musical creativity. Over the years I have heard many songs from Gar’s colossal body of work and I can honestly say I have not heard anything by Gar that I disliked. This is an album of songs composed either solely by Gar or in collaboration with other talented musicians. This album. at least in my opinion, further solidifies Gar’s position among other behind-the-scene greats such as Bob Ezrin and Mutt Lang. Track 1 - Baby Let's Go - Tom Vicario 2:42 - This is classic Country Gar and Tom delivers a great rendition. I am a sucker for that twangy guitar. Tom’s voice fits well with this style of music. When the solo kicks in the listener is reminded that Rock and Roll is basically a fusion of African inspired soul and Country. This track reminds me of old Roy Orbison or anyone one of the first-generation rockers. All in all, this is a good song that is played flawlessly by Tom Vicario. Track 2 - Come On Come On - The Easy Outs 3:10 - The raunchy 60s sound is alive and well in this track performed by the Easy Outs. The music grinds and the old-school licks blister as the organ adds some groove around the edges. This is a dancer’s track for sure. The vocals are spot on as the old time Rock and Roll vibe fills the air. What’s not to love, with wicked guitar licks, a funky bass, a rock-solid drummer and lyrics that state “You make a monkey crazy! Come on come on!” I really like this band! Track 3 - I Won't Cry Anymore - Genya Ravan (of Ten Wheel Drive) - 4:35 - This is a massive blues jam that I can’t get enough of. Listen to this song and tell me you can’t feel the soul. Genya has a great voice and the backup singers just add to the magic. There is a massive amount of Motown goodness in this track. I want to give a special nod to Genya’s drummer, Bobby Chen. Amazingly, he stands out despite being behind a truly wicked guitar player and some of the most soulful vocals I have ever heard. This is without a doubt a great song. Track 4 - Satisfied - Tyce Green 4:17 - This track is from the 80s influenced Pop-Metal Gar. The track is performed by Tyce Green and reminds me of the stuff that was popular back in the day. I am thinking of April Wine or even Billy Squire. There is enough rock here for guys to dig it and enough sensitivity in the vocals for their girlfriends to get them to come to the show. In short, this is a good song reminiscent of 1982 which, at least for me, was a very good year. This song is well executed, radio-friendly hard-pop. Track 5 - Born Dainty - Kelly Caruso (of American Idol) - 3:44 - First things first, I dig the music. It's got an old Charlie Daniels - Skynyrd feel. As an old drummer, I have to say I really like what Keith Reil is doing. I also dig the leads Gar pulls out at the tail end of the song, and some people say Country doesn't jam! When done right, it jams indeed. Kelly has a strong voice that gets better on the chorus. She can sing and seems to have the kind of gutsy attitude that I dig. Think of a kind of Country Gore Gore Girls and you are on the right track. This is a good song from a young woman with a strong voice and some really good players. Track 6 - Meet Me - Ricky Persaud Jr 4:12 - It really doesn’t get much better than this. Gar is a fantastic songwriter and there are not many people who can jam as much as Ricky Persaud Jr. I have been a big fan of Ricky’s since I first heard him quite a while back. Simply put the man can do wonders on any instrument he chooses to use, including his voice. The Reggae vibe is strong, and I am brought back to a conversation I had a long time ago with a cat I knew who was playing drums in a Reggae band. He said to me “Once you go Reggae there is no going back.” Listen to this song. When I do I have to admit I have percussion envy. Track 7 - Sweet Sunshine - The Satisfactors 3:38 - I first heard about the Satisfactors a few years ago. I dig what they do! This is a band made up of a bunch of guys who are bursting with in-your-face soul. The singer sings well. The rhythm section is rock solid, and the guitars are on fire. I dare anyone to listen to this track and not be in a better mood by the end of the song. A long time ago, when the Walkman first came out, I had a friend who would say "Here, have a little Alice. You'll feel better." Then he would give you the headphones and Billion Dollar Babies would blast through your brain. Well, here, have a little Satisfactors. You'll feel better. Track 8 - Rush On You - Mark Lindsay (former lead singer of Paul Revere & the Raiders) - 2:40 - One word: JAM! This reminds me of something our band instructor back in Jr. High school would say. If we had managed to make some particularly soulful noise Mr. Case would look at us, grin and say in his cigarette damaged voice: Sometimes you cats can wail. Well folks, this track wails! Track 9 - A Spy For Love - Mia Moravis 2:32 - I had no idea they were making a new James Bond film. They must be because this track is absolutely meant to be the theme song for a James Bond flick. The camp factor is over the top as Mia sultrily sings that she is a Spy For Love. The thing is that despite the intentional campiness and the omnipresent musical kitsch, the music on this track is really well played. Mia has a very good voice and the band actually makes the song groove. (I do have to wonder how many times they had to do a retake because the band was cracking up?) Track 10 - A Special Girl - Jim McCarty (of the Yardbirds) - 4:45 - The first thing the listener notices is the melodic groove that could easily fit in the background of a cocktail party or with a bunch of young neo-hippies hanging in the park. I actually mean that as a compliment. The music does have some Adult Contemporary overtones that would make a dentist smile, but if you really listen to the track you will hear a subtle, yet smoking guitar. That guitar behind the easy-on-the-ears voice really works together to create something special that just may take a couple of listens to fully appreciate. When all is said and done, I find myself speechless and thinking “now that is one cool way to rock and roll.” Track 11 - Ballerina Of The Bowery - Jana Peri 4:10 - I dig this song. The Bo Diddley vibe is just too cool. Man, the drummer, Kurt Reil, is laying it down! When you combine those drums with the ultra-raunchy guitar (Gar Francis) the song is mind-bending. Add in the vocals and the track goes from mind-bending to absolutely mind-blowing. This song has anthem written all over it. I dare anyone to listen to this track and not start to groove along. Track 12 - Break It Down - Anthony Krizan (of the Spin Doctors) - 4:29 - WICKED! Good God I love well-used feedback! The blues simply does not get any raunchier or grittier than this. The cool thing about this track is that while the music is head-splitting level loud and confrontation the vocals are, believe it or not, melodic. The background vocals only add to the contrast of the out of control, fire-breathing dragon on lead guitar. Out of all of the truly fine tracks on this album, this could very well be my favorite. Track 13 - Fool For Your Love - Crab Bubbles Band 2:47 - The heavy groove continues. There is no doubt that the Crab Bubbles Band can make some noise. The melodic verse is almost a relief from the intensity of the chorus. (Who am I kidding? It can never be too intense!) This song is so good I find myself wishing I was in this band. Excellent work! Track 14 - Make Up Your Mind - Inches From Sin 3:24 - This song is interesting. On the one hand, it sounds so cheery, but there is a menacing machine-like sound grinding just underneath the pleasant keyboards. I am really curious, given the name of the band, is this a simple love song or do the singers have some darker nefarious purpose in mind for the person they are en-couraged to make up their mind? Track 15 - Shine Your Love - Kathryn Shipley 3:53 - Kathryn starts out with some really nice soulful keys. I really am feeling a Band groove here. Then the vocals come in. Man, she has a great voice! The background singers definitely add to the soulful vibe. Then it dawns on me this is the stuff all the great Motown singers grew up singing. This song could be from a church service, albeit not the kind I attended as a kid. This song would fit into a church service where the people rock out. You have to listen to the piano (Eric Barfield) runs in this track. The pi-ano, with the organ in the background, the wicked guitar on the edge, the backup singers all provide an outstanding platform for Kathryn to absolutely wail! I dig it. Track 16 - The Hand Of Fate We Hold - The Corridors 3:30 - The Corridors are a band I quite like. The prowess of their keyboard player is not to be denied. Just when the listener feels immersed in a sea of keyboard produced sound the guitar opens up with a tsunami of laser-guided precession sonic blasts that leaves the listener, well at least this listener, speechless. Over the top of this massively intense yet oddly melodic jam is a voice that is simply awe-inspiring. The man (Adi Mosko) can sing! This is a fantastic track that deserves to be listened to, frequently. I should mention, as the name of the album is The Gar Francis Songbook Volume One by Various Artists that all of the songs with the exceptions listed below, were written by Gar Francis. Sweet Sunshine by Gar Francis, Bruce Ferguson & Kurt Reil A Special Girl by Gar Francis & Jim McCarty Bread It Down by Gar Francis & Anthony Krizan Make Up Your Mind by Gar Francis, Robert Brewer & Karen Holloway Brewer The Hand of Fate We Hold by Gar Francis & Richard X Heyman The bottom line is this is a fantastic album that I am sure will be enjoyable to listen to for years to come. - The Grouch | in the Rockies Made possible by all artists presented and Bongo Boy Records. Produced by Gar Francis and Monique Grimme for Bongo Boy Records. Album Design and Photography: Monique Grimme http://bongoboyrecords.com/garfrancissongbookseries/ http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=202408

[chevd-blog]

My Top 100 Favorite Albums of All Time (Part 2: 80 - 61)

80. Karmacode – Lacuna Coil (2006)

My first exposure to the Italian metal band Lacuna Coil was in college in Florida, when I discovered their breakthrough album, Comalies. The album was an interesting formulation of gothic metal with occasional flourishes of electronica, and I was immediately awestruck by Cristina Scabbia's lush vocals. Although perhaps a bit melodramatic for my usual tastes, it was certainly enough to make me take notice of any of the band's subsequent releases. So, years later, when they finally released a follow-up, Karmacode— I cannot overstate this— I was not prepared for the monumental shift in sound. Karmacode was a calculated move away from their old sound, and into the realm of Middle Eastern-influenced nu metal, in a similar vein as Disturbed. While such a move might seem counterintuitive at a time when nu metal's popularity was already waning from its former glory days, in this case the genre recasting totally worked. Lacuna Coil's new direction actually seemed to add an entirely new dimension of gravity that hadn't quite reached critical mass on the previous album—and the cherry on top was their inclusion of a cover of the Depeche Mode classic "Enjoy the Silence" as the album's finale. It was a remarkable change for the better, so far as I was concerned, and one to which I gladly listened.

Prime cuts: "Closer", "Our Truth"

  79. Morning View – Incubus (2001)

Brandon Boyd knows the way to make a point with an interesting turn of phrase. On Morning View, his lyrics show even more wit and poeticism than they did on Make Yourself, building metaphors on such premises as references to Uri Geller's spoonbending, the cautionary story of frogs slowly being acclimatized to boiling water, and fingernails on a chalkboard— all while the words maintain their overall insightfulness. Musically, despite not being quite as hard-edged as the previous album, Morning View still holds interest by displaying a more mature and experimental approach, mixing smooth rock jams like "Echo" and "Are You In?" with the tranquil Eastern vibe of "Aqueous Transmission". It's an admirable mark of progression, which demonstrates that change and growth doesn't necessarily have to mean sacrificing popular appeal.

Prime cuts: "Nice to Know You", "Under My Umbrella"

  78. Nothing's Shocking – Jane's Addiction (1988)

…And while we're on the subject of easy-going SoCal alt-rock… let's talk about these guys, who were doing it 13 years earlier. For their debut studio release Nothing's Shocking, the alternative pioneers Jane's Addiction blended together Dave Navarro's soaring metal guitar licks, a cavernous production quality, and Perry Farrell's unmistakable voice, and somehow ended up with an album that is simultaneously one of the most energetic and laidback rock recordings of the 1980s. Though not afraid to broach taboo subject matter at times (with one song, "Ted, Just Admit It…", being a sardonic diatribe against serial killer Ted Bundy), the shocking thing about Nothing's Shocking is… there's really nothing on the album that is as shocking as its infamously censored cover art implies.

Prime cuts: "Jane Says", "Mountain Song"

  77. Deadwing – Porcupine Tree (2005)

Steven Wilson apparently really likes ghost stories, because this is his second album the list to be largely inspired by them (though, of course, chronologically it was the first of the two). A cinematic concept album based on a ghost story that was never fully divulged publicly, Deadwing was a product of the band's immensely successful turn toward a more radio-friendly blend of alternative rock, metal and prog in the 2000's. Sandwiched as it is between two of the band's more iconic albums, it sometimes doesn't get the love it deserves—although it is undeniable that its 12-minute memento mori masterpiece, "Arriving Somewhere but Not Here", contains one of the band's most successful digressions into full-blown, dynamic heavy metal. Elsewhere, the album legitimately seems haunted at times, with the title track's paranoia, the charming wistfulness of "Lazarus", and the roiling, soft-spoken resentment of "The Start of Something Beautiful" displaying a full range of emotional malaise.

Prime cuts: "Arriving Somewhere but Not Here", "Deadwing"

  76. Wish You Were Here – Pink Floyd (1975)

Pink Floyd's melancholic remembrance of their original vocalist Syd Barrett, who left the band due to deteriorating mental health, is represented here as the lowest of their albums on my list— although by no means does that make it my least favorite Pink Floyd album of all (Atom Heart Mother, I'm looking at you). Truthfully, the only reason for its low ranking on the list is that there's not quite enough of it. Bookended by the two halves of the massive suite "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", the album only contains three shorter songs (all of which, of course, have become staples in Pink Floyd's repertoire). For me, the album's most distinguishing feature is its use of piercing synths in "Welcome to the Machine" and "Have a Cigar", which give it an unmistakable 70's prog sound.  

Prime cuts: "Wish You Were Here", "Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts I-V)"

  75. The Moon and Antarctica – Modest Mouse (2000)

Another album where nostalgia is the primary motivation for its inclusion. My exposure to this album didn't come until about seven years after its release, after moving to Canada. I have my friend Laurie to thank for it—she was a fan of Modest Mouse, so I heard quite a bit of their music when we were together. There is, I suppose, a hint of irony in this particular album, which deals heavily with the theme of isolation and alienation, being represented in my mind as a signifier of my own social renaissance. But then, it seemed to fit all too perfectly at the time— after all, even when you know people there, moving to a different country can be a very daunting and lonely prospect.

Prime cuts: "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes", "The Cold Part"

  74. Weather Systems – Anathema (2012)

I realize a lot of Anathema's original fans bemoan the band's migration away from doom metal and into the realm of more consumer-friendly hard rock with a slight prog twist (a hallmark of their move to their current label, Kscope). I, however, adore their Kscope sound. There is a beautiful sentimentality about it, echoed in the vocals of Vincent Cavanagh and Lee Douglas. Their voices just mesh so naturally in duets, and on the occasions where Douglas is given solo parts to sing (such as "Lightning Song"), her voice is completely mesmerizing in its purity. As the name suggests, Weather Systems is a breezy, atmospheric album, chock full of meteorological metaphor. Sometimes the gale rages, and sometimes the sun comes out—but don't be fooled. At the core of it is a stable band which is confidently anchored to terra firma.

Prime cuts: "The Storm Before the Calm", "Lightning Song"

  73. 90125 – Yes (1983)

It probably comes as no surprise, considering it is one of their most accessible albums, but 90125 was my introduction to seminal first-wave prog band Yes. By this point in their career, the excesses of sprawling 20-minute songs and theatrical live shows had fallen out of favor, and the band had all but collapsed as a result. 90125 was the result of a more commercially viable side project of Chris Squire and Alan White, called Cinema. After the return of singer Jon Anderson, the material was released under the banner of Yes, and like a phoenix, the band re-emerged from the ashes of its previous incarnation to find even greater vitality and appeal than before. "Owner of a Lonely Heart" quickly became a rock radio staple, which it remains to this day on classic rock stations. A must-have for admirers of 80s rock, and mandatory listening for fans of Yes.

Prime cuts: "Owner of a Lonely Heart", "It Can Happen"

  72. Your Wilderness – The Pineapple Thief (2016)

In my view, The Pineapple Thief is criminally underexposed. Another band on this list with progressive roots, their sound falls somewhere toward the center of a spectrum between 1990s Radiohead and 2000s Porcupine Tree—so of course it appeals perfectly to me. (Actually, the Porcupine Tree resemblance makes sense on this album, given that time is kept expertly here by none other than PT's drummer Gavin Harrison.) And frontman Bruce Soord has an obvious talent for crafting catchy and emotive pop/alt-rock, even while taking it in less obvious directions. Your Wilderness is a shining example of that pop craft in action. As an album, it's a bit more on the wistful, subdued side, with a heavy reliance on acoustic balladry (and at least one prominent appearance of smooth jazz clarinet), but it still definitely has its moments of hard rock brilliance, too.

Prime cuts: "In Exile", "That Shore"

  71. Sonic Highways – Foo Fighters (2014)

Moving into a new home in Washington state in the summer of 2014 came with a few perks—it was larger than my apartment in Vancouver had been, as well as quieter and cheaper. One of my favorite perks, however, was the addition of HBO to my television package. Subsequently, I became aware of Sonic Highways through the 8-part HBO documentary series directed by Dave Grohl. In short: to celebrate the band's 20th anniversary, Grohl took the band to eight U.S. cities, to conduct interviews for the documentary, discussing each city's historical contributions to American musical culture. Afterwards, he would write songs for the band to record based on those interviews, and even record with guest musicians (including Joe Walsh, Rick Nielsen, Ben Gibbard, Zac Brown, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band). The premise intrigued me. As the band traveled from Chicago to Washington, D.C., Nashville, Austin, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Seattle, and finally New York, I watched with great interest, delighted that such a good band could be involved in such a unique celebration of creative spirit. Kudos to the Foo Fighters, for promoting the conservation of our musical heritage.

Prime cuts: "Something from Nothing", "Outside"

  70. Black Holes and Revelations – Muse (2006)

Back before the dabbling with dubstep, back before the three-part space operas, back before the blatant Queen impersona—er… homages, there was Muse's political-prog gem, Black Holes and Revelations. Around 2006, with the Morricone-esque "Knights of Cydonia" finding heavy play on music video channels (at least, the ones that still played videos at that point), this album came into my life and perfectly summed up the zeitgeist of the Bush years for me. I was isolated, discontent with a political establishment that did not reflect my values, and desperately seeking solace from my feelings of alienation and helplessness. How many times did I actually ask myself the question at the core of "Map of the Problematique": "When will this loneliness be over?"? How many times did I actually repeat the affirmation at the end of "Soldier's Poem": "There's no justice in the world, and there never was"? Well, anyway, it was an immense help to me to at least know these were things on somebody else's mind, too. (And it's amusing to look back on the album in retrospect and remember a time when "Knights of Cydonia" was actually among the more outlandish and indulgent things they had done to that point. Those days are long gone now.)

Prime cuts: "Map of the Problematique", "Knights of Cydonia"

  69. Gravity Kills – Gravity Kills (1996)

If you know St. Louis band Gravity Kills at all, it's probably from their song "Guilty", which appeared briefly in the David Fincher movie Se7en, as well as a promo for True Blood. Truly a product of its time, their debut album was released during the upswing of industrial, when Nine Inch Nails had propelled the genre to the foreground of public consciousness, and other industrial acts were beginning to capitalize on the new exposure. There is, perhaps, a twinge of 90s cheese here which might sound dated to a present-day listener—but to me, at least, it really doesn't matter. I like the 90s. I grew up in the 90s. I understand that decade, better than I even understand what's going on now. And anyway, Gravity Kills isn't a NIN album. It has a distinct sound—sometimes grungier, and sometimes more danceable, but never boring.

Prime cuts: "Guilty", "Blame"

  68. The Bends – Radiohead (1995)

AKA, the album which set such a high bar that it could only properly be followed directly by two successive decade-defining albums in a row, The Bends marks the beginning of Radiohead's streak of masterpieces. At the time, some had dismissed them as a one-hit wonder, known primarily for their break-out single "Creep". The Bends put any of those naysayers' theories to rest for good. Thanks in part to fantastic memorable music videos for "Just", "Fake Plastic Trees", and "Street Spirit (Fade Out)", the album heralded the rise of Britpop as a force with which to be reckoned in the alt-rock sphere. There's a reason why some of Radiohead's fans were alienated by their total change of pace during the release of Kid A—because the band's material circa The Bends is just so fucking good.

Prime cuts: "Just", "Street Spirit (Fade Out)"

  67. Lunatic Soul – Lunatic Soul (2008)

"Lunatic Soul" was the first I'd ever heard of Mariusz Duda. The song was included on a sampler disc of artists on the Kscope label, which I received as a free bonus along with my copy of Porcupine Tree's The Sky Moves Sideways (more about that album to come later on in the list). At the time, I was a senior at art school, finishing up a degree in Fine Arts. While working in the studio one day, I got curious and popped the disc into my Discman to see if I could paint to it. I was so struck by that song in particular, that I decided to buy the album, and did some more research into Riverside's back catalog of music as well. As mentioned earlier, Lunatic Soul is like the yin to Riverside's yang. The first album is a concept album revolving around the journey of a dead soul drifting through the afterlife. As such, the album is equal parts dark, eerie, ambient, and mournful, with touches of east Asian aesthetics blended in for good measure. Truly, though, the pinnacle of the album is the epic "The Final Truth", which sees the protagonist encountering the ethereal ferryman and being forced to make a fateful decision; the song begins as little more than a funeral dirge underpinned by a drum loop, before gradually reaching a tremendous dramatic climax.

Prime cuts: "Lunatic Soul", "The Final Truth"

  66. Graceland – Paul Simon (1986)

My appreciation of Graceland is largely inherited. Along with Queen, the Police, the Eagles, and Emerson Lake and Palmer, it was among the albums I grew up hearing a lot due to my parents' musical tastes. There really is something special about it. The entire album is an exercise in branching out into territory which was largely unexplored by popular musicians of the 1980s—New Orleans zydeco, Tex-Mex rock, and of course, the African isicathamiya represented here by the appearance of Ladysmith Black Mambazo. At the time of its release, of course, Graceland was a controversial album for flying in the face of the recording industry's boycott of South Africa because of apartheid. Growing up listening to it, though, I didn't have any of that context. All I knew was that it sounded different than anything I'd ever heard before. Over 30 years on, I can still say that about the album.

Prime cuts: "You Can Call Me Al", "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes"

  65. Year Zero – Nine Inch Nails (2007)

Year Zero is a transitional album for me. I bought it during my third and final year of college in Florida, before dropping out to continue my studies in Canada. I have memories of that album from both places. It is perhaps Trent Reznor's most overtly political statement—a concept album about a dystopian future America where conservative government has devolved into moralistic neo-fascism (a premise that gets more and more tangible every day now, sadly). In a way, I suppose it was a fitting soundtrack to my exodus from Bush's America. Too bad we still haven't learned our lessons from then.

Prime cuts: "Survivalism", "Me, I'm Not"

  64. Fully Completely – The Tragically Hip (1992)

Like the previously mentioned Finger Eleven album Tip, this is another album which is inextricably linked with my experience of Canada. I lived there for six years, so it's inevitable that some Canadiana would have seeped into my soul by osmosis. Like Tim Hortons and reruns of Corner Gas and The Red Green Show, this is another piece of culture from north of the border that will always take me back to my mid-twenties.

Prime cuts: "Courage (For Hugh Maclennan)", "Looking for a Place to Happen"

  63. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix – Phoenix (2009)

The bombs on the cover art are quite appropriate—this was the album that dropped and blew up Phoenix into a mainstream act. Attracted by the single "1901" (which had found its way to being featured in an oft-repeated car commercial), I decided to give it a listen, and I loved what I heard. While not quite as hard-rocking as is my usual taste, it sounded fresh and vibrant and full of youthful vigor. A peppy mix of indie rock and synthpop, the album provided a breath of fresh air and organic listening fare that was on the easier side for me, without being sickeningly saccharine or processed.

Prime cuts: "1901", "Lisztomania"

  62. The Wall – Pink Floyd (1979)

The Wall, I find, is something of a mirror. That is where I find it contains most of its potency. My own circumstances may be quite different, but the psychological struggle of Pink is one that certainly strikes a nerve with me. I was introduced to this album in high school, where the one-two punch of "The Happiest Days of Our Lives" and "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)" often echoed my own discontented sentiments about being trapped in a demoralizing educational environment. Like Pink, my adult years have frequently led me to placing more bricks into my own wall to seal myself off from others. And indeed, I often find myself wondering, "Is there anybody out there?" Nearly 40 years after its release, The Wall still holds up, largely because it is such a relatable tale—on some level, at one point or another, I believe everyone can identify with the sheer, horrifying, abysmal loneliness faced by the album's protagonist.

Prime cuts: "Comfortably Numb", "Another Brick in the Wall (Part 2)"

  61. Achtung Baby – U2 (1991)

Okay, let me get this out of the way: I think The Joshua Tree is a great album. Don't get me wrong about that. I know exactly why it is as highly lauded as it is. It's got some timeless songs on it, and believe me, I have more than my fair share of memories attached to it, both good and bad. But, spoilers, everyone: Achtung Baby is the only U2 album that made this list, and the reason is very simple— it just appeals more closely to my sensibilities than The Joshua Tree. It is a much more electric record, certainly moodier in tone and heavier in subject matter. It's easier for me to relate to, especially when I feel lost (which is frequent). When you boil it all down, that's the big difference for me: While The Joshua Tree has certainly been present during some moments of revelation and heartache for me… the truth is, this album has actively played a part in getting me through some tough shit over the years, and challenged me to re-examine my life. It has earned its spot on my list.

Prime cuts: "The Fly", "Mysterious Ways"

Next time: Part 3 (#60 - 41)!