1970s
DVD/Blu-ray: Vampir CuadecucSunday, 22 October 2017
Pere Portabella’s remarkable Vampir Cuadecuc is almost impossible to classify. It may have been filmed on the set of Jesús Franco's 1970 Hammer horror film El Conde Dracula – with the obviously enthusiastic participation of a cast led by... Read more... |
LFF 2017: Mindhunter / My Generation - Fincher comes to Netflix, Caine does Swinging LondonFriday, 13 October 2017
They’re all going into TV nowadays, and here amid the cinematic runners and riders at the LFF is David Fincher directing Mindhunter. It's Netflix’s new series about the FBI in the Seventies, when the Bureau was slowly starting to realise that... Read more... |
The Pretenders, Brighton Dome review - phone-free and feistyFriday, 13 October 2017
Before they even step on stage The Pretenders win me to their side. An announcement prior to their appearance tells the audience, “The Pretenders request you keep your phone in your pocket.” Brilliantly, these aren’t idle words. As the gig... Read more... |
Nile Rodgers: How to Make It in the Music Business, BBC Four review - good times had by allSunday, 08 October 2017
One New Year’s Eve in the 1970s, hot young session musicians Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards were assured by Grace Jones that they could penetrate the inner sanctum of Studio 54 by dropping her name at the door. A doorman thought otherwise and... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: PP ArnoldSunday, 08 October 2017
Anyone who finds Eric Clapton and The Bee Gees’ Barry Gibb stepping up to offer their services as their producer is obviously special. It’s a view reinforced by knowing Rolling Stones’ manager Andrew Loog Oldham and Small Faces were already their... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: MotörheadSunday, 01 October 2017
Immediately before recording their first album in 1977, Motörhead were on their last legs. They went into the studio after playing what was initially conceived as their farewell show. Appropriately, no one then could have predicted that the band... Read more... |
The Deuce, Sky Atlantic review - a magnificent, sleazy epicWednesday, 27 September 2017
There’s a moment in The Deuce (Sky Atlantic) – a rare quiet one – where a working girl called Darlene is visiting a kindly old gent on her books. He has A Tale of Two Cities on his TV, the old black and white version with Dirk Bogarde as Sydney... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: Ducks DeluxeSunday, 24 September 2017
That this year is the 40th anniversary of 1977, the year punk rock went mainstream, shouldn’t obscure the pub rock foundations underpinning much of what was supposedly new. The Clash’s Joe Strummer had fronted pub circuit regulars The 101’ers. In... Read more... |
Neil Sedaka, Royal Albert Hall review - sparkly veteran defies the decadesWednesday, 20 September 2017
As pretty much everything but a plague of locusts is visited upon this grim old world, an evening in the company of Neil Sedaka is the greatest of pick-me-ups. At the Royal Albert Hall on Monday, as his UK tour drew to a close, the capacity audience... Read more... |
Follies, National Theatre review - Imelda Staunton equal first in stunning companyThursday, 07 September 2017
Of Sondheim’s half-dozen masterpieces, Follies is the one which sets the bar impossibly high, both for its four principals and in its typically unorthodox dramatic structure. The one-hit showstoppers from within a glittering ensemble come thick and... Read more... |
Walter Becker, 1950-2017 - 'we play rock and roll, but we swing when we play'Wednesday, 06 September 2017
The death of Walter Becker last weekend brings to an end one of the great double acts of rock history. Becker’s partnership with Donald Fagen, with whom he created Steely Dan, has left a legacy of music which seems destined to be at least as... Read more... |
Reissue CDs Weekly: The Radiators From SpaceSunday, 27 August 2017
TV Tube Heart, the debut album from The Radiators From Space, was issued on 21 October 1977, a week before the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind the Bollocks. Each was a punk rock album and one, inevitably, has been subjected to greater historical analysis... Read more... |
