Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Friday Music: A Life of Stories, in reply to TracyMac,
I love social history as a reading genre. And stories about the music of our times (and other times, natch), are fabulous social history when done properly (people, events, background, social context).
That's integral to the Brixton Academy book too. Parkes only got his shot because it was run-down and rotting in a part of town it was thought white middle-class Londoners would never venture. Then sold it, sadly, to a entertainment corporate.
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Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to simon g,
Presumably the rest of the Mediaworks stable has been given instructions (not in writing, of course) to push this website's "stories" as news, no matter how flimsy or flaky.
Yes, I assume that's the case.
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Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to Robyn Gallagher,
I'm all for a fun local gossip/showbiz news site, but it had better have some fresh local content, otherwise what's the point?
It'll have some, but I'm willing to bet it'll be the usual suspects.
You need to be trusted and to rub shoulders with people who know what's going on to be a good gossip columnist. I thought Spy when Andy Pickering was there was good at what it did. He had fashion and music connections of long standing, and he'd been a magazine editor. It all adds up. Otherwise you just end up dealing with press releases and shit that people want to fling at other people.
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Hard News: A cog in the Mediaworks machine, in reply to Deborah,
Did Simon Day really mean to say that she just makes things up?
No, no. As in "forging links".
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Also: the promise that Glucina wouldn't impinge on the Mediaworks newsroom appears not have lasted long.
She poached two of the newsroom's online journalists – this is on top of Francis Cook coming from Scoop (and fair enough and good luck to him). So they're throwing resources at this thing.
Other online staff have quit, apparently because they're just a bit fucked off with it all. Paul Henry's show is now onto its third online editor. The days of TV3's news team having the lowest churn in the industry are very much gone.
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Hard News: Friday Music: A Life of Stories, in reply to Farmer Green,
Did anyone ever go to a concert by this band? Perhaps it is too long ago.
Audience accounts might make for some very funny reading.
The inside story is unique.
All of the core players are still with us ; it might be time to get out the type writer
Keith Newman?Nick Bollinger has written an Audioculture entry, but it's fairly straight-up.
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My attention has been drawn to the 2011 non-hit 'Grace' by the Scottish band The View.
Listen to the opening guitar and verse and tell me you don't hear 'Pull Down the Shades':
Crikey. I wonder how that happened?
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Hard News: Friday Music: A Life of Stories, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
David Mitchell are you out there?
testing – one two – one two
use the wee envelope/email icon above
if you are or if anyone has a contact address
…could someone give him a nudge
- working title DM’s 2Ds
:- )I will obtain the relevant contact information and dispatch it to you and Matt.
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Donna Mills' eulogy from Graham's service yesterday. Loving and lovely.
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The Singing, Laughing, Dancing ManWhat perfect fortune that I could mourn you in Italy. It was probably here that they found you, carved from the white marble mountain by Appolo himself. What sands did he use to blend that stone? Part Hero, part Bacchus, part Puck. A little fawn and a whole lot of bull !
We were so young and many others have followed who loved you too, friends, lovers, wives, children. Forgive me, all of you who may be more entitled than me to speak now.
But I was your first true love Graham, so I guess that gives me some right to speak at the last.
I remember you at 23, so much stillness and love in you. The way you tended your plants and knew the names of all the birds. You wouldn't touch alcohol then, you told me you didn't trust yourself to be able to stop, so you abstained altogether. You were so pure. You loved nature and walking on the beach and through the hills. You loved to be super fit and you could sing and paint and write poetry and how you could dance ! The dance floors we swept across! That was epic, to be in the arms of a strong, beautiful man who owns the dance floor with his rhythm and style and has eyes only for you.
You were so funny, just a big kid laughing all the time. The more I fell on the floor in hysterics with your daily pantomime and silly stories, the naughtier and sillier you became. Then the rushing river of mimicry and funny voices would stop and you would look up with that sheepish little grin, having surprised even yourself with what had just been let loose.
Most days you would take a 20 k run. Then, calmed by the exercise, you would sit with your guitar in your arms and just sing and play whatever was there in the ethers to be born. Many songs were never written down or recorded. Dave was the one who always saved your songs from disappearing. What would you have done without him ? He was always there for you. And it was only him who could get you to sing in the last years. With his gentle, smooth way, he could coax you back to the stage you loved and feared. You gave it so much but it always took more.
You were hopelessly unsuited to the modern world. When I met you, you couldn't use a bank or a post office, or even a phone book. You brought home your entire, unopened pay packet and gave it to me. You had no interest in such things.
My brother Phillip once thought he could teach you to drive. A mighty crashing and screeching of car wheels brought me running outside. There sat the two of you, in a sandstorm of laughter and smoke. You had smashed Phillips car right through the garage door of his LA apartment and into the car behind, squashing it with such force and keeping your foot on the accelerator for so long, both cars were crumpled to smithereens.
We never tried to teach you anything ever again. Anyway, you loved to walk.
So walk on love, you are free. You gave enough.
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