Menu

  • Home
  • About all this…
  • church, going*
  • chocolate eggs & bunnies & blood: happy Easter!
  • forget my fate: the art of violence & martyrdom
  • cycle; woods and fields and little rivers
  • the cult of maimed perfection
  • ghost cities of cyberspace
  • shooting the messenger; moral panics, the 1980s, American Psycho turns 30
  • the law won – police academy and 80s pop culture
  • inside the doll’s house
  • dancing about architecture: the non-art and non-science of music reviews
  • sleepwalking through geography – doodling and the automatic muse
  • 7.6 billion mirrors – the value of art
  • the television will not be revolutionised; Stranger Things, Dark and blockbuster TV
  • time for a change; the death of a decade
  • courbet’s birthday – the case for conscious iconoclasm
  • chosen ones and dark lords and everything in between
  • yesterday was crazy; D’Angelo’s Voodoo by Faith A. Pennick
  • “Ane doolie sessoun” covid-19 and the art of isolation
  • music in quarantine: march 2020
  • the crossroads of hamburgers & boys: Bowie and Diamond Dogs (and Glenn Hendler’s “Diamond Dogs”
  • how it felt to be alive in February 2020
  • what January 2020 sounded like
  • New Year, New Decade, New…
  • crafting a memory of Christmas
  • messages from the past for the future
  • You Shouldn’t Always Get What You Want; cautionary tales of the 80s by Stephen King & Ramsey Campbell
  • Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere; notes on the margins of everywhere
  • a true state – cut and paste and the art of collage (Edinburgh, summer 2019)
  • a conflict of ghosts
  • birds & murderers; raptorama
  • Enter Title Here: unblocking
  • Inevitably, the releases of the year, 2018
  • old books, old eyes, new readings
  • ‘Cheryl Heard A Wet Thud’: Tread Softly by Richard Laymon
  • Aretha Louise Franklin 1942-2018
  • A continuous chain of little inventions; art in Edinburgh summer 2018
  • It’s time for your six-monthly review…
  • 11 June 1936: The International Surrealist Exhibition
  • It’s not real if you don’t feel it – but what is ‘it’ and what is ‘real’ and who’s to say?
  • The Dead Cannot Contradict: R.I.P. M.E.S. 1957 – 2018
  • The Vanishing Everything of Everywhere; Goodbye 2017
  • Review of the Year – the paradox of realism
  • Inevitably, the Releases of the Year 2017 (part two)
  • Inevitably, the releases of the year 2017 (part one)
  • Anatomy of an Earworm
  • “Turmoil, Ecstasy, Violence and Isolation” – a conversation with Wreche
  • Right vs. Good – a rambling digression about the arts
  • Weekly Update: Complicated Comforts
  • Someone Of No Importance: Evelyn Waugh and inter-war Futilitarianism
  • Belated weekly update: If You Want To Feel…
  • MEAM, Myself & I: Part One: the formative years
  • A Reading of Orwell (and others) in 2017
  • Inevitably, the releases of the year, 2016 (grand finale!)
  • Inevitably, the releases of the year, 2016 (Part Three)
  • Inevitably, the releases of the year, 2016 (Part Two)
  • Inevitably, the releases of the year, 2016 (Part One)
  • Not the Releases of the Year 2016
  • You Were In My Dreams – Kristin Hersh at Summerhall, November 17, 2016
  • Releases of the Year 2016! Preliminary note…
  • Weekly Update: Halloween Horror – Outsider Music & Venusian Death Cell
  • Weekly update: the charm of the EP
  • Album Review – Kristin Hersh – Wyatt at the Coyote Palace
  • Album Review: Rachel Mason – Das Ram
  • Weekly Wafflings
  • Ride On A Golden Wave: Uriah Heep’s …Very ‘Eavy …Very ‘Umble
  • Difficult, But Fascinating: The Gail Carriger interview
  • Symphonies of Sadness, Dirges of Disgust, Noxious Noise: Musical Masochism
  • Not JUST a genius: the Eternal Fire of Jimi Hendrix
  • No hierarchy In the world of sounds: Kib Elektra interview
  • REAL-TIME REVIEWS: YAADON KE BAARAAT (1973)
  • Tea-table Books 1: Dust & Grooves by Eilon Paz
  • The Third Monthly Report: March 2016
  • All the stuff and more; why bands should split up and never, ever reform
  • The Second Monthly Report: February 2016
  • The First Monthly Report: January 2016
  • An Illuminated Eccentric; the art of Christophe Szpajdel
  • The Slinky Vagabond: David Bowie 1947-2016
  • PLAY FOR TODAY
    • Play For Today: special summer bonanza edition Part One
    • Play For Today – Current Playlist 26th June 2017
    • Play For Today – Current Playlist 8th February 2017
    • Play For Today – Current Playlist 3rd January 2017
    • Play For Today – Current Playlist 25th November 2016
    • Play For Today – current playlist 27 October 2016
    • Play For Today – current playlist
    • Play for Today: 21st January 2016
    • Play for Today: 9th January 2016
  • A Cure for Culture: Die Brücke at Moritzburg
  • Copy? Compliment? Coincidence? Incestuous album covers!
  • WAIT! Best releases of 2015; those glaring omissions in full*
  • Inevitably, the releases of the year 2015 (grand finale!)
  • Inevitably, the releases of the year 2015 (part four)
  • Inevitably, the releases of the year 2015 (part three)
  • Inevitably, the releases of the year 2015 (part two)
  • Inevitably, the releases of the year, 2015 (part one)
  • Soft As Snow (But Warm Inside) – “shoegaze” 1988 – 1993
  • La Flamme et le Lys: Métal Noir Québécois
  • The Lucky Ones Were The First To Die! The 1980s post-Mad Max Apocalypse
  • For Whom The Cowbell Tolls…
  • Woman Power! Ms Marvel & 1970s ‘Farrah Fawcett Feminism’
  • Constructive Misanthropy: Wyndham Lewis – Tyros & Portraits
  • Independence as a State of Mind: the Bosque Records story (1988-2001)
  • The Story of an Artist; Daniel Johnston covered
  • Once Upon a Time in Argentina: Swords & Sorcery, 1980s style
  • LIVE DEAD: Mayhem 1990
  • Petty Obsession: Hair Metal you never hear in the movies
  • “Cheap Turd”: the mysterious charm of Valet Girls (1987)
  • (Don’t) Lower Your Expectations; the evolution of Oblivionized
  • NSBM (and possibly NSFW)
Skip to content

A Motley Miscellany of Oddities, Buffoonery, Criticism & c.

news & views on music, art, literature, film, graphic design and what-have-you

Summerhall

You Were In My Dreams – Kristin Hersh at Summerhall, November 17, 2016

  It was a beautifully clear, cold autumn-heading-into-winter evening in Edinburgh. As the eight o’clock concert approached, the streets of Newington were calm and mostly empty. After a few moments of worry about finding the venue I realised I knew where it was, which was…

Recent Posts

  • church, going*
  • chocolate eggs & bunnies & blood: happy Easter!
  • forget my fate: the art of violence & martyrdom
  • cycle; woods and fields and little rivers
  • the cult of maimed perfection

Recent Comments

  • Paul Gorman on The Vanishing Everything of Everywhere; Goodbye 2017
  • WillPinfold on “Cheap Turd”: the mysterious charm of Valet Girls (1987)
  • Mark on “Cheap Turd”: the mysterious charm of Valet Girls (1987)
  • WillPinfold on Ride On A Golden Wave: Uriah Heep’s …Very ‘Eavy …Very ‘Umble
  • dario on Inevitably, the releases of the year, 2016 (Part Two)

Archives

  • July 2022
  • April 2022
  • December 2021
  • May 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • November 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • December 2018
  • October 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries RSS
  • Comments RSS
  • WordPress.org

Categories

  • art
  • books
  • cinema
  • comics
  • culture
  • design
  • interview
  • literature
  • music
  • photo essay
  • playlist
  • pop culture
  • television
  • Uncategorized
  • writing

RSS A Motley Miscellany of Oddities, Buffoonery, Criticism & c.

  • church, going* July 23, 2022
    But superstition, like belief, must die, And what remains when disbelief has gone? Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky, A shape less recognisable each week, A purpose more obscure. Philip Larkin, Church Going (1954) Given that Christianity seemed to be – in the sense of being a kind of shared societal glue – on its […]
  • chocolate eggs & bunnies & blood: happy Easter! April 17, 2022
    Imagine a culture so centred on wealth, property and power that it becomes scared of sex and  frets endlessly about what it sees as the misuses of sex. A culture that identifies breeding so closely with with money, wealth and status, and women so closely with breeding and therefore with sex that, when looking to […]
  • forget my fate: the art of violence & martyrdom December 24, 2021
      In a way, this article concerns religious art, though the person who wrote it has no religious beliefs whatsoever. But when people really, passionately, even if unconsciously, believe – in a religion, a philosophy, an idea – that belief imbues the works they create, whether art, music, architecture, literature or objects, with the power […]
  • cycle; woods and fields and little rivers May 9, 2021
      With apologies to Paul Gorman, whose beautifully written accounts of bike rides partly influenced this article, although Paul actually knows about cycling and I don’t; this is essentially a surrogate fast walk. I thought I’d take to the roads early (just before 7.30 am) because it was a beautiful morning that was forecast not […]
  • the cult of maimed perfection February 5, 2021
    *firstly, may change this title as it possibly sounds like I’m saying the opposite of what I’m saying* That western culture¹ has issues with womens’ bodies² is not a new observation. But it feels like the issues are getting stranger. Recently there have been, both on TV (where the time of showing is important) and […]
  • ghost cities of cyberspace January 11, 2021
      Tell me now, I beg you, where Flora is, that fair Roman; Archippa, and Thaïs rare, Who the fairer of the twain? Echo too, whose voice each plain, River, lake and valley bore; Lovely these as springtime lane, But where are they, the snows of yore?¹ François Villon, Ballade des dames du temps jadis(1461)¹ […]

twitter

Tweets by @punbasedname

subscribe! (no pressure)

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Built with WordPress | Theme: Eighties by Kopepasah.