Music and Opera

I was in New York the other week, furtively sneaking into a preview of the doomed new Spider-Man musical, which features music from Bono and The Edge of U2. Just typing the infinitely silly names of those two humour-free and tiresomely bombastic rock stars makes me feel irritated, but not nearly as irritated as the $65-million show itself, with its pretentious and sometimes downright incomprehensible storyline, and a score that contains nothing approaching a decent tune. Spider-Man is one of the biggest fiascos I have endured in more than 30 years of reviewing theatre, and so po-faced that it doesn’t even achieve ‘so-bad-it’s-good’ status. What a terrible disappointment from the

There seems to be a sad shortage of Burrito* footage on Youtube but you can see them, quality Nudie Suits and all, in this video accompanying the great Sin City: *In his lovely book No News At Throat Lake Lawrence Donegan, now the Guardian’s golf correspondent, but once upon a time bassist for Lloyd Cole and the Commotions has a great story of how a ticketless Lawrence tried to gain admittance to one of Lloyd Cole’s comeback gigs in Dublin. He fails to melt the heart of some Dublin bouncing-jobsworth despite claiming, accurately, “But, but…. I used to be a Commotion“. Good as that is, imagine how great it would

Sad news. Charlie Louvin has died. Here’s his New York Times obituary. And here he is with his brother Ira reminding us just why these Alabama boys were one of the great double acts in the history of American music.

There’s a sad lack of Gram Parsons footage on Youtube. And what there is isn’t of the greatest visual or audio quality. But we must make do with what we have and so here it is, the Streets of Baltimore in glorious black and white and filled with that old-time feeling… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjsL1OTHv7U

It’s as John Updike once put it – they’re getting within the big fella’s range. Captain Beefheart died at the weekend, the latest in a long line of interesting people from the world of popular music to pop his clogs. In commemoration then, here is his somewhat uncompromising and not hugely tuneful “Dachau Blues”, from the album Trout Mask Replica, recorded with the incomparable Antennae Jimmy Semens and the Mascara Snake. He was an acquired taste, Beefheart, but I liked him so it seems only right to pay one’s respects. Incidentally, has anyone ever met a woman, anywhere on earth, who liked Beefheart’s music?  

A great song from Mr Earle’s terrific album Train A Coming which was also covered by Emmylou on Wrecking Ball. Here they are together performing Goodbye: UPDATE: This post is now, alas, dedicated to Julian FitzGerald, old friend from Trinity days and much missed by all who knew him.

Lucerne is a city with powerful musical associations, the most celebrated being Wagner’s living there for the six years between 1866 and 1872, the most tranquil of his life, in Haus Triebschen, now a magnificent Wagner museum. Lucerne is a city with powerful musical associations, the most celebrated being Wagner’s living there for the six years between 1866 and 1872, the most tranquil of his life, in Haus Triebschen, now a magnificent Wagner museum. But he had visited before, most notably in 1859, when he finished Tristan und Isolde in the Hotel Schweizerhof; but also in 1850, a visit recorded with surprising sympathy by Stravinsky, a late convert to Wagner,

Cold weather demands warm music. To which end I am delighted that Mojo, the monthly rock magazine for the more gnarled music fan, has chosen as its album of the year Queen of Denmark by John Grant. As we all know to our cost, albums adored by music magazines tend to be more rigorous and admirable than enjoyable, but this one is as warm and welcoming as a hot bath, a cup of mulled wine and an enormous cheque all rolled into one. Mr Grant, who is 41, gay, from Denver and very gloomy, is the former lead singer of a band called The Czars. You can tell how serious

In the first week of September, the Scottish composer James MacMillan sat in the ‘composition hut’ in the backyard of his Glasgow house, finishing the music he’d been commissioned to write for the Pope’s Mass at Westminster Cathedral. In the first week of September, the Scottish composer James MacMillan sat in the ‘composition hut’ in the backyard of his Glasgow house, finishing the music he’d been commissioned to write for the Pope’s Mass at Westminster Cathedral. ‘I’m enjoying it — oh, the triumphalism!’ he wrote on his blog. He wasn’t kidding. Two weeks later, as the small, frail figure of Benedict XVI processed into the cathedral, a fanfare sounded over

Back after a rugby-related hiatus. Here’s Caitlin Rose with her Sinful Wishing Well…

I have never felt greatly inclined to grow a beard myself. (Not that I could ever manage the full naval Prince Michael of Kent. A rather precious goatee would probably be the limit of my facial hair-growing powers, and the contumely and derision it would surely attract from all right-thinking people obviously rule that out.) But pop music has recently entered one of its occasional beardie phases, as folk music not only gains new popularity, but also comes right back into fashion, on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US we have such bands as Midlake discarding the soft-rock stylings of their first album to go way down deep