- Jan 29, 2021
FIFTY3 FRIDAYS: WELL-A WELL-A WELL-A HUH
Tell me more, tell me more. Did you work out the song? The novelty single has never really gone away. Years ago, it was propagated mostly by Top of the Pops, radio stations or the odd film. Today it is fed by YouTube and more recently by that curious viral video phenomenon, TikTok. Enter Nathan Evans, a 26-year-old musician and postman by day without any history of seafaring, who posted an a cappella version of a traditional New Zealand sea shanty, “Wellerman”, on the platfor
- Jan 22, 2021
FIFTY3 FRIDAYS: MATHS OR MYSTICS?
I wonder; do you wait for a bus in lockdown and they still arrive in twos or threes? I expect not as there are reduced services and with fewer people travelling you don’t get the kind of queues at bus stops that hold up the first bus so that a second and third catch up behind it. Being able to contemplate such questions could mean that you have too much time on your hands, or just that you are looking for an analogy to shed light on why you suddenly get a rush of great tunes
- Jan 15, 2021
FIFTY3 FRIDAYS: FISH ‘N’ TIPS
This strange looking tips jar reminds me of a goldfish bowl, a receptacle singularly unfit for purpose when it comes to providing an enriched environment for pet fish. Yet it serves as a suitable marker for our times, especially as it is empty. Let’s admit it, lockdowns haven’t dealt many decent cards to the performing arts. While independent musicians valiantly continue to offer live streams, many with great success artistically, a ‘tips jar’ hardly competes with the seat nu
- Jan 8, 2021
FIFTY3 FRIDAYS: RESOLUTIONS, RESOLUTIONS
A new year traditionally brings opportunities to start afresh; to make resolutions but then generally fail to see them through. A straw poll seems to indicate that fewer of us are bothering with this well-intentioned charade this year as lockdown fatigue sinks in. We’ve already given up so much by necessity so why add more to the list, you might ask. However, I have to admit I’m not great on planning… unless it’s on someone else’s behalf. So, when it comes to collating materi
- Jan 1, 2021
FIFTY3 FRIDAYS: 2020 IN ALBUMS
Rather inconveniently, today is the first day of a new year rather than the last day of the old one. It might have been neater to do some form of year-end review and publish it on 31 December but Fifty3 Thursdays doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. Anyhow, admittedly to end the year rather than start the new one, I set about the task of picking out some full-length albums released in 2020 that I had particularly enjoyed. By the time I got way past 30 I decided it was to b