- Feb 25, 2022
FIFTY3 FRIDAYS: STAND WITH UKRAINE
It is difficult to summon up anything other than a feeling of despair about the events unfolding in Ukraine. The situation reminds you how fundamentally useless a concept called the United Nations is and ever was. Basically, there is nothing you can really do against such naked ambition and aggression without confronting it with more bombs and weapons which in themselves have never solved anything. And there is no chance of NATO suddenly changing its stance without summoning
- Feb 18, 2022
FIFTY3 FRIDAYS: TALL STORIES?
Having devoted last week’s column to a live review, I find there are plenty of new or recent releases stacking up that I would like to bring to your attention. The self-imposed constraint of a simple weekly column means that choices have to be made and I have already had to hold a few more over till next week. That may or may not be a tall story but let’s start off with a couple you won’t want to kick into the long grass. Continuing to hoist a flag of defiance to the gods of
- Feb 11, 2022
FIFTY3 FRIDAYS: LIVE AT THE BEDFORD
Last Thursday found me in the comfortably familiar surroundings of that fine hub of new live music in London, The Bedford at Balham. With the admirable support of the venue’s fervent host, Tony Moore, and ace sound engineer, Richard Hunt, I had the pleasure of curating another evening in its delightful Club Room featuring three acts whose excellent music has graced these columns previously, Barbara, Blánid and Detweiler. The success of the evening was testament to how three q
- Feb 4, 2022
FIFTY3 FRIDAYS: SPOTIFY AGAIN
OK, the last thing I had in mind this week was to prolong the debate, if that’s quite the word, about the rights and wrongs of Spotify. And then here go I again. I remembered (I eventually do) that it was that time to publish my playlist of all the songs featured in Fifty3 Fridays over the previous month. Ah well, it’s a chance to include another Neil Young song. Far from disappeared from the Spotify platform, I found not one but three live versions of Young’s “Powderfinger”