- Aug 26, 2022
FIFTY3 FRIDAYS: WHERE DO I START?
I often like to begin this column with a little putting the world to rights in the time-honoured tradition of grumpy old persons but when everything around you just seems so totally depressing it is hard to know quite where to start. For a while now, at least I have been consistent in describing the energy market as broken. The process by which tariffs are set is quite mad and while much of the media’s focus may rightly have been on household budgets, it is only now that the
- Aug 19, 2022
LAURA MARLING: I SPEAK BECAUSE I CAN - REVISITED
From time to time, I take a short break from the regular Fifty3 Fridays, usually a home of new music from mostly independent, emerging acts. This week we have been visiting relatives in the north and returning yesterday evening left me little scope to conjure the usual column ‘afore teatime. So, this week it gives me great pleasure instead to revisit what I consider to be one of the finest examples of the singer-songwriter album art from someone who in her pre-BRIT Award winn
- Aug 12, 2022
FIFTY3 FRIDAYS: LIVE AT PIANO SMITHFIELD
Piano Smithfield is conveniently situated next to London’s Farringdon Station where you can pick up the impressive new Elizabeth line as well as contemplate the station’s history as the original terminus of the Metropolitan Railway, the world's first underground passenger service. A classic piano bar hosting late-night sessions with live requests a highlighted feature, the venue equally presents live jazz, soul, musical theatre, acoustic, rock; indeed, a whole range of styles
- Aug 5, 2022
FIFTY3 FRIDAYS: IT’S JUST NOT CRICKET
What’s this? Indie-rock band stops play? If you haven’t heard of it, The Hundred is a marketing exec’s idea of how to make cricket more exciting by reducing the great game to 100-ball matches between eight teams representing seven cities – weirdly London gets two - with parallel men’s and women’s versions. Now my very first time at an Old Trafford test match, aged 11, saw Ted Dexter and Ken Barrington bat all day for England at a snail’s pace. Since then, I’ve always opted fo