How odd to be in Washington –
the embassies across the street, the flapping flags –
and find it’s not like House of Cards at all,
but just a town with cars and clouds
and people grabbing coffee on their way to work.
No sacred monsters on the hotel’s TV screen,
no Underwoods or Douglas Stampers here:
just psychopathic Donald on the breakfast news,
the demiurge for all the nation’s noxious fears.
BRIEF UPDATE on RBP’s Joni anthology, which has gone back to November but will be just as awesome as it would have been in June…
A reprise of my British Library onstage conversation with legendary DANNY FIELDS (below) at Pylewell Park, Sunday 24th July. Danny will once again be reminiscing brilliantly about Andy Warhol, Edie Sedgwick, Lou Reed, Nico, Jim Morrison, Iggy Pop and, of course, the RAMONES, the band he managed in their greatest years…
My good friends JAMES FOX (left) and ADAM WILDI (right) with my darling wife NATALIE FORBES at a “charidee rock” night at Wintershall, Surrey, as guests of our great pal Rupert Wace.
James, who wrote Keef R’s Life, would probably concur with me that the only real music we heard all night was the half-hour set by the ever-extraordinary JEFF BECK, though Beck’s closing take on the Beatles’ ‘Day in the Life’ for me wasn’t a patch on the glorious ‘Nessun Dorma’ he did last time Rupert invited us to this event.
We’ll be featuring the Beckmeister on Rock’s Backpages this week, ahead of his new Loud Hailer album out next week…
I have the supreme privilege of interviewing the great DANNY FIELDS about the legendary July 4th gig at Roundhouse when THE RAMONES rocked London and punk rock got a powerful shot in the arm.
R.I.P. KARL DALLAS, an important writer on folk and other musics, and a genuinely eccentric radical. Remember him and read his best work on Rock’s Backpages.
Just before my Sunday evening Small Town Talk event at “the best little festival in the world” (S. Rushdie): interviewed by very nice Roisin Dwyer at the Dalkey Literary Festival south of Dublin… as ever, grateful there was a question about Todd amongst the Dylan, Van and Band queries.
Chips was a great interview for my southern soul book Say It One Time For The Brokenhearted. It felt like quite a coup to meet a man who’d been in on the ground floor at Stax, co-written “The Dark End of the Street” with Dan Penn, and produced Elvis Presley. Among MANY other notches on his belt…
Check out the audio of my 1985 interview, free on Rock’s Backpages for the next two days
In breathless anticipation of tonight’s Euro 16 opener…
• But that’s football for you
• He’s timed his run to perfection
• The keeper elects to punch
• He’s got good feet for a big man
• He’s got no right to score from there
• He really should score there
• It just sat up perfectly for him
• He just couldn’t get it out from under his feet
• He just dragged the shot wide
• For once his control let him down
• There’s a distinct lack of movement
• They’re not working the channels
• The narrowest of margins
• He’ll be the happier coach at half time
• Will they rue that missed opportunity?
• How many more chances is he going to spurn?
• He won’t want to see that one again
• It’s bread and butter to this defence
• It’s what they do so well
• A lot of niggling fouls
• I’ve seen them given
• You don’t like to see that
• He really can’t complain
• It’s a cynical one
• That’s just daft
NEW AUDIO for Rock’s Backpages subscribers this week: VAN MORRISON discusses the Woodstock years of Moondance and Street Choir with, er, me (2014)…
PLUS over 60 NEW PIECES in the RBP library, including:
• Paul Gorman on CASSIUS CLAY’s ‘I Am the Greatest’ album (Rev-Ola Records, 1998)
• Howard Wuelfing sees TOM WAITS live in D.C. (Unicorn Times, 1975)
• Sylvie Simmons takes POISON (Kerrang!, 1987)
• Mark Williams reviews LEONARD COHEN’s ‘Songs from a Room’ (International Times, 1969)
• Bethan Cole hangs with drum’n’bass duo 4 HERO (Mixmag, 1996)
• Mike Mettler looks back with BOSTON’s AOR god Tom Scholz (Sound + Vision, 2006)
• Chris Welch hangs out with the SMALL FACES (Melody Maker, 1969)
• Mick Brown reports on the death of Led Zep’s JOHN BONHAM (Guardian, 1980)
• Sean O’Hagan meets Street Sounds mogul MORGAN KHAN (NME, 1985)
• David Hemingway talks with Ultra Vivid Scenester KURT RALSKE (unpublished, 2002)
• Kathryn Flett reports from the LIVE8 festival (Observer, 2005)
• Jeff Slate natters with NOEL GALLAGHER (Daily Beast, 2015)
barneyhoskyns.com 