The City Is Blinking

I have loved The Beach Boys for over 20 years. When I was going through some of my hardest times growing up, they were a constant and powerful uplifting presence in my life. I have seen Brian Wilson live, three times, and was there in Glasgow on the SMiLE tour when he and Van Dyke Parks finally finished the album. The Beach Boys were among the first true musical obsessions of my life. They overtook all other concerns and considerations, and dominated my life for many years. Their music was responsible for my choosing writing as my main creative medium. Writing on the old SMiLE Shop message board, and later having a small part in my first writing being published there, helped me hone my skills and become far more adept in debate and criticism. That is somewhat beside the point however; the point being that The Beach Boys are one of the great musical/artistic loves of my life. In fact, the love I have for them is on the same level that I have for my family, my friends and my infrequent, ...

  Along with Chet Baker, Bill Evans was among the earliest Jazz musicians that I properly engaged with. I remember going into Tower Records off Grafton St and buying the Tony Bennett/Bill Evans Album, and quickly falling love with both men's music. Since then, I have listened to many Jazz artists, but Bill Evans remains my favourite. Evans brought the Classical music of his training to Jazz, being influenced by such artists as Claude Debussy. Bill Evans' contributions to the genre of Jazz are formidable to consider, both as a leader of his famous trio and as a player on famous recordings led by Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley and Chet Baker.  It bugs me when people try to analyze Jazz as an intellectual theorem. It's not, it's feeling. - Bill Evans Bill Evans believed that everyone, no matter their education in music theory and practice, was in possession of what he called a Universal Musical Mind. One doesn't need to understand the technical details of why a playe...

No game that I have played, and I have played a fair few, has impacted me on such a visceral, emotional level as Naughty Dog's The Last of Us Part II. My expectations were high, considering the quality of the original, and of course Naughty Dog's reputation as delivering quality pretty much 100% of the time, but this sequel managed to smash any expectations by giving the player not only what they knew they wanted, but also what they were not in the least bit expecting. It seems to be a given these days that there is some phony controversy or obnoxiously entitled children demanding this or that is changed in a favourite franchise or series, whenever a new bit of art is released onto the public. Thankfully I avoided all such things in the run up to this game. I assume there is considerable hand wringing over the intensity and frequency of the violence from the guardians assuring we don't accidentally consume "problematic" media, and of course probably some fatuous o...

  James Morrow woke at three in the afternoon. A late night, booze and unwise food decisions had left him feeling more than a little off. He walked to the bathroom, filled up the sink with water, and placed his face in. He couldn't quite remember if he had said or done anything which he would come to regret. Not a complete blackout, but a general hazy fog lingered in his mind, and details were hard to pin down. He dressed, slowly and cautiously, afraid that any sudden movement would cause him to lose balance or violently expel his late night/early morning meal of kebabs and whiskey. He sat on the bed, wondering how to occupy himself until he was required to play his first set at the club. James decided on a little music. John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman, the latter of which James had pegged as perhaps the greatest underappreciated Jazz vocalist of the last hundred years. He sat and enjoyed the sounds, reverberating around the room, and closed his eyes. It was a standard set, nothin...

  Stevie Wonder is one of the most influential, important and powerful artists of the last hundred years. This should not be in doubt. He was the first major African American artist to write, produce and perform his music, laying the groundwork for Prince, Michael Jackson, R. Kelly, Drake, The Weeknd and countless other artists who exercised control over their art. Stevie Wonder's career has spanned six decades, and while he hasn't released anything new since 2005's A Time To Love , he has been active in performing live and cementing his legacy further as perhaps the greatest musical force of the 20th/21st Century.  Stevie Wonder's first album came in 1962, when Wonder was just 12 years old, titled The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie . The album is little more than a curiosity when one considers the music that Wonder would go on to record, but it unarguably displayed his early talent. It took a while for Motown/Tamla, to define a sound for the young prodigy, throwing out tri...

"This is the girl." Mulholland Drive , written and directed by David Lynch, was my introduction to that great artist. I didn't get it, at first. In fact, I found it quite frustrating and irritating. "What the hell is this?" I asked with all the smarts of a ham sandwich. When I come across those who struggle with the surreal and abstract world of David Lynch, I think back to this time, when I too was a dullard who couldn't grasp the dream logic that runs through much of his work. It was not until watching Twin Peaks  for the first time, in 2004/2005 that I revisited Mulholland Drive . After being eased into the strange, dreamlike world of Lynch, and having let go of the need to have everything make literal/linear sense, Mulholland Drive was a revelation; a hidden world now open to me, having been within me all the time.  Mulholland Drive has been voted the greatest movie of the 21st Century, and for damn good reason. It is an astonishing, layered, supremely m...

Hello and welcome to Why I Love Robert De Niro, part three! Parts one and two can be found here and here . Please find the final 10 best performances, in chronological order, below. Jackie Brown : It is only right that Quentin Tarantino would work with Robert De Niro, given Tarantino's electric and overwhelming style and talent.  Jackie Brown , released in 1997, is the only Tarantino feature length picture based on the work of another, in this case, Rum Punch by the late, great Elmore Leonard. De Niro is in a supporting role as a man who has an appreciation for smoke and blonde surfer girls. I love the quiet mumbling that De Niro does for most of this picture, finally culminating in an explosion of anger, that is at once hilarious and terrifying. A little odd to see De Niro in a film like this and not be the lead, but he is an integral part in the greatness of the movie, which is among Tarantino's very best.  Flawless : Directed by Joel Schumacher, Flawless  is a ...