Off Topic The Review Thread

[Goldhawk-Road]

The song actually makes me want to drive across some of the great empty spaces of the mid west, counting telephone poles, trying to spot a lineman.

You'll have to need the lineman more than want him, and you'll have to want him for all time.

Campbell did have a brilliant repertoire of songs, of which Wichita Lineman is probably the best, though I also really like Galveston and Where's the Playground Suzie

 

[QPR999]

There is a very good documentary in a series which I am sure was on BBC4 about the making of various great albums, the exact title of which escapes me, but one was about Pet Sounds, including interviews with Brian Wilson, and featuring the Wrecking Crew extensively. Not sure if Campbell was in the line up for that. Stunningly good musicians, many from a jazz background who realised they could earn a lot more cash doing sessions. Wilson would give them seemingly vague direction, and they got it immediately.

I just read about the recording of Wichita Lineman. Webb sent them a very incomplete song, a verse short and no ‘middle eight’ (I’m no musician, not sure what that means), expecting them either to reject it or ask him to finish it. Instead Campbell put a guitar solo in, his producer orchestrated it and it was done in a day. The song actually makes me want to drive across some of the great empty spaces of the mid west, counting telephone poles, trying to spot a lineman.

Should be Steel’s song really of course.

The 'Middle Eight' in a song ( known as 'the bridge' in the USA ) is a section of the song that is different from the verse or chorus. It is commonly eight bars long but doesn't have to be. It could be a chord change, a guitar solo, a new melody, a breakdown, or all of the above. It's a device used to extend the song and/or to stop the song from becoming repetitive. In Wichita Lineman, for instance, the middle eight is the guitar solo.

I found The Wrecking Crew fascinating. Imagine being a great musician and playing on all those hits and no one knowing who you were or getting recognised for it?
Here's an intriguing video about Carol Kaye. She was the bassist in The Wrecking Crew and played on thousands of hits, and here's a link to some of the artists and tracks she has recorded for ... https://www.carolkaye.com/www/library/basshits.htm

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[Steelmonkey]

Any Taskmaster fans out there? I've been watching it on Dave since the start. Initially a stage show for the Edinburgh Festival, Alex Horne pitched this to Channel 4 who turned it down at the time. Nine seasons later, and C4 have had to shell out a pretty penny to prise it from Daves airwaves.

The new season on Channel 4 is as good as any others already, and it's only two episodes in. Johnny Vegas sat in an Umpires chair shouting "I am not a crook" at the top of his voice whilst his teammates look for treasure had me in stitches last night!

If it's not crossed your radar before, all the old series are available on catch-up, and another eight episodes of this season to go.

 

[kiwiqpr]

Any Taskmaster fans out there? I've been watching it on Dave since the start. Initially a stage show for the Edinburgh Festival, Alex Horne pitched this to Channel 4 who turned it down at the time. Nine seasons later, and C4 have had to shell out a pretty penny to prise it from Daves airwaves.

The new season on Channel 4 is as good as any others already, and it's only two episodes in. Johnny Vegas sat in an Umpires chair shouting "I am not a crook" at the top of his voice whilst his teammates look for treasure had me in stitches last night!

If it's not crossed your radar before, all the old series are available on catch-up, and another eight episodes of this season to go.

taskmaster nz started this week

 

[sb_73]

Any Taskmaster fans out there? I've been watching it on Dave since the start. Initially a stage show for the Edinburgh Festival, Alex Horne pitched this to Channel 4 who turned it down at the time. Nine seasons later, and C4 have had to shell out a pretty penny to prise it from Daves airwaves.

The new season on Channel 4 is as good as any others already, and it's only two episodes in. Johnny Vegas sat in an Umpires chair shouting "I am not a crook" at the top of his voice whilst his teammates look for treasure had me in stitches last night!

If it's not crossed your radar before, all the old series are available on catch-up, and another eight episodes of this season to go.

I like the series with Bob Mortimer in.

 

[Steelmonkey]

I like the series with Bob Mortimer in.

You'd like Bob Mortimer sat in a room watching paint dry I'd bet

 

[Stroller]

Roadkill on BBC1 with Hugh Lawrie. A political drama that might have been interesting, but made unwatchable by someone playing a ****ing piano all the way through it.

 

[Steelmonkey]

New Netflix favourite The Haunting of Bly Manor. The wife loves gothic horror, so we binge watched this - 8 hours of my life that I won't be getting back. I've no idea who writes the reviews or gives the ratings on this show, but how the **** it gets over 5/10, let alone 7.5/10 mystifies me. The story bimbles along, sporadically drip feeding hints as to what is going on, and we kept on watching waiting for the pay-off.....which never really happened. It wasn't even scary, and was quite predictable.

Don't even get me started on the accents and the hammy acting.

Total pish - please don't waste any of your precious time watching this crock of ****.

 

[sb_73]

Roadkill on BBC1 with Hugh Lawrie. A political drama that might have been interesting, but made unwatchable by someone playing a ****ing piano all the way through it.

David Hare and his ‘political’ playwriting, vastly overrated in my opinion. I didn’t bother watching, and the reviews seem to support this approach.

 

[QPR999]

I've watched two and a half episodes ( there are seven ) of 'The Queen's Gambit' on Netflix. It's different and very watchable even if you've never played chess. Everything about it from the storyline, to the acting and the cinematography, is so far enthralling.

 

[Steelmonkey]

I've watched two and a half episodes ( there are seven ) of 'The Queen's Gambit' on Netflix. It's different and very watchable even if you've never played chess. Everything about it from the storyline, to the acting and the cinematography, is so far enthralling.

Just read a review as we're looking for something to watch. Wasn't immediately sold on the idea of a chess player, but it's got good reviews so may give it a go!

 

[Stroller]

Jessie Buckley on Graham Norton

 

[QPR999]

Just read a review as we're looking for something to watch. Wasn't immediately sold on the idea of a chess player, but it's got good reviews so may give it a go!

It has an IMDB rating of 8.9, which is very good. I've played and studied Chess but not in the past ten years probably. ( I might try and get back into it now. ) I wasn't struck on the idea of watching it, but a fellow dog walker was telling me about it and he said he couldn't wait to get home to watch the final episode. He was also telling me about a show called 'The Trial of the Chicago Seven' which he rated highly. Then I saw this Tweet from Stephen King ...

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[sb_73]

Nice history of the Jam just finished on Sky Arts, with contributions from all the main players. Weller has written some great songs, some of which were very important to me when I was young. However, I don’t find him a very likeable bloke. Lots of references to his own work along the lines of ‘ that’s a great lyric’. Well not from where I sit, some very resonant stuff but precisely because it was sixth form poetry written at a particular time in a particular place, ie when I was young and impressionable. I’m sure I had all of their LPs and must have seen them 3 or 4 times but even at the time ‘That’s Entertainment’ made me cringe.

 

[kiwiqpr]

Paul weller
Can't stand the bloke
Then again I don't think he's said anything nice about me either

 

[sb_73]

Roadkill on BBC1 with Hugh Lawrie. A political drama that might have been interesting, but made unwatchable by someone playing a ****ing piano all the way through it.

Well, I’ve just seen 10 minutes of this. Confirmed my existing opinion of David Hare. The dialogue is completely unrealistic. People just don’t talk like this. I know it’s entertainment and we don’t need to have all the ums and errs, the false starts and the dead ends of natural speech, but this is crap, no one ever hesitates, they respond without a seconds thought, and they talk in slogans.

Utter bollocks and a waste of some decent actors, obviously lured into this by the writers name.

‘we are all stuck in this broken down lift called Peter Lawrence’ is not a sentence anyone would utter in a family argument. Apparently Hare has never written about Tories before because he’s never bothered to think about conservative values, and only thinks it’s worthwhile now, because they have been in power for so long. I wish he hadn’t bothered. It would have been much more interesting if a conservative writer took on this task. Perhaps we wouldn’t have the politics by numbers lecturing, the Basil Exposition explanations of the tension between arms sales and public opinion etc etc.

And the piano is **** too.

 

[Steelmonkey]

Haven't bothered with Roadkill, and it sounds like I've not missed anything. I've been watching The Bridge on Channel 4 - not the Swedish/Danish drama but a reality show where contestants have to build 850ft of bridge to reach an island with £100K on it in just 20 days. Obviously there's a few tricks and traps on their journey, and it's intriguing to see how ****ish some people can be when under pressure with the lure of a pile of cash. Last episode tomorrow - but they've got a load of work to do to get to the end-goal, especially after the latest twist!

 

[sb_73]

Jim Naughtie has been unpacked from his box and sent to the US, with about a dozen other BBC reporters, to give his pompous editorial speeches about the state of the US, as if he was some kind of expert, while walking along the Mall in Washington, a fact he had to tell us because he was on radio. He could have given the same speech from his hutch in Dundee, or wherever he lives.

The BBC really has lost the plot in its news coverage. No one wants a new version of Alastair Cooke’s Letter from America, certainly not as part of a hard news programme. Especially with a bloke who is not up to it, and is clearly in love with the sound of his own voice (as was Cooke). During the US election coverage I heard a bloke following up an analysis of the voting in Arizona, which put Biden ahead, with ‘so, that’s good news’. So much for neutrality. For Black History month, some very personal opinion pieces, which would have been great and interesting as stand alone programmes, were crowbarred into news programmes. The line between reporting and editorial has become hopelessly blurred.

All the news channels are pretty ****, but the ITN news at Ten is the least worst in my recent experience. Though I’m so bored with the virus coverage I don’t watch or listen much nowadays.

Just when we need objective, clear, trustworthy information , no one is prepared to give it to us. I have no problem with the concept of the BBC as a publicly funded service, but it’s not doing itself any favours at the moment and it’s hard to fight for a concept while the reality is so weak.

 

[Stroller]

Jim Naughtie has been unpacked from his box and sent to the US, with about a dozen other BBC reporters, to give his pompous editorial speeches about the state of the US, as if he was some kind of expert, while walking along the Mall in Washington, a fact he had to tell us because he was on radio. He could have given the same speech from his hutch in Dundee, or wherever he lives.

The BBC really has lost the plot in its news coverage. No one wants a new version of Alastair Cooke’s Letter from America, certainly not as part of a hard news programme. Especially with a bloke who is not up to it, and is clearly in love with the sound of his own voice (as was Cooke). During the US election coverage I heard a bloke following up an analysis of the voting in Arizona, which put Biden ahead, with ‘so, that’s good news’. So much for neutrality. For Black History month, some very personal opinion pieces, which would have been great and interesting as stand alone programmes, were crowbarred into news programmes. The line between reporting and editorial has become hopelessly blurred.

All the news channels are pretty ****, but the ITN news at Ten is the least worst in my recent experience. Though I’m so bored with the virus coverage I don’t watch or listen much nowadays.

Just when we need objective, clear, trustworthy information , no one is prepared to give it to us. I have no problem with the concept of the BBC as a publicly funded service, but it’s not doing itself any favours at the moment and it’s hard to fight for a concept while the reality is so weak.

I stopped watching news programmes early on in the pandemic due to the blatant inclusion of 'human interest' propaganda stories aimed at scaring us all into compliance with the lock-down restrictions. Similarly, I watched hardly any of the daily briefings, preferring to get information on here or from my own 'research'.

 

[Stroller]

Just watched 1917, the Sam Mendes first world war film. A pretty basic plot and not very much dialogue - and what there is is often oddly stilted - but the cinematography is superb and the film is totally absorbing from start to finish and ultimately very moving.

We'll all be on our front doorstep tomorrow morning at 11.