Very nice Club Uncut last night, headlined by Kurt Wagner. Allan will be blogging about Wagner’s lovely set later, I think, though I have to mention that: a) the “OH (Ohio)” songs that made up virtually the entire set stood up great to solo treatment; b) his guitar playing, all languid southern soul licks, seems much improved than I can recall from long-ago solo shows; and c) in the event that modesty prevents Allan from reporting this, he gave thanks and provoked applause for our editor. So he can come back.
Washed up fighters make great movie characters. Think of Robert De Niro as Jake La Motta in Raging Bull, Marlon Brando’s “I coulda been a contender” speech in On the Waterfront, Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby and Stacy Keach, pissing blood in John Huston’s underrated Fat City. Add to their ranks Randy “The Ram” Robinson, played here by Mickey Rourke in the role that's justifiably attracting much talk of an Oscar.
To Leicester Square this morning, and the launch of this year’s London Film Festival. There’s always something of a guessing game, prior to the announcement of the line-up, about what’ll be showing. This year, for instance, I’d been hoping we might get John Hillcoat’s adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, Mickey Rourke’s apparently astonishing comeback in The Wrestler and Sam Mendes’ film of Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates' novel I recently read and thought was incredible.
No such luck as at least two of them aren't finished yet, but still – the line-up is pretty strong. There’s an artful of choice of marquee name movies mixed with some excellent left-field selections, a fantastic looking documentary about one of the great 60s folk singers and a film which, despite having the most unwieldy name in film history, will be one of the biggest hits of the year.
I can’t off the top of my head think of another instance where you’ll find a former US President queuing up alongside the head of the Hell’s Angels to dispense hosannas on one man. But that, perhaps, says much about Hunter S Thompson’s influence on American culture – particularly during the late Sixties and early Seventies when, as Alex Gibney’s brilliant documentary rightly identifies, Thompson was, unbelievably, one of the most influential men in the country.
As is always the way, I suppose, I finish one compilation of newish psych acts, then a load more records start turning up. For a good 30 minutes now, my new favourite band has been some shady punks from Long Beach who allegedly travel in “a vegetable oil-powered school bus”, and have a percussionist called, well, Sexual Chocolate.
