A slightly tenuous connection, but it’s odd to think that, when the record I blogged about yesterday, “Brighten The Corners”, first came out, Damon Albarn was at the height of his Pavement phase. I remember going to see Pavement in Oxford on that tour (“Westie Can Drum”, “The Killing Moon”. . .) and Albarn was there with Justine Frischmann, looking conspicuously inconspicuous in a baseball cap pulled down low.
When promos of the latest deluxe Pavement reissue – “Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence Ed”, no less – turned up last week, it struck me that perhaps, in 12 months’ time, we might just be talking about a Pavement comeback being one of the key reunions of 2009.
In 2005’s Brick, Rian Johnson played a cute twist on the high school movie genre, importing the tropes of film noir for a murder thriller set in the halls of academe. The Brothers Bloom, last night’s premier at the London Film Festival, is a similarly knowing piece of work. On face value, it’s a movie about two con men brothers, played by Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody; but, more than that, it’s also a movie about the act of fiction itself.
Burt Bacharach was joined onstage by guest vocalists Adele, Beth Rowley and Jamie Cullum at the opening night of the BBC Electric Proms in London last night (October 22).
80 per cent lame, idiotic or just pretentious music! That’s us, and a heartwarmingly lively response to yesterday’s blog on the Animal Collective’s new album, which I’m now starting to think is their best album. Someone on the blog wondered when this excellent band would make their definitive album: I think, with “Merriweather Post Pavilion”, they just have.
