A lovely morning here in London, as the newly expanded version of “Kind Of Blue” makes for a perfect start to the day. I imagine you may have seen this by now, but if not, please check out Ben Kingsley doing Minor Threat. That’s Ben Kingsley doing Minor Threat, and watching it doesn’t make the concept any more assimilable.
A slight bias towards reissues this week, as we've been digging deep into a ten-CD box set of Philip Glass' greatest hits and, since they turned up yesterday, neat new reissues of the first six Creedence Clearwater Revival albums.
Just back from the Mercury Prize shortlist announcement which, as you might imagine, was a hotbed of hype and low-level grumbling about the 12 nominations. I was doing some media-slag punditry, a lot of which revolved around the high-profile absentees: Coldplay, Duffy, The Ting Tings, Kate Nash and the one which actually annoyed me, Portishead. But before I start ranting, here’s the shortlist if you haven’t seen it yet:
We're changing venues tonight – instead of the Pressure Point Uncut have moved to the beautiful Spiegeltent, kind of a cross between a circus tent and a mirrored boudoir. Aside from the creaking wooden floors, it's perfect.
Some interesting correspondence on the blog over the past week or so, not least on the subject of Brian Eno, after I posed a mildly provocative question about his recent work here.