It’s a strange thing that, as Mark Lanegan becomes more ubiquitous, his own material seems to be scarcer and scarcer. Since Lanegan’s last solo album, the fine “Bubblegum”, came out in 2004, his voice has been everywhere, but his substance has been hard to track down.
Now that Masterchef is over – oh, well done James, but rats, I still think it should have been Emily – normal service has been resumed on the blog. I’ve taken the opportunity to catch up on some DVDs, as well as finally getting round to seeing a fantastic Spanish horror film, The Orphanage.
I was too busy last night to watch the Brits - well, OK, I was hooked on Masterchef and Grand Designs - and this excellent blog articulates perfectly the reasons why I can't bring myself to tune in, year after year. As one of the elite thousand or so who voted, however, I was pleased to see one of my ballot-spoiling choices, The Arctic Monkeys, win a couple of things.
I found myself in the centre of a mild media hurricane yesterday, thanks to the musical map of Britain published in this month's Uncut becoming something of a hot topic. If you heard me trying to explain the principle of beats per minute on a local radio station, or trying to convince all of Scotland that they only listened to Runrig, I can only apologise.