I’ve probably watched more television drama this year than in the past decade or more. But then again, I’ve been spoilt by what’s been on. First there was The Killing, the best thing, apart from folk music, to come out of Denmark, with some superb acting and writing. Then there was the discovery of Nurse Jackie. Billed as comedy, perhaps, but so much more. Then Spiral, the very tough French crime drama.
And now my new love is Treme. Set in post-Katrina New Orleans, it’s a beautifully crafted, very human show. And, of course, there’s plenty of that irresistible New Orleans music and cooking to spice it all up. Thanks to Lovefilm I’m catching up with season one, and enjoying every second. As a drama it does several unconventional things. The focus is on people rather than plot, a very refreshing change. And it’s people who are generally out on the margins rather than those with power. It’s also very rare inasmuch as most of the main characters are black and presented in a very three-dimensional way, not cheaply stereotyped.
The show’s evidently been panned (at least in the first season) for its lack of plot, but that’s part of its power. For most people there’s no straight line plot to life, and that makes it far more true to life. We’re usually made up of small incidents, and in this case, the big one, the hurricane, is always there as the backdrop, affecting the lives of everyone.
It also stands out as a superbly political show, sometimes explicitly, as in John Goodman’s character, and more often implicitly, as in the actions of the police, or the reportage of prison inmates left on the bridge without water, or finding another body. The show brings an awareness of the way the rich and the politicians have been trying to sell out the poor of New Orleans, sometimes quite literally, and the way the Bush administration failed so abysmally in its duties (no real surprise there). It’s a beautiful, unique city, unlike anywhere else in America. To see it portrayed with such honesty, as well as with such compassion, is a joy. It’s also some of the very best television around, and that’s something we need.
Monday, 20 June 2011
Tuesday, 7 June 2011
Duo Jonsson Coudroy
Duo Jonsson Coudroy
Vind
Bemol Productions BEMO 045
Take a Swedish fiddler and a French melodeon player and you not only have an interesting combination of musical cultures, but a pair of very talented players and composers. There are some traditional pieces here, such as “Gavotte,” and they’re performed with real delicacy and imagination. But the true joy lies in the originals, which exhibit such wonderful sympathy and communication between the pair that it’s almost mystical. Far from seeming empty, they fill each others spaces and do some very interesting things with the music, as on the closer “Sjön,” which uses chordal drones in a highly unusual fashion to create a remarkable atmosphere. That, however, just typifies the approach of this pair, who impress by their willingness not only to play beautifully but also think outside the box. This is a disc that rewards frequent listenings and bodes well for the future.
Vind
Bemol Productions BEMO 045
Take a Swedish fiddler and a French melodeon player and you not only have an interesting combination of musical cultures, but a pair of very talented players and composers. There are some traditional pieces here, such as “Gavotte,” and they’re performed with real delicacy and imagination. But the true joy lies in the originals, which exhibit such wonderful sympathy and communication between the pair that it’s almost mystical. Far from seeming empty, they fill each others spaces and do some very interesting things with the music, as on the closer “Sjön,” which uses chordal drones in a highly unusual fashion to create a remarkable atmosphere. That, however, just typifies the approach of this pair, who impress by their willingness not only to play beautifully but also think outside the box. This is a disc that rewards frequent listenings and bodes well for the future.
Monday, 6 June 2011
Mama Rosin with Hipbone Slim and the Kneetremblers
Mama Rosin with Hipbone Slim & the Kneetremblers
Louisiana Sun
In an ideal world people would hear this on an AM radio or through tinny speakers where there’s hardly any bass. It’s a real throwback to the raw 1950s days of rockabilly, swamp pop and outrageous Cajun music. Mix together a Swiss Cajun-punk band and some London rockabillies, don’t give them long to think about anything, and this is the result. It’s a glorious, fevered workout that time travels through the Southern states of America. There’s some early rock’n’roll – The Cat Never Sleeps and Paint The Town Red – plenty of swamp pop and Zydeco (even a rocked-out two-step), and even one track that could have come straight from the pen of Fats Domino. Add to that the title cut, which is a wild variant on California Sun (in French, naturellement) and you have one of the subversive delights of the year. When people talk about roots rock, this is what they really mean, as it doesn’t get any closer to the roots than this. You’ll need a cold beer or two just to listen to it.
Louisiana Sun
In an ideal world people would hear this on an AM radio or through tinny speakers where there’s hardly any bass. It’s a real throwback to the raw 1950s days of rockabilly, swamp pop and outrageous Cajun music. Mix together a Swiss Cajun-punk band and some London rockabillies, don’t give them long to think about anything, and this is the result. It’s a glorious, fevered workout that time travels through the Southern states of America. There’s some early rock’n’roll – The Cat Never Sleeps and Paint The Town Red – plenty of swamp pop and Zydeco (even a rocked-out two-step), and even one track that could have come straight from the pen of Fats Domino. Add to that the title cut, which is a wild variant on California Sun (in French, naturellement) and you have one of the subversive delights of the year. When people talk about roots rock, this is what they really mean, as it doesn’t get any closer to the roots than this. You’ll need a cold beer or two just to listen to it.
Saturday, 4 June 2011
On Gary Heffern And His New Music
It’s been my privilege to know Gary Heffern for quite a few years now. We met in Seattle, neither of us natives to the place, but it was where we called home. Gary is a superbly talented singer and songwriter with not only an ear for a good line, but also a way of putting it across, a gift of writing songs that truly resonate, that can catch a deep kernel of truth in a few words.
In the new Millennium Gary moved to Finland, the country of his birth, although I didn’t know that until I watched a very moving documentary about the circumstances of his leaving, and what happened to him in California (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPIAux15da0 and it’s highly recommended viewing). He lives deep in the country there, where temperatures are bitter in winter and the nights can seem almost endless. But the dislocation of geography and culture has been good for him as an artist. His new album, Gary Heffern & Beautiful People, stands as one of his best. It’s very much as band album, as his new associates contribute tracks, and yet it hangs together as a whole, although (for me at least) it’s Gary’s work that stands out particularly. “Hand Of The Devil” is an epic opener, almost gospel (you can see the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jLAhIx7iic ) and true redemption, building and building, simple yet ambitious and a true barn burner. “Religions (They Really Worry Me)” riffs on – well, you can figure that out – over a chord sequence that’s reminiscent of REM’s “Losing My Religion,” although whether that’s deliberate or not is hard to tell. As a song it’s certainly in the same class as its better known sibling.
There are touches of Gary’s punk past on “Here Comes The Government,” while “Everything Is Slowing Down” is a meditation on life in part, and the entropy that can come with living and the depressions that can occur, while “It’s Gonna Be A Cold Cold Winter” finds the chill of the heart and soul as well as the temperature.
Gary’s words are everyday poetry, finding the beauty or the heartbreak in the mundane and shining a spotlight on it. With the Beautiful People he has a band that’s made up of some crack musicians who are very sympathetic to what he’s trying to achieve. Finland has been good for his artistic maturity – the material here reaches an entirely new level to his previous work. And this is just the start. Seattle might be far away for us both, in many senses, but moving on can be worthwhile, too.
In the new Millennium Gary moved to Finland, the country of his birth, although I didn’t know that until I watched a very moving documentary about the circumstances of his leaving, and what happened to him in California (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPIAux15da0 and it’s highly recommended viewing). He lives deep in the country there, where temperatures are bitter in winter and the nights can seem almost endless. But the dislocation of geography and culture has been good for him as an artist. His new album, Gary Heffern & Beautiful People, stands as one of his best. It’s very much as band album, as his new associates contribute tracks, and yet it hangs together as a whole, although (for me at least) it’s Gary’s work that stands out particularly. “Hand Of The Devil” is an epic opener, almost gospel (you can see the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jLAhIx7iic ) and true redemption, building and building, simple yet ambitious and a true barn burner. “Religions (They Really Worry Me)” riffs on – well, you can figure that out – over a chord sequence that’s reminiscent of REM’s “Losing My Religion,” although whether that’s deliberate or not is hard to tell. As a song it’s certainly in the same class as its better known sibling.
There are touches of Gary’s punk past on “Here Comes The Government,” while “Everything Is Slowing Down” is a meditation on life in part, and the entropy that can come with living and the depressions that can occur, while “It’s Gonna Be A Cold Cold Winter” finds the chill of the heart and soul as well as the temperature.
Gary’s words are everyday poetry, finding the beauty or the heartbreak in the mundane and shining a spotlight on it. With the Beautiful People he has a band that’s made up of some crack musicians who are very sympathetic to what he’s trying to achieve. Finland has been good for his artistic maturity – the material here reaches an entirely new level to his previous work. And this is just the start. Seattle might be far away for us both, in many senses, but moving on can be worthwhile, too.
Wednesday, 25 May 2011
A Chronicler Of Lives
Tomorrow sees the publication of my second novel, Cold Cruel Winter, a continuation of the Richard Nottingham series begin in The Broken Token. At the end of last week I received the first copy of it, a lovely hardback with a wonderful cover, enhanced by some delightful quotes pulled from reviews for the back cover.
When I began that first book I had no idea that it would become a series, that Richard Nottingham and John Sedgwick would take on lives of their own. But that’s exactly what’s happened. In my head they’re living, breathing people, and the Leeds of the 1730s is as alive to me as the city centre I sometimes walk around.
At this point I’m midway through book 4 – the third should appear early in 2012. It’s a decidedly odd feeling, popping into someone’s life periodically and describing what’s going on with them. But that, I guess, is just what a series of books hopes to achieve, to transport the reader back into this other world again and again.
I’m proud of Cold Cruel Winter. To me, the writing has improved greatly, it flows more easily, and there’s a good tale to tell. There’s more depth to the characters, as I know them more thoroughly, their voices are louder and more individual. They’ve all grown, as part of the real pleasure as a writer is describing that growth, those changes, how lives have moved on. I’m not the author so much as the chronicler of lives, and I’d have it no other way.
When I began that first book I had no idea that it would become a series, that Richard Nottingham and John Sedgwick would take on lives of their own. But that’s exactly what’s happened. In my head they’re living, breathing people, and the Leeds of the 1730s is as alive to me as the city centre I sometimes walk around.
At this point I’m midway through book 4 – the third should appear early in 2012. It’s a decidedly odd feeling, popping into someone’s life periodically and describing what’s going on with them. But that, I guess, is just what a series of books hopes to achieve, to transport the reader back into this other world again and again.
I’m proud of Cold Cruel Winter. To me, the writing has improved greatly, it flows more easily, and there’s a good tale to tell. There’s more depth to the characters, as I know them more thoroughly, their voices are louder and more individual. They’ve all grown, as part of the real pleasure as a writer is describing that growth, those changes, how lives have moved on. I’m not the author so much as the chronicler of lives, and I’d have it no other way.
Thursday, 12 May 2011
That Library Appearance...
There can be nothing quite so lovely, or so daunting, for an author as to talk to a group about his book. I felt flattered that Chapel Allerton library in Leeds had had all the tickets for my appearance there snapped up, and it was a good crowd sitting there. I talked. They asked questions (after an initial hesitation). Some of them, in the reading group there, had already read The Broken Token. Others hadn’t, so it was a no spoilers situation.
Two members of the library staff remembered my mother, an avid library user until her death, and one even recalled my father. That, perhaps, was the most gratifying thing of all for me, that sense of continuation. Plus the chance to walk around the old neighbourhood (even with blisters on my heels on aching feet from a pair of Doc Marten shoes that didn’t fit as well as they should). Old home week – or afternoon, at least.
As the icing on a delicious cake, a woman arrived bearing a tipstaff or cudgel from the period. It’s a lovely object, dated (apparently) 1719. It might be ceremonial, no one knows. She doesn’t even know how it ended up in her family, but having the chance to hold it gave me a real connection to Richard Nottingham. That was a magical moment for me.
There were great questions that required long answers, even if my voice was giving out towards the end. And, once it was over, they descended on me to buy copies. I’d taken 12 and could have sold more. Always nice, and it more than paid for my train fare and dinner (with a friend and her daughter) beforehand.
The only downside was time spent in the old St. Matthew’s graveyard, now a neglected and overgrown tangle. I know there are some fantastic old graves there, it just seems such a pity when, with a little effort, they could be on show to everyone, and people remembered.
Two members of the library staff remembered my mother, an avid library user until her death, and one even recalled my father. That, perhaps, was the most gratifying thing of all for me, that sense of continuation. Plus the chance to walk around the old neighbourhood (even with blisters on my heels on aching feet from a pair of Doc Marten shoes that didn’t fit as well as they should). Old home week – or afternoon, at least.
As the icing on a delicious cake, a woman arrived bearing a tipstaff or cudgel from the period. It’s a lovely object, dated (apparently) 1719. It might be ceremonial, no one knows. She doesn’t even know how it ended up in her family, but having the chance to hold it gave me a real connection to Richard Nottingham. That was a magical moment for me.
There were great questions that required long answers, even if my voice was giving out towards the end. And, once it was over, they descended on me to buy copies. I’d taken 12 and could have sold more. Always nice, and it more than paid for my train fare and dinner (with a friend and her daughter) beforehand.
The only downside was time spent in the old St. Matthew’s graveyard, now a neglected and overgrown tangle. I know there are some fantastic old graves there, it just seems such a pity when, with a little effort, they could be on show to everyone, and people remembered.
Friday, 6 May 2011
On Libraries...And More
It’s been a little while since I blogged, partly because of hard work and partly because of a much-needed break in sunny Devon (and it was gloriously sunny, too, with the sea right at our door. Well, 30 yards away).
Cold Cruel Winter appears later this month. The first two chapters are up on ScribD, there’s an audio excerpt, my website (www.chrisnickson.co.uk) has been revamped – you can find the links there – and I’m all set.
I’m not doing many events to coincide with the book’s release, but I will be talking to a group in Nottingham that’s read The Broken Token, which should be real fun. The other event, next Wednesday, is in Leeds, and it’s given me pause to reflect on how special these events can be.
It’s at Chapel Allerton library. Until I left home at 18 I never lived further than a mile from that library. I first went there when I was three, it was my treasure house of books. At primary school my class would go there every week. I discovered so many authors there, Henry Treece, Jack Kerouac, probably an endless list. It was my mother’s local library until she died. We might have had very different taste in literature, but she used the library regularly. So, for me, it’s a real return to my roots, and that strikes as me a lovely, beautiful thing.
Under the cuts being proposed by the coalition in government, many future writers might not have the chance to write the words I just wrote. That’s robbing them of a future, and of an education they can’t get anywhere else. That’s not just a sin, it’s a crime, and we all need to do everything we can to prevent it happening. Not just for ourselves – I’m still an avid user of the library – but for the future.
The other part to this comes from an email I received from someone researching family history who came across The Broken Token. She evidently doesn’t have the real Richard Nottingham as an ancestor, but she does have a tipstaff – cudgel, truncheon – from the period that’s been handed down in her family. I has two brass badges, one the emblem of George 1, the other the hanging sheep of Leeds with the date 1719. How it relates to her family she’s not sure, but she’s hoping to attend next week’s event and bring it with her. The thought that I might be handling something that could have been touched by the original Richard Nottingham is aweful, in the very best sense. That’s what you call a connection with your character. If it happens, there will be pictures. There have to be.
Cold Cruel Winter appears later this month. The first two chapters are up on ScribD, there’s an audio excerpt, my website (www.chrisnickson.co.uk) has been revamped – you can find the links there – and I’m all set.
I’m not doing many events to coincide with the book’s release, but I will be talking to a group in Nottingham that’s read The Broken Token, which should be real fun. The other event, next Wednesday, is in Leeds, and it’s given me pause to reflect on how special these events can be.
It’s at Chapel Allerton library. Until I left home at 18 I never lived further than a mile from that library. I first went there when I was three, it was my treasure house of books. At primary school my class would go there every week. I discovered so many authors there, Henry Treece, Jack Kerouac, probably an endless list. It was my mother’s local library until she died. We might have had very different taste in literature, but she used the library regularly. So, for me, it’s a real return to my roots, and that strikes as me a lovely, beautiful thing.
Under the cuts being proposed by the coalition in government, many future writers might not have the chance to write the words I just wrote. That’s robbing them of a future, and of an education they can’t get anywhere else. That’s not just a sin, it’s a crime, and we all need to do everything we can to prevent it happening. Not just for ourselves – I’m still an avid user of the library – but for the future.
The other part to this comes from an email I received from someone researching family history who came across The Broken Token. She evidently doesn’t have the real Richard Nottingham as an ancestor, but she does have a tipstaff – cudgel, truncheon – from the period that’s been handed down in her family. I has two brass badges, one the emblem of George 1, the other the hanging sheep of Leeds with the date 1719. How it relates to her family she’s not sure, but she’s hoping to attend next week’s event and bring it with her. The thought that I might be handling something that could have been touched by the original Richard Nottingham is aweful, in the very best sense. That’s what you call a connection with your character. If it happens, there will be pictures. There have to be.
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