Credit: Jason Hawkes Photography

Wednesday 20 January 2010

Some Musical Cherries

A little aural selection of what I have been filling my ears with this week...

MJ A Rocker - The Drastics - Reggae re-workings of some Michael Jackson classics

The Swelly Express - Chiddy Bang - If you're mourning the lack of good new hip-hop then look no further than this duo from Philadelphia whose samples range from Sufjan Stevens to Radiohead.

Eels - End Times - The new album from Mark Oliver Everett, he of Unabomber-lookalike fame.

Colouring of Pigeons - The Knife - The Swedish brother and sister duo are going to be shortly releasing their opera based on Charles Darwin's 'On the Origin Of Species'. Sounds Fascinating and you can download a sneekpeek of this from their website.

Master of Puppets

A small theatre section this week after previous elaborations.

A recommendation from one of our wizened stage correspondents is Three Sisters, which is currently showing at the Lyric theatre, Hammersmith. Based on Anton Chekhov's creation and involving the highly respected Filter theatre group, according to my friends of spies, it's definitely worth the trip.

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Last, but by no means least, as one is oft fond of saying, it is brought back to one of my other loves. The canal boat.

This is not just any ordinary canal boat though. This is the Puppet Barge! Yes! The barge moves around the canals in London and rocks up to present their marionette theatre every weekend.

The current show is called Joey's Fireworks and features Punch and Judy, Burglar Bill and a string of dancing sausages, apparently. Let's go!

Tickets are £10 or £8.50 for concessions.

I'm A Ramblin' Man...

For some reason, for which I am yet to fully comprehend, the oft forgotten and maligned walking tour sprang to my mind this week and I thought to include some in this weeks cultural digest.

They cover our beloved East London and will enlighten and entertain whilst bringing to life the rich history and culture of this part of the world. All for a little monetary donation and the use of ones pins.

Run by the Museum of London as part of this years EAST festival you can find out what the East End used to be like before Cantaloupe and Cargo...

London Mime Festival

Try not to shout about it but London's oft amazing Mime Festival is already underway and I thought I'd list a couple of evenings that look likely to continue in this vein of amazingness.

Combining two aspects that have become two of the unlikeliest zeitgeist things around into one incredible performace, Circus Klezmer present their colourful and frenetic show at The Queen Elizabeth Hall on the 23rd and 24th January.

Tickets are £12-£18.

The other host venue for the Mime Festival is The Barbican and the stand-out performer there would appear to be Jeanne Mordoj as the bearded lady in Eloge du Poil.

Frankly, this looks really exciting so anyone who similarly gets excited by circustry, beards and Frenchness, let me know and I'll get on it.

Gig Pig

Anyone who might have made my acquaintance will surely be aware of my propensity for musical geekdom. Spouting on and on about German electronica, record shops on boats and how I once got a stack of about 20 records for £1 from a hackney jumble sale.

Now as interested as you all must be in all that, I hope that I'm directing my enthusiasm for melodic sounds towards more universally beneficial purposes here, both with this gig section and with my musical recommendations section. So here are a few tasty assortments from the pick-and-mix of gigworld in London...

A bit of East Asia comes to Dalston as FEN (Far East Network) take up a 2 day residency at the Cafe OTO 4th February

Gabrieli Consort and Players - A Venetian Coronation at Christ Church Spitalfields
18th March

Wild Beasts at Koko Camden 22nd March

Trojan Soundsystem feat. DJ Vadim and The Dub Pistols at Koko Camden 4th April

Mos Def at Koko Camden 15th April

Efterklang at The Shepherds Bush Empire 21st April

Pavement at The Brixton Academy 10th - 13th May

Bonobo at The Roundhouse 29th May

The London Philharmonic Orchestra plays Philip Glass and Ravi Shankhar at The Royal Festival Hall 1st July

Phew. That, along with the previous elaborations of muscial concerts, should be enough to keep me going for a little while.

My name is Adam. And I am a melomane...

Version 1.1

So, after a little bit of feedback from you all, a little change to the format of this beast. I'm going to start categorising things a bit better and so if you want a specific cultural area, you can click on the links on the left to see all the posts under that topic.

I hope that makes things clearer for you all. Simpletons... ;)