Shark Sandwich

A-dam good DVD..., 27 Jun 2011

I really don't know how I missed Adam and Joe first time around - but I'm very glad I stumbled across their brilliant BBC 6 radio show and podcasts a month or two back. This DVD was the logical next step, and it's equally fantastic. Spilling over with gallons of creative juicings, it's a gloriously silly concoction, brewed with the pair's obvious intelligence and spiked with gentle (sometimes not so gentle...) barbs of pop culture critique. Oh, and it's very VERY funny. At the current low price, it's a no-brainer.

Hmmmm..., 19 Dec 2010

I can't be too rough on this book, as it was a posthumous release (the author might have polished it further had it not been for his untimely death) - but I have to say, given the Harry Thompson's fantastic pedigree, I was a little disappointed. The book is rendered largely charmless by the extensive name-dropping, and, at times, by a barely-disguised sense of unforgiven rancour between the author and various other players in the Captain Scott XI; rather than sympathetic characters, most of the team come across as braying moneyed twerps with way too much holiday time.

I was surprised by the fawning critical reception. OK, it's not terrible, but I certainly wouldn't go as far as… Read more

Have No Fear!, 12 Aug 2010

TFF were an excellent band. Some might find them slightly grandiose in an '80s stadium way (in the same way that Simple Minds and U2 were) - but when it works (and that's most of the time), the large sound mixed with heavy philosophy-influenced themes and a liberal dose of Roland Orzabal's middle-class lyrical angst works fantastically well. Everyone knows about "Shout", "Rule the World", "Seeds of Love" etc, but special mention needs to be made for "Laid So Low (Tears Roll Down)", which was written for this compilation - it's a really brilliant track.

The main reason I'm writing this is to point out to the berk who wrote the official Amazon review that "Saturnine, Martial and… Read more