Mr. H's profile

...some great grooves..., 6 Jul 2009

ZOO (always upper case) have been getting some big props for their blend of jazz fusion, although the bandied about description of 'Everythign But The Girl meets Suzanne Vega' was nearly enough to have me run off screaming into the night. Although, to be fair, musch like the lass out of EBTG, the lass out of ZOO canny sing either.

Musically, however, things are much better, although there are probably a few too many nods to Shakatak for me. But when they get a bit more advernturous and head off into a world populated by the likes of Al De Meola, then I'm much, much happier.

Strangely, or maybe not so strangely, the best tracks always seem to be when there is some… Read more

...a slight but entertaining criminal yarn..., 5 Jul 2009

Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Programme (What's this?)

Blimey! I certainly didn't need my glasses to read this teeny toty book. Not with print that big. Some of the pages have got barely a hundred words on them, so I really hope it's on recycled paper. However, as I took it into the countryside one afternoon, it was a perfect length for a couple of hours sitting on the riverbank.

Denis Johnson is new to me but is, apparently, an award winning author of a sprawling Vietnam epic. Well this is nothing like that. Rather it's a contemporary crime story, chock full of extreme violence, torture and guns. It tells the tale of a barbershop singer who is in debt to loan sharks. He ends up shooting the guy whose going to shoot him,… Read more

...the beginning of the end..., 3 Jul 2009

A Night On The Town and Atlantic Crossing were the albums that saw Rod Stewart junk his old buddies in The Faces, bring in a host of top notch session musicians and move fully into the world of adult contemporary music. For a lot of people it was where he lost his mojo, but as he teetered on the edge of becoming a fully fledged cartoon character, there were still some songs worth listening to.

Starting with the lesser of the two, A Night On The Town, from 1976, solidified the success of Atlantic Crossing, but with a stodgier set of songs, and the final smoothing of the rough edges. That smoothing helped create a couple of massive hit singles in the shape of "Tonight's The Night… Read more