Post by Kate BPost by Rosie MitchellPost by Nick OdellAnd just to swerve off-topic: that was a cracking edition of Add to
Playlist which followed TA. I'd heartily recommend it.
I love Add To Playlist. It's one of the diminishing number of radio
proggies I look forward to hearing at the broadcast time instead of
being content to catch up on BBC Sounds (I now switch off In Our Time
when it comes on because I prefer the extended podcast.
What I felt hesitant about saying before about ATP for fear of the scorn
of musicalrats is that I enjoy the way it talks about aspects the music
in a way that I can understand but without being condescending, and
without a trace of musical snobbery (except there was just a tad of that
last night from one of the guests that raised mu hackles a little). It's
like the spirit of Late Junction on R3 as it was in the beginning before
the R3PTB ran it down – anything can happen and often does.
I do agree this week's episode was cracking but I thought last week's
was an absolute belter, including as it did that extraordinary genovese
sailors' song, Ella Fitzgerald going into orbit, followed by some
Trinidadian Soca that provided the earworm for the whole week to come
(there's a live video of Colin Lucas performing Dollar Wine on YouTube
and it's worth a look for the sheer joi de vivre). Linking Dollar Wine
to Wagner's Rhinemaidens this week was a piece of genius on Cerys's
part.
One of my very favourite programmes too. I agree with you entirely
about the link from Dollar Wine to the Rheinmaidens. They do this sort
of thing all the time, it's so clever. I particularly appreciate that
they cover about a thousand years of music from all round the world,
explaining the musical structure of pieces as well as technicalities
of instruments and techniques. What makes it brilliant for me is that
they illuminate the harmonic complexity of a rock classic in exactly
the same way as they dissect a bit of Bach or Ravel, and they let
their guests talk to each other as musicians without requiring them to
dumb anything down - Cerys is always there with a succinct gloss when
necessary.
Cerys has done really well since being in a bad place 20-odd years ago
from a surfeit of fags and booze and rock'n'roll. We have to have the
next two series without her, I wonder how that will go.
Today I spent listening through the whole first series and compiling the
selected tracks into a rather spiffy 40-track Spotify playlist,
beginning with a rap take on a country song (that I didn't know) and
ending, well, not quite ending with a blues-rock take on a country song,
Riders on the Storm, which I know and love. With a wee coda leading into
the following week's new series, Screenshots, which attempted to do the
same sort of thing with film, a subject I do know quite a bit about in
depth. (I heard somebody recently, I can't remember who, saying that
film and quantum mechanics emerged at about the same time in the late
19th century and it shows, film being /the/ quintessentially non-linear
art-form).
Anyway, I thought Screenshot was a stinker. Not least because I can't
stand Mark Kermode. I know he's not closely related to Frank Kermode the
distinguished literary critic, but he's never minded letting the world
think he was. He's also, to my mind, a right plonker. I had the vague
idea that the BBC thought so too and that Screenshot had sunk without
trace but apparently not, on inspection it seems to have had more
episodes than ATP¹. Maybe it went to podcast only, which seems to be the
fate of most of the interesting stuff these days. Or maybe I just wasn't
paying attention in the years when I wasn't really listening to TA, or
even R4 much.
Rosie
¹ Apropos of nothing, ATP used to stand for the BAE Advanced Turbo-Prop
aircraft, which used to operate the Aberdeen -> Sumburgh service back
when I went that way with a friend for Up Helly Aa 32 (gosh!) years
ago, and known to Shetlanders as Another Technical Problem. Which by
some devious sleight of mind is what I have taken to calling Add To
Playlist.