Museum of London Docklands appeals for missing pieces whose influential creators have been overlooked
Wanted: David Bowie’s dress, Greta Garbo’s hats and the shirts worn by Sean Connery in his first role as James Bond.
They are iconic items of 20th-century clothing – but their whereabouts is unknown. Now the Museum of London Docklands has made a public appeal for help locating these and other garments before a big exhibition scheduled for later this year.
Continue reading...As Cop26 opens in Glasgow, we provide the soundtrack, ranging from Gojira’s metal fury to gorgeous environmental paeans by Childish Gambino, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell
From its cover shot of a submerged bedroom down, 2019’s Titanic Rising feels like an album informed by the climate crisis, but the lyrics seldom address it explicitly. Something to Believe is the perfect example: a plea not to feel overwhelmed by or nihilistic about the challenges faced, beautifully steeped in the lush sound of early 70s Los Angeles.
Continue reading...Performer pulls Royal Albert Hall gig over decision he compared to musical segregation
Violinist Nigel Kennedy has pulled out of a concert at the Royal Albert Hall with only days to go after accusing the radio station Classic FM of preventing him from performing a Jimi Hendrix tribute.
Kennedy said the “culturally prejudiced” decision amounted to “musical segregation”, with the station he now calls “Jurassic FM” preferring him to play Vivaldi’s Four Seasons in Wednesday’s show.
Continue reading...In awe of everything from his raunchiness to his skill with sheer volume, members of Pixies, Yes, Parliament-Funkadelic, Thin Lizzy and more celebrate the guitar god, who died 50 years ago today
I first met Jimi – he was called Jimmy James then – at the California Club in Los Angeles. He was down on his luck at the time. His wardrobe was shabby and he reeked of Right Guard deodorant, which he used in copious amounts because he couldn’t afford to have his clothing properly dry cleaned. The heels on his shoes were so worn down he appeared to walk bowlegged. When Jimi sat in with us, he was a mediocre guitar player, at best, who was constantly out of tune.
Continue reading...It was a blueprint for Live Aid and every mega-festival since. We survey a new archive box set – in full – to uncover the real story of these ‘three days of peace and music’
A few weeks back, my Twitter feed was suddenly clogged with misty-eyed reminiscences of Live Aid. It is now generally regarded as a white saviour festival of mostly dreadful music. Still, there’s much nostalgic love for Tony Hadley’s leather trench coat, and Queen’s alarming “no time for losers” philosophy. I lived through it; I remembered how a bunch of craven, ageing rock stars fell over themselves to reboot their careers. OK, I was 21, and cynical, but I was there for it, watching it all unfold on TV. I understand it.Woodstock – which celebrates its 50th anniversary this weekend – was a primitive blueprint for Live Aid, and every mega-festival since. Its cultural weight has risen and fallen over the decades – depending on who you talk to, it was either the pinnacle of 1960s counterculture or the rain-sodden end of a dream. I was four years old. The soundtrack album would be in friends’ houses in the 70s, and the movie seemed to be on TV every year, so I’m part of a generation that thinks it knows Woodstock without having been there. But the movie is incomplete and out of sequence – some of the story is as fictionalised as Bohemian Rhapsody.
Out this month is a 50th anniversary archive box set – all 38 CDs of it – which presents the festival in something approximating real time. Folk-blues singer Richie Havens, who opened the event while almost every other act was stuck in traffic, would later claim he “played for nearly three hours … I sang every song I knew!” We now know he only played for 45 minutes. This is an audio vérité documentary, right down to the on-stage announcements: “Eric Klinnenberg, please call home … Dennis Dache, please call your wife … Karen from Poughkeepsie, please meet Harold at the stand with the blood pills …” I listened to all 38 discs in sequence, over three days.
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