2010 has been quite the year for music. Everything Everything emerged from nowhere to knock out an album which more accomplished bands would struggle to match. Badly Drawn Boy returned, and produced his best work in a decade. Supergrass departed stage left, but left behind the unadulterated joy of The Hotrats. And, after a silence […]
Category: James Poole
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I’m conflicted here
I’m conflicted. Much has been written over the past few days about the ‘collaboration’ (read: ‘remix project’) between Jamie out of The xx and Gil Scott-Heron. On paper this sounds magnificent. Gil Scott-Heron’s first album in 16 years – the frankly staggering ‘I’m New Here’ – being re-worked by someone with their finger right on […]
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Paul is your man
It’s been about a week since I wrote my last post. During this time, The Beatles took over the charts thanks to their music now being available on iTunes. Great. About time. It doesn’t make a spot of difference to me personally, as I don’t really need to buy their stuff again. Twice is enough. […]
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This just makes me smile
Damn that Gilles Peterson. He’s always not one, but about four hundred steps ahead. And so, when he posted a link to YouTube, with the simple line ‘check this’, I felt it only right. And, sweet baby Jesus, I am glad I did. Have you ever heard of the Soul Rebels Brass Band? If you […]
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the council movement
I’ve argued that Weller’s creative peak was with The Style Council. It was a period characterised by an explosion in the influences in his music. Mick Talbot was clearly a huge factor in this evolution. He’s rarely celebrated. He should be. This is a mix which I did for the King Truman project – ‘a […]
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Aloe Blacc: real soul
Finding good gigs in New York is like shooting fish in a barrel. Even so, this year I must have had a machine gun. Paul Weller at the Apollo. Gil Scott-Heron at the Blue Note. The Specials at Terminal 5. Spiritualized at Radio City. Everything Everything at Arlene’s Grocery. Beth Orton in Rockefeller Park. The […]
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Mick’s Up
So that’s settled then. Weller’s creative peak was with The Style Council. My last post seemed to strike a chord. I figured that there was only one direction that my next post could take. The Style Council was not all about Weller. It was also Mick Talbot’s show. Master of the Hammond organ, a proponent […]
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A creative peak?
“Paul Weller was at his most interesting and rewarding with the Style Council, wasn’t he?” So wrote a friend of mine on his facebook wall a few weeks back. It’s a statement which would probably have many a Weller fan up in arms; demanding that the entire period that Weller spent flanked by Mick Talbot, […]
I was raised in a house filled with Motown. Rarely was there a Saturday morning where the sounds of Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross and Smoky Robinson were not ringing out. The ‘Motown Chartbusters’ albums became some of the first LPs that I was truly familiar with. Right down to the detail of their […]
Our intention with the movements is to share an authentic taste for freethinking nyc. This is the music we play, mixed live, with no edits applied after the fact. The first couple of mixes showed that this is really about good music. It’s eclectic. It’s not governed by ‘what’s cool’, or what genre ‘works’. It’s […]
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Prince: Never Not Good
I like ‘Graffiti Bridge’. Not the entire album, as that would make me a freak, but there are flashes of brilliance. Flashes. I’d even say the same for ‘Emancipation’. And ‘Come’. ‘Graffiti Bridge’ isn’t all bad. The fact that all of those flashes are confined to one record (‘Thieves In The Temple’) is forgivable. Because […]
Let me tie a few threads together. I’ve written about covers before – if you didn’t check out John Martyn’s version of ‘Glory Box’, then you’ve missed out. I’ve also written about a tune which has appeared at many, many freethinking nyc nights: ‘Shaft In Africa’ by Johnny Pate. Finally, a recent post extolled the […]