Tag Archives: patrick thornton

Selection Box 147

Gah, the desperate will to catch up on my life seems to not be sufficient to actually bridge the gap into the present.  Indeed we’re still dealing with shows from August, rather terrifyingly.

So, as suggested last time we’ll have some quick blah about a featured track and then on with the playlist.

This week I have plumped for a bit of folk in the shape of Men-An-Tol’s Black Waterside which comes from the album Through The Quoit.  I can’t claim to be anything even remotely approaching a Men-An-Tol afficiando, but I certainly know how to snaffle a free record or two when offered, so when lovely Albert Freeman offered up some unknown delights from the Static Caravan label – home of the likes of Tunng – you could bet your bottoms that I did my best to ensure that the aforementioned wares would find a permanent home in my living room.

And they did – taking a brief outing back to BCB for an appearance on Selection Box 147.  Sadly, I cannot find a video online to link to the track, but you can listen to a lovely snippet here or alternatively just listen to the track along with the rest of the show in question…

Courtesy of this lovely Soundcloud player you can listen to this show again for a limited period (probably about the length of time it would take to turn a knee entirely to dust if you rubbed it non-stop with a carpet tile). Sadly due to copyright and such blah the show cannot be made available as a downloadable file. Continue reading →

Selection Box Show 146

If time is a concept then in recent months my grasp and understanding of it appears to have faltered significantly because I don’t seem to be in possession of sufficient to do the things I need / want to do.  This has left me ludicrously behind on updating you on Selection Box playlists.

I don’t like to just pop on and bang up a list, though.  It’s a bit impersonal and I prefer to give you a bit of bread for the aural soup as it were.  But how to do this with the necessity for haste?

Well, thunked I, how’s about a paragraph or two on one of the tracks played on the show as a sort of “featured record  spot?  There’s a question mark there but it was rhetorical, as I’m going to do it anyway. Continue reading →

Leeds Festival Review: Day 2

(Yes, I know, I’m shoving this up on the blog somewhat after the event, but I’m a busy man y’know.  Better late than never…)

Bloody hell, it’s windy.  Either that or someone has got hold of the outside of my tent and is flapping it about like a Killer Whale with a half dead seal.  Maybe it’s them Spam bastards paying me back for nicking their tent pegs.  One thing is certain – the noise it is making has rendered any further sleep impossible without tranquilisers.  I dare say there’s a fair bit of Ketamine washing around the festival site, but personally I’ll give that a miss if it’s all the same to you.

Horse tranquilizers: its a race horse called Horlicks, apparently.

Horse tranquilizers: it's a race horse called Horlicks, apparently.

I am a parent now and hurtling towards middle-age, so 8am is considered an indulgent lie-in anyway, so I get up and go for breakfast – the details of which started the first blog, so we’ll skip over that.  However, before I can go to eat I am refused entry to the festival main area as no one is allowed in until 9am.  Eh, do what?  The festival closes at night?  I thought this was supposed to be a playground of non-stop revelry and no sleep ’til Brooklyn.  Now I find that everyone went to bed before me, tucked up with a cup of Horlicks (other revolting bedtime drinks are available).

It occurs to me that I’ve not really had a proper look around the whole site, so I rectify this.  There’s not a great deal around other than food stands and stalls selling t-shirts with wanky slogans, although I do spot a place which sells ale as opposed to the rather flimsy Tuborg which is the only other beer available onsite.  Sadly, further investigation later in the day reveals the ale to be rather horrid as well. Continue reading →

Cover up / Selection Box Show 144

A different sort of Moon Delight after being Rammed.

A couple of weeks ago my best chum described me as a “Paul McCartney aficionado”, which is certainly not something I would say was true at all.  I do think he used to look like my mum, but I don’t think that counts and my mum probably wouldn’t be chuffed (although if I was told I looked like someone handsome enough to trap off with the young Jane Asher I’d probably be delighted).  I am, however, one of those few people whose answer to the query of favourite Beatle would be answered with positive messages for the unidexter-divorcing vegetarian former mullet-sporter.  Whilst I could never for a moment defend the sheer horror of the likes of Ebony & Ivory, That Fecking Frog Song With Ruperb The Bear In The Videoor even the ineffective hey-let’s-all-be-nice-to-one-another-man anti-war lamery of Pipes of Peace, McCartney seems to be largely overshadowed by the beautiful corpse of his probably-an-awful-twat-in-real-life mate and his over-bearing political conscience.  Yeah, stay in bed for peace, John, that’ll work.  Thanks for that.  You’ve been a massive help. Continue reading →

Ça n’etait pas moi: Selection Box 143

Dont worry, you can still count him on your Famous Belgians list.

Don't worry, you can still count him on your Famous Belgians list.

Last week I accidentally ruined any remaining vestiges of childhood innocence for BCB’s Tez Burke.  A man with a beard as fulsome and manly as Tez’s should probably have left Playmobil and Ker-Plunk behind a long time ago (though Lego is allowed – you can never truly tire or grow out of Lego.  God, I miss Lego.  I’m off to buy some Lego…), but I suppose William Blake would probably argue that our days of innocence are not to be dismissed in our grown up cynicism.  Whilst I agree to an extent, this doesn’t forgive The Songs of Innocence which are, contrary to what your English teacher may have tried to tell you, a load of old shit.  (I give you this, from Laughing Song: “When the meadows laugh with lively green / And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene / When Mary and Susan and Emily / With their sweet round mouths sing “Ha, ha he!”  Sorry, but that’s rubbish.  Did he not think, “Hmmm, needs a bit of work”?) Continue reading →

Putting Up The Bunting: Selection Box 141

Well, thats disturbing. I Googled jelly and this photo of Phil Cope popped up.

Well, that's disturbing. I Googled "jelly" and this photo of Phil Cope popped up.

For someone to forget to bring a load of records needed for a radio show is pretty daft.  To do it not only twice, but two weeks running -with the frustration of the previous occasion fresh in the mind – is the actions of a frankly hopeless prize bellend.  I am that soldier.  Thankfully it was not quite as many as last week, but was still sufficient to throw me off kilter a bit.

I can only assume that my focus has been confined far too much to next week’s 3rd birthday extravaganza, which may rather pathetically turn out to be a ménage à un at this rate seen as prospective guests have decided that they’re terribly busy watching television that evening.  There was a half-hearted “maybe” from Phil Cope, who I attempted to lure with the promise of jelly and ice cream, though he has previous when it comes to forgetting to turn up, and last time he did come on as a guest he blotted his copybook by bringing along a right load of cack to play in the form of Ebony & Ivory.  A solo celebration is beginning to look all the more appealing by the second.  And it means more jelly for me, nom nom nom…

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When Selection Box met Kate Walsh / In BBC Trust We Trust

Some considerable time ago on this blog I promised to post the full interview with Brighton-based songstrel Kate Walsh which appeared on Selection Box 110 back in October.  It seems needless to delve too deeply into the who, why and wherefore of Walsh’s career thus far as I’ve already posted three blogs of fairly lengthy detail on these pages (one already linked to at the start of this post, another  here and the final one – a review of her last long player Light & Dark – can be found here), so probably best to press on without retreading old ground.

Kate Walsh, apparently hiding inside a giant string vest

Kate Walsh, apparently hiding inside a giant string vest

Since October, however, Walsh has been busying herself with further live dates across Europe – most recently opening for 1980s sports headband wearing Dire Straiter Mark Knopfler at the Royal Albert Hall – and recording a series of EPs featuring cover versions of some of her favourite songs.  Her website revealed recently that these EPs are set to be compiled into a covers album which will be released in September.

If you want to save the interview as an mp3 for posterity – so you can listen to my dulcet tones on your fancy iGramophone at all times of the day or night; perhaps to excite and inflame your senses with an uncontrollable passion during lonely moments – click on the small arrow at the right hand side of the player below and download the content of your heart and indeed other organs.  Alternatively, just press the big orange button to listen NOW (yes, NOW) as a stream.  You lucky things you.

Patrick Thornton talks to Kate Walsh 19.10.09 by PatrickSelectionBox

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Elton in Rush to get down the aisle

Following the story a few months ago (blogged here by yours truly with some ire) that Sting played a concert for a tyrannical despotcomes the peculiar tale that fat fingered fool Elton John recently pocketed $1m for his AIDS charity by tinkling his ivories at the wedding of US Radio DJ Rush Limbaugh.

Elton and former EastEnders star Letitia Dean.

Elton and former EastEnders star Letitia Dean.

On the face of it, $1m (around £690,000) being whacked into the coffers of a good cause for a couple of hours work seems to be a splendid return, but throw a glance at Limbaugh’s CV of controversy and it begins to look like an odd gig for the plump pompous pianist to take on.  Although pretty much unknown in this country, Limbaugh is known in the United States as a right wing shock jock, reviled by the left.

The Guardian reports that

Last October, Limbaugh compared H1N1 to AIDS in Africa, a “hyped” disease. “Everything in Africa’s called AIDS,” he said on his radio show. “The reason is [that] they get aid money for it. AIDS is the biggest pile of – the biggest pot they throw money into.” Continue reading →

Saltaire Live 2010 (and Selection Box 131)

Only a wazzock would begin a blog entry about what he played on his radio show this week by discussing a band whose wares he failed to commit to the airwaves.  I am that aforementioned hitherto hypothetical wazzock.  I had all good intentions of playing Salsa Celtica on this week’s programme, and then when the weekly task of packing the record bag full of goodies in preparation for the programme came along, I just plain forgot.  If you see me on the street, feel free to point and boo me for my continued enslavement to lacksadaisy.

The timing of the proposed play was imperative, as it was meant to serve as a “heads up” – as I believe trendy people say – to the fact that Salsa Celtica, who released their new live album En Vivo En El Norte on 19 April, are set to play at Victoria Hall this coming weekend as a part of this 2010’s Saltaire Live.

Salsa Celtica play the Saltaire Live festival this weekend.

Salsa Celtica - only one of them was expecting rain.

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Selection Box 126 & 127

Selection Box in 2010 seems to have become an inordinately fractured affair.  Having been sidelined due to maleness a few weeks ago for International Women’s Day (solidarity, sisters), Selection Boxes 126 & 127 were separated by a an unscheduled hiatus due to spectacular bout of viciously violent vomiting and Olympic-standard diarrhoea.  Fear not, I will spare you the gruesome details, except to say that bizarrely this stems back nearly two years ago to a visit to Ireland when I accidentally poisoned myself on a daffodil, and somehow repeating this trick a few weeks ago despite best efforts to avoid the yellowy little buggers.  It takes a special type of idiot to poison yourself on a daffodil.  It takes a spectacular pillock to manage to repeat the trick.  Hello there.

If you want to murder me, now you know how to do it. But please dont - I have a child and a wife and a full biscuit tin.

If you want to murder me, now you know how to do it. But please don't - I have a child and a wife and a full biscuit tin.

Continue reading →