Author Archives: Patrick

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 →

Leeds Festival Review: Day 1

Before me sits the remnants of a full English breakfast, served to me with piping hot hash browns to mask the fact that the rest of it was clap cold. I’ve paid £7.50 for the privilege. I’m just wondering if I’ll manage to be be able to consume my body weight in orange juice from the refillable dispenser before they tell me to shit off.  You’ve got to get your five a day somehow, but fruit & veg isn’t especially forthcoming at a festival.

I arrived here yesterday morning intent (and with tent) on having enough time to pitch my canvas Shangri-La before going to catch The Walkmenopening up the Main Stage at Noon. But for a false start where I had to return to my temporary home after being denied entry due to possession of a can of well-known stout (cans not allowed apparently – though I later noticed that the novelty of the power wielded by the “Customer Protection Office” had waned after a few hours and his bag check became somewhat less censorious) and the fact that the splendid New York noiseniks start 8 minutes early for some reason, I’d have pretty much timed it to perfection.

The Walkmen: larger than actually pictured.

The Walkmen: larger than actually pictured.

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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 →

Jelly & Ice Cream: Selection Box 142

In keeping with advancing years, the party for Selection Box’s third birthday turned out to be a rather more low-key affair than the wild cake, balloon and full studio of previous years.  Although your host was able to treat himself to a tasty off-cut of a choccy caterpillar cake this was actually provided by someone else for celebratory purposes the nature of which I am not aware.  It was just a coincidence that it happened to be sat there on the same day as my show’s anniversary, but as it was sat there waiting to be sliced asunder by all comers I helped myself to one of the last pieces before heading into the studio.

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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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King Μίδας in reverse: Selection Box 140

If I’d have had the relevant track by The Hollies to hand I would have played it, but then that was the point – I didn’t have the tracks I was supposed to. The chorus of “He’s King Midas in reverse” would’ve been appropriate, seen as everything I touched seemed to turn to anything but priceless radio.  I can’t pretend that all ums and aahs in usual shows are finely scripted and rehearsed, and nor can I pretend that I don’t regularly change my mind on what I am going to play whilst the show is actually in progress – sometimes the ways things flow in my head doesn’t actually work in practice and I change the admittedly-vague plotting of the programme accordingly.  The surprise from your point of view will be to learn that there is a sort of demi-plan, though, and when this half-baked idea turns out to be scuppered by a metaphorical faulty oven, it throws everything into something of a whirl.  Or in this case, I forgot to turn the oven on and then found that the microwave had fused.  Or something. Continue reading →

It’s The Magic Number, apparently

I refer, of course, to 3 which De La Soul dictated was a digit imbued with Harry Potteresque mysticism, rather than the pluralised version of the phrase which gives the band The Magic Numbers their moniker.  I’ve never been particularly enamoured with the latter – though I bare them no malice – so I cannot imagine they’ll be featuring heavily on Selection Box any time soon.

La Pendleton skillfully handling a tool there. (Bloody hell, kill me.)

La Pendleton skillfully handling a tool there. (Oh dear oh dear. Bloody hell, kill me.)

I can’t pretend that I am especially partial to the number 3 either, though if Victoria Pendleton expressed an interest in making that the number which share my marital bed for non-sleeping purposes, I’d be sure to ask my wife for her considered opinion on the matter.  Then do a spot of undignified pleading, obviously.  However, the number 3 is set to be something of a focus on the show over the next few weeks, like some sort of demented version of Sesame Street (because obviously Sesame Streetis renowned for its no-nonsense straight laced stiff upper lip lack of tomfoolery), as in a few weeks’ time Selection Boxwill be celebrating its third birthday.  Will you see a sea-change in accordance with the advance in age – no longer for us the tantrums of the terrible twos, from now on operating with a new-found pre-school application and shitted pants will become an ever-increasing rarity?  Nah, I’ll probably peddle the same old pelt punctuated by great records if truth be told, but let us celebrate the calendarial momentum all the same. Continue reading →

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 →