The winner of the Mercury Music Prize for 2017 was announced in a live BBC TV broadcast on Thursday evening. At Crotchety Mansions the TV was tuned in and the Crotchety Couple watched with a mixture of hope and trepidation. The shortlist was promising, with a high proportion of deserving acts, but last year the…Read more Living, Breathing
Track
San Francisco Drive
Now that we have escaped from Hotel California let's go on a San Francisco drive with Petteri Sariola. "Who's that?", you ask. Well I'd never heard of him either until Spotify dropped a track called The Clockwork into my Release Radar last week. That track turned out to be an unbelievable guitar performance by Sariola…Read more San Francisco Drive
Hotel California
I love a good story. It might be an adventure story, a whodunnit or a sci-fi epic. Whatever the format there's always the urge to read on because you never know what will happen next. It might be in a novel or on a movie screen or, sometimes, in a song. That's what we have…Read more Hotel California
Tea Time
There are some funny names out there. In my Release Radar playlist this week there was a single called by a band called . I did listen to it and it's OK but not up to Crotchety blogging standard. (For the incurably curious it's on Spotify here.) Curiosity then seized the helm of the mental ship and took…Read more Tea Time
Mr. Tambourine Man
When he was about seven Little Boy Crotchety had a part in the school play. Sitting cross-legged on the floor he used an enormous silver cardboard needle to stitch some invisible cloth, while the narrator introduced him as the tailor. I don't remember what the plot was or even why it required a tailor. I…Read more Mr. Tambourine Man
Cave
Here's a Track of the Week by Future Islands, a band whose music I've been meaning to explore for a while. It's called Cave and it comes from their latest album, The Far Field, which was released in April. The official YouTube clip for Cave shows a nearly monochrome video of a bearded, jacketed man signing…Read more Cave
Pain Killer (Summer Rain)
It's been a typical British summer this year. Anchored in the Atlantic Ocean just off the western edge of mainland Europe these islands get weather that is politely called 'changeable'. In Ireland they have a saying: if you can see the hills, rain is coming; if not ... it's raining already. A little farther east,…Read more Pain Killer (Summer Rain)
Sailor’s Tale
A desert is not just a place; it's also a time. The summer time in the northern hemisphere is often a desert for music lovers. In the summer not much is released and anything that does see the light of day is mostly old and often bedraggled: covers, remasters, demos, out-takes. But there is a…Read more Sailor’s Tale
Blowin’ Free
Crotchety Man was always small in stature. He came from small stock. Even his surname is thought to have come from the French for 'low'. (The Norman Conqueror throws a long shadow in these parts.) Small he was, but not stunted - more pigmy than masai, more hobbit than dwarf, everything in proportion. Inside that…Read more Blowin’ Free
Making Plans for Nigel
At the end of the seventies Crotchety Man was writing software for the new ironworks being built for British Steel at Redcar on the north east coast of England. The music charts were a strange mix of pop and punk, either anodyne mush or raw, abrasive sounds that grated like a pumice stone rubbed over…Read more Making Plans for Nigel
Crotchety Man 