A friend of mine went to a posh party recently - dinner, dancing and hobnobbing with the great and the good. You could tell it was a really posh occasion because the guests were being formally announced. There was an aristocratic middle-aged couple and a young woman in the entrance when my friend arrived. "The Lord and…Read more Miss Fortune
indie
The Other Side
Cast your mind back to December 1968. Apollo 8 was on the launchpad. No human being had ever been beyond Earth orbit. No astronaut had flown on the Saturn V launch vehicle before. There had been no less than three engine failures on the unmanned Apollo 6 mission earlier that year. Apollo 8 had been…Read more The Other Side
River Song
The times seem to be changing at Crotchety Mansions. Recently, I added another couple of blogs to my list of followed sites. As if to balance those beginnings the first music blog I followed since starting this one, Vinyl Connection, has just ceased publication and this week The Maccabees announced they are disbanding. It's sad…Read more River Song
Aviation
So far this year there have been about 40 posts on the Crotchety Man blog. Of those only six have carried the 2010s tag and one of them was an appreciation of that great old campaigner Bob Dylan - not exactly up-to-the-minute news. I felt I was in a temporal rut. It was time to break out, to find something…Read more Aviation
Magnolia
It's prog, Jim, but not as we know it. Magnolia is the latest album by The Pineapple Thief, which is generally regarded as a progressive rock band. But that categorisation sits uneasily with Crotchety Man. When I think of 'prog' my first thoughts are of Yes, Genesis and King Crimson and then ELP, Gentle Giant and perhaps Jethro Tull.…Read more Magnolia
The Seldom Seen Kid
The five members of Elbow played their first gig together in 1990 at the Corner Pin pub in Ramsbottom, a market town on the northern edge of Greater Manchester. At the time they were called Mr Soft (or just Soft); it wasn't until 1997 that they changed the name of the band to Elbow ("the loveliest word in the English language"). That year they signed to…Read more The Seldom Seen Kid
Wicked Soul
Wickedness, Lesson 3 - Seduction Seduction is a game. It has rules, like chess. And, like chess, you're more likely to win if you have studied the game and developed your technique. The key thing is to judge the pace. If you dither too much you will be beaten by the clock; if you are too eager you will…Read more Wicked Soul
This Is The Last Time
Keane released their first album, Hopes and Fears in 2004. It's a collection of strangely captivating songs, more pop than rock. Superficially, there's nothing much to lift them from the mediocrity of the mass music market and yet they soothe like an Indian head massage, seep through your skull and infiltrate the mind. This is the Last Time is probably the best known…Read more This Is The Last Time
Tokyo
Sophie was a confident young woman now looking for friendship, romance, love. She had come to this restaurant a few times before. It had an Alice In Wonderland theme, which appealed to her sense of fun and Sophie always felt comfortable here. Tonight, though, as she walked past the sign saying "private function" and made her way down the steps to the basement, she was…Read more Tokyo
Down Here
Crotchety Man was a bright child. The headmaster of my primary school (ages 5 - 11) told my parents that in any ordinary year I'd have been top of the class. That there were a couple of other kids in my year smarter than me was, he suggested, a statistical fluke and I'd probably go…Read more Down Here
Crotchety Man 