Mel Hutchwright

Bee Gees ~ First Of May It's a bit of a tear jerker.

Richard Ford ~ A Piece Of My Heart This is the debut novel of the author who subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize for the novel Independence Day. It follows 2 characters who eventually coverge on an uncharted island on the Mississippi; one who's travelled from California in pursuit of a destructive passion for a former flame (she's a bit of a lady), and the other who's travelled from Chicago because he's suffering from some form of ennui and has recently dropped out of his law studies whilst on the verge of completing them and starting practice. The focus of the novel alternates between these two characters but I thought the former was far stronger and I found it difficult to really care about the latters depression. The secondary characters are great though, in particular Mr Lamb the curmudgeonly old so and so who organises turkey hunts on the island. I'm a big fan of Fords later novels but this isn't quite of the same calibre, and I thought it showed that he'd yet to develop into the novelist he later became. It's still a really good read though.

Tricky ~ Ponderosa Been listening to the Maxinquaye album for the first time in a long while and it still sounds really great. I absolutely loved it when it was first released.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds at the Carling Academy at the beginning of May. Then going to see Willie Nelson 3 or 4 days later at the Clyde Auditorium. Will be the 4th time I've seen the old feller in 5 or 6 years. It's always a rare treat though.

Alain-Fournier ~ Le Grand Meaulnes It's French, romantic and melancholic and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

It is a fantastic album and I'd agree that it's bookended by the two best songs, and on that note I'm now listening to..... Gillian Welch ~ Revelator

Gillian Welch ~ I Dream A Highway Very long and very lovely.

Michael Chabon ~ The Yiddish Policemen's Union This is a detective story (which is not a genre I'm usually interested in) which is set in a fictionalised version of the city of Sitka in Alaska. It's an alternate history based on the premise that a temporary Yiddish speaking settlement for Jewish refugees, the 'frozen chosen', was established in Alaska in 1941. It's essentially a whodunnit which encompasses themes of Jewish identity and folklore along with the significance of the game of chess. Yiddish terms are sprinkled liberally throughout the prose which takes a wee while to get use to, but once you do it makes the dialogue really vivid and enjoyable. It's a great language for insults it would appear. It's a completely different style of book to The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay (his previous novel), and I didn't find it quite as enjoyable, but it's still a right good read although I thought it began to flag a wee bit towards the end.

He does indeed. Although the film suggests otherwise, I don't think Mr Chocolate is as innocent as he'd like us to believe regarding Treadwell's tragic demise.

Michael Chabon ~ The Amazing Adventures Of Kavalier And Clay Wonderful novel about a Jewish guy who escapes from Prague just prior to the Second World War and goes to live with his cousin in New York, where they create the comic book character The Escapist; an anti fascist superhero that liberates the worlds oppressed. I've got no interest at all in comic books but, although this probably would enhance the enjoyment of the book, it didn't really detract from what is a fantastic and moving story. Going to make a start on the same authors 'The Yiddish Policeman's Union' now.

Julian Cope ~ The Greatness And Perfection Of Love

Absolutely love The Kinks as well. Few songwriters can do melancholy in the way that Ray Davies does, which is something I'm a total sucker for. Particularly songs like Sitting In My Hotel, which although not one of their well known ones, is just gorgeous. I don't know if he ever does it now, but if he tours his Storyteller shows again they are well worth going to. He reads extracts from his autobiography and performs solo (there is another bloke accompanying him on some of them) versions of Kinks songs and its just great. I remember 'See My Friends' being particularly lovely and really quite moving. I'm going to pop some Kinks on right now.

I know this is a debate that crops up every couple of months, but I couldn't agree more with this. I'm not going to deny that Buckley had a fairly impressive voice, but it leaves me totally cold. I really hope that death claims me before I ever have to hear his version of 'The Boy With The Thorn In His Side', as I'm shuddering at the thought of it. That's a very good example. Thanks to her image and comedy breasts, it's often forgotten what a great singer Dolly Parton is, and her version of I will Always Love you is a lovely song beautifully sung. Whitney ruins it by her vocal histrionics and makes it unlistenable, as she has no idea how to interpret the song. She may have an impressive range but this does not make her a good singer. I'm going to also cite Tim Hardin's Reason To Believe. His original has a fragility and emotional punch that none of the many covers have come close to capturing.

I stand corrected, thankfully he's still with us. Sorry Jimmy.

It was quite good although it was pretty shambolic. I thought it was going to be a lecture about transcendental meditation, which didn't really appeal funnily enough, but it was a Q&A from the get go. The questions were a mixture of film ones and meditation ones, although he seemed more impassioned about the latter. I was kind of done in and switching off a bit during a lot of it, but it was great just listening to him speak as he's got such a fantastic way of talking. Great look too. Donovan then came on and did a set which I enjoyed far more than I thought I would. Some of his stuff was tripe but, although he's a bit of a figure of ridicule, I thought he was likeable and he has got some genuinely good songs. Hurdy Gurdy Man was fantastic. He shamelessly namedropped the Beatles with hilarious regularity though. It was a pretty odd event all round, but worth going to.

Went to see David Lynch do a Q&A a couple of weeks back and it was played before and after he did his turn, and I had much the same reaction. Beautiful piece of music. One of my favourite soundtracks that, and The Sycamore Trees is just brilliant. Jimmy Scott really had (has? think he passed away a couple of years ago anyway) an astonishing voice.

Kraftwerk ~ Europe Endless

Maybe stretching it to describe this as a gig but I'm going to see an event called 'Catching The Big Fish' at the Queen's Hall in Edinburgh on Friday. This involves film director David Lynch giving a talk promoting the Trancendental Meditation Foundation he's part of, and also a set of songs by 60's folky type Donovan. I haven't the faintest idea what on earth this is going to be like, and I'm not entirely sure why I'm going. Tickets were a bargain though.

The soundtrack to Twin Peaks ~ Fire Walk with Me

Saw it at the Cameo in the Tollcross area of Edinburgh.

Meant to mention that myself, thought he was excellent in it. There were far more lighthearted moments in it than I was expecting given the subject matter. The surviving members of Joy Division have slightly criticised the bands representation in the film for being (understandably) a bit too over serious and glossing over the fact that they were blokes in their early 20's having a laugh on tour for much of the time, but there were some fairly humourous scenes in it particularly those the Gretton character was in.

Control This is a biopic of Ian Curtis of soor faced Northern miserabilists Joy Division. Although I'm not a particular fan of their music, the film is really good and it looks fantastic. The bloke that plays Curtis looks impressively convincing in the concert scenes. Last half hour or so aren't a barrell of laughs mind.

Julian Cope ~ If You Loved Me At All

Dexy's Midnight Runners ~ This Is What's She's Like

Erasure ~ Drama!