Just as I typed that title, I heard Bill & Ted talking to the very man on the telly in the next room.
I’m sure that Death must have been a regular spectre looming over the posts on this blog, and he seems particularly present as I return to it after another long absence.
Read on to find out why, and whether it might have anything to do with my next book.
Continue reading Mr Death
In January, I took part in a Twitter thing where people nominated a different favourite album closing song for each day of the month.
Albums closers make for perfect playlists, because you’ve got a selection of tracks aiming to distill a closing statement for a full album. Play ’em on random, and the intensity should be unchanged and unabated.
My selections are on Apple Music and Spotify.
Continue reading Edging Closer(s) I
I’m going to try to do monthly blog posts this year. Here’s the first – my annual round-up of the best popular music tracks of the year just ended.
You can also check this new list out on Apple Music or Spotify. And, check out the Apoplexy Tiny Letter for a bonus track.
Continue reading Eight Tracks VI
I’m tentatively exploring the idea of the Caledonian antisyzygy. Does The Sensational Alex Harvey Band provide the right soundtrack for this blog post? Read on!
1992. Halcyon days. At least, if you like war in Europe and riots in America. Yep. So much has changed now. Better days.
One of the closing themes of my book, Stroke, is the subjective nature of time. So, it’s interesting to hear two remixes of Orbital’s Halcyon, thirty years on.
Logic 1000 strips it back and makes an asthmatic middle-aged stroke survivor think he could still rave it up in a sweaty whitewashed cube of a room somewhere in Edinburgh – if such a place still exists, Grandad.
John Hopkins makes some concessions to the passing of time and makes an A.M-a.S.S. think he could really dig it after the Wee Man’s gone to sleep, on a good pair of noise-cancelling headphones.
None of it convinces me that 17-year-old Ricky was right in his conviction that time’s arrow was dragging us into a future that could only get better [sic].
On the other hand, Long-sufferingreaderoftheblogpaul introduced me today to a trilogy of science fiction books which opens with Earth awaiting an invasion from the closest star system. So, things aren’t necessarily all bad.
Cheery-bye!!!
The conversation got to the author remarking that he hadn’t listened to much more-or-less-political music with the impact of Strummer’s work (with and without The Clash) since the late punk’s death.
Conversely, I don’t seem to be able to listen to anything that isn’t angry about something right now. Not least since, now he’s five, the Wee Man is all
Public Enemy, the Bee Gees or die, Sucker!
My son, every day (not really (but yeah, kinda))
Maybe by the end of the month, I can expand his palette to include Run The Jewels, Sleaford Mods and the great new(ish) Leith/Peebles band I checked out at the Banshee Labyrinth last month, Gutterblood.
Poor wee sod.
Oh yeah, and Mrs Stroke Bloke stumbled across an article about Killer Mike from Run The Jewels in the paper today.
Well, of course apoplectic.me is back for my favourite post of every year – a round-up of the best popular music tracks of 2021. I wonder if the list will reflect the nature of the year…?
![When we thought 2020 was terrible? [John Oliver detonates a huge explosion of the number 2020]](http://www.apoplectic.me/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/giphy-2.gif "When we thought 2020 was terrible? [John Oliver detonates a huge explosion of the number 2020]")
You know, my tracks of 2020 did tend towards the distressingly fey and shoegaze-y. Well, not this year. This year’s better. You can also check this new list out on Apple Music or Spotify.
[Check out the Apoplexy Tiny Letter for a bonus track.]
Continue reading Eight Tracks V
After King Rocker the other week, Mrs Stroke Bloke indulged me by sitting through Creation Stories, a biopic of sorts about Creation Records main man, Alan McGee.
Creation Records plays a big part in my, er, origin story, as indirectly noted by an old school friend.
[The Apoplexy Tiny Letter is hiding the best song associated with Creation Stories]
Continue reading A Personal History Of Creation
The Wee Man objects to my musical taste. Fair enough. If your three-year-old is waxing lyrical about Arab Strap’s marvellous return, he’s got problems. But not as many as he’s got in store for you.
So, when I’m listening to 6Music/something from 1991/Britain’s slide into fascism*, the demands from the back seat begin.
“80s MUSIC!!!”
The Wee Man, 2021
[Check out the reliably disappointing Apoplexy Tiny Letter]
Continue reading Disappointment
After I published the latest apoplectic.me post in August, Paul commented that
the new music in 2020 hasn’t caught my ear yet. Nothing like last years Jaime by Brittany Howard, which I loved. I also fear we are about to get some not very good quarantine inspired music coming our way.
Comments to Under Cover Under Wraps
Amid the huge static roar of distraction that was 2020, perhaps it’s unsurprising that there’s something out of time about my Eight Tracks of the year.
Join me, won’t you, on a journey to a place that isn’t here in a time that isn’t now. It’s gotta be better than this, right? Or, just hit up the Spotify playlist.
[Check out the Apoplexy Tiny Letter for a bonus track.]
Continue reading Eight Tracks IV