What I learned last night

So tonight's a night in for me on my own. My Wife is out and so is our houseguest so I'm left to my own devices. It's been a busy day and so this is good news. I'm prepped - a nice healthy meal (good quality veggie curry bits from Waitrose) and I've got a ton of music mags to catch up on, and loads on the Sky planner that's been there for far too long (some BBC documentaries like that Synth Britannia one, a few Jools Hollands, some Rock Family Tree docs). In short, this was the nub of what tonight looked like:


And I'm finding myself learning a bunch of stuff because of this...here's some of it...

It doesn't matter how healthy your dinner is if you're just going to end up having TWO bowls of treacle sponge and custard for pudding.

Can't make up my mind about Paloma Faith (on Jools Holland) but she does have some great tattoos of birds on her back.

That shot they do on Jools of other artists dancing to the person performing is really hit and miss, but Devendra Banhart looks great when he's dancing to Jimmy Ruffin doing What Becomes Of The Broken Hearted.

Magazine are a band I need to know more about.

Seasick Steve's drummer is AWESOME.

I've made up my mind about Paloma Faith and I'll pass thanks.

On to the Island Records documentary. Chris Blackwell, the guy who founded Island, is very posh, isn't he?

Florence Welch has fantastic legs (that's from the new NME cover shoot).

If any of you out there are at all into your 60s music, and you don't know much by The Spencer Davis Group, you need to get on it. Keep On Running is a all-time great track.

Had no idea Island Records led to the Chrysalis and Trojan labels.

Was it Boyzone who fucked up Cat Stevens' Father To Son? Idiots. Or am I being a snob? Some archive interview footage with Cat refers to him as a pop artist.

Jimmy Cliff was meant to be the Island reggae artist that crossed over into the mainstream, but left the label before Island could make it happen. One week later, Bob Marley and The Wailers walked into the Island office. Fact. Great fact.

Can you tell the TV's holding my attention more than the magazines? That said, there's a Beastie Boys Cash For Questions in a Q from over the summer.

Why the hell has Q got an interview with Al Murray? If I wanted that I'd buy Loaded.

There's no possible way I can type up all the cool stuff that's coming out of this Island documentary. It is a great watch.

Whatever you think about U2 now, they looked very cool in the rooftop video for Where The Streets Have No Name.

Unfortunate synching on the Island doc of Mika talking about the reinvention of pop music while The Fratellis are playing.

Okay, Island docs over (all hour and a half of it) and there's not much catching my eye in the past few NME's I've gone through, so it might be time to turn the music brain off for the night. Oh look, Demolition Man's on tv!

Night.