Since I branded my qual consultancy Shore in 2010 – the ‘shore’ idea being qual research as a liminal, in-between place between communicators and the public – I find myself regularly awash with cultural references to shore-related stuff. I think it’s like when you buy a new Toyota Avensis and suddenly start noticing how manyContinue reading “Julia Holter: lucidity by the shore”
Tag Archives: music
Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
Danny Baker’s Rockin’ Decades: The 70s Slumped in front of the tv last night after a long day of fieldwork about energy usage in Worcestershire, I got Peter Hooked into Danny Baker’s pop music o’ the past chat programme on BBC4, Danny Baker’s Rockin’ Decades. Despite the (I have to assume deliberately) naff title, itContinue reading “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not”
Music to my ears: Motley Crue to stop
I hate to be negative – it’s usually better to focus on bigging up the good stuff – but I really can’t abide Motley Crue. Nigel Blackwell of the Birkenhead surrealists Half Man Half Biscuit put it perfectly in their song from a few years ago Upon Westminster Bridge: Oh help me, Mrs Medlicott, I don’t knowContinue reading “Music to my ears: Motley Crue to stop”
Dead and not dead: Lou Reed and John Cooper Clarke
Which of these two reformed heroin-addicts and ex-boyfriends of Nico was likely to survive to this century? Neither. BBC4’s reputation for impressive rockumentary continues with a couple of programmes on the iPlayer now (for people in the UK who pay for it) about two wordsmiths, very different personalities but both towering figures of “alternative” popularContinue reading “Dead and not dead: Lou Reed and John Cooper Clarke”
How (Not) To Party: the bizarre ending to last night’s Andrew Neil show
If you want to laugh at people who have held some of the highest offices of state, dancing to Underworld’s Born Slippy, read and view on … Picture the scene: you’ve just come home from moderating a discussion group across in Peterborough, you’re a bit tired and you flop down to watch the end ofContinue reading “How (Not) To Party: the bizarre ending to last night’s Andrew Neil show”
Britney Spears: harder to stalk than I had imagined
This might bring a whole new audience to Strangers On The Shore and (another) one that will be bitterly disappointed. I went into t’ Smoke yesterday for a meeting on AQR ambassadorial business and had a spare half hour afterwards before my schlepp back to Jericho (in Oxford, not the West Bank). So I poppedContinue reading “Britney Spears: harder to stalk than I had imagined”
Hewlett Packard: Stick to Plan A for Plan B
I enjoyed Drum’s ad for Hewlett Packard, featuring Plan B doing She Said, which I caught a couple of weeks ago before the Tintin film: It’s a 21st Century truism that for every artefact created, there must be a “the making of” film (because we can’t handle anyone being behind the scenes any more). EvenContinue reading “Hewlett Packard: Stick to Plan A for Plan B”
A 21st Century one man band does Pixies
I don’t think one man can replace the Pixies – but this punter’s made a pretty good fist of it. Where Is My Mind? is a great song anyway and this guy does something amazing with it: a masterclass in human beatbox looping. Sorry if I got the jargon wrong, kids. When I was aContinue reading “A 21st Century one man band does Pixies”
Man of Aran: A Story For Our Times
I started off thinking I’d post on this because it was a thing of beauty, even though it’s not very current – and then I realised, it sort of is current, in a funny kind of way. (And anyway, why need we always privilege novelty over substance? Shore isn’t the News of the World.) There’sContinue reading “Man of Aran: A Story For Our Times”
Drive-by shoutings
The greatest living pop lyricists, Half Man Half Biscuit, play Shepherd’s Bush Empire on Friday. Yes, they are still going. And like the Fall, some of the recent stuff is among their best. Their last album, CSI: Ambleside, boasted the classics Bad Losers on Yahoo Chess and Took Problem Chimp To Ideal Home Show. TheyContinue reading “Drive-by shoutings”
Strangers on the Shore 