Entertainment

MUSIC | TV | FILM | GIGS

Music has been important to me since the late 1960’s. I seem to recall I went to my first gig in 1972 when I was 15 or 16. Moving to London in 1975 opened up a big wide world of entertainment and I dived right in.

I have always liked film too, and the LSE film club opened my eyes to the kind of ‘arthouse’ movies that I loved and would never have discovered otherwise. MUBI is one of the few means of finding great movies now. Like many film lovers I’m a bit like Graham Greene I suppose, who wrote both serious novels and ‘entertainments’. I enjoy Three Colours Red, White and Blue just as much as Star Wars or Event Horizon; it all depends what mood I’m in – and whether I’m sober enough to read subtitles!

I have been very lucky in being involved in Ents at university and working for a major West End record chain, both of which brought me into contact with record labels, distributors, musicians and lighting and sound engineers. I actually think I would have made a good producer or engineer, desperate to perfect a particular sound. Oddly enough, my sound is very much ‘Bristol’: deep bass and driving rhythms – Portishead and Massive Attack for example. That’s what my records would have sounded like…

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Blues to Bliss

Remembering New Orleans gave me a taste for funk – plus jazz, blues and an excellent beer. The thought of not being able to go back made me feel blue for a moment – but that’s all gone now!

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Albertos at Torquay

Alberto Y Los Trios Paranoias were always good reliable fun – a mixture of comedy and music forever changing and forever funny. Snuff Boogie!

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From Caravan to AC/DC in one day

A pretty good day for me, like so many others in my time at the LSE. This entry from my diary in 1976 has me listening to Caravan in the morning and getting down to the Marquee in the evening to see a completely unknown band called AC/DC…

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1992: A great year for gigs

For some reason I seem to have saved quite a few concert tickets over the years, and sifting through them the year 1992 stands out as a particularly good vintage – for me at least.

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National Health @ LSE

It is 1976 and with punk happening it is sometimes easy to forget that jazz-rock was also a pretty big ‘underground’ scene at the time, with lots of wild and whacky bands and tunes crashing out of all directions to challenge ear-brain co-ordination.

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1977 Gig Guide

Second year at Uni and I was engrossed in Ents (entertainments), beer, music and gigs. No wonder I only scraped through exams!

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Star Wars TV

It is Lockdown Day 5 and Disney+ has arrived with great timing. Star Wars in 4K HDR and Dolby Atmos. I was going to enjoy this…

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