Notes From Afar
Composer Ramin Djawadi is joined by Tom Morello, Scott Ian, Nuno Bettencourt and more for this epic, guitar driven version of the Game Of Thrones theme.
I wish they had used this version on the show almost as much as I wish Dr Who would use Orbital’s brilliant version of the Dr Who theme.
“Children learn through play. Adults learn through art.”
I’ve just watched the 2015 John Peel Lecture given this year by Brian Eno, and it was the most thought provoking hour of television I can remember seeing in along time.
A fascinating discussion of art, culture and humanity – Eno is clearly a deep thinker as well as a musical genius.
The show is available on the BBC iPlayer until the end of October and I urge you to take an hour to watch an think about the points Eno makes before it disappears. The BBC have also made a transcript available as a slightly more permanent PDF.
Eno quotes a number of books during his lecture, BBC 6 Music have kindly tweeted a reading list.
Black Mirror White Christmas is the latest drama in Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror series, and it’s superb. Charlie Brooker is possibly most famous for his acerbic comedy shows such as Screen Wipe, but Black Mirror shows he is a great science fiction writer.
Brooker has a brilliant view of the possible near/alternate future and it’s technology, with ideas and concepts worthy of Gibson, Dick and even Clarke.
Without wishing to give too much away (possible spoiler) the exploration of a truly sentient cloned artificial intelligence and its breaking and slavery was incredible.
Channel 4 recently showed an all night House Party – six hours of uninterrupted DJ sets featuring Grandmaster Flash, Eric Morillo, Soul II Soul and Annie Mac. Grandmaster Flash’s set was fabulous, but the show was stolen by Jessie Ware‘s apprearance at the end of Annie Mac’s set:
Running is a fabulous track with a delicious old school feel to Jessie’s vocals – the Disclosure Remix is particulalrly great.
Jessie’s debut album Devotion is fast becoming one of my favourite albums of 2012; highlight’s include the sublime title track and the more uptempo 110%.
Matt Smith joins Orbital on stage at Glastonbury 2010 to perform Doctor? – the best version of the Doctor Who theme since Delia Derbyshire’s groundbreaking original.
I love how Matt drops into character as the Doctor, chuckling with glee as he joins Orbital.
My daughter, a budding Dr Who fan, loved this and was most upset the BBC doesn’t use it as their TV title music.
Viewers of the UK TV station ITV have voted for the advert of the decade, even though technically this decade doesn’t end until the end of 2010, but what’s another year between friends. The winner was the excellent ‘Go On Lad’ from Hovis:
I was going to challenge this, and say that they were wrong, all of them, wrong, and that the best advert of the decade was St George from Tango, but I’m alarmed to find that this advert dates back to 1997 – the decade before. Time flies and all that…
Anyway here now is the advert of the previous decade; St George from Tango: