It has been just under 25 years since the band Tad split up. Their final single, ‘Oppenheimer’s Pretty Nightmare‘, was released in 1999, and a collection of latter-day recordings and errant stray tracks, ‘Quick and Dirty‘ appeared in 2018. Since then, Tad (the man) formed the band Hog Molly, releasing one album, ‘Kung-Fu Cocktail Grip‘ […]
David Rappaport was unquestionably one of Britain’s greatest actors of the 70s and 80s. Intelligent, witty, debonair and at home playing both good guys and bad, that there isn’t a physical tribute to him is scandalous. From the stage to hit television shows on both sides of the Atlantic to blockbuster movies, it was impossible […]
For some time now, my phone’s ringtone has been “Be a Clown” performed by Verne Langdon. There has never been an occasion when my phone has rung and the tune it plays has been appropriate. Not at the doctor’s, at work, at funerals, whilst shopping… it’s guaranteed to provoke weird looks and, for some reason, […]
This is what we know for certain about Schlitze Surtees, the sideshow performer – nothing. Not even his name. Actually, we can say that we know he wasn’t born Schlitze Surtees, so maybe that’s a start. Most likely born in The Bronx, New York around 1900 (some estimates suggest as early as 1882 but as […]
There are surely other producers whose name, if not literally, at least spiritually come before a director’s on-screen. The immediate comparison is of producers Golan and Globus of Cannon Films, whose names prepared you fully for a certain kind of film, regardless of what genre it purported to be. By sheer coincidence, a friend messaged […]
“Scooby Doo, Where Are You!” was the first incarnation of the long-running Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning cartoon series, “Scooby-Doo”. Created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears, the cartoon premiered on CBS on September 13, 1969, and ran for two seasons for a total of twenty-five episodes. The punctuation-sensitive will note the early episodes utilise neither a […]
If you think it’d take a challenging film-maker to employ The Residents to produce the soundtrack, you’d be correct – the film in question, ‘Triple Trouble’, is made by the band themselves. The almost mythical film, ‘Vileness Fats’ was conceived 50 years ago and never quite reached the finishing line. Attempts over the last few […]
In the wake of the death of his wife, Sharon Tate, Roman Polanski’s next film project was always going to have emerged from a metaphorically dark place. As it happens, the British weather ensured his film of Macbeth also came from a literally dark place, with appalling meteorological conditions combining with production costs (Hugh Hefner […]
I recently cleared out a storage unit I’ve had for the best part of ten years. An appalling totem to my decisions as to what to keep in life and what to throw away (short answer – keep it all, just in case) it’s slightly telling that the three final boxes I removed (one of […]
