Looking Sideways: 10 Things
This week: the king of Sudanese jazz, a gem of a playlist, and Devon Howard on style.
1. I’m heading to off to Brittany for a much-needed holiday, so there’ll be no posts from me next week.
I’m hoping to surf, read a lot of books, and eat a lot of pastries. Normal service resumes the second week of September.
In the meantime, here is this week’s selection.
2. Ween, a surreal, brilliant and often very uncomfortable pair of goofball geniuses, are one of the great lost 90s/00s bands.
I’ve been coming back to this brilliant playlist of their melodic highlights all week. As the description says: ‘No weirdness, no sick jokes, no parodies, just exquisite songwriting’.
3. Patrick Radden-Keefe’s magisterial Say Nothing adapted for TV, and starring the great Maxine Peake? I could not be more in.
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4. Devon Howard is such a legend, and this Surf Mastery discussion on style is brilliant. Especially for a kook like me.
5. I did not expect this account of how Michael Cimino’s disastrous Heaven’s Gate sank United Artists (which my sister sent me for my birthday, and which I lobbed in the bag before coming to France), to be one of the books I enjoyed the most this year.
It’s surely up there with Adventures in the Screen Trade as one of the best, most revealing, and gossipily entertaining books ever written about Hollywood. Highly recommended.
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6. Hard to argue with this New Statesman takedown of Steven Bartlett.
7. Read and Destroy author Dan Adams and legendary RaD editor Tim Leighton-Boyce are doing a special book signing at the Photographer’s Gallery on September 5th. More here.
8. Is it me, or does Kelly Slater seem to retire every three months or so? Yet another tribute clip has been doing the rounds (above); to counterbalance the mawkishness, here’s JP Currie on hilariously contrarian form for Beach Grit, describing Slater’s eternal farewell tour as ‘the funeral that never ends’.
9. This week I was lucky enough to interview the great Tommy Guerrero for a forthcoming episode.
Perhaps predictably, we ended up completely geeking out about music. At one point, rather than asking him to describe his music, I asked him for some reference points, bands or musicians who represent a style or aesthetic similar to what he’s trying to convey.
To illustrate the point, I referenced this remarkable record by Sharhabil Ahmed, 'The King of Sudanese jazz’ (yep, it was that kind of interview…), which I’m sharing here because…why not?
10. This week’s paid Insights post is the second part of my in-depth look at the reality of how creative freelancers REALLY earn money, featuring pro surfer Mike Lay, activist Soraya Abdel-Hadi, adventure filmmaker Matt Pycroft, industry vet Phil Young, and musician (and Announcement soundtrack composer) Ben Townsend.
This series has been going down so well I’m half thinking of making it an irregular feature. One thing is for sure - part 3 (the international edition) with Jamie Brisick, Lauren Hill, Tom ‘T-Bird’ Monterosso, and more, is coming soon.
What did I miss? What did you think of this week’s list?
We just relocated to Bretagne (south Finistere, don’t want to give away the exact location here 😅) from SW France. Surf, books and crepes (not so much pastries!) in abundance here. Maybe we’ll run into each other in the water 🌊 Enjoy your break!