Funfare for the Common Man

During my first year at university, in Boston, I went to a lot of gigs. I was really into Britpop at the time – Blur, Oasis, Suede and Pulp in particular – and they were massive in the UK, selling out decent-sized arenas. But the beauty of seeing them in America, where they were less popular, was that they played smaller venues of less than 1000 people, right at the height of their popularity. I loved it. I didn’t only listen to Britpop – I had my other [guilty? shameful?] pleasures, one of whom was The Offspring. I’m only slightly embarrassed to admit to liking them back then – this was in 1994-95 – but it could be worse. They weren’t (aren’t?) that bad, are they? Surely Nickelback, Matchbox Twenty and Blink 182 are worse, right? (at the time their big hits were ‘Self-Esteem’ and ‘Come Out and Play’) Anyway, they were far more popular than the usual British bands I went to see, and so were playing in a much bigger venue: the Worcester Centrum. My friend Simon and I – we went ...

9pm every night, after the little one is tucked in for the night With apologies to Gabriel García Márquez After last week’s heavy theme of the [potential] doom and gloom of the future, this week will be a different kind of heavy: heavy on links, light[er] on commentary.  If there’s one thing this quarantine is doing to people – me, especially, but if Twitter is anything to go by, many of us – it’s sending us down all sorts of nostalgia rabbit holes. You know, I’m not really sure if we can go down nostalgia rabbit holes, but you get the idea. I’ve been down this…road before, just a fortnight or so ago with my ‘Mixtape’ post. That, along with some comments from old friends, has really kicked the music nostalgia urge into overdrive, and I’m trying to put together a music-themed post. But I’m struggling to find the right angle. So in the interim, let’s focus on links and love.  As in, this is about the point in the quarantine, if you haven’t reached it already, where tempers are r...