Hello friends! I trust you’re all well. Hey - congratulations on making it through February! And an extra-long February at that. I’m sure there’s a reason why we get an extra day during the bleakest part of the year, rather than, say, in July when it’s warm and sunny, but it does seem particularly unwelcome. But anyway, we made it through. Well done all of us.
To celebrate, I’m taking myself off for three days in an Unplugged Cabin tomorrow which I’m very much looking forward to. In preparation, I’ve been listening to this rather cheerful song from the new Grandaddy album, Blu Wav…
… which I hope will provide you some sort of vicarious pleasure. One of the joyful quirks of an Unplugged break is that you’re very heavily encouraged (via a series of increasingly passive aggressive emails in the build up to your trip) to lock your phone in a little wooden box for the duration of your break, and avoid looking at it for any reason. I am going to try my very best to abide by the ‘rules’, but, as all my music exists on my phone these days, and as a day without music of any kind feels like some sort of criminal cruelty, I’m not sure I’m going to be able to succeed… Oh, for an old-school offline iPod at times like these! I may try listening to the radio to see what assorted joys BBC 6Music might introduce me to, but I’m still on a strong Dissect-related Radiohead jag, and would quite like to continue on my chronological trawl through their back catalogue (I’m up to King of Limbs though, so maybe not the worst time to try something fresh…).
Music aside, I plan to spend the next couple of days making my way through a stack of books, including Eleanor Catton’s brick-like masterpiece The Luminaries (current page count - 143 out of 838), a very enjoyable history of the ‘technology’ of notebooks called (unimaginatively) The Notebook (subtitled, rather more imaginatively, A History of Thinking On Paper) and a book my sister Kelly bought me for Christmas called 60 Songs That Explain The ‘90s (based on the podcast of the same name) which I’ve been dipping into over the past few months and enjoying hugely. All in all, I’m very much looking forward to a few days away from my desk, and I hope you’ll notice a fresh spring in my proverbial step when we next meet for next week’s newsletter.
In the meantime, let me insist rather firmly that you buy some tickets for our upcoming shows at Wilton's Music Hall on March 26th and 27th. We’ve got former Home Secretary Alan Johnson, former Pony Smacker1 Doon Mackichan, writer and thinker Russell Davies (no, not that one) and current award-winning author, journalist and Substacker-extraordinaire Alice Vincent among our stellar line-up of guests over the two nights. As always, you can get the best priced tickets for only £11 if you use our discount code OTMCast when you check out. Don’t miss out…
In other show-related news, we’ve just locked in our final guest for our show on July 3rd - none other than comedian and actress and The I.T. Crowd star Katherine Parkinson! We’re pretty excited about that.
In other non-show-related news, here are some things we’ve been enjoying this week:
Former Arcade Fire instrumentalist Will Butler talks to New York Magazine about How To Write A Fake Rock Song.
Ahead of the upcoming publication of a book of song lyrics written by Nobel-laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, Dorian Lynskey asks in The Guardian Can Song Lyrics Can Ever Be Literature?
Professor Chris Lintott was a very lovely guest on OneTrackMinds way, way back in 2017. He’s going to be a guest on the upcoming instalment of A Drink With The Idler, a brilliant series of Zoom-based interviews run by The Idler magazine. He’s an absolutely delightful man. Get your tickets and pour yourself a drink for an engaging chat with Chris on March 14th.
Our good friend Ed Blunt - musician, composer and leader of our friendly in-house choir Camden Voices - is performing at Piano Smithfield tomorrow night to launch his new album Grown Up. His newsletter this week includes a list of 27 Things That Make Life Worth Living, which is a very lovely thing to peruse if you haven’t quite gotten rid of the February Blues.
Right then, that’ll do! I’ll be back next week with more news from OneTrackMinds HQ. Until then, stay happy.
KB.
To be clear, and to the best of my knowledge, at no point has Doon Mackichan actually smacked any real ponies.
Thanks for the clarification. I'm ringing you this week...don't you DARE answer the bloody phone