Sweet Thing

My friend Steve and I made something of a pilgrimage on Friday. A young rock and roll hero of ours was playing but a stone's throw from London St. Pancras at The Lexington in Islington N1. Making a day (and night) of it we visited haunts old and new before fetching up at one of north London's grooviest live venues.

Gyasi (pronounced Jah-see), as I've mentioned here before, is the embodiment of Glam: he not only walks Glam, he talks Glam. By a process of elimination, therefore, he is Glam. No ifs, no buts. 

Gyasi - Sweet Thing (2025)

Time doesn't exist, yet it controls us anyway

James called it. He told me last week when when we were up in Whitby: One Battle After Another is the film of the decade and that I had to go and see it. On the big screen. And to be quick about it (new releases don't hang around at cinemas like they use to). 

And he was right; of course he was. I snuck into my local art house cinema for the penultimate screening. When a bunch of revolutionary misfits ('French 75') headed up by Leonardo DiCaprio are forced to come out of hiding and get the old band back together, what unfolds is a nail-biting caper loaded with suspense and hilarious one liners all wrapped up in a tightly wound screenplay (based, loosely, on Thomas Pynchon's 1990 novel Vineland). No surprise that Rotten Tomatoes loved it. Even the car chase. The supporting cast which includes Sean Penn,Teyana Taylor, Benicia del Toro and Chase Infiniti are superb and, between them, both they and this highly charged movie should absolutely clean up when awards season comes around. If it's still showing where you are you should really go and see it. You'll thank me, I promise you.

One Battle After Another - Official Trailer (2025)

I hear you calling

I've told The Swede before, on numerous occasions, if he doesn't nail his ideas down, I'll nick 'em; I'm dodgy; I'm a geezer. And so on Monday he flagged up what would have been  Brian Connolly's 80th birthday and at the same time telling everyone how fab Healer by the Sweet was. I also recall Ernie saying in the comments section that someone in TS's catchment area has probably got at least 40 versions of this mid-70s solid slab of Sweetness. Not sure about that, but I have got a rather tasty nine minute version which I hope the TS digs as much as I do. I shan't map out my Sweet credentials here, though feel free to take a gleg at both the band and BC on my sidebar.

The Sweet - Healer (Munich Mix) - 1976

★

Brian Connolly (1945-1997)

Takes me back to the place that I know

A few days away with the Number One Son and his betrothed had been on the calendar for ages but still it managed to creep up on me unawares. I love it when long weekends do that. Despite the weather not always being clement and the fact we were a man down for the first night, we still had a fine old time. Though we will be back in the Spring when the weather gods will, hopefully, get their shit together and all squad members will be 110% fighting fit. Natalie had never been to Whitby before so we showed her the sights, including: the slots, The Abbey, The Black Horse and the Passage to India. The top photo is her and James walking down the one hundred and ninety nine Abbey Steps. And the photo below is one Natalie took of us on the beach at Sandsend (thereby recreating a shot of the Medds taken in, roughly, the same spot in 2014).

The final day of our trip became quite emotionally charged when we bumped into a friend we'd not seen in eight years: it transpired that Adele has not been enjoying the best of health lately and has a number of serious operations lined up. As always in these situations I didn't really know what to say. I hope I said the right things but all I really wanted to do was hug her tightly. So that's what I did. Here's the last picture I took of her when she came to visit us not long after we'd moved back to Nottingham in 2017. I hope everything works out, Adele. J x.

Hello Beautiful

Last Friday saw the release of Hello Beautiful, the first new material from Dodgy in almost a decade. In September 2016, when they put out What Are We Fighting For?, the country had just committed economic suicide and voted to leave the European Union. However, little did we know at the time but Messrs. Clark, Miller & Priest had already read the nation's tealeaves 20 years earlier when the plaintive U.K.R.I.P. dominated Side 2 of their 1996 long player Free Peace Sweet.

Countless Prime Ministers later and with the country on its knees fretting more about small boats than child poverty, we've reached that point in proceedings where if we don't get some good news soon we're gonna do something we'll regret. Cue Dodgy, then, with a taster from the new album (due next May): Hello Beautiful is a paean to optimism; to life; to yourself. And it's crammed full of those infectious guitar hooks and sumptuous harmonies you fell in love with on The Dodgy Album (their 1993 debut) and is absolutely guaranteed to put a great big fuck off smile on your face. That I can promise.

Dodgy - Hello Beautiful (2025)