Hello. السلام عليكم. Hallo. Здравствуйте. Salut. !שָׁלוֹם עֲלֵיכֶם. Buorngiorno. Maakyé. 안녕하세요.
Well, 2020 took a turn, eh?
It’s been a terrible time for so many people in so many different ways and, if you’re one of them, I wish you all the love, happiness and improvements you can get!
In numerology, 20 is about spiritual progression, karma and new beginnings, so let’s hope a little bit of that is happening right now and everything we’ve experienced together this year is for a better future for everybody and the generations to come.
Now here’s some music and film stuff for yer!
Funk On Playlist
A new Spotify (do follow me, honey) and YouTube (do subscribe, darling) playlist is up and this time it’s FunKyyy (!!) featuring phenomenal head-shakers and shoulder-rollers by Bootsy Collins, Guts, David Bowie, Grace Jones, Betty Davis, Khruangbin, MF Robots, The Rolling Stones, Prince, Chaka Khan, The Clash and more.
The Funk On playlist is available on Spotify here and YouTube here. Get uplifted and get down with it!
For the wolfish music munchers amongst you, here are links to past playlists:
The Good Vibez playlist here featuring Parliament, Shintaro Sakaomoto, Prince, CSS, Yoko Ono and more.
The Bittersweet playlist is here featuring Aldous Harding, beabadoobee, Tennis, Mac DeMarco, Leonard Cohen, Men I Trust and more.
Album
Between film and comedy projects over the last few years, I’ve written a lot of tunes and developed one family of songs into album material. Filmmaking is an all-consuming endeavour and so it was a real struggle to get meaningful time to work on an album…until most of the world shut down!!
So, as well as working on some other people’s projects, I’ve been recording since April and am in the final stages…of my part!
Most of the last two months have looked like this; me slouched on the sofa in some pyjama type clothes with an electric, acoustic, bass or keyboard.
I have 17 tracks that fit the project (about 40 others that better suit other things!) and they will be split into the album, an EP and B-sides.
Last year, I shared a little unmixed version of one of them, Good Thing, with a low-fi, home-made video and I’ve used some of the lockdown to make another for a song called Money Makes Us (Cry) which I’ll share with you shortly.
Here are a few pictures of me filming it on my rooftop in the sunshine:
To Trend On Twitter
I am happy to say the cool cats at Carmarthen Bay Film Festival have nominated To Trend on Twitter for an award. Obviously it would have been great to attend but the universe had other plans for us both!
The Carmarthen Bay Film Festival team have done a great job of keeping the festival going remotely during the pandemic and the awards ceremony will be streamed on their Facebook this Friday 26 June at 4pm.
Films I’ve Watched #3
Here’s a new “Films I’ve Watched” list – freshly watched films I recommend due to excellence, cultural significance or because they’re fun.
Paris, Texas (1984, dir. Wim Wenders)
Malcolm X (1992, dir. Spike Lee)
Hi Diddle Diddle (1943, dir. Andrew Stone)
Chernobyl (2019, dir. Johan Renck – Miniseries)
I Know This Much Is True (2020, dir. Derek Cianfrance – Miniseries)
Sullivan’s Travels (1941, Preston Sturges)
Searching (2018, dir. Aneesh Chaganty)
The Invisible Man (2020, dir. Leigh Whannell)
The Court Jester (1955, dir. Norman Panama, Melvin Frank)
Abigail’s Party (1977, dir. Mike Leigh)
I’m All Right Jack (1959, dir. John Boulting)
Coffy (1973, dir. Jack Hill)
Over the Edge (1979, dir. Jonathan Kaplan)
Love and Death on Long Island (1997, dir. Robert Kwietniowski)
13th (2016, Ava DuVernay)
Can We Take a Joke? (2015, Ted Balaker)
Contagion (2011, Steven Soderbergh)
Rolling Thunder (1977, John Flynn)
The King of Staten Island (2020, Judd Apatow)
Here is Films I’ve Watched #2 and #1.
Comedy
There once was a lot of plans,
Then there was a demic-pan,
I put said plans to bed,
’til it’s safe to make them,
And I’ve written as much as I can.
Stay safe.
Love, love, love,
Andy ✌❤👁
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Andy on Twitter.