Should get out more

At the risk of sounding like a myopic metropolitan wanker - like the worst kind of Londoner who's astonished to discover that there's life out in "the provinces" - I'm as guilty as anyone of greedily reaping the benefits of living in the Welsh capital but rarely looking beyond the city limits. It's all too easy to coast along in your Cardiff bubble, but the truth is that there are exciting, engaging things going on elsewhere in South Wales all the time - something I've made a resolution to recognise and publicise more often.

Take the various museums and Roman sites in Caerleon, for instance, or - up in the Valleys - the Workers Gallery in Ynyshir. Goodsheds has made Barry a serious draw for those who are slaves to their stomach. The National Lido of Wales has tempted me into several visits to Pontypridd in the last year, and I'm keen to visit Janet's Chinese restaurant in the market and see how the plans for the revitalisation of the Muni Arts Centre pan out.

And then there's Newport, a short journey away but somewhere I'd never really explored until a couple of weeks ago. It took the revamped indoor market and an exhibition of David Hurn's photography (including some previously unseen images) at the newly established Ffoto Newport (Buzz review here) to entice me there. Now I'm aware of just how easy it is to hop off the train and see a show in Le Pub, I'm determined to visit more often.

Goodsheds? Bloodyfantasticsheds, more like

Why exactly did we wait until we had weekend guests to sample the delights of Goodsheds in Barry? A complete mystery, and total madness. No excuse is needed - just get yourself there, take your pick from a host of fabulous street food options and make sure you've got a few napkins to hand. Here's my review for Buzz.

We now need to go back to try Alium (occupying the former Hang Fire premises) and the Shed - the latter not to be confused with the exclusive eaterie that Oobah Butler set up in his garden in Dulwich...

I think I'm in love

At the risk of coming across like a fully paid-up member of the reviewers' union, an astute write-up can really help you to see things in a different light - whether that's souring expectations ahead of hearing an album or really selling a record that has thus far underwhelmed.

A case in point: Ben Cardew's piece on Everything Was Beautiful for Pitchfork. On the first couple of plays, I was struggling to hear Spiritualized's ninth studio album as anything other than overblown self-parody - but it turns out that it's actually a shining testament to ploughing your own furrow, or, in Cardew's words, "getting high on your own supply".

As he argues, the record takes their "habitual influences" (who, it's worth noting, are no one else's - at least not in combination) - "The Stooges, gospel, blues, free jazz, the Rolling Stones, et al." - and "finesses [them] into a hypnotic mixture, capable of both savage intensity and benzodiazepine drift". Admittedly, the chief reference point is "the band's own gilded history" - but that's no problem because they do it "so shamelessly well". As he puts it, the album is "like meeting an old friend and finding new shared memories, the nostalgia not yet worn thin".

Would I have seen through my own cynicism and come to this realisation without Cardew's intervention? Perhaps - though I might have set the album to one side had the review not convinced me to listen again.

Ultimately, Everything Was Beautiful is an immersive, maximalist masterpiece - a deliberate call-back to Ladies And Gentleman... and every bit its equal. And I'm grateful to that review for making me come to my senses.

"This was just a heavy metal wildman saying wild things, right?"

How to react when a beloved musician with some eccentric lyrical preoccupations falls down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole and emerges a crank no longer merely idly entertaining outlandish ideas but (apparently) actually believing them? Grayson Haver Currin's NPR article on Matt Pike of Sleep and High On Fire is exemplary as the work of a long-time fan attempting to process what's happened.

Currin's suggestion, essentially, is that there's been a "social sea change" that might have left Pike high and dry even if pandemic lockdown and personal circumstance hadn't hardened his convictions to a point that they're practically indistinguishable from those of David Icke and far-right free speech advocates.

Anger is an energy

If you're wondering how my attempts to keep my finger on the pulse and appear down with the kids are going, my latest gig review for Buzz - of a triumphant return to Cardiff for incendiary punk/metal duo Bob Vylan, whose new album has gatecrashed the Top 20 - features cutting-edge references to such contemporary cultural luminaries as Missy Elliott, The Prodigy and Mr Motivator...

Get the picture

If you're in the mood for some easy listening, I wouldn't recommend reaching for Alison Cotton's new album The Portrait You Painted Of Me. If, however, you're looking for a suitably foreboding soundtrack to a low-budget 1970s British horror film, then it's ideal. Buzz review here.

Going out on for a limb

Blame The Plate Licked Clean. As soon as I clapped eyes on his review of La Cuina, and especially the reference to the "sharing-size shoulder of Pyrenean mountain lamb scented with rosemary", the Catalan restaurant leapt straight to the top of the must-visit list. That dish certainly didn't disappoint, and while our evening wasn't perfect, it came fairly close. Buzz write-up here.

(Did I say "Blame The Plate Licked Clean"? I meant "Thank The Plate Licked Clean", of course...)

Left cold

Illuminati Hotties called in on Clwb at the weekend, together with tour support Ducks Ltd. Sad to report, though, that the LA-based indie rock/pop punk quartet were less Best Coast and more wet weekend at Weston-super-Mare. Buzz review here.

Fight the power

I guess it's questionable whether there's much point previewing a gig that's already sold out. But then Bob Vylan's visit to Clwb wasn't when I wrote this, and in any case it gave me the opportunity to plug their take-zero-prisoners, give-zero-fucks new album Bob Vylan Presents The Price Of Life.

Here's to a good old singalong on Tuesday night. All together now: "No liberal lefty cunt is going to tell me punching Nazis ain't the way"...

Circular arguments

As an author, it must be galling to find yourself wilfully misread.

Benjamin Myers' new novel The Perfect Golden Circle, published today, centres on the phenomenon of crop circles, which were particularly prevalent in the late 1980s. In a recent article for the Guardian, he argued for their significance as anti-capitalist artworks that used the countryside as canvas and were created anonymously and "impossible to either move or monetise".

Myers suggests that not only did they have aesthetic value, constituting "an important chapter in the evolution of indigenous British folk art", but that they were made with subversive intent, connected to both the protests over land ownership of the past and the contemporary "rural unrest" associated with New Age Travellers and the so-called second Summer of Love. (Jeremy Deller's Everybody In The Place is useful background viewing, for anyone interested.)

All of this feeds into the novel - and yet Spectator reviewer Maggie Orford begins her myopic, sneering review by claiming that it's "ostensibly about male friendship", before going on to ignore the political context entirely. While it's not exactly surprising that the Spectator should shy away from any engagement with the novel's message, there's an irony (given the subject matter) in the fact that Orford completely misses the bigger picture - as there is in her complaint about a "lacuna at the heart of the book". Pot, kettle, black, etc.

It's not clear whether the photo that accompanies the review - a stock image of a black sun symbol, associated with Nazis - is an embarrassing self-own or an sly attempt to smear Myers and undermine his argument. Either way, he's been moved to distance himself from it. And, no doubt, curse the fact that the Spectator saw fit to "review" The Perfect Golden Circle in the first place.

Hot and bothered

If, like me, you've never worked in a high-end restaurant before, Philip Barantini's Boiling Point is likely to be enough to convince you not to give it a try - and, hopefully, leave you with a huge amount more empathy and respect for anyone who does.

The film follows under-fire chef Andy Jones, played (perhaps inevitably) by Stephen Graham - "your go-to guy if you want tight-lipped intensity", as I noted reviewing the BBC's bleak prison-based three-parter Time last year - as he grapples with the stresses of running his own restaurant (financial difficulties, unsociable hours, a minefield of paperwork and health and safety bureaucracy) as well as a messy personal life that's spiralling out of control. His team face challenges, too, largely in the form of the restaurant's clientele, who are demanding, unappreciative and disrespectful.

The drama unfolds over the course of a single evening, during which the visit of Jones' former mentor Alastair Skye (Jason Flemyng) sparks professional animosity (not least because he's brought feared food critic Sara Southworth (Lourdes Faberes) along, unannounced, as his dining guest), waitress Andrea (Lauren Ajufo) is forced to be polite to a racist customer, and a table of entitled influencers behave like, well, entitled influencers.

Much has been made of the fact that the film was shot in a single take, the camera following all of the characters at various points. Not only is this a phenomenal physical and logistical achievement, but it serves a significant aesthetic purpose too, conveying the relentlessness of it all. Respite? None.

Boiling Point is a fiction, of course, so the pressures are deliberately stacked up like a pile of dirty plates as the film moves inexorably to its climax - but that's not to say it's not true to life. Just last week, local eaterie Cora hit the headlines when owner/chef Lee Skeet called out the bad behaviour of a bunch of suits for subjecting restaurant manager Lily Griffiths to verbal insults and unwanted touching. It seems they were of the opinion that the amount they were spending entitled them to act with impunity. Griffiths described it as an isolated incident, but did admit that female staff "experience a lot of power dynamics, particularly with men".

On the evidence of Boiling Point, it's little wonder that the catering industry is suffering a recruitment and retention crisis. The film might well be traumatising for some former restaurant workers, as well as those currently in the thick of it, and it offers no solutions or consolations. Neither would I recommend it to any diners who would prefer to remain blissfully ignorant of what goes on behind the kitchen doors. But as a grimly gripping piece of drama, it's terrific.

Future of the left

As Fergal Kinney's intro to this Quietus Baker's Dozen implies, Andy Burnham is as close as British politics - and certainly Keir Starmer's Labour Party - has to a poster boy. As Manchester Mayor, his stock is high, not least because "[h]is pragmatic, soft-left regional populism - splitting the difference between Wilsons Harold and Tony - chimed with the demands of the pandemic".

Burnham's selection does him no harm either. The choices might not come as any great surprise - The Beatles, The Smiths, New Order, The Las, Doves, The Wedding Present, Billy Bragg - but wouldn't it be nice to have a Prime Minister who's not only been a regular at the Hacienda but also actually listens to young people (in Burnham's case, his children turned him on to Big Thief)? Given the current incumbent,  I think we could forgive him liking The Stone Roses, including Adam And The Ants in the category "all kinds of rubbish" and hailing The Courteeners as "the best live band I've ever seen".

Exclamation points

Once upon a time, about a decade or so ago, Holy Fuck lived up to their name all night every night. When they (finally) got the opportunity to call in to Clwb last Thursday, it was evident that they're still capable of summoning up that old magic, albeit not quite so consistently. Buzz review here.

Getting personal

When Bob Geldof described "pop music" as "a brutal business", he was talking about its habit of chewing artists up and spitting them out, often prematurely. That much is evident in Nick Duerden's Exit Stage Left: The Curious Afterlife Of Pop Stars. Another newly published book, Ian Winwood's Bodies, paints the industry in an even less flattering light, focusing on the way it "has long allowed abnormal behaviour to become normalised, even celebrated", because doing so is marketable and profitable.

Such behaviour includes the sexual harassment and abuse of female musicians, which was explored in Tamanna Rahman's documentary Music's Dirty Secrets and is once again in the news following the allegations about Tim Westwood. But music is also "a brutal business" for female music journalists - as Jude Rogers spelled out in an article for the Quietus. Writing her own book, The Sound Of Being Human: How Music Shapes Our Lives, caused Rogers to reflect on her own experiences.

Given that women are routinely harangued for sticking their neck above the parapet and daring to express an opinion in any sphere, it comes as little surprise to hear that over the years Rogers has been subjected to much misogynistic abuse from vitriolic male keyboard warriors. Hell hath no fury like a man witnessing a woman brand his favourite artist overrated - especially if said artist is a cornerstone of the tediously phallocentric canon (hello Jeff Buckley!).

What's more alarming, however, is the fact that such misogyny seems to be rife within editorial settings. Rogers details instances of tokenism, of being restricted to interviewing and profiling women artists, and of criticisms of a writing style that she herself came to believe might be "too female".

The Sound Of Being Human is founded on the premise that a love of specific songs and artists is intensely personal, and writing about music is also a subjective enterprise - so the suggestion that doing so "emotionally and personally" is somehow "wrong" is bizarre and nonsensical. As Rogers puts it, "if writing about music doesn't involve the communication of joy and sharing pleasure at regular intervals, then - and I won't mince my words anymore - what is the fucking point?"

If the article as a whole makes for depressing reading, it is at least also a valuable reminder of just how many amazing, intriguing music books written by women have already been published this year - from Rogers' own, to Sinead Gleeson and Kim Gordon's edited collection This Woman's Work, to Adelle Stripe's collaboration with Fat White Family's Lias Saoudi. Let's share in Rogers' hope that this heralds genuine change in the way that women music writers are treated, both by editors and online.