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EXTREME SONG OF THE WEEK:

I listen to a lot of old music - Motown, Classic Rock, Blues, Jazz, but the one type of music I always come back to is extreme music. I seem to find a lot of beauty in extreme music.

      IDIOTWATCH

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/05/the-power-of-the-dog-thomas-savage-stoner

"Phil needn't have worried, but you do wonder sometimes if people are what you think they are, or if you only think that they are and they are what they are and not what you think."

No. Just no.

Thomas Savage's book is a solid, if somewhat plodding affair, which reveals a genuine flair for storytelling but also that he cannot really write.

Time and time again he reaches for a type of Southern dirt track poetry, but his hands clasp only around dust slipping through his fingers.

He is simply too clumsy a writer to merit the type of rave reviews the re-release of this book generated.

Thomas Savage was an interesting man.

Unfortunately the renewed enthusiasm with which his work has been greeted is no coincidence but rather part of a modern fetish for authenticity in these most inauthentic of times.  

The record company must wondered whether he had finally lost the plot.

They must have shat their pants.

Side 1 was frazzled, new wave short bursts of pop music (before new wave even existed).

Side 2 sounded in 1977 like it had come from another planet.

The "Berlin Trilogy" remains one the greatest artistic achievements of the  past 100 years.

The guy is a genius. And the scary thing, he probably was not even really trying.

David Bowie; 1947-2016

One of the greatest artists in any artform of all time.

When I was doing my GCSEs, one of my mates went off an a huge tongue in cheek rant in English Literature about how we were all going to grow up to be Prime Ministers, Philosophers and Multimillionaires and how we were the best/most talented boys in the country, etc, etc.

I said "Listen, I guarantee if you put all of our talent together, all 20 of us, in total it will not even get to half of the talent David Bowie has."

My English teacher, a triple 1st from Cambridge and himself a huge Bowie fan told me, "That's the only thing that you have ever said which I completely agree with"

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