New Writing
Tucked away amidst the proud proclamations on the University website that chairs in Indian Studies and Contemporary China have been appointed, and beneath a call for donors to a Chair in - of all things Korean Studies, comes the news that Oxford University is appealing for the endowment of a Chair in Film Studies. I happened to be in the English Faculty (which teaches Oxford's current film option), so I asked the librarian about their current film holdings. "If you ask me," said the librarian, who hadn't been asked, "it's just an excuse for grown men to watch Westerns." Such an astounding display of ignorance might seem surprising from a university that purports to be a world leader, but I can now reveal that such backward looking attitudes were present from pretty much the beginning. When Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the Bodleian library, reached an agreement in 1610 with the Stationers' Company to receive a copy of every book, he dismissed plays (including the works of Shakespeare) as "baggage-books". I couldn't help recalling the contrast to my first visit to the theatre at the age of sixteen: upon entering the bookshop, I was confronted with a ghastly old hag (and her hen-pecked husband) at the front of a very long queue, who dumped down an enormous pile of books. "Theatre people," she declared with histrionic abandon to her involuntary audience, "are special people, and deserve to be pampered", her husband then meekly proffering his credit card. Far be it from me to annoy Oxford's community of Thesps (I'll leave that to the drama page) but I am writing an article that is going to examine the various merits of film against theatre. I have what is probably an insane belief that film is not an art form of the twentieth century, but the art form of the twentieth century, and will certainly be the art form of the next one too....
Music: Classical
Ivan Fischer and his Budapest Festival Orchestra have achieved an impressive reputation in the romantic eastern European repertoire. Their recordings of Brahms' Hungarian Dances, Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies, the late Dvorak Symphonies and Bartok's orchestral works have been critically acclaimed and gained them recognition as an ensemble to rival the top rank orchestras in these works. With this new recording of the Dvorak's ever popular Slavonic Dances they enter a crowded, highly competitive field which means unavoidable comparisons with the likes of Kubelik, Pletnev, Previn, and above all, the classic 1960s recording by George Szell and his stunning Cleveland orchestra. ...
Music: Music
Clinic have never really been too concerned about being fashionable. Continually coming in from the left-field of garage pop, being popular with the masses has never been one of the most obvious of their ambitions. But, in the words of Andrew WK, "we do what we like, and we like what we do", and so it seems they have carried on doing it. ...
Music: Going Out
Pop duo Ben and Jason (not to be confused with Ben and Jerry - they make ice cream), are somewhat hard to pigeonhole. That may be why the Zodiac's gig listings hideously mis-describe them as a "Jeff Buckley inspired pop duo." Slightly bemused by this misnomer, Ben Parker (singer and guitarist) ponders "it's obviously a vocal range thing". That's where the similarity ends - Ben and Jason tend not to produce the drab navel-gazing that characterized Buckley. In fact, in person they are jovial to the point of farce, so much so that they are a lazy journalist's nightmare - when asked where their inspiration comes from, Ben deadpans "from the ground". Similarly, any attempt to throw them in with the NME - created, New Acoustic, 'quiet is the new loud' scene falls flat on its face - "we were glad that we didn't get lumped in with that, because we'd have got lumped back out with it". On stage they play with the comparison using their typically ironic and self-deprecating humour; "we are a rock band after all - we're not part of this New Acoustic thing. Who the fuck are Turin Brakes? Who the fuck are Turin Brakes touring America with the Stereophonics?" The wit of that comment masks a genuine sense of injustice at being, in their own words, "a brilliant but underselling group." Not that you'd guess that on the basis of a quick glance around the full, but slightly pungent, downstairs bar (what does the Zodiac smell of? Answers on a postcard to Ria). ...