Charles Connolly

Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙚𝙚𝙩𝙨 𝙁𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙎𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙩 – 𝘽𝙧𝙮𝙖𝙣 𝘾𝙤𝙤𝙥𝙚𝙧

Charles reviews a charmful man…

I am going to indulge myself in sticking with a theme. Last week I wrote about two amusing yet thuggish Mancunians. 30 years ago they took over Britain. Shortly after that they took over the world. The same thing happened 30 years previous with four amusing yet charming Liverpudlians. Both sets of Northerners were always incredibly entertaining in very different ways when it came to interviews. In both cases, it was a welcome back to Britannia ruling the waves – the radio waves. Before the mop-tops, it was a quiff-laden pelvis. Before the coked-up thugs, it was… Um… Hmm… Who was world famous before them? An unusual man who walked backwards with style? The thing is, Britain was finally back on top form; certainly in terms of popularity anyway. But it wasn’t just one beat combo to rule the roost; they were simply the top of the league. Many other Britonians marched to the beat of the same drum. But aside from going with this united flow, there was competition. There was supposed rivalry for these young men from Liverpool. This rivalry was a band my father likes to call The Strolling Prunes. And what excellent publicity it turned out to be! There are two important facts to be known however… One: these two “rivals” were actually good chums, and it was all just a well planned media binge. Two: no one could seriously even try to pretend that these Southerners were a threat to the greatness of these Northerners. They just weren’t as good. Example: compare Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with Their Satanic Majesties Request…

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Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙒𝙝𝙮 𝘿𝙞𝙙 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙂𝙤? – 𝘾𝙃𝙑𝙍𝙇𝙄 𝘽𝙇𝙑𝘾𝙆

Charles is giving up…

A tree. A humble tree. There it stands in simple pride, to gaze around with much the same open pensive quality as when I gaze at the tree through my bedroom window. Or at least, this WAS the scene for many years until a couple of weeks ago, when I received a text. The text from my neighbour informing me that I should expect a lot of noise the following day. My heart leapt. This tall, healthy bay tree standing in a garden, a while away from the house, was to be “dismantled”. I put it this way so as not to trigger my sensitive heart once more. And maybe yours. It was crippling to me. Crushing and very lowering indeed. As promised, there was a lot of noise for a while, followed by an eerie silence. I could not even draw open the curtain for two days for fear of an expansive overload of daylight. Eventually I plucked up the courage. And in doing so, I sighed and felt like giving up. I had one question for the tree: Why did you go?

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Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙒𝙞𝙡𝙙𝙛𝙞𝙧𝙚 – 𝙇𝙚𝙠𝙪𝙧𝙨𝙞

Charles spreads east…

Today I will be loose in my terms. I will speak of East and West. Please allow me this over-simplicity in order to make this coherent and enjoyable.

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Welcome all to 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗹𝘆’𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗿, a series of weekly reviews by Charles Connolly – an artist in his own right. Here, Charles delves into the greatest brand new singles brought to you by the best unsigned artists on our electrifying and eclectic set of 𝙉𝙚𝙬 𝘼𝙧𝙩𝙞𝙨𝙩 𝙎𝙥𝙤𝙩𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 playlists.

𝙏𝙪𝙧𝙣 𝘿𝙤𝙬𝙣 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙇𝙤𝙪𝙙 – 𝙅𝙖𝙢-𝙏𝙖𝙠𝙤

Charles makes something out of something…

Where does it all come from? I mean, where do we get it all? What made us do it? Where do things come from? How do we know how to do things? How do we know what to do? What a lot of generally vague questions to answer. This demands a lot of thought – a difficult thing to do with all the noise these days. Everyone is doing things all the time, but few think about what they are doing. They just do what they do. And make a lot of noise while doing it. So let me zone out for a bit and think. Nope, not working. Too much going on inside my head – don’t laugh. Food. That should help. Yes, food. “Oh this is delicious!”, I said. “It’s my mother’s old recipe”, she said. “Oh right, well compliments to your old mother!”, I scoffed. “Not my old mother, my mother’s old recipe!”, she barked. And so the noise resumed. But it made me think. She didn’t make this noodle wonder from nothing. In the words of a certain Spanish waiter, she “learnt it, frrrom a booook”. Her old mother’s recipe book. Sorry: mother’s old recipe book. It was passed down, from generation to generation. This in turn, made me realise that pretty much everything comes from something in the past. We build upon older, wiser knowledge. We don’t start from scratch each and every time. If we did, we would still be hitting rocks with rocks. I never quite understood why they apparently did that, but anyway. Perhaps a nice interesting tone for sampling at a much later date? Perhaps not.

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