Connolly’s Corner

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.

𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙄 𝙏𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙈𝙮 𝘽𝙤𝙨𝙨 – 𝙅𝙪𝙣𝙚 𝙃𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙙

Charles is talking about quitting…

A job’s a job. How many times have we heard that? It’s both optimistic and pessimistic, but ultimately saying a whole load of nothing. A job. We all have one; or most of us anyway. Some of you un/lucky ones are retired. Some of you are still students. But the majority is kept busy most of the time in a means of making money, in order to live. Seems simple enough. Some are content in their work, or simply don’t mind it; a job’s a job. I am one of the lucky ones (I imagine a rarity) in being able to earn my living from doing what I am best at, and doing what I love. Producing and mixing music. This doesn’t mean I don’t work hard; I just don’t resent it. Each and every project is to me a worthwhile endeavour. Of course, I could do with a few more clients (preferably of the disgustingly rich variety), but things are fine, and my life is generally not a bad one. Still though: “Come to me, my pretties!” Go on. I’ll make you shine. And no, I am not also a part-time window cleaner. And you – to be fair – are not a window. But I feel I can still see through most of you. You’re unhappy in your work, aren’t you. You can tell me. I won’t let on. Pour yourself into Uncle Charlie’s ears. Let it all out. Most of you accept it and get on with it. But given the chance you’d flee the scene if there weren’t a camera by the exit door and a great sense of guilt in doing so. Your feeling of elation and freedom would last a matter of minutes before you come to your senses and realise that you still need to put food on the table. And your partner might not feel the same elation: “You’ve done WHAT?? That is the most selfish unthought-out thing you’ve ever done! Go back there right now and grovel to Mr. Potato Head for your job back, and pray that he lets you off lightly. If he has you back at all. I wouldn’t if I were him” – yes, these fictitious lovers fondly call the boss, Mr. Potato Head.

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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.

𝙒𝙝𝙚𝙣 𝙄 𝙃𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙔𝙤𝙪 (𝙃𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙮’𝙨 𝙎𝙤𝙣𝙜) – 𝙂𝙤 𝘽𝙞𝙧𝙘𝙝

Charles speaks of songs and daughters…

Children, eh? Kids! Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. Or so I’m told. I personally can’t stand the blighters. Rotten little noisy things with snotty noses, always whining about this or about that. I mean, why would anyone WANT such a thing?? Actually CHOOSE to have one? Or even SEVERAL? I mean, are you people completely and utterly out of your mind?? Why would you DO that to yourself? To inflict such pain and misery on an otherwise relatively decent life… Speaking of life, you’ve spent oh so many years sorting out whatever life was supposed to be, and finally you’re on track. Things are clear. Things are good. You and partner. All working well, in both senses of the word. You’re comfortable, in terms of money, and , well, comfort. You feel good. You do not hate your job too much. There is a natural flow to the way of life. You’ve just got into the swing of things. Et voilà. Repeat until the cycle is complete. The thing is… There is no cycle. There is an end. Nothing to pass on. It all ends there. And THEN what have you got. A couple who spent their life doing life. Just their own life. Pah. What is that. “A discontented lazy rabble, instead of a thrifty working class…?” – sorry, I do like the occasional quote.

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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.

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.

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.

(more…)

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.

𝙏𝙬𝙤 𝙎𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙨 – 𝙀𝙙 𝘾𝙤𝙧𝙧𝙖𝙙𝙤

Charles unconsciously lies to himself…

Love is heaven. Love is bliss. Love is life. Love is everything. Love is hell. Love is cruel. Love is a curse. Love is the death of a heart gone cold. One never knows how anything is going to turn out, but one always hopes for the best. Sometimes though, it is not hope that we feel, but “factual knowledge”. For the sake of simplicity, let’s keep this heterosexual. Somewhere in the world, there is a man. Somewhere else in the world there is a woman. Neither knows the other, but each has one thing in common: they are alone. They muddle through in the way that we do. The travelator of life. The zombie conveyor belt. For without love, there is little but this. For the sake of argument, let’s call these two souls Brian and Ethel. Brian likes gardening. It keeps him busy, and takes his mind off the loneliness of life. The flowers are his friends. The crops are his sustenance – in more ways than ones. But ultimately he is numb. He is empty. He is also lazy. He just doesn’t put himself about. In the words of Arctic Monkeys: “Brian, top marks for not tryin’”. And so, the beat goes on. Ethel, on the other hand spends most of her time in the kitchen. A plump lady, who likes to bake cakes. But with no one to bake for, it feels like a fool’s errand. She simply gets a little more plump. When she can eat no more, she sits at the kitchen table, smoking (she has the idea this will make her lose weight), and staring out of the window at the neighbour’s garden (for her own leaves much to be desired). She sighs and puts the kettle on. Or the Kethel. While coffee enriches and invigorates the soul, tea was invented to pass the time. Fact. As the water is brought to the boil, the whistle tells her so and insistingly prompts her to remove the kethel from the hob. She does so. But as she does so, she catches a glimpse of a shiny bonce. A polished noggin. It belongs to the body of man busy pruning. How had she not noticed Brian before? Had she been too busy staring at his roses? Was she pondering on her doubts about the quantity of flour? Be it flour or flowers, the tea is now far down on her to-do list.

(more…)

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.

𝙒𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣 – 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙎𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙨

Charles knows what women are like…

Women. Let’s talk about women. “You sexist, chauvinist pig! How dare you-” WAIT!!! I haven’t said anything yet. Damned trigger people. You see a man talking about women, and instantly you’re on the alert, ready to pounce. “But you’re obviously going to be saying something negative, otherwise why would you-“ WHY am I OBVIOUSLY going to say something negative…? What makes you think that? Am I that pessimistic that I only speak negatively of things? “A woman is not a THING!!” Yes, yes, I know that. That’s not what I meant, and you know it. Simmer down, and let me speak. Good God, if I said I was going to talk about black people, is that instantly no-go territory because I’m white? What if I was going to praise Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Dr. Dre and John Legend? “Oh, well that’s okay then”. So let me say something first. THEN you can decide whether pouncing is the necessary action. So. Ahem. Let’s talk about women.

(more…)

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.

𝙑𝙖𝙘𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝘿𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙢 – 𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝘾𝙧𝙪𝙢𝙗𝙨, 𝘾𝙡𝙤𝙪𝙙𝙗𝙚𝙡𝙡𝙮

Charles explains, for folk’s sake…!

I have heard that foreigners learn English from songs. Whilst I can see this being a sensible technique – “betcha by golly, wow” – it can have its drawbacks. I am he as you are he, as you are me and we are all together. Wise words. But complicated words, nevertheless. And it probably doesn’t really help much… There is you, and there is me. And there is them. There is a person, there are persons. There are people and there are peoples. And I would imagine this at times to be rather confusing. There is singular, and there is plural. Take a sheep, for example. Just hold it for a moment. Heavy, right? Now imagine carrying two of them. Two sheeps? Nope. Two sheep. Why? Because it is. Okay, you can put them down now. What about a fish? Well, what ABOUT a fish? Certainly lighter than a sheep. No legs to kick you in the groin. Have another one. Two fishes? Nope. Two fish. unexplainable, but that’s how it is. How about when you go on holiday and you’re still waiting for your two suitcases to ‘ker-chunk’ on to the sturdy conveyor belt at the airport. Surely that’s two luggages, no? No. You might even have 10, but it will always be luggage. This comes under a peculiar term called ‘uncountable nouns’. Other such uncountable nouns include water, bread, flour, rubbish, research and sand. Put all these together and you get a recipe to avoid. In fact, it can be so confusing that even native speakers have started changing the language and incorporating the foreign way of speaking. Pluralising everything. One such example that IS correct though, comes back to where I started. We say “they” when we don’t want to mention a specific gender. Despite “them” being one singular person.

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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.

𝙒𝙤𝙣𝙙𝙚𝙧𝙛𝙪𝙡 𝙔𝙤𝙪 – 𝙁𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙠 𝙅𝙤𝙨𝙝𝙪𝙖

Charles speaks frankly…

Throughout the noughties and early tens, I was obsessed with one particular producer. It seemed to me like he was capable of anything. Whatever he got his hands on, he would turn to greatness. He would make a good thing better. He would make it his own. I also wondered if the artists he worked with minded that each record he produced sounded very much like a “haven’t mentioned his name yet” album, rather than an album by that particular artist. His stamp. I don’t think they minded though, because if he was involved it was pretty much a guarantee that the record would be fabulous, popular and reviewed well. Praised to the skies, even! The artists he has worked with include Radiohead, Beck, Zero 7, Travis (never mind), Air and a slightly more obscure artist by the name of Paul McCartney. There are of course others, but this is enough to be getting on with for now. While these artists are hugely different from one another, there is something warm and cosy, yet grand and impressive about all of them. This is what this producer manages with everything he touches. His name? Nigel Godrich.

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