Another fabulous year for movies. It is such a pleasure being able to go to the local cinema or rental shop and see bold, thrilling movies like “Kill List”, “Martha Marcy May Marlene”, “Take Shelter”, “Rare Exports” or “Essential Killing”. I love that such cliche-dodging, thought-provoking, wrong-footing treats are so easily accessible.
If we did not like a film from the year, then it is not mentioned on the list. No value in being negative. I hate critique, but I *love*recommendation. I know that not all these films will be to everyone’s taste, yet I find it hard to believe that you would not enjoy movies like “Beginners”, “Who Took The Bomp?”, “Animal Kingdom”, “Submarine”, “The Big Picture”, “Rare Exports” or “A Lonely Place To Die”.
I didn’t expect there to be four Ryan Gosling films in our favourites, nor three with Christopher Plummer, nor three with John Goodman, nor two in the top twenty made separately by a husband and wife, nor one written by a husband and wife team. nor so many monkeys, goats and dogs…
A bumper year, but In the end “Blue Valentine” remained our favourite, in fact grew and grew on us. Not always an easy watch, but so pure, so romantic, so painful and so true – ace performances, a brilliant soundtrack and wonderful end-credits too.
1 Blue Valentine 2 Beginners 3 Take Shelter 4 Who Took The Bomp? 5 Kill List 6 My Dog Tulip 7 Essential Killing 8 Midnight In Paris 9 Animal Kingdom 10 Drive 11 Submarine 12 Little White Lies 13 Attack The Block 14 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy 15 The Artist 16 A Separation 17 Rise Of The Planet of The Apes 18 The Future 19 Senna 20 The Skin I Live In 21 Melancholia 22 The Inside Job 23 The Big Picture 24 Le Quattro Volte 25 Project Nim 26 Rare Exports 27 Tyrannasaur 28 A Lonely Place To Die 29 Bridesmaids 30 Red State 31 Limitless 32 The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo 33 Romantics Anonymous 34 Mammuth 35 Easy A 36 Potiche 37 Baghead 38 Crazy, Stupid, Love 39 T.T. Closer To The Edge 40 Barney’s Version 41 World’s Greatest Dad 42 We Need To Talk About Kevin 43 50/50 44 The Guard 45 True Grit 46 The Way 47 Julia’s Eyes 48 Meeks’ Cut-Off 49 The Resident 50 Water For Elephants 51 Ides Of March 52 Howl 53 Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol 54 Rango 55 Last Night 56 Cold Weather 57 Never Let Me Go 58 The Loved Ones 59 You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger 60 The Adventures Of Adele Blanc-Sec 61 Black Swan 62 Living In The Material World 63 A Small Act 64 Hanna 65 Seconds Apart 66 Daydream Nation 67 Tree Of Life 68 Source Code 69 The House Of The Devil 70 The Lincoln Lawyer 71 Point Blank 72 Incendies 73 The Rum Diary 74 How Do You Know 75 The Fighter 76 Just Go With It 77 Nenette 78 Trust 79 Insidious 80 Horrible Bosses 81 Super 8 82 How I Ended This Summer 83 Tucker And Dale Vs Evil 84 The Company Men 85 Fair Game 86 H2Oil 87 Rabbit Hole 88 Super 89 The Mechanic 90 Hobo With A Shotgun 91 Johnny English Reborn 92 Stakeland 93 Blitz 94 Gasland 95 His And Hers 96 Life In A Day 97 Oranges And Sunshine 98 Beautiful Lies 99 Bad Teacher 100 Everything Must Go

Greetings and a happy new year to you from an unseasonably warm Brighton (see yesterday’s sunset).

I will be playing solo at the How Does It Feel night at the Buffalo Bar, next to the Highbury & Islington tube in London on Thursday 26th January.
A Little Orchestra will also be playing and we will revive the versions of “Scottish Pop” and “The Reservoir” from last year’s show in Brixton. Apart from that I will play Spearmint and Shirley Lee songs completely different from previous solo gigs, if you see what I mean…

Full details are on the How Does It Feel site or here on Facebook.

Shirl

(Soundtrack John Coltrane “Lush Life”)
Top notch Le Tigre event here in Brighton on Saturday night, very refreshing and inspiring. In fact, I might get in touch with Riots Not Diets and offer my services as a support act. I am sure they will be delighted!
Yes, we have been in Brighton for six months now, which has flown by. It has been a difficult time in some ways, but the town remains as brilliant as ever, and the perfect place for vegan/veggie lefties to settle. The music, theatre and film scenes are great and the pubs are (rather too) excellent. I have been working in London, but am looking for something locally.
I have done four solo gigs so far. The first in Leeds was hard going, but I was happy just to get through playing solo and survive it (thanks Mark). The second in Brixton with A Little Orchestra was better, and had some moments I was genuinely proud of (thanks Ian). The third in Lille was fantastic, my first living room gig, and the perfect way to play solo, because people are obliged to sit and listen! (thanks Nicolas) The fourth, in London, had some good moments (thanks Simon), but I can’t really expect folk to listen attentively to very quiet stuff in a pub on a Saturday night – all learning for me… I will continue to play the odd solo show, as I do feel it is leading somewhere. There is something about being totally exposed, with just the songs to work with that appeals to me. Nothing to hide behind.
Meanwhile, we have been writing for the next Spearmint album. Jim and I have written quite a few songs together, and Ronan has created a set up whereby he can add drums at home and then mix the tracks. So far he has just worked on a couple to establish the process. I am hoping to go over there next week and sit with him to nail one of these tunes. Would really like to get the album out next year, but I feel it is only half written so far, so work needs to be done. We need to love it, or there is no point.
Bridie and I are watching a lot of films at the moment, ramping up our top 100 of the year. Saw Miranda July’s “The Future” last week, with a nice Q&A, and it is great, darker and more akin to her writing than the last film. Other favourites so far include “Blue Valentine”, “My Dog Tulip”, “The Inside Job”, “Attack The Block”, “Tyranassaur”, “La Quattro Volte”, and “Midnight In Paris”. Have read some great books this year too: “The Laughing Policeman” by Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo, “Tony & Susan” by Austen Wright, “The Little Stranger” by Sarah Waters (who did another good Q&A recently), “Under The Net” by Iris Murdoch and “The Lover” by Marguerite Duras amongst the Lee Child/Peter James/ Ian Rankins and the Bret, Murakami and Donna Tartt re-reads. Also read “The Count Of Monte Christo”, and the first volume of Sherlock Holmes, which are both superb.
I hate the way I write favourites and a squiggly red line appears under it, telling me I am spelling it wrongly. Why did America take our language and then willfully get 1% of it wrong? Can I change this on the laptop so it works in English? I worry that people who use spell-check are learning to spell certain words wrongly.
As I say, it is very easy to be Vegetarian or Vegan in Brighton, which is a treat. I have been vegetarian for thirty years now, and hover somewhere between it and veganism. I have got rid of milk now. After all, drinking the birth milk from another beast is a disgusting idea, yes? And the way they keep the cows pregnant and giving birth all the time, just so they constantly produce milk, but then they kill the male offspring is obscene. The thing is, you grow up being told that you need this stuff to be healthy, and then when you look into it, you don’t, it is all just a marketing campaign by the companies who make money out of selling milk.
I am reeling from the success of my album – I didn’t think an album could sell so little, or be so poorly received. I guess I set out to make an album that takes at least four or five listens to get into. All the albums I have really loved over the years are like that: they sound bad on the first listen and then gradually open up until you love them and get years of pleasure from them. So my double-album will never get good reviews, after all what reviewer would listen to it four times (or even once?). Oh well, I am proud of it, it’s got some of my best stuff on it. I hereby award it a 5-star review, simply because it is the album it was intended to be. I can’t ask for more than that. I remember we got a similar reaction to “A Different Lifetime”. It’s tough, and you have to bounce back, and move on. Which is exactly what I will do.

GIGS +++
More solo Shirley Lee shows are confirmed:

Saturday 1st October: Lille – “Domino Boomerang” (I will be playing for around an hour at this “living-room” gig. If you are interested in attending, please email Nicolas: dominoboomerang@yahoo.fr )
Saturday 15th October: London – Wilmington Arms (with The Bitter Springs)

OTHER STUFF+++
Go here and here to see me performing The Reservoir and Scottish Pop live with the splendid A Little Orchestra at last month’s How Does It Feel shows.

Here’s an interview I did with the estimable Eric Stephenson, firstly some chat about the new album,

Then about “A Week Away” and “A Different Lifetime”, and finally Eric’s Top 10 Spearmint tunes.

The brand new Shirley Lee album is out now! You can get it here.

The album is entitled “Winter Autumn Summer Spring”, is a double-album featuring 30 songs, and is available on double CD, heavyweight double gatefold LP and digital download.

I will be making my solo debut in London on Thursday 23 June at Jamm in Brixton. This is band night from the “How Does It Feel To Be Loved” team and will also include me performing a song or two with A Little Orchestra.

There’s more information here and a Facebook event page here…

The new Shirley Lee single will be released digitally on Monday 23rd May. It is called “An Old Cricketer”, and is made of my personal memories of John Peel. Grab it here:

http://www.hitbackonline.co.uk/acatalog/Shirley_Lee.html

and watch the video (which took three minutes to make) here:

The second Shirley Lee album will be released on Monday 13th June. It’s entitled “Winter Autumn Summer Spring”, it’s a double-album featuring 30 songs, and will be released on double CD, heavyweight double gatefold LP and digital download.
If you order the CD or Vinyl from us you can get the digital download absolutely free! Pre order from the same link:

http://www.hitbackonline.co.uk/acatalog/Shirley_Lee.html

I’m going to play the following shows totally solo:
Saturday 11 June – Lille: “Domino Boomerang” (I will be playing for around an hour at this “living-room” gig. If you are interested in attending, please email Nicolas ondominoboomerang@yahoo.fr )
Thursday 23 June – London: Jamm, Brixton (a band night from the “How Does It Feel To Be Loved” team)
If you are interested in booking me for more gigs, please drop me a line on mail@spearmint.net.
Best,
Shirl

(Soundtrack: Gene Ammons “Bad Bossa Nova”, The Arcade Fire “The Suburbs”)
One year ago we moved to Leeds, with the intention of getting away from London and being closer to my mother. It was great to be back here – I grew up near here, and I felt transported back to my days of coming into town as a teenager to go to gigs or record shops. Back then it had an addictive Red Riding grimness to it that is largely gone, but I still feel echoes of today. It was a perfectly bleak place to lose my teenage self in and to watch Joy Division, A Certain Ratio, The Bunnymen and the like as a kid.
Last time I lived outside London, it was also under a Conservative government. This can feel akin to at best “being ignored”, more often “talked down to” and at worst “insulted”. It reminds me how easy it is to hate London and its seemingly self-serving inhabitants once you are elsewhere in the country. Turn on the radio and hear token “regional” accents raving about the weather *in London,* or open a magazing and read national bar and restaurant reviews of places that are almost all *in London *. We used to love to listen to the Arts show on Radio 2, but there is no point at the moment. They should rename it “The London Arts Show”, or better still broadcast it on Radio London. Most of the culture in this country happens outside London, so why not reflect that?
Perhaps all the northern towns and cities and spaces in-between should bound ourselves together and call ourselves a city. A city called “The North”. After all, that is all London is – a random collection of disparate towns and villages separated by green spaces and bundled together under the name “London”. “The North” would be a much bigger and more impressive city than “London”. Eventually, the power would shift up here and folk in the old capital would learn how that feels.
I love this city, but it just hasn’t worked out for us here. Work is thin on the ground for a start and is getting worse with the government cuts. Additionally, “local jobs for local people” is followed as a mantra to an almost bigotted extreme that Tubbs and Edward would feel uncomfortable with. Some cities welcome talent from outside and that helps them move forward and ultimately create more jobs for locals, but not here. It seems folk are happy if the ship just sinks, as long as the ship is full of “locals”. So the town excels at staying pretty much the same while Newcastle, Manchester, Glasgow and Liverpool charge forward.
I love this city, but who knows its identity, its famous landmarks? Most other cities have a building or bridge that you can immediately associate with them. I would say that Leeds Town Hall is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world (see photo), so why not shout about it?
I love this city – it has an incredible array of other beautiful buildings, like The Corn Exchange, Kirkgate Market, The City Varieties, The Parkinson Building, The Grand Theatre, The City Museum, Kirkstal Abbey. Unfortunately they are masked by the most random selection of ugly modern structures you will find anywhere, as though nobody has had the strength or pride to keep the beauty of Leeds intact. The town sometimes seems like a boxer on the ropes, head down, taking punch after punch, preferring to carry on like this as long it is left alone as much as possible.
I love this city and its wonderful parks like Roundhay, Bramham, Temple Newsam, Meanwood and Golden Acre. The River Aire and the Leeds Liverpoool Canal provide some excellent walks. The Yorkshire Dales are easily accessible and are some of the most gorgeous places on earth: surely Ilkley Moor is *the *most wonderful place on the planet?
I love this city and it is a great place to come for a weekend: excellent bars, restaurants, and shopping. Perfect for a Hen party or ten – in fact you can seeing them lying on the pavements in the wee hours of Sunday morning; every Saturday night is like New Year’s Eve in Reykjavik.
I love this city and its marvellous film festival (the second largest in the country) and it is lucky to have a cinema like The Hyde Park Picture House. The National Film Museun in Bradford is a bus-ride away too, and is a genuinely great day out, as well as having fabulous programming.
I love this city and its thriving band scene that prefers to keep its lights under bushels. How many bands can you name from here compared to, say, Manchester? The town does not shout about the bands that do come from here – there is a whole area in the City Museum devoted to them, but the names you would probably associate with Leeds are not even mentioned. There are some great venues here: The Brudenell, The Hi-Fi, The New Roscoe, The Well, The Wardrobe, The Uni and a really good smallish O2 in a church.
I love this city and the way on each bit of spare grass you will find a horse or two tethered, keeping it trim. And yet, too many Gentlemen’s clubs, too many white meatheads stuffing substandard Greggs pasties into their mouths and being “harmlessly” abusive.
I love this city. That is why I worry for it and its contradictions. I happily made the new album here and, to me at least, it has a strong sense of this city about it. I will always come back to Leeds, but for now, we need to get out.

Single
The new Shirley Lee single will be released digitally on Monday 23rd May. It is called “An Old Cricketer (For John Peel)”, and you can hear it now on this website.

New Album
After (the usual) slight delay, the second Shirley Lee album will be released on Monday 13th June. It is a double-album featuring 30 songs, and will be released on double CD, double LP and digital download… and you can now have a listen to 10 tracks on this site!

Shows
I am going to play the following shows totally solo. If I get through these in one piece then I will add more through the summer:
Saturday 7 May – Leeds: “Don’t Falter” at Baby Jupiter (a really good club night; I will be playing a half-hour set around 10pm)
Saturday 11 June – Lille: “Domino Boomerang” (I will be playing for around an hour at this “living-room” gig. If you are interested in attending, please email Nicolas on dominoboomerang@yahoo.fr )
Thursday 23 June – London: Jamm, Brixton (a band night from the “How Does It Feel To Be Loved” team)

If you are interested in booking me for more gigs, please drop me a line on mail@spearmint.net.

Shirl

(Soundtrack: Nina Simone “Forbidden Fruit”, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti “Before Today”)
So a year skips past. Quite a challenging, ultimately productive year, which we spent in Leeds, but more of that later. I didn’t update the diary page because I felt that if I was going to spend time writing it would be better to spend it writing the album. So I binged on that and then set about recording it and have now finished it. But more of that later too. Jim just sent me the finished artwork and Steve has the master so I believe we are on for an April release.
Anyway, to continue where I left off, here are our top 100 movies of 2010. I continue to hold the view that we are living in a golden age of film, when brilliant bold ambitious cinema like Inception, Buried, 127 Hours and The Social Network gets made by the major studios and are huge hits, and we also have easy access to great independent films from all over the world. It reminds me of the days in world of music when records like “Ghost Town” would get to number 1… but that is all gone now, at least for the moment. Any minute now a New Riot Grrrl band will appear and make great records and blow the cobwebs away and snuff Cowell and co out and a nation will rise and be grateful.
2011 was a year of a wide spread of great films, rather than being led by a handful of classics. We have yet to see Winter’s Bone, Rare Exports or Uncle Boon Mee, but here is our joint Top 100 as it stands:
1= Another Year – maybe Mike Leigh’s best yet; keeps making you think and change your mind long after you have seen it.
1= Mother – dazzling, twisty-turny, frightening, funny Korean thriller worthy of Tarantino
3 The Kids Are Alright – Bridie would have this at number 1, but I intervened
4 The Illusionist – I didn’t expect a new Jacques Tati movie in 2010; this is so beautiful and sad and Edinbugh looks gorgeous; and the last twenty minutes are astonishing; our favourite animation of the year
5 The Maid – really cool black comedy
6 The Social Network – appears to confirm that the people who created Facebook are every bit as loathsome as the people who use it… Fincher is one of the greats
7 The King’s Speech – top quality fodder and we have a soft spot for Colin
8 Heartbreaker – Romantic comedies do not come much better than this, plus you get Romain Duris and Vanessa doing Dirty Dancing
9 American – The Bill Hicks Story – truly inspiring!
10 A Single Man – the good egg had a good year
11 The Yes Men Save The World – Oh boy I would love to be brave enough to take on the corporate world the way these chaps do
12 Exit Through The Gift Shop – another film that gives you more the more you think about it: a great history of street art, but an even better idea for a movie
13 Please Give – lovely Woody-style latest from Nicole Holofcener
14 Inception – just great fun, not sure why the critics talked about it as though it is full of riddles, it is quite straight-forward; loved this and want to see it again
15 127 Hours – reliably brilliant Danny Boyle
16 Whip It! – Bridie adores this and I like it too!
17 Humpday – deceptively slight, but stays with you, oddly quite tender about male friendship
18 A Town Called Panic – absolute mayhem, second favourite animation of the year
19 Greenberg – Ben Stiller is so delightfully cynical; fab turn from Rhys Ifans too
20 Catfish – another that keeps you thinking long after you’ve seen it… I guess mockumentaries about the internet will remain a recurrent theme of today’s film-making
21 Scott Pilgrim Versus The World
22 Good Hair
23 Toy Story 3
24 Skeletons
25 Shutter Island
26 Buried
27 The Last Exorcism
28 Kick Ass
29 Zombieland
30 The Father Of My Children
31 Made In Dagenham
32 Hachi – A Dog’s Tale
33 The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Life
34 Sherlock Holmes
35 SALT
36 Alice In Wonderland
37 Four Lions
38 Life During Wartime
39 Black Dynamite
40 Bad Lieutenant
41 The Ghost
42 The Box
43 Monsters
44 Up In The Air
45 Crazy Heart
46 Topp Twins
47 The Town
48 The Secret In Their Eyes
49 I’m Still Here
50 Splice
51 Food Inc
52 Sin Nombre
53 Unstoppable
54 Lourdes
55 Edge Of Darkness
56 Vengeance
57 Predators
58 Sly Stone – Coming Back For More
59 The Killer Inside Me
60 The Other Guys
61 The Headless Woman
62 Dogtooth
63 Cyrus
64 My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?
65 The End Of The Line
66 Burke And Hare
67 Get Him To The Greek
68 No Impact Man
69 It’s Complicated
70 Sex & Drugs & Rock’n'Roll
71 How To Train Your Dragon
72 We Live In Public
73 Bunny And The Bull
74 Un Prophet
75 Twilight Eclipse
76 Jail Guitar Doors
77 I Love You Philip Morris
78 Big River Man
79 The Joneses
80 Leaving
81 Cemetary Junction
82 Law Abiding Citizen
83 Furry Vengeance
84 White Material
85 Double Take
86 Frozen
87 Hot Tub Time Machine
88 Daybreakers
89 Crazy Love
90 2012
91 The Girl In The Park
92 Crazies
93 The Girl On The Train
94 Green Zone
95 Youth In Revolt
96 The Princess And The Frog
97 Brooklyn’s Finest
98 Afterschool
99 Talk To Me
100 Defendor

Hello And welcome to 2011! I appreciate that it has been a while, about a year in fact, but we have been busy. I have written and recorded a new Shirley Lee album for release in the spring and am planning to play solo live, Andy has completed his third solo album, and we are about to start on the next Spearmint record. I asked Jim if he had any cool photos of me and this is what he sent…

Radio Interview Go here to listen to me chattering at some length a few days ago to the splendid Geoff Lokke on his U.S. radio show.

New Album The second Shirley Lee album is pencilled in for release on 25th April. It will be a double-album featuring 30 songs, and will be released on double CD, double LP and digital download. I have written, performed and produced this one myself, so unfortunately am unable to blame anyone else for the way it has come out. Jim is currently finishing the sleeve artwork.

Single The album will be preceded on 4th April by a digital single “An Old Cricketer (For John Peel)”.

Shows I intend to attempt playing some shows totally solo. If you think you have the perfect venue to host a tall, tentative man singing with an acoustic guitar very quietly then drop a line to mail@spearmint.net.

Spearmint The next album is currently a blank page (my favourite bit). Jim and I have had two long walks in the woods, and got quite excited about how we are going to approach it. Ideally we will write and record this year for release with live shows next year, but this is all subject to us coming up with something we feel is worthy!