| | | Heart full of soul: the maverick genius of Jeff Beck, the 'guitarist's guitarist' | Alexis Petridis | | by Alexis Petridis Jan 12, 2023 | | He began with bubblegum pop in the Yardbirds, then moved on to psychedelia, funk, jazz fusion, even techno – but no matter what the genre, Beck was always ahead of the curve Of all the career opportunities that could present themselves to an up-and-coming guitarist in the mid-60s, the offer of replacing Eric Clapton in the Yardbirds was one you might think twice about accepting. It wasn’t just that Clapton was talented; it was that – uniquely for British rock at the time – he was the Yardbirds’ star attraction. His presence so obviously overshadowed that of their frontman, Keith Relf, that one of their peers wrote a song about it. Manfred Mann’s The One in the Middle affectionately mocked Relf as “just a pretty face”. (Curiously, Relf could never be talked into performing it.) Trying to replace Clapton, you might assume, was a hiding to nowhere: anyone who tried was being set up to fail. But Jeff Beck, who had been recommended for the job by his friend Jimmy Page, didn’t just replace Clapton. He transformed the Yardbirds, from blues purists struggling to square their love of Buddy Guy and Freddie King with the necessity of having pop hits (Clapton had walked out in protest at the band recording and releasing Graham Gouldman’s For Your Love as a single) to a band at the vanguard of British pop’s relentless forward progress. The first single he recorded with them, Heart Full of Soul, was another Gouldman confection, enlivened by Beck mimicking the sound of sitar – some months before the Beatles first deployed the instrument on Norwegian Wood – with a guitar played through a distortion pedal called a Toneblender. Continue reading... | | | | | Next Level Chef review – Gordon Ramsay's cooking competition is bizarre, banal nonsense | | by Jack Seale Jan 12, 2023 | | Contestants randomly grab ingredients from a dumbwaiter, then cook in concept kitchens while the celebrity chef breathes down their neck. How bewildering There’s a moment early on in the first episode of Next Level Chef (ITV1) when Padstow restaurateur Paul Ainsworth, one of the judges on this new cooking competition, turns to Gordon Ramsay and takes the mickey: something about the head judge not having worked in a real kitchen for years. It’s forced banter, but it does point to why Next Level Chef is a breathless, bewildering gabble of a show. This is a cookery contest that is so obsessed with contrived competition that it almost completely forgets about food. A dozen contestants – a mix of professional chefs, social media influencers and people who just make good scran at home – are split into three teams, each mentored by one of the judges. They cook within a huge metal structure built on three layers. The top-floor kitchen is state-of-the-art, the middle level is a normal working kitchen and the dreaded basement is a greasy mess of outmoded appliances, unseasoned pans and wonky stoves. Create the week’s best dish and your team gets to use the top kitchen next time; cook one of the two worst and you face the “cook-off”. The loser of the cook-off goes home, and what’s left of that contestant’s team is consigned to the basement next time. Continue reading... | | | | | | | Gwen Stefani faces backlash over 'I'm Japanese' comment | | by Maya Yang Jan 11, 2023 | | Singer and TV host, who is of Irish and Italian descent, made comment in interview promoting her beauty brand The singer and TV host Gwen Stefani faced widespread backlash after claiming: “I’m Japanese.” In an interview with Allure magazine released on Tuesday, Stefani, who is of Irish and Italian descent, was promoting her GXVE beauty brand when she said: “My God, I’m Japanese and I didn’t know it.” Continue reading... | | | | | Seinfeld, shootouts and haunted mansions: how Jennifer Coolidge became an icon at 61 | | by Hannah Jane Parkinson Jan 11, 2023 | | After her Golden Globe win, it’s full steam ahead for the actor’s career renaissance. It’s about time, given how long her irreverent, eccentric wit has been overlooked It couldn’t have happened to a nicer person. We know this by the unanimous reaction to Jennifer Coolidge’s career renaissance at the age of 61. Her long-time fans – always of the opinion that she was one of the most underrated comic actors – couldn’t contain their glee. Warm applause and laughter (and, in collaborator Mike White’s case, tears) greeted Coolidge’s charming acceptance speech at last night’s Golden Globes, where she won best supporting actress in a limited series for The White Lotus. After putting her statuette on the floor (“I don’t work out, I can’t hold it that long”), Coolidge emotionally – but not mawkishly – gave a brief precis of her career. That she had hustled hard in Hollywood. That she always felt a bit of an outsider. She named a handful of writers and directors who had kept her afloat (Ryan Murphy, Michael Patrick King). She namechecked the sequels that provided steady pay cheques (“Five different sequels of American Pie. I’ve milked that to death”). Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt smiled at the kind of irreverent, eccentric wit she’s known for. But she was vulnerable, humble – almost disbelieving. Continue reading... | | | | | 'People think apartments are for losers': the homes that could help solve LA's housing crisis | | by Oliver Wainwright Jan 11, 2023 | | Los Angeles is choked with traffic while many have to live on the streets thanks to the city’s archaic planning laws. Could modernist apartment blocks built a century ago make LA liveable again? ‘A true southern California city,” declared a 1910 issue of Out West magazine, “would be a garden filled with homes.” It was one of numerous publications at the time designed to lure people to move to the golden state, extolling the virtues of the sun-kissed, health-giving west coast. “Many of these homes would be humble, costing but a few hundred dollars,” it continued, “yet they would represent a very high average of beauty and comfort, thanks to the marvellous climate. In order to accommodate a great population,” it added, “such cities would naturally spread over a vast area – the vaster the better.” The boosterism worked, and the cities sprawled. The first decades of the 20th century saw the population of Los Angeles mushroom from 170,000 people in 1900 to more than 2.2 million by 1930. The crowds were drawn west by the promise of owning their own home in a garden of earthly delights, a land of warm winters and orange trees in every back yard, a rambling Arcadian city crisscrossed by an efficient network of electric railways. Continue reading... | | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment