Musical and geographical offerings from GeoBlogs: a 365 blog project for 2026.
This is one of those timeless folk songs. It has been recorded by several bands... and is also known as "Little Musgrave".
Matty Groves was recorded by 'Fairport Convention'.
It dates back a long way. This image is from an old manuscript in the Bodleian Library.
There are numerous versions of the song.
It has made the news a few times because of weather or other issues which have caused issues for festival goers and the landscape within which the festival takes place.
A heavy rainstorm in 2023 turned the desert surface, called playa, into a quagmire and trapped tens of thousands of people. This is a fragile environment and the potential for damage is controversial.
Unlike most festivals, the organisers have had to provide a 20 page Survival Guide which provides guidance on preparations and staying safe in what is an extreme - dry, hot and dusty environment.
Downloadable as a PDF.
Accompanying text:
Black Rock City has a way of bringing about once-in-a-lifetime experiences. While the big, flashy moments make the headlines and become the clickbait, many of the most memorable encounters come from small, personal, and whimsical interactions.
This year, I challenge you to do something personal that fosters interaction and connection. Think of traveling the backstreets, sharing your gifts with new friends, or sparking a moment of serendipity beneath a small art piece. These moments of self-expression and open-hearted connection are truly the ones that resonate, creating ripples in the dust and in our lives.
Joining a crew or communal effort is a great way to get involved. There are so many possibilities; find one that matches your interests and energy levels. However you choose to participate — organizing a camp, building art or a vehicle, helping with civic infrastructure or making the city run — know you are contributing to something bigger than yourself.
I am sure your time here will open new horizons and you’ll meet some amazing people. Ask anyone on a Burning Man crew or volunteer team what they love most about it, and they will tell you it’s about the work, and the friendships.
Imagine who you could meet — someone who could change your life, not just in Black Rock City, but forever.
Whether this is your first, or twenty-first Burn, I can’t wait to share this experience with you.
Charlie Dolman, Director of Event Operations
It contains some really interesting contents.
Would be useful to develop this as a tourism / extreme environments case study.
Via LinkedIn and a piece by Amanda Shendruk: a visual journalist.
Each year, 70,000 people gather on a dry lakebed in Nevada to build a city from scratch. This is Black Rock City, home to the infamous Burning Man event. Eight days later, it's gone.
This is an intriguing concept album from the late musician Hector Zazou. He produced a number of eclectic albums.
Songs from the Cold Seas was released in 1994.
The theme is that all of the songs are about the Arctic (and feature musicians from that part of the world or close to it.)
He travelled three years for the record. He was accompanied by cameraman Philippe Roméo as he recorded traditional folk songs in and from Alaska, Canada (Newfoundland), Greenland, Iceland, Japan, Scandinavia and Scotland. He incorporated the shamanic incantations and lullabies of aboriginal people such as the Ainu, Inuit, Nanai, and Yakuts.I have a copy. It's not very easy to find this release now.
Here's one of the songs from the album. Oran na Maighdean Mhara features the voice of Catherine-Ann Macphee.
Growing up in the 60s and 70s was an interesting time to be a young person. There weren't many TV channels... and not much programming aimed at young people.
In the summer holidays there were some programmes for children. Many of them were bought in from other countries rather than being made in the UK. We had our own examples of course.
The Banana Splits are up first.
They had several short cartoons including 'The Arabian Nights'.
Robinson Crusoe - a French / German co-production in black and white.
The theme tune was excellent and instantly takes me back to a time when Lucozade bottles were wrapped in orange plastic film.
White Horses
Another French co-production.
Hair Bear Bunch
Which of these do you remember and which other programmes are part of your childhood?
There is a new free Freddie Mercury exhibition starting at the V&A in October and runs through until early 2027.
Here are some more suggestions for songs that remind readers (and those who filled in the Google Form down the right hand column of the blog.
A cross-posting from my Geography in/on Film blog.
I was very pleased to hear last night that David Byrne's current tour has been filmed. It continues the tradition when Jonathan Demme made 'Stop Making Sense' and Spike Lee filmed his 'American Utopia' tour.
This concert, that I saw in March at the Hammersmith Apollo was the best of the year (so far) and a tremendous visual spectacle.
Image: Alan Parkinson
In 2014, Pet Shop Boys performed at the BBC Proms. It was a piece about Alan Turing.
1. Natural wonders every child should know
2. He dreamed of machines
3. The Enigma
4. Other ranks
5. The memory and the control
6. The trial
7. Only in his death
8. A man from the future
The voice of former British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, was heard in the last section, recorded especially for this performance.
Juliet Stevenson narrated from within a specially constructed booth to ensure vocal clarity over the music. The BBC Concert Orchestra and the BBC Singers were conducted by Dominic Wheeler.
Neil Tennant sang alongside the BBC Singers while Chris Lowe played keyboards and electronics behind him and next to PSB programmer Pete Gleadall.
The band has now revised the piece.
BBC Radio 6 Music will broadcast the 2026 edition of “A man from the future” on Sunday 4th October within Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone (8-10pm), and Stuart will also hear from Neil and Chris and Andrew Hodges about the creative process behind the reworking, and their interest in blending electronic and orchestral music.KLOF Magazine is a very interesting music website.
It offers a range of Music from the Margins.
Folk, Avant-garde, Experimental Indie, Jazz, Field Recordings, Electro-acoustic, Minimalist, Ambient, songwriters and sonic explorers pushing boundaries in niche communities around the world – we cover music with the same depth and reverence the mainstream reserves for its tired canon.
It's also FOLK backwards....
Check it out....
There’s something really beautiful about using your life as raw material and making it into something that, if you do it right, it’s like a thing that’s there for ever and people can access it and it will do something for them.
Jarvis Cocker
I met Jarvis a few years ago in St. Pancras Station. I've seen him quite a few times heading to or from the Eurostar check-in with guitars and other luggage over the years.
The newspaper has an interview with Jarvis by Olivia Laing and there are plenty of mentions of the importance of the quotidian and the everyday in influencing his music, and that of others.
Jarvis' excellent book here is about his start in music and the influences of the everyday. It is similar to some of the work of Jonathan Meades.
This takes Jarvis back to his early days and is an inventory of some of the objects that remind him of different stages in his career.
There's a strong element of everyday geographies here too, and the ephemera that we collect. He shares images of items, and the design is nice as it changes from format to format throughout the book with lots of pictures e.g. early posters from familiar Sheffield venues such as the Leadmill, Hallamshire Hotel and the 1980s 'fun pubs' that I remember (avoiding).
Jarvis has been the frontman for Pulp for decades. My friend Simon saw him in New Zealand with Pulp playing live and said it was one of his favourite concerts - and he's seen Led Zeppelin and all the greats play live.
He has also worked on a couple of films with Wes Anderson.
I have a signed copy of the hardback first edition of the book and am going to get deeper into it to add something more substantial as a response to the book. I liked the memories of the hole in t' road.
Music is just organised noise.
A cross posting from my Iceland blog.
An article on Icelandic bands.
It mentions an artist called Rakel.
Alongside the recent passing of the legendary Dolly Parton, we also had the announcement of the passing of Tim Curry. He played the Lord of Darkness in the 1985 Ridley Scott film Legend and was also in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which features a few well known songs on the soundtrack.
Legend actually had 2 soundtracks.
Ridley Scott's choice was Jerry Goldsmith...
To give the movie a score that might resonate more closely with younger viewers, the production brought in German New Age synth band Tangerine Dream. The band had previously scored movies including Firestarter, and even Risky Business, using their signature ethereal synths. Unlike Goldsmith’s score, which was tightly tied to each beat of the film, Tangerine Dream’s score was more rangy, and loosely atmospheric. The Tangerine Dream soundtrack sounded quite clearly like a Tangerine Dream soundtrack.
European viewers generally saw the film with the Jerry Goldsmith score. American audiences mostly saw the Tangerine Dream version.
Here's the Tangerine Dream OST.
Mountain Dance is a piece by Dave Grusin.
A cross posting from my Geography on/in Film blog and Cultcha blog.
It was a picture of the band crossing the famous Abbey Road level crossing.
Image: Apple Records - taken by Iain Macmillan
This is a much copied image. The article mentions some other bands which have created their own versions for album covers.
For locals it is also a source of frustration as they are held up by lots of tourists recreating the scene for a picture. Caveat: I've done that myself...
Abbey Road is my son's favourite Beatles album. We listened to it recently while on a Kent road trip.
Frankie Vaughan released a song in 1983 in response to a newspaper competition.
Believed to have been recorded as a bit of a wink and a nod by Vaughan and lyricist Geoff Morrow, a songwriter and businessman from London, the tune came about as a response to an article by the Mail on Sunday which essentially dragged Stockport’s name through the dirt.
Sad news just now as I heard of the passing of Dolly Parton,
She did a great deal for literacy in the USA as well as her decades of musical achievements, charity work and philanthropy and theme park creation...
Here's a classic from 1973.
