Musical and geographical offerings from GeoBlogs: a 365 blog project for 2026.
I had to wait for quite a while to get to this month, when I'm going to do the 30-day song challenge.
J Willgoose Esq is the songwriter and guitarist/keyboard player for the band 'Public Service Broadcasting'.
This excellent post outlines the recording of the band's album 'Every Valley' in South Wales - the location for the album's concept and narrative about the growth and decline of the coal industry and its impact on the local communities and the people who make them.
Here's one of the standout songs from the album, which is all excellent.
Some songs have many different interpretations.
Willie O'Winsbury is one such song.
Here's a version by Offa Rex / Olivia Chaney.
Francis Dunnery was the guitarist and vocalist with the band It Bites, who have appeared on the blog a few times so far - and were the previous ticket stub. I saw them about 15 times in the 1990s and they were always so tight and crisp in their playing.
I met him and saw him play at a special show down in London at the Hard Rock Cafe's music space when it was in Covent Garden. He'd brought his tapboard with him and shared some stories.
This particular ticket was a solo concert after his departure from It Bites.
Back in 2009, I was working for the Geographical Association.
The GA's HQ is in Sheffield and for 2 or 3 days a week I would head up to the office, staying overnight at a colleague's house in the city.
During that time, helped with funding from the Action Plan for Geography, we produced a "manifesto" for geography...
The GA’s 2009 manifesto for geography, A Different View, described geography as ‘one of humanity’s big ideas’ and made a compelling case for geography’s place in the curriculum. It was produced and funded by the GA, as part of its charitable role to advocate for geography education.
This has a number of different versions on Spotify and can also be ordered on physical media.
There is a piano and an instrumental version as well.
Hailed for work that celebrates themes of nature, people, place and time, Cooper continues to merge music with evocative storytelling and conceptional art in Folded Landscapes. The album, recorded in sub-zero temperatures that slowly increased across its seven movements and with an audio master sun-burnt in the 40.9C heat of the hottest day in UK history, figuratively and literally thaws over the duration of a pertinent new album.
Movement 5 in particular is about the impact of climate change on the landscape and features some spoken word contributions from Simon Armitage and also a section of Greta Thunberg's speech at a COP conference.
There were 4 performances at the Barbican involving melting ice and with contributions from Simon Armitage.
This is a fairly niche area, but there are some other existing blogs which have been around a while.
I've already mentioned the blog of John Medd, who has kindly got involved with the blog since it started adding comments and thoughts.
Next up is the excellent Musical Geography Project blog.
This has a variety of posts linked to music...
The Artemis II mission made history recently.
NASA revealed the wake-up playlist that the crew had.
Not sure that Neil and Buzz would have woken up to this banger...
Tracy Chapman's music has been undergoing a little renaissance of late.
She performed as an unexpected late addition to the Nelson Mandela tribute concert.
Her key album is her self-titled debut from 1988. This included the classic track 'Fast Car'.
Here's a performance from the 2025 Grammy's where she sang 'Fast Car' with Luke Combs.
One of her most powerful tracks is 'Talking 'bout a revolution'
I recently added two guest posts: one on the music of the favelas in Brazil, and one on the influence of Punk music in Belfast.
The Guardian has published a piece which combines both of those.
Thanks to Emma Espley for sending me this link to some book suggestions from the author Sathnam Sanghera.
He's best known for writing about the legacy of the British Empire in the UK. but he is also the author of a book about George Michael.
'The Full Monty' was filmed in Sheffield, and as a local boy I recognised most of them, or had walked past them in person. The opening historic film showing the steel industry was explored in detail here.
It included the famous 'Hole in t' road' which no longer exists but which I have talked about before in geography sessions on the city's cultural heritage. Sheffield is also the home of the GA, and was my place of work for three years from 2008-2011. Here's a film from the start...
There's this memorable scene later in the film when the Full Monty gang go to sign on (I did that myself during the mid 80s - as a student we signed on during the summer holidays - with no intention of getting a job of course).
That's the title of the latest album from Nils Petter Molvaer. Listen to it on Bandcamp.
Each track is produced in association with another musician.
One is with the late Marilyn Mazur
All of the tracks are named after places.
1 - Bangkok (Chang Jing)Another (much earlier) classic track by Nils Petter Molvaer is called On Stream.
It's taken from his album 'Khmer'.
Miles Davis was born on the 26th of May 1926.
This was the first album I heard him playing on.
One issue that has been appearing in a number of locations is an increase in the amount of noise.
Developers move in to an area and there are some changes which temporarily cause building noise, but also the removal of vegetation which can dampen the noise.
Sometime in the mid 1970s, my long-haired Uncle Steve played an album while I was at my nana's house in Rotherham. It was unlike anything I'd heard before and I was immediately fascinated by it. It turned out to be an album that was quite new, and was selling thousands of copies.
The album came out on the 25th of May 1973.
This has been in my life for over 50 years, and I could probably imagine and 'play' the whole album perfectly to myself in my head I have heard it so many times, and the various sequels and variations which have emerged since.
I went to a special orchestral performance at the Royal Albert Hall to mark the 50th anniversary, with Brian Blessed.
It had been recorded by one person, who had spent weeks multi-tracking himself playing a whole range of instruments - particularly guitars - a young man called Michael Gordon Oldfield. It was the first issue on a new record label called Virgin records. Friends also liked it very much.
I bought a copy when I was in my record-buying phases and also had a copy on cassette tape. I consequently bought every release from Mike Oldfield in at least one format. He was still my most-listened-to artist according to my end of 2022 Spotify statistics.
The album cover is particularly distinctive with imagery from Trevor Key. It features some waves too of course. Are they constructive or destructive waves?
Here's the first tour that he did.
Here's the use of the track in the film 'The Exorcist'.
