Bbc 4

[wpdavid]

One for the older CWers maybe. But I thought that the ongoing run of excellent rockumentaries on BBC 4 might have caught the eye of a few of us. I particularly enoyed the first two episodes in the 'Punk Britannia' series, and the Ziggy Stardust programme was really excellent. Not so fussed about Quadrophenia, but that might just be me.

Any other BBC4 viewers out there?

 

[Pothas]

Yeah I saw Punk Brittanina and very good it was, especially the first episode about pub rock which I knew next to nothing about.

It may have endless repeats but BBC 4 is pretty superb, miles ahead of any other channel. As well as the consistently good music documentaries it has plenty of great foreign drama, Borgen being my favourite.

Storyville is great as well, seen Fire in Babylon, Out of the Ashes and the brilliant Bobby Fischer documentary all in the last year.

 

[grecian]

Yeah, I love Spiral, Wallander, The Killing, saw all these docos too.

I enjoyed them, but I tend to find them frustrating with conflicting views from contributors and stuff that clash with my own memories.

Punk Brittania particularly, but there never will be a more muddled "scene". The thing about Punk is it changed nothing in the mainstream apart from for a couple of years, the music of the Eighties was worse than the music in the seventies before it. A couple of people acknowledged this at the end. I blame Weller for breaking up the Jam and starting Style Council. New Romantics were hideous, interesting that ***** from Spandau said Ziggy influenced them, so that put me off that doc too.

A lot of Punk bands were **** too, and in many ways PiL were superior to the lot of them. Also leaving out all American influences,and eventual influence was a bit odd, because in the end Iggy (produced by Bowie) and others influenced Punk and the best Punk bands were American afterwards, Dead Kennedy's in particular. You can say that the clues in the title, but we aren't really an island state when it comes to culture any more.

I wonder why they didn't show the Ziggy one first, was it just to rush the PB one out for Jubilee, because it would have made sense to show that one first.

 

[sledger]

BBC 4 is the only BBC channel worth watching for mine. Really enjoy it. Spiral, Borgen and The Bridge being my particular favourites.

Not sure why they persist with BBC 3, that really is the pits.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

We don't have BBC4, but BBC Knowledge has by far the best documentaries on Kiwi TV. As well as Last Man Standing. What a brilliant programme. Make another series, Beeb!

 

[superkingdave]

Always find myself annoyed that it is only on restricted hours, there isn't much on TV worth watching, but there is usually something on BBC4

 

[wpdavid]

Not fussed about Black Sabbath and Ozzie O. this week, but next week there's lots of great-looking stuff about Roy Orbison.

 

[grecian]

Not fussed about Black Sabbath and Ozzie O. this week, but next week there's lots of great-looking stuff about Roy Orbison.

yeah sabbath made two geat singles, their albums are gash.

 

[wpdavid]

Anyone catch the programme about mark Knopfler last night?

 

[grecian]

Hit a bit of insomnia ATM, well an even worse version than normal.

So am Watching Danny Baker's album show, very interesting, and not only talking about great albums, but listening habits through the year.

 

[sledger]

Watching the new series of Spiral?

 

[grecian]

Watching the new series of Spiral?

Nah, it needs concentration, and I haven't got it ATM. Nice it's getting a bit of publicity though, on the back of the nordic sensation. People clearly loving sub-titles nowadays.

 

[stumpski]

Yep, another fan here. It's my go-to channel when I can't see anything else worth watching (and don't fancy another evening of QI and HIGNFY repeats on Dave). The album shows have been pretty good; I've also been watching the TOTP reruns since they started showing them in 2011, some epic nostalgia there for those of a certain age - even though some have been cut for well publicised reasons.

 

[wpdavid]

I enjoyed the recent 'When albums ruled the world' a lot. No surprise there, with truck loads of good music and enough interesting asides to pass the time.I haven't yet seen much of the Danny Baker programmes, but I can believe that they're well worth an hour of my time. Actually, I read the DB autobiography recently, which wasn't bad at all.

I wasn't too fussed about the 50th anniversary of 'Please Please Me' episode, with various artists re-recording the album. Difford and Tilbrook's version of the title track was particularly ordinary imo. They'd have been better leaving it to the Stereophonics given the Taffs' decent rendition of 'I saw her standing there'. One problem is that most of the songs aren't actually all that great, despite the historic nature of the album. Once we got past 'ISHST' and 'There's a place' the self-penned numbers didn't amount to much.

 

[wpdavid]

In case any of you missed it, there was a very good programme about Graham Parker yesterday. I'd actually forgotten just how good an album 'Squeezing out sparks' is, but I'll need to dig out my copy as soon as I get a spare moment. 'Protection' and 'You can't be too strong' are unbelievably good songs, but there's plenty of others to enjoy too.

 

[sledger]

Series finale of Spiral tonight. Can't wait.

 

[sledger]

Series finale of Spiral tonight. Can't wait.

Bit underwhelming. Lazily written, I thought.

Series was good on the whole though, but probably the weakest so far.

 

[wpdavid]

A bit late notice, but BBC4 have a documentary on Elvis Costello tonight. Followed by a concert from the great man himself. And that's followed by a programme about Blondie.
Life doesn't get much better.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Ha, cool. Cheers. Duly Sky+'d.

 

[wpdavid]

Ha, cool. Cheers. Duly Sky+'d.

There's also a programme on BBC Radio 6 - easily found on their website - where Elvis is interviewed about influences and various aspects of his career. It covers some similar ground to the BBC4 documentary, but it's still very good.

As was the Blondie documentary, which I watched on catch-up yesterday.