2016 — The Good Stuff. Team Jim Bob Annual Cultural Lists
Wednesday, December 14 2016
JIM BOB
ALBUMS Do Hollywood – The Lemon Twigs Ruminations – Conor Oberst The Hope Six Demolition Project – PJ Harvey Skeleton Tree – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds Let the Record Show: Dexys Do Irish and Country Soul Blackstar – David Bowie Adam Green’s Aladdin 9 Green Songs – Chris T-T 2013 – Meilyr Jones
BOOKS The Loney – Andrew Michael Hurley The End of the World Running Club – Adrian J Walker Heroes of the Frontier – Dave Eggers Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain – Barney Norris Patience – Daniel Clowes The Girls – Emma Cline City on Fire –Garth Risk Hallberg The Sympathizer – Viet Thanh Nguyen Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink – Elvis Costello
TELEVISION Halt and Catch Fire Startup Goliath Making a Murderer Peaky Blinders Better Call Saul People Just do Nothing Silicon Valley Happy Valley War and Peace Grayson Perry — All Man Deutschland 83 Mr Robot Bosch Ripper Street Modern Family Game of Thrones American Crime Story — The People v OJ Simpson
FILMS Hunt for the Wilderpeople Captain Fantastic The Nice Guys Room Sing Street Arrival Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Love and Mercy Bridge of Spies A Bigger Splash The Lobster
RADIO/PODCASTS The Adam Buxton Podcast Mark Watson Talks a Bit About Life Vitriola podcast Do the Right Thing podcast Mark Steel's in Town Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar
LIVE SHOWS The Jam — About the Young Idea at Somerset House David Baddiel — My Family: Not the Sitcom Adam Buxton's Bowie Bug Jilted John at Brixton Windmill The Frank and Walters at the Borderline Bowieoke Circus Chris T-T at St Pancras Church Elvis Costello at the London Palladium
CHRIS T-T's favourites
ALBUMS Beyonce – Lemonade Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Skeleton Tree The Furrow Collective – Wild Hog Kiran Leonard – Grapefruit David Bowie – Blackstar Shirley Collins – Lodestar Petrol Girls – Talk Of Violence Esmé Patterson – We Were Wild Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool Skinny Girl Diet – Heavy Flow
This year I gave 55 albums 8/10 or better. I’ll put my Top 20 + honourable mentions on my 2016 Review blog next week. I’ve sadly excluded Jim Bob Sings Again and Non Canon’s self-titled debut, because of being on them both.
FILM Can’t do my FILM yet – I’m seeing four films in the next two weeks that might feature. Hypernormalisation, Dheepan, Spotlight and Beyoncé’s Lemonade are all strong contenders though.
TV Fleabag Planet Earth II Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle Better Call Saul Trapped Imagine: One Night In 2012 The Story of China with Michael Wood The Crown Stranger Things Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
BOOKS Paul Kingsnorth – Beast Benjamin Myers – Turning Blue Bruce Springsteen – Born To Run Dark Mountain #9 Teju Cole – Known And Strange Things
ART vrLAB at The Old Market, Hove Visuals and lighting design for the Moderat concert, The Dome, Brighton Gem Fletcher’s Instagram feed of Getty photographers and sessions Siam – Through The Lens Of John Thomson, Museum Of Culture, Chiang Mai Sam Hewitt at Dynamite Gallery Not Vital at Yorkshire Sculpture Park Shardcore – ‘map portraits’ series Nona Faustine – nudes in slave trading sites in Bust magazine Clement Valla – Postcards From Google Earth Pure Evil – Hollywood Vampires at 99 Mary Street, Sheffield
PODCASTS / RADIO West Wing Weekly, PRX Radiotopia Longform Podcast Kermode & Mayo: Wittertainment, BBC Radio 5Live Slate Political Gabfest, Slate/Panoply The Junk Shop with Marc Teare, TotallyRadio Simon Mayo interviews Bruce Springsteen, BBC Radio 2 SongExploder, PRX Radiotopia Vitriola with Robin Ince & Michael Legge In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg, BBC Radio 4 Marc Riley, BBC 6 Music
GIGS (WATCHED) Bellowhead, The Dome, Brighton Kiran Leonard, The Albert, Brighton Shellac, Koko, London Dream Wife, Photo Shop, Great Escape, Brighton Moderat, The Dome, Brighton Chrissy Barnacle, Conroy’s Basement, Dundee Skinny Girl Diet, Green Door Store, Great Escape, Brighton Helen Chambers, Black Swan, York Roxanne De Bastion, Latest Music Bar, Brighton The Vega Bodegas, Le Pub, Newport
MARC OLLINGTON
BEST ALBUMS
WINNER Blackstar – David Bowie
RUNNER UP Jim Bob Sings Again – Jim Bob (& Chris T-T)
Do Hollywood – The Lemon Twigs Ruminations – Conor Oberst 9 Green Songs – Chris T-T Can’t Stop Us Now – Madness Lazarus Soundtrack – Original Cast Recording Super – Pet Shop Boys Flawed Is Beautiful – S*M*A*S*H/These Animal Men Tanya Donnelly – Swan Song Series
BEST BOOKS
WINNER The Complete David Bowie – Nick Pegg
The End of the World Running Club – Adrian J Walker (though it has an awful ending) Set The Boy Free – Johnny Marr My Life With Bowie – Woody Woodmansey The Romford Pelé: It's only Ray Parlour's autobiography - Ray Parlour Journeyman: One Man's Odyssey Through the Lower Leagues of English Football - Ben Smith Psychedelic Suburbia: David Bowie and the Beckenham Arts Lab - Finnigan, Mary Let's Make Lots of Money: Secrets of a Rich, Fat, Gay, Lucky Bastard - Tom Watkins Twin Ambitions - My Autobiography - Mo Farah 100 Acts of Minor Dissent - Mark Thomas Heroes of the Frontier – Dave Eggers
BEST TELEVISION
WINNER Billions
Modern Family American Crime Story — The People v OJ Simpson Googlebox Alan Partridge: Scissored Isle The Walking Dead Cougar Town Black Mirror Humans Outcast
BEST FILMS
WINNER Room
RUNNERS UP Sing Street The Jungle Book
Trolls Nocturnal Animals Ghostbusters Man Who Fell To Earth – BFI Screening The Nice Guys High Rise Finding Dory How To Be Single Elvis & Nixon
BEST RADIO/PODCASTS
WINNER The Adam Buxton Podcast
Kermode & Mayo Film Review Guardian Football Weekly Desert Island Discs
BEST LIVE SHOWS
WINNER Pet Shop Boys – Royal Opera House
MOST SPECIAL EVENTS Matilda and Charlie & The Chocolate Factory – in London’s West End. Attended with Poppy Ollington
Adam Buxton's Bowie Bug The Jim Bob Sings Again Tour The Frank and Walters - The Borderline Belly - The Kentish Town Forum Madness – Clapham Common My Life Story – The Borderline Chris T-T – St Pancras Old Church British Sea Power – Tunbridge Wells Forum La Femme – Shepherds Bush Empire a-ha – The o2 Lazarus – Kings Cross Theatre Indiedaze – London Forum
THE VERDICT OF THE SPOONS JURY
Hello all, and a Merry Christmas to you all. Usual rules apply: ridiculously late again and betting without the favourites (i.e. TJB output) otherwise it’d be a pretty repetitive list.
Off we go then… in no particular order, but favorite in each category starred…
TOP 10 ALBUMS BlackStar – David Bowie* Songs of the Walking Wounded – The Frank and Walters Rest & Relocation – Split Seconds Forum Residency Boxset – Gary Numan Girl at the End of the World – James Ruminations – Conor Oberst (finally succumbed to the magic!) Head Carrier – Pixies No such thing as a Protest Singer - Grace Petrie Still Valid – MJ Hibbert & the Validators Let the Record Show– Dexys (less for the music, it became the most bizarre soundtrack to our journey thru’ Kenya – can’t remember when I laughed so hard in my life)
TOP 10 GIGS Mick Thomas African Tour 2016* Gary Numan - Oxford Academy Madness – 100 Club Gavin Osborn/MJ Hibbert/Jenny Lockyer – SpreadEagle Croydon Bowieoke – Bethnal Gren WMC Grace Petrie – MayDay Orgreave Benefit Barnsley James – Brixton Academy Adam Ant – Hammersmith Odeon Adam Buxton Bowie Bug – Greenwich The Frank & Walters - Borderline
TOP 10 TV Well I can’t have Doctor Who as there hasn’t been any this year (yet), and that spin-off series on BBC3 was, sadly, bloody terrible, so…
Line of Duty The Americans The Crown Victoria American Crime Story — The People v OJ Simpson Tyrant Mr Robot Deutschland 83* Trapped The Big Bang Theory
2016 BEST FILM: The Big Short
WORST FILM EVER MADE IN THE HISTORY OF FILMS, YES EVEN WORSE THAN PLAN 9 ETC: The Lobster (Jim’s only put it in his list to wind me up - don’t think I’m not wise to his ways)
BOOKS Not a lot done again this year, but I’ve developed a weird fascination for reading Appalachian Trail diaries.
BEST PALACE MATCH: 2016 was Palace’s very own Annus Horribilus, despite getting to the FA Cup Final (which of course we bloody lost), thus it’s been difficult to pick a game from such limited choice. In the end I’m going to cheat and go for one I didn’t actually see live: The 2-1 Semi-Final win against Watford, because it will forever remind me of the reason I couldn’t be there: running the London Marathon. www.runspoonsrun.co.uk
BEST FOOTBALL MATCH (Non-Palace): Lancing 3 Beckenham Town 4 (FA Cup Extra Prelim Round Replay)… deep in the heart of seaweed country: Beckenham go a goal up, Lancing have a man sent off but rattle in three goals. Beckenham stage a late comeback, scoring the winner from a disputed free kick in injury time. The one Beckenham Town fan in the ground goes mental and on full time is stalked by a mortally obese Lancing/Seaweed fan who, having also just spotted a small Palace logo on his cap, now wants to kill him… just catching him would have been a start… (yes, the Becks fan was me – I nearly died laughing).
posted by jim in news
Last revised: 23/12/16
THANK YOU
Saturday, December 10 2016
What can I say? My best, most enjoyable and most successful solo tour ever is over. Thank you so much if you came to any of the shows. I'm going to have a lie down for a few days and let it all sink in. I feel like I've won something.
If you didn't make it to any of the gigs or didn't manage to get a copy of my piano CD 'Jim Bob Sings Again', it is now available HERE
Once again, thank you, from the bottom of both my hearts.
Jim Bob x
posted by jim in news
Last revised: 10/12/16
Cartoon Dad – from the new album Jim Bob Sings Again
Saturday, September 24 2016
posted by jim in news
Last revised: 24/09/16
Jim Bob Sings Again – The Album
Monday, July 18 2016
I've always thought it would be a nice idea to record an album of songs accompanied only by piano. So that's what I did last week. It's called Jim Bob Sings Again – Accompanied on the Piano by Chris T-T and it will be available as a CD exclusively on my winter tour. DATES HERE
If there are any left I'll make it more widely available after the tour. There are eleven songs on the album, both solo Jim Bob and Carter songs. This is the list of songs. They're not in the right order yet.
Jim Bob
CARTOON DAD OUR HEROES A PRINCE IN A PAUPER'S GRAVE VICTIM THE CAROUSEL JOHNNY CASH GLAM ROCK COPS A BAD DAY COME ON SMART BOMB! FALLING ON A BRUISE YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU
In the meantime, I have ordered a repressing of my last LP 'What I Think About When I Think About You' and it's currently on sale for a measly £6 (UK only I'm afraid) from HERE
JIM BOB
