Latest news with #Lennie
Scoop
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Halfway Release Matches, The 2nd Single From Their New Album The Styx
Halfway have been a band for quarter of a century, and across that time they've made eight studio albums, each of which has received a wealth of critical acclaim. From their origins in 2000, Halfway have developed their style and songs into cinematic soundscapes, lush with pedal steel, densely layered guitars, and driving rhythms. Halfway's new album, The Styx, features the return to the fold of band co-founder Chris Dale after a six-year absence, and contributions from guests including Chris Abrahams (The Necks, Midnight Oil) and Adele Pickvance (The Go-Betweens). ' The Palace ' was the first taste of the new album and now they reveal the second single ' Matches ', written by John Busby and bassist Ben Johnson. The song creaks and shimmers to life courtesy of its gently sparkling guitars and atmospheric keys. Drums enter the fray as the music swells and expands into an evocative sound akin to the best of Mercury Rev, where musical dreams and memories coexist. " The coals of a fire are neither flame nor ash. 'Matches' sits in the space between ignition and extinction, rooted in uncertainty," says Johnson. " The stories of The Styx inhabit that uncertain ground where nothing is fully on or off, alive or gone. What begins as fire ends as cinders and lingers softly afterward." A concept album of sorts, The Styx is situated in a remote Australian coastal town during the Christmas of 1986 and explores themes of family, isolation, love, and betrayal. " Growing up, my family would spend time at Stanage Bay in Central Queensland, which is a small fishing village situated to the southeast of the Styx River. It was a remote and beautiful place," reflects Busby. He didn't know anything about Greek mythology but saw the beauty and the danger there just the same. On fishing trips with his father and a cast of characters who might have walked out of the pages of a John Steinbeck story, he must have heard a hundred times: 'People drown in here.' Seeds were planted. ' The whole Stanage Bay / Styx River area, and the people there, are a big part of this record. When some of the band and our friends started to inform the songs, I knew I had to set it at the bay,' says Busby. ' It's a place full of beauty and mystery. I had been wanting to base a story there for a long time.' There is nothing mythic about these stories of love, lust, longing, and leaving, which feel as real as an errant fishhook deep into flesh. Brothers George and Lennie are the kind of hard-bitten characters who might be found in stories by Steinbeck or Richard Flanagan, battling the elements and themselves and always with an eye out for the fishing inspectors. Just before daylight, Lennie goes to check the nets. He doesn't return. The recording of the album took on a different form for the band, who recorded themselves in Brisbane before Mark Nevers (Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Lambchop, Calexico, George Jones) shaped the mix of the songs at his South Carolina studio, with Busby alongside him. ' We usually just record live in a room, but this one started quietly. Just my guitar and vocals, layering it track by track, and then recording the drums last. A weird back-to-front album, but it gave us the chance to put the story / songs first rather than concentrate on how the songs would work live.' The sound the band has concocted is one of sweeping beauty and sonic grace, both heartfelt and tragic. Guitar strings and keys wash across the speakers, like the ocean breeze and the river tide. Drawing on the influence of bands such as The Triffids and Phosphorescent, Halfway seamlessly blend alt-country and indie rock sensibilities, providing the songs with a hypnotic and compelling backdrop to these poetic tales from the Australian coastline. As in their songs, as in life. Love lost and found, the pain and the hope, the past and the landscape ever-present. Great songwriting often finds a way to make the deeply personal feel universal. Few bands navigate that path as surely as Halfway across their nine timeless albums.
Leader Live
10-05-2025
- Sport
- Leader Live
A Super Saturday healed wounds for Wrexham AFC faithful
The symbolic healing of wounds suffered over more than a decade at the start of the century took place at Sincil Bank, an uncannily appropriate venue for the occasion. No club has done what we've done. No fans have ever been fortunate enough to enjoy a run of seasons like we've experienced. What a glorious time to be a Wrexham fan. Last Saturday was a party, but also an opportunity for reflection. In 2008 we travelled to Lincoln for the last day of the season, knowing we'd hit the lowest point in our history. With the typical dark humour football fans are known for, Wrexham's fans decided to commemorate the occasion with a fancy dress party. They dressed as superheroes, clowns and monsters: outfits that unintentionally parodied the dramatis personae which had dominated our story over the previous years. The fans and people on the football side of the club were always stoic, often heroic, but the club was dragged down the plughole by a grim cast of off-field characters. That morbid party illustrated the indefatigable nature of Wrexham's fans. No matter what, we refused to accept disaster and believed we could come back, stronger and better than ever. We had to wait a heck of a long time for that turning point, but it was well worth it, and all the sweeter for all the suffering we've gone through to get here. Incredibly, we returned to Lincoln exactly 17 years to the day since that gloriously bizarre farewell to the EFL. There was no irony about last Saturday's party though: we've earned the right to revel in what we've achieved, and the mind-blowing possibilities of what is to come. A second circle is also being closed, and this one goes back much further. For many fans, the four years we spent in the old Second Division is an unimaginable period of the club's history. For those of us who experienced it, it feels like another world. The prospect of returning to that level was unthinkable as we descended and shrunk as a club. The thought of Wrexham in the Championship became an unattainable dream. Just like the dream of owning a farm which sustained George and Lennie in 'Of Mice and Men' (if you attended secondary school in the last 20 years you're bound to have read Steinbeck's classic of the Depression), we were motivated by a dream which, deep down, we knew would never come true. 'Nobody never gets to heaven, and nobody gets no land. It's just in their head. They're all the time talkin' about it, but it's jus' in their head.' The phenomenal feats of the 1977-78 season have passed into folklore. Our sojourn in the promised land was brief and, ultimately, bitter. We invested in upgrading The Racecourse but the recession of the 1980s made us pay for that ambition. The likes of Mickey Thomas and Bobby Shinton were sold as funds ran low until we were running on empty. We seemed to have secured an unlikely escape from relegation in 1982, only to see our spell in the Second Division end abruptly as we failed to win in seven games as the season came to a close. Another strange coincidence: having been relegated with one game left to play, we welcomed Rotherham United to The Racecourse for a meaningless match that was, nevertheless, packed with symbolism. We'd clinched that unprecedented promotion by beating The Millers 7-1 in 1978. Four years later we faced them again and bade farewell to the second tier with a final, defiant gesture, claiming a hollow 3-2 victory with Mick Vinter scoring a hat-trick. Too late, and as we were relegated again the following season, thus beginning nine years of financial struggle in the Fourth Division, it seemed we'd never return to those heights. Those book-ended wins over Rotherham felt hollow. We might have got the better of them, but they remained in the second tier while we plummeted. Sounds familiar? We rounded off the dismal 2008 season with a 4-2 win at Lincoln, a sudden flaring of what might have been now it was too late. Not only was it the first time we'd scored four times that season, we hadn't even managed three goals in a game! It was the first time we'd scored three goals in an away game since…yes, you guessed it, we played Lincoln 13 months earlier. Last Saturday really did feel like the pulling together of a lot of loose ends. Forty-three years later we celebrated our return to the second division, and hopefully we have grounds for optimism. The highest we finished in that four-year period was 15th, but we can reasonably hope to make more of an impact this time round. Hopefully we can say goodbye to the third tier with a bit more conviction this time round.
Perth Now
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
Lennie James' Walking Dead experience prompted 'vivid and lucid dreams'
Lennie James suffered night terrors after starring in 'The Walking Dead'. The 59-year-old actor played Morgan Jones in the post-apocalyptic horror drama and in its spin-off, 'Fear the Walking Dead' - but Lennie struggled to leave the TV show behind when he wasn't on set. Asked if he learned anything about survival from being on 'The Walking Dead', Lennie told the Guardian newspaper: "One of the byproducts of being in the zombie world for as long as I was, was I started having very vivid and lucid dreams. I would quite often wake up shouting in the midst of a night terror, waking the house and making it difficult for my wife to sleep next to me. "Someone suggested CBD oil, and it works. So I'd take that into a dystopia." Lennie is a good friend of Jason Isaacs, star of 'The White Lotus', and the actor has admitted to being a huge fan of the TV series, too. Lennie also insisted that he's "not as good" as his showbiz pal. He said: "I hadn't seen the first two seasons – I'm not very good at watching obnoxious characters on screen – but one of my best mates, Jason Isaacs, is in the latest season. I started watching it, and it hooked me. "Jas's performance was fantastic. We've known each other since just after drama school. I'm not as good as him, but I try." The actor quit the UK for Los Angeles before he turned 40. Asked why he decided to relocate to America, Lennie replied: "I had done at least one lead in a television show and a number of leads on stage. I was being told that I should be satisfied with that because that was a definition of success over here for someone who – as I took it – looked like me. I just wasn't willing to let somebody else decide what my ambition should be. "I wanted to challenge myself as an actor, to see what was possible. I landed there when I was a relative grown-up and I seemed to arrive at the right time; it went stupidly well for me immediately."
Scoop
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scoop
Halfway Release New Single 'The Palace'
The Styx - Songs of Love & Betrayal: Xmas 1986: Two brothers, George and Lennie live with their young families in the remote fishing village of Stanage Bay, Central Queensland. One warm evening on low-tide, the men set their nets in the Styx River and leave them to soak overnight. Just before daylight, Lennie breaks camp to check on the catch, but he doesn't return. For Fans Of: Bruce Springsteen, Mercury Rev, The Triffids, Phosphorescent Brisbane band Halfway are excited to release 'The Palace', the first single from their new album The Styx, set for release mid 2025. Halfway have been a band for quarter of a century, and across that time they've made eight studio albums, each of which has received a wealth of critical acclaim. From their origins in 2000, Halfway have developed their style and songs into cinematic soundscapes, lush with pedal steel, densely layered guitars, and driving rhythms. Across their creative career the band's albums have been produced and/or recorded by the likes of Robert Forster (The Go-Betweens), Wayne Connolly (The Vines, Josh Pyke, You Am I), Rob Younger (Radio Birdman), Malcolm Burn (Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop, Emmylou Harris, Patti Smith), and Mark Nevers (Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Lambchop, Calexico, George Jones) - who mixed the new album at his South Carolina studio. Halfway have shared stages with The Black Keys, Gomez, You Am I, J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr), Josh Pyke, Band of Horses, Gary Louris and Mark Olsen (The Jayhawks), and Richard Hawley. Halfway have also been recipients of AIR and Queensland Music Awards, with John Busby and Chris Dale winning Queensland's most prestigious songwriting award – The Grant McLennan Fellowship in 2008. ' The Palace ', which premiered on Stuart Coupe's Dirt Music on 2SER and online with Rhythms magazine, is the first taste of Halfway's new album The Styx. The record features the return to the fold of band co-founder Chris Dale after a six-year absence, and contributions from guests including Chris Abrahams (The Necks, Midnight Oil) and Adele Pickvance (The Go-Betweens) A concept album of sorts, The Styx is situated in a remote Australian coastal town and explores themes of family, isolation, love, and betrayal. As songwriter John Busby explains, quite a few of the songs threaded through it are informed by his own personal experiences, and 'The Palace' is one of those. " Growing up, my family would spend time at Stanage Bay in Central Queensland which is a small fishing village situated to the South East of the Styx River. It was a remote and beautiful place," reflects Busby. " One year on the drive up, I bought a cassette copy of the album The Queen Is Dead, by The Smiths, for $6 at Kmart Rockhampton. There were hundreds of copies of that cassette on the shelves. I figured that it hadn't gone so well here in Australia, so there was probably something good about it. I played it as the sun went down over the mangroves at Clairview Beach. It felt like it was a letter addressed directly to the teenage me," he reveals. "Something from another world, reaching out to even the most remote of places. It was a valuable lesson in the power of music and art, and the location made it even more memorable. Sometimes, living in small towns the future can seem restricted and narrow. But the messages I received from this record told me otherwise." explains Busby. " So 'The Palace' pays homage to The Smiths and to dreaming even in the most remote places. It's a song for the outliers and people living in the margins." Out of a heart-wrenching pedal steel, courtesy of Noel Fitzpatrick, emerges Elwin Hawtin 's solid backbeat and those chiming, hypnotic guitars (John Willsteed, Chris Dale, John Busby) that Halfway do so well. Vocal melodies duck and weave, hanging in the air with a melancholic grace as Busby delivers his lyrics amid the exquisite and atmospheric alt-country sprawl. 'The Palace' is out now via Bandcamp, and streaming services, plus Amrap for Australian community radio. The new album is now available for pre-order from Plus One Records. Bundles include, gatefold transparent green vinyl, CD, and limited edition The Styx t-shirts.
The Guardian
30-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Of Mice and Men review – a tepid revival of Steinbeck's dust bowl classic
Before it got into the hands of readers, John Steinbeck's 1937 novella Of Mice and Men first got into the jaws of the author's dog. The dog would find less to get its teeth into with this muted theatre adaptation. A pair of itinerant friends find work at a ranch in the Great Depression-era US south. George is brashly confident and protective over timid Lennie who has a mental disability that's stigmatised by the workers. In Sarah Brigham's production, Lennie is played by Wiliam Young, who has learning disabilities. There is a softness to his Lennie, calling George's name like a squeak. His dangerously nervy, busy hands constantly brush his beard or arms, while the production uses puppets for the animals he pets. His posture mirrors theirs: drooping like a sack of barley, folding in on himself. Liam King's George has pragmatism and impatience in his desperation to achieve a better life. A rustling field is projected whenever he imagines this dream. In one scene, he swings his legs on a bunk bed, as if they are just two boys fantasising together. All the time, a gold glow peeks through panels behind them. However, scenes slide forward so steadily and incidentally that there's little impact to register when the dream is lost. Brigham's flat, static direction sits characters on barrels or crates for each scene. The action is set inside a stable-like pen, but there's no rising temperature or undercurrent of cooped-up, coiled tension. Violence is mannered and overly choreographed until the fateful turning point with Curley's wife, when it becomes coldly impulsive. That yellow shimmer now burns orange like a furnace. And when the ranch doors are opened wide for the final scene, you can make out strings: the golden backdrop is a sheet. The bright and sunny dream is exposed as an illusion. Of Mice and Men is at the Octagon, Bolton, until 12 April
