iJamming.net

I know iJamming! has been short on features of late and long on self-promotion, but you’ll have to excuse me: I’m researching one book write now, righting another and pro-moating one more. There’s just not a lot of hours left in the day to write freestyle for free.

However, if you miss me pontificating about music, pop culture, New York City and the old days when I went to parties with models (as in, there were models in attendance, not that I brought them as dates), you could do a lot worse than listen to my freshly uploaded interview on CultureCatch.com. Culture Catch is a website, podcast and all-round digital media company founded by a long-term writer-musician friend, who these days goes by the name of Dusty Wright, and our familiarity with each other is evident by the simultaneously relaxed yet energetic tone of our conversation. Dusty offered to host me for his widely-heard podcast so as to promote All Hopped Up and Ready to Go: Music from the Streets of New York 1927-77, and I seized the opportunity with both hands and a big mouth. Our conversation jumps all over the book, takes several tangents along the way, and is all the better for the fact that Dusty had clearly read the book, cover to cover, and knows his music anyway; there’s nothing like having an expert in front of you to keep you on your toes.

The interview is an hour long, perfectly timed for your lunch-time work-out or your evening bath. And if you like what you hear, bear in mind that recent Culture Catch Podcasts have featured Tilda Swinton, Sally Potter, my fellow music biographer Barney Hoskyns, Ron Howard, Adriana Huffington, and a certain Tera Patrick. I have no idea what would happen if you put us all in a room together, except that I’m sure Dusty would find a way to podcast it. After all, converge is the word.

You can listen to the interview using the embedded MP3 player below. You can download it and subscribe to Culture Catch podcasts from here.

Culture Catch 073: Tony Fletcher

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

This playlist – The Harlem Hit Parade – accompanies Chapter 3 of All Hopped Up and Ready To Go, and deals with the birth of a new form of vocal music in the immediate aftermath of World War II, as made famous initially by the Ravens and later the Dominoes. The first few tracks however, are those that served as the main influences on this new generation.

Continue through to Music and Maps

View 3) The Harlem Hit Parade in a larger map

It turned out that October 25-31st was World Go Vegan Week, which is mildly ironic as I used my time down in New York City last week to deliberately search out some of the new vegan/vegan-friendly cafes and restaurants in town. As regular readers may have surmised, I made my own re-commitment to a vegan diet in May, after the best part of a decade “slacking off” as a mere vegetarian, and I’m glad that I did, because I’ve never felt better. (Or run faster.) Truth is, there’s never been a better time to turn vegan, not just because of the health, moral and environmental reasons, but because it’s getting easier and easier to eat out on a vegan diet. This is particularly evident in New York City, where it seems like every month brings the announcement of a new restaurant, café or juice bar catering to what I can only assume is increasing demand, while your average corner deli is more and more likely to be serving animal-free, dairy-free, even gluten and wheat-free products. Here are some of the places I’ve checked out in recent weeks:

And from that tangent, here’s a brief run-down of the vegan cafes that have recently been sating my hunger.

Read the rest of this entry »