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Sydney Morning Herald
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
How this British star's teenage efforts to impress girls finally came in handy
Music, you might add, is one of Sturgess's great unresolved loves. Growing up in Surrey, England, he was always in bands, running the gamut from hip-hop to indie. He has never lost his fervour, even as he scaled the Hollywood ladder to A-list acclaim, through movies including 2012's Cloud Atlas and the original 2011 adaptation of David Nicholls' One Day. Loading Tousle-haired, bearded and sleepy eyed, he looks as much a wan troubadour as he does a gleaming celebrity. Even last year he released an album as his alter ego King Curious. Spoiler – it's good. But it's also telling that Sturgess chooses to perform under another name. 'I get it – there's always a bit of an edge to it when an actor puts a record out. It's always, a bit, 'Uh-oh, hold your breath.' And rightly so, I would be exactly the same if I saw an actor put a record out. But the reaction [to his own record Common Sense for the Animal ] was amazing. I was so stoked that all these music magazines really took it on.' It meant that when he first got the script for Mix Tape what he most wanted to know was what was going to be on the soundtrack. Because frankly, if the tunes weren't right, then Sturgess wasn't on board. 'The music made me a little bit nervous because when I got the script it wasn't established what tracks we would be using,' he says. That's also part of the subject in Mix Tape. 'Everyone has such a difficult relationship with music and what tracks were important to them,' he says. 'And Lucy the director [Lucy Gaffy, Totally Completely Fine] was Australian, so I was hoping that she would get on board with the same music I thought Daniel should be listening to. Even my wife and I started arguing about different possibilities for what music he'd like.' Thankfully the tunes are right, at least to my ears – many of the high points of Madchester (the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Tte Charlatans) and the era just preceding it (Joy Division, New Order) are all present and correct. But Mix Tape is also interested in the way we consume music, now and then, and how that affects us. Back then it meant a C90 crafted over weeks from a twin cassette deck. These days it's streaming, shared playlists, likes and comments. 'With the tech now, you just send over a playlist of a track on YouTube to each other, but it doesn't hold the same value, I don't think,' Sturgess says. 'Back then you had to put real effort in to recording a song on a tape, do a bit of artwork on the front, call it something funny and cool …' That doesn't mean that Sturgess is a Luddite. He sees the storytelling possibilities inherent in the new tech. 'On the other hand, phones and relationships is interesting. They provide this secret link to another world in everyone's back pocket and it means that a two-way relationship always has a third party – the phone.' Loading Music also engenders nostalgia, a what-was-I-doing-when-I-first-heard that frisson, and that goes for Sturgess, too. He filmed the Australian sections of Mix Tape in Sydney, taking him away from his home and family in east London and back to a city he last visited when he was barely older than the young Daniel. 'I went to Sydney in my 20s with one of my best mates, who strangely enough is half Australian and half from Sheffield. Back then it was all hostel beds and bars and beaches … I didn't remember much. So it was really nice to go back and get a real idea of the place. It's a wonderful city.' Talking of nostalgia and lost love revisited, it would be remiss to interview Sturgess in 2025 without mentioning One Day. Last year Netflix scored a huge hit with their series adaptation of the David Nicholls comedy-romance, but it was Sturgess who played Dexter in the original 2011 film opposite Anne Hathaway. 'It was actually really nice for me to watch One Day,' he says. 'I'd just worked with Ambika Mod [who plays Emma in the Netflix series] on another TV show that we did for Disney [ The Stolen Girl ] and I was grateful for our friendship because it gave me a personal connection to this new version of One Day that was coming out. It was very nostalgic for me. But I just felt happy for them. They were having their time and we had ours. It was a special time in my life, making that film.' That's the thing with the past. You can't change it. But you can still wallow in the memories and the what-ifs. Now go dig out that old mixtape and see where it takes you.
Sydney Morning Herald
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Britpop legends Pulp have dropped their first album in 25 years. I have some thoughts
A new Pulp album after 24 years wasn't Jarvis Cocker's idea. 'There's been a groundswell of feeling … a desire for us to play again,' he told me three years ago when plugging his memoir, Good Pop, Bad Pop. 'You know, if people clap for long enough it's a bit churlish if you don't go and give them another bit of music.' Hence, More. Not a lunge for relevance from a legacy act but a thoughtful response to friends in need. The distinction is everything because this long after the pilled-up promise of Disco 2000 we don't need a new high. We need something more real, for less certain times. Pulp were always the smarter, more ironic, less cavalier band of the Britpop pack. Common People was a '90s anthem. True stories of sex and shame, class resentment and crushed romanticism bopped to kitchen-sink disco and velvet melodrama. Even in the literal throes of ecstasy, Cocker was the guy who wasn't quite buying in. 'Is this the way they say the future's meant to feel?/Or just 20,000 people standing in a field?' he wondered in Sorted for E's and Wizz. True to those dry-eyed instincts, More is no grab for lost youth or even nostalgia. It's an embrace of where we've landed, a mirror held to ageing, love and the weight of shared memory. Spike Island lurches in like a boozy contiki bus, a flashback to a mythic Stone Roses show in 1990: a generational touchstone for Brits for which there's no real Australian equivalent, unless you count Nirvana (we were all American back then) at the first Big Day Out. Cocker conjures a vision of near-transcendence coexisting with an immediate comedown, the cosmos moving on in the midst of his tiny epiphany. 'I exist to do this,' he wails, hips a-wiggle, 'shouting and pointing.' A rock star's battle cry in past tense: sad, but strangely noble, too.
The Age
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Britpop legends Pulp have dropped their first album in 25 years. I have some thoughts
A new Pulp album after 24 years wasn't Jarvis Cocker's idea. 'There's been a groundswell of feeling … a desire for us to play again,' he told me three years ago when plugging his memoir, Good Pop, Bad Pop. 'You know, if people clap for long enough it's a bit churlish if you don't go and give them another bit of music.' Hence, More. Not a lunge for relevance from a legacy act but a thoughtful response to friends in need. The distinction is everything because this long after the pilled-up promise of Disco 2000 we don't need a new high. We need something more real, for less certain times. Pulp were always the smarter, more ironic, less cavalier band of the Britpop pack. Common People was a '90s anthem. True stories of sex and shame, class resentment and crushed romanticism bopped to kitchen-sink disco and velvet melodrama. Even in the literal throes of ecstasy, Cocker was the guy who wasn't quite buying in. 'Is this the way they say the future's meant to feel?/Or just 20,000 people standing in a field?' he wondered in Sorted for E's and Wizz. True to those dry-eyed instincts, More is no grab for lost youth or even nostalgia. It's an embrace of where we've landed, a mirror held to ageing, love and the weight of shared memory. Spike Island lurches in like a boozy contiki bus, a flashback to a mythic Stone Roses show in 1990: a generational touchstone for Brits for which there's no real Australian equivalent, unless you count Nirvana (we were all American back then) at the first Big Day Out. Cocker conjures a vision of near-transcendence coexisting with an immediate comedown, the cosmos moving on in the midst of his tiny epiphany. 'I exist to do this,' he wails, hips a-wiggle, 'shouting and pointing.' A rock star's battle cry in past tense: sad, but strangely noble, too.
Scotsman
02-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Rival 'Oasis' gig to be held metres from where Liam and Noel Gallagher will take to stage in Edinburgh
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... It is one of the most sought-after concerts to come to Scotland this year, with tickets being snapped up within hours of them going on sale in September. Now, a rival gig to this summer's iconic Oasis tour is to be held in Edinburgh metres away from where Noel and Liam Gallagher will be taking to the stage at the same time in Murrayfield Stadium. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Murrayfield Ice Arena, which is located next door to the stadium where the Oasis concert will take place, is to hold an Oasis tribute band gig in its bar on 8, 9 and 12 August: the same days the brothers play their set in Scotland. Definitely Oasis is to play at the rink's bar, at a cost of £10 a ticket for adults and £5 for children - a far cry from the hundreds of pounds a ticket being charged on second hand ticket sale sites for the real Oasis concert. While the Oasis tour sold out shortly after it went on sale in September, some tickets are available on resale. The highest price tickets were due to be sold for when they were first released were £270 each for a VIP package. Pitched as an alternative for people who have 'missed out' on tickets for the main concert, the ice rink, which has been turned into a roller rink for the summer, urged people to 'beat the crowds and potentially the weather', by attending its gig, which also includes performances by a Stone Roses tribute band and a DJ. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Murrayfield Ice Arena Photo: Lisa Ferguson The rink said: 'Murrayfield Ice Arena presents the Murrayfield Music Fan Zone on Friday 8th/9th and 12th August from 2pm. Top class tribute bands, Definitely Oasis and the Complete Stone Roses along with DJ Fools Gold will keep you entertained before the main event in the Murrayfield Stadium. 'Feel part of the event' 'Even if you have missed out on tickets for the main concert, join us for Live music, DJs, bars and food and feel part of the event. Beat the crowds and potentially the weather at the Music Zone at Murrayfield Ice Arena.' According to the tribute band's website, it has toured extensively across the UK, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia, filling 'iconic' venues to capacity, including Glasgow's O2 Academy and Barrowland Ballroom, Edinburgh's Liquid Rooms and London's O2 Academy Islington. Liam and Noel Gallagher of Oasis | Simon Emmett/Fear PR/PA Wire They have also paid tribute to Oasis's roots by performing at historic venues where the band played in their early years, including The Joiners in Southampton, Tivoli in Buckley, La Belle Angele in Edinburgh, and King Tut's Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow - where Oasis is said to have been first discovered. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad
The Guardian
05-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Kula Shaker on making Govinda: ‘Crowds would sing the lyrics as, 'Go cash your gyro gyro''
It's not our song; it's as old as the hills. The first time I heard it was in a Krishna temple as a kid. George Harrison was the first person I know of who recorded it – it's the last track on 1971's The Radha Krsna Temple album. We were all living together as a band in Swiss Cottage, London, and that record got played all the time. So I had it absorbed. The first time we played our version was at Glastonbury festival in 1993. We'd smuggled ourselves in, in the back of somebody's van, then blagged our way on to the stage in the Hare Krishna free food tent, which seemed appropriate. The arrangement with the droning chords and the chant in the middle pretty much happened on the spot. We continued to play it every night at every show for two years until we got a proper record deal. It's one of those songs that continues to evolve and surprise you however many times you play it. It's not just a song. It's a doorway into thousands of years of tradition, woven with philosophy, ontology and history encapsulating the promise of spiritual adventure. We're still discovering things now, because of the song's origins. You have to have a mood of service towards it because it belongs to the world. It's one of those songs where the band are getting as much benefit as the audience. As for the lyrics: Sanskrit is often called 'the language of the gods'. Why on earth would you not want to try that in a pop song? Govinda is one of the 'intimate' names of God, which translates as 'reservoir of pleasure'. On the whole, any of the names with the prefix 'Go' (meaning 'cow'), like Gopal or Govinda, glorifies Sri Krishna's youthful time as the divine cowherd, who protects the cows, plays his magic flutes in enchanted forests and steals the hearts of heavenly milk-maidens. It always got a reaction live. There was never a beige response. One of the turning points was when we were touring our debut album, K, to a sold-out show in Blackburn in front of 2,500 people in various states of intoxication with their arms in the air, singing this ancient spiritual folk song. I thought to myself: 'God, we're not in control of this, are we? This has got a life of its own.' It was the perfect, miraculous convergence of sublime and ridiculousness, and that's what pop music should be. We were playing around the north London Camden scene but also going out to the West Country and playing to a very different, often very hippy crowd. Our drummer is from near Glastonbury, so if we could play Glastonbury Assembly Rooms alongside some psychedelic sitar player, we'd jump at the opportunity. We'd always loved the hippy music of the 60s and 70s, and had been equally fascinated by Indian classical music and eastern mysticism. A friend introduced us to the Bengali musicians who ended up playing on Govinda, who were a Hindu family from east London. We worked with John Leckie, who had produced the first Stone Roses album and before that, this brilliant psychedelic record by the Dukes of the Stratosphear. The verse is repetitive but we'd been listening to the George Harrison version for months, so it was quite easy to get down. There's lots of the tambura – the four-string sitar from Indian classical and folk music that gives the droning sound – and the tabla (the hand drums) all over the record. We had to remember that we were still these whitey westerners, laying down our groove. It was great to get a song that's entirely in Sanskrit on Radio 1, although I think most people saw it as one of those gimmicky songs. I remember people at early gigs shouting the lyrics as: 'Go cash your gyro gyro.' Some old songs you get tired of playing live, but Govinda always feels fresh, so we always finish live sets with it. It has a power that's beyond us; we're just the vessels. All we have to do is play and let the universe do the rest of the work. Kula Shaker are performing at Chalfest, Stroud, 18-19 July, and Lakefest, Eastnor Castle, 6-10 August
