Simian Substitute Site for July 2024: Summer Of The Monkeys

MONTH END PROCESSING FOR JUNE 2024

Music: Late last year The Belated Birthday Girl announced her (and, by implication, our) project for 2024: we were going to go to 12 DJ nights despite our advanced ages. Shortly after that, we began to feel slightly targeted, as more and more clubs started putting on dance parties where young people (typically under-30s) were banned, the music was aimed at an older demographic, and everything was wrapped up by early evening so we could all get a decent night's sleep. The biggest of these - or at least, the most-hyped - is Vicky McClure and Jonny Owen's Day Fever, which runs a number of events around the UK, including what's become a monthly residency at ludicrously-named London venue HERE at Outernet. It's spooky to realise just how precisely it's aimed at our particular age bracket, not only because of the music - solid cheese from the seventies to the nineties - but also the video backdrop of adverts and TV title sequences from our childhood. But there's no denying the sheer fun of it all, especially when at one point DJ Jon McClure calls a halt to the dancing so we can all YELL along to Total Eclipse Of The Heart. You wouldn't want to make a habit of this, but it's an enjoyable afternoon out.

Music (again): Glastonbury's all done and dusted for another year. Obviously we weren't there, and just vegged out in front of the BBC coverage at home. My big discovery this year wasn't a band, it was a nifty hack involving the live streams they run every day from each of the major stages. It's possible to actually wind backwards within the stream, so you can time travel through the day hopping between stages and catching stuff you missed. The bit I didn't realise until it was too late was that those streams are cleared off the BBC servers at the end of each day. Not every set gets saved for posterity, but a lot of them do, and here are ten that I'm linking to partly for my benefit and partly for yours. Some of these are things I watched over the weekend, others are ones I'm saving links to so I can catch them before they vanish at the end of July. Sugababes; PJ Harvey; Little Simz; The Streets; Janelle Monae; Yard Act; Otoboke Beaver; Orbital; Lankum; Arooj Aftab. Other sets are available here: remember, they'll all be gone by the end of July.

Ah, sod it, one more time, Music: You know how it is: I've been away for a chunk of this month, so I haven't spent much time doing things that won't be covered in a future travel piece. So here's one of those Spotify playlists I throw in when I'm short on content, with ten tracks that have some sort of recent significance for me. YouTube links also supplied for Spotisceptics.

1. Mdou Moctar - a glorious bit of Tuareg-tinged rock, passed on to me by the Spotify algorithm. Ta!
2. Noep - two London gigs this year and a couple of banging singles, he's obviously got plans.
3. Johnny Dowd - a late reaction to the legend's London show on St Patrick's Day this year.
4. Knower - included for the lovely reveal halfway through the somewhat crowded video.
5. Richard Hawley - still as soppy as ever when he wants to be.
6. Anna Erhard - the ability to rhyme 'hammam', 'mum' and 'bum' has piqued my interest for her next album.
7. Shabaka and Saul Williams - one for the Bible scholars, as Saul Williams will be followed on track 9 by...
8. Yannis & The Yaw - Afrorock enlived by the presence of the excellent but four-years-dead drummer Tony Allen.
9. Paul Williams - frustratingly had an excellent album launch gig in London recently, but can't say when the album's coming out.
10. Kamasi Washington - a track that's pretty confidently booked its place on POTY halfway through the year.

In the meantime, your Simian Substitute Site for July 2024 is Summer Of The Monkeys, a 1998 movie directed by Michael Anderson, who also made Logan's Run. This one probably isn't as good. Let's swipe a plot summary from IMDB: "Summer Of The Monkeys (set in 1910 on the prairies of Canada) follows the story of a young boy, Jay, who dreams of getting enough money to buy his dream horse. One summer Jay finds four chimps on the prairie who have fallen off a circus cart. He later learns that there is a big reward for them. Enough to buy the horse... however, as time goes on he befriends the chimps... and it becomes apparent that Jay can't bear to part with them." Of course, by now you've clocked the poster image above and realised that this is a Disney movie, and a bootleg copy of a Disney movie at that. Given the reputation of the Mouse's IP lawyers, it's surprising that only minutes 31-40 of the film have been blocked for viewing, although who knows how much that could change in the future? Watch it while you can.

As for this month, we should be following up on the promise of last month with a piece about all the interesting things you can see in Nice which aren't craft beer bars. There's also a birthday coming up. Maybe the two of those might intersect, you never know. Birthday wishes can be submitted via the comment box below if you feel like it.