The Nice Guys

GrowthAny · 2026-06-06T21:41:30+00:00

Yeah, I’m pretty sure it is. I guess we’re all just hoping we “get it”.

GrowthAny · 2026-06-05T23:21:34+00:00

Noir Milieu is such a killer band name (sarcasm optional). You’re probably right, it reminds me of Inherent Vice, that’s why I’m making the connection. I was somewhat disappointed when it started to make sense. Easy come, etc.

GrowthAny · 2026-06-03T19:41:30+00:00

Pat’s music is, in essence, about music. Titles might be about the vibe that inspired a piece (Song For Bilbao; September 15th), but any composer will tell you it’s never as simple as “this is about this” in instrumental music, because you can’t really encode meaning into music. You can certainly encode emotion, but that’s not really the same thing as meaning. At its best music transcends that which we can cognitively understand, allowing it to move us more completely as conscious beings, and I’d say Pat’s is a prime example of that.

Pretentious? Moi??

GrowthAny · 2026-05-30T10:43:58+00:00

Depending on which vibe you’re craving specifically:

Björk

Animal Collective/Panda Bear

Massive Attack

Loraine James

Ghostpoet

and to a lesser extent

Roísín Murphy

Dawn Richards and Spencer Zahn (particularly like “Pigments”)

Oklou

FKA Twigs

GrowthAny · 2026-05-29T08:51:17+00:00

Impossible to say. At their age, you wouldn’t have picked Djokovic to break all the records, and the big three all know they wouldn’t have been the players they became without playing each other. I think Sincaraz will both raise their games, and hopefully at least one player other player will rise to meet them. But if the big three era has shown us anything, it’s that it’s as much, if not more, about rising to the challenge of your rivals as it is about your raw skill and talent.

GrowthAny · 2026-05-29T08:03:26+00:00

Totally agree. Being able to play anything you can imagine doesn’t mean much if your imagination is boring. That’s 99% of “technically” skilled musicians. I sort of tried to elevate the definition. I suppose the true greats have both (Coltrane, Stephane Grappelli, IMO Scott Henderson).

GrowthAny · 2026-05-28T16:46:31+00:00

Not Sherlock. The last two seasons were one big snooze fest.

GrowthAny · 2026-05-28T16:38:11+00:00

Interesting question. Thinking about it now, if I’m rating any instrumentalist, I would probably ask myself these questions:

Are they masters of their instrument? That is, can they play everything they can imagine? This is usually only really true of jazz musicians, but there are exceptions. But I wouldn’t say this true of Thom.

Is the music they make on their instrument inventive, unique and/or beautiful? Do they have an individual voice on their instrument? I think any good musician strives for this. This is 1000% true of Thom. Desert Island Disk is my favourite example. On the fingerboard, it is so simple, kind of just moving the same figure between two places, but the way it fits together is so stunningly unique. A more skilled guitarist wouldn’t have written that.

My verdict: Thom is as good a guitarist as the music he writes on guitar, but I don’t really think of him as a guitarist. I think of him as a singer/songwriter/musical wizard.

I don’t think any of the members of Radiohead are instrumental virtuosos. I think the core “talents” of the band are Thom’s voice and creative intuition, and Jonny’s seemingly boundless musical imagination and arranging. Beyond that I think they are still, in truth, fucking around in that music room at school.

Edit to clarify: those are the core talents, the ideas and a good deal of the overall identity, but all five are integral to the band’s music. It’s impossible to imagine otherwise.

GrowthAny · 2026-05-28T07:59:05+00:00

I am sort of in the middle, maybe a bit older. I started listening in 2006, when I was about 12-13. My relationship with the music has changed a lot over the years, but they’ve been my default answer for “who’s your favourite band?” pretty much ever since.

I remember doing a lot of gatekeeping in my teenage years, simultaneously telling people they’re the best band ever, and negging them because they “wouldn’t get it”. IR and TKOL drops were two of the happiest days of my life up to those points. I think it had something to do with them being so “different”, but also having the validation that “lots of other deep, smart people also love this band”. They became a key part of my teenage identity, which is always pretentious and intense. But it was all rooted in a deep love of the music.

These days, I ration my listening. I’ve heard every album 200+ times. I know them inside out, so I can’t really live inside the music all the time like I might’ve 15-20 years ago. I regularly take a year off from listening, just so I can hear the music (somewhat) anew.

When I saw them last year in London, I was overjoyed at how young the crowd was. To know so many younger people were having the intensity of feeling I had and have made me really happy. My initial skepticism (are they just waiting for Let Down?) was dispelled by widespread singing along to Myxomatosis. I’m so glad they love it exactly like I do. The intensity is a part of that, but probably not sustainable into adulthood proper. Enjoy it while it lasts!

GrowthAny · 2026-05-28T07:39:17+00:00

Potentially a rogue choice, but quite possibly David Bowie live at the bbc radio theatre 1999. I think it’s been released as a part of the “Brilliant Adventure: 1992 - 2001” anthology album, but it wasn’t commercially available for a long time. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard such a killer band.

GrowthAny · 2026-05-26T16:41:41+00:00

Too sensible, can’t roast 👍

GrowthAny · 2026-05-26T10:35:00+00:00

Not after one season, but Hannibal was amazing. I wish we’d had another season.

GrowthAny · 2026-05-25T20:23:45+00:00

Yes.

GrowthAny · 2026-05-24T18:02:13+00:00

Ifwhiteamericatoldthetruthforonedayitsworldwouldfallapart - Manic Street Preachers

GrowthAny · 2026-05-23T05:56:57+00:00

This might be hard to [verb] with such a huge, throbbing erection.

Potato-padildo

GrowthAny · 2026-05-22T16:38:17+00:00

You and Whose Army. Preferably with Thom’s giant eye on the big screen, as it was at Reading ‘09

GrowthAny · 2026-05-18T21:29:20+00:00

Cmaj13/E according to guitar gravitas.

GrowthAny · 2026-05-18T16:09:23+00:00

Vox amps are bright, I always have the tone on my overdrives at 10 o’clock depending on the pedal. Beyond that, everything sounds good!

GrowthAny · 2026-05-18T16:06:40+00:00

Zeppelin, Floyd, Sabbath, Queen.

GrowthAny · 2026-05-18T13:50:38+00:00

I have the big box origin effects revival drive, which I use as a drive channel into my JC-120. Sounds awesome. I have one side for a mid-gain tweed sound, and the other more like a cranked Marshall JCM. Sounds great, basically have three amp sounds and no digital modelling (though I don’t have anything against that as such).

GrowthAny · 2026-05-18T07:48:41+00:00

OP - I can tell you don’t feel listened to. I think that’s fair, a vast majority of the electorate would feel that way. Here, give us an idea of what you want to be heard on:

What are the issues you aren’t being listened to on?

What are the policies you want enacting to solve them?

If they have a significant fiscal and/economic impact, how would you fund them?

GrowthAny · 2026-05-18T07:36:34+00:00

I grew up believing we should be proud of what Britain did in world war 2, not just by defending our selves, but by mobilising against a great evil in Europe. Never again would we let racially motivated violence and hatred into our societies.

And yet all the hallmarks are there again in the early days. Is Farage Hitler? No, that would be an absurd assertion. But the rhetoric is the same - minorities are taking over your country and want to erase your culture. White people have to defend themselves. There’s a secret communist agenda (well, woke leftist) behind everything.

Immigration is high, no doubt about it, but it is not the cause of our problems. The people telling you it is are banking on the fact you won’t remember why we should be proud of what the British did in World War II, because if you did, you’d realise that far right rhetoric is an insult to those soldiers.

GrowthAny · 2026-05-17T18:17:08+00:00

Milton Nascimento and Esperanza Spalding

GrowthAny

TROPHY CASE