Pickadolla

May 12, 2024

Angelo Bruschini 1961-2023

Posted by olagill under Artist, Music, Musician | Tags: Angelo Bruschini, Massive Attack, The Blue Aeroplanes |
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I am not sure how I missed the passing of Angelo Bruschini, the brilliant guitarist from Bristol who contributed to the region’s trip hop explosion in the 1990s and 2000s by recording and touring with Massive Attack. He was also known as the guitarist of the band The Blue Aeroplanes. Bruschini died of lung cancer in October 2023, at the age of 62. Rest in peace Angelo.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/oct/24/massive-attack-confirm-death-of-guitarist-angelo-bruschini

May 5, 2024

The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis

Posted by olagill under Books, Review | Tags: Bret Easton Ellis, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, The Shards |
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Bret, the narrator, relates the story of the events of his senior year of high school in 1981, of he and his close circle of friends’ acquaintance with new student Robert Mallory and the tragedy that followed. Bret and his friends are all the children of affluent film directors, producers, and other major players of the Hollywood scene, living in the heights and canyons of the Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles. The main characters are Generation X kids with much freedom to come and go as they please from their homes as their distant parents focus on their own lives and sexual freedoms. They all attend an elite prep school, Buckley, have easy access to drugs, go to lavish parties, and drive luxury cars. Bret, although tightly knit with the rest of the group, is also somewhat of an outsider, renowned for his overactive imagination as a writer. When new student Robert Mallory first arrives at Buckley, Bret is sure he had seen him at a movie theater months before, but Robert denies this. Bret learns that Robert had previously spent time in a psychiatric facility. Immediately and thereafter, Bret distrusts him and comes to believe that Robert is responsible for the murders of the “Trawler”, a serial killer that has been targeting mainly female teenagers in the Los Angeles area. The Trawler’s victims first find that furniture has been mysteriously rearranged in their homes, then their pets disappear and they receive phone calls with hang-ups, before they are abducted, mutilated and killed, and their corpses and those of their pets are later found made up into an “assemblage.” The Trawler is thought to be connected to a mysterious Satanic cult operating in the area known as the Riders of the Afterlife…

Bret Easton Ellis is back in good old form with his latest novel “The Shards” mixing his real life in the early 80s with fiction that keeps you on your toes throughout the novel. I reckon you could say that he mixes the vibe and narrative from “Less Than Zero”/”The Rules of Attraction” with “American Psycho” which is what he knows best to be honest. My critique of the book is that he has made it a bit too much of a “coming out of the closet” statement, that seems to never end as he talks about it repeatedly page up and down and I think he focus too much on that part. And I am not sure if I am fully happy with the ending. I have no issue with an open ending, but I miss some sort of closure in one way or another. “The Shards” is entertaining in that classic graphic, violent and over the top Bret Easton Ellis way and it’s great to see that he managed to bring out this story from back in the days and finally make a book out of it. Let’s hope he can keep this momentum. #theshards #breteastonellis