News, comment, links and observations

Pearl Jam Twenty doc comes to BBC Four

Cameron Crowe chronicles 20 years of the Seattle rockers

Marking Pearl Jam's two decades together, long-time fan and ex-Rolling Stone writer Cameron Crowe has assembled the two-hour documentary Pearl Jam Twenty, due for an airing on BBC Four this Friday (11 November). It's a project which he's had in mind for years, and the effort which has gone into it is obvious from the amazing range and variety of footage, most of it previously unseen. Every phase of the band's career, and even pre-career, is covered, going back to their roots in mid-Eighties Seattle before anybody had heard of "grunge".

Braquo and American Horror Story join the FX stable

Violent French cops and supernatural nightmares in the FX mix

In TV's seasonal rush of Spooks, Downton etc, we must also hail the sterling (if gruesome) work going on at the FX channel. Alongside series two of The Walking Dead, they've thrown in the additional delights of gory French cop thriller Braquo and, last night, we saw the debut of the weird and scary American Horror Story.

Charles Bradley, 'Top Boy' soulman

Singer gets record deal after decades of trying

Not only was Channel 4's Top Boy a brilliant slice of TV drama, but it delivered a neat little pay-off over the closing credits with Charles Bradley's track "The World (Is Going Up in Flames)".  An anguished chunk of classic soul, sung by Bradley in a gutsy James Brown-style rasp, it sounded at least 40 years old, but in fact it was only released in 2007 on Daptone Records' subsidiary, Dunham.

2012 Cultural Olympiad events announced

2012 Cultural Olympiad events announced

The 2012 Cultural Olympiad has been announced and events will take place throughout the UK from 21 June until the last day of the Paralympics, 9 September. Ruth Mackenzie, director of the Cultural Olympiad, said that many events would be free, and that “the festival will offer a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be inspired by the best in the world”. Events will range across the arts, from music, dance, theatre, opera and film to literature, the visual arts and fashion, and some will include a chance for arts fans to participate in the creation of an artwork.

Pete Townshend: the internet is killing music

The Who's main man bemoans the death of 'John Peelism' at the hands of iTunes

Earlier this week Pete Townshend asked whether “John Peelism”, the ethos of supporting and celebrating small, independent artists at a grass-roots level, could survive the internet. His implied answer was clearly "no". Townshend levelled the accusation that Apple, the owner of iTunes, is “a digital vampire Northern Rock” which doesn’t support or invest in the musicians whose work they sell, particularly the more independently minded ones, but rather sucks them dry before moving on.

Greece showers Soviet art riches on London

Kasimir Malevich and François Morellet in the West End

There’s a lot of Soviet art about at the moment – the excellent show that opens this Saturday at the Royal Academy has Constructivist and Suprematist paintings and drawings loaned by the George Costakis Collection in Thessaloniki. Now, at Annely Juda, a smaller, but no less excellent, show highlights one single Malevich painting, Black Square (main picture, above), a tiny gem of the early 20th century, also from the Costakis Collection, together with a series of Malevich’s working drawings.

Fac.Dance: Celebrating the Beat of Factory Records

Factory's forays onto the dance floor

New Order’s “Blue Monday” might be the bestselling 12” single ever. It might not be. Either way, Factory Records released it on the 12” format only and it was given dry runs by club DJs. Although Factory had an overriding visual aesthetic, it was a wilful label with little musical coherence and no set way of doing things. Dance music, though, was central to Factory, and the new compilation Fac.Dance celebrates that in a way that was impossible in the scattershot Eighties.