(Rounder Records)
****
When I saw Steve Martin live in Massachusetts in the late 1970s, "Let's get small" and "Excuuuuuuuse me" were catchphrases. He was a regular on Saturday Night Live and his comedy, which relied on intelligent juxtaposition and absurdist observation – with some physicality thrown in – hid a major talent. Many comics play behind props – Martin himself often wore an arrow through the head or Groucho glasses, or juggled – but when on Let's Get Small, Martin says, "And now, some Foggy Mountain Breakdown", before launching into the Flatt and Scruggs bluegrass hit, the audience laughs before realising it is no joke. The guy can really play banjo.
There are essentially two types of banjo playing today. One is a three-finger pick that was used to such good effect by Earl Scruggs it became known after him. The other goes by two names: frailing, or the clawhammer. This is the kind of playing Martin prefers. On his first album, The Crow, which won a Grammy for best bluegrass album in 2010, there's even a medley called Clawhammer, a trek across several musical locales, including the Scottish Loch Lomond. Clawhammer, by the way, is a somewhat misleading name for this style: when you see Martin playing, it is with such delicacy it's like he's tickling the strings.
You can hear that tickling in the instrumentals and solos on Martin's latest bluegrass offering, Rare Bird Alert, particularly Yellow-Backed Fly, where Martin's picking is as light as a flyfisherman's cast. Only five of the 13 original songs on Rare Bird Alert are instrumentals (he's backed by the Steep Canyon Rangers, who colour the songs with deep, rich textures), but Martin's banjo stands out on the others as well. In Best Love, with vocals by Paul McCartney, the circular chording of the banjo acts as both support and parallel to lyrics that recount the story of a late-in-life love; in Go Away, Stop, Turn Around, Come Back, the conflict in the words – on how hard it is to end a long relationship – is echoed in the stops, rests and abrupt restarts of plucked eighth and sixteenth notes.
As befits an artist known predominantly as a comedian, Rare Bird Alert has humour to kill, which is an often overlooked characteristic of the country and bluegrass genres. Some of it is in the lyrics – in the break-up song Jubilation Day, the narrator says, "Let's always remember the good times; like when you were out of town"; and in just about every line of the gospel-flavoured a cappella Atheists Don't Have No Songs and the bluegrass reworking of King Tut – but there's musical humour as well: "There's magic in three-quarter time" goes a lyric in Women Like to Slow Dance but the song is a heel-kickin' double-time.
The best tune on the album just might be You, a song of mourning, with vocal turns by the Dixie Chicks. No one in country can do a minor key quite like Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire and Emily Robison. The lyrics feel true and heartfelt, the instrumentation warm and not sentimental.
Now hear this: Three albums that have informed Steve Martin’s latest bluegrass offering
Béla Fleck and the Flecktones – Outbound
The multi-Grammy Award winner has played with such a range of artists, it’s easy to forget he’s a bluegrass musician at heart. Check out his version of Aaron Copland’s Hoedown, from 2000’s Outbound, which is labelled a jazz album.
Earl Scruggs – Earl Scruggs and Friends
Scruggs began his career pickin’ for Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, but quickly partnered with Lester Flatt. Their Foggy Mountain Breakdown is the urtext of banjo picking and gets a multi-artist revisitation on this Grammy Award winner from 2002.
Steve Martin – The Crow: New Songs for the Five-String Banjo
This 2009 album won the Grammy for bluegrass recordings in 2010. Or, as Martin put it: “I walked away with a Grammy, but later discovered I’d actually won it.” The album is largely instrumental with a couple of vocal turns by Mary Black and Dolly Parton, and as would be expected from someone who broke into showbiz as a comedian, a fair bit of whimsy.
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In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
The Sand Castle
Director: Matty Brown
Stars: Nadine Labaki, Ziad Bakri, Zain Al Rafeea, Riman Al Rafeea
Rating: 2.5/5
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Squid Game season two
Director: Hwang Dong-hyuk
Stars: Lee Jung-jae, Wi Ha-joon and Lee Byung-hun
Rating: 4.5/5
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
More from Armen Sarkissian
Another way to earn air miles
In addition to the Emirates and Etihad programmes, there is the Air Miles Middle East card, which offers members the ability to choose any airline, has no black-out dates and no restrictions on seat availability. Air Miles is linked up to HSBC credit cards and can also be earned through retail partners such as Spinneys, Sharaf DG and The Toy Store.
An Emirates Dubai-London round-trip ticket costs 180,000 miles on the Air Miles website. But customers earn these ‘miles’ at a much faster rate than airline miles. Adidas offers two air miles per Dh1 spent. Air Miles has partnerships with websites as well, so booking.com and agoda.com offer three miles per Dh1 spent.
“If you use your HSBC credit card when shopping at our partners, you are able to earn Air Miles twice which will mean you can get that flight reward faster and for less spend,” says Paul Lacey, the managing director for Europe, Middle East and India for Aimia, which owns and operates Air Miles Middle East.
The specs
AT4 Ultimate, as tested
Engine: 6.2-litre V8
Power: 420hp
Torque: 623Nm
Transmission: 10-speed automatic
Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)
On sale: Now
The biog
Favourite food: Fish and seafood
Favourite hobby: Socialising with friends
Favourite quote: You only get out what you put in!
Favourite country to visit: Italy
Favourite film: Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.
Family: We all have one!
The%C2%A0specs%20
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At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
