In a move akin to giving the role of brewery tour guide to an alcoholic, last week I was given…
Jul 02 2020
Where Do We Live Now? Part 9 – Will Burns
IX I wake to a dawn chorus of pure wood pigeon. From somewhere far off, in an instantly-forgotten dream I…
Jun 30 2020
How Do You Film A Void? – Austin Collings
Austin Collings (author, filmmaker and Creative Director of The White Hotel venue in Salford) has been following our Social Gathering…
Jun 30 2020
Rubbish Tip, Rags and Bones, Summer 1968 – Vashti Bunyan
Rubbish Tip, July 1968 Approaching the town of Derby with the wagon and Bess, we had a choice to make….
Jun 29 2020
The View From Here: Down the WORMhole IV – Richard Foster
Last week, for the first time in ages, I sat on WORM’s terrace on the corner of the Witte de…
Jun 28 2020
Bling By Banksy From An Ice Cream Van – James & Webster Endeacott
Between 1985 and 2003 I went to Glastonbury loads of times. Some weekends I remember like it was yesterday; others…
Jun 28 2020
Thirty-ish Years In A Metal Tent – Tony Crean
It was all Karl’s fault. He’d been bunking in for years, sleeping in the dub tent, even playing on the…
Jun 27 2020
Stonebridge, An Accidental Dance Tent – Carl Gosling
Me and Robin were chatting the other morning about how the festival this year has been stolen from us. We’ve…
Jun 27 2020
Sherelle: Stonebridge Mix 2020 – BBC Sounds
Massive thank you to Sherelle for doing this. We’re gutted this is not happening tonight at Glastonbury, it was already…
Jun 26 2020
Where Do We Live Now? Part 8 – Will Burns
VIII. If you were to mark its position on a map of the country, the village would be just about…
Jun 24 2020
Go West – Mathew Clayton
11 years ago Mathew Clayton and his friend Simon Benham set up the Free University of Glastonbury, a programme of…
Jun 24 2020
Things Have Not Changed: Rough and Rowdy Ways Review – Emad Akhtar
It’s been such a long, long time… The last original material we heard from Bob was 2012’s Tempest. The next…
Jun 23 2020
Attention Everybody, Mr Pete Fowler
One of the staunchest people in lockdown has without doubt been Pete Fowler, not least for his 9 (!) Social…
Jun 23 2020
Islington, London – July 1968 – Vashti Bunyan
July 1968. London Garden Our first stop in London was in Islington where Robert’s one-time tutor and now friend Anthony…
Jun 22 2020
Glastonbury Week, Stonebridge
It shouldn’t come as a surprise when certain things end up knocking you back on your heels during lockdown. I’m…
Jun 21 2020
An Unseen Student In The Congregation – Wendy Erskine
Wendine escapes to Dallas with Jerry Lee: a flash fiction homage to Nick Tosches by Wendy Erskine. With artwork by Babak…
Jun 20 2020
How I Learnt To Love Lager & Long Hair – Tom Friend (Friendly Records)
On 14th of March, we threw what was planned to be the last party in the bar we have next…
Jun 19 2020
Where Do We Live Now? Part 7 – Will Burns
VII Mid-June and the weather has given in. Finally, rain. Storms have begun to appear as if from nowhere in…
Jun 19 2020
Exit Music? – Lewis Jamieson
Why the UK is failing the music industry. This Saturday is the first Love Record Stores day. We’ll be marking…
Jun 17 2020
The View From Here: Sánchez Life 2 – Eduardo Rabasa
Among the first reported covid cases in Mexico are prominent businessmen who were skiing with their families in Vail, Colorado….
Jun 16 2020
Divers to Dive: A Pandemic Dream Journal Vol 1-9 by David Keenan + Eleni Avraam
Over the first nine weeks of the Social Gathering we were blessed to be able to share this magical series…
Jun 16 2020
Into The Wood – Vashti Bunyan
In 1968 Vashti Bunyan set out on a journey that still resonates five decades later. Today we’re publishing the first…
Jun 15 2020
The View From Here: Sánchez Life – Eduardo Rabasa
The reality of the pandemic descended upon me during a Guns n´Roses concert in Mexico City. The date was March…
Jun 13 2020
Boulders – Catherine Eccles
2016 has been a difficult year, of course it has. It’s as though my radar has been scrambled. This has…
Jun 12 2020
Where Do We Live Now? Part 6 – Will Burns
VI There are two fields, one to the north, one to the south, intersected by the road that runs through…
Jun 11 2020
Life Beyond the Neutral Zone #6 – Lias Saoudi
Stood outside Downing Street yesterday I saw something that cut through even my own iron clad pessimism. I haven’t been…
Jun 10 2020
The View From Here: A Sausage In The Wild (Essex, June 2020) – Karl Hyde
I was born and raised in a house of cars and maps. The cars went over my head, sometimes through…
Jun 09 2020
The Wasted Times TV Guide: Week 5 – Lewis Jamieson
So much can change in a short space of time. I started writing this before we were all talking about…
Jun 09 2020
Consolamentum of Weatherdolls – Claire Smith
We have covered the premature death of Andrew Weatherall age 56 from many angles in these pages over the past…
Jun 08 2020
The View From Here: Down the WORMhole III – Richard Foster
Back to normal eh? Eh? I can’t honestly work out if I feel happy or tense about this Big Reopening…
Jun 07 2020
Wally – The Full Story Behind Prince’s Most Mysterious Song – Matt Thorne
As every fan knows, Prince recorded far more songs than he ever released. Most years he put out less than…
Jun 06 2020
Gnostic Golf Epiphanies with David Keenan
Four years ago I was contacted by a writer whose work I knew from The Wire and other publications on Twitter called…
Jun 05 2020
Where Do We Live Now? Part 5 – Will Burns
V Lonely, fraught, strange days. I am up at four with the sun and the birdsong. My days have taken…
Jun 04 2020
The Artist’s Lunch With Andy Warhol – Chris Frantz
At the end of July, White Rabbit Books publishes a memoir by Chris Frantz, who has the distinction of founding,…
Jun 03 2020
Rave World: The Art of Junior Tomlin
Today on The Social Gathering, we’re pleased to bring you an extract from an interview with artist Junior Tomlin. It’s…
Jun 01 2020
Over There – Camilla Blackett
At the end of last week we asked friends in the States if they could paint us the view from…
May 31 2020
Divers to Dive: A Pandemic Dream Journal #9 – David Keenan + Eleni Avraam
Divers to Dive #9 from David Keenan & Eleni Avraam is here: Instructions for Evensong on the Re-Opening of the…
May 30 2020
I love Q – Katherine Cantwell
With Q – and all of the music press – under even greater threat as the covid recession looms, Katherine…
May 29 2020
Where Do We Live Now? 4 – Will Burns
IV Perhaps the Paper Lantern itself—this suddenly strange, suddenly useless and rather sad building just off the main road in…
May 28 2020
Soho mornings – Joe Thomas
The opening sequence of Ken Hughes’ 1963 beat-crime masterpiece The Small World of Sammy Lee is a collage of tracking…
May 27 2020
Solidarity with Crossing Border – Lee Brackstone
Dig if you will the picture. It’s 3.20am and about 200 of the most forward-thinking, risk-embracing, party-loving publishers in Europe…
May 26 2020
Rasputin Goes To Barnard Castle – John Crump
I don’t know how to break this to everyone, but you’ve got your infamous seducer metaphors all messed up. He’s…
May 25 2020
The Rhythm of the Road – Ogmios School of Zen Motoring
One of the biggest questions raised by lockdown is what happens next. And specifically, will we all just go back…
May 24 2020
Divers to Dive: A Pandemic Dream Journal #8 – David Keenan + Eleni Avraam
#8 of Diver to Dive, A Pandemic Dream Journal by David Keenan and Eleni Avraam is here: what’s a ‘cockhog’, dance, arabesques,…
May 23 2020
Cold War Steve vs The PRB
Last month we brought you the first part of the hugely popular Cold War Steve/Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery collaboration….
May 22 2020
Isolation Observations: 8 – Sophie Green
The last 8 weeks have been defined by an absence of action – at least any action that involved moving…
May 21 2020
Where Do We Live Now? Part 3 – Will Burns
III The morning after the VE Day celebrations comes on with a violent reminder of the previous world of this…
May 21 2020
The Six O’Clock Swill Soundtrack
Ever since the lockdown, we’ve invited people to open up the Social for us online at 6pm. A lot of…
May 20 2020
Occasional Rain And Other Projects From The Pub – Liz Buckley
On working with Bob Stanley & Pete Wiggs on their seminal ‘Presents’ compilation series by Liz Buckley, Label Manager at…
May 19 2020
The Wasted Times TV Guide: Week 4 – Lewis Jamieson
The explosion of digital TV means that, even now, many weeks into lockdown, there is still a massive amount of…
May 18 2020
The View From Here: Down the WORMhole II – Richard Foster
In my first piece for this esteemed publication, I ended by posing a question: can the Netherlands really survive and…
May 17 2020
Divers to Dive: A Pandemic Dream Journal #7 – David Keenan + Eleni Avraam
Turn everything to art! #7 of Divers to Dive, A Pandemic Dream Journal from David Keenan and Eleni Avraam is a bumper…
May 17 2020
Rebel With A Cause: Phil May Remembered – Mac Brackstone
Phil May was born in Erith , a bleak, industrial town in the most easterly corner of London. He lived…
May 16 2020
Imagine An Island – Destination 2: Surrender To The Void
A few weeks back, The Social Gathering opened the doors on its daydream travel agency. Imagine An Island is here to transport…
May 15 2020
All The Fruits – Jon Savage
On February the 18th 1956, Tutti Frutti hit #21, its highest position in the US top 100. Or rather, the…
May 15 2020
Life Beyond the Neutral Zone #5 – Lias Saoudi
The biggest thing clouding my vision is my martyr complex. Even with all the bountiful fruits that life has delivered…
May 14 2020
The View From Here: Move Forward – Fergal Kinney
(artwork by Caio Wheelhouse) I shouldn’t have been surprised that as the world altered entirely, I’d be watching from the…
May 14 2020
Where Do We Live Now? Part 2 – Will Burns
II. What could be worse than spending these last few weeks alone in a place defined by its public communal…
May 13 2020
Down to Gorky Park: Listening to the Wind of Change Podcast
If I was to say Wind of Change by Scorpions was a guilty pleasure of mine, it would be a lie. It’s…
May 13 2020
Scrub Transmissions #3 : DEMON – LoneLady
An occasional installation project in which I cement an mp3 player into the fabric of a structure, somewhere in the…
May 12 2020
Isolation Observations: 7 – Sophie Green
Stayed alert – well as alert as you can be in a soporific stupor, muscles atrophied through never leaving the…
May 12 2020
Telling Secrets to Strangers – Will Ashon
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the last month or so, it’s that people are nervous about telling secrets…
May 11 2020
Escape From The Ice: The Social Gathering Podcast by Steve Mason
We’re extremely proud to bring you the second part of The Social Gathering’s podcast series, where Steve Mason’s reads from one…
May 10 2020
Divers to Dive: A Pandemic Dream Journal #6 – David Keenan + Eleni Avraam
Welcome to #6 of Divers to Dive, A Pandemic Dream Journal by David Keenan and Eleni Avraam, which this week features Betelgeuse…
May 09 2020
Final Score – John Crump
I’ve finally had it with the footy. I don’t even know where to start, 30 odd years with a Liverpool…
May 08 2020
Life Beyond the Neutral Zone #4 – Lias Saoudi
Of all the weird and wonderful tales to have emerged in the last six weeks, my little brother deciding to…
May 07 2020
When is a Routine Not a Routine? – Catherine Eccles
When it’s a ritual. Enter the Temple of Gnostic Sonics, a sanctuary of sound from the Music’s Not For…
May 06 2020
Where Do We Live Now? – Will Burns
I. We will begin with a rough physical description. The place is a small market town which, for some reason,…
May 06 2020
The View From Here: Down the WORMhole – Richard Foster
What to say of these times on the other side of the North Sea? In this sorry business the Netherlands…
May 05 2020
Isolation Observations: 6 – Sophie Green
Listened to Florence blasting My Sharona from her room constantly. Bought a massive new fern which was delivered upside down…
May 04 2020
The Wasted Times TV Guide: Week 3 – Lewis Jamieson
OK, so week three. Nice of the BBC to bring back Killing Eve, though I’m not feeling it like I…
May 04 2020
Shaun Ryder and the Salford Sioux
“Eventually they turned up in Manchester, but they parked where the River Irwell is in Salford, it’s a big island….
May 03 2020
Divers to Dive: A Pandemic Dream Journal #5 – David Keenan + Eleni Avraam
Welcome to Divers to Dive, A Pandemic Dream Journal #5 from David Keenan and Eleni Avraam, which this week features the curse…
May 02 2020
Sounds – Jeff O’Toole
Here at The Social Gathering we’ve been marking May Day by celebrating how we come together to fight the power,…
May 02 2020
Yellow Daisies – Eleni Avraam
The only memory and association I have for May Day is the ritual of making wreaths at my grandmother’s home…
May 01 2020
Thoughts, connected, on Mayday by Anna Wood
Nineteen years ago, at the anticapitalist protest in central London, me and my friend Ellie and a few hundred other…
May 01 2020
Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music – Rob Young
Hack a path through the briars and push open the gate. The creak is a music that wakes the dead…
May 01 2020
Oss Oss Wee Oss! – May Day in Padstow by Jeremy Deller
“So the scholars say it was one of our religions when we lived in caves… I can’t say whether its…
May 01 2020
May Day 2000/2001 – Brian David Stevens
BDS is one of my favourite photographers but somehow I’ve never seen these photos he took at the May Day…
May 01 2020
Your Appointment with The Wicker Man. A conversation with Jonny Trunk.
A few years back, I met Jonny Trunk in a pub in Stoke Newington on a sunny afternoon to talk…
Apr 30 2020
Sing Backwards and Weep: Online Launch Event
To mark the launch of Mark Lanegan’s memoir SING BACKWARDS AND WEEP in the UK, we teamed with White Rabbit to celebrate…
Apr 29 2020
Chelsea Peretti: Coffee Crankin’ Thru Her Sys – David Bailey
Talking about things you like is fun. Fun is fun. High energy is fun, low energy is fun. Coffee is…
Apr 28 2020
Isolation Observations: 5 – Sophie Green
Abandoned bras. Abandoned the hairdryer. Abandoned face wash. Abandoned razors. Abandoned any clothing without an elasticated waistband and three way…
Apr 27 2020
The View From Here: Living By Numbers – Hayden Thorpe
We asked Hayden Thorpe, formerly singer in one of the great British bands of the past decade, Wild Beasts, to…
Apr 26 2020
Divers to Dive: A Pandemic Dream Journal #4 – David Keenan + Eleni Avraam
This week features an exclusive out-take from Keenan’s debut novel, This Is Memorial Device, a passionate entreaty from Mexico, Jack Spicer…
Apr 25 2020
The Wasted Times TV Guide: Week 2 – Lewis Jamieson
So, we’re still here. I’m guessing that you are pretty much done now with all the stuff you knew about….
Apr 25 2020
Imagine An Island – Destination 1: An Unspoilt Nutopia
This weekend, The Social Gathering launches its semi-regular daydream travel section. Imagine An Island is your first class ticket on the next flight out…
Apr 25 2020
New Social Tshirt – Lockdown Edition
A classic Social logo tee with our ‘Because No One Should Drink Alone’ manifesto designed by Raissa Pardini on the…
Apr 24 2020
Life Beyond the Neutral Zone #3 – Lias Saoudi
Certain aspects of my personal hygiene have taken a backseat in recent weeks, with nobody around who could possibly care,…
Apr 23 2020
Black Ops – Wendy Erskine
(The Most Approximate Anti-Christ Blackboard by Babak Ganjei) — It’s 1984, a noisy Belfast classroom at break-time and some numerology…
Apr 22 2020
Imagining an Island. Travel in a post Coronavirus world – Robin Turner.
It was around the time the airline cancelled our flights that I began to dream of an island. Easy Jet’s…
Apr 21 2020
Down the Rabbit Hole with Prince – Lee Brackstone
Four years have passed to the day since the most singular, talented and prolific musician and songwriter of his generation…
Apr 21 2020
Isolation Observations: 4 – Sophie Green
Announced internally “right that’s it now, I can’t do this anymore”, like that gave me license to take some forbidden…
Apr 20 2020
Is This What They Meant By The Big Society? – John Crump (aka @MrOMFGWTAF)
I guess it must have been a few weeks ago that I saw a story about a couple of Italian…
Apr 19 2020
Divers to Dive: A Pandemic Dream Journal #3 – David Keenan + Eleni Avraam
Welcome to issue #3 of Divers to Dive, A Pandemic Dream Journal, from David Keenan and Eleni Avraam, which this…
Apr 19 2020
Social Gathering: Broadsheet, Week 3
Your time has come your second skinThe cost so high the gain so lowWalk through the valleyThe written word is…
Apr 18 2020
Benny’s Babbies – Cold War Steve & Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery
In September 2019 (a properly different world it was then!) the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery approached Cold War Steve…
Apr 17 2020
Get down on your knees and pray: The Social Gathering Podcast by Steve Mason
“Sir Edmund Hillary said… ‘For scientific discovery, give me Scott. For speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundson. But…
Apr 16 2020
Life Beyond the Neutral Zone #2 – Lias Saoudi
In the second of our regular collection of letters from Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi, the writer’s mind travels from Brixton’s…
Apr 15 2020
The Wasted Times TV Guide – Lewis Jamieson
Fourth week of lockdown and we’ve all done Succession twice, we’re not sure about the new Westworld, the kids have…
Apr 15 2020
Exciting Times – Naoise Dolan
‘At the restaurant he put his phone face-down on the table, so I did the same as if for me,…
Apr 14 2020
Isolation Observations: 3 – Sophie Green
Thanked God for immigrants (thank you Jeremy Deller). Missed drinking cocktails on a Saturday afternoon with Jen and Louise. Missed…
Apr 13 2020
Unknown Unknowns – Catherine Eccles
Last week, Catherine Eccles talked us through her archival journey piecing tracks from Andrew Weatherall’s peerless NTS shows into playlists. The…
Apr 12 2020
Divers to Dive: A Pandemic Dream Journal #2 – David Keenan + Eleni Avraam
Welcome to the second issue of Divers to Dive: A Pandemic Dream Journal by David Keenan and Eleni Avraam, which this week…
Apr 12 2020
The View From Here – Johnny Lynch (Pictish Trail)
When starting The Social Gathering, we sent out a message to friends outside of Britain’s big cities asking how our they were getting…
Apr 10 2020
From Here To Before – a film by Kieran Evans. Words by Vashti Bunyan, Sukhdev Sandhu, Gwenno Saunders & Fiona Brice
A few years back, our friend Kieran Evans made a beautiful and intimate film with legendary singer / songwriter Vashti…
Apr 09 2020
Co-Op Radio Ate My Heart – David Bailey
In the early noughties, Tesco Extra-esque supermarkets were hailed the new superclubs. A place of consumerist worship for the Nespresso…
Apr 08 2020
The View From Here: Andy Kelly
The View From Here One of the first things we wanted to do when we started The Social Gathering was…
Apr 07 2020
Ferreting With Rambo – Maxy Bianco
White Rabbit: I’m assuming the film is set in Hartlepool judging by those accents. When did you first come across…
Apr 07 2020
Isolation Observations: 2 – Sophie Green
Waved at people a lot. Bathed less regularly than I’d imagined I would in the circumstances. Thanked God this wasn’t…
Apr 06 2020
Groovy Times Forever More – Robin Turner
During the last decade or so, Andrew Weatherall was a regular presence at The Social. It wasn’t uncommon to see…
Apr 06 2020
The Thursday Afternoon Perambulation – Lee Brackstone
flaneur noun a man who saunters around observing society ————————— Of all Andrew Weatherall’s many celebrated talents, the most under-appreciated…
Apr 06 2020
The Temple of Gnostic Sonics – Catherine Eccles
It’s impossible to know how you’re going to react when someone dies. In early February, my good friend Lee Brackstone…
Apr 05 2020
Divers to Dive: A Pandemic Dream Journal #1 – David Keenan + Eleni Avraam
Latitude 55.860916 Longitude -4.251433 Monday 16/3/20 No dream recovered. Vague recollection of probing a hole. Freud said: dreams are pathogenic. …
Apr 04 2020
Shabby Magic – Michael Smith
This is an extract from the new book I’ve been working on, about a bloke having a midlife crisis while…
Apr 03 2020
Life Beyond the Neutral Zone – Lias Saoudi
Arthur Schopenhauer, it was reputed, would stick to a strict daily routine. He would reveille at 7am, drink a strong…
Apr 03 2020
Sonic Cathedral – bdrmm
Earlier today, our friends at Sonic Cathedral announced ‘Bedroom’, the debut album by the brilliant Leeds/Hull-based band bdrmm. To celebrate,…
Apr 02 2020
Country Music – Will Burns
Happy publication day to Will Burns, whose long-awaited debut collection, Country Music, is now out! We had a big blowout launch…
Apr 01 2020
Hey Hi Hello
Less than a year after it opened, The Social hosted a huge birthday party for Annie Nightingale on both floors of the bar….
Mar 31 2020
Seeds and Stems – Richard King
The escalation of the virus has coincided with the Vernal Equinox, the immediate prospect of the clocks going backwards (time…
Mar 30 2020
Isolation Observations 1 – Sophie Green
Thanked God I didn’t have to tell my children Tom Hanks had died. Wore a lot of big earrings. Extended…
Mar 29 2020
Liberation Through Hearing – Richard Russell
Rap, Rave & The Rise of XL Recordings
Mar 29 2020
The Social Gathering
Collecting up music, words, art & conversation to bring The Social to wherever you are in the world. Because if we have to do this in isolation, we should at least have our mates with us, reading over our shoulders & getting the beers in
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