Preface: Plato’s Cave  ‘Obviously I’m into myself, but I’m not walking around just saying, “Oh, everybody look at me.” I…

When he was twenty-five, Muntu finally returned to Poland. We say returned, although he had never actually developed a single…

In a state of frenzied arrogance around 18 months ago I took it upon myself to hurl a few digital…

Burroughs and Reed had mutual friends, but the two didn’t actually meet face-to-face until 1979. By then Burroughs had become…

During the pandemic I saw for the first time Jim Jarmusch’s epic film Only Lovers Left Alive, in which the…

One thing that I have noticed whilst writing this guide over the last few months is how much TV output…

I felt a huge responsibility writing this book. It felt like this was the one chance in a generation that…

Yesterday I went to visit an old friend. I’d heard that he was unwell, and I was concerned. We had…

Introducing our second piece from writer Patrick Ofosu. Going by the name Epytion he describes himself as ‘a learner expressing…

I first saw The Snork, I used to pass him regularly, when I was de-mobbed to Greece, and I maintain…

(Artwork by Jason Vaughan) Ahead of their new EP release – ACID ZOO – next month, The White Hotel’s BOMB…

I still have the spiral bound notebook that was my companion while writing, where I would note down my historical…

In poetic thought the role of the subconscious is played by euphony. – Joseph Brodsky The cover of Hiroshi Yoshimura’s…

And so we reach our 23rd and final weekly Broadsheet. 23 weeks ago Robin declared that we would put together…

Around the time I started writing these posts I also started writing a collection of personal essays about various periods…

Today, September 3rd 2020, is perhaps the most demented day in British publishing history with over 650 titles released. I doubt…

Thanks to my older brother, I was a pre-teen metal head. I can’t blame him though. Growing up in South…

A subject like this is to all intents and purposes open ended, so towards the end you need to start…

Apricot trees are slow and temperamental: they reject the cold and, for their first five years, bear no fruit at…

The book’s point of departure – William Morris – snuck up on me after I discovered his 1890 novel News…

This week we’re on holiday in the rain. And the internet has turned against us. Please accept this minimal mail…

My novels often take their titles from songs and mention music that grooves me. The latest She’s My Witch is no exception…

“A clock spends its life marking time, but does it understand mortality?” goes the Chain and The Gang lyric, “Music’s…

I enjoyed the responsibilities given to me at The Camp. Answering the phone to people hunting for last minute holidays…

Like many of you I have spent way too much time on social media over the past 6 months. Occasionally,…

Out of the dozens of colourfully-named selectors which fill the daily programming of Palestinian internet radio station Radio Al-Hara, the one…

Back in January I cycled from Blackfriars to Little Portland Street on a gloomy evening to celebrate the 20thbirthday party…

Arriving Somewhere But Not Here Last Tuesday morning. There’s sunshine blitzing through tent canvas and I’m awake. It’s around 6am…

The smell of woodsmoke and heavy, Welsh mud, and the mist lifting off the field as I cross it in…

What news from the Continent I hear you cry? Well, we enter into the arena of the unknown.  Rotterdam in…

The sing-songs around the piano of years gone by were replaced with the juke box. This permanently contained predominantly 80’s…

It’s 7:16pm in Heathfield, East Sussex and I’m “working from home” while listening to Radio Al-Hara. The DJ, Mango Thief,…

We asked publisher Julian Vinuales (Libros de Kultrum) to report back from his home in Barcelona, only to discover he…

This week all of us behind The Social Gathering have found ourselves staycationing all at once, in one way of…

Artist Mark James releases a timely new piece of work tomorrow, Friday 14th August. ANGERLAND is a set of three…

My grandparents were almost in retirement when they bought the camp. I knew my nan wanted to be by the…

William Burroughs is a highly significant figure in the world of music, even if he professed little knowledge about the…

I’ve got to get this off my chest: just how completely fucking shit the phonies and bellends that have made…

Summer finally arrived this week and the British public suddenly became all sun boiled, stuck in traffic jams on irascible…

Hey Dad,  How are you doing?  No need to answer.  I know.  Wish you were here, just the two of…

Today, White Rabbit Books announces publication of Harry Sword’s debut Monolithic Undertow: In Search of Sonic Oblivion (February 2021), a colossal…

A few weeks ago, our friend Mathew Clayton got in touch about a book he thought we’d like. Mathew is…

As the weeks drag on and everything apart from the things I care about seems to open – no gigs,…

“You already rang me two hours ago saying you were at a funeral in Essex.” “I’m on my way now”…

This week I tried to be nicer. It’s hard in the face of everything that is going on isn’t it,…

A few months back I had an opportunity to premiere my rarely seen feature documentary about Vashti Bunyan on the…

Crossing Rannoch Moor, Scotland. Late May 1969. Our days went walking by with no other souls, just us and the…

Over the last few months, The Social Gathering has occasionally published a daydream travel supplement. Imagine An Island is your semi-regular first class ticket…

The Orielles’ Disco Volador barely left our record player for months after release, the celestial orange vinyl got a lot…

Sit down, I’ve got some bad news. I hate to be the one to break it you, but we’re currently in…

Apologies if this week’s condensed edition has arrived later than normal – the summer holidays have kicked in with all…

In deepest darkest Cornwall, within the enchanting fishing harbour of Boscastle you’ll find a museum with a difference—the Museum of…

Randell Jarrell wrote, ‘a good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be…

Will Burns writes on John Carpenter’s cult classic They Live, using Craig Oldham’s book published by Rough Trade Books,  They…

There were thousands of them. Millions maybe. All across the sky, billowing around like some dusty gold and yellow snowstorm….

1965 Our old neighbours at Appletree Wick had a party, just before my twentieth birthday. My mother persuaded me to…

This week we’re honoured to be hosting a week long online birthday party for our friends, the wonderful Rough Trade Books….

Other than what we’ve published on the website I’ve found reading anything other than Twitter near impossible for 3 months….

They came from houses on the sides of hills, from bedrooms that looked out onto shades of green, the smell…

(Social x Pete Fowler slipmat pictured above available now) On Saturday night myself and Jeff O’Toole – our good friend…

1945/1961 My family moved from Newcastle upon Tyne when I was six months old – to Oak House, number 5…

My 2 by 4 Inglish, bare grammatical errors. I man, result to broken English. Deh propa name be pidgin, mix…

Our pals from the excellent band Pet Deaths are releasing their nightones mixtape on cassette at the end of the…

X Inn-dependence Day. Super Saturday. The end of the lockdown brought to you by the marketing department of England. A…

You’re in a band, dance pop trio Benin City, based in London. You imagine yourself as Roisin Murphy and Hot…

Underworld’s Karl Hyde began mapping territories via human marks left on the environment. Over years, those marks that have rooted themselves  into…

On a classic midwinter deep-freeze evening on the 21st January 2015, I first saw Savages perform at Bowery Ballroom in New…

Catch One Leaf, Lake District, 1968 It was becoming autumnal and wet, cold even by now. No stove in the…

Inspired by Une sale histoire by Jean Eustache 1 My story is the kind of story that women will scorn…

Although lots of pubs and restaurants across the country reopened this weekend for most live music venues and clubs the…

In a move akin to giving the role of brewery tour guide to an alcoholic, last week I was given…

IX I wake to a dawn chorus of pure wood pigeon. From somewhere far off, in an instantly-forgotten dream I…

Austin Collings (author, filmmaker and Creative Director of The White Hotel venue in Salford) has been following our Social Gathering…

Rubbish Tip, July 1968 Approaching the town of Derby with the wagon and Bess, we had a choice to make….

Last week, for the first time in ages, I sat on WORM’s terrace on the corner of the Witte de…

Between 1985 and 2003 I went to Glastonbury loads of times. Some weekends I remember like it was yesterday; others…

It was all Karl’s fault. He’d been bunking in for years, sleeping in the dub tent, even playing on the…

Me and Robin were chatting the other morning about how the festival this year has been stolen from us. We’ve…

Massive thank you to Sherelle for doing this. We’re gutted this is not happening tonight at Glastonbury, it was already…

VIII. If you were to mark its position on a map of the country, the village would be just about…

11 years ago Mathew Clayton and his friend Simon Benham set up the Free University of Glastonbury, a programme of…

It’s been such a long, long time… The last original material we heard from Bob was 2012’s Tempest. The next…

One of the staunchest people in lockdown has without doubt been Pete Fowler, not least for his 9 (!) Social…

July 1968.  London Garden Our first stop in London was in Islington where Robert’s one-time tutor and now friend Anthony…

It shouldn’t come as a surprise when certain things end up knocking you back on your heels during lockdown. I’m…

Wendine escapes to Dallas with Jerry Lee: a flash fiction homage to Nick Tosches by Wendy Erskine. With artwork by Babak…

On 14th of March, we threw what was planned to be the last party in the bar we have next…

VII Mid-June and the weather has given in. Finally, rain. Storms have begun to appear as if from nowhere in…

Why the UK is failing the music industry. This Saturday is the first Love Record Stores day. We’ll be marking…

Among the first reported covid cases in Mexico are prominent businessmen who were skiing with their families in Vail, Colorado….

Over the first nine weeks of the Social Gathering we were blessed to be able to share this magical series…

In 1968 Vashti Bunyan set out on a journey that still resonates five decades later. Today we’re publishing the first…

The reality of the pandemic descended upon me during a Guns n´Roses concert in Mexico City. The date was March…

2016 has been a difficult year, of course it has.  It’s as though my radar has been scrambled.  This has…

VI There are two fields, one to the north, one to the south, intersected by the road that runs through…

Stood outside Downing Street yesterday I saw something that cut through even my own iron clad pessimism. I haven’t been…

I was born and raised in a house of cars and maps. The cars went over my head, sometimes through…

So much can change in a short space of time. I started writing this before we were all talking about…

We have covered the premature death of Andrew Weatherall age 56 from many angles in these pages over the past…

Back to normal eh? Eh? I can’t honestly work out if I feel happy or tense about this Big Reopening…

As every fan knows, Prince recorded far more songs than he ever released.  Most years he put out less than…

Four years ago I was contacted by a writer whose work I knew from The Wire and other publications on Twitter called…

V Lonely, fraught, strange days. I am up at four with the sun and the birdsong. My days have taken…

At the end of July, White Rabbit Books publishes a memoir by Chris Frantz, who has the distinction of founding,…

Today on The Social Gathering, we’re pleased to bring you an extract from an interview with artist Junior Tomlin. It’s…

At the end of last week we asked friends in the States if they could paint us the view from…

With Q – and all of the music press – under even greater threat as the covid recession looms, Katherine…

IV Perhaps the Paper Lantern itself—this suddenly strange, suddenly useless and rather sad building just off the main road in…

The opening sequence of Ken Hughes’ 1963 beat-crime masterpiece The Small World of Sammy Lee is a collage of tracking…

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…

I don’t know how to break this to everyone, but you’ve got your infamous seducer metaphors all messed up. He’s…

One of the biggest questions raised by lockdown is what happens next. And specifically, will we all just go back…

Last month we brought you the first part of the hugely popular Cold War Steve/Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery collaboration….

The last 8 weeks have been defined by an absence of action – at least any action that involved moving…

III The morning after the VE Day celebrations comes on with a violent reminder of the previous world of this…

Ever since the lockdown, we’ve invited people to open up the Social for us online at 6pm. A lot of…

On working with Bob Stanley & Pete Wiggs on their seminal ‘Presents’ compilation series by Liz Buckley, Label Manager at…

The explosion of digital TV means that, even now, many weeks into lockdown, there is still a massive amount of…

In my first piece for this esteemed publication, I ended by posing a question: can the Netherlands really survive and…

Phil May was born in Erith , a bleak, industrial town in the most easterly corner of London.  He lived…

A few weeks back, The Social Gathering opened the doors on its daydream travel agency. Imagine An Island is here to transport…

On February the 18th 1956, Tutti Frutti hit #21, its highest position in the US top 100. Or rather, the…

The biggest thing clouding my vision is my martyr complex. Even with all the bountiful fruits that life has delivered…

(artwork by Caio Wheelhouse) I shouldn’t have been surprised that as the world altered entirely, I’d be watching from the…

II. What could be worse than spending these last few weeks alone in a place defined by its public communal…

If I was to say Wind of Change by Scorpions was a guilty pleasure of mine, it would be a lie. It’s…

An occasional installation project in which I cement an mp3 player into the fabric of a structure, somewhere in the…

Stayed alert – well as alert as you can be in a soporific stupor, muscles atrophied through never leaving the…

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the last month or so, it’s that people are nervous about telling secrets…

We’re extremely proud to bring you the second part of The Social Gathering’s podcast series, where Steve Mason’s reads from one…

I’ve finally had it with the footy. I don’t even know where to start, 30 odd years with a Liverpool…

Of all the weird and wonderful tales to have emerged in the last six weeks, my little brother deciding to…

When it’s a ritual.   Enter the Temple of Gnostic Sonics, a sanctuary of sound from the Music’s Not For…

I. We will begin with a rough physical description. The place is a small market town which, for some reason,…

What to say of these times on the other side of the North Sea? In this sorry business the Netherlands…

Listened to Florence blasting My Sharona from her room constantly. Bought a massive new fern which was delivered upside down…

OK, so week three. Nice of the BBC to bring back Killing Eve, though I’m not feeling it like I…

“Eventually they turned up in Manchester, but they parked where the River Irwell is in Salford, it’s a big island….

Here at The Social Gathering we’ve been marking May Day by celebrating how we come together to fight the power,…

The only memory and association I have for May Day is the ritual of making wreaths at my grandmother’s home…

Nineteen years ago, at the anticapitalist protest in central London, me and my friend Ellie and a few hundred other…

Hack a path through the briars and push open the gate. The creak is a music that wakes the dead…

“So the scholars say it was one of our religions when we lived in caves… I can’t say whether its…

BDS is one of my favourite photographers but somehow I’ve never seen these photos he took at the May Day…

A few years back, I met Jonny Trunk in a pub in Stoke Newington on a sunny afternoon to talk…

To mark the launch of Mark Lanegan’s memoir SING BACKWARDS AND WEEP in the UK, we teamed with White Rabbit to celebrate…

Talking about things you like is fun. Fun is fun. High energy is fun, low energy is fun. Coffee is…

Abandoned bras. Abandoned the hairdryer. Abandoned face wash. Abandoned razors. Abandoned any clothing without an elasticated waistband and three way…

We asked Hayden Thorpe, formerly singer in one of the great British bands of the past decade, Wild Beasts, to…

So, we’re still here. I’m guessing that you are pretty much done now with all the stuff you knew about….

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…

A classic Social logo tee with our ‘Because No One Should Drink Alone’ manifesto designed by Raissa Pardini on the…

Certain aspects of my personal hygiene have taken a backseat in recent weeks, with nobody around who could possibly care,…

(The Most Approximate Anti-Christ Blackboard by Babak Ganjei) — It’s 1984, a noisy Belfast classroom at break-time and some numerology…

It was around the time the airline cancelled our flights that I began to dream of an island.  Easy Jet’s…

Four years have passed to the day since the most singular, talented and prolific musician and songwriter of his generation…

Announced internally “right that’s it now, I can’t do this anymore”, like that gave me license to take some forbidden…

I guess it must have been a few weeks ago that I saw a story about a couple of Italian…

Your time has come your second skinThe cost so high the gain so lowWalk through the valleyThe written word is…

In September 2019 (a properly different world it was then!) the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery approached Cold War Steve…

“Sir Edmund Hillary said… ‘For scientific discovery, give me Scott. For speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundson. But…

In the second of our regular collection of letters from Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi, the writer’s mind travels from Brixton’s…

Fourth week of lockdown and we’ve all done Succession twice, we’re not sure about the new Westworld, the kids have…

‘At the restaurant he put his phone face-down on the table, so I did the same as if for me,…

Thanked God for immigrants (thank you Jeremy Deller). Missed drinking cocktails on a Saturday afternoon with Jen and Louise. Missed…

Last week, Catherine Eccles talked us through her archival journey piecing tracks from Andrew Weatherall’s peerless NTS shows into playlists. The…

Download the latest Broadsheet here

When starting The Social Gathering, we sent out a message to friends outside of Britain’s big cities asking how our they were getting…

A few years back, our friend Kieran Evans made a beautiful and intimate film with legendary singer / songwriter Vashti…

In the early noughties, Tesco Extra-esque supermarkets were hailed the new superclubs. A place of consumerist worship for the Nespresso…

The View From Here One of the first things we wanted to do when we started The Social Gathering was…

White Rabbit: I’m assuming the film is set in Hartlepool judging by those accents. When did you first come across…

Waved at people a lot. Bathed less regularly than I’d imagined I would in the circumstances. Thanked God this wasn’t…

During the last decade or so, Andrew Weatherall was a regular presence at The Social. It wasn’t uncommon to see…

flaneur  noun  a man who saunters around observing society —————————  Of all Andrew Weatherall’s many celebrated talents, the most under-appreciated…

It’s impossible to know how you’re going to react when someone dies.  In early February, my good friend Lee Brackstone…

This is an extract from the new book I’ve been working on, about a bloke having a midlife crisis while…

Arthur Schopenhauer, it was reputed, would stick to a strict daily routine. He would reveille at 7am, drink a strong…

Earlier today, our friends at Sonic Cathedral announced ‘Bedroom’, the debut album by the brilliant Leeds/Hull-based band bdrmm. To celebrate,…

Happy publication day to Will Burns, whose long-awaited debut collection, Country Music, is now out! We had a big blowout launch…

Less than a year after it opened, The Social hosted a huge birthday party for Annie Nightingale on both floors of the bar….

The escalation of the virus has coincided with the Vernal Equinox, the immediate prospect of the clocks going backwards (time…

Thanked God I didn’t have to tell my children Tom Hanks had died. Wore a lot of big earrings. Extended…

Rap, Rave & The Rise of XL Recordings

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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