FOOLS! LUNATICS! NUTJOBS! How dare The Social Gathering ask me to write this – what is it – thingy thing…
Jan 20 2021
Last Night A Bookshop Saved My Life – John Grindrod
Back in 1988 life as a closeted gay teenager felt to me like being a spy in a cold war…
Jan 19 2021
The Wasted Times TV Guide: Week 11 – Lewis Jamieson
New Year = Groundhog Year. Having barely made it out of my lounging clothes for most of the holidays, I…
Jan 16 2021
SYL: An Appreciation – Lenny Kaye
We asked our correspondent in Pennsylvania, Lenny Kaye to write some words about his friend and fellow mid-70s rock n…
Jan 14 2021
An Extract: Luckenbooth – Jenni Fagan
I lived in an ancient tenement building decades ago, that was so creepy and weird I knew it would one…
Jan 13 2021
Subversive Sounds From Brazil’s Backyard – James Connor Vincent
Our story starts in the jungle. The man who whistles is the harbinger of chaos. But we don’t see him…
Jan 10 2021
The Real America – John Niven
‘How did it come to this?’ The commentators wailed. Lemme help you out… As I watched the mob rampaging through…
Jan 06 2021
Stockport Sainsbury’s Is Closing And I’m Sad – David Bailey
There’s a big Sainsbury’s in Stockport and I go there all the time. I walk there from my house; it…
Jan 05 2021
The Social Gathering Hero of 2020: Jonny Banger
We clapped for carers every week like our lives depended on it. Because they did. That weekly trip to the…
Dec 31 2020
Heaven Is Other People: Dancing In 2021 – Anna Wood
How much time have you spent daydreaming about going out dancing? In the past few months, in your kitchen, in…
Dec 29 2020
Before We Move On…
It is traditional between Christmas and New Year for The Social (the real one on Little Portland St) to shut…
Dec 24 2020
Love and Light x
It’s Christmas Eve. Hopefully you’ve got a mince pie, a carrot and two fingers of decent brandy ready to arrange…
Dec 23 2020
Life Beyond The Neutral Zone #11 – Lias Saoudi
Quick, there’s very little time to spare. We’re almost at the end. The weekends here are impossible as far as…
Dec 21 2020
The Ballad Of Robert Johnson By Karl Hyde (Underworld)
“I don’t want to go blind,” That’s what you said. You just came out with it. “I don’t want to…
Dec 17 2020
Are You Sure? – Eduardo Rabasa
For Z. In Slavoj Žižek’s documentary A Pervert’s Guide to Cinema there is an analysis of the famous opening scene…
Dec 14 2020
The New York Streets of David Godlis – Lenny Kaye
Welcoming Nuggets legend, Mr Lenny Kaye to The Social Gathering for reflections on the photographs of David Godlis and the…
Dec 10 2020
An Extract: The Foghorn’s Lament – Jennifer Lucy Allan
The foghorn sounds. Its abrupt and terrific interjection comes from a square black mouth, a colossal metallic holler that is…
Dec 10 2020
An Extract: Relax Baby Be Cool, The Artistry And Audacity Of Serge Gainsbourg – Jeremy Allen
Long before Christan Marclay was proverbially dragging in people who don’t normally go to art galleries to see his conceptual…
Dec 09 2020
Gillian: An Extract From Fast Forward – Stephen Morris
In keeping with the wider-held traditions of Macclesfield, my longsuffering girlfriend Gillian had been working at Halle Models’ lingerie mill…
Dec 07 2020
Wendy Erskine On Chilly Gonzales On Enya
It was ages since I’d read a treatise on something. Too, too long. So I was holding one in either…
Dec 06 2020
DRONE FILES #2. Frequency Receiver – Harry Sword
I’ve spent the past week engrossed in Erik Davis’ incredible High Weirdness (recently published by Strange Attractor). A depth charge…
Dec 05 2020
Mentally Naked – Catherine Eccles
Between February and August this year, I listened to all Andrew Weatherall’s Music’s Not For Everyone shows broadcast on NTS…
Dec 01 2020
Solace – C M Taylor
Having been sober for almost five years – sober through the death of my Mum and the grief of my…
Nov 30 2020
The Return of the Original Beer Advent Calendar – Ben McCormick
God, I miss the pub. With two harsh lockdowns, a fleeting partial respite and one period of baffling regulation apparently…
Nov 26 2020
Life Beyond The Neutral Zone #10 – Lias Saoudi
When this crisis started, when every live music event in the entire world was cancelled pretty much over night for…
Nov 25 2020
Short Film: Cold War Steve, An Appreciation by Gideon Soames – Director Kieran Evans Explains
Being a film-maker, there’s always a point after completing a film where you start thinking about all the things that…
Nov 24 2020
The Wasted Times TV Guide: Week 10 – Lewis Jamieson
Double figures! I have to say I am a little surprised to still be writing this, ten episodes in. What…
Nov 20 2020
Katy the Bitch – Heather Leigh
Today Katy issuch a motherfucken bitch.I hate her guts somuch that she belongsin hell. She theUglyest, trashest, stupidest, fuckestmother fuckenassole damnhell…
Nov 17 2020
SEA CHANGE: A BLACKOUT VISION – WILL BURNS
The vehicle is a huge grey pickup. A farmer’s car, a hillbilly tank. Over the course of the last few…
Nov 16 2020
Something New – Helena Deland
In a conversation with Michael Barbaro for the New York Times’ podcast ‘The Daily’, journalist Wesley Morris says “You know,…
Nov 15 2020
DRONE FILES #1. Transportation Music – Harry Sword
There is – Phil Collins aside – something gloriously deranged about the very idea of the singing drummer. It’s the…
Nov 13 2020
…believe in magic: Heavenly Recordings, the first thirty years – HVN44: The Heavenly Sunday Social
Yesterday saw the publication of Robin Turner’s book …Believe In Magic: the First 30 Years of Heavenly Recordings. As you…
Nov 13 2020
5 O’Clock World
Its Friday. 5 o’clock is looming, work’s about to shut down for 48 hours. With all that in mind, why…
Nov 11 2020
I Had A King – David Keenan
The Hissing of Summer Lawns is the story of the 1970s, according to The Snork, I read this in one…
Nov 09 2020
Big Music Place Of Mind – Richard Youngs, Donald WG Lindsay, Kevin McCarvel + Jennifer Lucy Allan
A Conversation About Bagpipes and Improvisations with Jennifer Lucy Allan Last year Richard Youngs popped up in my inbox asking…
Nov 05 2020
Echo – Martha Sprackland
I’ve just moved to Hove, in East Sussex, a part of the country I know almost not at all, having…
Nov 03 2020
The Democracy Train – DBC Pierre
This is a reflection on time, a train and some presidents of the United States. It’s about the non-linear eddies…
Nov 03 2020
Vote Normal – Peter Pomerantsev
This morning I was yearning for the umpteenth time for things to go back to normal- only to realise I…
Nov 02 2020
What is William The Conqueror The Podcast? – Ruarri Joseph
A friend suggested I call it a musical meta-biography, but until that catches on, here’s me trying to explain what…
Oct 31 2020
Who’s That Girl – Heather Leigh
Turquoise eyes, cherry lips, jelly bracelets, twist-a-beads untwisted, lace leggings, black heels, slick clip-on plastic hundred dollar bills; a nice…
Oct 31 2020
The English Heretic Collection by Andy Sharp – Review by Justin Robertson
When I was a small boy my best friend Richard and I created a game of startling complexity. It grew…
Oct 30 2020
Fowler’s Haunted Howlers – Pete Fowler and Rough Trade Books
Happy Halloween! In anticipation of what might be next week’s election horror, and to celebrate the season, Rough Trade Books…
Oct 30 2020
Fuck You 2020 – Jeremy Deller
There are plenty of reasons why Jeremy Deller is The Social Gathering’s favourite British artist. He consistently lifts pop culture…
Oct 30 2020
Heavy Metal Halloween – Justin Quirk
Halloween isn’t just for kids. No, it’s basically Christmas and New Year rolled into one for the true Metal Lords…
Oct 29 2020
Goblin Time – Jen Calleja and Rebecca Tamás
Today’s Rough Trade Books treat involves two of the most exciting young writers around talking all things Goblin… Jen Calleja is…
Oct 28 2020
The View From Here: Down the WORMhole VI – Richard Foster
And… we’re closed. For now. It’s not as if we really had to. But we felt we had to. Recently,…
Oct 28 2020
The Cult of Water – David Bramwell
Aided by a witch and the magician Alan Moore, David Bramwell takes an occult journey back in time up the river…
Oct 27 2020
When Satan Met Aphrodite – Wendy Erskine and David Keenan
Today’s Halloween hangout is a conversation between Belfast’s Wendy Erskine and Glasgow’s David Keenan. Two of The Social’s favourite writers got…
Oct 26 2020
Two Wastelands – Alastair Shuttleworth (LICE) & Sam Tallent
Running The Light is the first novel by Denver stand-up comedian Sam Tallent. Electrifying the wider comedy community since its…
Oct 26 2020
A Week of Haunted Happenings for All Hallows’ Eve – Simon Costin (Director of Museum of Witchcraft and Magic)
Like it or loathe it, Halloween is here to stay. It is a night of contradictions: a night of glitter…
Oct 25 2020
Bullshit – John Crump
When I’m wandering about by ours, popping the shops or walking the dogs, and I bump into someone I know,…
Oct 24 2020
Dead Crows For Transcendence – Jennifer Lucy Allan
In a past life I travelled for work. I stayed in hotel rooms with starched sheets that smelled like industrial…
Oct 23 2020
Life Beyond The Neutral Zone #9 – Lias Saoudi
My grandmother on my mum’s side, Patricia, died young, in her early fifties. My memories of her are faint, the…
Oct 22 2020
Medical Grade Music – Steve Davis & Kavus Torabi
We first met Steve and Kavus at Glastonbury in 2016 when they played to the biggest crowd we have ever…
Oct 21 2020
Did The Honourable Lady Just Call Me Scum? – John Crump
Yes she did. Have you ever tried not being scum? Last week I wrote something about how in the 80s…
Oct 21 2020
The Future Starts Here: Afterword – John Higgs
According to John Higgs, we gave up on the future in the 1980s. Before then our shining vision of a…
Oct 20 2020
You Have Been Notified – Liam Inscoe-Jones
Tuesday’s tuna sandwich was pretty bloody meagre; a scant serving of pulped, anaemic meat pressed between two slices of bread…
Oct 19 2020
Hatch – Sharan Hunjan
The final part of our extracts from the new collection of work from 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE. All 4…
Oct 15 2020
Good In The Muntime (Make Me Feel) – David Keenan
There follows, in the life of Muntu, a peaceful interlude, a brief snatching at bliss, as he moves into Vlada’s…
Oct 14 2020
I Don’t Know How to Forgive You When You Make No Apology For This Haunting – Sunnah Khan
This is the third part of our extracts taken from the new set of work by 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO…
Oct 12 2020
Managed Decline 2.0 – John Crump
As the urban areas of England and Wales prepare to lock down again, I’ve gotta ask, why aren’t any of…
Oct 12 2020
Shadow Work – Roshni Goyate
This is Part 2 of our posts from the excellent new set of pamphlets from 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE….
Oct 11 2020
The Wasted Times TV Guide: Week 9 – Lewis Jamieson
Purely coincidental but its all gone a bit ‘hygge’ at Wasted Towers of late. A preponderance of new and rediscovered…
Oct 08 2020
No One Is Afraid To Touch Or Strangle Each Other. Hot Gossip & The New Romantics: An Appreciation by Heather Leigh
Sweet Dreams: The Story Of The New Romantics, the newly published book by Dylan Jones, has sent me back down…
Oct 07 2020
Where Have All The Good Times Gone – Robin Turner
Last night, a short text arrived from my older brother that simply read, “Fuck”. A minute or so later, my…
Oct 07 2020
This Is What Love Is – Sheena Patel (4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE)
We received the latest release from Rough Trade Books the other day, actually boxes of them because Nina uses my…
Oct 06 2020
A Letter To The King – Karl Hyde (Underworld)
Hi Dad. Sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote to you. There’s a lot going on. I’ve not…
Oct 05 2020
HOPE deflated
“I’d like to cover the world with hope,” said Robert Indiana in 2008. This is 2020 though. ‘HOPE deflated’ is a series…
Oct 03 2020
The Day I Joined Pink Floyd – Andy Bell
I don’t know what you believe about the nature or existence of luck, but whether you think a person makes…
Oct 01 2020
Build Your Own Myths: Document Your Culture by Emma Warren
Make Some Space by Emma Warren was my favourite book of 2019. Ostensibly about a single space – the Total…
Oct 01 2020
It’s A Long Way Back From Nowhere – Declan Ryan
She would have been surprised, a few months ago, if someone had told her that she was one day going…
Sep 28 2020
The World’s Greatest Album Is Now The World’s Greatest Box Set – Sign O’ The Times Reviewed By Matt Thorne
The big question with any super deluxe edition of a legendary album is whether it’s better than the myth. Often…
Sep 26 2020
Sweet Dreams: An Extract – Dylan Jones
Preface: Plato’s Cave ‘Obviously I’m into myself, but I’m not walking around just saying, “Oh, everybody look at me.” I…
Sep 23 2020
Muntu – David Keenan
When he was twenty-five, Muntu finally returned to Poland. We say returned, although he had never actually developed a single…
Sep 22 2020
Life Beyond The Neutral Zone #8 – Lias Saoudi
In a state of frenzied arrogance around 18 months ago I took it upon myself to hurl a few digital…
Sep 19 2020
The Phantom of Rock Meets El Hombre Invisible – Casey Rae
Burroughs and Reed had mutual friends, but the two didn’t actually meet face-to-face until 1979. By then Burroughs had become…
Sep 15 2020
The View From Here: Gravity Always Wins – Eduardo Rabasa
During the pandemic I saw for the first time Jim Jarmusch’s epic film Only Lovers Left Alive, in which the…
Sep 14 2020
The Wasted Times TV Guide: Week 8 – Lewis Jamieson
One thing that I have noticed whilst writing this guide over the last few months is how much TV output…
Sep 13 2020
Ten Years In Electric Eden: Part 5, Conclusions – Rob Young
I felt a huge responsibility writing this book. It felt like this was the one chance in a generation that…
Sep 12 2020
A Friend I’d Never Met – Justin Robertson on Toots Hibbert
Yesterday I went to visit an old friend. I’d heard that he was unwell, and I was concerned. We had…
Sep 10 2020
The Interview – Patrick Ofosu
Introducing our second piece from writer Patrick Ofosu. Going by the name Epytion he describes himself as ‘a learner expressing…
Sep 09 2020
Fire, Water, Air – David Keenan
I first saw The Snork, I used to pass him regularly, when I was de-mobbed to Greece, and I maintain…
Sep 09 2020
Bomb Sniffing Dogs – The National +
(Artwork by Jason Vaughan) Ahead of their new EP release – ACID ZOO – next month, The White Hotel’s BOMB…
Sep 08 2020
Ten Years In Electric Eden: Part 4, The Eden Files – Rob Young
I still have the spiral bound notebook that was my companion while writing, where I would note down my historical…
Sep 07 2020
Green / ee / ee – Martha Sprackland
In poetic thought the role of the subconscious is played by euphony. – Joseph Brodsky The cover of Hiroshi Yoshimura’s…
Sep 06 2020
The Social Gathering: Broadsheet, Week 23
And so we reach our 23rd and final weekly Broadsheet. 23 weeks ago Robin declared that we would put together…
Sep 04 2020
Life Beyond The Neutral Zone #7 – Lias Saoudi
Around the time I started writing these posts I also started writing a collection of personal essays about various periods…
Sep 03 2020
The First of May – Annie Nightingale
Today, September 3rd 2020, is perhaps the most demented day in British publishing history with over 650 titles released. I doubt…
Sep 03 2020
Nothin’ But A Good Time – An Interview With Justin Quirk
Thanks to my older brother, I was a pre-teen metal head. I can’t blame him though. Growing up in South…
Sep 02 2020
Ten Years In Electric Eden: Part 3, The Left Behind – Rob Young
A subject like this is to all intents and purposes open ended, so towards the end you need to start…
Sep 01 2020
Radio Al-Hara: When Apricots Bloom – Liam Inscoe-Jones
Apricot trees are slow and temperamental: they reject the cold and, for their first five years, bear no fruit at…
Aug 30 2020
Ten Years In Electric Eden: Part 2 – Rob Young
The book’s point of departure – William Morris – snuck up on me after I discovered his 1890 novel News…
Aug 30 2020
The Social Gathering: Broadsheet, Week 22
This week we’re on holiday in the rain. And the internet has turned against us. Please accept this minimal mail…
Aug 27 2020
She’s My Witch Loving Cup – Stewart Home
My novels often take their titles from songs and mention music that grooves me. The latest She’s My Witch is no exception…
Aug 27 2020
The Joy of Discovery – Catherine Eccles
“A clock spends its life marking time, but does it understand mortality?” goes the Chain and The Gang lyric, “Music’s…
Aug 26 2020
The Camp – The Story Of Chalet 15: Part 4 – Madeleine Swift
I enjoyed the responsibilities given to me at The Camp. Answering the phone to people hunting for last minute holidays…
Aug 26 2020
Ten Years In Electric Eden… A Brief Series – Rob Young
Like many of you I have spent way too much time on social media over the past 6 months. Occasionally,…
Aug 25 2020
Radio Al-Hara: Funky Fresh Mornings – Liam Inscoe-Jones
Out of the dozens of colourfully-named selectors which fill the daily programming of Palestinian internet radio station Radio Al-Hara, the one…
Aug 24 2020
Believe in Magic: 30 Years of Heavenly Recordings – The Magic Numbers
Back in January I cycled from Blackfriars to Little Portland Street on a gloomy evening to celebrate the 20thbirthday party…
Aug 23 2020
The Social Gathering: Broadsheet, Week 21
Arriving Somewhere But Not Here Last Tuesday morning. There’s sunshine blitzing through tent canvas and I’m awake. It’s around 6am…
Aug 22 2020
Under The Golden Eye Of Sugarloaf Mountain – Martha Sprackland
The smell of woodsmoke and heavy, Welsh mud, and the mist lifting off the field as I cross it in…
Aug 21 2020
The View From Here: Down the WORMhole V – Richard Foster
What news from the Continent I hear you cry? Well, we enter into the arena of the unknown. Rotterdam in…
Aug 19 2020
The Camp – The Story Of Chalet 15: Part 3 – Madeleine Swift
The sing-songs around the piano of years gone by were replaced with the juke box. This permanently contained predominantly 80’s…
Aug 18 2020
Radio Al-hara: Accept It Or Not, There Will Be Vibes – Liam Inscoe-Jones
It’s 7:16pm in Heathfield, East Sussex and I’m “working from home” while listening to Radio Al-Hara. The DJ, Mango Thief,…
Aug 17 2020
The View From Here: Electronic Voice Phaenomena – Bring Da Motherfucking Ruckus – Julián Viñuales
We asked publisher Julian Vinuales (Libros de Kultrum) to report back from his home in Barcelona, only to discover he…
Aug 16 2020
The Social Gathering: Broadsheet, Week 20
This week all of us behind The Social Gathering have found ourselves staycationing all at once, in one way of…
Aug 13 2020
ANGERLAND – Mark James
Artist Mark James releases a timely new piece of work tomorrow, Friday 14th August. ANGERLAND is a set of three…
Aug 12 2020
The Camp – The Story Of Chalet 15: Part 2 – Madeleine Swift
My grandparents were almost in retirement when they bought the camp. I knew my nan wanted to be by the…
Aug 11 2020
William S. Burroughs And The Cult Of Rock ‘N’ Roll – Casey Rae
William Burroughs is a highly significant figure in the world of music, even if he professed little knowledge about the…
Aug 10 2020
The Greatest Disappointment Of My Life So Far – John Crump
I’ve got to get this off my chest: just how completely fucking shit the phonies and bellends that have made…
Aug 09 2020
The Social Gathering: Broadsheet, Week 19
Summer finally arrived this week and the British public suddenly became all sun boiled, stuck in traffic jams on irascible…
Aug 07 2020
The Silence Of The Cans – Karl Hyde
Hey Dad, How are you doing? No need to answer. I know. Wish you were here, just the two of…
Aug 06 2020
Monolithic Undertow – Harry Sword
Today, White Rabbit Books announces publication of Harry Sword’s debut Monolithic Undertow: In Search of Sonic Oblivion (February 2021), a colossal…
Aug 05 2020
The Camp – The Story Of Chalet 15 – Madeleine Swift
A few weeks ago, our friend Mathew Clayton got in touch about a book he thought we’d like. Mathew is…
Aug 04 2020
The Wasted Times TV Guide: Week 7 – Lewis Jamieson
As the weeks drag on and everything apart from the things I care about seems to open – no gigs,…
Aug 03 2020
The Miracle of St. Ove – Adam Killip
“You already rang me two hours ago saying you were at a funeral in Essex.” “I’m on my way now”…
Aug 02 2020
The Social Gathering: Broadsheet, Week 18
This week I tried to be nicer. It’s hard in the face of everything that is going on isn’t it,…
Aug 01 2020
From Here To Before And Back Again – Kieran Evans
A few months back I had an opportunity to premiere my rarely seen feature documentary about Vashti Bunyan on the…
Aug 01 2020
Onward – Vashti Bunyan
Crossing Rannoch Moor, Scotland. Late May 1969. Our days went walking by with no other souls, just us and the…
Jul 30 2020
Imagine An Island – Destination 3: Welcome To Belbury
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…
Jul 30 2020
The Orielles – Disco Volador Live
The Orielles’ Disco Volador barely left our record player for months after release, the celestial orange vinyl got a lot…
Jul 29 2020
Silent Weapons for Invisible Wars – John Crump
Sit down, I’ve got some bad news. I hate to be the one to break it you, but we’re currently in…
Jul 26 2020
The Social Gathering: Broadsheet, Week 17
Apologies if this week’s condensed edition has arrived later than normal – the summer holidays have kicked in with all…
Jul 24 2020
Museum of Witchcraft and Magic Series – Rough Trade Books
In deepest darkest Cornwall, within the enchanting fishing harbour of Boscastle you’ll find a museum with a difference—the Museum of…
Jul 23 2020
Pessimism Is For Lightweights: The Life Of One Poem – Salena Godden
Randell Jarrell wrote, ‘a good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be…
Jul 22 2020
They Live – Will Burns
Will Burns writes on John Carpenter’s cult classic They Live, using Craig Oldham’s book published by Rough Trade Books, They…
Jul 21 2020
The Lost Ship of the Desert – Kirk Lake
There were thousands of them. Millions maybe. All across the sky, billowing around like some dusty gold and yellow snowstorm….
Jul 21 2020
Backtrack, Appletree Wick 2 – Vashti Bunyan
1965 Our old neighbours at Appletree Wick had a party, just before my twentieth birthday. My mother persuaded me to…
Jul 20 2020
Celebrating Rough Trade Books’ Birthday
This week we’re honoured to be hosting a week long online birthday party for our friends, the wonderful Rough Trade Books….
Jul 19 2020
The Social Gathering: Broadsheet, Week 16
Other than what we’ve published on the website I’ve found reading anything other than Twitter near impossible for 3 months….
Jul 17 2020
The Terrible And Obscene Year 1981 When The People Still Tried To Dance – Wendy Erskine
They came from houses on the sides of hills, from bedrooms that looked out onto shades of green, the smell…
Jul 15 2020
Last Dance 101 – Carl Gosling
(Social x Pete Fowler slipmat pictured above available now) On Saturday night myself and Jeff O’Toole – our good friend…
Jul 14 2020
Backtrack, Appletree Wick 1 – Vashti Bunyan
1945/1961 My family moved from Newcastle upon Tyne when I was six months old – to Oak House, number 5…
Jul 13 2020
Inglish – Patrick Ofosu
My 2 by 4 Inglish, bare grammatical errors. I man, result to broken English. Deh propa name be pidgin, mix…
Jul 12 2020
Pet Deaths Nightones Playlist
Our pals from the excellent band Pet Deaths are releasing their nightones mixtape on cassette at the end of the…
Jul 10 2020
Where Do We Live Now? 10 – Will Burns
X Inn-dependence Day. Super Saturday. The end of the lockdown brought to you by the marketing department of England. A…
Jul 09 2020
Everything At Once – Joshua Idehen
You’re in a band, dance pop trio Benin City, based in London. You imagine yourself as Roisin Murphy and Hot…
Jul 09 2020
Precious Stones – Karl Hyde
Underworld’s Karl Hyde began mapping territories via human marks left on the environment. Over years, those marks that have rooted themselves into…
Jul 08 2020
C.A.L.M. – Jehnny Beth & Johnny Hostile
On a classic midwinter deep-freeze evening on the 21st January 2015, I first saw Savages perform at Bowery Ballroom in New…
Jul 07 2020
Catch One Leaf – Vashti Bunyan
Catch One Leaf, Lake District, 1968 It was becoming autumnal and wet, cold even by now. No stove in the…
Jul 06 2020
Story of the Hole – Jehnny Beth
Inspired by Une sale histoire by Jean Eustache 1 My story is the kind of story that women will scorn…
Jul 05 2020
Joyous Void – Nic Serpell-Rand
Although lots of pubs and restaurants across the country reopened this weekend for most live music venues and clubs the…
Jul 03 2020
The Wasted Times TV Guide: Week 6 – Lewis Jamieson
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
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 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 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 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
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 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 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 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
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
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 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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