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Tuesday’s tuna sandwich was pretty bloody meagre; a scant serving of pulped, anaemic meat pressed between two slices of bread which better resembled sheets of foam, crushed by the tight vacuum of its plastic packet. She inched forward on the wheels of her chair and checked the counter on the right-hand side of her screen. … Continued

The final part of our extracts from the new collection of work from 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE. All 4 pieces can be found in the excellent new publication from Rough Trade Books. Today we bring you the poem Pariah by Sharan Hunjan from her pamphlet Hatch. In Hatch, Sharan Hunjan presents an utterly compelling … Continued

There follows, in the life of Muntu, a peaceful interlude, a brief snatching at bliss, as he moves into Vlada’s shabby apartment in Kraków and takes a job as a receptionist in an art gallery. Peaceful, that is, aside from the shady characters that would appear at the flat at all hours of the night … Continued

This is the third part of our extracts taken from the new set of work by 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE, published by Rough Trade Books as a beautiful set of 4 pamphlets. Today we’re honoured to share Sunnah Khan’s poem from her collection of the same name found in the volume. I Don’t Know … Continued

As the urban areas of England and Wales prepare to lock down again, I’ve gotta ask, why aren’t any of our press or broadcasters asking why we’re so terrible at dealing with this pandemic? Why isn’t anyone looking at the numbers and drawing the obvious conclusions? Why are they all just parroting whatever bullshit the … Continued

This is Part 2 of our posts from the excellent new set of pamphlets from 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE. Today we’re delighted to share a poem from Roshni Goyate’s collection Shadow Work. The publisher Rough Trade Books explain more about the work below . . We all have shadow selves—the sides to us that … Continued

Sweet Dreams: The Story Of The New Romantics, the newly published book by Dylan Jones, has sent me back down the psychedelic wormhole of my enduring obsession with Hot Gossip. There’s something to love about all of the UK television dance troupes of the late 1960s to early 1980s: the gleaming angels in The Go-Jos; … Continued

Last night, a short text arrived from my older brother that simply read, “Fuck”. A minute or so later, my phone vibrated with a Guardian news notification stating that Eddie Van Halen had died.  Fuck.  To say that Eddie Van Halen was my brother’s teenage idol – and in turn, mine – is a phenomenal … Continued

We received the latest release from Rough Trade Books the other day, actually boxes of them because Nina uses my little summer house thing in the garden as her official RTB store cupboard. Anyway, I opened a box and borrowed a set of the 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE edition to have a read. Picked … Continued

“I’d like to cover the world with hope,” said Robert Indiana in 2008. This is 2020 though. ‘HOPE deflated’ is a series of screen prints by designer Mark James – pretty much The Social Gathering’s artist in residence, the man who has been slowly distressing each of our logos. First printed in late 2017, and shown in … Continued

I don’t know what you believe about the nature or existence of luck, but whether you think a person makes their own luck, or it’s just a random thing, the fact remains that I am a lucky, lucky bastard. I haven’t won the lottery or anything but it has to be said, things in my … Continued

Make Some Space by Emma Warren was my favourite book of 2019. Ostensibly about a single space – the Total Refreshment Centre, located in a warehouse in Hackney – the real story is one of building communities, and making things happen amongst the people you chose to do that building with. I came away from … Continued

She would have been surprised, a few months ago, if someone had told her that she was one day going to be purified by Mr Prest – that forlorn, silent man in the corner, that morose wearer of plus-fours, that slinker to his room, that stroller to the station, that idler and hanger-about in bars… … Continued

The big question with any super deluxe edition of a legendary album is whether it’s better than the myth.  Often when you hear all the outtakes or additional tracks from a record it can demystify a beloved album in a disappointing way.  It’s also hard to know where to draw the line and who to … Continued

Preface: Plato’s Cave  ‘Obviously I’m into myself, but I’m not walking around just saying, “Oh, everybody look at me.” I wear make-up and dress this way because it makes me look better. I’m not doing it to get people to stare at me. If I wanted to do that, I could just put a pot … Continued

When he was twenty-five, Muntu finally returned to Poland. We say returned, although he had never actually developed a single memory of being there. It was simply where his roots lay. Though of course, we are forced to admit, no roots lie simply. He took a train all the way across Europe, through France and … Continued

In a state of frenzied arrogance around 18 months ago I took it upon myself to hurl a few digital petrol bombs at some of the country’s most beloved acts from the comfort of my hovel in Streatham. In choosing to attack two groups at once I believed I was demonstrating a supreme confidence: a … Continued

Burroughs and Reed had mutual friends, but the two didn’t actually meet face-to-face until 1979. By then Burroughs had become a fixture in Manhattan’s Lower East Side neighborhood. There, in his windowless, three-room apartment at 222 Bowery, he held court among the musicians, intellectuals, writers, and junkies littering the scene like discarded show posters strewn … Continued

During the pandemic I saw for the first time Jim Jarmusch’s epic film Only Lovers Left Alive, in which the vampire couple brilliantly played by Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston try to deny their true nature during the entire film, partly by procuring blood through sophisticated means such as purchasing it from hospitals. Then of … Continued

One thing that I have noticed whilst writing this guide over the last few months is how much TV output is reliant on crime. The detective story is by far and away the winner of the TV drama stakes and ubiquitous across all providers. Mostly, the stories themselves are replicants: washed up detectives, oddball detectives, … Continued

I felt a huge responsibility writing this book. It felt like this was the one chance in a generation that such a volume was going to be commissioned by a mainstream publisher, and the story needed to be told as exhaustively as possible.  The years I spent researching and writing it were probably the most … Continued

Yesterday I went to visit an old friend. I’d heard that he was unwell, and I was concerned. We had known each other for years, though we had never met or even spoken, I considered him to be a close friend and thought a visit would be nice. Being close to him always made things … Continued

Introducing our second piece from writer Patrick Ofosu. Going by the name Epytion he describes himself as ‘a learner expressing thoughts and feelings in words through poetry, monologues and short stories’. In this piece we find ourselves in another place, perhaps at some point in the future, the offices appear to be back in full … Continued

I first saw The Snork, I used to pass him regularly, when I was de-mobbed to Greece, and I maintain it was him, even though the timeline is improbable and he denies it himself, but who could forget that face, every day, in a square in Plaka, I think it was, stood there, motionless, that … Continued

(Artwork by Jason Vaughan) Ahead of their new EP release – ACID ZOO – next month, The White Hotel’s BOMB SNIFFING DOGS have sent us their new single and video – THE NATIONAL + – via track and trace.  Check out the video here and BSD’s vocalist and lyricist, Austin Collings explains the makings of … Continued

I still have the spiral bound notebook that was my companion while writing, where I would note down my historical research and annotate my real-time reactions to listening to music recordings. I also have the large, floppy Philip’s Multiscape Britain 2000 road map of Britain which became my alternative atlas. I circled and highlighted many … Continued

In poetic thought the role of the subconscious is played by euphony. – Joseph Brodsky The cover of Hiroshi Yoshimura’s essential 1986 album Green, reissued earlier this year on Light in the Attic (the original appeared on Kazuo Uehara’s AIR Records), shows the elegantly branching segmented stem of a schlumbergera, of the genus usually known … Continued

And so we reach our 23rd and final weekly Broadsheet. 23 weeks ago Robin declared that we would put together a Sunday edition of all the greatest hits from the Social Gathering plus some stuff that was (almost) keeping us sane in the heart of the lockdown. As things slowly return to something like normal … Continued

Around the time I started writing these posts I also started writing a collection of personal essays about various periods in my life down through the years, in a way these posts were kind of the bi-product of that process, but also a way of confronting a general anxiety I have about publishing anything. When … Continued

Today, September 3rd 2020, is perhaps the most demented day in British publishing history with over 650 titles released. I doubt there will be many titles from figures as righteous and influential as Annie Nightingale, the First Lady of Radio One, acid house pioneer, broadcasting legend of five decades. Hey Hi Hello is her story and it is, … Continued

Thanks to my older brother, I was a pre-teen metal head. I can’t blame him though. Growing up in South Wales in the early ’80s, it was practically compulsory. These were the glory days of NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal). Bands like Saxon and Gillan were regulars on Top of the Pops. The … Continued

A subject like this is to all intents and purposes open ended, so towards the end you need to start drawing arbitrary lines round it. As the book’s closing sentence implies, I had to tie up the boat and disembark, otherwise I might have drifted into oblivion. In writing about a historical period spanning 150 … Continued

Apricot trees are slow and temperamental: they reject the cold and, for their first five years, bear no fruit at all. “Fil Mishmish” is an Arabic expression which means “when apricots bloom”, and it was the name of Palestinian radio station Radio Al-Hara’s 72 hour protest against colonialism, racism, and a new era of West … Continued

The book’s point of departure – William Morris – snuck up on me after I discovered his 1890 novel News from Nowhere, which you could call the first work of English science fiction. When I discovered that Morris’s socialist salon was attended by the young composers Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst (who were both … Continued

This week we’re on holiday in the rain. And the internet has turned against us. Please accept this minimal mail out, pour yourself a glass of something boozy and see you next week for a proper catch up. Cheers!

My novels often take their titles from songs and mention music that grooves me. The latest She’s My Witch is no exception on this score. Sharing their experiences of tarot, film and music is a core part of the relationship between the book’s two main characters Martin and Maria. When they’re not together they’re obsessively sending each … Continued

“A clock spends its life marking time, but does it understand mortality?” goes the Chain and The Gang lyric, “Music’s not for everyone, keep it away from them”.  It’s the first track Andrew Weatherall played on his eponymous Music’s Not for Everyone NTS shows that ran monthly for nearly six years, and the last on … Continued

I enjoyed the responsibilities given to me at The Camp. Answering the phone to people hunting for last minute holidays on unexpected sunny weekends, showing guests to their chalets, preparing pies & pasties for people in the clubhouse and when I was older I would serve behind the bar. And although it was hard work … Continued

Like many of you I have spent way too much time on social media over the past 6 months. Occasionally, like yesterday morning, you trip over something that makes all the time wasted worthwhile. Almost. Ten years ago, working as an editor at Faber on a music list that was still very much in its … Continued

Out of the dozens of colourfully-named selectors which fill the daily programming of Palestinian internet radio station Radio Al-Hara, the one which caught my attention immediately was Felonious Funk. With a deliciously ludicrous nom de plume, her presence looms large, hosting her Funky Fresh Morning show twice weekly. When the 70-hour Fil Mishmish protest began on July … Continued

Back in January I cycled from Blackfriars to Little Portland Street on a gloomy evening to celebrate the 20thbirthday party of The Social. An hour or so before festivities started I met with Jeff and Danny from Heavenly to discuss the book we were all working on written by Heavenly stalwart Robin Turner, marking another … Continued

Arriving Somewhere But Not Here Last Tuesday morning. There’s sunshine blitzing through tent canvas and I’m awake. It’s around 6am somewhere right on the Dorset coast. Outside the tent, there’s a melancholy lowing coming from out at sea; a plaintive whale song for the busiest sea lane in the world. Although it sounds like musical … Continued

The smell of woodsmoke and heavy, Welsh mud, and the mist lifting off the field as I cross it in my wellies to buy a cup of coffee, the first squeals of soundcheck feedback from the main stage. That could be any mid-August weekend of the last thirteen years, each of which I’ve spent at … Continued

What news from the Continent I hear you cry? Well, we enter into the arena of the unknown.  Rotterdam in particular has seen a dramatic rise in infections over the last month, leading some to question whether bars and clubs should be kept open. But as yet – mercifully – there is no concomitant rise … Continued

The sing-songs around the piano of years gone by were replaced with the juke box. This permanently contained predominantly 80’s records because the records rarely got changed. My brother remembered that every time the juke box was switched on it would automatically play ‘Tainted Love’ by Soft Cell. He grew to hate that song. Another … Continued

It’s 7:16pm in Heathfield, East Sussex and I’m “working from home” while listening to Radio Al-Hara. The DJ, Mango Thief, is doing what great selectors do: enhancing each song by bedding it in a new context. After an urgent Shazam, the song playing turns out to be “Take Notice” by late Detroit beat-maker J Dilla. … Continued

We asked publisher Julian Vinuales (Libros de Kultrum) to report back from his home in Barcelona, only to discover he had spent all of lockdown in Roses, several miles up the Catalan coast … The village of Roses, where we lay our (obscene) scene, and the territory known as Alt Empordà, stretching north to Portbou … Continued

This week all of us behind The Social Gathering have found ourselves staycationing all at once, in one way of another, somewhere or other . . so whilst this bar never closes we have been running on a slightly lower gear. Summer holiday vibes. I for one have been enjoying hanging out in Sophie Green’s … Continued

Artist Mark James releases a timely new piece of work tomorrow, Friday 14th August. ANGERLAND is a set of three prints, depicting the iconic white plastic monobloc chair being flung through the air. ANGERLAND is a creative response to the perpetual anger we seem to be surrounded by in this country these days; an insidious … Continued

My grandparents were almost in retirement when they bought the camp. I knew my nan wanted to be by the sea and I knew that my grandad bought the camp for her but I had never really considered that it was a slightly odd thing to have done at their age. My nan had always … Continued

William Burroughs is a highly significant figure in the world of music, even if he professed little knowledge about the form. It’s not hard to see how his writing – exploding with disquieting, even ghastly imagery – might serve as fodder for music genres like punk, heavy metal, and industrial. To be sure, it is … Continued

I’ve got to get this off my chest: just how completely fucking shit the phonies and bellends that have made up and represented the Labour Party for my entire life have been and continue to be. Never have I wanted something to succeed so much and watched it fail to so badly, time after time … Continued

Hey Dad,  How are you doing?  No need to answer.  I know.  Wish you were here, just the two of us walking like we used to.  How long has it been?  I mean… Since… Y’know. I swear I remember you lifting me out of my pram.  So now, given the circumstance, I’ll walk for you … Continued

Today, White Rabbit Books announces publication of Harry Sword’s debut Monolithic Undertow: In Search of Sonic Oblivion (February 2021), a colossal history of ‘the drone’ as it manifests itself in music, ritual and the universe. Monolithic Undertow alights a crooked path across musical, religious and subcultural frontiers. It traces the line from ancient traditions to the … Continued

A few weeks ago, our friend Mathew Clayton got in touch about a book he thought we’d like. Mathew is a bit of a genius, and his recommendations are always worthy of spending time over. This was no different. The book told the story of one family’s relationship with a holiday camp in Torbay over … Continued

As the weeks drag on and everything apart from the things I care about seems to open – no gigs, no theatres, cinemas replaying stuff I’ve seen a million times – I find myself getting pulled back to earlier times and, indeed, imagined times.  There has always been something irresistible to me about the late … Continued

“You already rang me two hours ago saying you were at a funeral in Essex.” “I’m on my way now” “Don’t bother. You don’t work here anymore”. It was noon on Solon Road and Cooper had called Teri our boss at Threshers for the second time that day to explain why he couldn’t come in. … Continued

This week I tried to be nicer. It’s hard in the face of everything that is going on isn’t it, to summon the energy not to just call people bad names, shout and swear. Swearing comes particularly easy to me (at the very best of times) but right now I find myself shouting the worst … Continued

A few months back I had an opportunity to premiere my rarely seen feature documentary about Vashti Bunyan on the wonderful AM platform – an innovative online space for Welsh creatives to showcase their work. We were all taken aback by the incredible reception. Since then, I’ve been inundated with requests from people across the … Continued

Crossing Rannoch Moor, Scotland. Late May 1969. Our days went walking by with no other souls, just us and the dogs and Bess and the wagon. A barren landscape of heather and moss which for me held nothing but cold dread – all that sky-wide space and featureless misty horizon. Exposure. As we stopped to … Continued

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 on the next train out of here; an escape from this reality to destinations as yet undiscovered. Each edition explores a different destination – near or far – as visualised by artists, writers and designer friends … Continued

The Orielles’ Disco Volador barely left our record player for months after release, the celestial orange vinyl got a lot of play, and always from start to finish. Without doubt an album of the year over here at The Social. We’re very happy to share this exclusive video today from a live session the band … Continued

Sit down, I’ve got some bad news. I hate to be the one to break it you, but we’re currently in the middle of World War 3, and we’re losing. I know that you can’t see any war, and yeah you think I’m the wrong’un, but the thing is the game has changed; the weapons, targets … Continued

Apologies if this week’s condensed edition has arrived later than normal – the summer holidays have kicked in with all of the attendant issues that arise with kids shouting at you for sugar 24- 7. Over the last week, we’ve each left our immediate bubble and put tentative steps out into the wider world. In … Continued

In deepest darkest Cornwall, within the enchanting fishing harbour of Boscastle you’ll find a museum with a difference—the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic. This museum explores magical practice, making comparisons with other systems of belief, from ancient times to the present day and is home to the world’s oldest and largest collection of items relating … Continued

Randell Jarrell wrote, ‘a good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be struck by lightning five or six times’, and Pessimism is for Lightweights, since its first publication, indeed since its first performance in front of an appreciative Jeremy Corbyn, has shown itself to be one of Salena Godden’s … Continued

Will Burns writes on John Carpenter’s cult classic They Live, using Craig Oldham’s book published by Rough Trade Books,  They Live: A Visual and Cultural Awakening to engage in ideas of the violence implied in rhetoric and political lies and how the care inherent in poetic language can be mobilised as a radical act. Ever get … Continued

There were thousands of them. Millions maybe. All across the sky, billowing around like some dusty gold and yellow snowstorm. They filled the air, running the line of the highway for miles. Ten miles. Twenty miles. Lou couldn’t tell anymore. The desert passed by the window, a blur of sand and rock and scrub. If … Continued

1965 Our old neighbours at Appletree Wick had a party, just before my twentieth birthday. My mother persuaded me to go with her. I sulkily took my guitar and sat down on the edge of a gilt chair in a room full of once–famous actresses, singers, people of the stage. Mink coats, diamonds and pearls, … Continued

This week we’re honoured to be hosting a week long online birthday party for our friends, the wonderful Rough Trade Books. Find out more below, but the short version is: it all kicks off tonight with a very special edition of our afterwork drinks on Twitter at 6pm then carries on all week with posts here … Continued

Other than what we’ve published on the website I’ve found reading anything other than Twitter near impossible for 3 months. I didn’t read a single book for most of lockdown, that was until Sophie gave me her copy of Sixteen Trees of the Somme by Lars Mytting. She hadn’t even read it herself but was … Continued

(Social x Pete Fowler slipmat pictured above available now) On Saturday night myself and Jeff O’Toole – our good friend from Manchester – hosted the 101st edition of The Social’s Afterwork Drinks online. We reached the 100 night milestone the day before with Pete Fowler playing his twelfth set on Twitter, clocking up over 35 … Continued

1945/1961 My family moved from Newcastle upon Tyne when I was six months old – to Oak House, number 5 Wildwood Rise, London, NW11, just by the extension to Hampstead Heath, and built in about 1907. Dark oak panelling, parquet floors, golden oak staircase surrounding the hall with a window seat half-way, a large grassy … Continued

My 2 by 4 Inglish, bare grammatical errors. I man, result to broken English. Deh propa name be pidgin, mix am wit our local dialect, code switching. Boarding school initiated, adding its own rules n ting, strengthening a language tool. Come back to London Town with a heavy accent. By the time one realises, in … Continued

Our pals from the excellent band Pet Deaths are releasing their nightones mixtape on cassette at the end of the month. It’s special release from the duo which they’ve put together whilst apart the last few months. Before lockdown they were on fire with a sold out show on the South Bank, support slots with … Continued

X Inn-dependence Day. Super Saturday. The end of the lockdown brought to you by the marketing department of England. A week or so ago, the government announced they were to re-open the pubs and to market the fact like a televised sporting event—the ultimate cultural-capitalistic signifier of the age. Viewed critically they could be said … Continued

You’re in a band, dance pop trio Benin City, based in London. You imagine yourself as Roisin Murphy and Hot Chip discussing politics at the Paper Dress Vintage, just off Mare Street, Hackney, plus the occasional saxophone solo. In 2020, you have a new indie label, a new booking agent, a tour of Italy lined … Continued

Underworld’s Karl Hyde began mapping territories via human marks left on the environment. Over years, those marks that have rooted themselves  into the very land they sit upon, creating alternate OS map symbols to guide travellers to and from wherever they’re going. In his second piece for the Social Gathering, he strikes out across the Essex landscape. Get … Continued

On a classic midwinter deep-freeze evening on the 21st January 2015, I first saw Savages perform at Bowery Ballroom in New York. I knew the music. I had read about them. But I didn’t feel the real energy and attitude of Jehnny Beth until that night. Skip forward four years and I am introduced to Jehnny … Continued

Catch One Leaf, Lake District, 1968 It was becoming autumnal and wet, cold even by now. No stove in the wagon – nowhere to dry our clothes, shivering dogs. John James and his 1930s Austin 12 – Happiness Runs – were with us. We heard of a caravan park where we might be able to … Continued

Inspired by Une sale histoire by Jean Eustache 1 My story is the kind of story that women will scorn to read. I should tell my readers now that the actions of the episode that follows are less important than the philosophy hidden inside of them. In fact, the study of the tale, in which … Continued

Although lots of pubs and restaurants across the country reopened this weekend for most live music venues and clubs the choice to open or not doesn’t exist yet. Some may have bars and can start to think about it but many like us with no real outdoor space for drinkers can’t make things work with … Continued

In a move akin to giving the role of brewery tour guide to an alcoholic, last week I was given six months free NOW TV whilst buying some insurance. Appropriate thanks to Confused.com (other comparison sites are available) and I now hope for a similar deal from an opticians as more viewing time has been … Continued

Austin Collings (author, filmmaker and Creative Director of The White Hotel venue in Salford) has been following our Social Gathering and got in touch to hand over two short films as evidence of his spell in lockdown. Today we present Empire of the Plague (‘a Union Jack-black comedy’) and Season of the Virus – an arresting … Continued

Last week, for the first time in ages, I sat on WORM’s terrace on the corner of the Witte de Withstraat and Boomgaardstraat and supped a pint of draft ale in the sun. And then I had another. It was a moment that is still beyond description for me, beyond even the powers of a … Continued

Between 1985 and 2003 I went to Glastonbury loads of times. Some weekends I remember like it was yesterday; others I have no memory of at all. I went with my wife, friends, various bands and I always had the best of times. I was free to do whatever I wanted to do without any … Continued

It was all Karl’s fault. He’d been bunking in for years, sleeping in the dub tent, even playing on the main stage (ask him next time you’re in ‘the best shop in Soho’*). “You can get us in now, honest, it’ll be ace.” Summer of 1991 and I’d just started work at an indie label. … Continued

Me and Robin were chatting the other morning about how the festival this year has been stolen from us. We’ve done fallow years before but I don’t remember them feeling like this. No doubt the sense of loss is definitely magnified by every fucker having been stuck inside for three months not seeing anyone. And … Continued

Massive thank you to Sherelle for doing this. We’re gutted this is not happening tonight at Glastonbury, it was already nailed on to be a festival highlight for me, not just of this year either but probably the last ten. Was super excited and fingers crossed we make the rearranged fixture work in 2021! Until … Continued

VIII. If you were to mark its position on a map of the country, the village would be just about dead centre, depending, to a certain extent, on your definition. In fact, a tiny little hamlet just to the east along the ridge of hills was always held, around here at least, to be the … Continued

11 years ago Mathew Clayton and his friend Simon Benham set up the Free University of Glastonbury, a programme of talks from authors, musicians and other full-time dreamers that takes place each year in the Crow’s Nest in the Park. ‘What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here, so near the cradle of the Fairy Queen’ … Continued

It’s been such a long, long time… The last original material we heard from Bob was 2012’s Tempest. The next eight years were a long stretch of covers from the Great American Songbook, first Shadows in the Night, then Fallen Angels, culminating in the three-album Tin Pan Alley extravaganza Triplicate. Even the most sycophantic Bob … Continued

One of the staunchest people in lockdown has without doubt been Pete Fowler, not least for his 9 (!) Social Friday night drinks sessions, each with its own sublime soundtrack. Here Pete joins us for our ‘Glastonbury Week’ with some memories of his life in The Park, up on the hill . . and beyond. … Continued

It shouldn’t come as a surprise when certain things end up knocking you back on your heels during lockdown. I’m talking about those tiny reminders of our past lives, those things that cause you to pause, reflect, then curse a little. Glastonbury week was always going to be one of them. In any normal year, … Continued

Wendine escapes to Dallas with Jerry Lee: a flash fiction homage to Nick Tosches by Wendy Erskine. With artwork by Babak Ganjei My mamma said if you gonna lift that skirt an paint that face an run round with the unholy, then we gonna send you to a place where they will put the righteousness back … Continued

On 14th of March, we threw what was planned to be the last party in the bar we have next to our record shop for a very old friends 50th. Some people didn’t come as they were scared of this virus, others were refusing to shake hands, instead touching elbows and doing a kind of … Continued

VII Mid-June and the weather has given in. Finally, rain. Storms have begun to appear as if from nowhere in the afternoons, rolling in over the hills, dragging their dark nimbus over the plantation conifers and squatting over the village for a few hours until the evening. The parties on the cricket pitch have dissipated, … Continued

Why the UK is failing the music industry. This Saturday is the first Love Record Stores day. We’ll be marking the 24 hour online festival on the day both on this site and on Twitter (where the phenomenally brilliant Georgia is hosting drinks around the time the shops – the actual ones manned by human … Continued

Among the first reported covid cases in Mexico are prominent businessmen who were skiing with their families in Vail, Colorado. On March 15th, the millionaire José Kuri, cousin of one of the richest persons in the world, Carlos Slim, was reported dead due to the virus, after catching it on a skiing trip. Then, as … Continued