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This coming Monday is be the anniversary of our first Social Gathering post. We thought when we started that we’d be doing something online for a month or two before the bar reopened and we forgot all about that weird time when we weren’t allowed out. 365 days, over 400 posts and one book later, … Continued

The night sleeps tight and thick as ink, wrapped around the house, head tucked under its tail. On the top road, a solitary car’s headlights thread a needle through its matted fir without it waking. The night dreams alone, fathoms deep, sensing the approaching sun coming to slit it open like a diver’s blade splits … Continued

HEALING STUDIO Come for a half-price ear-clean therapy service. Limited time only! Or 25% off shoulder massage Exclusive organic candle and soap sale I’m proud of the flyers. Printed on thick, linen cardstock at the Office-Mart. There was a queue behind me, and so I’d typed them up so quickly on the self-serve machine, that … Continued

We were surrounded by streets of tenements. They were constructed like impregnable medieval forts in a rectangular shape. Our block consisted of four streets: Springburn Road at the top, Palermo Street and Vulcan Street directly opposite each other and Ayr Street at the bottom.  Each tenement consisted of three storeys. There was a space outside … Continued

It’s our great pleasure to share with you the opening chapter of author Lesley Chow’s new collection You’re History here on The Social Gathering. It’s a great introduction to story that offers an explanation as to why Lesley chose the twelve ‘strangest women in pop’ as the basis for her book. The artists I write on at length in the … Continued

We Are I.E. was one of the first records to signal a shift away from the European and American music that had dominated the raves of the late 80s. With its Amen break, reggae bassline and gunshots it laid the groundwork for a style that would become uniquely British and eventually develop into what would … Continued

When you write a book about foghorns you end up in strange and unexpected places.  Jennifer Lucy Allan The last entry in the logbook at the Flannan Isles Lighthouse was the morning weather readings on 15th December 1900. When the relief boat turned up on the 26th December, there was nobody to greet them, and … Continued

In 2009, on our honeymoon, my wife and I went in search of Lawrence Ferlinghetti on the west coast of the USA. We carried two books with us, Ferlinghetti’s 1993 New Directions collection, These Are My Rivers, and Big Sur by Jack Kerouac. In San Francisco we dropped into City Lights Books and asked if Ferlinghetti was around, but … Continued

The Dianettes! The Cerazettes! The Yasmins! The Ciliques! The Aranelles! The Karivas! The Levoras! The Nordettes! The Ocellas! The Seasoniques! The Velivets! The Lessinas!  What a line-up of great, lost, girl groups.  Backcombed hair and matching outfits, lavish passions and makeup, how many of the members are jealous of that one girl who has been … Continued

‘Here comes the wine,’ Abigail told me. True enough, the waitress was approaching with the wine in her hands. I noted that, though full, the bottle had already been opened. Obviously if I had been in New York – say at Lutèce – I would have immediately sent it back. You don’t open a bottle … Continued

When Serge Gainsbourg died 30 years ago, he was a musical footnote outside of France. Gainsbourg was considered a novelty artist in Britain – the answer to a nagging question down at the local pub quiz, and remembered, if at all, as the guy who had made ‘Je t’aime… moi non plus’ with Jane Birkin. … Continued

“I have come to rescue all of the disappeared, to reunite all true loves, to turn history to dust.” – Frater Jim, Monument Maker. I started writing Monument Maker in 2008 (back when it was called The Tomb of the Song) but stopped after a year as I felt myself descending into the book like … Continued

As a teen in the 80’s, I didn’t need Henri Bergson to explain to me the idea of objective and subjective time.  Sure, a minute was a minute, but how that time stretched, became elastic in the lesson where the teacher droned for forty minutes without stopping, or at the old relations’ house, where we … Continued

If you were walking near Tottenham Court Road underground in the late 1970’s – and if you were lucky – you may have heard a haunting, hypnotic sound reverberating through the tunnels and surrounding streets, merging with that peculiarly Soho scent: cigarette smoke, unsettled fresh beer, sweat, strong Italian coffee and the acrid residue of … Continued

Boredom was having a night of it.  He stood alone in front of the bar. Dead in the centre. Legs spread like a flightless sparrow, sweated tight into his one good pair of skinny jeans. Bone-thin arms ready to burst into flames if they ever met sunlight. Gripping the surface. Palms staking a claim in … Continued

Gordon Burn wrote in a prescient way about celebrity, its glitz, tawdriness and corrosive power.  In his fiction and non-fiction, there are tabloid journalists who confer it, and people – singers, serial killers, sports stars, parents of missing children –  who gain it, as well as those for whom celebrity ebbs slowly  away.  When he … Continued

There’s a Sleaford Mods song called Elocution on which Jason Williamson announces, in the kind of mock-posh voice the hard kids at school used to put on when they were about to duff in a Walter The Softy type: “I’m secretly hoping that by agreeing to talk about independent venues, I will then be in a position … Continued

SHINY AND NEW, is a completely new take on the Eighties, a book which not only shines a light into the decade’s dark crevices, but which also used ten moments of pop perfection to illustrate the extraordinary musical variety that decade encouraged. The Eighties will never die, they just keep mutating! The Eighties is often … Continued

Dear John Niven, Nothing good ever came after the phrase “Let me just start by saying I’m a fan”, so let me instead start by saying I am a massive, massive fan, mate: Kill Your Friends was a boom ting (see, me as a struggling artist, that bit where you break down what happens when … Continued

FOOLS! LUNATICS! NUTJOBS! How dare The Social Gathering ask me to write this – what is it – thingy thing blog whatsit – here, when I am finally here, amongst such meagre refuge as is this desk, this IKEA shelving, this door – only just secured against those bitter whinnying voices that seep through every … Continued

Back in 1988 life as a closeted gay teenager felt to me like being a spy in a cold war thriller. Not the sort with loads of sex and glamorous locations, but the kind where shady figures lurk by dead letter drops and quietly surveil the world – a place that wasn’t to be engaged … Continued

We asked our correspondent in Pennsylvania, Lenny Kaye to write some words about his friend and fellow mid-70s rock n roll genius, Sylvain Sylvain. Proud to be presenting this tribute to him here. Sylvain Sylvain, the heart and soul of the New York Dolls, bearer of the Teenage News, passed into his next astral incarnation … Continued

I lived in an ancient tenement building decades ago, that was so creepy and weird I knew it would one day form the basis of a novel. It takes a long time before we are ready to write certain books and others will always be a small act of madness at any time, Luckenbooth was … Continued

Our story starts in the jungle. The man who whistles is the harbinger of chaos. But we don’t see him at first, we only hear his shrill call-to-arms. Instead, our attention is on another young man, shirtless and wearing a black balaclava. He’s climbing down a rope into a steep red ravine. A third man, … Continued

There’s a big Sainsbury’s in Stockport and I go there all the time. I walk there from my house; it takes about twenty-five minutes. It’s not a giant superstore but it’s bigger than your average. It has some size on it. It’s sizeable. Stockport Sainsbury’s is closing and I’m sad. 31st January 2021 is D-Day. … Continued

It is traditional between Christmas and New Year for The Social (the real one on Little Portland St) to shut its doors after closing time on the Dec 23. By that point only Graeme, Simon and a few of the staunchest West End drinkers would remain in the Upstairs Bar after weeks of madness. The … Continued

It’s Christmas Eve. Hopefully you’ve got a mince pie, a carrot and two fingers of decent brandy ready to arrange near a non-existent chimney.  This year, we’re adding a printed out picture of the Guv’nor to our festive arrangement in an effort to usher in a bit of much needed love and light for the … Continued

For Z. In Slavoj Žižek’s documentary A Pervert’s Guide to Cinema there is an analysis of the famous opening scene from Blue Velvet, in which the protagonist’s father is peacefully watering his perfect garden in his perfect home, beneath a perfect sun in the idyllic town of Lumberton, North Carolina, where everything glimmers with innocence … Continued

In keeping with the wider-held traditions of Macclesfield, my longsuffering girlfriend Gillian had been working at Halle Models’ lingerie mill as a machinist while continuing to sell children’s clothes on her parents’ Wythenshawe market stall at the weekend. The Gilbert family had moved to Macclesfield from Whalley Range in 1964. Dad Leslie, mother Florence, and … Continued

It was ages since I’d read a treatise on something. Too, too long. So I was holding one in either hand, weighing up what to get: the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume’s 1739 A Treatise of Human Nature, or the one by the Grammy-winning, Canadian musician Chilly Gonzales: Enya: A Treatise On Unguilty Pleasures. I … Continued

I’ve spent the past week engrossed in Erik Davis’ incredible High Weirdness (recently published by Strange Attractor).  A depth charge exploration of the weirder corners of 1970’s counter- culture, Davis paints a kaleidoscopic picture that homes in on the strange – often life changing – visionary experiences of some of the 1970’s most infamous psyconauts: … Continued

Having been sober for almost five years – sober through the death of my Mum and the grief of my Dad, through the brutal, public murder of a friend; sober through the Bre and the Cov words, through Johnson and Trump and the death of shame; sober through raising daughters, honouring a marriage, earning my … Continued

Being a film-maker, there’s always a point after completing a film where you start thinking about all the things that got left on the cutting room floor…or to be more precise, left on a 5tb hard-drive. With Cold War Steve Meets The Outside World, there was a lot that didn’t make it in to the … Continued

The vehicle is a huge grey pickup. A farmer’s car, a hillbilly tank. Over the course of the last few summers it has taken a wild and varied cast across the country. Poets, musicians, svengalis, writers. Texans with big blonde hair and high heels, visionary writers with a tarot deck in their shirt pocket and … Continued

In a conversation with Michael Barbaro for the New York Times’ podcast ‘The Daily’, journalist Wesley Morris says “You know, there’s always a moment whenever I’m watching or listening or reading anything — you’re waiting for this moment for something in you to change”. When I heard this, a year and a half ago, I … Continued

There is – Phil Collins aside – something gloriously deranged about the very idea of the singing drummer. It’s the combination of physical chops – flailing limbs, strained larynx – in contrast with the steadying pulse, the yin yang of rock n’ roll brought into sharp focus: untethered chaos tempered by ruthless discipline. And John … Continued

Its Friday. 5 o’clock is looming, work’s about to shut down for 48 hours. With all that in mind, why not wear the weekend? This Wage Packet Tee takes a timeless design classic and emblazons it on to your chest like a badge of honour. No deductions this week. Just wait for that whistle to … Continued

The Hissing of Summer Lawns is the story of the 1970s, according to The Snork, I read this in one of his catalogues, because according to The Snork, or, rather, according to this write-up by The Snork, the album spanned the mood of that decade, the sound of that decade, and that Blue was the … Continued

A Conversation About Bagpipes and Improvisations with Jennifer Lucy Allan Last year Richard Youngs popped up in my inbox asking if anyone I knew would be interested in releasing a record he’d made with a piper called Donald WG Lindsay. I had just presented a bagpipe special on Late Junction, and so I probably seemed … Continued

I’ve just moved to Hove, in East Sussex, a part of the country I know almost not at all, having spent most of my life up until now in either Merseyside, Madrid or London. I’ve been down this way only once before, for the TWT festival, running alongside the Labour Party Conference, a couple of … Continued

This morning I was yearning for the umpteenth time for things to go back to normal- only to realise I can no longer remember what normal is. Office banter; conferences; flights; classes; bars; literary festivals…. all that was my normal, but I struggle to recall what that pre-Covid life was actually like. I have pictures … Continued

Happy Halloween! In anticipation of what might be next week’s election horror, and to celebrate the season, Rough Trade Books has been filling the Social Gathering’s online pages this week with tales of goblins, ghosts, myth, folklore and much more. They kicked off with Simon Costin from Boscastle’s Museum of Witchcraft and Magic introducing All … Continued

There are plenty of reasons why Jeremy Deller is The Social Gathering’s favourite British artist. He consistently lifts pop culture – from wrestling to raving – onto the pedestals of ‘high art’ world like no one else; he manages to perfectly document the minutiae of people’s lives and political beliefs through a lens; he built … Continued

Halloween isn’t just for kids. No, it’s basically Christmas and New Year rolled into one for the true Metal Lords – those Gods of Rock who dance with the devil all year round. Today, our resident hell hound Justin Quirk brings Rocktober to an awesome end with the perfect playlist of Satanic sounds ready made and … Continued

Today’s Rough Trade Books treat involves two of the most exciting young writers around talking all things Goblin… Jen Calleja is joined by Rebecca Tamás to discuss her pamphlet Goblins, and along the way, the pair touch on shame and shamelessness, the monstrous, the other, gender, fantasy, Labyrinth, music, translation and much, much more in a conversation that is as … Continued

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 together and discussed the inspiration behind their pamphlets Satan is Real: Two Short Stories and Empty Aphrodite: An Encyclopaedia of Fate both published as part of the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic series by Rough Trade Books earlier this year. … Continued

Running The Light is the first novel by Denver stand-up comedian Sam Tallent. Electrifying the wider comedy community since its self-publication this year, Doug Stanhope recently called it “the best fictional representation of comedy in any medium”. The story follows the washed-up, thoroughly ruined but occasionally-brilliant aging comic Billy Ray Schafer across a string of … Continued

Like it or loathe it, Halloween is here to stay. It is a night of contradictions: a night of glitter and gravedust. But is it Pagan or Christian, ancient or modern, spiritual or commercial? Is it a time of diabolic fiends and scary ghosts or a sombre time to commune with the ancestors? Is it … Continued

When I’m wandering about by ours, popping the shops or walking the dogs, and I bump into someone I know, the most interesting and exciting conversations start with them saying ‘It’s fucking bullshit isn’t it?’ At this point it could go in so many directions, there’s normally a few seconds to think about it. Which … Continued

In a past life I travelled for work. I stayed in hotel rooms with starched sheets that smelled like industrial fabric softener. I washed with soap in plastic wrappers. I would have one last drink at the hotel bar with people on my press trip, and stumble in at the last minute to the morning … Continued

We first met Steve and Kavus at Glastonbury in 2016 when they played to the biggest crowd we have ever seen at our tent (Stonebridge). It was quite the sight, inside and out. Actually as far as the eye could see pretty much. When they started, people really didn’t have a clue what to expect. … Continued

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

(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

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

IX I wake to a dawn chorus of pure wood pigeon. From somewhere far off, in an instantly-forgotten dream I hear five, six, a dozen birds close to the window, calling. When I wake the birds are still there, still sounding themselves. A link from the dream world to the here and now of the … 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

Rubbish Tip, July 1968 Approaching the town of Derby with the wagon and Bess, we had a choice to make. It was already getting quite late in the day and we needed somewhere to stop – a verge – a field – anywhere we could find wood, water and grass. Should we carry on through … 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