Three years later, I find myself doing the same thing with Pynchon’s latest. About a month ago I had a hankering to revisit Shadow Ticket. I read it twice prepping for my Quietus review. Going in again, audiobook this time, my goodness is it wonderful. Then when I was done, I really wanted to experience it again so that’s exactly what I did. And just like the first couple times, I found myself wishing it was longer, that we could stay with those characters for so many more adventures, for which it seems there’s plenty of room. Especially during Hicks’ time in inter-war Europe. It takes up half the book, but I want this to extend out to at least a Gravity’s Rainbow length. Writing that review was difficult, as always, there’s just so much to swim through, assimilate and admire. And now I’ve been hitting the Wiki and reading the other reviews. I was pleased to see David Kipen of the LA Times note as I did that ST fills in the missing decade - the 1930’s - of Pynchon’s history of the 20th century, as his works come together to present.

First of all, so many great lines and ways of putting things. A few of my favourites:

“People are keeping company here who, if history had a shred of decency, would never be allowed within miles of each other”

“You might consider us an encapsulated volume of pre-Fascist space-time, forever on the move” (captain describing his renegade U-13 submarine)

“…impulses disallowed in normal society are surfacing unexpectedly and being acted upon. Some more benevolent than others, spontaneous pig rescue, for example.”

“pulling music out of some deep invisibility” (describing the scene at Club Hypotenuse with the all-female all-theremin band)

“What about lamps that aren’t tasteless?” “No such thing.” (and it was only this time through that I twigged all the tasteless lamps at the Airmont estate back in Milwaukee)

describing Praediger as a “cocaine enthusiast” and giving him that great speech with “Cheese Fraud being a metaphor of course, a screen, a front for something more geopolitical, some grand face-off between the cheese-based or colonialist powers, basically northwest Europe, and the vast teeming cheeselessness of Asia.”

All that cheese stuff is hilarious, and Pynchon must’ve been having a blast constantly writing ‘the Al Capone of Cheese in Exile’ to describe Bruno Airmont. The whole ‘Does Cheese Have Consciousness?’ symposium - brilliant. But also, as per that Praediger quote above, it does point to more serious issues. Praediger - based in Vienna - speaks of Europe, and of course so much evil is rooted in colonialism. But as the book is also dealing with the U.S. as ‘a country not yet gone Fascist’, there’s more here too. How American capitalism is hostile to anything that won’t make it money. Its attacks on other cultures, no matter how they try to frame it otherwise, coming down to beliefs that preclude buying, unable to be profited from, and so the aggressors turn to force. In this case the non-dairy eating Asian countries, but of course there’s plenty other examples. Xenophobia reinforced simply because they can’t exploit a native population for cash and so the cash will first come from the perpetual money-maker of war. And then there’s the Americanization of everything and how the US forces its disposable culture on the rest of the world, unable to believe folks might not want things that are very unhealthy for them. I know cheese is hardly American but processed cheese might quintessentially be, shown wonderfully in the fictional competitor to Velveeta and Pabst-ett - the radioactive Radio-Cheez. Did you know Pabst, yes of Blue Ribbon fame, made their own ‘cheese’ when Prohibition came along? Apparently it was marketed as “not cheese, but more than cheese”. One of those great historical tidbits you get so many of from Pynchon, here along with the belinograph, autogyro, and x-ray machines in shoe shops.

I touch on this in my review, how the book is nowhere near as paranoid as Gravity’s Rainbow, but there’s still the sense of Hicks being controlled by forces beyond his comprehension. Banished from his homeland and having no idea how or if he’ll ever get back. Added here in Shadow Ticket is how others might refuse to believe in the possibility of your ever being redeemed, because your past suits their needs.

And what really stuck me this time too was how well Pynchon does heartache. Roger and Jessica from Gravity’s Rainbow, Doc and Shasta from Inherent Vice, and here Hicks and April. I’ve always felt with the Roger and Jessica stuff, especially later on in the book when Jessica leaves, that Pynchon was writing from his own life experience. I know we’re “not supposed to do that”, attribute real life to fiction, but whatever, of course it’s going to come into play. There are some Roger and Jessica bits that is just so poignant. And flipping thru GR to try and find it, I notice Pynchon mentions his own birthday - May 8 - on page 640, the day “his girl is about to be taken away”, now that it’s peacetime. A nice counterpart to the earlier “They are in love. Fuck the war.”, one of my all-time favourite quotes. The other night I rewatched Who Framed Roger Rabbit, because years ago I had read the characters were named Roger and Jessica after Gravity’s Rainbow, which is awesome. I was looking for more resonance. This might be a long shot but it’s been conjectured Pynchon has done stuff like this before, like in the case of his possibly responding to an Amazon review about Gravity’s Rainbow in the text of Against The Day. And the fact that Jessica Rabbit is a redhaired lounge singer put me in mind of redhead Daphne Airmont, the vanished heiress who sets off the whole plot of Shadow Ticket. Of course April Randazzo is the lounge singer but we do see Daphne taking the mic at a jazz club towards the end of the book. A stretch I know, but you can never rule anything out with Pynchon. I also watched The Good Fairy recently. Directed by William Wyler, script by Preston Sturges, starring Margaret Sullavan, it takes place in 1930’s Budapest, just like part of Shadow Ticket, where it’s said the city is a hotbed of occult activity. I’m convinced Pynchon took Uncle Detlaff from Reginald Owen’s character in the film. In ST he’s called ‘Uncle Lefty’ which has all sorts of political overtones, and uneasy ones too that are never fully explained, such as his connection to the German nationalists residing in Wisconsin.

Man, I got all teary as ST was wrapping up. Especially with Skeet signing that letter “Best pals always”. Similar to Inherent Vice’s ending with its hope for the future. Skeet heading out West where he’ll father Zoyd Wheeler from Vineland (Leo’s character from One Battle After Another), another connection in the Traverse clan who spans the late 1800’s of Against The Day to 1980’s Vineland.

I didn’t notice the ‘shadow’ connection until I was well into it, but around the same time I started Shadow Ticket again, I took a book off my shelf that I had bought years ago, about shadow work. I find Jung fascinating, and I LOVE the story of the witchdoctor in Mexico City washing Jodorowsky’s shadow - something I’ve always wanted to do - though of course confronting all the stuff you’ve hidden from yourself for very good reasons is going to be difficult and terrifying. Nonetheless, I decided (once again) it was time. I’m a big believer that it’s all energy and that if you can untangle those psychic knots and their physical counterparts, you’ll free up an enormous amount of creative potential which then can be turned to what we actually want to accomplish in life, not stewing in the shit we were given. I’ve taken these on plenty of times before but it seems there’s just so much of it. So I dove in, have been doing the exercises, sitting with all the uncomfortableness. And it’s been a lot of time of feeling just plain awful, and having really vivid, intense dreams, but also noticing Life getting a little bit easier. And that’s the goal, to not have it seem so difficult and disappointing all the time.

I won’t pretend that I had it nearly as bad as most everybody else, but still it’s my bad shit that I have to deal with and has been holding me back for at least 45 years. I’ve done a lot of work in the past 14, but there’s still more to go. One thing for me, that I only realized in therapy about 10 years ago is shame. And I’m even ashamed to admit that. I’ve read various books and done a lot of work there but it keeps coming up. I won’t go into it all here but a lot of it does come from being creative/neurodivergent/sensitive from a young age and always being told quite harshly that these things were ‘wrong’, and punished for them plenty of times. Through doing all this shadow work lately I came across a great book - ’s Shame: The Path Out Of Hell - which I’ve found really helpful. I’ve learned some great breathing exercises to calm down the stress system, gotten strong reinforcements to not check social media so much, and one thing I found particularly eye-opening is Carolyn’s advice to notice what age you feel when negative emotions arise. For anxiety it’s usually young, 4-6 years old, whereas anger is a little older, 11-14. I’ve found this to be spot on. And from there you can then re-parent that part of yourself to a better outcome than if you just sink back into being a child. I’ve done some inner child work in the past - shadow work is often linked to this - and had amazing breakthroughs. I’m always reduced to tears of tenderness for that scared little kid who felt completely unloved because he wanted to share something he made with the world. This time around I found another aspect of my inner child in one of the most heartbreaking circumstances I can imagine. And when I got him out of that, to safety, I asked him what he wanted to do. Without any hesitation, six-year-old Aug said “Draw.” I loved to draw when I was a kid and there’s actually a whole familial history of stifling this inclination that goes back generations. I think I’ve written about Jodorowsky’s Metagenealogy before, the idea that there are genetic traits traveling down the family line that want to be expressed. This seems to be one of them. So I’ve been making a little time each day to draw something, or watch a YouTube video to learn more about drawing. I don’t have much time, this very much feels like * something else * on top of work, writing, music, etc. But it also feels important to indulge. I rarely make New Year’s resolutions but back in 2020 I did, which was to draw something everyday. And again it was a matter of trying to find a couple minutes to do it, but I’m always so glad I did

Wally from The Beautiful Music label has always been a big supporter of my work and has sent me some cool stuff over the years (Dot Dash, his tribute cds to Adrian Borland with 1000 Mexicans’ excellent cover of Night Cascade). Physical media too, which is great. I recently got a package from him with some more TBM releases, including the Tribute to Ed Ball discs. I’ve always really liked The Times when I’ve listened to them and this reminded me why. Especially Rotifer’s cover of Red With Purple Flashes. What a magnificent tune! The original has now been on my stereo a bunch the past few weeks, one of those occasions of a youthful slice of brilliance committed to vinyl. Each section of the song so distinct and cool, that shift of sway and mood in the pre-chorus, and then the transcendent high picked guitar of the first part of the chorus before those great descending chords

Do y’all know the Deaf Crocodile label? They’ve revived some really interesting films and through them I’ve been investigating the work of Hungarian animator György Kovásznai . I watched his feature-length Bubble Bath a couple weeks ago and was very impressed, never quite seen anything like it. The look, the music, the feel, all so psychedelic 70s, like a kid’s cartoon gone off the rails, but definitely for adults. Everything is constantly shifting and morphing, adding a hefty dose of the surreal to the situations. I loved the body language and how simultaneously expressive of inner life it is. I ordered the dvd from Deaf Crocodile which has a bunch of extras and in the meantime I’ve been exploring more on YouTube. Mirror Images is well worth the 5 minutes of your time. A stick figure cat and dog go on a date to a museum holding hands. It’s adorable. And then it gets quite psychedelic. The last shot of them running to look at their reflection in the river is such a wonderful touch.

On other musical tips, in one of ‘s recent newsletters, she compared Mopar Stars to The Replacements/Matthew Sweet/Dino Jr., which is spot on and needless to say, in the absence of any new Westerberg material - seriously, when is that coming? - this does just nicely

And Desperate Journalist have an ace new single out. Hearing more of The Smiths and Siouxsie influences which I haven’t heard from them in a while, but they carry those torches so well. Good video too. New album out in November which I am very much looking forward to

Along with these shows, I have been recording a bunch of music. Almost done with the new EP and recording the album alongside that, flying in tracks from around the country. On top of that I wrote a bunch of short songs last year that don’t quite fit with the tone of the album, some of them being a little strange as well. One is called Mary Goes Round Me and from that I came up with the title Myriad Little Lambs, which is perfect for this, I’ll even get to reference Minor Threat with the album cover. So two weeks ago I booked some time at another studio and went in and banged out the ten songs over two days. I worked hard and fast, not letting my perfectionist tendencies even get a peek in, and I am very pleased with what got done, though I was at the point of collapse after that

I’ve also been finishing up my next story collection which will be coming out next year. Twelve stories loosely connected by kind of being about animals in some way, it is called Animal Pharmacy. My friend RCK tells me these new stories have ‘a certain gravity’ while keeping my love of puns, references, and allusions, so I seem to be moving in the right direction. The stories are all done but I’ve spent a month or so now polishing the prose. I have an insane editing process. My publisher told me that my prose is ‘impeccable’, so at least it works. Aside from all that - and I do love all the creative stuff - I’ve been rather down the past few months. Everything just kinda seems impossible. Though I keep reminding myself that I’ve pulled off the impossible before. It just takes a helluva lot of work, a willingness to be very uncomfortable for a very long time, and a certain amount of magic. It’d be nice if something happened soon to snap me out of this

So anyway, the stuff I’ve been meaning to write about:

In 1999 I had newly joined the band Rockets Burst From The Streetlamps. My bandmates were all big Hal Hartley fans and I remember when I was going to have my wisdom teeth out going to the video store the day before and renting three Hal Hartley films to watch while I was recovering. I think they were Trust, Flirt, and The Unbelievable Truth, but I can’t say for sure. I know I watched them but I was so high on Percoset, aside from the drinking contest in Trust, I don’t remember a single thing about them. I didn’t make the connection because my bandmates were all four or five years older than me, but amongst my own group of college friends, in the year 2000 it seemed Henry Fool was always on somewhere at people’s apartments, and I was to watch bits and pieces of it many times. Rewatched it again this weekend. It’s one of his best, and perhaps the classic. Trust too, and also Amateur. Amateur and Henry Fool dealing with some very dark, uncomfortable stuff.

I think everyone should know Hartley’s films. Just for the blocking and cinematography alone. Despite his production company being called Possible Films, he uses lots of angles that seem impossible. Like, it takes a second or two for your eyes to realize what you’re seeing, and even the more regular shots are always interesting. There’s also the excellent dialogue, so deadpan it can sometimes be plain awkward

My favourite of Hal Hartley’s films is the next in the Henry Fool trilogy - Fay Grim, starring Parker Posey. It has all the Hartley hallmarks - the composition of each shot is amazing and it’s very funny. Though it’s also quite different in the respect that it’s an international espionage thriller. He even hints at the Bond theme in the music. It’s a strange one too though because it changes some fundamental stuff about Henry Fool. It seems very much a case of ‘oh, we’re going to do a sequel, how can we make it work?’ That said, it totally does, I just think you have to take Henry Fool and the Henry Fool trilogy as two separate entities. Which is kinda cool in and of itself

There’s also Simple Men which contains perhaps my favourite scene in all of cinema:

Elina Löwensohn and co. dancing to Sonic Youth’s Kool Thing. OMG when they all go into the stomp! And I love how it’s a tribute to Godard as well, the impromptu dance in Bande à Part. Godard is an influence seen throughout Hartley’s work, especially in shorts like NYC 3/94 and Theory of Achievement, which even has a Godard-esque character in it, plus Elina Löwensohn again, who is just so awesome

All Hartley’s shorts are up on the Criterion Channel and a good number of them are fantastic. Iris is an incredibly whimsical three minutes of Parker Posey and Sabrina Lloyd set to the Breeders song of the same name. The Sisters Of Mercy is a sort of making of Iris though six times longer, even more wonderfully whimsical with beautifully composed shots and delightful use of colour. I was also enormously impressed with A/Muse. The lovely Christina Flick goes to Berlin to convince Hartley she should be his next muse. Hilarious, with some very disorientating angles

Back to that Simple Men/Kool Thing dance, it seems there’s a magic formula:

90s Indie Film + Female Lead + Kim Sonic Youth song = ALL SORTS OF AWESOME

I watched Irma Vep last year and it really blew me away. This scene in particular where Maggie Cheung, playing herself, embodies the Irma Vep character she’s been hired to portray, heading out into the night to Tunic (Song For Karen)

I’ve watched so many great films since I last posted, but one in particular I wanted to mention is Last Life In The Universe. I was so impressed by this, I watched it again the very next day. Perhaps I’m drawn to solitary sad characters whom someone unexpectedly brings out of all that, but I found this film very beautiful. To look at as well, with the cinematography by Christopher Doyle, who has worked on most of Wong Kar-wai’s big ones, and has become my favourite cinematographer. The whole thing is on Youtube, I highly recommend giving it a watch:

I also watched The Linguini Incident, which intrigued me enough to buy the Blu-ray in order to see the feature-length making-of documentary. I’m SHOCKED this isn’t a bigger cult hit. As it is, most people don’t even seem to know about it, let alone have seen it. Starring Bowie, Rosanna Arquette, and Eszter Balint (from Stranger Than Paradise) and it is SUCH a 90s film. I was intrigued by it being a Bowie movie I’d only vaguely heard of and, truth be told, during the first ten minutes I thought it was going to be terrible. But then it becomes very much its own thing, operating by its own logic, with a touch of the Lynchian about it. I ended up really enjoying it. Lots of highly quotable lines, ones that the 90s missed a trick by not adopting outright though that decade did somewhat keep this film alive in spirit if not visibility. The making-of is well worth seeking out too. The story is pretty wild, a case of “the movie gods smiling in a perverse way”, as director Richard Shepard puts it. The booklet for the Blu-ray had some interesting facts in it too, such as this coming about because Bowie had wanted to do a comedy. My mind was blown to learn that he had been offered a role in Shakes The Clown and was bummed he had to turn it down because of scheduling commitments. Shakes The Clown was another film that always seemed to be on at my friends’ house in the late 90’s. Bowie also met Iman on the set of The Linguini Incident. And what do you know, it’s on YouTube as well:

I wish I could remember exactly why I wanted to buy a Dory Previn album. It wasn’t because of Camera Obscura or that the magnificent The Lady With The Braid was on the edition of The Trip curated by Jarvis Cocker & Steve Mackey but around that time anyway in the autumn of 2006, back when the Borders Books & Music website had access to some truly wonderful finds, I ordered from them a double cd containing the Mythical Kings & Iguanas and Reflections In A Mud Puddle albums

Fast-forward 13 years and with only seven cases in the United States of this thing people were calling ‘the coronavirus’, I’ve set off driving across country again to make a new life (again) in Los Angeles. Everyone should drive solo across the entire US at least once in their lives. It really does something to you, and those battles for your sanity after 2000 miles are quite remarkable, especially if you’re in the alien landscape of the desert. But that trip was terrific. I discovered the pure joy of Wodehouse audiobooks read by proper British actors and these would very much help keep me sane and bolster my spirits in the coming nine months when after mid-March I would not be in the same room with anyone I knew until a few days before Xmas. Also on this trip I got the urge to pull out Mythical Kings & Iguanas again and wow did Going Home really hit with its refrain of “isn’t going home a low and lonely ride”, although the opposite was true as I sped along our nation’s highways to my expected new life. And I love when closing songs do that thing as here, combining the title track and another song (Lady With The Braid) into something new for the album’s finale

The On My Way To Where documentary has been on my radar for a few years now, only showing at festivals, so I was delighted to learn it’s now free to watch on PBS. It’s a good film and being only really familiar with a couple of her 70s solo albums, wow, she did so much that I didn’t know about. Before those solo records, collaborating with her first husband André Previn to write songs for Judy Garland, Rosemary Clooney, Frank Sinatra, and many others, some of these for big films. André leaving her for family friend Mia Farrow which Dory gets quite honest about in her lyrics. Not shying away too from her mental health struggles. A fascinating woman with a gift for both words and music. And I love love love the song Mythical Kings And Iguanas, a wonderful meditation on the necessity of balancing the earthbound parts of ourselves with the spiritual

A while back one of my editors at The Comics Journal messaged me that she had just come across Mollie Ray’s giant at the comics shop and asked if I would be interested in reviewing it. It looked interesting so I got in touch with Ray, as she likes to be known, and she very kindly sent me the book. I was not prepared for how much I would love it. And be really really impressed by all Ray put into it. For one thing, it was all drawn in pen! From my review:

It’s tough to put into words just how special this book is, complimented and complicated by the fact that the pages themselves are completely silent. It is, however, very evident that the emotions, like the central character themself, are too big to be contained by mere language. giant's illustrator, Mollie Ray, does an excellent job of conveying all the sadness and turmoil that come with a cancer diagnosis. Or any major family health setback, for it isn’t until the end credits that we’re informed of exactly what we’ve been dealing with.

Read my full review here, and def pick this up if you see it

If anyone knows anyone looking for any PR for music, books, anything really, please tell them to get in touch with me. I had a couple projects pull out at the last minute recently and have some space to take on new ones

And Closer, oh man, it just hits me right in the spiritual solar plexus. Closer and Feel by Julie Campbell & Jah Wobble are the two songs I consider to be the most Aug Stone songs ever written. They express everything that I, well, feel

Every month I make a playlist of songs that get stuck in my head that month. It’s a nice reminder of what I’ve been listening to but also what I’ve been going through. And certain songs definitely reappear with some consistency

I’ve always loved making lists in general. Especially ones that seem definitive - Top 10/20/30/etc. This despite knowing that nothing is definitive, that, annoying, Life is always changing (remember Arizona Vanilla Colas? Gosh, I would love one of those, haven’t seen them since the late 90s) But I have a lot of Earth in my chart and there is something very appealing about compiling what might, against all odds, turn out to be forever. Something to say This Is Me, this is what I feel, I guess something to cling to when everything’s constantly in flux. Actually, I don’t think about it like that these days, it’s just fun to make lists, to see how I’m feeling in the moment, but in my younger more terrified-of-change days, I seemed to be on some kind of quest to compile the ultimate Top 30 Songs List. I would talk about this on Livejournal circa 2005/2006 and once suggested that if you kept making lists on a regular basis, over time a definitive one would probably emerge. So I did this for a bit on LJ

I was out for a walk listening to a couple of songs on this month’s playlist that I consider to be all-time faves when I remembered this idea and thought it’d be fun to try again. So here’s my Top 30 Favourite Songs Of All-Time list for right now. In no particular order:

1. Elvis Presley - Burning Love

2. Julie Campbell & Jah Wobble - Feel

3. Cold Specks - Closer

4. O.V. Wright - That’s How Strong My Love Is

5. Jesus & Mary Chain - Head On

6. Pulp - Glory Days

7. Suede - The Wild Ones

8. Mina - Se Telefonando

9. Bettye Swann - Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye

10. The Drifters - Up On The Roof

11. Led Zeppelin - Rock N Roll

12. Van Halen - Unchained

13. Desperate Journalist - Satellite

14. New Order - Temptation

15. Joy Division - Disorder

16. The Afghan Whigs - Summer’s Kiss

17. Shane MacGowan & Sinéad O’Connor - Haunted

18. The Real Tuesday Weld - When You Showed Up

19. Goldfrapp - Number 1

20. Smashing Pumpkins - Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts)

21. David Bowie - Station To Station

22. My Chemical Romance - The Kids From Yesterday

23. Mikey Georgeson - Russian Dolls

24. Dolly Mixture - Everything And More

25. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Straight To You

26. Girlfrendo - Delicatessen

27. The Jellybeans - Baby Be Mine

28. Rancid - Radio

29. Dusty Springfield - Stay Awhile

30. Flesh For Lulu - Postcards From Paradise

The above was made without consulting my old Livejournal and was initially only a Top 20 cuz that’s how I remembered it. BUT when I opened LJ again I saw I used to do Top 30 lists which was SUCH A HUGE RELIEF lol cuz I could include more that I was really wrestling with. Even so, the absence of The Kinks, Guided By Voices, The Replacements, Blur’s The Universal, and Soul Asylum’s Cartoon makes me uneasy. But it’s best to do these quickly, off the top of your head. And the main reason I made this is because I want to compare what’s on the list today to what used to make the cut. So here’s what the last list from back then was. March 14, 2006:

1 - Siouxsie and The Banshees - The Last Beat Of My Heart
2 - New Order - Temptation
3 - David Bowie - Heroes
4 - Pulp - Pink Glove
5 - Pulp - Glory Days
6 - T Rex - Metal Guru
7 - Suede - The Wild Ones
8 - The Real Tuesday Weld - The Ugly and The Beautiful
9 - Dusty Springfield - Stay Awhile
10 - Echo & the Bunnymen - The Cutter
11 - a-ha - (Seemingly) Non-Stop July
12 - Luxembourg - (I Need) A Little Bit More (Than You Can Give Me)
13 - Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Straight To You
14 - Saint Etienne - Hobart Paving
15 - Saint Etienne - He’s On The Phone
16 - Depeche Mode - World In My Eyes
17 - Even As We Speak - Drown
18 - The Pogues - Rainy Night In Soho
19 - The Replacements - Left Of The Dial
20 - Guided By Voices - Echos Myron
21 - The Jellybeans - I Wanna Love Him So Bad
22 - Bettye Swann - Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye
23 - Duran Duran - The Chaffeur
24 - The Magnetic Fields - 100,000 Fireflies
25 - Joy Division - Atmosphere
26 - Van Halen - Panama
27 - The Divine Comedy - Tonight We Fly
28 - Yaz - Too Pieces
29 - The Auteurs - New French Girlfriend
30 - Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel - Tumbling Down

Back then I guess I had no problem including more than one song by an artist. Also, gosh, Tumbling Down is sooooo beautiful. That Velvet Goldmine soundtrack, eh? Interesting there’s only a six song overlap. Hmmm

Also checking LJ, it seems the night I posted this I had also watched Almodovar’s All About My Mother - a rewatch actually, I had a huge crush on Candela Peña back then - and Danger: Diabolik whose theme song, written by Morricone, deserves a mention in these greatest songs of all-time discussions. The Italian version (below) so much more evocative than the English

It should be noted too that Morricone wrote Mina’s Se Telefonando and for a TV show no less! Such a gorgeous song

I thought about putting these all together into one playlist but I always resist such an idea. I think of it like - you ever have two best friends and it’s brilliant when you’re hanging out one on one, or with them and some other people when the other one isn’t there, but for some reason when all three of you are together it’s just really awkward? I picture a playlist comprised entirely of the best songs to be a lot like that, somehow detracting from each’s individual glory

But like I said, I love lists like this, so if you wanna drop your Top However Many Songs below, I’d love to see it

A rather emotional and fun-filled last few weeks seemingly continuously celebrating my upcoming 30th bday. Saturday opening gifts from the family, was very touched by a wrapped box awaiting me from my father (my mother usually buys the gifts from them both) which turned out to be a bottle of Midleton’s Very Rare, the very thing I had just sent J.P. Donleavy for his upcoming 80th, the day before mine. The family all partook of a wee dram, ever so smooth and with an exquisite aftertaste. If you ever find yourself in Stratford when I’m back, we’ll hoist a finger or two. Also presented with a bottle of “AUGEY WHITE”, now seen in my new userpic.

And Monday after the bank and post office made my way from cemetery to cemetery, first to see my grandmother in her “garden apartment”, and walking into the community mausoleum immediately bursting into tears which continued as I drove clear across the other side of town to see my grandfather (on the other side of the family) whose grave I hadn’t been to alone in a long time, and checking with Meg neither had she, and we both wondered why. And on this day I kept in mind all the good things, of which there were tons, and kept at a safe distance all the stubbornness and difficulties. After he died, my grandmother told me he would say to her, speaking of me and music, “he’s good, he’s very good, but I could never tell him that because there’s no money in it”. But at least she made it seem like he regretted this. As I regret, as this feeling flowed heartily throughout the rest of the family as well, all those years not wanting to disappoint them and how horribly those times turned out.

And yet I sometimes wonder what he’d think of me now. But wonder more when I have kids, showing them a picture of him and announcing “that’s my grandfather”, how in all likelihood it would mean little to them. And how sad that is, that your memory only lives on about 100 years at best.

My great-aunt recently found a picture of her father and sent it to my grandmother. An illiterate coalminer who could understand but not speak English. but was a Russian gentleman nonetheless. Whom the whole town could rely on for help. Whom my grandmother loved dearly and showing me the photograph said “oh Adam, I wish you could have known my father. He was such a good man.”

“Well he certainly looks like a gentleman, Gramma” (which he does)

And with tears forming “he was Adam, he was”.

And one senses more and more that these are the things that matter most in life. As I sit here now, alone, far from my family. With a damn good novel under my belt and a hand- and heart-ful of beautiful songs. In London. After 30 years. With hopefully many more to go. And a wide uncertain future ahead. Hoping in which “to burn and not to freeze”.

END OF LJ POST. First things first, if you didn’t know, yes my birth name is Adam. Please never call me that. If it weren’t for my being a stickler for preserving dialogue and text as a whole, I would’ve changed that lickety-split, but without that name’s second syllable here the whole thing falls apart for me

I still sometimes wonder what my grandfather would think of me. All three grandparents - I never knew my dad’s dad - are gone now. And all three had artistic ambitions. My grandfather was a musician and a painter and as he once told me ‘I only ever had an idea for one story in my life’. A story he bequeathed to me in 5th grade when some of us were asked to write something as a special project and the idea seemed foreign to me. So we worked on it together and I guess is the first thing I ever wrote. Physically, I mean. I made up stories all the time, as all kids do

My grandmothers both had ambitions involving the written word. My mom’s mom would always talk about wanting to head to Philadelphia to become ‘a hot shot journalist’ when she was 18 but instead accepting my grandfather’s proposal. And my dad’s mom always wrote and one xmas got me one of those Writers’ Market books which was incredibly thoughtful. As far as I could remember she was always involved in writers' groups at her senior center and had a few things published. When she died I typed up all her stories and my dad and I put together a book for the family. There was one that I always thought was great, and showed my grandmother’s sense of humor, about a gondolier who gets two women pregnant at the same time. I’ve sometimes thought about trying to get it published for her

Alejandro Jodorowsky has a wonderful book called Metagenealogy in which he talks about how there are certain traits which travel down the family line seeking their expression in individual members. Some of my family are artistic but it seems to have come down to me, for better or worse, to actually express it and live that life. I don’t see how it could have been otherwise. And especially having to do with words. I always wonder - and talked my therapist’s ear off on Monday - why I have such trouble getting music done but for writing I can do it every day and have amassed a good amount of it. And it may not be true at all about the Metagenealogy stuff but it seems to me that’s what wants to be expressed thru me

My grandmother, the one who had had journalistic aspirations, told me when she saw my first by-line in Dazed magazine, that she had ‘never felt prouder’. Funnily enough that piece was interviewing Alma Jodorowsky, Alejandro’s granddaughter. And it was one of the few times my grandmother called me Aug, as that’s what was written on the page, beaming a huge smile as she said it

I guess this is about Nabokov too. Who made me want to write when I was 23. I posted a year or so ago that while I absolutely adored his work when I was younger, I now find the novels a bit cold. Which I felt bad saying, considering how much he meant to me. But I’ve dived into a few again and well…I’m no longer a desperately shy young man who seeks refuge in a haughty Russian intellect. I’m nervous to go back to The Gift, which I always considered to be the most beautiful book I’ve ever read. But I still feel the passion I felt for what he did with language and all his textual games. Ways of approaching words that became irrevocably a part of my being. There’s a lot of Nabokov in my upcoming Clown Damage book. And just yesterday I worked a reference into a short story. A reference it’s doubtful anyone will get but I do and I love it. I did revisit a few of the short stories lately and The Vane Sisters remains my all-time favourite by anyone. Spring In Fialta, which is almost its inverse, is also quite wonderful, both very life-affirming. And yes it is pretentious that he claimed the ‘trick’ of The Vane Sisters “could only be tried once in a thousand years of fiction” but my god does it fill me with joy, the words evoking a most beautiful feeling in my heart

And thinking back to being 30 too, when the above was written, one of the best years of my life. Well, at least the first half, exactly the length of my six month UK visa. That spring and summer where it was proven to me once again that if you push with everything you got you’ll make things happen. And even if it seems like it all comes crashing down at the end, there were be some things you made that when the dust settles you’ll see were strong enough to remain and will be with you forever. That feeling now too, as there’s so much to get done

The last line of the above piece - “to burn and not to freeze” - is a quote from Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. Spoken - in English - by a woman in the party scene. It jumping out at me by the sudden switch in language - an added layer here by Italian being the other side of my heritage, and I had been studying both Russian and Italian back then. Watching the film I remember that line seeming to pop out of the screen like a message just for me regarding the meaning of life, something that seared straight into my soul and I thought ‘yes, yes that’s it’

Mono is exhausting, or perhaps enervating is a better word. You’re exhausted all the time, a really deep lethargy. So I spent a few months on the couch in our family room, sleeping a lot, reading heavy metal magazines, listening to my Walkman, and waiting for Cheers to come on at 7 and then 11 on WPIX. And of course Headbangers Ball. Where late one night I caught the video for Iron Maiden’s The Clairvoyant. I was hooked from that opening bass line, the triumphant guitar melody being the icing on the cake. I’m a sucker for interplay between the 1,3, 4 notes of the scale - Then He Kissed Me, Joy Division’s Digital, so many songs… - and this coupled with the sheer excitement of the video, filmed at the Donnington festival, brought me great joy in a very dark time. It felt like I’d finally found something, the crystalization of what my rock n roll dreams had been leading to up to this point

When Sunday morning came, I asked my Mom if she would get me the tape of Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son and my life seemed to be rerouted onto a more personal track. From that point on it was Maiden Maiden Maiden for what seemed like forever. In actuality, life would change again in just three months time when I discovered the Pistols, but Maiden were a huge part of things for a good two years at least. It’s not like I was hearing them for the first time. That would’ve been in 1986 when Somewhere In Time came out, which I bought at Merle’s Record Rack when it was at the Milford mall. Something about Bruce’s codpiece in the Stranger In A Strange Land video led to me never fully embracing this record lol. Though all the hidden stuff on the cover art is AMAZING. Powerslave too has some cool Easter eggs on its sleeve like the ‘Indiana Jones Was Here 1941’ and the Mickey Mouse hieroglyph (you can see Mickey poking out from behind the framed photograph on the Twilight Zone single cover too). I had both Powerslave and Somewhere In Time on vinyl and wish I still did but senior year of high school when I was well into the Mary Chain, the Cure, and New Order, I gave both of these away to a friend who was just getting into Maiden. Along with some shirts, VHS tapes, and the incredible Running Free official biography. I had read that thing until it fell apart. But back in the early bedridden days, taking pity on my sorry state, family members were offering to buy me tapes, and I also asked for Live After Death, which was again life-changing. I loved every second of that cassette, the tape version having the five extra tracks from the Hammersmith Odeon, and listened to it multiple times a day. Even now I can’t hear someone mention Long Beach without hearing Bruce in my head shouting ‘Scream for me, Long Beach!’

I had a lot of catching up to do and it was a good year for it because the band had just released their 12 Wasted Years home video. My first Maiden shirt which I also wore until it fell apart featured Eddie from the cover of said tape. I can still remember the excitement of finding it on the small t-shirt rack at our local record store, Graf Wadman. The film shows Steve Harris sat at the bar of The Ruskin Arms talking about the early days of the band, which is where I got the idea to make the pilgrimage as discussed in previous posts. There’s so much great stuff on here. Running Free done live on Top Of The Pops, them winning the battle with the BBC to not lipsynch, “but we were so quiet”. And the big anomaly of their career - the Women In Uniform video. It’s a Skyhooks cover and must’ve been some sort of bid towards the mainstream cuz it really doesn’t fit into their oeuvre. This video however plays a significant role in my Clown Damage book. Actually Maiden (and KISS) are all over this book, and I love it. It’s very much a tribute to the excitement and wonder of all that musical discovery back then. Another important thing about 12 Wasted Years was that it introduced me to my favourite Maiden song of all-time, The Prisoner. There’s a live clip of them playing it in 1982 and it just rocks. That intro, and especially the guitar part when it gets faster and kicks into the song proper, Adrian and Dave’s Explorer guitars, and that huge uplifting chorus. It was co-written by Adrian Smith who always had the more pop sensibilities. The band knew how great this song is, they were still playing it on the Seventh Son tour as evidenced on the Maiden England video. Wish they still were today

When I tell people real life stories they often don’t believe me. I remember sharing a few onstage and folks coming up to me afterwards suggesting edits, walking away baffled when I replied ‘but that’s exactly what happened.’ And I assure you that’s the case with this one about how I met my lifelong friend Jim. We were in 7th grade homeroom together and hadn’t spoken all year until he caught wind that I was also a Maiden fan. Seeing me carrying Powerslave around, the very first words he said to me were ‘Do you know what your name would be in hieroglyphics?’ I’d soon come to realize this is so Jim, he has a very unique mind, and obsessing over Powerslave himself, he’d been studying ancient Egyptian culture. I have also worked this bit into the Clown Damage story

Recovered from mono, I was now record shopping in earnest and devouring all I could about Maiden. Loving the behind the scenes footage on 12 Wasted Years, plus Video Pieces and the Behind The Iron Curtain VHS which I promptly snapped up, as well as reading everything I could find about them, I was incredibly inspired by their work ethic. This seemed to me a life I very much wanted - traveling the world on a tour bus and rocking the fuck out every night with thousands of people. In fact, as soon as I saw that video for The Clairvoyant, dreaming of this life was what got me rallying, hope while it still felt like my body had completely shut down. Not that going back to school was a pleasing prospect at all but having the strength to get up and play guitar again and hopefully one day get on that tour bus and never stop

Maiden are also inextricably linked with my favourite record store of all-time. Brass City Records in Waterbury, Connecticut, sadly now gone. But it’s June 1989 and my friend Ry’s mom is taking me, him, and Jim up to Riverside amusement park in Massachusetts as an end of the school year treat. Ry is also a huge Maiden fan and this very much bonds the three of us. An amusing extra part of the story here that I relished telling on the Ballad Of Buttery Cake Ass tour. I’m not quite sure why, as I was allowed a good amount of freedom as a kid, but since I was going to be out with my new friends I thought I’d get up to something deviant. Waiting until my family were asleep the night before and sneaking out to the kitchen to rip pages from my school notebook and raid our jar of tea bags, I did not realize that the line ‘sleeping late and smoking tea’ from Aerosmith’s Mama Kin was a euphemism. GN’R Lies, released the previous November, was still on everyone’s stereos and I loved their cover of this song. As I, very poorly, rolled the joints like my older cousin once taught me to do, I was convinced I was onto some sort of special high. I rolled three, grabbed a book of matches, and stuff them all into my jean jacket inner pocket, the jacket with the big Ozzy Osbourne Randy Rhoads patch on the back. When we got to Riverside though, my new friends were very much not interested in joining me in the bathroom to blaze these up. Excusing myself to a stall, I only made it halfway thru one. It was a weird taste as you might expect burnt tea to be, and it left me feeling kinda funny, though not at all in a pleasurable way. Riverside was okay but not overwhelmingly great and Ry’s mom noticed this, suggesting we knock off early and go check out the new record store she had heard about in Waterbury as it was on our way home anyway

The prospect of buying records has been forever thrilling though I remember a palpable sense of trepidation as we pulled into the parking lot next to a run-down two story building. The feeling increasing as we pushed thru the doors to be confronted with a rickety wooden staircase and the black walls absolutely plastered with xeroxed show flyers and promotional material for bands that were far removed from anything I’d previously been aware of. I remember feeling a bit scared. In retrospect though this was like jumping the mythical Abyss to end up in Heaven. For at the top of the stairs once we turned the corner into the shop proper we were met with a life-size cardboard cutout of Eddie from the Sanctuary single cover, the kind of record store displays you used to sometimes see at the mall. We’d never encountered a Maiden one before. Making this truly feel like Heaven. On our first few visits we always tried to buy the display from Walter but he wasn’t selling. He was awesome to us though and I always say that if I had a time machine first thing I would do would be to go back to Brass City on that day in 1988 and stock up on the records within. It was jampacked with stuff that a few years later I would be searching for. I clearly remember flipping thru the racks and seeing Mudhoney’s You Got It 12” single, the one where they’re all covered in mud on the cover. This was truly a new world I was entering. Although metal wasn’t Walter’s bag - and he would introduce me to so much other great music over the next 26 years - it was what sold so he carried it, and always let us know when he had something we might like. Like the copies of Maiden’s The Soundhouse Tapes which we were over the Moon to find. I’d read about them in the official bio, their self-financed first 7” which quickly sold out its 5000 copies pressed. And when Maiden began re-releasing their singles for the First 10 Years celebrations, Ry’s mom would drive up every week to get them for him, sometimes taking us with her

Ry’s mom also got me, Ry, and Jim tickets to see Bruce Dickinson’s first solo tour in the summer of 1990 at Toad’s Place in New Haven, CT. We were 14 and it was of course our first club show. The fact that the singer of Iron Maiden would be playing in someplace so small - about 1000 capacity - and close to our home was simply unbelievable to us. Ry’s mom dropped us off and we had no idea what to expect. Luckily we had brought all the money we could for there was plentiful merch on sale. T-shirts, even a Tattooed Millionaire baseball hat, and what we’d been wondering how we were ever going to get - Bruce’s first novel The Adventures Of Lord Iffy Boatrace, its title even written in the Maiden font on the cover, and autographed to boot!

The show is insane. It felt absolutely unreal to be there. Bruce covers AC/DC’s Sin City - which felt like some sort of vindication heh as Jim and Ry were strict Maiden fans very much displeased that I also loved AC/DC - and we heard Bring Your Daughter To The Slaughter for the first time, before it became a Maiden song. Ever trying to prove who’s the biggest fan, Jim, who is standing a couple inches ahead of us, tells me and Ry afterwards that while we heard Bruce’s voice coming through the speakers, Jim himself had heard it before it even hit the mic

I’m off to Florida for vacation with my family the following day and I bring The Adventures Of Lord Iffy Boatrace with me. Which my 14 year old virgin self finds very perplexing. Keep in mind this is 1990, we didn’t really have access to pornography - not that I think porn teaches you the slightest bit about sex - and a lot of the stuff within these pages I really don’t know what to make of. There’s a sort of spurting tank dildo, and one dude has a 15-inch cock that Bruce describes as poking out of his collar. This left me very confused as my torso is 24 inches and proportionally I just didn’t see how this would work. I remember having a lot of questions when I finished the book, but no one to ask except Bruce himself. Needless to say I’m reading it again now lol. I had sold my own copy years ago on eBay for $75, but it’s available on Internet Archive should you care to start a book club with me : ) Kicking myself for selling this, along with the hat and shirts and Bruce’s follow-up novel The Missionary Position that I found used in 2008 at a bookshop on Charing Cross Road in London for only £4. I held onto that one for years then thought I’d never get around to it so I let it go. Of course I very much want it back now

Although I bought Fear Of The Dark on cassette when it came out in 1992, I never actually listened to it until last week, so No Prayer For The Dying was my last real time with Maiden. I listened to it again also last week and it’s better than I remembered. I’ve always liked Hooks In You, an Adrian Smith/Bruce Dickinson co-write so it’s very poppy. This tour would also be the only time I’ve seen them, January 26, 1991, in New Haven, CT, with Anthrax opening. The setlist is actually really good. My main memory from the show is a mosh pit breaking out and Bruce shutting that shit down immediately. After seeing the new documentary, Burning Ambition, I decided I would get acquainted with all the stuff I missed. I had bought most of the ones since Bruce rejoined but only dipped in and out. So I started with No Prayer and have been making my way through, alternating these with relistens of the classic albums. As I had moved on by the time I was 15, it’s been really cool driving around where I grew up with Maiden on the car stereo for the first time

I say ‘moved on’ but don’t get me wrong, I still loved Maiden. When I joined my first band after college, playing bass for Rockets Burst From The Streetlamps, I’d warm up with The Stone Roses’ I Wanna Be Adored and Maiden’s The Trooper. At my very first gig with Rockets at O’Brien’s in Allston, MA, during soundcheck I launched into The Trooper. My friend Vic tells me an old dude at the bar’s head shot up as he turned towards the stage and cried out ‘Maiden!’ I’ve often wondered what he thought of our shoegazey spacerock after that

With a lot of Maiden nostalgia going on while I was in London, I really wanted to see new doc Burning Ambition on the big screen. Checking the listings last week I realized I only had a couple days to do it and it would be a 2.5 hour round trip. No matter, it was totally worth driving out to Yonkers for. I loved it. It really took me back to all that they meant to me. There are a few reviews on Letterboxd that if you’re a real Maiden fan most of this won’t be new to you and while that’s true, it was a great watch nevertheless. I had forgotten things like Bruce smashing his face with his guitar at Rock In Rio in 1985 and manager Rod Smallwood telling me not to wipe it off, that it looked fantastic on the screens. Weirdly I had been thinking about the Victoria Abril film Between Your Legs the night before so it was quite the surprise to see Javier Bardem wearing a Can I Play With Madness shirt and having a ton to say about the band. Very cool though. Getting to see The Cart & Horses in the early newspaper listings after I had just made the pilgrimage to that pub the week before was rad. Extended footage of their 1984 trip to Poland that wasn’t on my Behind The Iron Curtain VHS tape. Very moving, just how much it meant to the people there for them to go. You get a lot of this too with their South American fans in Flight 666. And imagine having Iron Maiden cover Smoke On The Water at your wedding! Though they point out that most of the guests probably had no idea who they were. Sad about Nicko having a stroke and stepping down. Psyched to see he’s got a book out this fall. And the camera angle with which they introduce their new drummer is the same as that scene in Spinal Tap. A very nice touch. When Hallowed By Thy Name came on I was suddenly a very intense 13 year old again to whom Maiden meant absolutely everything

The title of the doc, coming from the b-side of Running Free, is very apt. Steve Harris was always on a mission to make it happen. Adversity from the get-go as they started in the time of punk when no record label wanted a metal band anymore. Grueling tour after grueling tour, dropping back down to clubs again in the Blaze days, but always rewarded by an immense love from their fans. Maiden deserve all the success that came to them. And the film points out that Bruce was the perfect partner to come in and help man the controls as they made their bid for Olympus. Incredibly driven himself, it’s astounding everything he manages to fit into his days. Being also an avid fencer in the 80s, writing a couple books, then becoming a pilot who freaking flies the band around the world to their shows before getting onstage and belting out the songs for a couple hours. That ambition, that relentless drive, was something that very much impressed me as a young teen getting into them. Besides the music that I loved, their making stuff happen was hugely inspiring. It’s only been in the past couple years that I’ve begun to forgive myself for not making my own childhood dreams come true. How I would’ve loved that life. And although I don’t like the idea of consolation prizes, I did finally learn valuable lessons about myself from not getting it. I had that energy in my 20s and 30s, heck I still have a lot of it now, but early on I would stick with things that weren’t working way too long due to misguided loyalties instead of just forging on myself. I’ve made great strides in the past few years and I LOVE all the projects I’m working on, so there’s that. It is largely about the work. This great love of music I have, not just for the sounds themselves but for all the lore that goes with it, from everything that comes from ambition, is a great part of what I do. And having Maiden come back in my life to remind me of all this has been a wonderful wonderful thing

I love how as the doc goes on, whenever Another Sunny Day main man Harvey Williams is speaking they keep adding bands underneath his name. Harvey and I were good friends back in 2005/2006, hanging out and going to gigs, Harv even taking me to see Scritti Politti at The Luminaire for my 30th birthday. But we lost touch over the years as you do and I hadn’t seen him in over a decade. Inspired by the doc, I shot him an email that I’d be over and he invited me along to view Bonhams’ 50 Years Of Punk catalogue before everything went to auction

I’m up early again and heading down to Knightsbridge, the chichi area of London where Harrod’s is, yes I know, very punk rock. And that’s something I have to put to one side about all this. The people who made this stuff would never have dreamt of and very much disdained the idea of it going to private collectors for thousands of pounds. It was never about the money, except of course for Malcolm McLaren for whom cash and chaos seemed to be his raison d'être. I guess you could argue that repeatedly taking huge record company advances for the Pistols and then wiggling out of the contract to move on and do it again was more about the spectacle than the cash but that’s a discussion for another time. And anyway it’s Menace’s G.L.C. that’s stuck in my head the whole journey there, a tune Harvey and I bonded over years ago on LiveJournal. I think I know three people who know the band Menace, but G.L.C. and Last Year’s Youth are punk anthems everyone should be aware of

I’m not sure what I’m expecting but it isn’t what’s on display. Not that some of it isn’t very cool. Too many to fit here, but you can see my pics on IG. There’s Brian James’ handwritten lyrics to New Rose. Checking now, these went for £15,360, roughly $20,900. Also his SG guitar, positioned near two owned by Lou Reed, brands I’ve never heard of and doing little to impress besides the association with their previous owner, as well as a truly bizarre ax of Mick Jones’ that just screamed ‘80s cocaine’ - buttons instead of knobs and an LED screen to display the volume, whilst instead of frets the neck appeared to be stepped. Some great photos of Siouxsie, Debbie Harry, and The Jam, rad old gig flyers and fanzines, a heavily graffitied piece of the original Marquee dressing room, a rack of clothes with some Vivienne Westwoods, and other odds and ends. A bit puzzled but glad we went, Harvey and I decamp to a nearby caff to catch up

Since I’m in West London I decide to head to Notting Hill Gate, a part of town that’s very dear to me as it was Bayswater/Portobello Road that was my first ever taste of London in July 1992, hitting the ground immediately after getting off the plane and sniffing out the record stores, my nose leading me straight to the Rough Trade shop. As I excitedly strolled those streets, my 16-year-old self had a sense of finally being ‘home’. Today I’m exhausted though and it turns out I won’t get to Portobello and Rough Trade this trip. Walking out of Notting Hill Gate tube stop I am struck with a very strange sense of nostalgia, as if I’ve just stepped into 1998. Not a bad thing, but it has never occurred to me before how touristy the area is, focused as I’d always been on its record, book, and film shops. I hit these but nothing’s really calling to me. I have to stay out because Ben & Helen’s cleaner is there today so now quite hungry I head into central London and hit one of my favourite vegan spots in the world, Vantra. It used to be this wonderful buffet right outside Tottenham Court Road tube but has now turned into a more fancy restaurant on Wardour Street in Chinatown. I interviewed the owner Phun once for the Happy Cow website, him giving me one of my favourite quotes - “No garlic, makes people too horny. They can’t meditate.” I get the chia seed crackers with sunflower cheeze and mango which are DELICIOUS and then I’m going back and forth between the ramen and the curry, opt for the ramen but continue to question this choice. It’s very good, and hella nourishing, though I can’t help but feel if I were less tired I would appreciate this a whole lot more. Still, there’s a gluten-free toffee apple donut on the dessert menu and as I would love it if donuts were more widely gf and vegan I scarf one down as well

Strolling through Leicester Square to the few used bookshops that remain on Charing Cross Road but at some point I have to call it and head back to Crouch Hill. The cleaner gives me the side eye for coming back so early but she finishes my room and I collapse. This nap is EVEN MORE DELICIOUS than the meal I’ve just eaten and I feel positively wonderful when I wake up a few hours later. Then it’s back to work

Wednesday is spent working all day but when 5 PM rolls around I feel I’ve gotten everything done I need to for the record’s release on Friday. Heading up to the Hillbilly Social in N22 for Hettie Judah’s book signing/art show. Hannah Murgatroyd is exhibiting a couple lovely pieces and I’m hoping she’ll be there so we can finally meet in person. Helen from Shrag had introduced us over a decade ago now, Helen thinking I’d like Hannah’s writing, which I very much do. Hannah’s more focused on painting these days and I really like her work there too. Alas, she lives in Bath and won’t be here tonight. The Hillbilly Social is a small cafe that is jampacked for the event. I had met Hettie a couple years ago when she was in NYC promoting her Lapidarium: The Secret Lives Of Stones book. With that title, I had to go. Hettie is incredibly busy and very prolific, always doing something, and tonight she’s signing her latest book How to Enter the Art World…after a late start, a first career, illness, raising children, a crisis of confidence, leaving it in disgust... I introduce myself again to which she responds ‘What are you doing on this side of the pond? You just had a birthday, didn’t you?’ Always lovely to be remembered

Afterwards I hightail it to The Lexington where Charley Stone (no relation) is taking me to see Memorials for my birthday. Always great to see Charley, we catch up at the bar, her telling me about her time playing guitar on one of the latest Art Brut tours, then it’s upstairs to push our way to the front and be mesmerized by Memorials. They are SO GOOD. Cosmic grooves you just don’t want to end, interspersed with softer more melodic ethereal pieces. I’ve always liked what I heard on record and live they really sold me. Charley and I catch the 91 bus back to Crouch End, talking astrology and Dickon Edwards’ now-published-as-a-book diary. Kate was telling me how great this is too, I really must get a copy. I looked but couldn’t find it in any of the shops

Thursday I get some good writing done then it’s off to meet Sarll at The Cart & Horses in East London. In the first one of these recaps I had lamented that The Ruskin Arms had closed in 2018. The Ruskin Arms being where I always believed Iron Maiden had gotten their start. In the home videos released in the late 80s that I obsessed over, Steve Harris would be sat at the bar of The Ruskin Arms discussing their early days. On Saturday Kevin Reinhardt, hailing from just up the road, will tell me they ‘were taught in school’ it was The Ruskin Arms. Heh. Sarll seeing my post messages me that The Cart & Horses claims to be ‘THE BIRTHPLACE OF IRON MAIDEN’, and it’s a strong claim as Maiden played there weekly between 1976-1978

It’s a lovely sunny day as I make my way out east, and it must be said it was perfect though very un-London-like weather almost the entire time I was there - clear skies, warm sometimes hot, one doesn’t want to quote Blind Melon but ‘no rain’. Intrigued by the wonderful piece on him in Volcanic Tongue, I’m listening to Peter Brötzmann, the German saxophonist and huge influential figure in the European free jazz scene. This is Glorious Music. Beautiful chaotic noise not without its melodic elements that I often think is the sound of my soul. Brötzmann is a man who gave everything to his music because if that’s the life you want to live, that’s what you do. He even blew out his lungs - something I didn’t know was possible - from playing so hard as he strived to get his sound

So I’m thrilled at a new musical discovery and my happiness will only deepen as I come upon The Cart & Horses. The Maiden memorabilia is OVERWHELMING and my 13-year-old self is doing backflips inside. Again there’s way too many to post here, but my photos of the place are over at Instagram. One I didn’t have room for is that the doormat even says Iron Maiden. And below that is the view I had for Sarll and my couple hours there, during which they played Maiden the entire time

I loved how the door to the ladies’ room is the Twilight Zone single cover and to the men’s it’s The Trooper

There are signed photos galore, and professional press photos from very early on. I know Steve Harris was always very serious about making Maiden happen but getting press pics done is a level of commitment, financial and otherwise, that lots of bands don’t take so early in their careers. There are line-ups with him being the only name I recognize and a few changes along the way leading up to the crew that made the first record. A British Beer Guide with the title in the Maiden font boasts an intro by Bruce Dickinson. Plenty of bottles, cans, and glasses with different designs for the band’s own Trooper beer. Maiden used to play right upstairs where we are, though the venue was twice the size back then, before flats got put up in back. After that they built the venue in the basement where Steve Harris has played, the very accommodating woman behind the bar tells me as she shows me around. I daren’t ask about The Ruskin Arms, heh

I’m giddy as we spend a couple hours here, high on the Maiden memories, though it’s not just that. Although I’m only on orange juice, this is a lovely reminder of how pleasant day drinking is, something I used to spend a lot of time doing in my previous life here. I opt to walk back through Stratford to catch the Tube to Borough and meet David Shah for dinner. David’s chosen a Banh Mi place that he says has the best broth in London but although I’ve perused the menu ahead of time, the language barrier and my strict dietary habits aren’t able to reconcile so it’s a quick check of Happy Cow to find Silka, an Indian restaurant across the street. This is totally the right move as we’re given a comfy booth instead of the communal table we were at and it’s one of the best meals I will have this trip. I’m due to be going to a gig down the road afterwards and had initially thought we’d only be an hour or so but we end up dining for almost two and it’s a very enjoyable evening, not only reminiscing about the old days of The Soft Close-Ups but catching up on all manner of things in the music scene and otherwise. We say our goodbyes at London Bridge and I walk about halfway to the venue before I realize that I’ve had a really nice day so far, I’m tired now, and bed is beckoning. The right call as it turns out for the Tube is full of delays and I would’ve been pretty grumpy had I left it later

Friday morning I head down to North & 10 to meet Bill Drummond for tea. Great to catch up per usual and him laughing appreciatively at what I tell him about my next two books. His own current projects are of course amazing. The above 12” record is a result of The Tied Hands 480 day tour of the World Wide Web, during which various folks from around the world would host a poster of tied hands for 40 days on their site and also record a cover of The Shangri-La’s Past, Present & Future, collected here on the vinyl. Bill then pressed up 480 of these. He tells me that since all records are destined to end up in a charity shop anyway, he’s decided to bypass the middleman and distribute them straight to said shops, every Friday picking a different area of London to head to and give away 10 copies. This Friday it’s Crouch End and there’s also a record for me

Then it’s wayyyyyy down to Honor Oak again to meet Francesca for an encore edition of Amrutha and their out-of-this-world pakoras. This is also one of the two times per year I will treat myself to ice cream as vegan pistachio is on the menu. Great to spend part of the afternoon with such a good friend who I only get to see every couple of years these days. Then it’s the P4 new-route-number-for-me bus going well across South London to Brixton. I always smile whenever I pass Electric Avenue, I loved that song as a kid. Nice to see the Ritzy Cinema is still going, I snap this photo of Pam Grier they’ve got on the side of the building, and further down Coldharbour Lane is my destination, Bookmongers. So glad they still exist. I bought most of my Tom Sharpe novels there back in 2008. Very friendly folks behind the counter and good selection of books, though I already have all the ones I want

Heavenly have just gotten back from their east coast American tour. One of these days I’ll be near a city where they’re playing. I caught Marine Research and Tender Trap back in the day but never Heavenly. It’d be good to see Amelia and Rob while I’m over but they live well outside of London. Nevertheless, Amelia messages me that Rob’s playing bass for European Sun tonight in Hackney. Briefly stopping back in Crouch Hill, I hop on the Overground to be greeted at the door with ‘that’ll be £27, please’. They’re opening for a bigger band but still I was under the impression it would be more reasonable indiepop gig prices. £27 is a lot of money to catch a half hour opening set. I message Amelia to see if they can come outside after ES are done and since I’m in Hackney head over to check out Temple Of Seitan. Not so much with the gluten-free options. Just as I’m about to get back on the train, Amelia replies that she can pop outside for a quick chat. Which turns into a lovely 45 minute catch-up on the corner of Hackney Central Station

Saturday morning up early walking the abandoned train line to get to Crouch Hill Station to head out to Leytonstone, again so much easier than it was in the old days. Pete Paphides is giving a talk in the back garden of Stone Mini-Mart. I’ve followed Pete online for a while now. I’m a fan of what he does, he’s a Dolly Mixture fan, and doing cool stuff with his record label, Needle Mythology. As I’m sitting there waiting for the event to begin I am genuinely surprised to the point of even uttering a ‘holy crap!’ as David Harley walks up to me with a big smile. I have not seen him in years, probably since the last time the Close-Ups played. I had met David back in 2006 when Luxembourg did their secret gig at the rehearsal space in Camden to retire their old songs in order to make way for the coming album. I was launching H Bird at the time and David came down to our first gig at The Windmill, even buying a ticket ahead of time, and he was always a big supporter of the Close-Ups when we got going. It’s great to see him and catch up. Pete’s talk is awesome, very entertaining as he regales us with stories of interviewing Paul McCartney, Damon Albarn, Paul Weller, and others, and he’s even brought along Needle Mythology white label test pressings for anyone who wants one. I introduce myself and he hooks me up with the double LP of the Sensitive indiepop compilation. On my way out I run into Mark who runs the Rock N Roll Book Club who organized the event. Such an effusively cheerful guy and putting on great events and podcasts at the intersection of music and writing, so very much my thing

Back home for another delicious nap, sleep really being at a premium these days. Up in time to get my daily writing done and with an hour to spare before my evening plans, I head into town to check out Karma Sanctum Soho, the hotel that Iron Maiden owns. The woman behind the desk answers all my questions and Maiden are actually staying there this weekend ahead of the launch for their new documentary. I’m giddy with excitement and she tells me I can head up to the rooftop bar if I like and grab a drink. The hotel is very rock n roll in an upscale way. I have a wander then it’s out into the drizzle - the only rain I’ll get this whole trip - to head to Vantra again to meet Kevin and Keith for dinner. At which I get to have the curry I’d been eyeing the other day and it is wonderful. We all get the curry, actually, Keith even eating something at a vegan restaurant! Last one I took him to - Life Alive in Boston - he just nodded with a laugh ‘I’m alright’ and patiently waited as I munched down my Green Goddess bowl. Conversation gets quite precise as the two of them do quick calculations concerning the number of times William Shatner played a villain on Columbo

Kevin’s treating me to Patrick Fitzgerald from Kitchens Of Distinction’s gig at The 100 Club for my birthday. I’d had a Sex Pistols at The 100 Club poster on my bedroom wall when I was in junior high so it always seems a special place to me. And tonight I’m reminded of how early on I’d realized how amazing London is because you could be at a gig, turn around, and Miki from Lush could be standing right next to you. She’s dueting with Patrick tonight which is a bonus for everybody. The Soft Close-Ups are very much in the air today as I run into Colm, our bass player from when David and I expanded our ‘art-pop duo’ into the full live rock band. Great to see him and hear he’s making music again with Language Of Flowers

Patrick Fitzgerald is excellent. It’s a lovely set and feel-good vibe in the room. I always really liked Kitchens Of Distinction when I heard them and my best friend had The Death Of Cool in high school but I don’t really know their stuff well. I’ve been rectifying this since I’ve been home, listening to them everyday. Quick As Rainbows is a fantastic song, as is 4 Men. Everybody singing along to the latter is quite a moment

On to Feeling Gloomy’s Pet Shop Boys Special where Sean has put me on the guestlist. Stay for an hour, which is longer than I’d planned. Great to see him and Kitty one more time. Bump into Ben & Helen who are arriving just as I’m leaving but it’s again the right call. A very easy journey home and bed at a decent hour

Sunday, my last full day in town. Take Ben & Helen to Lydia’s for brunch to thank them for hosting me. Next down to the Tate Modern to meet Stephen Coates. Scheduling has been tight and I’m glad we can fit this in. I still can’t pass by the Thames without hearing Waterloo Sunset and going all wistful at the beauty of it all. Strolling a bit maudlin from Waterloo station to the Tate, with this song in my head and a tear in my eye, I actually say out loud to that dirty old river ‘it’s you I’m going to miss the most’. Great to catch up with Stephen, talking about our various creative projects, and agreeing to send each other demos of what we’re currently working on. I love what he’s been doing with his Bureau Of Lost Culture radio show and I anxiously await the next Real Tuesday Weld album

Back in Crouch Hill I desperately need to eat and shower before heading to the Shaftesbury Tavern down the other side of the hill for one last visit to the pub. Meeting Nicky’s daughters for the first time, though I’ve cast both their birth charts so I kinda already know them. Looking at their charts again at the table, I’m reminded that Julia is a double Dragon like me, which endears me to her. She’s got a very powerful chart overall, she’ll be a great artist if that’s the path she wants to go. But as is often the case with powerful charts, she’s a quiet and unassuming 13 year old, sitting there with her apple juice drawing, including the wonderful above pic of me, Sarll, and Keith Top Of The Pops. I tell her that us Dragons are magic and she smiles as if she knows

Lou, on the other hand, is giving me the business. Apparently she’d been singing Rachel On The Rooftops before they came but declines my request to hear it. She has a lot of questions though

Lou, age 11: ‘Are your songs on Spotify and Amazon and all them?’

Me: ‘They’re on Amazon and everywhere else but not on Spotify.’

Lou, age 11: ‘Oh, well I only use Spotify actually. Are you single?’

Nicky: ‘Why, are you going to set him up?’

Lou, age 11: ‘Nah, can’t be bothered.’

I hadn’t seen Blake in 15 years, since Duncan & Nicky’s wedding. When I first met Duncan, Blake soon asked him ‘who’s this friend of yours who’s got so many better stories than everyone else? Did you hire an American actor to make you seem more interesting or something?’ So in my best man speech, I introduced myself to the largely unfamiliar crowd as ‘the actor Duncan hired to impress John Blake.’ Always one for a niche reference, me

Ben & Helen arrive just as Nicky and co. are leaving, oddly echoing the change in the social scene 12 years ago. They’ve just been to a restaurant that serves Irn Bru ice cream and deep-fried Mars bars, and the night carries on. Talk again returns to Shatner on Columbo, Ben, excited the topic has come up, nails the correct answer - three - straight away. It’s a lovely send-off

Up early on this final morning. I haven’t really unpacked, just kept the suitcase open next to my bed, so packing isn’t that difficult. Though now I’ve acquired 4 12” vinyl records, 4 cds, and 9 books to fit in. A wander down to Crouch End with Ben & Helen for one final bagel and it’s perfect English weather for my last few hours here. The sky completely overcast, all white-grey with a pleasant chill in the air. I love it

Easy enough to get to Heathrow though despite attempting to be British about having to leave, it’s with quivering lower lip that I stroll to my gate. I’ve had two of the best weeks of my life, everything constantly coming up roses. A number of people have asked me what the highlight was and honestly, it’s impossible to choose. They all were

The daily writing hour produces some fantastic stuff for my professional Duck Duck Goose league short story then it’s time to head to Kate’s to work on a new (old) song. Drones On The Radio, which I wrote in London in 2005 and was due to be a Lullaby Oscillator song, though in later years I liked singing it as me. Thinking of contenders for the album, I remembered Drones and asked Kate if she’d play Wurlitzer on it. It’s so great to see her. Gosh, I’ve known Kate for 23 years now and we’ve made music together for a lot of these. After catching up and learning that I am as tall as Elvis - a fact that pleases me in a very profound way, Burning Love being my favourite song of all-time, and since you asked, there’s a fun chart on the wall to measure her daughter’s height - after all that, we get down to the song and Kate sprinkles some of her magic and I’m very happy at how it’s going to come out. With school pick-up on the horizon, she draws me a map of Stoke Newington, marking its bookshops and vegan spots, and I’m off. Right away, rounding the corner for Church Street, I happen upon a bakery that has one gluten-free vegan option - almond lemon balls - and my goodness they are so good not 50 steps down the road I turn heel to rush back for more

I still get a nice warm feeling browsing bookshops even though I already have most of what I’d buy. There is a heck of a lot of Donleavy in Abney Books, which always does the heart good to see. Peckish, I begin to look around for something to suit my gluten-free vegan needs and lo and behold as if by magic All Nations Vegan House appears on the horizon. The awesome woman behind the counter insisting on putting together a sampler plate of all their gf options in order for me to decide what I want. Truth be told, I’m quite full after finishing this, and most of the options have been delicious, all Caribbean Ital food, but wanting to support the place I order the oyster mushrooms and greens with the sweet potato wedges and it’s a good thing I did too. Scarfing most of it down on the bus ride back proving wise as I do not have time to eat again for the rest of the day. There is also a sarsaparilla iced tea that is TO DIE FOR. OMG, I thought about it every day afterwards and meant to make the 1.5 hour round trip just for that. Upon leaving the restaurant I run into David Barker again, more great stories, about hanging out with Kurt Cobain and The Afghan Whigs in the 90s, and the cool releases he himself is working on these days

Just enough time to head down to The King’s Head where I’d hired out the downstairs room, explaining to them when I get there how I’ve had so many cancellations we’ll be far from my original head count. They are very cool about this, shutting the downstairs bar and foregoing the minimum spend, and I tip them quite well for their trouble. In the end there are about 20 or so of us and, as Helen pointed out next day, ‘the guest list was immaculate.’ Rachel even coming up from Brighton and bearing gifts - a 7”, her Lyra cd, a couple badges, an Ernie Ball guitar pick they wrote the Dolly Mixture song about, and this lovely postcard where she drew the places we’d gone to in Brighton a few days before

Sarll brings me a Beekeeper lego figurine, and there are so many lovely cards from people, including this one from David Ryder Prangley

So great to see everybody. And I’m always amazed at how Sean Clothier’s mind works. Years ago when I asked Sean why he didn’t do his improv troupe anymore, he told me ‘aw man, the comedy scene is even worse than the music scene. You have people who are always ‘on’ all the time.’ I would often think of this when I was later doing comedy. But the thing is Sean himself is always on. It’s not even jokes-per-minute, it would be more fair to say jokes-per-second, and the sheer joy with which he tells them carries the volume into something approaching perpetual mirth. Which might be an odd way to put it considering how many of these reference goth bands

We close the place out and I’m buzzing so much from how amazing the day has been I don’t fall asleep until almost 4. And despite not having had a drink in almost 14 years, I actually feel hungover the next day from all the excitement

On the agenda for today is a trip down to the South Bank to browse the bookseller tables lined up along the Thames near the BFI. I have loved lingering over these since Kasia first took me here 20 years ago now. And I believe the last time I saw Rachel of Rachel On The Rooftops we wandered thru, perusing on our walk to the Old Vic. Somewhere in between these times I came across a book called The Mad Motorists, and already intrigued by the title, I was sold when upon opening the volume the dedication read ‘To The Lady With Whom I Motor’. Reading this book got me obsessed with the 1907 Peking To Paris race, hoping one day to write a comic about it, and very much to take part in a recreation of the trek myself. On this particular Saturday it’s a late start and when I reach the Thames Waterloo Sunset immediately gets stuck in my head. A mix of the maudlin and wondrous comes over me, a deep love for this city and all my time here whilst recognizing how temporary the latter is these days. That song and that feeling will hence be inevitable whenever the ‘dirty old river’ comes into view

I’m in the market for these two Roald Dahl short story collections. Have you read any of his adult fiction? A lot is quite macabre. And then there’s My Uncle Oswald that I read on the flight to the L.A. AWP, which is about ‘the greatest fornicator in the world’. I owned the below edition of Kiss Kiss years ago and cannot find my copy. I absolutely love these covers and very much want them in my collection. I love that cover so much I’m even considering calling the album Kiss Kiss

No luck with these though I do snag The Penguin Book Of Modern Humor (1984) and finally pick up Clarice Lispector’s Near To The Wild Heart. A lot of people have been raving about Lispector in recent years and it was this one that the woman at The Whispering Shelf in Indianapolis whilst I was on a mini Sporting Moustaches tour told me to get after convincing me I needed to read Lispector. Wander through the BFI, go to their library for the first time which is pretty cool, then hit Wagamama, remembering how back in the days of alpha-numeric texting ‘Wagamama’ was great because it was just one tap on each button heh. Head back to Ben & Helen’s. Ben’s already asleep, hang with Helen for a bit, then attempt to watch The Legend Of The 7 Golden Vampires but I’m so tired I only make it about a half hour in before bed is calling

I’ve been here over a week now and still haven’t figured out eating at home. All the brands at the supermarket have changed since my last trip and I haven’t found much to my liking. I spied a cereal that might do the trick last week but for some reason the packaging didn’t say gluten-free so I call the company next day and now that I have a bit of free time this Sunday it’s back up to Kinks homestead Muswell Hill to the Planet Organic to stock up. Start off having to run for the bus, then halfway along the ride I spot that the farmer’s market is set up along Alexandra Palace, where I’ve never been before, so I hop off next stop for a wander. It’s a bit late in the afternoon so all the gf vegan treats have sold out but a very friendly chap with three huge stirring pots in front of him heaps me a pile of his vegan curry sans the chickpeas per my request. It’s delish and just what I need. Finding myself at the bottom of the hill and it only being two bus stops to the end, I decide to walk it. This turning out to very much be exercise day. Popping in first to Muswell Hill Books & Parlour, a lovely little shop just opened in September, the owner having briefly taken over the Camden Lock Black Gull Books when they were in the process of closing. Man, I LOVED both locations of Black Gull Books. I find a paperback of Wodehouse’s The Pothunters (imagine if this was about weed? lol) and much to my delight it also contains his second and third novels, enabling me to cross all three off my ‘Wodehouse Books To Look For’ list in my Notes app. It’s my goal to read all 91 and I’m a little over halfway thru. Oh yes, on my birthday I started the day listening to the Cocktail Time audiobook, reminding me there simply is no better prose stylist than P.G. himself. Stock up on cereal and more probiotics to then grab the bus home and head out to karaoke

It’s very much a tradition for all of us. Ben & co. now have Karaoke Club that meets whenever they can, and starting at my 28th birthday I’ve more often than not celebrated by karaoking in London. I remember feeling trepidation during the lead up to that night of my 28th. For all Clare & Paul would tell me was ‘we’re taking you to a dark room in Soho and there will be Ladyboys there’. For those of you who don’t know, parts of Soho are notorious for brothels, strip clubs, and adult shops. And on this latest trip, Clare informs me that KaraokeBox where we used to go was indeed an ex-brothel. Very evident by the room set-up as I think back on it now, and that night of my 28th Clare and I having to be physically removed from one of those rooms as we refused to leave until we’d finished singing Catatonia’s Road Rage, channeling Cerys Matthews all the way until the end. And the Ladyboys turned out to be the name of a cocktail

We rush in and I kick thinks off with Burning Love and go on to hit Dancing In The Dark and Will You Love Me Tomorrow. I always forget that that song is associated with Amy Winehouse over there but for me it’ll always be The Shirelles. Clare tells them it’s my birthday for the free round of shots you get and wanting to take part I go ask for a virgin one. It is remarkable how, even having not had a drink for so long, muscle memory kicks in and the simple act of throwing one back has my body in a state of high expectation for a few minutes. It used to be so much about all the adventures that would unfold…

A good decade or so ago, around the time we became known as The Studbudz, Sean and I dueted on Robyn’s Dancing On My Own and it was so fantastic we never miss a chance to again. Sean lines up With Or Without You too, as Kitty points out ‘U2 have a lot of great songs, but maybe they’d be better without Bono singing them’ and she’s trying to get Sean to sing as many as they can in stops all over the globe, the two of them heading to Japan soon. I realize it’s imposing but I ask Sean if I can join in and he readily agrees, making for another moving rendition. At this rate, the Studbudz will have a full repertoire by, oh, 2084 or so…

I sing Iron Maiden’s The Trooper for the first time and crowd favourite David Lee Roth’s Just A Gigolo and too soon it’s all over but not before Kitty has put in Roy Orbison’s You Got It. A wonderful, wonderful song and a great group singalong to end on. It also reminding me of a memory I hold dear - being at the fantastic vegan restaurant Wild Cow in Nashville, The Traveling Wilburys’ Handle With Care on the jukebox, and when it gets to the ‘everybody’s got somebody to lean on’ part THE ENTIRE RESTAURANT looked up, nodding their heads along in recognition of what an excellent song this is. Instead of booking another hour we opt to head to the Highbury & Islington ‘Spoons to hang. Emma Cooper and I having quite a long detailed and it must be said excitable conversation about MCR, much to the bafflement of the rest of the group

Monday is a work day. The Middle People album is out on Friday and I’m having trouble getting much traction for them, which is a bummer cuz Mikey is one of my all-time favourite songwriters and I had such luck on my first three PR campaigns. I’ll have to do this a few days this week. Plus their Warmer In The Middle Of The Road, which Mikey wrote on a train in Georgia (country, not state), sees him tapping into his inner Mark E. Smith and totally earworms me for most of this trip

Finish up in time to head out to Hackney to hit WAVE - We Are Vegan Everything - that Kate and I went to last time I was over. It had been delish, tho when I arrive today the kitchen is closed. No fear, they have gf vegan sausage rolls out which are quite tasty too. Then it’s on to Umit & Son, home of the Ciné Real film club, “the only film club in the UK to exclusively screen films on 16mm”. It’s a wonderful little shop, piled floor to ceiling with VHS tapes, film canisters, and posters. Plus a 17-seat cinema in back that you can rent out for showings from their archive. Ben and I are both thinking of doing this. There’s a lot of Hitchcock in said archive and I’m psyched to see reels of Masculin Feminin, and wow just noticing now in the photo it’s A Matter Of Life And Death above it

The owner, who reminds me of Can’s Holger Czukay, tells me they host larger showings at The Castle Cinema just up the road so I mosey over to take a look. Very cool lounge, friendly staff, some good stuff on, and of course I like the green

After popping in, I find myself at a crossroads, I had wanted to hit Flashback Shoreditch and say hello to Jimmy Martin but as I’m out in Homerton everything seems very far away and not easy to get to, and I have to be back for the quiz. Plus I feel myself being led out to Dalston and Burley Fisher Books, ostensibly for the Roald Dahls. They don’t have these but as I’m looking thru the Music section I spot another book on my list, David Keenan’s Volcanic Tongue. It’s the only new book I will buy this trip and again it very much feels like I’ve been guided here to get it. On the Overground journey back I can see why. Opening chapter about The Pastels is so endearing I’m immediately sold. He’s 17 and never been to a gig before so he asks his dad what they’re like. “At concerts, he said, it was mostly couples. You wore a suit and tie, ordered some food, and watched the show from your table.” His dad then takes him to the club where The Pastels are playing and makes sure he gets in. But not before getting mistaken for a bouncer and taking up the role with gusto as he also moves into the club. Even with all this, when David gets home that night he knows this is the life for him

Then hightailing it to The Lexington. I’m so tired by now that if I hadn’t committed the day before I def would not be going. But it’s great to see Charley Stone on the door and our team - Van Maiden, I dub us - does respectably. I won’t name names but it comes up that one of our team had the piss taken out of him for answering ‘Christina Aguilera’ to the question ‘Out of everyone in history, who would you most like to make out with the most?’ The rest of our team agree this is a perfectly acceptable answer and I’m made aware of her 2004 UK Skechers campaign which I promptly look up when I return home

Skechers had never really crossed my mind before but they have now. And I find myself pondering the question, though it’s my initial reaction of Cleopatra that I think I’ll go with. My six-year-old inner child also piping up with Cynthia Rhodes circa 1982-1987. I’m unbelievably tired on the long bus trip home but I still manage to have a detailed conversation with DRP about the minutiae of KISS’ 1980 Unmasked tour (only 1 US date!), That stuff is just ingrained in me and I guess I can do it in my sleep. An activity that will be at a premium for the rest of the trip

Slept for three hours and was right as rain. Ben was ill and Helen in Rome so I opted to head to Skoob (that’s ‘books’ backwards), a great used bookshop near Russell Square I used to love going to and hadn’t been in over a decade. It was such a lovely evening out I strolled on to Foyle’s, neither shop having anything I was looking for but that doesn’t much matter, it was simply wonderful to be back in London again, noticing how my relationship with it has changed. This is only my second visit in 10 years which would’ve once been inconceivable to me, and the city that first night felt very much like an ex whom you’ve had an intensely passionate relationship with but now that time has moved on and everything’s cooled down you can just be friends. Which is always nice. Up to the Angel Planet Organic to try and figure out how I’m going to eat this trip - still an issue as I write this a week later - then up to Red Rose Tandoori, the Indian restaurant on Holloway Road beloved by The Darkness and Jeremy Corbyn. As delish as I remember. Die Hard is on telly when I get back and as I’m quite exhausted this seems pretty perfect. I had forgotten how much I like this movie, I’m not sure I’ve seen it in decades, and you will never be able to convince me that’s not Huey Lewis manning the front desk at Nakatomi Plaza

Saturday more bagels, working on the Duck Duck Goose story, then it’s down to Honor Oak in way south London to meet Francesca for dinner at Amrutha. Excellent to see her as always, though I’ve known her for 20 years now and it’s only tonight she seems to be putting on this Northern meat and potatoes grumpiness towards all other vegetables air. Still, I’m touched when she tells me I’m the only person she’d go to a vegan restaurant for. The food was AMAZING! That cauliflower pakora, out of this world. And I was delighted to see they had peanut butter & jelly gluten-free vegan cheezecake for dessert

I ask for a ride back to New Cross to catch the train, not revealing that it is my secret intention to go snap a photo of Uncle Wrinkle Chinese Takeaway, a sign that has always brought me great joy since my days of lugging guitars down to David Shah’s place so we could work on Soft Close-Ups material, gosh, since 2008. It used to be having to catch the Northern Line then long buses down the Old Kent Road. That’s very much changed too

It’s late when I get back and Ben and I are both tired but I say to him ‘Friends of mine have been trying to get me into horror films, believing it to be the genre truest to life. I know you’re a big fan so if there’s any -’ and before I can finish he’s whipping around the flat, grabbing dvds from all over, and ten seconds later there’s a giant pile on the dining room table that he’s hoping we can get thru in my two weeks here. Heh

Sunday Ben is out indulging a friend’s new nautical-themed movie fascination at the BFI which reminds me I really want to go there while I’ve over and has the added bonus of all the bookseller tables lined up along the Thames nearby. I like going to used bookshops but checking online so many of the great ones have closed, which is sad. I had also planned on finally trekking out to East Ham while I’m here to see The Ruskin Arms pub where Iron Maiden got their start, something I’ve meant to do since 2005 but that too closed in 2018. I note that Walden Books is, against all odds, still open. A tiny little shop near Chalk Farm. I set out on this sunny Sunday and its very much a wonderful feeling as Kentish Town was where I lived when I first came to London. Again noting how much has changed. The Knights Of The Empire Indian restaurant right across from Kentish Town tube station is no longer there. The site of one of my favourite, and saddest, stories. Remind me to tell you sometime. But the venues kept coming, as did the memories. And I began to feel like I was saying goodbye, but in the most wonderful way. I remember my grandmother’s caretaker telling us that a couple days before she died, she asked her to take her through every room in her house and stood in each one for quite some time. This thought came to me as I was walking around for truth be told, up until a few weeks ago, all year I had had this strange feeling that I was going to die this year. For the life of me I couldn’t think past May 4th, the day I fly back from London. I got my affairs in order and it will be fine but also I’m not going to die, heh, there’s too much I want to get done. And I now definitely have plans for the rest of the year. This stroll - the bookshop being only a nominal target - made me very happy indeed as so much came into view both physically and mentally that I had forgotten about - The Enterprise where I saw Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, The Monarch, site of so much hijinx, is now a Big Red, seeing Inch Blue at The Verge, the Mario’s Cafe sign is gone (‘and did you see The KLF last night?’), and Drinkers Paradise which was the inspiration for the British Drunken Secret Service Headquarters in my Off-License To Kill, the first proper book I ever wrote, very much inspired by those first three months in London. Hiking up the hill to my first ever flat on Lady Margaret Road really took me back and I was filled with a joy and overwhelming gratitude that I got to experience it all

Back to Ben’s where Wolfen is on the agenda. Monday is a day very much dedicated to work. Been doing that a lot while I’m here. I don’t think of this as vacation. I don’t particularly like vacations anyway, I always want to be getting stuff done. Still trying to get coverage for The Middle People. The upcoming single is so good and Mikey’s one of my all-time favourite songwriters but despite having had such good luck with the first three acts I was handling with Fire Horse PR, this one is proving a tough nut to crack. Only thing to do is keep at it. Plus I’ve got another campaign I’m waiting for a release date on. It would be great if I didn’t have to start working it next week as the first week is always the most work intensive and there’s a bunch I want to do in London but we’ll see how the cookie crumbles. Long day which Ben and I cap off with watching The Fog, which I dug. Ben tells me he watches it every year and that he’s such a fan, that when he saw John Carpenter and he played the theme tune Ben actually wept. Also, when he and Helen were visiting San Francisco, Helen hired a car to take them the hour and a half drive to the lighthouse. Twas cool how the film starts “In five minutes it will be the 21st of April” and we watched this on April 20th. Helen got home late and we had a quick catch-up but everyone was knackered so it was off to bed

To head to Brighton on Tuesday. I love Brighton and it was an excellent feeling to walk out of the station and peer down the hill at the sea remembering how much I do. Last time I was here I remember we went because Ben had the goal of eating chips and drinking a Coke on the beach. Easily achievable. But Ben reminded me that there was a whole kerfuffle because I really wanted to buy vegan shoes from Vegetarian Shoes but with my wide big feet this posed a problem, especially as I bought them and only later admitted that they did not fit, necessitating returning them. To Brighton. Off the train to Iydea, the veg canteen-style cafe in The Lanes that I always like to go to. Then Rachel Love came to meet us. Yes, Rachel from one of my all-time favourite bands, Dolly Mixture, who I wrote about here. The first time I heard them was one of those life-changing experiences. And she sang on my single last year, Rachel On The Rooftops, adding those gorgeous backing vocals that were so good we isolated them for the transcendent end

We went to Wax Factor, which is now just a record shop, too bad as they used to be half recordshop half bookshop making it an ideal location, or ‘heaven’, as I used to refer to it. Then wandering down The Lanes, Rachel buying a top in a vintage shop because ‘it’s very Railcard’, her new supergroup with Peter Momtchiloff, Ian Button, and Allison Thomson. No one had any good 70s disco shirts. Though it soon became apparent that the goal for this Brighton excursion was to find vintage postcards. Which you would think would be easy to do in a seaside town. But you’d be wrong. Lauren Lavín sent me a postcard along with her book The Third Beat when I ordered it, with instructions to send it along. So, wanting to keep it in the indie lit community, I sent it to Mallory Smart. And was reminded how much I enjoy sending postcards to people. Ben got into it too and wanted to post one to Helen from Brighton. We wandered all the way down to the beach without having any luck. Thinking that might change on the pier, we headed there. Alas, though this was my first time out on the pier and I quite enjoyed it. We did, however, spot a pair of gloves floating in the sea. As Ben pointed out, someone losing one would make sense, but both?? There’s a story there

Came up empty at the museum at The Pavilion, and it was my first time walking past this too. All the while having a lovely time though, Rachel telling us about living here with Captain Sensible in the 80s. Heading back into town now we decided to look further down the Google results for “vintage postcards Brighton” and were thus directed to Step Back In Time where we were now spoiled for choice, in fact overwhelmed, by what was on offer

We each bought some then wandered back thru The Lanes to the station, stopping for a cup of tea and then this photo was a must, me being a double Dragon in Chinese Astrology and green has always been my favourite colour

An issue now being there was not a postbox in site. Which seemed odd for a major rail station. But Rachel kindly offered to post Ben’s for him when she got home

The less said about Wednesday, the better. Haha. Everything seemed to take six times longer than I had planned

Weather has been great so far and today was very summery as I caught the buses to Stoke Newington to meet Glass Records main man David Barker. I’ve long been a fan of Glass - David J, The Jacobites, Nikki Sudden, Epic Soundtracks, Spacemen 3, The Pastels… - and I had interviewed David a couple years back for the Counterforce podcast, so I suggested we meet up while I’m over. I thought it’d just be for a quick cup of tea but no, we sat in a cafe for two hours talking, well, music of course. I hadn’t realized he put out that first Teenage Fanclub record and he regaled me with tales of touring the world with them and The Jazz Butcher. Talked Miles, Alice Coltrane, Pantherman, Zeppelin, The Stones, even Aerosmith, who he saw do a secret gig at The Marquee Club in the early 90s. David also brought me these cds which is awesome. Everyone’s raving about this Radhika album, I love wor_kspace’s cover of The Perfect Disaster’s Bluebell on Remade/Remodelled, an excellent comp which I’m now psyched to own a physical copy of. I gave it a great review for The Quietus

Everyone’s going to a gig tonight but I don’t particularly feel like going. One valuable lesson I’ve only learned in the past couple of years is that if you don’t feel like doing something, don’t do it. Seems so simple. Be nice to stay in tonight

So I’ll be 50 tomorrow. I can hardly believe it. What a strange time it’s been. When I was doing stand-up sometimes I’d tell real life stories to which the audience would come up afterwards incredulous and suggesting changes. And I’d have to respond ‘but that’s exactly what happened’, which puzzled them even more. ‘That was really true?’ My sister once told me ‘you’re hard to explain to people’. Haha. And I do recognize that I have been very fortunate in my life to have done all the things I’ve done. Though I don’t think about the past much, hardly at all these days. There was so much heartbreak, sadness, and disappointment. So many things I wish I had gotten over my own shyness about doing. There were good times too, but there’s so much I want to get done now it hardly seems worth purposely reliving either. Though I was surprised recently when I was in the studio working on the b-side for the new single. I wrote it 10 years ago after J moved away. I had gone to visit her and when I came back I was so sad she was gone I picked up my guitar and wrote one of my sweetest songs, chinese stars. And although we haven’t been in touch in oh probably 5 years, while I was building up the Here Come The Warm Jets-esque end section that day in the studio, I stumbled upon a new melody that somehow seemed to capture everything I once felt about her. So the past is always there, always streaming along concurrently. I just don’t feel the need to prod it these days. It will appear of its own accord if it needs to. And of all those heartbreaks and disappointments, I said to my therapist the other day I would take them all again to be where I’m at now, the creative force I have become, that I always knew myself to be

Mark Forward has a new stand-up special out, Safari Time, and it is phenomenal. It might even be *too* good. I say this because there came a point - quite early on too - where I found I just couldn’t physically laugh as much anymore, as I had been laughing so hard and so often consistently throughout. I’ve taken to watching it again in more bite-sized chunks and it really is that hilarious. 15 minutes will give you more than enough laughs for the day. Genius stuff. Highly recommended

I also see that his Mark Forward Wins All The Awards is now on YouTube. I had a secret link of this for a while and I’m fairly certain it is my favourite comedy special of all-time. Again, non-stop laughs. Really freaking funny

Treat yourself to these and also this short film below. My goodness, everything about Chantal Akerman’s J’ai Faim J’ai Froid (I’m Hungry, I’m Cold) is heart-burstingly lovely. Like all the best films (Daisies, Céline & Julie Go Boating…) it’s just two girls doing whatever the hell they want. And it’s 3 hours and 10 minutes shorter than Jeanne Dielman. It’s not subtitled in English so I turned on YouTube’s closed captions, though I then found the French fairly easy to understand anyway. Go on, it’s only 13 minutes long

Keeping on the French tip (ok, Akerman is Belgian but same language), I went down to Villa Albertine, the French Institute for Culture and Education in NYC, a couple weeks ago for a talk with Pierre-Henry Gomont. Gomont is one of my favourite comics artists and writers. His illustrations and use of colour are so beautiful. And his stories are wild. Did you know someone stole Einstein’s brain right after he died? Although Einstein forbid this, pathologist Dr. Thomas Stoltz Harvey removed and stole the organ because he believed it should be studied for the sake of science. He was on the lamb for many years - Philadelphia, Kansas, Missouri… - periodically sending sections of Einstein’s brain to scientists to examine. Although Gomont freely admits within the text to “woefully wandering” from “the anchor of historical fact”, Brain Drain is a fantastic read. The English version only being available digitally, I bought the hardcover in French and though I’m rarely one for autographs, I had him sign it. Very glad I did as this is lovely:

Love the covers for the albums too:

He was in town to promote his latest book out now in English as Soviet Land, all about the unscrupulous looting that took place right after the fall of the Soviet Union. It comes complete with a wonderfully insane cast of characters. I love his blues throughout the book especially these twilight shades

I introduced myself to his interviewer Karen Green afterwards as she’s doing some cool stuff with comics at Columbia University and she said “Oh, Aug Stone, I stole my question about his use of the color red from your review.” That was very cool. My TCJ review here

posted Valerie Loves Me a few weeks ago and I have been listening to A LOT of Material Issue since. They were SO GOOD. I remember it was a couple weeks into my first year at Boston University. I really didn’t want to be there - my family had guilted me into studying something practical - but the one good thing about Boston was access to so much great music. The record stores were amazing back then - Second Coming, Mystery Train, Newbury Comics… - and despite Boston not being a big college town, bands were always coming through. But this happened in the dorms. This guy Yanni on my floor had his door open and issuing from it was this incredible pop music, so I popped my head in to ask what it was. I didn’t really know Yanni and he was a jock, though one of those rare cool jocks that had good taste in music and actually treated people with respect, and anyways the power of music always overcame my shyness. He told me it was Material Issue and I immediately went out the next day and bought all three of their albums - International Pop Overthrow, Destination Universe, and Freak City Soundtrack. Writing them out because they have great names and I am always one to appreciate a good title

Valerie Loves Me is a such a fantastic pop tune. Unique, in that I can’t think of anything else that really sounds like it. I love the verse melody and how it carries on longer than you’d expect. Plus there’s no real chorus per se, just a shout of the title. It’s full of melancholy and longing, but also some hints of joy and pin pricks of ego. A wonderful mix of emotion

From the second album, it’s all about Next Big Thing for me. Such a lovely, lovely song

And off the third one, I absolutely LOVE Goin’ Through Your Purse. It freaking rocks, and is almost like a proto-MCR. The love with which they talk about making the third record with producer Mike Chapman is really inspiring. That’s in the documentary, which is free on TUBI. I watched it right after Chris posted about them and found it pretty heartbreaking. They had such great songs and worked so hard and never got to the level they deserved. And of course half the doc is about Jim’s suicide, which is tragic. He was so talented and had such a strong vision for the band he wanted. But it was good to be reminded of how special they were. And also got me thinking that Chicago was really where it was at in the States in the 90s, much more so than Seattle. And you gotta love their collab with Liz Phair on the Banana Splits theme song. She is fantastic in this video

Two weeks til my birthday and it’s the big 5-0 this year. After the 24th, I’ll be on the back nine. I keep referring to it as such, though Vic and I were laughing the other day about the possibility of either of us living to see 100. Though with my healthy lifestyle these days… of which I’m torn about, what a terrible thing it would be to have to watch everyone I love pass away. On a more positive note, although it didn’t seem like it really at all most of the time, 49 was actually one of the best years of my life. It was difficult as hell but I got SO MUCH done. A couple years ago I described myself to an ex-girlfriend as ‘a creative volcano’ and this has only gotten more effusive as time has gone on. With this year of the Fire Horse and me having been born on a Fire Horse day, it’s the most Yang you’re gonna get, and I’ve got SO MANY projects I wanna make happen, that I am making happen. And it’s wonderful. I’m so excited to bring these into the world. On Chani Nicholas’ podcast the other week for us Sag Risings, she said ‘pick your project and move heaven and earth to make it happen’. I wish I could pick just one. It seems like I’m doing that for at least three at any given time. I talked about how one should never spend too long licking one’s wounds a couple Counterforces ago. I did that way too much as a young man, retreating in order to figure things out, or just plain daydreaming, and I wasted so much time. Especially with the energy I had then. I’ve been forever trying to make up for that. Though in no way do I feel like I’m going to be 50. I still feel like I’m 18, 25 at the most. And thankfully people often think I’m 38, which I will happily take. But four books and a couple hundred songs does not seem like a lot to me. Especially with all that I’ve had in my head these many years, all that I’ve wanted to make happen. It’d be nice to have a life too lol Though life has always been tied to all this. Most of the wonderful things I have have come from simply pursuing music and writing. All the good stuff. May it continue

Tim Dagger Zine is putting out another volume of his Where The Wild Gigs Were – A Trip Thru America’s Underground Music Venues and I’ve contributed a piece on The Tune Inn. New Haven, Connecticut’s all ages hole in the wall underground music venue that existed from 1991-2002. Although now it’s impossible to envision how a club could’ve existed down that tiny side street by the Green, at the time it felt really important, that we had something too here in CT. Looking for old flyers/pics to accompany my piece, I was overjoyed yesterday that Jim still had this clipping from the New Haven Advocate from August 1995 advertising our band Inbetween opening for Strung Out and The Vandals. That was an amazing culmination to a summer of a lot of hard work. The place was packed, we were opening for punk legends The Vandals, Strung Out were on Fat Wreck Chords and were incredibly cool to us, and here I was finally getting to play at a club I’d spent so much of my teenage time at. Then the next week we were all back off to school and as tensions had been very much increasing in the band, we broke up. Seeing each other again at Thanksgiving was awkward and felt really bad. We rallied for one final show - a disaster - then went back into the studio in February to record three really good songs for a comp. We were pressed for time though, and I’ve never been completely happy with the results. I played my ass off on the lead part for Bride Of The Monster to the point where everybody in the control room applauded when I was done, but then it got buried in the mix and there wasn’t time to redo it

Cognizant that our friendship was the most important thing, the following summer we didn’t even attempt to make music together. Well, Chris and Jim were in another band at this point, 595, and I wished them all the best, helping out where I could, even sitting on stage holding Jim’s kick drum in place when it was revealed there was no cinder block to do so, jumping on stage with them at Toad’s Place to sing The Misfits’ Where Eagles Dare with Chris. The summer we had the band, 1995, has always been known as ‘The Summer Of Movies’. For although it seemed we were constantly practising, playing shows, or working on Inbetween in some way, we spent just as much time in front of the TV with a film on. The summer of 96 would become known as ‘The Summer Of Drugs’ and was a lot less tense heh

One night, having left the bar early - I was still underage but you could get served in New Haven pretty easily, heck, I remember cops even buying us drinks on occasion - but this particular night Jenn D and I were back at her and Chris’ place waiting for everybody else to return. And out of nowhere Jenn said to me ‘Aug, when are you going to start making music again?!’ The tone in her voice and feeling within me as I received this question marking it as one of the utmost importance. I think back to this moment often, as a sort of guiding principle. The ultimate break-up of the band, after we had put so much into it, was pretty devastating to me and I didn’t want to experience all that hurt and disappointment again. So I did what I often did back then which was to retreat and lick my wounds. One of the most valuable lessons, which took me way too long to learn, is NEVER DO THIS. Always keep going, no matter how much it hurts. It’s the only way to get anything done

Anyway, I was an intensely shy young man, but for some reason that night I felt comfortable enough to talk to Jenn D, who I didn’t even know that well, about stuff I kept very secret - the music I dreamed of making. Which basically boiled down to ‘I want to do something that sounds like a cross between Smashing Pumpkins and Suede’. Jenn and I talked for a while longer, touching on Krautrock and Spiritualized, and I’ll never forget that when the others arrived back from the bar Jenn ended our tête-à-tête with the words ‘Go make your flying pumpkin music!’

About a month later, Joe picked me up and we’re driving the U-Haul up to Boston to start my junior year in my first ever apartment. Talk again has turned to the above and I can still remember exactly where we were - taking Exit 29 in Hartford to get on 84 - when I again repeated ‘I want to make music that sounds like a cross between Smashing Pumpkins and Suede’. Now, Joe has always been a really cool guy and a great friend, but I remember being nervous because at that point the Pumpkins weren’t exactly considered ‘cool’ in the indie-rock community. I didn’t care, and when Perry and I would play guitars, Thirty-Three, In The Arms Of Sleep, and Mayonnaise were always met with big singalongs, but I - always self-conscious - was aware of how others viewed William Patrick Corgan and co. So I was quite surprised when Joe said ‘that sounds awesome. I hope you do.’ Having never felt encouraged in anything I wanted to do, in fact often feeling quite the opposite when it came to any artistic pursuit, this felt nothing less than shocking to me

The new single I’m working on is called Sour Apple. A song I had the melodic idea for in 2004 - yes 2004 - and then promptly forgot about until the beginning of 2025. It came back to me when it was old enough to drink. I love it, feel it’s a song I was always meant to write. And like that, I mentioned my new song B Softly last Counterforce. A lot of things came and went musically since 1996 and that Suede/Smashing Pumpkins thing, like much else, got lost in the shuffle. We recorded a demo of B Softly last week in the studio and I love it so much that I’m now going to release the acoustic version as a b-side to Sour Apple. Listening back, I realize I’ve achieved that goal of something that sounds like a cross between those two bands I dearly love. And that feels amazing. When I wrote it last Tuesday it seemed like a moment out of time. I sat there intensely focused on something that felt like was coming through from a part of myself I had been hitherto unaware. Like a hidden space opened up and gifted me something of beauty. It was uncomfortable as hell, but gosh do I love it

Although I have trouble reconciling this idea with my love of for lack of a better term ‘the entertainment world’, especially the sounds and stories of the music biz, I’ve often felt that it almost doesn’t matter what you do, which discipline you choose, the point of creating anything is to effect some change in yourself, ideally something healing and expanding. The physical thing created is more of a by-product of the process. This got me thinking about a self-portrait I did in 2019. I used to paint and draw when I was a kid and I really wish I still did though there’s only so much time. But in 2019, thinking about all my blocks, especially when it came to speaking, I went out and bought paints and brushes to paint my torso from neck to waist. A brick wall blocking up my throat above a raging carnival of fire in heart and guts. A few years later, 2021 I think, still troubled by something, I took that painting out to the backyard with a hammer and smashed it up. The effect was a lot stronger than I was expecting. The sound of the busted taut canvas as it echoed out over the neighborhood was actually piercing to my ears and I was quite shaken up by the whole thing. In a much more positive way, B Softly has had the same effect

At my nephew’s tenth birthday party on Saturday, us Stone siblings all realized we had new hats so we took some photos with them. They felt pretty Wes Anderson, and Jaim’s living room has a very definite Wes Anderson vibe, so when choosing the accompanying song on Instagram I went with The Kinks’ This Time Tomorrow, from The Darjeeling Limited, the film most about siblings. Also definitely his saddest, which for a while had me not want to watch it again, but now whenever I do, I think it’s one of his best. I do wish the prologue Hotel Chevalier would be included with the film though, as having seen it in the cinema that way, I consider them part and parcel

The Kinks often have a way of getting to something essential about life, some deep ingrained melancholy, that I find incredibly powerful and poignant. And I get that in spades from This Time Tomorrow

My introduction to The Kinks though had a different feel. It was 1983 and my older cousins were staying with us for a week. My other cousin Mike lived about 5 minutes away so he came over for the night too. Mike LOVED the song Come Dancing so we had MTV on the whole evening waiting for the video to play. Once it did, we took a break to watch the Return Of The King animated film then went back to MTV to hopefully catch Come Dancing again. We also stayed up until 6AM playing pinochle and it was there my 7 year old self learned all the swear words I would ever need know. Plus a lot that didn’t make sense until years later I realized the older boys were saying dirty words and combinations thereof just for the sheer joy of it. And it was joy too that endeared me to the music. I always talk about my older teenage cousins’ excitement rubbing off on me, especially musically. Van Halen being the most obvious example. So I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Come Dancing. And it could be seen as lightweight until you learn it’s about their older sister who died of a heart attack while on the dance floor

For years afterwards all I really knew of The Kinks was that they did the original of You Really Got Me that Van Halen covered, heh, and kids at school would sing All Day And All Of The Night because they wanted to put on an air of maturity they did not actually possess. I wish I could remember why though in 2003 The Kinks were on my list to investigate more of. Some artist I like must’ve mentioned them. I was making the rock stone album with Aubrey Anderson and we were driving back to Allston from the studio out in Newton. I was discussing with Aubrey the fact that I really couldn’t sing and he started to tell me not to worry, there were ways around it. ‘Just listen to The Kinks.’ And he burned me a cd of The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society right there and then in the car. For which I am forever thankful. The title track is one of the greatest songs ever recorded. I love it dearly

And then of course there’s Waterloo Sunset, a song whose gorgeousness has rarely been matched. This song has been with me through a lot but one excellent memory I have of it is of London summer of 2006. After a couple years in the city I’d finally fallen into a wonderful group of friends and sitting one Sunday afternoon with some of them at a pub in Finsbury Park this came on the jukebox and for one brilliant moment a golden glow seemed to surround the scene and I felt truly happy

On the two hour drive home from my sister’s place on Saturday, I wanted to listen to more Kinks, This Time Tomorrow at least a couple of times, and then of course there’s Strangers. A Dave Davies tune also on Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One and in The Darjeeling Limited. One of the most powerful songs I know of. It takes me to another place I often feel uneasy about, but my god is it enchanting. For the past 20 years I’ve often felt that if there is one song that perfectly sums up all Life’s gloriously heartbreaking fragility, it’s Strangers

I love this quote. And feel the same way about my own work. I recently watched the above documentary on Lina Wertmüller. Or rather re-watched it, as Letterboxd tells me I’ve seen it before. I thought some of it seemed familiar. But I will happily watch it again as there’s always more to discover with Lina Wertmüller

One evening way back in 2003 I was down from Boston visiting my parents. For some reason I was flipping thru the channels in the basement and stumbled upon a film that quickly pulled me in. Filled with the hustle and bustle of Italian life, there’s sex, there’s politics, there’s sexual politics, and a whole lot more. It’s irreverent and very funny whilst still managing to hit hard on everything it offers up. The film was Lina Wertmüller’s The Seduction Of Mimi and I made a note to watch more as soon as possible. Thinking back on this, I liked discovering things better that way, where it was more up to chance, happening upon something already in motion, already flowing - films on TV, songs on the radio - seems to me more how Life works. All this infinite choice at the touch of our fingertips should, in theory, be better, but I have not found it to be so

The Seduction Of Mimi came out in 1972 kicking off a streak of four brilliant films - Love & Anarchy (1973), Swept Away (1974), and Seven Beauties (1975) - with an only ok one, All Screwed Up tucked in between Love & Anarchy and Swept Away. Still, five films in four years, with four of them being genius is an impressive feat. And I love the long titles in Italian too, The Seduction of Mimi translates to ‘Mimi, Metalworker, Wounded In Honor’, Love & Anarchy expands out as ‘Film of Love and Anarchy, or Rather: This Morning at 10, in Via dei Fiori, in the Well-Known Brothel...’, and Swept Away gets amended with ‘by an Unusual Destiny in the Blue Sea of August’.

About a month ago I felt like watching Seduction Of Mimi again, and again it very much impressed. Turin looks so lovely in all that mist. Giancarlo Giannini’s eyes throughout all these hold their own with the very best in cinema. And it’s from Mariangela Melato’s excellent performance that my love of the name Fiore springs. The film is very funny at points - the ‘seduction of Amalia’ scene with its homage to Fellini’s 8 1/2 rhumba and the comical synchronized menace as they both undress is brilliant - and while it deals with almost all of life’s serious issues, it never takes itself seriously. Lina Wertmüller has a wonderful touch.

So I went back and watched all four again. Love & Anarchy might be my favourite. That hustle and bustle of Italian family life transported to the ‘family’ within a brothel as a poor country ‘cousin’ shows up with big plans to assassinate Mussolini. Giannini is almost unrecognizable here in that role, and both he and Melato, unknowns on the world stage before the previous film, demonstrate their amazing range with these. Some excellent shots here too:

Swept Away knocks those big cast ensembles on their heads leaving just Giannini and Melato, alone and at opposite ends of society’s spectrum, castaway on a deserted Mediterranean island for most of the film. Then Giannini is back on his own to play the title role of Seven Beauties. This is not an easy film to watch at points. There is nothing likeable about Seven Beauties. In fact, his attempts to stay alive at all costs are quite deplorable, but his performance is incredible, you can’t look away. Even for the long-held, slow pan, cringe af (attempted) sex scene with the Nazi camp guard. Throughout the camp scenes, Wertmüller’s irreverence somehow deepening our sympathies and horror at the situation

I can’t recommend Lina Wertmüller enough

Perhaps the less said about AWP the better. It was really weird, and in-jokes never translate into a wider telling. But man did we end up at some strange afterparties. Of note was seeing read. She took the ‘Miss Mary Mack’ nursery rhyme and brought it to a very powerful place. So much so that on the drive to the next venue we all commented how great it was. I must give a shout out to . Got to meet and hang with the man in person and that guy is a fucking mensch. Not only is he an excellent poet, he’s a very generous performer, scaling back his own time to give others a spot in the line-up and keep the flow going. Proving if you’ve got one great piece to read, that’s all you need. On my drive home on Sunday, I stopped in Brooklyn to grab some food and drop off copies of Nick Cave’s Bar at WORD Bookstore (“you’re printing money there,” they told me). Dinner ended up being a strawberry smoothie that I dumped in the remains of the box of cereal I had with me - this summing up touring life very pointedly - and as I was sitting in my front seat spooning this into my gob, Scott actually CALLED ME ON THE PHONE to thank me for driving him around him Baltimore. Who takes that sort of extra time anymore? What a guy. Looking forward to many future collaborations. And BUY HIS PLAY THE DEVIL, IT’S HILARIOUS

I only bought one bought one book the entire weekend. Headed to Golden West to catch read. I highly recommend his This World Will Never Run Out Of Strangers story collection and he had a fun interactive element to his piece. Then gave his first ever reading during which he opted for the rock star move of lying down on a pew to deliver his words. Photo stolen from his Substack:

That’s me in the scarf and hat (was trying out a hat that night) right above. I had a good lean going on over him for part of this until that got uncomfortable so I turned around. Got to hang with the man on the final night, at the strangest of the afterparties, and decided I really should buy his book, The Walls Are Closing In On Us, which I did when I got home

Next up was who took the floor with such a great energy I was into it from the get-go. She was reading from this which takes place in 1997 and the whole vibe reminded me so much of my sister and her friends at that time I couldn’t help but smile at the whole thing. When she finished I immediately went and bought a copy of Burn, which she inscribed ‘Your sister sounds awesome!’ Now, I still have books from last year’s AWP that I haven’t gotten around to reading yet, but when I got home I tore into Burn right away and found I couldn’t put it down (this is saying a lot from me who is very easily distracted as well as a slow reader). If you came of reading and drinking age in the 90’s, this is definitely a book for you. It captures that time perfectly and took me back especially at every mention of a cd. It starts off, perhaps ‘fun’ isn’t quite the right word, but it’s a lighter tone that nonetheless manages to convey what messes we all were back then. And around college age, at least for me anyways, is when it begins to dawn on you just how much worse girls have it. All the awful shit they have to deal with, which Burn takes us through a sort of crash course of over a couple months. Many a time I paused over the page to ask yet again ‘why are so many dudes so awful?’ and there’s a truly horrific stepdad, like just the worst kind of human being. On the other side of that, I was really bothered by just how much I related to the ‘nice guy’ of Daniel lol. Burn is intense, it’s a lot, but it’s a very good read, taking me right back to those days. There’s also lovely passages like this one on page 73 that I made a note of - “Stop. Put my hands on my hips and breathe and feel the dark. The dark is where you put all the terrible things. The monsters. You stuff them in, push them down, push hard, harder, and when they still don’t fit, you release a part of yourself down with them because you understand that’s the only way to make them stay.”

I returned home to find IndieLit was keeping on giving, with Lauren Lavín’s The Third Beat waiting for me in the post. Exciting, as folks have been raving about this. Plus a postcard with instructions to send on, which I was only too happy to. The Third Beat does not disappoint. Wonderful vignettes, imbued with the ethereal magic that some of us know lurks right alongside and often intertwines with our everyday lives. Lavín writes from a place well aware that Death is the black back part of the mirror that allows us to see Life. Two of the essays towards the end resonated with me the most. Where There Used To Be Razors There Are Barcoded Hanging Cards for its straight-up talk of how fucked the system is. And Cante Jondo, a beautiful meditation on poetry, music, catharsis, and death, featuring Lorca and London Calling. I loved it

My brain hasn’t been working great lately, to the point where this week I’m back making a concerted effort to get an ADHD diagnosis. Not often, thankfully, but once in a long while I just won’t think about how my actions will affect other people and that’s really not good. Mortifying, in fact. Also this past week I’ve written two of my best songs. Like so good I almost can’t believe I’ve written them. And my album seems ready to be recorded now. I had 9 songs for the longest time (and 21 others that will fill out singles, EPs, and various other releases) but I always think an album should have at least 10 songs, and ideally 11. I had insomnia worse than usual for about a month and one day last week I found a song idea I had sung into my phone in the middle of the previous night that I freaking LOVE. I vaguely remember the age-old struggle of ‘I can fall asleep right now but I don’t want to lose this melody and these words’ and forcing myself to go grab my phone and sing it in. The best stuff always comes in the liminal space between sleeping and waking. Friday night I spent some time bashing this into shape and I’m overjoyed at how good it is. Like the Mary Chain playing T. Rex, and it makes me want to shake my ass on the dancefloor. And with this I realized I had the last song for my album. Then on Monday I was messing around on my acoustic playing Smashing Pumpkins’ Mayonnaise - a song that always floors me - and I started venturing into some more SP-like chords and out popped something I’m calling B Softly. Revisited it Tuesday with another concerted effort and I’m just dazzled by what came through. So much so that when I got to the studio yesterday, I ditched plans to record the next single’s b-side in order to properly demo this. I feel I’m mining some deeper stuff, which is uncomfortable territory, but I got literal chills when I listened back to it

Also been thinking about the name of the record. For the longest time I wanted to called it Death Of A Romantic. The title coming from how I’ve had to kill off the overly romantic parts of myself in order to get anywhere or anything done in the real world. I’d like to think I’m a lot better at that than I was, oh, 10, 15 years ago. Trouble is I’m still quite a romantic soul. I mean Neptune sits on my ascendent. Seriously, by one degree. Another thing is that ‘Death Of A Romantic’ is also a very romantic title. As are almost all the songs that will be on it. I mean the last one will be this for goodness sakes:

Video taken minutes after this was written in 2019. I like this one a lot, it popped out fully formed on a walk along the beach in my hometown

Nothing has really grabbed me fully yet, though I’ve been toying with the title Transit Of Venus, which captures some of the same idea. There’s also always the temptation to call it Juliet Berto. I would love to name a record Juliet Berto, but this isn’t that record

ConcertArchives.org reminds me that 15 years ago today I made the decision to start writing about music. I went to The Half Moon in Herne Hill - way South London - to see The Hall Of Mirrors (Jessica Winter’s first band), Nick Garrie, and Anthony Reynolds. I was so impressed yet again by the incredible power of music that I thought I might have some things to say about it. I put it out there, things began to snowball, and soon I was penning pieces for some of my favourite publications. In that time I’ve talked to so many of my favourite artists and songwriters, had some amazing experiences hanging out with them all over the globe, and written pieces that a lot of people, including the artists themselves, have had a lot of nice things to say about. Paul Simpson still shares that Teardrop Explodes origin story that I wrote quite early on. All in all, this was one of the best decisions I ever made. And here I am still doing it…

April 1997. Two of my roommates and I have birthdays within the same week so we decide to throw our one and only party. My 21st. It was a wild affair. We realized our hallway was skinny enough to shimmy up with our backs against the wall and drink beer on the ceiling. My roommate Joe declared he was going to do his last ever keg stand and with everyone cheering him on, a motley crew marched him to the bathroom where the keg was residing. En route, a young lady grabbed him and started making out with him. Someone then nudged him and said ‘Joe, that’s not the tap.’ And at our kitchen table were Tom and Colin from local Boston band Bull Roarer, a fantastic band whose memory deserves to be preserved. I’ve never heard anything quite like them. They freaking ROCKED. Joe had just gotten a subscription to Magnet magazine and as Tom and Colin were flipping through our first issue, one of them commented ‘It’s so cool that you can read about rock.’ And yes, it fucking is!

One of the things I really like about writing about music, and I think it even goes deeper than that, perhaps the reason I became a music journalist without ever having had the conscious intention of doing so, is from the huge influence physical magazines had on me, especially during my formative years. I can still remember the moment clear as day when I was in fifth grade and my family was at The Connecticut Post Mall and for some reason, perhaps to buy candy, I walked into the little newsstand by the food court and saw David Lee Roth on the cover of Circus. It was life-changing that this was even a possibility and I snapped it up immediately. I still have it. Along with all the Select magazines from my early 20s. In 2001 I made a lot of money selling off most of my metal stuff - which I regret now - including all those old Circus, Metal Edge, Hit Parader, and guitar magazines. Though I still have, and cherish, the January 1990 issue of Guitar Player with Johnny Marr on the cover that completely changed the way I thought about music, and hence changed my life

Backing up a a year or so though, how I got into punk was that in those metal magazines when they’d ask bands what tapes they brought on tour, almost everyone it seemed had a copy of Never Mind The Bollocks with them. I was intrigued, and as ever, I always want to hear, well, everything. I fondly remember riding my bike down to the local record store on a Tuesday April evening in 7th grade, birthday money in my pocket, intent on finding this album. Though in 1989, the odds of anyone stocking the Pistols in a small suburban town were slim indeed. However! Fortune was on my side that evening, you might even say ‘destiny’. As would often happen, they did not have the one I was looking for, but in the vinyl section there was a copy of Pirates Of Destiny. Ah the days of riding your bike home carrying a 12” record, and this one would prove to be a cool marble swirl when I tore the plastic off and slid out the vinyl. I hadn’t seen anything like that before. I remember playing it and - as Pirates is more of an outtakes/rarities collection - being a little bit confused. Though I did like it, esp the instrumental backing track of Pretty Vacant. It was the energy I was attracted to, the anger that I felt at that age really resonating, and this would continue to be the appeal as I sought out everything I could by the band. Bootlegs started popping up a lot that year and at one point I had 30 of them. Almost all my friends hated the Pistols when I’d play them for them, remarking ‘they can’t play’, but I just shrugged that all aside. This was mine.

I’d been on the hunt for the Pistols for some months as I remember asking my older cousins about them the previous Xmas. My older cousins who I always looked up to and took their music recommendations very seriously, them having gotten me into Van Halen, Ratt, Mötley Crüe, Dokken, etc. But they all kinda scoffed at the Pistols. I realize now that it was not an informed critique but rather that they didn’t know them, punk falling outside their typical American teenager mentalities. I remember my cousin Jim saying ‘Aug and The Ramones’ and them all laughing. I ignored this. Here was now another band to hear. Of this punk thing that would go on to have such a huge effect on my life. Whispers of your destiny come from strange places

I wish I could remember when exactly I first heard The Ramones. I know it was by the following Xmas because I brought Merry Christmas (I Don’t Want To Fight Tonight) into school to play at a holiday thing. Our 8th grade History teacher, Ms. Magda, who I realize now was much cooler to my bratty self than I deserved, let me play it, saying how much she loved I Wanna Be Sedated. Which would prove to be the first Ramones song I knowingly heard, having procured a cassette of Ramonesmania one day at the Trumbull Mall. And my god, what a compilation to come across! At any time of life. 30 songs! Almost all of them amazing! It was Blitzkrieg Bop for me, all the way. It seemed like I was forever blaring that that year and getting totally energized by it. The following year, my freshman year of high school, they were coming to Toad’s Place and my cousin Mark, who was always much more open musically than the others, agreed to take me. I remember at school that day asking the older kid Sean who worked at the record store where I bought Pirates Of Destiny if he was going, and him replying ‘I want to, but I also don’t wanna get killed’. Though he did eventually make it up to the show. Which was SO FREAKING EXCITING. That will never change for me, but years later when I saw the End Of The Century documentary - perhaps the saddest music doc ever? - I realized how tough that must’ve been for them. They’d been doing it for 17 years at that point, helped birth an incredibly important musical movement, and were just an awesome band but they were still playing at 1000 capacity clubs like Toad’s, traveling around in a van, AND not really speaking to each other. I so wish they had had more commercial success than they did. It’s so weird to think that kids who have never actually listened to them will eagerly buy their t-shirts at Urban Outfitters and yet the band themselves had decades of being criminally undervalued. It was nice to see them playing for thousands a little later in the 90s. It’s a hell of a lot of work to build a meaningful legacy

I had meant to write this post around Xmas-time, when both The Ramones and Hanoi Rocks were on my mind again, as I associate them with that time of year. I had been thinking of my Top 5 Ramones songs and bonding with some folks over on Threads when they also shared theirs. So here’s mine, what are yours?

1. Come On Now - I love the phrase ‘come on’, and any variation on it - the US Women’s Soccer team’s ‘let’s fucking go!’, the Italian ‘Andiamo!’… and am predisposed to liking anything with such a call to arms. This has got that killer descending chord intro riff and everything about it is just feel good as hell. An incitement to have fun no matter what the obstacles

2. Bonzo Goes To Bitburg - Incredible. Such great hooks, and they sound like they’re playing for their very lives. This songs feels important. I’ve always wondered what ultra-Republican Johnny made of Joey’s lyrics?

3. Howling At The Moon (Sha-La-La) - A perfect pop song

4. SLUG - Great 60s song. I’m always surprised this never made an actual album. The two hits on the V chord on the outro always get me

5. Tough to choose a fifth, and it does change a lot. I mean there’s obv Blitzkrieg Bop, and also Rockaway Beach, Sheena, Rock N Roll High School, She’s The One, Swallow My Pride…. So many! But I’m a sucker for a love song, especially one like this so it’s Oh Oh I Love Her So for the win

If I was becoming even more of an outsider by listening to the Ramones, it would be another decade before I met anyone else who liked the band that was all over my xmas list that year. I wish I could remember the exact details of the allure, maybe it was just enough that Guns N Roses’ label Uzi Suicide was reissuing their first four albums. But I really wanted to hear Hanoi Rocks, and all four cassettes were waiting for me under the tree when I woke up that morning. I still have them. They are precious to me. As is the memory of the drive to my grandmother’s house that evening, Walkman headphones on, falling in love with their debut, especially side two’s 11 Street Kids and their cover of Walkin’ With My Angel

Lots of these are lost classics but 11th Street Kids in particular packs quite the emotional punch. It’s filled with that teenage excitement of new love and you’re going to see her tonight and you’ve gotta make it happen at all costs no matter what the world throws at you cuz it’s going to be the greatest thing ever. There’s also hints of being part of something, a gang, and how special that is. And by the end dealing with the devastating fall-out of things shifting and this no longer being the case for either situation. This hit me quite hard at the time as my own social group was changing and I didn’t quite understand why. I just knew it was happening and didn’t want it to, didn’t want to lose those friends

I was listening in order, moving on from the yellow one to the red one - I loved the color scheme of the packaging - and it’s Oriental Beat’s opener Motorvatin’ that I would play for anyone wanting to hear Hanoi for the first time. Everything about this song is so exciting - the killer bass line, the huge hooks, the ‘hey hey hey’s - it’s rallying call to get out there and make stuff happen

I guess I was also aware of Hanoi Rocks before these four albums from seeing their Two Steps From The Move in the bargain tape bin at my local record store. I mean, that’s a cover you don’t forget, especially with ‘hair metal’ having been so big in the latter half of the 80s. I’m not going to into too much of the history here but it is well worth reading. It’s incredibly sad given how hard they worked and much influence they had on the bands that would go on to be huge that decade. Just their look alone, Axl got his early hairstyle from singer Michael Monroe, Slash would become known for his top hat though drummer Razzle wore it well before. They were Finnish yes but quickly moved to Stockholm and spent six months homeless as they got the band going. Embarking on huge tours and eventually moving to London where they gained a good following. Bob Ezrin, who produced KISS, Pink Floyd’s The Wall, Alice Cooper…, got on board for their major label debut (Two Steps) and they seemed primed for huge success. Then they visited Mötley Crüe on their first US tour and on December 8, 1984 Vince Neil went out for a beer run with Razzle in the passenger seat and drunkenly crashed his car, killing Razzle instantly and seriously injuring two others in the other car. The band tried to carry on but knew it wasn’t the same and called it quits soon after

Two Steps From The Move deserves so much more than that bargain tape bin. Don’t You Ever Leave Me should’ve been one of the big ballads of the 80s. It’s a gorgeous tune, and features one of my favourite ever guitar solos. It was originally on the debut but reworked, to great effect, and it’s the album take below which I think is much better than the single version

But there’s also ROCK to have of course. It’s worth noting that G’n’R took the title ‘Welcome To The Jungle’ from the chorus of Underwater World. And Boulevard Of Broken Dreams, co-written with Bob Ezrin and Mott The Hoople’s Ian Hunter, is another single that should’ve been huge, as everything about it already is. Hooks galore

But it’s the record before Two Steps - Back To Mystery City - that is my fave of theirs. It’s actually in my Top Ten Albums Of All-Time. It’s got everything, and especially for me it was the pop tunes - Sailing Down The Tears, Beating Gets Faster, Ice Cream Summer - that were just so catchy, and so romantic in all the ways I had gleaned love to be. From other records of course haha. I was only 13. And when you’re that age and you’d listen and dream about the girls you liked, what was coming thru the Walkman headphones soundtracking some great love you hoped to have, well the fact that nobody knew these songs or this band only added to my feelings of alienation. But this record has stayed with me since then, never too far from my stereo. There’s also the great pop-rock of Malibu Beach Nightmare and the title track, the lovely haunting ballad Until I Get You, and the deranged rock of Tooting Bec Wreck, which I DJ’ed once at a Sunday afternoon thing at The Mucky Pup in London. Hard to choose just one track to share from the album, but it is perhaps Beating Gets Faster that would be my aggregate favourite heh

I do hope you’ll check some out if you don’t know them. This band means quite a lot to me. I finally got to see them in 2008 at The Astoria, ‘right around the corner from where Razzle used to live’, Michael Monroe announced. And I was psyched to review their official biography for Under The Radar back in 2017. “A big, beautiful book for a beautiful band who should’ve been bigger.”

At Sunday family dinner last night my mother reminded me when I was 13 I would have people out looking for music all over the world for me. I’m sure this doesn’t surprise some of you haha. There was stuff I just needed to hear. A business associate of my father’s finally tracked down the Australian cassette release of AC/DC’s Powerage, as it was the only way to hear Cold Hearted Man at the time. And my Uncle Frank would go to Japan on business a couple times a year. As you could probably guess, Hanoi were huge in Japan, and knowing they had a live video called All Those Wasted Years, I asked Uncle Frank to pick it up. Well, he came back with not only that but their The Nottingham Tapes VHS as well. I didn’t even know that existed! Receiving these, that excitement was so pure, so wonderful, and thank god Japanese videos were NTSC and I could actually watch them on an American VCR haha

In other news, it’s Bandcamp Friday this coming Friday so if you’d like to order Family Vacations aka ‘the toaster book’, that would be a great day to pre-order it

left an excellent review of Nick Cave’s Bar on Goodreads. Which totally made my day:

As did Steve Horry’s review of The Ballad Of Buttery Cake Ass. I’m not on Facebook so I didn’t see this when he originally posted it

Reminding me of Alex Sarll’s review of the book. Given all I’ve said above and throughout these Counterforces and my life in general the second-to-last last line of which - “But set against that, always, a burning belief in the life-changing power of music, whether or not more than ten people were ever there to hear it” - would make a pretty fitting epitaph for me

Continuing on with doing interviews here, last week I chatted with Tex Gresham & KKUURRTT. Their Pop! was one of my favourite reads of last year and one hell of funny book. So many little details made me laugh throughout, and I often found myself nodding my head in admiration. The username 'WelksInALightCreamSauce' really makes me giggle, and having '2 taxidermied raccoons fighting over an empty McDonalds soda cup' in a CEO's office is quite emblematic of the book’s humor as a whole. The book also deals, quite seriously, with what it means to make art.

At AWP in LA last year they had printed up 50 copies and were just giving them out for free. After hearing them read at Silverlake Lounge, I made sure to snag one. It’s now published by Rejection Letters with the only change being Funko (yes, as in Funko Pops) is now ‘Fucko’, the company playing a central role in the story. Tired of trying to live the artist’s life, Kurt packs it in and gets a job at Fucko Pops, after which much insanity ensues as Tex convinces him to engage in a little art-terrorism. Everything blows up after this and there are some very funny scenes in a Romanian prison. So much else happens too, but I’ll leave that for you to discover and enjoy. We talk quite a bit about funny books in the clip above - it was rad to see Tex pull out a copy of Švejk after I’d just written about it last Counterforce - as well as discussing the two’s working relationship and making art in general. Kurt would like to clarify that there are probably plenty of other funny books besides theirs, he just hasn’t read that many. Haha

Another VERY funny book I read recently is Scott Laudati’s Play The Devil. Its tremendous energy impressed the hell outta me. The majority takes place over the course of one long day cleaning pools and I did not want that day to end. The characters rage with compulsion - Frankie Gunnz to do his job, our narrator to avoid it, while both tank up on booze, weed, cigarettes, hope and despair, to make their way through the streams of shit (often literal) and vileness constantly coming their way. Hilarious but also with some genuinely touching tender moments, such as the post-Scientologist encounter bellini scene with the waitress at the diner. And Laudati is master of the good simile. I also checked out Scott’s interview on the Method And Madness podcast, a great listen talking about Hollywood courting the book, Scott’s punk rock travels around the country introducing me to some really interesting stuff I didn’t know about America, and a lot of the writing talk really hit home. Looking forward to meeting and hanging with the man at AWP in a few weeks. Who’s going?

I was on a podcast myself recently, That Record Got Me High, talking about my favourite album of all-time, The Afghan Whigs’ Black Love. Got to tell a deeply personal story about why, in part, that record resonates so much with me. When I was a sophomore in college, I was very much in love with a girl. And it was very much unrequited. Though she was also one of my best friends for those few years (a lot of this is in Nick Cave’s Bar so I don’t want to rehash here). That summer of 96 I went down to Maryland to visit her for a few days. Nothing ever happened between us, we never even kissed, and on the way back I listened to Black Love the entire 6 1/2 hours on repeat, feeling the whole sad reality of the situation the whole way home. Anyway, as time went by I would go on to interview Greg Dulli of The Afghan Whigs a number of times over the years. The girl and I kept in touch on and off as well. And in 2017 she messaged me out of the blue that some old college friends were going to be in Portland and since I was living in LA at the time, I should come up and visit too. “You can stay with me.” I was not expecting to be hit as hard as I was by seeing her again, and it really f’d me up for weeks afterwards. And when I flew back to LA at the end of that weekend, who should I bump into at LAX but Greg Dulli? There is no doubt in my mind that all these things are linked in some strange unexplainable cosmic way.

I’ve heard some really good music since I last posted. I’m a bit late to the game on Rain Phoenix’s Escape Artist Lovers. Follow The Leader came out in 2023, but it has been earworming me all week. A GORGEOUS pop song. Reminds me a bit of if The Elevator Drops had backed Gerard Way on his Drugstore Perfume

That old champion of indiepop Wally Salem of The Beautiful Music label sent me the latest Royal Ottawa EP, Here Comes Everybody. Intrigued by the Joyce reference, I was immediately drawn to the heavy Echo & The Bunnymen vibes and have listened multiple times as well as delved further into their catalogue. EP opener Golden Eyes is still my fave so far. Great moody verse, big golden major key chorus

Also really enjoying the new Would-Be-Goods album, Tears Before Bedtime . Great title too. The Gallopers is probably my new favourite song I’ve heard so far this year. Lovely 50s feel, nostalgic in both song and video for youthful fairground adventures, that magic hour of shortly after evening falls and the promise of what might come amidst all the hubbub of bright light rides and shadowy inbetweens. A big sense of melancholy whose lovely melodies nonetheless bring a big smile

I’ve started doing PR for people this year. So far bands, and I’m talking to a few authors, but I’m open to any creative projects. Right before New Year a bunch of people kept telling me I’ve always been really good at this for my own bands and projects and that maybe I should give it a go. I put a feeler out on Instagram and the response was pretty freaking great. So I packed in my retail job, hopefully I’m out of that world for good, and Fire Horse PR was born. Working three bands right now and talking to more. Look out for reviews of the black watch in MOJO and Shindig! and a great review of The Tines in Shindig! They’re getting some cool radio play too. If you’ve got something coming out that you want promoted, please do get in touch. I can’t stress enough though how much proper lead-time is key. You need at least two months ahead of an album and ideally six (no less than four) for a book. I’ve also been getting albums and books into shops too, if that’s something you’re interested in. In 2023, I got The Ballad Of Buttery Cake Ass into 200 shops across the US, and I’m getting the new Slant Of Light record into shops now. It’s a lot of work but I know how to make it happen. So get in touch. And check out Slant Of Light. Really good post-rock from the Northeast. They’re big fans of Lungfish, Fugazi, Siouxsie, PiL, Killing Joke… And guitarist Trevor runs Healy Guitars who make the Healer guitar that Frank Black plays. Diving Bell is the single but Like A Shadow is my fave on the album

Which brings me to another project I am super stoked about. You may have heard me mention ‘the toaster book’ before. Every year since my mother was a teenager my extended family has gone to Rockport, MA for at least a weekend over the summer. In 2019 my sister's family had a kitchenette at the motel we stay at and I an adjoining room. I borrowed their toaster to make some toast, at first. Then I decided to take it around town with me and photograph it in various locations. I was reading the Edward Gorey biography, Born To Be Posthumous, at the time and began captioning these photos with Gorey-esque lines detailing the dazzling activities of a fictional extended family, themselves always out of shot but the toaster gloriously in. This remains one of my favourite things I've ever done and I am thrilled to finally have them all collected in book form

Doing a limited run of 30 hardcovers. Taking pre-orders now to fund making these, and I’ll ship out once that happens, probably sometime in March. I know they’re expensive but I’m not gonna be making any money off this, hardcovers are expensive. I just want them to exist. If you’re in the UK or Europe and want one, let me know. I’ll be over in April and can bring some with me, save on shipping

And I’ll leave you with this. How many of you have seen On The Air? What Mark Frost and David Lynch did after Twin Peaks. Now, it’s no Twin Peaks, not by a longshot, but it is an interesting curio in the oeuvre. Just a madcap absurdist comedy about the inner workings of ‘The Lester Guy Show’ on ZBC, Zoblotnick Broadcasting Corporation. All seven episodes are up on Internet Archive and I watched them again recently. Not essential, but fun. I think only the first three were aired in the US. But that last episode, number 7, with ‘The Woman With No Name’ is pure Lynch

After seeing the video of Alex Pretti being murdered - all those shots, every single one of them unnecessary, and then the lifeless body - I sat down and wept. I then checked Instagram and saw an Iranian friend’s post that the death toll of the protestors there is likely over 30,000. The Quietus ran a good piece recently by Welsh-Iranian artist Roshi Nasehi talking to Iranian artists about the protests.

And with the above pic of the young woman lighting a cigarette with the burning photo of Khamenei circulating (I’ve seen a bunch of posts stating that she’s in Canada not Iran, but so what?), I’m reminded of another photo that I’ve always loved, that of Ellen Wood wearing a Smiths shirt facing off against the police at the 2010 tuition fees protest in London. I was living there at the time and sickened as I heard the reports of police “kettling” protestors for up to ten hours. “It’s for your own good,” a phrase I’ve always despised for being a blatant lie. How much worse things have gotten. But these are two of the most badass defiant images I know. Young women with far more ‘balls’ than most men

Robin Ince posted this recently:

which really hits home for me, and I’m feeling a lot right now as I try to write something about all this. I’m not great at articulating this stuff cuz it seems so obvious to me that we’re all in this together and we win when we all win. Especially as I’ve always felt that one of the great things about America is that we are ‘a nation of immigrants’, as we were always told in school growing up. And yes, I know that this immigration crackdown is just the tip of a very evil iceberg, a cover for many more nefarious things, lots of which are coming to light. But I want to point out that some of the most beautiful music I know has been made by two women of Somali descent. Cold Specks, who was my favourite musical discovery of last year, and whose songs are so full of the soul’s ache and beauty that I feel blessed every time I listen to them

And of course Poly Styrene. Whose work with X-Ray Spex I’m sure is familiar to you all but let’s play this masterwork of defiance again anyway, shall we?

But it’s Dreaming from her 1980 solo album, Translucence, that is my favourite thing she did. Pure loveliness

Audrey Golden, who has written great books on the women of Factory Records and a history of The Raincoats, recently put a recording of her reading Red Music by Josef Skvorecky on Bandcamp, making it available for free, asking instead for donations to the Immigrant Law Center of MN. A very good autobiographical essay on ‘sonic resistance’ by the Czech writer, in part talking about how threatening European leaders found the rhythms of jazz

The night before Audrey posted this, I had once again taken down another Czech work from my bookshelf, Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk. Very funny but also deeply important in terms of subversive resistance. Švejk is drafted into the army for the First World War but does everything he can not to participate, while at the same time making sure he appears to be completely on board. Hašek himself was quite the prankster. He once checked himself into a Prague hotel, registering under a Russian name, and was soon suspected to be a spy. The police were called when someone noticed that the Russian-sounding name he gave read ‘Kiss my ass’ when read backwards in Czech. His excuse when arrested was that he ‘wanted to assure himself that the Austrian police were operating effectively’.

Seeing the reports of ‘ICE Fishing’ - folks flying foreign flags or bumper stickers on their cars just to waste ICE’s time - reminds me of this. Plus the pure poetry of Chicago using salt trucks to block out ICE, or groups of protestors buying salt at Target to immediately return it and hold up store operations (I haven’t shopped at Target since they first nixed DEI and have no plans to go back). And I love the protestors - like The Portland Frog - who are dressing up in animal costumes, highlighting the fucking absurdity of all this. If only it weren’t so horrendously heartbreaking as well

And fuck yeah to the people of Minnesota, out there freezing their asses off to make their voices heard, that THIS WILL NOT STAND. I love what the (now) Post-Modern Times diner is doing, making all meals free until the end of the occupation so that they don’t have to pay taxes to this administration on any income. Relying on tips and donations, which you can do here or Venmo @moderntimescafe . Of course money is such a big part of this, and I realize now that I haven’t used Amazon or set foot in a Whole Foods in three years. I don’t want to preach, just to say you can do it, it’s not as hard as you think

For years Minneapolis has been my number one city to visit due to its rich musical history - Prince, The Replacements, Hüsker Dü, Soul Asylum, Amphetamine Reptile… Now appreciating it even more. Gonna leave you now with a clip of Robert Palmer - yes, that Robert Palmer - covering the Huskers’ New Day Rising. I was delighted to find this a few weeks ago. Apparently, he was a big fan and would play it as an encore

I loved doing the ETC podcast. Talked to some cool people doing some cool stuff, as was the mandate. But back in the summer I got too busy focusing on my own stuff and I don’t have time to make it a regular thing so I decided to stop paying to keep the podcast going. But I do really like talking to people making interesting things and I thought maybe I could continue that on here when the opportunity arises. occasionally posts interviews on his Substack (recommended for the rest of his content as well) and even if I don’t know the artist, they’re good reads

On my list to talk to had the podcast kept going was . And now that her debut novel, Better To Beg, is out, I asked if she’d like to be the inaugural guest. We had an excellent conversation talking about the book, the music surrounding it, how much fun she has in her writing, and especially about how you can’t wait for permission to create art. The title coming from ‘it’s better to beg forgiveness than ask permission’

What I love about Kirsti’s writing is the huge amount of joy it conveys, she’s having a lot of fun and wants the reader to too. My favourite piece of hers is Haymaker, about boxing a kangaroo (go on, give it a read, it’s one short paragraph). So I was looking forward to Better To Beg. I wasn’t expecting it to be so triggering, lol. It’s 2003 and rock duo The Deserters give electrified performances fraught with sexual tension as they make their way around the country hoping to land a record deal. Chapters alternate being told by Viv or Hux, and while I loved and identified with Viv’s ambition, there were points where I really couldn’t stand Hux. Having been in bands my whole life, and in arguably my biggest one around that time, dealing with talented people who are nonetheless hellbent on self-sabotage are So. Fucking. Draining. And infuriating. Kirsti’s always good for a mot juste and while I admired the writing, it did really kick stuff off in me. On the other hand, the point of the book - that you just gotta get out there and do it, if that’s what you want - is a message than cannot be repeated enough times. Speaking from personal experience, I promise you that if you do, amazing things will happen. You may not hit superstardom, but you will imbue your life with meaning, and impact others in meaningful ways too. Heck, I can think of at least three children that were born (not mine) simply because I pursued making music. Those are stories for another time. For now I hope you enjoy my interview with Kirsti and are inspired to pick up her book

Early on in our conversation Kirsti mentioned Much Music and like I am whenever someone recalls that channel (admittedly only once or twice in the past 20 years) I was instantly brought back to this one afternoon in 2003 when for some reason I was home in the middle of the day and I turned on the TV - a rare occurrence during daylight hours - and the video for Clan Of Xymox’s Muscoviet Mosquito was on

This would be my introduction to the Dutch goth outfit and I was intrigued. I set out the next day to buy that debut album and then quickly found Twist Of Shadows used at In Your Ear. Twist Of Shadows is a brilliant pop record, featuring one of my favourite songs of all-time, Imagination. This song has provided untold amounts of joy over the years, capturing a certain strand of the ethereal that always gives me shivers in music. And all because of a moment of chance on an anomalous day twenty something years ago

More currently with music, I mentioned KatieJane Garside last time, and now the new liar, flower album, ornamental gardens, is out. Lovely stuff, one of the best records of the year. A lot less ROCK than the last one, with only one rock song, though that song - monolithic ego - is pretty great

The rest of the record reminds me of dusty music boxes springing to life when dappled afternoon sunshine finds its way past heavy curtains into more obscure corners. Often gossamer-like fragility. Although I wouldn’t say the sound is the same, I definitely get Creatures vibes from this record. Perhaps understandably as it is a couple making music together. sewing machine (tongue for a dress) reminds me of my favourite Creatures song, Don’t Go To Sleep Without Me

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In other exciting new Bandcamp releases, my favourite storyteller Daniel Kitson has released a new one in collaboration with songwriter Gavin Osborn. And my oh my, Stories For The Starlit Sky is a lovely, lovely thing. As this past week has been leading up to a New Moon as well as approaching the Winter Solstice, it’s been the darkest days of the year. And having this come out brought some much needed heartwarming, mirth, and magic. Three intersecting stories, about many things though a main one being the wonder inherent in staying up all night, interspersed with Gavin’s lovely indie-pop songs. Just Two Kids is almost too romantic, and there’s a lot more to love across the 2.5+ hour show

Kitson is just a master of the form, his comedy evoking really fucking full belly laughs, and when he’s doing stories rather than stand-up, this is often combined with wonderful whimsy and the heartfelt stuff that life is made of. As it’s the right time of year, I’d recommend getting stuck in with this one:

My mother had been wanting to see Deliver Me From Nowhere so we went a few weeks ago. While Dancing In The Dark is my other karaoke go-to after Burning Love, I wouldn’t say I’m the biggest fan of The Boss. I don’t dislike him of course but I think growing up in the 80s and being introduced to him via Born In The U.S.A. put me off. That megastardom in the pop charts had me suspect. I mean, he wasn’t Van Halen. Everybody seemed to like him. Over time I’ve come to appreciate more though only Born To Run do I hold in as high esteem as Dancing In The Dark. But the story of Nebraska is INSANE and I hella respect his integrity. Having been brought up viewing the major labels as evil, and perhaps not even necessarily so, I’m just amazed Nebraska got released. I can’t think of any other instance in history of a label being so supportive of an artist, giving in to all their demands instead of trying to crush any life out of their artistic purity. Though it was a different time back then. The movie left a big impression and I immediately bought Warren Zanes’ book on which the film is based. It’s a bit samey at times, hammering home the same points, and not as wide a scope of Bruce’s life at the time as the movie, but still very cool that he wrote it and brought to light all that went into this singular record. And lovely to hear his personal reflections of The Boss supporting the project

I haven’t had a whole lotta time to read this year, which is both annoying because it’s something I love doing but also fine because I’ve been working so much on my own stuff. I’m still making my way through all the books I got at AWP back in March. I finally got to Tex Gresham & KKUURRT’s Pop! though and freakin’ loved it. It was a very cool thing back at the event at Silverlake Lounge in March, these two read and then were just giving away 50 copies they had printed up. I snatched one immediately. It is now published by Rejection Letters and I highly recommend also snatching one immediately. There’s one tiny change from the edition I have in that Funko - as in yes, Funko Pops - is now ‘Fucko’. In the book, Kurt decides to give up the creative life and inadvertently gets a job at Funko Pops. During his stint there, he and Tex decide to engage in a little art terrorism, which doesn’t exactly go according to plan. Or does it? It gets meta as they begin to write the book of their experience, the results being rather far-reaching. I don’t want to give too much away but there’s a good amount of time spent in a Romanian prison. Pop! is a VERY funny book, but also deals quite seriously with what it means to make art. Well worth your time

I finished Pop! just in time for KKUURRTT to be doing a reading here in CT, along with other Rejection Letters writers, at the wonderful Best Video, a CT institution that has, ever since I was growing up, been the place to get rad movies you’d have trouble finding elsewhere. The night was a blast. Emily Costa’s stories are great and she reads them so well. I hadn’t heard any of Terri Linn Davis’ poems before and I was impressed. She’s very funny, as evidenced in Ode To My Mother Pissing into a Mountain Dew Baja Blast Cup. And she had a drop-in duet with Aubri Kaufman, whose Space Casino is one of my favourite short stories of this year. Felicia Rosemary Urso read a moving piece about the complications of a partner’s mother’s suicide. Kurt (saving myself some time here letter-wise) read from Pop!, the disastrous signing at Barnes & Noble scene, and I picked up a copy of his earlier book, Good At Drugs. The night was part of Kevin Kearney’s tour for his new novel, Freelance. I didn’t know anything about Kevin’s writing going in and I’m always a little sceptical whenever I see other people’s work getting hyped on the internet. I don’t like that I’m like that but I’m pleased to report that my reservations fell away when I heard him read. Well-written, funny, dealing with stuff that interests me, I not only bought the book but also had some great conversations with him throughout the evening. Kevin and Kurt, real gents. It was awesome to hang out with everybody afterwards, cool people doing cool stuff. More of this please

As it’s time to bust out the Billy Idol Xmas album, I wish you all the happiest of holidays! I had posted this mix last year if you’d like to hear some of my favourite off-the-beaten-path Xmas tunes, or if you’d like to pick and choose the YouTube clips, here’s the post. See you next time for my Faves of 2025 list

Since the age of 10, I’d always had a running handwritten list of records I wanted and now some of these were proving hard to find, so I asked Jim if he could pick three up for me if they had them. Daisy Chainsaw’s Love Sick Pleasure EP, Manic Street Preachers Generation Terrorists, and Chainsaw Kittens’ Flipped Out In Singapore. I hadn’t heard the Manics yet but the press were raving about what a huge album this was, they were just going to release the one and then split up was the rumor, though I expected something more punky from all their sloganeering than the 80s hard rock we got (this is no slight on the Manics). But very late at night, somewhere between 12-2AM on Sundays when 120 Minutes was shown, I had caught the videos for the Kittens’ Connie, I’ve Found The Door and Daisy Chainsaw’s Love Your Money. And both blew me away. I’m pleased too at the Daisy Chainsaw Kittens name connection. These songs have stayed with me and I can still remember that day in July 1992 when Jim delivered them. Soon, I would make my own way to Secret Sounds, get to know its owner, the mighty Chris Razz, and discover all sorts of wonderful things within its walls.

Love Your Money, wow. I still can’t think of anything else it sounds like. And it took me ages to arrive at a satisfactory description, finally settling on ‘amphetamine glam’. It’s punk af too, with an homage to the Pistols at the very end. And the video! Instead of Alice going down the rabbithole she’s ascending through a surreal madhouse

I came to QueenAdreena quite late, but Pretty Like Drugs bowled me over the first time I heard it and hasn’t stopped since. It is one of the all-time great ROCK songs, a perfect encapsulation of a particular strain of Rock’s DNA. They really captured something there. I’ve listened to a bunch of KatieJane Garside interviews and her soft-spoken voice and ethereal manner seem so at odds with the wild persona she inhabits when performing these songs. But, make no mistake, she deserves her place in Rock’s Pantheon, rivalling any other Rock god you might name

At least once a year I go through a huge phase with this song and KatieJane in general. I’ve long thought she is one of the most interesting artists alive, and highly recommend you getting to know her work if you don’t already. I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts with her too, which are all fascinating. I loved hearing about her creative process, how she’ll do automatic writing straight after coming out of meditation and then use these typewritten pages to find lines while her and partner Chris Whittingham improvise for extended periods of time before refining what comes out into songs. Alex Green’s Stereo Embers podcast with her is fantastic, as is Conan Neutron’s episode. I also really enjoyed her take on Nico’s The Marble Index, discussing the album in detail on That Record Got Me High.

Ruby Throat is such a great name for a band, her and Whittingham’s first project, much more laid back than what had come before. And of course I’m going to love a song called Stone Dress

Then liar, flower gets more Rock again. New album coming very soon. Their first, Geiger Counter, is a force to be reckoned with. “My brain is lit like an airport, so the angels will find me” is such a wonderful phrase

One of my favourite things that I’ve seen this year is Irma Vep, both the original 1998 film and the recent mini-series with Alicia Vikander. Which piqued my interest about Clean, the second film Olivier Assayas and Maggie Cheung made together. Of special note as this was after their divorce and was to be Cheung’s last movie. In it, she plays a heroin addict whose musician boyfriend has just overdosed and she needs to get clean in order to win custody of their son. There’s a lot going on and what kinda blew my mind were the musical presences in the movie. It starts at a Metric concert, later there’s an attempted meeting with Tricky after a show of his in Paris, and Dave Roback from Opal/Mazzy Star is in it as well. In fact, he writes two songs that Maggie Cheung sings on. She Can’t Tell You and Down In The Light. They’re very, well, Maggie Star

She also collaborated with Dean Wareham (Galaxie 500, Luna) for another two on the soundtrack, Strawberry Stain and Wait For Me:

Given my love of both Roback, Wareham, and Cheung’s other work, I find these fascinating. Link to watch the film here, on ok.ru where I’ve recently found a ton of films I haven’t been able to see otherwise

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I’ve been really kicking ass on my next book, an oral history of the band Clown Damage. It’s almost as long now as The Ballad Of Buttery Cake Ass, and I’m only about halfway done. As usual I’m working in references to stuff that might not be widely known about and I was overjoyed to remember the phenomenon of ‘Bone Music’ or ‘music on the ribs’, where post-WW2 in the Soviet Union recordings would be bootlegged onto x-rays stolen from hospitals, this being the only way one could have access to a lot of the music that was banned. My friend Stephen Coates from the excellent The Real Tuesday Weld is responsible for shedding more light on this practice, having years ago discovered an x-ray recording of Rock Around The Clock one day at a flea market in St. Petersburg

Along with all the wonderful music The Real Tuesday Weld make, Stephen curates a number of interesting projects including The London Month Of The Dead and, what I want to hype up here, The Bureau Of Lost Culture. The podcast is an investigation into counterculture, and the episodes I’ve listened to so far have been excellent. There’s two with Alan Moore, who I can listen to talk about pretty much anything, ‘Post-Punk Druidry with Youth’ was also great, and I loved hearing Stephen and Robert Kingham discuss Arthur Machen.

Admittedly I am not a big horror guy, so it took me a while to get to Machen. With all my occult explorations of about a dozen years ago he kept coming up and one day I decided to give The Great God Pan a go. I guess having grown up in the 1980s, when people say ‘horror’ my first associations are slasher films, but even knowing how much wider it goes I only found The Great God Pan to be horror in the loosest definition of the word. It was very psychological, yes, but what really struck me was how excellent and evocative the writing is. And hearing Kingham read excerpts from more of Machen’s work during the podcast, especially how beautifully he writes about London, I have resolved to read more. Kingham reads Machen’s (abridged) short story N here, which has some really lovely passages

This all got me thinking about London and missing it even more than I usually do. Wondering if I should write of some of my own psychogeographical experiences there. Not least of which were when each night before an H Bird show in 2006 I would trek from Queen’s Park NW6 down to All Saints Road in Portobello to mentally prepare myself for the gig. Fascinated as I was by a mysterious housefront in a row of such, this one painted white but with CLUB BARRY in all black block capitals stretched across the entire façade. There was no way this premises could’ve contained any sort of musical club, and as for any other type there were no clues. It certainly didn’t seem like a sordid sex den. And then years later at the end of this same street Alex Sarll loaning me a copy of The Illuminatus! Trilogy, a book I thought might, like its contents deal with, be an actual hoax itself. Finally having a physical copy in my hands as a ragtag crew of us descended upon The Pelican pub and learned that at that particular Happy Hour one could roll the dice against the barstaff. If you won, your round was free. If you lost, your drinks were simply regular price. We, or at least I, pushed this well past any reasonable limit. The thrill of the die having me ordering rounds for others when I could not physically imbibe any more liquid. I woke up the next day with a personally legendary hangover. So bad that my teeth hurt and the only thing that would stop them from aching was hours of hanging upside down from my bed. I eventually got out of this around 4PM, ambled down Holloway Road to a caff for ‘breakfast’, and began Illuminatus!, a truly life-changing book for me

Come December 8th it will be 13 years since my visa expired. Which is a long time to be in exile. After listening to the Machen episode I had the thought ‘is London my greatest unrequited love?’ A nice poetic notion but I quickly realized it wasn’t true. For I have never not felt London’s love, and was able to live within her for many years. The situation, with the laws now in place for foreigners, is more like the strict parents who go to great lengths to keep their daughter away from unsuitable suitors. Which is a crying shame, as its the only place I’ve ever felt accepted, the only place I’ve ever felt is home

Sad news about Mani and Jimmy Cliff this week. My relationship with The Stone Roses is a long one and more than I can write about here right now. But I saw Mani play with Primal Scream at Irving Plaza in 2003. Rick Webb was driving down from Boston, picked me up in Connecticut, and we headed down to New York. I miss those days of multiple state car trips to go see a show. Anyway, Mani had just joined the Scream and there was one dude in the audience who kept shouting ‘Maaaannnniiii! Maaaaannniii!’ Eventually Mani just strolled to the front of the stage and with a huge playful smile on his face yelled back ‘What?’ Which shut the guy up. It was a special moment. All the tributes I’ve been reading paint him as a lovely guy

And Jimmy Cliff. Oh man. I remember when I first started to get really into underground music when I was 14 and one thing I’d hear the most disparate groups of people speak highly of was The Harder They Come soundtrack. It stretched across so many boundaries. I love my beat-up vinyl copy I bought a few years later in Boston. What a soundtrack. The title track is so good, and there have been so many times over the years I have listened to You Can Get It If You Really Want for inspiration and spiritual edification. Life is hard, ya know?

And I know Debsey’s voice from the records. But live, I am really impressed, and back in my flat on Lady Margaret Road, Kentish Town, I do some investigating to see if there is anything else I can hear her sing on. I soon come across mention of an early 80s band called Dolly Mixture, and whatever post I read refers to them as ‘girlfriends of The Damned’. I would later find out this isn’t entirely accurate, Rachel would marry Captain Sensible though no such attachments for Debsey and Hester. But at the time I wasn’t to know this, and I’ve loved The Damned since I was 13 so obviously I’m even more intrigued now. Trouble being this is 2003, pre-You Tube, and I’ve never used file sharing sites, so hearing them presented a bit of a problem, even with London’s fantastic record shops. In the coming days, thru sheer persistence, I would find a dude online who had an extensive collection of Damned bootlegs and rarities - many of which I really wanted to hear - including Dolly Mixture’s Demonstration Tapes and Dreamism! EP. I wrote to him with hope in my heart, offering to trade whatever I had in return. He was very kind and although I didn’t have anything of interest to him, he offered to burn me copies and even send them to the States, where I would be heading back to in a few days time

In the January gloom - made even more profound by having finally, after 27 years, found somewhere I loved that felt like home only to be wrenched away from it, across an ocean - a package arrived for me one day at my parents’ house, where I was staying for another month until my apartment was ready back in Boston. I was thrilled to get some mail, and the prospect of new music is always exciting, but nothing could’ve prepared me for what came next. I can still picture the scene exactly, sitting at my father’s computer in the basement - my parents didn’t have Wifi yet - checking my email and throwing the Demonstration Tapes on my boombox to listen to. And pausing, completely in awe of what I was hearing, thinking ‘I love everything about this’

Having grown up surrounded by and loving all my Mom’s Motown and 60s records, and always being a sucker for melody, these songs had all of that, but played in a looser and stripped down guitar/bass/drums format. Will He Kiss Me Tonight really made me sit up and take notice

And by track 9 on Demonstration Tapes, Side Street Walker, I was very much in love. With this group, and with Pop music all over again. For such is the power of truly magnificent bands, that your feelings for them go well beyond their target and radiate out into the wide wide world. Such gorgeous vocals on this

Three minutes thirty seconds is Pop’s magic number. But I’ve always felt if you can do it in two, you should. And Step Close Now does it in one minute fifty-nine. ‘Step close now and I will show you how to make the city turn to gold, Don’t you know the dust in our eyes, all kisses surprise, before it turns back into stone’. Wow. What a perfect description of what magic can do. Of how Pop and the things it sings of enhance our lives and drive back the drear. The musicians here full of confidence and self-possession, the kind born from that heady mixture of teenage invincibility and giving oneself over to Wonder. And I love that middle 8. Rachel’s picked arpeggios the perfect notes to fill that space between vocal lines

Spend Your Wishes, on the other hand, is exactly three minutes thirty. And thus, with all its other charms, the perfect pop song. A cautionary serenade told via the loveliest of melodies, the music moving along in a breezy yet assured procession

Everything And More sings along the same lines. The dangers of waiting, of too much impractical dreaming, for they know if Pop teaches us anything, it’s that dreams can be realized in an instant in the here and now. Both the Dreamism! and more ebullient single version below with its joyously determined bells conjure these moments, complete with Pop’s magic words - ‘oo’ and ‘hey’

Never Let It Go consummates all these things. That intrepid teenage ability to create a whole magnificent world all for themselves (whilst fully aware that sharing that with us won’t take a single bit of it away) and the courage to fully realize that you must ‘take hold of what you’ve found, before the world has turned around’

And there’s so many more. One of my all-time favourite bands, so I am overjoyed that this year Rachel sang on my single, going above and beyond and adding that gorgeous part at the end

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And I got to interview Debsey for The Quietus about her most excellent memoir. Now I just need to collaborate with Hester on something ; )

Debsey’s book is really wonderful. I did not want it to end. Along with their fantastic songs, the Dolly Mixture story is one of Pop’s best. A charmed existence that unfortunately never culminated in the commercial success they very much deserved. What other bands can boast of giving The Undertones a tape after a gig that they didn’t even attend, only to moments later be invited to open for them for the rest of the tour? Or be one of the first to sign to Paul Weller’s Respond label? Have U2 open for them twice, and sing the backing on Captain Sensible’s hit cover of Happy Talk?

I’m not sure what Hester is up to these days, but both Rachel and Debsey continue to make music, which I would encourage you to seek out. I had Rachel on the podcast a few years back talking about it

I got to see a BBC documentary about them that was filmed in the 80s but never shown until one night at The Barbican in London in 2005. The footage of them busking Da Doo Ron Ron is one of the most endearing things I’ve ever seen. And there’s Paul Kelly’s Take Three Girls: The Dolly Mixture Story film that I’m hoping will be given a digital release some time. Wonderful stuff

One more song before I move on. Post Dolly Mixture, Debsey and Hester had a six-piece band called Coming Up Roses, whose I Could Have Been Your Girlfriend (If You’d Asked Me To) really should’ve been a hit

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I often find that my insomnia will yield musical treasures, and continuing on with teenage loveliness, I recently checked Bluesky around 2 AM to see that someone had posted Tresa Leigh’s gorgeous Until Then

I love this so much, and it’s made even more special by the fact that this small town Georgia teen only ever recorded four songs, two of which are versions of the above, all available at Bandcamp. What a perfect encapsulation of teenage heartbreak

Ani Glass is back with a new album, Phantasmagoria. Ani has one of my favourite voices in Pop (and wrote the second-best Pipettes song, Thank You). Her single from the album, Acwariwm, is fantastic. Will definitely make my Top 5 Songs Of The Year list. That ‘mmm-hmmm’ is lovely. Great video too

My old partner in The Soft Close-Ups, David Shah, is back with a new project, The Studio System. Gorgeous stuff. Elegant pop, as you’d expect. Bash providing lovely arrangements and David’s voice and lyrics are in top form. Pulling at the heartstrings just enough for you to not realize how much you’re being drawn in, and then suddenly smiling at where you are, despite all the longing. My fave is opening track, An Honest Life. Other highlights being the two closing numbers, Milkshake In December and Hand-me-down World. The album is a free download over at Bandcamp so do help yourself. Streaming everywhere too. I love it more every time I listen to it, and I loved it a lot on first hearing. One of the best records of the year

David Ryder Prangley has a new album out, which certainly has one of the best titles I’ve heard in a long time - If You Were To Kiss Me Now All History Would Pour From My Lips. Some great swampy noir-tinged pop like first single, Die Alone. My two faves being the big catchy rock anthem Box Of Dead Lovers and the ultra-T.Rex-y Joanie Loves Davey

I had the first line for a while, rum and ginger beer being of course the ingredients of a Dark & Stormy, and was thrilled when I came up with the idea of ‘P.G. Bauhaus’ to be able to use it. October seems the right time to unleash this, being the month of spooky things, haha. And so please enjoy my tale of a young Bertie Wooster-esque figure going to his first ever goth club. And if you like it, please share

The Cape Of Abandoned Hope

It was a rum and ginger beer night. And I, Peregrine Goodby, of the Wiltshire Goodbys, was down-the-hatching my third of such beverages whilst sat on the mezzanine balcony of The Drones Club, yes, named after that famed gentlemen’s establishment of yore, though an entirely different concern, going as somewhat of an experimental indie disco, and situated along one of Shoreditch’s darker alleys. I was regathering my wits and waiting for the return of that scoundrel Edwin Toulouse-Étoiletrek. Not that I expect the reader to recognize either of our names, though we are men of some wealth and one might say a little notoriety but definitely not fame in the strictest sense of the word, and oh yes, I see, taste, well, these cocktails certainly are delicious, nevertheless, after what happened not one hour ago, any compassion I might have fleetingly felt for The Devil has been defenestrated. It had been a most frightful evening. You see, I had just been to my first ever gothic music club.

Perhaps the cards were stacked against me from the outset, what with friends corrupting my Christian name to ‘Grin’ and frequently combining both appellations to ‘Goodgrin’, instead of taking a more fanciful flight on the predatory associations of the falcon or even straining for etymological resonance with the early saints, either of which would have stood me in better stead for such a venture. But, no, during the walk to the venue and whilst traversing its dark entryway, Edwin was all ‘Goodgrin this’ and ‘Goodgrin that’. And that entryway, well let me tell you! A slat opened at eye level emitting the spookiest silence this side of Christmas Eve, to which Edwin simply flapped a velvet glove over his shoulder – not part of the ritual as far as I was aware – and uttered the phrase ‘What ho!’ The domed wooden door creaked and we were allowed to pass. None of this having to invite us in as if we were part of the vampiric brethren or any of that ceremonial hijinx that I was half-expecting and, truth be told, a little disappointed not to encounter. Once past the sentry however, Edwin explained he’d had it on good authority that the rite used to be somewhat more complicated. In the beginning - the early days of the club, not the very biblical beginning often associated with these words – well, once the panel finished its diabolical slide, a voice deep enough to come out of the abyss boomed ‘Abandon all hope’. And the initiate, or expectant guest or what have you, was required to respond ‘What hope?’ Required that is if they wished to gain entrance. There were plenty who, feeling the ick of the great god Pan, turned and ran at the first two syllables, not even stopping to inquire what the name of the band was that was on that evening. Anyway, due to time deteriorating all things, entropy, etcetera, the password has now degenerated to a perfunctory ‘What ho!’, sotto voce’d in response to that crack of the slat, and all and sundry will be welcomed in.

That last sentence is misleading. For one must be dressed, of course. And to the elevenses, nevermind the nines. And so it was that I spent my pre-departure hours prancing betwixt wardrobe and mirror attempting to get the tone right. What was this goth music I’d only so recently been introduced to? And would my search for the correct sartorial spirit be in vain? I put on some newly acquired records that had proved to be my introduction to this world of the dark twist, what I’m told are ‘the classics’, and let them guide me in selecting my outfit. Night Moves by Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band, the group name featuring the added bonus of a werewolf reference. I had seen the film Underworld and knew what to expect there. Elton John’s Sad Songs (Say So Much), the very raison d’être for goth music, I’m told. Smokey Robinson’s The Tears Of A Clown, for I heard about the costumes and carnival-like atmosphere I was sure to come across as part of the scene. Speaking of which, I had read somewhere that there’s a subset of the genre who chose to dress as piratical marauders leading me to drop the needle on Come Sail Away, the 1977 smash hit by Styx - well done there too - and was thus inspired to dig out the white frilly shirt I hadn’t worn since Virginia Prune’s Evelyn Waugh-themed fancy dress party. It seemed I had remembered Put Out More Flags all wrong, but I digress... Keeping the dance machine at full throttle, I found myself cutting quite the solo rug as I moved on to The Pogues’ The Ghost Of A Smile, and it wasn’t long before I emitted a ‘golly, that’s good!’, what with frowning being a gothic forte, and I must admit a certain shiver of pleasure slalomed down my spine at the resonance with my own nickname. Mr. MacGowan you’ve done it again!

In the end I descended my front steps clad in blood-red flared trousers, the kinkiest of black faux-leather boots - more Dr. Ruth than Doc Marten - lemon spats, the aforementioned frilly shirt above a belt buckle of a giant steer skull, in case cowboys were also some sort of cultural subdivision, and covered by my favourite plum cape that I was delighted to find further excuses to wear now that I was becoming a fully-fledged goth person.

As soon as Loosy saw me – Loosy being what I often call Edwin Toulouse-Étoiletrek, though in cases like this one was to become, the appellation frequently gets flicked to The Louse – he pointed in the direction of home and told me to return there immediately and change. ‘I say!’, I said. But he wouldn’t hear of it. Informing me of the strict all-black dress code and nailing the point home that I was in flagrant violation of this many times over. I don’t see how the pirates get in. And with them on my mind I enquired if I could still wear the belt buckle in the hopes of being welcomed by the cowboy contingent. The Louse appeared flabbergasted. He followed me back to my flat and kept rapping his knuckles on the bedroom door as I attempted to gather the correct garb, every now and then shouting ‘you’d be late for your own funeral’, which I rather thought was the point. In a huff, I had shed everything above the belt, including that very accoutrement, and left such items in the sitting room en route to my present circumstances, poised on the precipice of my wardrobe. Topless and slightly nippy, even with their plum-coloured cousin banished to the discard pile on the arm of the divan, I couldn’t help but browse my collection of capes once more, and was quickly diverted by a gorgeous yellow contender I had not worn since Mercy Kihn’s Sherwood Forest fancy dress bash. In what drawer had I tucked the rest of that getup away? The top came complete with the R badge which could stand for either Robin - Hood or Boy Wonder - though I was tempted to change the insignia to a G for the evening. Surely there must be exceptions in the dress code for The Dynamic Duo? I mean, wasn’t The Batcave club where this whole gothic shebang began? Batman himself seemed too obvious, dozens of chaps would be certain to have that costume cornered, and more than likely some kind of seniority system was in place that one would have to work up to. However, the club had been going for some years, so how do they keep the floor from filling with Adam West impersonators? Robin appeared to be the side on which to kick. I knew I had a swimsuit around here somewhere, candy apple grapehuggers that might be just the ticket below my Merry Men tunic. Taking liberties where the colours splash, I know, but one has to get with the times and so on. Right when I commenced looking for this en-semb another violent rap shook the door, and ushered in the conclusion that it was perhaps a mite too cold outside to be prancing about in one’s underwear, even though I was assured half the clientele would be doing exactly that.

But why was I, Peregrine Goodby, off to a gothic music club in the first place, I hear you ask. Well it all started the other night when Victor ‘The Bishop’ Kerr, Seth ‘The Actor’ Spiano, Boodj, and I were watching The Psmiths give a most effervescent performance at The Drones Club. I remarked that earlier that day I had been earwormed by the squirmiest of invertebrates indeed, an infectious little number blaring out of the speakers whilst I procured a vital part of my luncheon from the local Tesco Express. I didn’t quite catch the name of the band, something to do with mathematics I believe, but the chorus kept going on about Love being torn apart. I glanced down at the baguette I would soon be ripping into tiny pieces to dip within the pot of beloved fondue I had on the boil, salivating at the thought of scrumptious forkful after scrumptious forkful popped into my mouth, again and again, and well, I felt a communion with the arts I had not experienced since I was sipping a steamy cup of PG Tips and Kelly Clarkson’s Tip Of My Tongue came on the wireless. I mean, I say, my tongue, my initials!

Edwin, The Louse, came and joined the tail end of our conversation and said he knew some places I could catch more of this spiffy stuff and even dance to it if I so chose, well outside the confines of the supermarket. Better still, he’d be happy to escort me, if ‘happy’ is the word we want. I replied, ‘You know, old bean, I might be into that.’ And The Louse continued to regale us with tales of his adventures amidst the gothic underworld cabarets, bearing names like The Devil’s Duck, 1313 Tamerlane, and The Florist Du Mal, all the while our companions growing more and more certain in their conviction that they would rather be drawn and quartered than even dip a toe into such bacchanalia. ‘You have to pay extra for toe-dipping,’ confided Edwin, mysteriously.

I, however, could not contain my excitement. That synthesizer line from the fondue song had not left my brain nor did I wish it to. I made plans with Edwin - as I called him that night, him being much in my good graces - for the following Thursday, and upon waking the next afternoon, made a beeline to my local vinyl emporium, Phoney Graham’s, where I could always count on its proprietor to steer me in the right direction. Assuring me they were touchstones of the genre, Graham picked out the records I dressed to above, along with Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A. album - the title, he told me, referring to silver screen icon Vincent Price as well as the record boasting the goth classic Dancing In The Dark - a Roy Orbison greatest hits collection that featured Crying and Running Scared, plus Santana’s Abraxas for Black Magic Woman obviously, ‘but don’t forget the opening track Singing Winds, Crying Beasts’. Armed with these most gothic of platters, I headed home, overjoyed - though loathe to admit such positivity – at my upcoming transformation.

It took a further two attempts until The Louse was satisfied with my garb. Adhering to his précis I reemerged clad in the black and white jersey of Grimsby Town, a more perfect name for our undertaking I could not dream of. And when sent back again to change, The Louse had the nerve to then veto the Notts County top I sported. What did Edwin have against Sherwood Forest, I ask you? Or The White Stripes? Was it because I had left my lemon spats on? I often do, some might say it’s my m.o. I don’t know how football players can stand to get their boots so muddy. But I guess lesson number one would be that goth music nights are no occasions for footwear protests, no matter how well-intentioned one might be. And now I really was in a pickle, especially as Edwin stared down my argument that white wasn’t a color at all but a shade and should therefore be welcomed with open arms by the Committee of Infernal Attire. And if things turned into an after-hours game of five-a-side, I’d already be two steps to the good. I’d even forego the lemon spats, if my team insisted, for one does tend to want to fit in on one’s first visit. And I guess I’d have to sacrifice bringing out my splendid pickle-pigment cape. Though with options adwindle, what could I do? I spied the fishnet bodysuit I had worn to Lazarus Radley‘s Biblical Professions party but what with the cold that put the kibosh on my Robin outfit, I nixed that idea as well.

Luckily, I stumbled upon the crows feather boa I had worn to Poppy Gulch’s Wizard Of Oz ball and that got the ball rolling, as they say. I must tell you The Scarecrow with his trespassers slain and worn about his shoulders had not been my initial choice for that affair. It was my express wish to attend as conscientious observer The Yellow Brick Road but, alas, my cloak of the same colour was at the launderette, recovering from its sluicing of ink the previous evening at Isaac Emsworth’s James Bond masquerade. That devil Caesar Oliver Krebkie having had the gall to come dressed as the giant squid from Dr. No, complete with working tentacles and siphon. Thankfully, my dry cleaner Mr. Newell lived only a five minute dash away and I was able to rescue her in time. But having learned Krebkie would be attending Ms. Gulch’s as one of the flying monkeys from the film, my costume was sealed. Let those wings around my neck be a warning to him! Boa chosen, the rest of the garments came quickly, even if they lacked any pigment of that fabled rainbow. Truth be told, it was rather nice to take my oft-neglected cape of deepest night out for a whirl, and when I emerged again, Edwin delivered no resistance. He applied to my visage some eyeliner, attached a clip-on earring, and we were off.

Once underway, as mentioned above, it was all ‘Goodgrin this’ and ‘Goodgrin that’, telling me of his experiences at various hotspots about town. His latest gothic adventure having been at Charon Cross, held on a boat in The Thames, guests either amorously amphibious or retching over the rails from too many pomegranate cocktails. Edwin partaking of a bit of both, though I soon lost interest in the tale due to – given the perfect opportunity – not a single pirate appearing anywhere on the horizon. Really, The Louse can be quite insensitive at times, especially after I’d told him at length over the previous few days how much I wished to encounter these outlaws amongst the tribal subsidiaries. Unfazed, on the surface at least, he launched into another nocturnal anecdote but I could tell via the occasional sideways glance that he was burning his cerebral candelabra at both ends to try and summon such characters into the story and having a deuce of a time doing so. We walked on in silence until...

Behold, Grendelville! Our destination’s exterior stonework was magnificent. Gargoyles with popped eyes, beckoning felines, giant insects swarming out of rabbit skulls, troubled bears in mystical trances, I say, if any of these creatures were to come to life... Heaven knew what they augured for the inside, and I found myself held in a delicious state of terrified anticipation. Every record I had been listening to these past few days had not prepared me for this. We single-filed it down a long catacomb-esque passageway, I severely tempted to reach for Edwin’s re-gloved hand, so profound was the fear I was experiencing. Strange pulsations tumbled through my body and pairs of beady red eyes flashed about us, the sounds of scurry giving one the goosebumps. But these were no geese, not even ganders of the underworld, rather the racket of rodents. And large ones at that. Or so I gathered until I bumped my head on a speaker and realized the ruckus was being piped in. How ghoulish! The artificialness of it somehow made the milieu exceptionally creepy, simmering with malicious intent. We arrived at another door, unguarded this time, and once past its barrier, I bristled at the throbbing bass. So here I was, Peregrine Goodby, standing on the threshold of full-on gothhood. And the coast was clear, no pirates anywhere, nor a single cowboy in sight. Though I was too overwhelmed by the spectacle, as well as the odd bouquet of ozone in the air, to much mind at all. Not to mention the music. This was a considerably more aggressive auditory disturbance than what I was used to in my Introductory To Goth courses, far darker than Elton John or Bruce Springsteen had given me cause to believe. Not that I wasn’t keen. I mean, I say, the percussion seemed less a drum machine than a whole demolition site, and the vocals the wail of those who had chained themselves to whatever was being wrecking ball’d and were going down with the ship. Not to bring the pirates back into it. And of course not to leave the cowboys and girls out. Hats were not a prominent part of the décor but there certainly was a writhing throng of boys and girls, dressed as each other and every shade in between. Angels, demons, dandies of the distant past, and cybernetic disrepairmen of uncontemplatable futures. There was even a skunk-in-human-shape cousin of Pepé Le Pew running around dousing the congregation with scent from behind its knees, whilst what can only be described as a trichotillomaniac raccoon molted wherever he pleased. Despite the ‘anything goes’ atmosphere of the night I felt a sense of justice when I later saw these two – needless to say older gentlemen - given stern warnings by a bouncer. Though I did miss the eau de cologne when the air became exceedingly pungent with the sweat and other emanations of the crowd.

Eager to learn all I could about my new countrymen, I asked ‘pray tell, good fellow, and what is the name of this particular beat combo?’ to the intro of every tune that blasted through the speakers. Shocked that ‘The Banshees’ weren’t backing up a whole host of different singers as was implied by the sounds on offer. But I must say I was having a devil of a time, dazzled by the complex magic lantern shows illuminating the walls, those eerie figures morphing ever more monstrous from the moment they took form. And Edwin, grown greatly generous after a trip to the gents, was plying me with the speciality of the house, a bombastic beverage known as The Intense Humming Of Evil. At first I instinctively recoiled from such a libation – its handle as well as sulphurous appearance – though the concoction turned out to be quite sweet, and Edwin clued me in that it had been christened after a song by the Manic Street Preachers. Wanting to fit in, I began to imbibe without another word, silently wondering if any of the dog-collared brethren here tonight were actually members of that band or religious organization or whatever they are...

The dancing was something else as well, far from the traditional steps and twirls and whatnot, these bodies swam and swung, reverberating out of their cores like tossed cabers freshly landed, so much so I speculated about what this had to do with ‘the Scottish play’ as there were circling groups of three witches in every direction I cast my eye. And just when I was on the verge of asking if I could employ some of the more submissive attendees to provide protection as I tango’d down the tiles, the music decided to crash to a halt. Smoke billowed out over a platform at the far end of the room. Its previous occupants clearing off and a ghoulish quintet materialized from their midst and mist. The scene had all the trappings of a rock and roll show!

“Oh you’ll enjoy this,” Edwin sidled up, informing me that indeed a band was about to sing us some tunes. An outfit by the name of Cruel Tea, whose most recent single One Lump Or Two? had quickly become a staple of these nights. But this so-called ‘band’ was nothing like what I’d encountered on a stage before. No ‘when I say ‘blood’ you say ‘letting’, or claims they can’t hear the audience when said crowd is shouting at the top of their pyrotechnic-smoke-filled lungs. Swathed in shadow and dry ice clouds, only half of Cruel Tea’s members performed with what my third year music professor Mr. Sourde would know as an ‘instrument’, those being the chap manhandling the six-string thingamabobby and the electric pianist, this latter dispatching flurries of noise with one hand whilst twiddling a row of knobs with the other. There was the vocalist, naturally, but the other two resembled a mad scientist and deranged chef, the Village People’s village graveyard dug up and reanimated – not as undead navvies and navy men, for that would be too tantalizingly close to my pirate fantasies coming true, and of course one can’t have it all – but rather the township’s other professions brought back to life and banging on a mic’d up cauldron with sledgehammers as they proceeded to toss a smorgasbord of unsavoury ingredients into the burbling mixture. At one point it was as if they were emptying in a sackful of the rats caught from the entryway whilst simultaneously milking a three-legged goat into the pot. However unappetizing this was to witness, the music itself entranced, and I was having a whale of a time, even with the bevy of ritualistic physical contortions happening around me in appreciation of the spectacle.

After Cruel Tea encored with their signature number Brooding, I was in desperate need of the gents, and, despite having been warned what moral wastelands these were, I set off in search of where I could alleviate my bladder. That’s where it happened. And a good thing too the incident occurred post this urethral unloading. I was finishing up laving the old phalanges when I chanced to look in the mirror. What I saw there froze my soul to the very darkest of licorice ice lollies. For just above my shoulder, and only for an instant, hovered some sort of loo creature in my reflection. Though on my double take whatever it was had disappeared and I had to stare myself down in the mirror and administer a good talking to. ‘Peregrine, old man,’ I began, ‘no doubt this heady atmosphere is getting to you. Best cool it on the Intense H’s of E for a while.’ My soul was bypassing my brain to offer advice which I couldn’t quite grasp. For a stiff tumbler of the strongest spirit was exactly what I needed at that very mo to calm the nerves and recover from this most egregious fright. I resolved at once to go procure one. Brandy, or perhaps a Creamy Cowboy, equal parts Bailey’s and tequila, sure to buck one right up. And then it struck me. The phantasm seemed the identical twin of the horned cattle skull featured on my belt buckle earlier this evening. But how could that be? I’ve already spoken of my grave disappointment at finding neither sea-farers nor ranch hands at the old Grendelville. I mean, there were even gothic cavemen wham-bam-bam’ing about. Not to disparage the club, I was having a gay old time. Well, until seventeen seconds or so ago. I shook my head clear and headed out to the bar. In the end I went with a Rusty Coffin Nail – the usual recipe plus a shot of Old Krupnik, the Polish honey liquor believed by Slavic grandmothers the world over to be the cure bar none for any cold or cough. Glass in hand, I thus hit the dancefloor as I heard someone say this was The Sisters Of Mercy and I felt that quality to be most definitely what I needed right about now. Unless they said Misters Of Circe, but I take it the point would still stand, as that goddess warned Odysseus to stay away from her father’s cattle.

The tiles turned out to be the perfect place to exorcize this demon or whatever it was I saw in the lavatory mirror. And soon I entered into the spirit of things, thrashing my body up down and turned around, like a side-blotched lizard on amphetamines trapped in a chrome-plated pipe tobacco tin, blending in swimmingly. Once I got the hang of that, I resumed my previous practice of enquiring after artist and song title of the record spinning, eager to retain them in the old nog to purchase from Phoney Graham on the morrow. I was duly informed these stellar tunes were Hiss N Hearse by Larval Cockroach, Mourning Sickness by Dr. Mandrake’s Estranged Medical Unit, and Flesh In The Pan by Pan’s Flesh. I was loving this. Until...

After being told the arid synthesizer sweeps rattling the sound system were the opening strains of Eastern Wood Western Urn’s Stallions Ablaze, as I was shaking my left hand all about, I noticed my cape was missing. No wonder I was moving with such glorious abandon! I went to procure another Rusty Coffin Nail and consider the situation. How could I have misplaced it? Where could I have misplaced it? And how would I be able to find my frock amidst this sea of black? It was then I felt the true sorrow at the heart of goth music. Having lost a piece so precious to me, so vital to my wardrobe and warpath, I was positively forlorn. True, I hadn’t worn the wrap since Claire Saturn-Crustacean’s Last Days Of Rome party where Chrysler ‘Bang Bang’ Whalingship convinced me to go as The Emperor from Star Wars as a hoot, but nevertheless, it held pride of place in my cape closet. And what’s more is there were dozens of capes in the exact same shade currently swooshing about the venue. Perhaps the best vantage point to spot it would be from within the melee. This was confirmed when just at that moment the DJ began to spin This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us. The marvellous thing about music is its power to change one’s mood and, spectral visitations aside, I had been very much enjoying the proceedings. So, confident the cape would makes its way back to me, I let myself go and plunged in. Misguided, maybe, though I never could have expected or been fully prepared for what came next. Whilst everyone around me was faux-flamenco dancing to the middle of the song, I again caught glimpse of, yes, the creature! From across the dancefloor, but there was no mistaking, amongst other things, the brazen breach of dress code, what with the sunbleached white of bone. Its red eyes bore into me and only later did I realize I should’ve called the bouncer to throw him out for displaying yet another colour. But amidst the present panic, I was captivated by its piercing stare. The skull seeming to float through the crowd, on the sea of black beneath, holding my gaze as it began to tack towards me. In a flash I noticed that part of the fabric of this expanse, directly under its jaw, was my missing garment. True, the entire throng were tricked out in this tint, but a gentleman knows his capes! The figure stood before me and I was paralyzed with fear.

‘JOIN US!’ The skull boomed over Sparks’ monster riff.

I haven’t a clue how I found the strength to speak, but speak I did. ‘I say, old man, old cow, old skull, whatever you are. This is simply not on. One doesn’t steal another man’s cape no matter how much one covets it.’

The skull adopted an air of rebuke.

‘Oh, I see. Well yes, point taken, you aren’t another ‘man’ as you so rightfully indicate, but dash it -’

‘JOIN US!’

‘I say, now really. This isn’t any way to recruit folks to your organization, and such a tiny one within the greater gothic community.’ And at this point I snapped, lunging for the cloth for all I was worth. But the beast was too quick, sidestepping my attack and throwing my own cape over my head. Supernatural forces at play, I presume. I struggled valiantly to get free though in the process wound up on the floor, those red eyes glaring at me from above. It was most chilling. And what truly did me in were the hands – human hands – shooting out and whisking the cape away once more.

Saturated with terror I fled the scene. Steps echoing behind me as I reengaged the entrance corridor but I dare not look back towards the boney man, or whatever it was. Huffing and puffing, I reached the safety of the outside world. Though not for long. Casting my eyes heavenwards for some sort of angelic guidance, what should I encounter illuminating the firmament but the Bat Signal itself! Rendered here in the form of a cattle skull, shining wide over the architecture of our fabulous city. Reader, I ran.

Down alien alleyways and across fiendish thoroughfares, shadows jumping out at me from every incandescent streetlamp. My heart pounded in my throat, blood battering my eardrums, as crow feathers stuck to my lips after repeatedly penetrating my mouth, glued on by surreptitious spit. A blessing again, perhaps, to not have a cloak on my shoulders, allowing me to cruise at full speed. I did not stop until I felt the assassins on every side lower their sights on my sanity. Though it was still with much trepidation that, miles away, I risked another peek at the night sky. A sigh has never tasted so sweet. For in that moment no cattle - undead, luminiferous, or otherwise - roamed the clouds.

I wasn’t in the clear yet, for once back within the hoped-for sanctuary of The Drones, the DJ had the ruddy cheek to be playing a techno remix of the theme tune to Dallas. I ordered my first drink special of the evening and went for a bit of respite on the mezzanine balcony. The second Dark & Stormy began to unleash its magic and I set about infusing myself with a third. That potent zest of ginger and warm wave of rum worked wonders on my insides though had yet to tickle my gargoyle exterior.

‘I say Goodgrin, you look positively spooked. And why are you dressed as a raven?’ Leave it to The Bishop not to recognize crow feathers even when they’re right beneath his beak. Seth ‘The Actor’ Spiano and Boodj crowded in, just as perplexed as to my demeanour. I couldn’t tell them what happened, not yet. Their attire was more suited to our environs – snorkel necklaces and faux-chain mail blouses, in Day-Glo, natch - and I stuck out like a sore hitchhiker. Which I guess is precisely what I had been doing at Grendelville. An avian tourist diving in dark waters. There and then I resolved to stick close to my spiritual home of The Drones for the foreseeable.

The Bishop, The Actor, and Boodj, getting nothing out of me, headed off to the dancefloor to flop about to 2 5 1, the latest single by Jazz Playlist, leaving me on my lonesome. It wasn’t long, however, before I felt a most dubious presence lurking in the shadows. A brown-paper package, wrapped in rope, flopped onto the low table in front of me. ‘For you.’ Unable to remain concealed, Edwin Toulouse-Étoiletrek stepped into my field of vision guffawing like a troop of chimps, gorillas, and orangutans flanked by red-bellied lemurs, Paraguayan howlers, and lion-tailed macaques all heading over Niagara Falls in the barest of vessels. As this ruckus showed no sign of abating any time soon, I opened the parcel.

‘My cape.’

‘Yes, my dear boy. It was all deliciously simple. I swiped the discarded belt buckle from your sitting room whilst you spent an eternity getting ready. Using some of the club’s lighting equipment was but a trifle, I merely had to ask. To lead up to that, the idea came to me on our walk there. Your disregard of my nocturnal adventures due to, of all things, a lack of pirates I found disrespectful in the extreme. Especially to someone introducing you to the scene. Well, I knew your keenness to come across cowboys as well, wherever you got such a notion in your head that they would be represented this evening, I haven’t the foggiest. But with the belt buckle in my hands, I became convinced that particular theme could emerge. You see, lately I’ve gotten to know one of the Grendelville regulars, chap by the name of Setpiece, costume designer with a healthy interest in osseous material. Has quite the taxidermy collection too. It was but the work of a moment to inquire if he could go fetch one of his cattle skull masks and bring it down. Always up for a bit of hijinx, Setpiece is.’

‘But why did you steal my cape?’

‘Well, my boy. Couldn’t have you recognizing my outfit, could I? Very practically, the cape covered my own threads. Wasn’t expecting you to lunge like that though, most unsporting of you.’

Yes, my fright when we’d hit the floor had obscured what really stood before me. And here he was in a similar position, groping around in his trousers for an obscenely long time. At the end of which he tossed my beloved belt buckle on top of the folded cape. I rose to take my leave, greatly dazed by the events of the evening, but now intent on returning these restored treasures to their rightful place in my wardrobe and getting some much needed sleep. The sounds of The Drones beat on, crackling with electrical current, and Edwin, having made his confession, was soon borne away by those waves once again, lost to darkness and distance and all that.

I started asking for recommendations on Livejournal on where to start with Pynchon and got quite a few for Mason & Dixon. But my old friend Joe who knows me very well pointed out that with my love of Europe, it was only right to begin with GR. By the time I got back to the shop, that edition was gone, so I picked up one with a plainer red cover that nonetheless became a talisman ushering in a major life change

I LOVED Gravity’s Rainbow from the get-go. Was astounded by the beauty of the prose, the width of its scope, its sheer ambition, the fact that Pynchon seemed to know everything about everything, and his powers of invention were beyond anything I had experienced before. That’s not to say I understood it at all. The first 180 pages were the most difficult I had ever encountered, but I found that like most things worth having, you really had to want it. I’ve read it four times now as well as a bunch of criticism so I understand what’s going on a lot more - oh, that’s why Pointsman is given an octopus there etc. - but it’s still not an easy read. And the feel of the book! The paranoia! GR would haunt my dreams, and remains the only book that has ever made me feel so physically ill that I had to put it down (the Brigadier Pudding scene, you know…). Early on in my Livejournal I described the experience of reading it as ‘less like a book that I’m holding than a GIANT BLACK SWARM OF ULTRA-PARANOID BEES’. And my review on LJ once I’d finished was titled ‘On Depravity’s Pained Brow’. I so fondly recall reading those final chapters as the summer days turned to autumn, much on my lonesome - I didn’t know many people in London back then - going to Hampstead Heath and sitting in the grass, grabbing lunch of potato pancakes at a Polish restaurant down the hill, almost as good as my grandmother would make

My LJ details my difficulties and ecstasies with it all, and how after page 500 the struggles seemed to dissipate and everything just soared. And having finished this epic, the world of Pynchon now felt very much like a club where if you get it you get it and it is wonderful to find other people around who also do and can share that joy with. I know a girl who had a rule that she wouldn’t talk to anyone for six months after they’d read Gravity’s Rainbow because that’s all they would want to talk about. Fair enough

Fast-forward a little over a year later to November 2006 and I’m back in the States and at Border’s and see the just-released hardcover edition of Against The Day. I think to myself ‘how many more times will I have the chance to buy a Thomas Pynchon novel the week it comes out?’ and promptly snatch it up. Thankfully the answer to that question will be ‘three, and hopefully still counting’, though as it will turn out I’ll only have to buy one, getting review copies of the later two. But we’ll get to that…

I didn’t get the chance to dive into Against The Day’s 1085 pages right away but the following year right before I was moving back to London, my friend Alex posted on his LJ about having finished The Crying Of Lot 49 whilst sitting on a park bench at lunch and being terrified someone was going to come up and hand him a letter. More Pynchon paranoia was exactly what I was looking for and I bought the novella to read on my flight over. Loved it of course. Back then I had a thing of reading a big book over the xmas holidays so that year I went with V, ushering in a quite intense couple of years with the great author. I still think it’s so cool that his first novel was called V and his second was focused on the V2 rocket

Straight after that it was Vineland, by far the easiest to read of the novels (up until Inherent Vice) and I was really drawn to this. The constant mix of highbrow and lowbrow - talking in-depth knowledge of acupuncture meridians and Eastern philosophy but also Godzilla references. The People’s Republic Of Rock N Roll, the counterculture 60s brought into the Reagan 80s, and him starting to work in more human connections and doing it in such a moving way. Plus that great Star Wars reference at the end. I’ve always been of the opinion that there is no such thing as a bad pun, only laboured ones, and the whole ‘the check is in the mayo’ bit is wonderful for just how laboured it is. The successor to GR’s ‘For DeMille, young fur henchmen can’t be rowing’

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After seven months of not having anywhere to live in London, constantly hopping between friends’ couches, cheap hotels, and short-term lets, when I finally settled into my place on Eden Grove, I began Mason & Dixon in earnest. What an amazing idea, retelling the life stories of those two and working in everything their line would come to represent, far beyond their original orders. The whole Jesuit imposition of lines upon the Earth versus the whole Feng Shui idea of working with nature, where of course no such thing as straight lines are found. Captain Zhang being perhaps my favourite character in the book. And I do love the dark red pearl that was once “a Cyst, growing within the Brain of a Cobra”. There were rumors of Pynchon working on such a book since at least the 70s, a good twenty years before M&D’s release in 1998. And one would guess he was writing Against The Day during that time too, given how enormous everything about that book is. And which it was finally time for me to read

So come the summer of 2008, I’m back home for my sister’s wedding and AtD is very much on the agenda. The only problem being its bulk. Obsessed as I was - it remains to this day my favourite novel - I was going to be carrying it with me everywhere I went. Someone recommended to my friend Rick that he chop the hardcover in half, making it much less unwieldy. A sensible solution, actually. I opted to just buy the paperback, whose cover I like better. Though I do love that that seal on the hardcover is that of the Tibetan Chamber Of Commerce. Represents so much about the book, especially one of my favourite lines from it: “Those whose enduring object is power in this world are only too happy to use without remorse the others, whose aim is of course to transcend all question of power. Each regards the other as a pack of deluded fools.”

There’s so much about Against The Day that I love, more than I can go into here, but the scope of it, traversing pretty much the entire world, as well as flying above it and entering into it to play on the whole Hollow Earth theory. And let’s not forget the Tetris references of the Russian hot air balloon! Its captain being named Padzhitnoff after the inventor of that game, the balloon’s name even translating to ‘The Great Game’ (which of course has other real life political resonances), and we even see Padzhitnoff having a revelation about ‘four-brick groupings’ when they’re in Italy. The occultism of the book is so much fun, especially the play on the English side of things with the T.W.I.T. - True Worshippers of the Ineffable Tetractys. The wonderful Yashmeen Halfcourt. How the family tree extends to Vineland with Jess Traverse being Prairie Wheeler’s great-grandfather. And while it’s 300 pages longer than Gravity’s Rainbow, it is infinitely easier to read

Upon finishing AtD, that September I was headed to Paris to see The Divine Comedy do a night of chanson. And for something to read on the Eurostar over, I went to my school’s library and took out Steven Weisenburger’s excellent A Gravity’s Rainbow Companion. It is reading this that I credit as my getting into occultism. Inspired by its talk of Tarot, astrology, and other arts of the unseen, I would spend years studying these things further. Still am

Just around the corner the following year, there’d be the surprise of a new Pynchon novel, Inherent Vice. I can’t go too much into it here, but we used to do this thing called 47 PINTS DAY, and to celebrate IV’s release, the day it came out I invited a few friends to the Big Red bar on Holloway Road and we had a 23.5 PINTS DAY (the total number drank, not each person’s individual consumption). Of course at chucking out time, I very much wanted to carry on, as drink would often do to me, and with Inherent Vice in tow, instead of heading home I hopped on a night bus into the city center to catch the end of Scarlet’s DJ set and then spend the rest of the evening hitting various casinos with her until around 7AM

But Inherent Vice, man, That’s the one. Everybody thought it was Pynchon-lite when it came out, probably because it was just so readable. But, as and I have discussed on multiple occasions, there is so much going on in that book, revealing itself more and more each time. There’s that whole Pynchon adding an extra day to the otherwise accurate historical timeline, which is very cool. Inserting another 24 hours between May 4th and 5th, 1970. Even flagging it up with the line “Next day was as they say another day”. In May 2023, I was heading down to Georgia to do some readings for The Ballad Of Buttery Cake Ass. On the 15 hour drive down there, I put on the audiobook of Inherent Vice and loved it so much that, after a break for a Wodehouse book while I was in Athens, I simply started Inherent Vice again on the way back up. I love the film too. Especially this film poster highlighting the classic Pynchonian V for Villain

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And then, unbelievably, we got more! In 2013, I was incredibly honoured to review Bleeding Edge for The Quietus. A review I’m very proud of, although subsequent readings of the book didn’t delight me in the way they usually do. But getting the book a month or so ahead of time was just a wonderful feeling, knowing I was one of a small group of people experiencing this before the release date. Which brings us now to Shadow Ticket, and let me tell you that pre-release feeling did not diminish one bit

I didn’t have quite as much lead-up time with this as I did with Bleeding Edge, but I did manage to read it twice, and watch The Black Cat (1934), from which comes the book’s epigraph. I strongly encourage a second reading as, the first time through, its opening half seemed too long before getting to the main action, and then once there, the confusion within felt like it could be greatly expanded upon if not clarified, more weight given to its individual tales. But second time around, all seems exactly as it should be, even those many loose ends. Here’s the review. I’d love it if you shared it

I of course had many thoughts about the book that I wasn’t able to fit into just one review. So here’s a couple additional points. I love how the acronyms came back strong - BAGEL, SMEGMA, UTOPIAN... And his continued use of bringing modernity into the past but in non-anachronistic ways - here with ‘FaceTube’, and also mentioning it in a way that reminds us YouTube was originally meant to be a dating site. Of course he’s always showing us early technologies that we might not have thought existed at the time, such as here with the early fax of the Belinograph, or the x-ray machine in the shoe shop. And the autogiro! Making for a literal deus ex machina. And what do you make of Zdeněk, the golem? Referencing the famous one created by Rabbi Löwe of Prague since we’re in Eastern Europe, but also the use of early robots, the term itself having just come into usage from Karel Čapek’s 1920 play, R.U.R. I can’t figure out Zdeněk’s dimensions. It says he’s ‘pocket-sized’ but still manages to drive a car and have an armoury at his disposal???

Besides the links to Vineland via the last name of Wheeler, and by extension to Against The Day, there’s also the evil doctor Swampscott Vobe whose name can’t not put us in mind of Scarsdale Vibe. The whole ‘V for Villain’ thing, but also Swampscott and Scarsdale are both US towns, in Massachusetts and New York respectively. The ‘V for Villain’ thing seems to have faded out, though interestingly Bruno Airmont, who would be considered the villain of the book, has a wife named Vivacia. And there’s the casually mentioned ‘Valdivia Expedition of 1898-99’ which recalls AtD’s Vormance Expedition. Speaking of names, Hicks’ Uncle Lefty doesn’t show any real leftist politics, ‘Lefty’ simply being a nickname of ‘Detlaf’

The timeline too. Details put the story pretty straightforwardly starting before xmas 1932, and at least one other xmas passes judging from descriptions once we’re in Europe. But towards the end I can’t figure out why, when again discussing the Chicago Cubs, Hicks claims to have “never heard the details of” Babe Ruth famously calling his shot during Game Three of the 1932 World Series at Wrigley Field in Chicago on October 1, 1932. This happened right around the novel’s beginning when Hicks would’ve still been in Milwaukee and regularly traveling down to The Windy City. How could he not have heard? Thoughts anyone?

And that scene with the records on the train is really lovely, and so Pynchon. I love too the colour scheme of the American edition’s cover, those oranges and purples mentioned a few times throughout the text

And then we get the double whammy of Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. Which I LOVED LOVED LOVED. I wasn’t sure going in, as when I first saw the trailer it looked and felt nothing like I envision Vineland to be. And it wasn’t. Of course it’s updated for our times, but even with the different tone it really did justice to the book, remaining faithful to Vineland’s spirit. Except for the bit at the end with Sean Penn, which I felt was extraneous, I thought everything about this film was amazing. The performances were so great. The shots - those face to face ones, the scene between Lockjaw and Willa at the church, those rolling roads through the hills in that unique chase scene that eventually made my stomach lurch. Chase Infiniti showing an excellent range of intense emotions. I was in tears three or four times and had an extended bout of sobbing at the end. It was so moving, and also really freaking funny at points. Benicio del Toro zen af. “No fear. Like Tom fucking Cruise.” is one of the all-time great movie lines. Regina Hall holds it all together as a bridge between past and present

And how strange/cool is it that Sean Penn is actually mentioned in Vineland, as playing Larry Bird in that fictional Lakers v Celtics film?

It is very much a Pynchon autumn and I am very happy about that

Far too weird a coincidence, especially considering that I’ve just released my own new single this week and Sweeping The Nation being about, among other things, bands people ‘never got to hear’. See the b-side to my single, A Lighthouse I Ain’t Ever Been To, with its lyric of ‘I’ve got posters of shows of bands nobody knows, and man I’ve been in a few’

Sweeping The Nation wasn’t consciously on my mind when I wrote that, but it’s a song I’ve always loved, and one that resonates for many reasons. It’s got one of THE BEST middle 8s, musically, but also the lyric about realizing how much of your life you’ve been wasting always hits me hard and motivates me to get right back to creating if I’m doing anything other than. There’s also that great line in the breakdown - “I remember standing under Byker bridge in Newcastle with Michael Bradshaw and Mickey turned to me and saying ‘Shirley - don't worry, as long as you stick to what you believe in, everything you want will come to you’”. And I’m a firm believer that sticking to your guns will result in great outcomes and great art.

Which takes me back to London, late summer 2006. On top of pushing ahead with my band H Bird who seem like we’re on the verge of something, handling all the managerial duties, booking and playing shows, releasing our debut single and planning quite the event for the release party, trying to get press - of which, we got some lovely reviews - writing new songs, and embarking on a new romantic relationship, I decide to spend some time each day trying to get my first novel, Off-License To Kill, published.

I remember so fondly walking down to that Thai restaurant underneath The Luminaire on Kilburn High Road for their lunch special with the printed out manuscript under my arm for revisions. I spoke to quite a few literary agents and one quite big one thought the idea of ‘James Vagabond of the British Drunken Secret Service going back in time to stop American Prohibition from ever happening’ was ‘brilliant’. She passed me off to one of her readers who I soon ran into some trouble with. While he liked parts of the idea, he considered the Prohibition bit ‘a farce too far’ and wanted me to change the story to have a ‘firm grounding in reality’. Going from the head of that lit agency being so encouraging to this was quite the detour and I was pretty bummed at the opportunity passing me by. My correspondence with the dude continued after I had to return to the States and I remember being at dinner with my family and my father saying ‘you may have to change it’ and me immediately responding ‘well I’m not going to’. I have no problem changing things if someone can demonstrate to me why it would work better that way, but altering a story’s raison d'être holds no appeal to me whatsoever. I remember an old girlfriend who wanted to be an editor telling me ‘you’ll have to change things, you know’ and my reply completely throwing her, ‘only if I want it published’. Lest you think I’m all that stubborn, I did of course listen to people who got the story and made changes accordingly, self-publishing Off-License in 2014. It may still only be in the double digits in terms of sales but I have never once regretted not listening to that literary agent.

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Back to Spearmint. At their best, they are phenomenal. The Friday night Boston Britpop club The Pill used to play their We’re Going Out, one of the few tunes they’d spin that I didn’t already know and love, so I asked the DJ then went down to Newbury Comics and bought A Week Away for $35 from the Import section. It came with a bonus 3” cd and was totally worth one of the highest prices I’d ever paid for an album. We’re Going Out is an anthem of the most positive of vibes. Recognizing all of Life’s troubles but still resolute that we can rise above them if only for the evening, this is one of the most uplifting songs I know, having the power to obliterate the darkest of moods. And the video is great! The flip phones, Pot Noodles, and I had forgotten dandy extraordinaire Dickon Edwards was in it and the band at the time

Also on that mix cd, occupying slot 4 of my car’s changer, is Andrea Davis’ You Gave Me Soul, one of my favourite soul songs. Glorious vocals from Ms. Davis who is of course Minnie Riperton in disguise. Her ‘baby don’t stop, baby don’t stop’ in the fade-out, especially the breathiness of the first ‘stop’, is one of my all-time favourite fade-out moments. One day I should post a list of those…

Not back to back obviously, but putting in appearances on the mix are both versions of Love Kitten. Noreen Corcoran’s swinging, upbeat one

And April Steven’s sultry, laidback original. Those purrs!

And Little Eva’s Sugar Plum, which I hadn’t heard in ages. Little Eva of The Locomotion fame. I love this song, and relished collecting all those Ace Records Where The Girls Are comps back in 2005. Story goes that this was probably recorded in 1968 but didn’t get a release until Where The Girl Are (Volume 6) in 2004.

Irma Thomas’ Wish Someone Would Care isn’t on the mix cuz I just discovered it on Monday but would fit in perfectly. Gorgeous stuff. And like so many of the best soul songs, it seems a light emanating out of the darkest night to sit with all your heartbreak

Gosh, I loved cds. Still have 500 of them that I just can’t part with. Loved tapes, vinyl, and dvds too. Still do. Earlier this year I was planning out a mix cd of excellent songs that aren’t available to stream. Getting back on that. And with recent snafus watching movies, I’ve resolved to start collecting dvds again. It really would be remiss of me not to own copies of Kieslowski’s Red, Irma Vep, or Adventures In Babysitting, that I could just throw in the dvd player at any given time and not have to deal with the faff of streaming

And so yeah, have you listened to Rachel On The Rooftops yet? I’ve enjoyed releasing it so much I wish I was putting out another single this week. There’s plenty of music coming though. In the meantime I’ve been pleasantly baffled by what people are saying Rachel sounds like. I’ve gotten Frank Black, Bruce Dickinson’s first solo album, Heart’s Alone, The Violent Femmes, and Steve Horry says ‘Blue Öyster Cult covering The Indelicates’. I don’t really know what it sounds like myself, other than me, but would love to hear your thoughts. As always, sharing the video would be very much appreciated. It’s so hard to get the word out there these days