Welcome to my final cultural blog for 2025. As well as talking about what I’ve heard, seen and read these last couple of months, I’ve included lists of everything I’ve encountered this year. As is my practise, this is in chronological rather than preference order. Who am I to judge the efforts of those who seek to bring creative beauty to the world? Anyway, here goes -:
MUSIC:
Since we were last here, I’ve only been to two gigs; My Bloody Valentine at Glasgow Hydro on November 27th and Shunyata Improvisation Group at The Globe on December 21st. Ostensibly, we have the musical equivalents of diamond and graphite here; hewn from the same creative mine, but as dissimilar in properties as could be imagined. My Bloody Valentine louder than war and Shunyata as peaceful as the grave. Yet both produced gruelling performances of profound, startling brilliance in completely contrasting ways. Ben, Dave and I travelled to Glasgow with deep expectation and were not to be disappointed by the awesome power and punishing beauty we encountered. I’d last seen My Bloody Valentine at Northumbria University in December 1991, when their almost unbearable white noise dissonance in the closing You Made Me Realise fused the electrics in the hall, leaving only the emergency exit signs glowing in the darkness. 34 years on, it’s still talked about with a sense of awe by those who were there. At the 14,000 capacity Hydro, having been supported by the eternally wonderful J Mascis playing solo, they again finished their set with the same number. This time the noise section stretched out to almost 10 minutes. It wasn’t unbearable at all; it was a delight. I’d worn ear plugs to a gig for the first time ever, but dispensed with them for the final two numbers, once Feed Me With Your Kiss kicked in. It may have been a foolish thing to do, but it was necessary to experience and endure the ferocious power of the band in full flow. Despite the raw volume, there was the trademark sweetness and melodies as well. A 19-song set derived from 1988 onwards, with highlights such as Soon and Wonder 2, this was an absolutely outstanding evening. Almost spiritual in its essence and worth enduring the pain in the ear that lasted until the next week.
In
its own way, SIG’s 8-hour, dawn to dusk Solstice performance with associated
allies John Pope, Faye Calman and NofC, was as much of a test of endurance as
My Bloody Valentine. Other than the 3 core members (Martin Donkin, John Garner
and Katie Oswell), I was the only one of the 19 assorted audience members who
lasted the whole day, for which I received praise from both Martin in person
and John on social media. I hadn’t necessarily intended to be there for the
whole event and will cheerfully admit to struggling for both energy and
concentration in the early afternoon, but a curious desire to experience the
whole event, as well as the fragile beauty of the music produced, kept me in
the room, other than for the occasional comfort break.
When my alarm went off at 6.30, in order for me to make a packed breakfast and catch the 7.15 bus along with a couple of dozen yawning retail workers, I didn’t really comprehend what an 8-hour gig would entail. I walked down the empty streets from the Monument, humming Cavan O’Connor’s I’m Only a Strolling Vagabond, for no apparent reason, then observed the preludial 10-minute silence, the same length of time My Bloody Valentine scorched our ears with pure, white noise in You Made Me Realise, that heralded the start of the entertainment. Here the similarity between SIG and MBV became obvious, as both trade in celestial, otherworldly out of body musical experiences that combine and transcend beauty and spirituality. Initially, SIG were joined by John Pope on double bass for the opening 2 hours, as daylight imperceptibly seeped through the windows. Every single act in a SIG performance has import, whether it be Katie drinking from her travel mug, John Garner silently blowing his nose or John Pope pretending to snore, which has been known to happen at previous Shunyata performances. As a performance of such length is as much of a physical test of endurance as it is a question of musical intervention, players drop in and drop out of the circle, to reflect and recharge. The noise of their stockinged feet padding across the sticky upstairs floor is as much a part of the whole as any other sound.
Following
John Pope’s departure, where the noises associated with him packing away his
gear added to the overall effect, the crucial three took it on themselves to
perform for 4 hours solid. I did wonder if this was too ambitious a project to
be fully realised, but I have to say the performers passed this test of
endurance with flying colours. While the audience are free to go when they
want, the players freedom is to go where they want, meaning this ensured a
wider ranging set of sounds than normally associated with a SIG gig. Far more
dadaist than pastoral it must be said, though still with elegiac moments of
incredible beauty. Partly this was on account of the guests who assisted them,
and I’d love to have been a participant I must admit. At one stage, the
audience dropped to 2, begging the question whether, if nobody had been
present, would the gig still have mattered? Of course it would. Shunyata’s
sounds are like the life of a day. Things often happen, though sometimes they
don’t, yet time always passes.
At times, the room was stuffy and airless, which did my head cold no good at all and there was the ominous presence of a Christmas ukelele workshop downstairs. If you think the No-Audience Underground attracts weirdos and oddballs (me, for instance), you ought to have seen that constituency. Despite my dehydration headache, which was at its worst around 1.30, I saw the whole event through, rewarded by the magnificent interplay between John’s shakuhachi and Faye’s clarinet, which seemed to suit the SIG vibe more than her sax playing, especially when they spontaneously broke into a smoky 60s NY bebop jazz style section. This was a stunning triumph, and I eagerly await Shunyata’s next move. Incidentally, they have a new CD coming out on Wormhole World, the same label who are releasing my new Hello Cheeky album in mid-January, early in 2026. Please investigate.
|
Lindisfarne |
Shields
Exchange |
08-Feb |
|
Orange
Claw Hammer |
The
Globe |
20-Feb |
|
Rumours
of Fleetwood Mac |
Shields
Exchange |
21-Feb |
|
Mogwai |
Leeds
O2 |
22-Feb |
|
Mark
Carroll & Paul Taylor |
Lit
& Phil |
11-Apr |
|
The
Mekons |
The
Cluny |
12-May |
|
Ramleh |
Lubber
Fiend |
31-May |
|
Shuyata
Improvisation Group |
Cullercoats
Watch House |
08-Jun |
|
The
Pastels |
Cumberland
Arms |
20-Jul |
|
So-Anne-So |
Little
Buildings |
21-Jul |
|
Bartholomew |
The
Globe |
24-Jul |
|
Johny
Brown & Bill Lewington |
The
Cumberland |
10-Aug |
|
Loveable
Wholes |
Little
Buildings |
11-Aug |
|
Lava
Mouse |
Laurels
Whitley Bay |
23-Aug |
|
Shunyata
Improvisation Group |
Earthlings
Café |
07-Sep |
|
Edwyn
Collins |
Boiler
Shop |
09-Oct |
|
Wedding
Present |
Boiler
Shop |
10-Oct |
|
My
Bloody Valentine |
Glasgow
Hydro |
27-Nov |
|
Shunyata
Improvisation Group |
The
Globe |
21-Dec |
As far as recorded, physical releases go, I’ve had to face up to the new reality of my retirement. While not in financial dire straits, I do have to watch the pennies. Hence, I’ve had to pass on a trio of releases by Billy Steiger, Dublin raised avant garde violinist, Emergence Collective, the Sheffield equivalent of Shunyata, and another John Pope / John Garner project, Anarchist Reading Group, as I couldn’t justify a total of £50 plus postage for the 3 releases, which is a terrible shame. I was delighted to receive free copies of Posset’s The Teenage Virus (Volume 4) from auteur Joe Murray at the Shunyata gig and Music is the Message by Sons of Slum, that came free with issue #16 of Spinners. The latter is a solid slab of 1970s Chicago funk, rescued from the vaults, and the latter is another enduring and deeply enjoyable melange of tape skronk by the world’s foremost Dictaphone manipulator. I’m also delighted to feature, as track 3 on the first disc no less, on Wormhole World’s triple CD Christmas 2025 release, along with some titans of the NAU. Deep gratitude to Paul for all his support.
While we’re not in the business of handing out end of year awards, Johny Brown’s incredible, autobiographical magnum opus Dream a Memory of Home is one of the very best things I’ve heard in many a long year and is up there with our own blessed boy’s finest ever work.
I’ve told you this story a million times before, but it deserves another hearing. I was 12 going on 13 when I saw a Pink band in the flesh for the very first time; Speed in the old University Theatre foyer, as part of a series of gigs designed to raise money for the occupation of said building in opposition to swingeing cuts that would have seen its closure. In the same way that hearing (I Belong to the) Blank Generation by Richard Hell & the Voidoids on John Peel’s Christmas Eve programme in 1976 altered my cultural perceptions forever, Speed did the same. Johny Fusion (aka Brown) was the lead singer, oscillating between coy diffidence off stage and crazed dervish when performing. Their screaming and uncompromising racket amazed me. I never saw them with Johny again. Soon he’d packed his bags for South East London squat life and next crossed my radar when I came across the brilliant, enduring Band of Holy Joy. Now if you want to read about them in far more eloquent detail than I could ever manage, read the following awesome article by Martin Gray on the Louder Than War website, which tells you everything you need to know; https://louderthanwar.com/the-band-of-holy-joy-celebrating-their-40-years-of-recordings/
Since properly reconnecting with Johny about 20 years ago, though I’ve seen the Band of Holy Joy on dozens of occasions since about 1987, we’ve become friends. He has been immensely supportive of my creative endeavours and I’ve always encouraged him. I was therefore utterly honoured to be sent an advance copy of Dream a Memory of Home, an album that is his very own Astral Weeks. Yes, it deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Van the Man’s timeless classic. Johny was born in New York (the one between Rake Lane and Norham Road North) and lived there and in Chirton. Hence, this is a love letter to his roots, his family, and the canny folk of Shields, who live in his home town. Never did I ever think I’d hear Nile Street, Bedford Street and the dear, departed Cannon sang about in such loving tones. Anyone who believes that Sam Fender is the authentic voice of NE29 needs to hear this record, from the opening nostalgia of When Football was our Game, to the sentimental hilarity of My First Pint, via a paean to his first musical venture, A Hymn to Speed and the brutal memories of a tough upbringing in A Burning Thief’s Lament, this is a psychogeographical masterpiece.
The one CD I did shell out for was Maxi by The Wedding Present. As you’ll know I’ve become disillusioned by David Gedge’s enduring ability to rinse his adoring fanbase with a load of expensive scams, like rerecording old albums, that we all keep falling for. The live shows continue to take your breath away, but other than Boo Boo from El Rey and various parts of both Going Going and 24 Songs, the vast majority of post reformation Wedding Present stuff, while vastly superior to the Cinerama interlude, is largely forgettable. So it is with Maxi, a driving themed update of 1995’s Mini. Being honest, it’s alright. We get nods to various Weddoes eras, such as the histrionic pop of Valentina on both Two For the Road and Silver Shadow. A bit of hamfisted shambling thud on the single Hot Wheels isn’t bad, but the only one that really stands out is the cleverly constructed Saturnalia style emotionally charged Interceptor. So, it’s alright, but I doubt I’ll be jettisoning Seamonsters for this any time soon.
|
Artist |
Title |
Year
of Release |
|
Virgin
Prunes |
A
New Form of Beauty 1-4 |
1982 |
|
Mogwai |
The
Bad Fire |
2025 |
|
Isolated
Community & There Are No Birds Here |
We
are the Wreckage of our Former Selves |
2025 |
|
Various |
Volcanic
Tongue |
2025 |
|
AMM |
AMM |
1966 |
|
Soft
Machine |
Live
at the Paradiso |
1969 |
|
The
Mekons |
Horror |
2025 |
|
Alex
Rex |
The
National Trust |
2025 |
|
Blue
Cheer |
Junk |
2025 |
|
Swell
Maps |
Peel
Sessions |
2025 |
|
Martin
Donkin & John Garner |
Interventions
& Detours |
2025 |
|
Milkweed |
Remscela |
2025 |
|
Mark
Glanville & Alexander Knapp |
A
Yiddish Winterreise |
2014 |
|
Lavinia
Blackwall |
The
Making |
2025 |
|
Isolated
Community |
Movement
in the Half Light |
2025 |
|
Jill
Lorean |
The
Book |
2025 |
|
Dragged
Up |
Blake's
Tape |
2025 |
|
Bartholomew |
Subterranea |
2025 |
|
Beverley
Martyn |
The
Phoenix & The Turtle |
2014 |
|
Buffalo
Springfield |
Retrospective |
1968 |
|
The
Loveable Wholes |
Cloth
Work Sessions |
2025 |
|
Martin
Donkin & John Garner |
The
Moon in the Stream |
2025 |
|
Principal
Edward's Magic Theatre |
Soundtracks |
1970 |
|
Various |
TSPTR
Sound Library Volume 1 |
2025 |
|
Wedding
Present |
Hot
Wheels |
2025 |
|
Sexual
Objects |
Orangutang |
2025 |
|
Pettaluck |
Carnival
of the Sea |
2025 |
|
Young
Knives |
DIY
Years |
2025 |
|
Wedding
Present |
Maxi |
2025 |
|
Various |
Wormhole
World Xmas 2025 |
2025 |
|
Johny
Brown |
Dream
a Memory of Home |
2025 |
|
Posset |
The
Teenage Virus |
2025 |
|
Sons
of Slum |
Music
is the Message |
1978 |
John King, as well as editing the excellent Verbal magazine and piloting the estimable London Books, has written some of the most thought-provoking and compelling novels of working class life in contemporary literature. Set, almost uniformly, in the satellite, quasi-dormitory towns beyond London’s western approaches, they act as an important reminder to those, like me, who often dismiss the southern white working class as rabid, racist flag shaggers. While I’m not familiar with or attracted to the 1977 revivalist music scene John is involved in, I do have an admiration for the loyalty he displays to the genre. However, the works of fiction John has produced do involve me deeply. His latest Peekaboo Bosh, a novella linked tangentially to his earlier work The Animal House, written from an unapologetically vegan, anti-vivisectionist perspective, is less densely plotted and without many of his trademark sub plots and interpolations. It is a deeply moral and highly judgemental tract about those who work in the sordid field of animal experimentation. As is the case in all his books, the good guys do legally questionable deeds to bring down evil men. In Peekaboo Bosh, the antagonist meets a grim but deserved end, providing pay back for all his years of immoral acts. It’s a taut, thought-provoking read, written in John’s trademark spare, polished style. A great read, if not an uplifting one.
Scrolling through recent obituaries in The Guardian, I came across the recently deceased author Ian Marchant, a writer with whom I was unfamiliar. The valediction on his passing told of a writer who had produced a couple of novels, but who was most praised for his polymath non-fiction. During his career, which latterly saw him earn his living as a Creative Writing lecturer in Birmingham, he wrote books on an array of subjects including pub crawls, suburban railways and the Beat Generation. Superficially, or so it seemed, his was a furrow similar to the mid-career works of my dear friend and legendary chronicler of the arcane minutiae of ordinary life, Harry Pearson. A bit of digging on Ebay garnered copies of Marchant’s Men & Models and Something of the Night. The comparison with Harry seemed a valid one, in terms of the wilfully obscure subject matter, personal anecdotes and warm, witty prose style. That said, Marchant’s social conservatism (he was a practising Anglican and a vehement supporter of the Ulster Unionist cause) means he writes from a perspective almost diametrically opposed to Harry who, for the avoidance of doubt, isn’t a Satan-worshipping Provo.
Men & Models is a jolly little photo book, consisting of thumbnail sketches of elderly blokes who probably started off as kids by assembling Airfix Spitfires and Messerschmitts or by staring transfixed at Hornby 00 gauge Deltics trundling round circular tracks, but whose adult hobbies spiralled into uncontrollable urges to build scale models of Apollo rockets in their back garden or whole villages in miniature to store in their potting sheds. It’s a warm, nostalgic take on a fascinating subject, but the structural limitations enforced by a need to have one page of text facing a whole page photo of the model maker means it is more of a coffee table photobook than an in-depth study of the motivations of the men themselves. Decent, but not a book to linger long I the memory. Something of the Night is much better. Set one dope-crazed evening in the wilds of West Cork, where Marchant has driven from the bosom of his Loyalist in-laws in County Down, to buy a big bag of grass, he riffs on all the meanings of night time, from sleeping to revelry, shift work to football, over the past centuries. Despite an unpleasant thread of bigoted anti-Catholicism that could almost be seen as a racist attitude towards citizens of the Rebel County, it is an interesting and diverting read. I may yet look out more of Marchant’s works.
Early 2026 will be spent devouring my Christmas print goodies; Austin Burke’s Shiver in the Dark, which is the follow up to Crazy on the Waltzer, a hardboiled Tyneside Noir crime thriller, Ian Fawdon’s Too Far North, an exhaustive history of the Tyneside music scene from the 60s to the present day and Say Nothing, a forensic account of the Jean McConville case by Patrick Radden Keefe. Finally, a word of thanks to my dear friend Richy Hetherington for giving me a copy of his late son Thomas Davidson Hetherington’s book of drawings and sketches, An Artist’s Life. You’ll forgive me if I don’t review such a deeply personal artefact for public consumption.
|
Author |
Title |
Genre |
Date
Finished |
|
James
Baldwin |
Fifty
Famous Stories |
Fiction |
02-Jan |
|
Maxwell
Bodenheim |
Slow
Vision |
Fiction |
28-Jan |
|
Robert
Coover |
Gerald's
Party |
Fiction |
10-Feb |
|
Bertrand
Blier |
Making
It |
Fiction |
24-Feb |
|
Austin
Burke |
Crazy
on the Waltzer |
Fiction |
01-Mar |
|
Geoff
Nicholson |
Street
Sleeper |
Fiction |
02-Mar |
|
Max
Porter |
Lanny |
Fiction |
03-Mar |
|
Magnus
Mills |
An
Early Bath for Thompson |
Fiction |
06-Mar |
|
David
Keenan |
Volcanic
Tongue |
Non
fiction |
12-Mar |
|
Donal
Ryan |
Strange
Flowers |
Fiction |
27-Mar |
|
Ian
McEwan |
On
Chesil Beach |
Fiction |
06-Apr |
|
Ben
Nolan |
31
Days, 31 Nights |
Non
fiction |
20-Apr |
|
Nick
J Brown |
Hunter |
Fiction |
07-May |
|
Michael
Keenaghan |
Cocaine
Eyes |
Fiction |
27-May |
|
Dag
Solstad |
Professor
Andersen's Night |
Fiction |
13-Jul |
|
Jon
King |
To
Hell With Poverty |
Non
fiction |
14-Jun |
|
John
Braine |
Stay
With Me Till Morning |
Fiction |
17-Jul |
|
John
Noone |
The
Man With The Chocolate Egg |
Fiction |
18-Jul |
|
Irvine
Welsh |
Men
in Love |
Fiction |
24-Jul |
|
The
Kray Twins |
Our
Story |
Non
fiction |
27-Jul |
|
Lemmy |
White
Line Fever |
Non
fiction |
05-Aug |
|
Mike
Gatting |
Leading
from the Front |
Non
fiction |
06-Aug |
|
Sakia
Holling |
You
& Me Against the World |
Non
fiction |
18-Aug |
|
John
Anderson |
The
Utilita Football Yearbook |
Non
fiction |
20-Aug |
|
Brian
Moore |
The
Statement |
Fiction |
22-Aug |
|
Various |
North
East Labour History 2007 |
Non
fiction |
01-Sep |
|
Various |
North
East Labour History 2011 |
Non
fiction |
02-Sep |
|
David
Lodge |
Ginger
You're Barmy |
Fiction |
08-Sep |
|
Mike
Head |
21
Again |
Non
fiction |
15-Sep |
|
Simon
Donald |
Him
off the Viz |
Non
fiction |
29-Sep |
|
Simon
Pollock |
I
Love Suburbia |
Non
fiction |
03-Oct |
|
Chris
Donald |
Rude
Kids |
Non
fiction |
26-Oct |
|
John
King |
Peekaboo
Bosh |
Fiction |
02-Dec |
|
Ian
Marchant |
Men
& Models |
Non
fiction |
09-Dec |
|
Ian
Marchant |
Something
of the Night |
Non
fiction |
23-Dec |
