Hello Cheeky

I have a new CD, "Hello Cheeky," coming out on Wormhole World, which you can order from here https://wormholeworld.bandcamp.com/album/hello-cheeky - here is a piece I wrote for the Wormhole World Substack about this release, which I'm really rather proud of -: 

 Give us a micro biography of you as a sound artist/musician.

I got my first guitar almost exactly 50 years ago, Christmas Day 1975, when I was 11. It was a nylon stringed acoustic and I learned the few folk chords that I still rely on now, before graduating to an electric in 1978 after a few mates from school decided to form a band, influenced by Rough Trade, Fast Product and other arcane post punk bands, which is when I developed a love for feedback and white noise. We gigged very occasionally, recorded some long lost C60s, but got nowhere and fell apart in 1982 when I went to university. Our final name was Decadence, which is relevant to the new album. A couple of years later, my parents were downsizing to a retirement bungalow, and the Auld Fella flogged my gear without asking!! This meant I effectively retired from making music in the mid-80s, concentrating on writing instead. Alongside freelance sport journalism (cricket and football, mainly grassroots for both), I wrote about music as well, when print still existed. I still do, as well as writing fiction; I’ve a novel, Braunhemden, coming out in late March, from 5767 Publishing. I didn’t give up on music entirely, after a bloke I worked with in the early 90s gave me a lovely Hofner semi-acoustic he’d found in his garage after moving in. I’ve still got it and use it still. It was my instrument I used on my first release, Dresden Heist, with Chris Bartholomew (who is a genius BTW) that we released in 2023. That project was the first musical venture I’d been involved with in over 35 years, after deciding I wanted to get noisily creative in my declining years. Since then, I’ve acquired a bass, a Telecaster that’s too good for me and an electric violin, all of which have been essential in helping me create my subsequent self-released solo efforts, The World is Flat (2024) and The Pseudobulbar Effect (2025), which came out in in editions of 50. They’re both sold out, but you can listen to them on my Bandcamp page https://iancusack.bandcamp.com/music  Also in 2025, I was involved in the Scratch and Reflect Ensemble, co-ordinated by Tyneside music therapist Chris Minnis, along with my dear friend Martin Donkin of the wonderful Shunyata Improvisation Group, which I found an empowering and inspirational experience. You can read about it here; https://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.com/2025/06/cusack-serves-imperialism.html After this project ended, I began assembling Hello Cheeky.

Tell us a little about the album.

Technical details first; I recorded it on my phone and mixed it on the laptop using Audacity, in my spare bedroom. The front cover is of a bloke who got done for road rage in Bournemouth or somewhere, pictured mid rant. Musically, The World is Flat was mainly guitar and ancient, recycled cassette skronk, while The Pseudobulbar Effect involved bass, found sounds and AI voice manipulation. I am proud of them both, but felt in retrospect, they contained a couple of weak tracks and ideas that hadn’t been fully realised. For Hello Cheeky, I wanted to do the very best job I could, without any filler, which I think I’ve achieved, despite the component parts being longer pieces than I’m normally associated with. I mentioned my teenage band Decadence, which is also the name of the first track on the album. I’m still in touch with 2 of the members, Francis Robson and Richard McLeod and was very keen to involve them. We didn’t meet up as Francis lives in the wilds of Northumberland and Richard is based in West London (and has been for 40 years). Richard actually gave me a rather lovely Telecaster in Summer 2023 which I “play” on this track. After I’d recorded it, I sent it to both Francis and Richard, asking them to contribute in any way they saw fit. Francis contributed the wild synth noises and Richard a swampy, sluggish beat that reminded me of a Jacques Cousteau soundtrack. Putting the three parts together really excited me and I am so glad they took the time to participate. The other 4 tracks involve me “playing” guitar on 3 of them and, for the first time, electric violin on the final number “Surveillance.” That one and “On The Job Training” also include spoken text, as they are two of my published pieces of short fiction. The former spoken by me and the latter AI generated. I am delighted to be able to combine my two main creative outlets in this way.

 Which is your personal favourite track on the album?

Despite what I’ve said about the joy of working collaboratively and the importance of including my written texts in my sound work, my personal favourite is “Fumima Fumami,” which involves neither of these. Using a background of trains entering and departing Waverley in Edinburgh, including the accidental sound of someone playing the station piano, it includes a repeated guitar motif that is possibly the most melodic thing I’ve ever been responsible for. I find it uplifting to be honest. I hope other people like it.

Are there any other artists that have appeared on Wormhole World that interest you?

From completely different ends of the musical spectrum, I absolutely adore the work of Shunyata Improvisation Group who, like The Fall in the words of the great John Peel, are “always different, always the same” and the 2 Deaf German EPs, which are some of the most magical moments of unpleasant noise I’ve ever heard. I’m also a great admirer of the wonderfully eclectic St James Infirmary, having known Gary Lang for over 35 years. TSR2 would be my favourite of the electronic artists, as I find their analogue attack to be tremendously uplifting and almost nostalgic for those who raved a bit in the late 80s. Also a shout out to Gidouille Collective, for being the cleverest Dadaists around.

What brought you to join the Wormhole World family?

Back in 2019, my mate Paul Flanagan told me about TQ Magazine, edited by the wonderful Andy Wood. If you’re aware of TQ, you know what a warm and wonderful person Andy is. Him, Paul and also Gary Lang of St James Infirmary, provided me with an insight into the No Audience Underground in Newcastle and environs, which had begun as an adjunct to the Tusk Festival. After reading all the back issues of TQ I could get my hands on, as well as listening to everything they recommended that I could source on line, I found myself falling into a wonderful, deep, dark rabbit (worm?) hole of intensely creative, obscure and wilfully obtuse sounds. Clearly, Wormhole World were prime movers in putting stuff out there. Having got me through lockdown with a miasma of invigorating noise, I wanted to be part of this. While the Tyneside NAU is nowhere near as inclusive or supportive as the beautiful people would like to pretend (I’ve only managed to do 5 gigs in 5 years, despite being desperate to perform live), and I’ve struggled to crack social media as a way to publicise my work or make contacts, TQ and Wormhole World have been resolute and forthright in their support of my work. Having tracks on the last 3 Xmas compilations (firstly as BARTHOLOMEW cusack and latterly solo) has been an incredible shot in the arm in terms of validating my work. I can’t praise TQ and Wormhole World highly enough.

What’s your favourite album by another artist?

If you’re putting a gun to my head, and we’re looking beyond the Wormhole World oeuvre, it has to be The Mekons’ 1980 masterpiece second album, Devils, Rats & Piggies: A Special Message from Godzilla.

Who or what do you consider your influences?

Goodness: where do we start? My Auld Fella was Irish and so I grew up on a steady diet of The Clancy Brothers and The Dubliners (Dad, who had a fine voice, actually sang with Luke Kelly in the late 50s at The Bridge Hotel folk club in Newcastle). Being from Tyneside, Lindisfarne and Roxy Music were early favourites and still are. Then Bob Dylan (65-68 mainly, but everything up to Street Legal in 78 and nothing afterwards), before US art punk (hearing Blank Generation on Peel, Xmas Eve 76 was a game changer). Other than Wire and early Buzzcocks, UK punk left me cold. Post punk still holds me in its embrace; Gang of Four, The Mekons, Essential Logic, The Raincoats, The Fall (until MES lost the plot) and a hundred others. The Postcard Records catalogue is still a love, and I was delighted to see Edwyn Collins on his farewell tour last October. This led me on to C86 stuff, with The Wedding Present still firm favourites. I fell in love with Teenage Fanclub in the early 90s and would regard them as my favourite band to this day. Recently, I’ve seen My Bloody Valentine, who were on fire, and am looking forward to seeing Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Cabaret Voltaire in 2026. Vibracathedral Orchestra too. Here’s a link to a blog that lists everything I listened to, saw and read in 2025: https://payaso-de-mierda.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-king-of-new-york-and-chirton.html

Oh, did I mention The Velvet Underground? Them as well, plus anything and everything from 60s to early 70s folk, prog, psych worlds, as well as anything avant garde, including free jazz, DIY, improv, noise and drone of all eras from AMM to Zoviet France.

Do you have a favourite instrument or go-to sound making contraption?

Undoubtedly, it’s my venerable Hofner semi-acoustic. Any proper guitarist would love it, but it’s mine. Forever.

 

The King of New York (and Chirton)

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 27^th and Shunyata Improvisation Group at The Globe on December 21^st. 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

 BOOKS:

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