And the Rest is Silence

What I've been reading and listening to this past while -:

MUSIC:

When it became public knowledge that the Shunyata Improvisation Group were disbanding, I was bereft. I have been a devoted fan since we first crossed paths in 2021, though I admit I haven’t been in attendance at all of their live performances since they formed in 2018; not by a long chalk. I first saw them at TQ Live in Ryton, when Martin was absent through Covid and, while I didn’t make any of their Saturday afternoon events at The Globe, each based on one of the 7 principles of aesthetics they philosophically founded their work on, as cricket or football always take precedence on that day, I did see them whenever I could at a wide array of venues from Saltwell Park’s rose garden to Tyne Bank Brewery by way of a community centre in Shieldfield and, of course, the Cullercoats Watch House, where ill-fitting windows in a howling storm made it appear they had invited an orchestra of comb and tissue players to join in. As a result of all my past encounters with Shunyata, I knew I had to go to both of their final performances at Gosforth Quaker Meeting House and Hexham Trinity Methodist Church, with the returning NofC and poet Alex Reed on board, where they would be addressing Herman Hesse’s A Hymn to Old Age.

John Peel memorably described The Fall as being “always different; always the same.” So it is with Shunyata. Whatever the iteration, the song remains the same. Calm, spacious, quiet improvisational music, composed in the moment and created for the purpose of allowing the listener to contemplate, and perhaps meditate, at an intellectual level far above the mundane. Shunyata allow you space to think. They make you consider the world, but in a good way. With the addition of Alex Reed’s poetry and the multi instrumental input of NofC, Martin Donkin (guitar), John Garner (violin, shakuhachi) and Kate Oswell (voice, percussion) were able to take this transcendent musical oeuvre to a whole new level that proved to be a fitting conclusion to one of the most satisfying projects I’ve been blessed to absorb this past half decade.

Gosforth Quaker Meeting House used to be a Masonic Temple, and it hosted Weight Watchers 20 years ago, which helped me lose 4 stones back in the day. It was the first time I’d been back since 2005 and the first time I’d seen Shunyata in their entirety since the marathon December solstice performance at The Globe last year. I had seen John Garner in another of his multifarious projects, in collaboration with John Pope at Elder Beer the month before, with Martin in the audience, while I’d last seen Katie to talk to at Mogwai in February.  The Garner / Pope duo gig was the second time I’d seen them together, though I’ve obviously seen them in other settings on numerous occasions. This was the first gig I’d seen at Elder Beer, which is one of my favourite pubs, so it worked out well. Sitting in the beer garden with a Steady Rolling Man, I enjoyed the evening in the company of Harry Pearson.

The 2 Johns did 2 sets, comprised of lesser known pieces by the modern jazz greats; Ayler, Cherry, Davis, Rollins and so on, plus a really rather lovely version of You Are My Sunshine. Thoroughly enjoyable and it provided me with a chance, courtesy of Harry’s generosity, to fill a hole in my collection by getting a copy of Absence of Marx by another Garner / Pope project, in conjunction with Gabrielle Heller and Tobias Sarra, the Anarchist Reading Group. It’s a tremendous howling vortex of free jazz experimentation that I look forward to revisiting again and again. I might even search out their first album at some point.

The Shunyata gig at Gosforth was a bit quieter than that. Although, from the free gratis and for nowt merch table, I did pick up a cassette of Shunyata live at Shipley Art Gallery in September 2018. This was recorded long before I was even aware of them and involving an iteration of Martin and NofC with Jamie Cook and Tobias Illingworth, making a very different sound than later versions of Shunyata. Electronic drone is prevalent and NofC’s basso profundo voice is very much to the forefront. It’s an excellent listen and I regret not being aware of them at the time, but at least I was here for the two final performances. At Gosforth,  with an audience approaching 50, in a fitting, median demographic skewed towards 60, I felt myself captivated from the very beginning, as usual. In announcing their disbandment, Shunyata feel they have come as far as they can, but I don’t know if I agree, probably for selfish reasons. The crescendos, pauses, pure harmony and dissonance, augmented by NofC and Katie’s amazing diglossalic scat, worked perfectly as a fitting epitaph for Shunyata.

Incredibly, they outdid themselves on the second night in Hexham. In a very different room, with austere parquet flooring rather than Scotchguarded Axminster underfoot and a vaulted ceiling, the music seemed to float high in the air, hang and then overwhelm an audience of 40. While Alex used much of the same text as the night before, the music was entirely different, as is the case with skilled improvisers who instinctively know what their companions are trying to express. The vastness of their restraint. The dramatic intensity of their practice. Pastoral and elegiac interplay between John and Martin that was an honour to witness. Katie’s almost Wagnerian swoops like Diamanda Galas teaming up with AMM. NofC’s laughter like something from the later Samuel Beckett. A pizzicato solo up the violin neck by John. Martin using his guitar as a percussive device. It was one of the most uplifting experiences I’ve had in years, but also one of the most profoundly upsetting, as it will never happen again. I admit to having tears in my eyes when I saw Martin replace his guitar on its stand as I knew not just this performance, but the whole existence of Shunyata would soon be over. Then again, as the cliched nostrum has it, don’t be sad it has ended, be pleased it happened. And the rest is silence.

On both nights, Shunyata had been the opening act before Playback Theatre Company gave performances. I missed the Thursday night one, as I opted out to watch Spain 3 Austria 0, but caught the one on Friday, as I had to hang around because I was getting a lift back from John and Martin. Playback did their best to retell the stories the audience volunteered, but they were dealt an unpromising hand by the paucity of volunteered contributions, and their valiant efforts didn’t fully engage with me. I must see them again.

Probably the most interesting musical release I’ve acquired in the last while was Sound Garden 1 by Paul Wormhole. It’s not a matter that’s even up for debate. The plain facts are that Wormhole World is the most diverse, the most challenging and the most rewarding label in this country at this time. Not just because it is an independent, underground operation, that focusses almost exclusively on the avant garde, however you wish to define that term. In all the years I’ve been buying Wormhole World stuff, eclectically curated by a one man band, operating high in the Lancashire hills, I’ve never once been let down by the quality of outsider, left field sounds (including, but not necessarily restricted to music) I’ve investigated and this is certainly the case with this magnificent solo release by label founder Paul, which I obtained the same day as the decent, if rather tame and dated, Inferno by Boards of Canada. I’d enthusiastically purchased the Boards of Canada album, on the back of some stellar reviews, but frankly it left me a little underwhelmed. If going back 20 years to the quieter moments of The Chemical Brothers or Royksopp is your thing, then I’d recommend this to you, but I’d consider it far from an essential purchase. Unlike Sound Garden 1.

Is it music? Good question. Is it an album? Definitely. There are 9 titled, separated and distinct pieces on the CD, which makes for a coherent, exhilarating and addictive listen. But is it music? Very good question. Same as Boards of Canada, there were no musical instruments used in the making of this record, that is for certain. Although on the Paul Wormhole album a computer does produce a few of those little cute Windows’ jingles. There are no vocals, though there are several discernible, individual human voices, speaking almost audible words. Indeed, there’s also quite a lot of sniffing at one point on “Openreach workers while I’m trying to work.” That title, and the content therein, is a major clue as to what Sound Garden 1 is actually about. The disc comprises 9 different slices of ordinary human existence and the sounds involved. If you like, you can call it musique verité. Bird song in the back garden. Construction noise in the front street. The ecstatic pealing of church bells. Laughter and relaxed chit chat accompanying the sound of heavy horse hooves on a tow path, while what sounds like a steam train chuffs past, blowing its whistle, on “Llangollen horse drawn barge.” Unlike Boards of Canada, which is intensely rhythm driven, this unique combination of the equine and the mechanical is about the only nod to a regular beat on Sound Garden.

The titles tell you exactly what to expect and what is involved in each piece. And it’s absolutely wonderful. Like a BBC Sound Effects vinyl from the early 70s, rather than the arcane experimentalism of the Radiophonic Workshop, this is ordinary life; an artistic celebration of the humdrum and workaday world. As Paul describes this release on his Bandcamp page; “Sound Garden re-presents everyday sounds that may not always be appreciated. I hope it teaches everyone to listen to the beauty that is in the natural world - conversation, nature, workmen or indeed silence etc.”

But is it music? Paul himself delves into the aesthetics underpinning his philosophical approach in great detail, but I’ll let you research that yourselves. Of course Sound Garden features no score, nor standard use of notation and you’d probably struggle to dance to it (although interpretative swaying is one of my default responses to it). Debate as to the artistic merit of this release reminds me of the hysterical public furore created by Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII when the Tate Gallery acquired it in 1972. Yes, it was a pile of bricks. Yes, it was also a wonderful piece of modern art. What changed it from bricks to art? The artist’s inspirational vision. That is also the case with Paul Wormhole’s Sound Garden 1. Yes, it is simply a series of random field recordings of ordinary life. Yes, it is also a profoundly important reflection on the role of sound and its importance to or impact on human beings. Is it music? Paul Wormhole says it is and I agree with him 100%.  Bloody marvellous.

Also coming out of left field, is the Belpunk compilation CD, curated by Tony Van Dorst, that accompanied issue #80 of TQ. This is a genre of music about which I was entirely ignorant and, in the case of some of the chugging pub rock and visceral hardcore on here, I’m happy to leave it that way. However, there are some gems from the Belgian genre of Darkwave, which slows things down, saddens the mood and embraces a post punk minor key, which were my favourite bits. Whatever the merits, this is another excellent project from the ever innovative TQ. If you don’t already, then please subscribe.

I’ve invested in a couple of pieces of vinyl too. Avoiding Record Store Day, I did subsequently skim through the racks in RPM, where I found Debris, a Stewart Lee endorsed compilation of lost gems from the late lamented former Swell Maps drummer Epic Soundtracks, who left us far too early. As with all of Epic’s solo stuff, plus many of his piano based pieces from Swell Maps, it’s more Nick Drake than New York Dolls. Wistful, poignant and enticing; it is an album I’m glad I’ve bought. The same is true of Horroble, a dub reimagining of The Mekons’ stellar 2025 album Horror, by producer Tony Maimone. The same songs, in a different order. Some tracks don’t really benefit it from this, such as the furious “War Economy,” but slower, spacious numbers like “Before the Ice Age” and “Fallen Leaves” really do hit the spot. Another very important project and one I’m glad I’ve taken possession of.

On Saturday 13^th June, I did something that is normally alien to me. I attended a one day festival of local bands at Anarchy Brewery. With about a 500 capacity, though nowhere near full, it’s a good spot to see live music, as the beer is spot on, even if served in those awful squashy plastic pots. Entitled Breakthrough, it was ostensibly intended as a showcase for The Pale White and newly-released their third album, it also featured some young talent from the region. First up were noisy lads Wool, who made a tremendous Dinosaur Jr meets Sugar racket. Loads of feedback and crunching improvisational solos. I really hope to see them again. I must admit to missing the next act, Cutscene, as the rarity of finding the adjacent Almasty tap room open and selling great beer in proper glasses, was simply too much of a draw.

After a refreshing pint of Almasty Green, it was back to see the more melodic Snowdrop, who’d travelled up from Macclesfield for this gig. More McFly than Mogwai but held back by a ponderously agricultural drummer. After this, Almasty called again and so Burnout went unseen. However, I was then back in for the long haul. Scott Hepple & The Sun Band, who used to include my pal Tom in their ranks, took us back to the 1968 to 1972 era of psychedelic prog rock and great it was too. They’ve already got 2 albums under their belt, though I only picked up their 7” “Smoke & Frown.” Very good it is too, if agonisingly brief for a proper proggy wig out. Second top of the bill were Idle Hands. Very tall musicians. Very angular music. These lads like Editors and Franz Ferdinand quite a lot I’d guess. Alright, but not stunning. I was, however, very impressed by headliners The Pale White. A proper power trio who could justifiably claim to be NE28’s answer to Nirvana, even if their harmonies are closer to Big Star and Teenage Fanclub.  All in all, a very good day with a lovely, safe vibe, though it was a bit sad to note not a single female made it on stage.

The standout gig of late was The Beta Band at the Boiler Shop and what a performance they gave. I went expecting nostalgic, off-kilter indie pop, which we got with “She’s the One,” “Dog’s Got a Bone” and a storming “Dry the Rain,” not to mention an anthemic encore of “Squares,” but there was so much more to this set. Incredible, syncopated percussion-driven numbers like “Brake” and a final, fabulous “House Song” that brought forth comparison with A Certain Ratio, as they seamlessly swapped instruments while never dropping a beat. Tight musicianship all the way through. Also, it was really nice to see so many people I’m hardly ever in touch with these days, out on a school night and enjoying themselves. Possibly the only negative, save the usual endless queues for bar and bog, was the fact the gig took place in daylight, on account of the uncurtained picture windows at the side of the venue. Full marks to security for opening all the side doors though to allow some ventilation on a steamy evening. Just a shame we’ll probably never see The Beta Band in these parts again as they show no inclination to come up with new material. Shame.

BOOKS:

I was asked to write something commemorating the imminent 50^th anniversary of the release of Second Annual Report by Throbbing Gristle for TQ, so as part of my research I read Art, Sex, Music by Cosey Fanni Tutti, Wreckers of Civilisation by Simon Ford and the frankly appalling Non Binary by Genesis P Orridge, which made me reflect as follows. Friday 14^th July 1978. Bastille Day. The start of my summer holidays at the end of third year seniors (Year 9 in modern parlance). The Saturday was the Rock Against Racism Northern Carnival in Manchester, with The Buzzcocks headlining, and there was a bus going from The Bridge Hotel at the end of the High Level, organised by the Tyneside Anti Nazi League. My dad wouldn’t let me go, not for ideological reasons, but because I was only 13, even though my cousin John was going with his mate Big Wilka, but they were two years older. To make up for my disappointment, the Auld Fella slipped me a couple of quid to “go and buy yourself one of those punk rock records.” Considering he only ever listened to The Dubliners and The Clancy Brothers, this was a major surprise. Thus, soon as school kicked us out early Friday afternoon, I got the bus from Felling Square to Worswick Street by myself and headed for the much missed Listen Ear on Ridley Place. The only place in town to get thoroughly obscure and cutting edge music.

Despite the previous reference to punk, it was a genre, certainly this side of the pond, that largely left me cold. Of the first generation, only Wire and The Buzzcocks appealed; the rest seemed to be glorified pub rockers or glam wannabees cashing in on the New Wave by attaching safety pins to their clothes and singing in a mockney sneer. I still hold by that judgement, but luckily by this time I’d started to read the music press to help broaden my horizons. My periodical of choice was Sounds, as I wasn’t clever enough for the NME until I reached sixth form and Melody Maker seemed obsessed with Barclay James Harvest and desperate drivel of that ilk. In Sounds, the likes of Sandy Robertson, John Savage and Dave McCullough championed weird, underground acts that were utterly uncommercial, totally uncompromising and seemingly innovative. However, unless you chanced upon a random John Peel airing for one of these outfits, there was no way to hear their music.

One act that had stood out in press coverage was Throbbing Gristle. They seemed to be scary and beyond anything that had gone before. Serendipitously, when I stepped into Listen Ear, the strange sound that assailed me was the rerelease of Second Annual Report, the debut TG album. Specifically the track “Slug Bait,” which was genuinely shocking in terms of both lyrics and sounds. It was abrasive, confrontational and unique to my tender ears. I didn’t buy it though, because the disc was about six quid.  I inquired if there were any other TG products available, which is how I bought, unheard, the 7” single “United” / “Zyklon B Zombie.” I still have it, in the original austere monochrome sleeve that depicts a row of council garages, and it’s in pretty good nick.  “Zyklon B Zombie” was an unintelligible stream of distorted vocals and guitar abuse that reminded me of “I Heard Her Call My Name” by The Velvets. However, “United” was something else entirely, a hypnotic plodding, minimalist synth driven love song that got inside my head from first play and, like “Do The Mussolini (Headkick)” by Cabaret Voltaire has remained there as the original and best examples of primitive industrial electronic music. Jean Michel Jarre they were not.

Following that, I counted Throbbing Gristle as one of my bands. I bought DoA: Third And Final Report at the end of 1978 and the magnificently titled 20 Jazz Funk Greats when it came out in 1979. I adore both records and have near played them to death, much to the disgust of my cousin who then championed such aural excrement as Cockney Rejects and UK Subs and tried to persuade me that TG weren’t musicians, but actual murderers. He almost echoed the words of the bibulous Scottish Tory Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, who had described TG as “wreckers of civilisation,” which they took as an enormous compliment.

To be fair, TG were an odd bunch, who were clearly more than the sum of their parts. I’m not being glib, but the phrase used by criminologists for the collective evil of The Moors Murderers and the Wests is folie a deux. For TG it was folie a quatre, as some kind of alien chemistry bonded Genesis P-Orridge, “Sleazy” Peter Christopherson, Cosey Fanni Tutti and Chris Carter, allowing them to make such challenging music in their initial iteration. In fact, it was something of a menage a quatre as rehearsals and recording sessions often began with a rampant sex session, “to break the ice.” Quite. You can’t see The Dubliners doing that can you? I mean, I’m a tolerant sort of person regarding what people do in the privacy of their own practice room, but these lot were proper deviants. “Sleazy” was well nicknamed and you can get an insight into his predilections from the title of his subsequent project Coil’s album Scatology. Cosey made ends meet as a porn actress and stripper, but claims never to have been exploited as it was all performance art. I’m not sure I accept that, but it’s her body and her call I guess. Her life partner Chris just seemed to be the geeky one who made all the gadgets, but he was an enthusiastic participant in the art film After Cease to Exist, the soundtrack to which is on Second Annual Report, that climaxes (pardon the word) with Cosey seeming to castrate him.

And then there’s Genesis. Born to an indulgent middle class family in Cheshire and given the birth name Neil Megson, other than his work with TG there’s little to recommend him as a human being. A vain, narcissistic sociopath. A gaslighting, misogynistic control freak who modelled himself on Charles Manson and helmed the bizarre Temple Ov Psychick Youth, before undergoing body modification along with his final wife, a dominatrix called Jaye Breyer, that saw them attempting to be body doubles, as part of their pandrogyne project. He’s dead now. So is “Sleazy,” whose heart conked out at 55 from a life of decadent drug excess. Chris and Cosey are still going; DJing and releasing records under the Carter Tutti moniker. I’ve never heard any of them. Not interested, same as I never investigated Psychic TV and Coil, or even the reformed TG. As far as I’m concerned, TG existed in a specific period (1976-1980), before imploding. Anything else they did, singly or collectively, could never match their original oeuvre.

In addition to reading Art, Sex, Music by Cosey Fanni Tutti, Wreckers of Civilisation by Simon Ford and the frankly appalling Non Binary by Genesis P Orridge, I finally bought a copy of Second Annual Report on CD. Almost half a century later it remains a chilling, inspirational record that is as important as it is angry. The use of homemade synths, broken instruments, tapes and effects was genuinely groundbreaking and the results stand the test of time. The horrific imagery of “Slug Bait” and “Maggot Death,” the ambient menace of “After Cease to Exist,” as well as subsequent albums and singles such as “United” and “Discipline” tell the story of a band like no other. This is truly music for the ages by one of the most important avant garde outfits ever.

Meanwhile, I also continue to make my way through the pile of books I bought from my pal Matt a few months ago. Because of the Throbbing Gristle detour, I’ve only managed another 2 since we last spoke. Dave Thompson’s Wall of Pain is an arms-length chronological biography of the truly awful Phil Spector, which seeks justify the murderous Svengali’s atrocious conduct by contrasting it with his, admittedly, glorious golden period of girl groups in the early to mid-60s. An utter absence of interviews, second hand or otherwise, makes this a bathetic, boring read. In contrast, Paul Whitelaw’s fawning hagiography of Belle & Sebastian, Just a Modern Rock Story, has pages of interviews with a band I’ve never believed to be as good as they think they are. It was an interesting read I will concede. Now only another 24 of Matt’s books to go, plus imminent new arrivals from James Ellroy, Paul Hanley and Irvine Welsh to keep me busy, cataracts permitting.

Walking Disaster

I've been playing a bit of walking football, with predictably mixed fortunes...

As you get older, the spectre of loneliness is an ever present curse. You might be retired and missing the interactions, good and bad, that work provides, even if you don’t miss the spirit crushing inanity of the daily drudge. Your kids could well have flown the nest and have their own lives to lead. Lives that only tangentially intersect with yours, and even then on an infrequent basis. You might be on your own, for whatever reason and in whatever circumstances that results in. Mates are more in name than in reality. Texts, not meet ups. People don’t do the local anymore, other than perhaps for the football and everyone’s growing tired of that these days. Fulham versus Palace on a Monday night? Nah. Too much of an ordeal. I’ll leave it thanks. There’s your team of course, but only if you can get, or afford, a ticket. Sometimes the rarity value of such occasions makes it an absolute pleasure to be among a large gathering of bile spitting moaners. Having a reason to be in crowded bars on a busy matchday reconnects you to a community you’ve felt more than semi-detached from in an era. Things won’t go back to how they were.

Sure, if you’ve still got a bit about you, there’s the garden, reading or watching a film or box set. All worthy time fillers, but pretty solitary vices. Music’s great too, but gigs cost a fortune and tickets, or travel need to be planned months in advance. When you’re there, the aches and pains of ageing backs and joints make it sometimes hard to deal with the whole experience of being on your feet for the thick end of 3 hours. And how often do you turn up to a show, expecting to know a few folks and spend the whole time fruitlessly scanning unknown nodding heads for a familiar face. And failing. Going for a walk, especially if you’ve got a dog, or getting out on the bike? Pretty good for mind, body and soul, but not a great way to forge human interactions. Likewise the gym, where most of the young ones seem more interested in scrolling than working out. Sometimes I wish I was posh and played golf. Only sometimes.

I retired at the end of last year and was delighted to do so. I’m still half a decade away from my state pension, but a more than decent occupational scheme that I’d religiously paid into from the year dot, made leaving graft an attractive and sensible option. I’m in my early 60s and still in decent nick health wise, so the big question for me was what the hell do I do with myself? I write stuff and make music, so the creative angle is boxed off, but some days inspiration doesn’t come. So what then? Sensibly I’ve not headed down the route of daily day drinking, managing to get an hour down the gym maybe 4 times a week. However, what I was really craving while I sweated through 500 cardio calories was group interaction. A bit of idle chit chat and a belated attempt at broadening my horizons. Suppose I could have joined a ramblers’ group or taken up watercolour painting, but such activities just didn’t appeal.

For almost my entire life, I’ve played team sports, specifically football and cricket. I still do. Just about. I’m an enthusiastic rather than competent keeper, a funereally slow offy (arthritis in the shoulder has ended any pretensions of leg spin) and an utterly inept batter (the hand to eye co-ordination has gone for good). However, I love both sports and aim to go on with them as long as possible, while acknowledging I’m one serious injury away from enforced retirement.

Considering we’re talking early January when I first found myself awash with free time and nothing with which to fill it, the cricket season was still months away, so that wasn’t a solution. I mean we’re right in the swing of it now and, sadly, I’m increasingly finding myself extraneous to requirements as Tynemouth CC 3s sit top of NTCL Division 6 Central and rarely call on my services, but that’s something I’ll cover in a few weeks in more depth. Instead, back in those cold, dark days at the turn of the year, I first considered Walking Football. It wasn’t something I knew anything about; other than the fact I was part of the target demographic. Ironically, in the league I’ve ended up in, keepers only need to be over 40. There’s pushing a quarter of a century of potential competitive action I’ll never get back.

North of the River Tyne, Walking Football is organised almost exclusively by the Newcastle United Foundation, which is the charitable wing of the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) that uninterestedly owns the club I still semi-support. However, the great thing for the parsimonious PIF, even if I detect their influence on how the Foundation operates and the overarching philosophy it promotes, is that all funding is provided by those legendary munificent benefactors, the Premier League. To dial back on my rampant cynicism for a second, I will point out that every session the Foundation runs is completely free for all participants. Considering our weekly 6-a-side kickarounds between whites and darks now cost £7.50 per player, that’s a decent result. Especially as the Foundation run 10 different weekly sessions at an array of venues, with nothing stopping you, other than physical decrepitude, from turning up to every one of them.

I didn’t know any of this when I first put out tentative feelers about finding a team.  One of the finest fellas involved in the grassroots game on Tyneside is Mark “Bully” Bullock, the founder and manager of Hazelrigg Victory FC (aka “Hezzy”) of the Northern Alliance Premier Division. Bully has been involved with Hezzy for 2 decades now and has overseen the refurbishment of their ground at Hazelrigg Welfare, several promotions and cup wins for the first team, as well as the establishment of a Sunday morning side and a Monday evening over 35s outfit. Next season, they’ll have a team in the North East Over 40s league on a Saturday morning and they’ve already got a Walking Football team for the over 50s, which is why I got in touch with them. Responding to a post on Hezzy’s Facebook page talking about these veteran ballers, I mentioned that if they ever needed a keeper, then to give me a shout, as a newly enrolled member of the leisured classes, I was of the have gloves, will travel mindset.

My post got the thumbs up, but I didn’t hear anything else until mid-March, when I got a message from a name I didn’t recognise. Dee Howey. Turns out he was the organiser of Hezzy’s Walking Football team and was keen to sign me on as back up, as their first choice keeper was sometimes unavailable. From this initial contact, I learned that while 9 of the weekly sessions put on by the Foundation were effectively pick-up games where a rolling cast of participants played with no real competitive edge and little formal organisation, Thursday daytimes at Blakelaw in central north west Newcastle, saw 24 sides competing across 2 divisions. This was proper stuff. Two 20 minute, 6-a-side games each week, guaranteed. Strips. Registration, including proof of age. Referees. The whole shebang. I told him that I was more than interested and would be available every week, if required.

I felt elated to have been chosen, though slightly nervous as to whether I’d be of a decent enough standard. As a late diagnosed person on the Autism Spectrum Disorder, I have come to understand my abject terror regarding new routines, changing circumstances and unfamiliar locations is part and parcel of who I am. I’ve endured agonising terrors my whole life, going back to primary school, whenever I’m come up against something new, something challenging. That isn’t going to change now, nor is my obsessive need for order and regimentation around the house. However, I love football and I’d played at the old Blakelaw FC loads of times in the past. Also I knew, as a non-driver, and a complete public transport obsessive, that I could get one bus from near mine to the facility. I also reasoned that if I was crap, I didn’t have to go back, not that they’d probably want me to.  All looked promising, especially when I was added to their WhatsApp group (how did humans ever communicate before this was invented?) at lunchtime on Saturday March 21^st. That day, I was watching Percy Main away to Wideopen, ironically the village down the road from Hazelrigg, but I became distracted from our dismal 2-0 defeat when my phone absolutely blew up.

As well as my ASD diagnosis, I have suffered from (and inflicted on others) crippling depression and explosive anxiety. I’ve been medicated for both conditions for decades now; with only minimal efficacy I must admit. The first condition exists mainly in my head, and when it comes, I struggle to get out of bed, never mind putting my keeper kit on. Like most depressives, my condition manifests itself as a kind of private hell. Hiding away with the curtains drawn until the black dog passes is the only realistic way to get over it. Sometimes it lasts for weeks. If I’m lucky it can be gone in a few hours. Unfortunately, my anxiety is far more visible and has often resulted in volcanic eruptions of socially unacceptable conduct, on buses, in shops and pubs, or just about any public setting imaginable, when my fight or flight response goes haywire. Anxiety and ASD is a bad combination at the best of times and has almost been lethal for me on several occasions over the years. Generally because I’ve felt I’ve been ignored, belittled, misquoted, patronised or intimidated, and reacted badly. As a consequence, I’ve spent nights in protective custody, though never once been charged. That said, I have been barred from shops (Sainsburys won’t deliver to me) and pubs because of a range of incidents that seem to have got worse and more confrontational as I get older, though I’ve kept a lid on things these last couple of years.

For me, and a lot of other people, the 2020 Covid lockdown was a tough, tough time. The longer it went on, the more I feared a return to reality, or a semblance of it. Stuck indoors most of the time, I genuinely abhorred the thought of contact with other people, yet still desperately needed to get outdoors, just to breathe fresh air. One Wednesday evening late in June, I went out for a walk. The ostensible reason was I needed some Dreamies for the cats, but by the time I got to Tynemouth Co-Op it was near 8pm, which was closing time. As a result, the manager who was operating the front door wouldn’t let me in. I reasoned with him. I pleaded with him. I argued with him. He wasn’t budging and started being abusive about my appearance. Now back them I had dreadlocks down to my arse, a full beard and weighed about 3 stone more than I do now, with almost all the extra heft on my gut. I looked a state. I looked mad. And I suppose I was.

To cut a long story short, I had a complete and utter raging meltdown. Bad enough in itself, but even worse, some young ones filmed me on their phones and uploaded it to all social media platforms. I went viral. It was awful as it was totally beyond my control. My wonderful friend Anna O’Neill was an absolute star, in relentlessly pursuing Facebook and Twitter to get the offending videos taken down. This worked in stopping the further spread of the video, but the damage had largely been done as it had been seen about a million times, shared, downloaded and used as a stick to beat me, then and now. It’s still on You Tube if you want to search it out. People still do. In September 2022, a convicted hooligan jailbird taunted me about it in The Mean Eyed Cat. When I objected, he dragged me outside and kicked me repeatedly in the face on St. Thomas Street. I should have got the coppers involved, but I didn’t. In early 2026, I was alerted to a sticker in a pub toilet that was a still of the video, with the motto “crazy cat man.” Even 6 years later, I can’t escape an episode that publicly caught me at probably my lowest ever ebb. Not only does my past haunt me, but it also frightens me that social media has this power over my current mood and a public image, that is so far removed from my present persona. Perhaps the most awful impact this video had was the power to prevent me playing for Hazlerigg Walking Football team. Indeed, it almost prevented me from playing any walking football at all.

As I arrived to watch Percy Main at Lockey Park that March afternoon, I received notification that Dee Howey had added me as a friend on Facebook and included me in the Hazlerigg Walking Football WhatsApp group. He put out a welcome message, and I felt rather proud to be included in this new community. By the time The Main had laboured to a dismal 2-0 loss, things had changed. A person called James Kidd, who I’d known vaguely through grassroots football a decade or so earlier, and was apparently the current Hezzy Walking Football keeper, stated that if I were to become part of the Hazlerigg team, he was leaving immediately and proceeded, in somewhat unflattering terms, to denigrate me and, as a coup de grace, posted several links to the You Tube video of my meltdown of 6 years previous. In response, Dee Howey removed me from the WhatsApp group, sent me a message telling me I couldn’t play for Hezzy if I was going to “upset the rest of the team” and blocked me on Facebook.

Let’s be clear about this, I don’t necessarily object to Dee Howey responding in an insensitive way, as he runs a Walking Football team and isn’t a counsellor or social worker, but I do, in the strongest terms possible, object to James Kidd’s conduct. On account of my enduring mental illness, I am a vulnerable adult by whatever measure you wish to use. Certainly I am covered by the Equality Act and so, consequently, his actions could be construed at least as bullying and probably a disability hate crime. I doubt the coppers would have bothered to do anything if I’d taken a complaint to them, which I wasn’t minded to, but if I’d made a case to the Northumberland FA, they would have thrown the book at Hazlerigg Victory. Because of my admiration and respect for Bully, I didn’t want to do this. Instead, I contacted him that evening with an explanation of what had gone on. He was brilliant.

Hazlerigg launched an investigation in which Dee Howey was informed that he should have handled things better, while James Kidd was given a proper bollocking. I don’t know if this resulted in him leaving Hezzy, but in all the weeks I subsequently played at Blakelaw, including a game against Hazlerigg (we lost 5-0, but more of that later), I didn’t see him once, so draw your own conclusions from that. I was incredibly grateful to Bully for his input and was overjoyed that he had contacted the Foundation, to establish that one team needed a keeper. He forwarded me the email address of the Foundation’s Walking Football co-ordinator, a bloke called Thomas Graham, and encouraged me to get in touch, which I did.

Within 48 hours, Thomas replied, saying he’d linked me to a team called Lemington and that I could start playing from the next Thursday, which was April 9^th. On that day, I took the bus to Blakelaw and met up with my new team mates. I didn’t know any of them, but they are a grand bunch of 10 blokes, some of whom play every week and others who are more casual in their involvement because of life commitments. To be honest, we’re not very good. There were 10 weeks of the season to go when I got involved, and in that remaining time, we played 20 games; 17 in the league and 3 in an end of season cup. We won 4, drew 4 and lost 12, while scoring 24 and conceding 41. As a result we finished 10^th in the Championship and were runners-up in the Silver Plate. The competition is now having a summer break, though the other sessions run by the Foundation continue. I’m not involved in any of them.

While I didn’t know any of my team mates, I did know some of the other players. I played Over 40s for Wallsend Boys Club with two blokes Tim and John, though they’re in the higher division so I didn’t come up against them. I did face Kitchenware Records owner Keith Armstrong, who turns out for a team called The Misfits, and the co-founder of Viz comic Simon Donald, who is a handy player for Blue Flames. Indeed, it was the fall out of the game against Blue Flames that led me to consider whether I was prepared to continue playing for anything under the auspices of Newcastle United Foundation. It is a question that continues to perplex me.

In terms of the laws of the game, Walking Football is reasonably easy to understand. A pitch that is half the size of a full one, with 6 foot high goals. No balls above crossbar height. Kick ins when it goes over the side line and corners or goal kicks, as appropriate, when it goes over the end line. Only keepers allowed in the box, with keepers not allowed out. No tackling from behind or the side and never more than one on one when challenging for the ball. The big thing is the walking. It isn’t strolling or ambling, it’s like a cross between walking in the Olympics and impersonating Groucho Marx. One foot must be on the ground at all times. If not, it’s a foul. Four of those and it’s a penalty.

The referees we had had were mainly of a good standard, but during the first week I was quite taken aback when we all stopped because an opposition player was clearly running. No whistle came and the player scored. I politely asked whether it was a foul and the referee rather pointedly told me not to try and shirk the blame for letting in a soft one. A bit rude, if not disrespectful, I thought, but I tried to forget about it. In the fifth week, we played Blue Flames and were doing well; 2-1 up just into the second half. One of their players rattled in a great shot, but it hit the underside of the bar and bounced away. The referee, a different one, who stood immobile on the sideline at the halfway mark  all game signalled a goal. Even the bloke who took a shot said it hadn’t gone in. One of our players jokingly said to one of the opposition (not the ref) “you need your eyes tested if you think that’s a goal.” Result was a yellow card, and two minutes on the sideline, for “disrespect.” We kick off and lose possession. Being a player down is a nightmare, and they work it through for a simple tap-in. My response “well that’s bloody typical!” Now I’m yellow carded and sent to the sideline. We’re 3-2 down and two players short, so it’s unsurprising when they get a fourth.

At full time, I try to talk to the referee about the incidents. Pointless I know, but my primal need to be listened to came to the forefront. He wouldn’t engage. I didn’t shout, scream or swear. In the end, I walked away, seething. During the week, I get an email from Thomas Graham saying he’d like to talk to me, after my first game in week 6 (May 14^th) about my “conduct.” I turn up and play. We lose 5-0 to Hazlerigg. One of their players deliberately blasts the ball into my face when the whistle had already gone for over head height. No apology from him and no censure from the same referee as we’d had the week before. At full time, I go into an office area with Thomas Graham and some other bloke with a clipboard, stopwatch and whistle. They tell me that they’d considered issuing me with a warning as to my future conduct, after my attempt to engage with the referee the week before but instead have chosen to talk to me about “providing support” for any “issues” that might prove problematic for my continued involvement in Walking Football. I don’t believe I’m hearing this.

Things go from the surreal to a Kafkaesque nightmare when they inform me of how they’re aware of a video of me having a meltdown is in “the public domain.” They show me the Co-Op incident on You Tube. I ask them to turn it off. I tell them it is 6 years old. I’m upset. In tears. They tell me I can’t play in today’s other game (we beat Heaton Stannington 2-1 with a borrowed keeper), or any other one, until they’ve had a meeting between me and the Foundation’s Safeguarding Lead. All the time they keep pushing the idea that they want to provide a welcoming and inclusive space for everyone, other than me apparently.

The next day, I get an email inviting me to a meeting at the Foundation HQ on Diana Street, opposite SJP, 10.00 on Tuesday 26^th May. I get there on time, having scarcely slept the night before with anxiety levels going through the roof. It is made clear, if I don’t do what they say, I’ll have to “step away from the Foundation’s provision.” What choice do I have? They talk about referring me to Adult Social Services. Seriously! Then they remind me of the code of conduct for all players. I ask them about the disability hate crime involving the former Hazlerigg Victory player. Their response is that they can’t do anything about this as it was outside of a Foundation session. I ask about the player blasting the ball in my face and the referee’s failure to act. They tell me the referee saw nothing wrong and felt it was an accident. They can’t comment why the player didn’t apologise. I ask if I can get my travel expenses reimbursed. Apparently it isn’t Foundation policy.

I ask whether they feel I have been treated fairly by being stigmatised because of a previous episode of mental illness. They say it is unfortunate I feel the way I do, but all they are trying to do is create a “safe and inclusive space for all players and the community as a whole.” I ask whether this is reflected by the fact there isn’t a single non-white participant among the 24 teams that play at Blakelaw each week. They point to the fact there is women’s team and several other female players, as well as a team of early onset dementia sufferers as an example of their inclusive ethos. I ask how come there isn’t a team representing the LGBTQIA+ community then. They don’t have a reply.  I wonder aloud if the institutionally homophobic PIF that owns Newcastle United may not be as benevolent and compassionate as the Foundation would like to pretend they are. Silence.

At the end of the meeting, we don’t shake hands. I leave after making an undertaking I won’t question refereeing decisions in future, and we agree I don’t need any intervention from Adult Social Services regarding my conduct 6 years previously. There is an agreement that I can play at Blakelaw from that point onwards. I do and we lose the rest of our league games, as well as 2 cup ties out of 3. On the last day, Peter Beardsley is guest of honour, charged with presenting the trophies. He’s someone who knows all about having spurious allegations thrown at him by Newcastle United employees and not being allowed to defend himself properly.

The season is over, until August apparently. If I’m asked, I’ll play again, basically for something cheap to do with my time that gets me out the house for some exercise. The actual football, despite the results, has been great but I won’t pretend that the whole experience has done anything other than leaving me feeling totally underwhelmed and even more suspicious about the ideology the PIF advances across every aspect of Newcastle United, including the charitable arm of the operation.

 It’s just not cricket you see.

 

 

 

 

 

2025/2026 Fanzine CV

 

At the end of every football season, I send all the programmes I have collected over the previous 12 months to a fella in Northamptonshire, who puts them for sale in the memorabilia hut at his club. To quote Eric Bogle; “year after year, their number gets fewer…”

The same is true of fanzines. Indeed, these days I only seem to get my work in print via North Ferriby’s wonderful “View from the Allotment End” and, of course, the Percy Main programme, which I edit. Hence, at the end of 2025/2026, I have managed to get articles in the following publications -:

Percy Main Amateurs; 13 home programmes

“View from the Allotment End;” issues 28, 29 & 30, articles about Scottish football

And that’s the lot…

Mastered Mind

Newcastle United 2025/2026. Mostly shit...

And so, to no-one’s surprise, Newcastle United rounded off the thoroughly dreadful season 2025/2026 with another predictably incompetent away non-performance at Fulham. Woeful. Abysmal. Disgraceful. Unacceptable. In doing so, Nice Guy Eddie emulated his stellar predecessors Brooooth and El Fraudo with the team ticking over in 12^th place, and then only because Everton and Leeds had similarly downed tools in the Smoke on the final day at Spurs and West Ham respectively, playing a toxic brand of anti-football that wouldn’t have been out of place during the Jihadi Juan Cava interregnum. Having looked a bit better of late, Howe decided to rip up the script, to hammer square pegs in round holes, then watched on helplessly as it didn’t work. The whole 58-game debacle was summed up by Willock’s pitiful, pathetic attempt to block Kevin’s free kick that led to the opening goal, displaying the kind of half arsed, commitment-free defending we’ve not seen the likes of since Dyer’s “I’m a teapot” cameo at the Nou Camp a quarter of a century ago. When Elanga and Wissa, two of the worst summer signings we’ve made since Scott Sloan and Neil Simpson in 1990, came on, I gave up on the whole sorry affair and headed for the garden at Elder Beer. Nice pints on a glorious day, with no further darkening of the mood caused by the shower of undermotivated, tactically clueless mercenaries phoning it in on the Thames.

Looking elsewhere at the final table, congratulations must go to Villa, for not only securing Champions’ League football, but strolling to the Europa League. Considering the storm clouds that gathered around them after last season’s closing day events at Old Trafford, you have to say Emery’s team have done a fantastic job. While conceding that the Europa League is of a less exacting standard than the Champions’ League, their success in it, as well as achieving 4^th place, does somewhat undercut Nice Guy Eddie endlessly bemoaning the difficulties presented by Newcastle’s fixture list in the campaign just ended. Perhaps he could take a leaf out of Emery’s book. Buy the correct players (perhaps not Harvey Elliot). Select the best team. Employ proper tactics. Get good results. Not rocket science is it?

While I’m at it, I’ll also extend the warmest possible congratulation to Bournemouth on achieving European qualification, though I wouldn’t want to have to fill Iraola’s shoes next season, as well as recognising the incredible job Regis Le Brewse has done with sunderland. They finished 5 points and 5 places above us, deservedly won both derbies and have a European campaign to look forward to next year. Incredible. We truly have been mastered by red and white bastards. Fair play to them and fair play to Brentford too. I thought Keith Andrews would have been up against it following on from Frank, but they’ve been solid and strong all year. Then again, palming Wissa off on us has strengthened them immeasurably. All of the clubs I’ve just mentioned are well run off the pitch and coached superbly on it. Little wonder they’ve had good or great campaigns. Meanwhile, we languish in the underachievers bracket along with the likes of Liverpool, even if they got CL football somehow and Chelsea, who reached a cup final, not to mention those real basket cases, Spurs and West Ham.

It seems clear that Howe will remain in charge going in to next season, after some kind of annual appraisal summit with the PIF paymasters at Matfen Hall. However, I remain to be convinced that squad rotation, retention, resale and recruitment, whoever is nominally in charge of such responsibilities (if anyone), will be effective enough to bear out the optimistic suggestion from some that, like Manchester United, who only 12 months ago could have been a real bet for relegation if Amorim has sold Fernandes, we’ll benefit from only playing domestic games. While that might be a good shout, if Howe rediscovers his tactical nous, the lack of European football may make it harder to recruit quality additions, especially if the absentee PIF ownership remain as distant and uninterested as they have been since they took over. Still, at least the club has already made some major capital investment, not in terms of players, but by buying up a load of houses on Leazes Terrace. Hopefully, this means the East Stand will be extended and we can put to bed any ludicrous notion of building a white elephant new stadium that wasn’t remotely necessary, even when the more hard of thinking of our support were worshipping the PIF’s bloodstained bone saws. If you’d been to the Villa game this year or West Ham loss last season, you’d have seen half of the self-proclaimed loyalist supporters the world has ever seen hitting the exits as soon as we went 2-0 down. This didn’t happen under Ashley, even when we were 4-0 behind to Arsenal within half an hour. Makes you think, eh?

So, how did we get here? I last wrote about Newcastle United after the spineless surrender in the Derby; a performance so supine it suggested to me that the Gallowgate Flags display should be made up entirely of white ones, as surrender in the meekest of fashions is the way we go about things on Tyneside, or so it seems. After that, there were 3 lovely weeks off from the trials and tribulations of the club thanks to the international break and the FA Cup. All we could do was sit back and marvel at the performances put in by Tonali and Woltemade on international duty, while taking to social media to learn that those two, plus Bruno, Gordon, Hall and Livramento (who is apparently now shit because he’s always injured) were all going to be sold. In terms of actual news, the only confirmed departures were Ruddy, whose had a lovely couple of years warming the bench and doing the odd hospital PR visit, and Trippier. Make no mistake, the latter has been a legend at NUFC. His legs may be going, but I shudder to think what we’ll be like without his organisation and leadership going forward.

In the run up to the Palace game, Hoppy gave another shallow and meaningless interview where he said nothing of substance, apparently meant to reassure everyone that Nice Guy Eddie is staying. A couple of months later, the script remains unchanged, though mainly because we can’t think of a realistic upgrade who actually take the job if it was offered. Personally I’d love Simeone as boss, mainly because of his dress sense. On a serious note, the abject surrender at Selhurst Park made you wonder if it was actually possible to make a coherent case for Howe’s continuing employment. It’s a bloody good job that Mateta didn’t start this game or we’d have been in for a real hiding, instead of a shoddy and shit defeat to a team who couldn’t be bothered to shake a leg until gone 70 minutes, courtesy of a needlessly conceded late penalty.

As usual the team was the wrong one. The absence of Ramsey and Woltemade reduced our creativity to less than zero. Nothing in midfield and beyond risible down the flanks, on a day when Murphy had his worst ever game for us. Then again, Barnes was no better when he came on. Just the sort of performance to show we’d put the Mackem fiasco behind us and were ready to face a Bournemouth side who’ll just played Arsenal off the pitch. I remember the final game of the failed MacLaren experiment, when Howe’s Bournemouth came up here and ran rings round us in March 2016. It was grim that day and equally as bad this time around. I hadn’t planned on even seeing this as Tynemouth CC 3s were starting our season at home to Kirkley 2s, but the chance of a freebie in The Magpie Suite, courtesy of my pal Graham, was simply too good an offer to turn down. While the football was rancid, the catering was top notch. Honestly, the smoked salmon was to die for. The desserts looked incredible too, but I was a good lad and turned them down. Still had more than a few pints though, then snuggled into my comfy, padded armchair where the old Sky TV box used to be, and saw us play crap. Bournemouth ran rings round us, scoring the same tap in twice. At least there was oat milk for the lactose intolerant among us to enjoy in our half time coffee. Being honest, we did improve slightly after the break, but it just wasn’t good enough. Once Bournemouth got the winner, there was no urgency, no fight and no plan for us to get back in the game. At least Tynemouth 3s won by 9 wickets and I got a free programme, souvenir pin badge, well fed and hammered for free. Didn’t stop me speculating whether we’d actually pick up another point in the rest of the season though.

We didn’t the week after at Arsenal of course. However, we should have done as a highly nervous home side were nervous, dislocated and close to fluffing their lines. When I saw the starting XI included Burn, Willock and Murphy, I actually thought Howe was taking the piss. At least he finally got round to dispensing with the dreadful Ramsdale, who I hope we never see again. The reality was a single goal loss, but Osula could have scored in the first minute, but fell over, and Wissa blazed over a gilt-edged opportunity at the very end he ought to be ashamed of missing. I don’t think this game took us any further forward in terms of Howe’s suitability for the job, but that microcosm of a late miss showed us exactly what Woltemade is capable of in setting it up, and sadly exactly what Wissa is about when he skied the ball.

The on-line doom-mongering reached such a crescendo that most of the Twitterati had us relegated in 18^th place, which was never going to happen, but I did see us dropping to 16^th if we didn’t get our act together. Thankfully, we did just that against Brighton. Just back to John’s in Kildare after a trip to the Leeside derby between Cork City and Cobh Ramblers, I watched it on his dodgy stick, while keeping a check on Percy Main’s home game against Stobswood Welfare (won 5-0!!). While I still had beef with Howe over the continued omissions of Ramsey and Woltemade, you have to say Nice Guy Eddie got this one right. Murphy? Great crosses. Burn and Osula? Great headers. Barnes? Composed finish. Even Pope, dodgy kicking apart, made a couple of brilliant saves. Ramsdale wouldn’t have made the miskicks, but he wouldn’t have made the saves either. On the whole, this was a good, deserved win. All Howe and the players can do, to make us believe in them, is to win games of football. We haven’t done that enough in the league this season, but we did so today and I was happy to take the positives from that.

On-line, we’d apparently “morally” lost that game, as Brighton had a spell when they were on top. It didn’t matter when we kicked off against Forest, with Woltemade back in the team. I tell you what, we played bloody well, apart from Woltemade sadly. We absolutely deserved 3 points out of this game and Eliott Anderson’s equaliser was as unexpected as it was undeserved. Obviously those who sought to blame Pope and Hall for it are the sort of moaning bastards who are never satisfied. I mean, look at Osula, who is now starting to look the part. Obviously, he’s never going to be top class, but he’s got better. Markedly so. How come? Experience? Confidence? Or whisper it, coaching? I’ll let you decide.

Then came West Ham. A few things occurred to me after this one. Firstly, why the hell haven’t we played like that more this season? Quick, open, expansive play is what we’ve been crying out for all year and it’s a bit bloody late in the day now for the proper NUFC to show up. Secondly, weren’t West Han awful? Other than Castellanos, they didn’t look interested. The only fight they showed was Soucek, who should have been off for a handball and a penalty we didn’t get, when he laced Bruno in the head. Twice. Thirdly, wasn’t Osula great? Two excellent finishes can perhaps allow us a modicum of gratitude for the manager’s decision to persevere with him. The partnership with Woltemade (great goal today) shows promise. Finally, I loved the warm applause for the departing Trippier and Krafth. The latter was a good, solid pro who gave us everything and we really could have done with him at times when injury stretched the squad so thin.

It’s just a shame that Fulham drained all this positivity away. Anyway, let’s rest, regroup and try to be competitive at least next year. Anthony Gordon? Thanks and farewell. Don’t let the door bang your arse.

Men & Boys

Here's what I've been reading & listening to over the last while...

MUSIC:

Since I last wrote about my cultural adventures, I’ve had the pleasure of 3 live experiences, all of which had their merit. First up was the King of New York and the real Poet Laureate of North Shields (Sam Fender; who?), the genius that is Johny Brown at Pauline Murray and Rob Blamire’s Polestar Studios. Along the street from The Grove and in the lee of the Byker Wall, this is the first time I’d been in Polestar since they decamped from the Ouseburn. It was a real family affair that night. Rob was outside having a smoke and a cuppa, Pauline was inside, being the perfect host and the bairns Grace, behind the bar and Alex, doing the sound, gave the place a lovely, warm, dynastic feel.

I met up with Craggsy and Mike, so we felt obliged to have a quick detour to Two By Two to try some glorious Snake Eyes in its natural environment, before returning to see Johny, who was accompanied by BOHJ cohorts James Stephen Finn on guitar and Pete Smith on keyboards. The gig was to showcase Johny’s stunning recent, bildungsroman album “Dream A Memory of Home.” It’s a brilliant record and it worked equally as well live, with standout tracks such as “Hymn to Speed” and “When Football was our Game” garnering warm, supportive applause. Johny can even take that old Roxy Music smoocher “Dance Away” and turn it into a compelling torch song for the lonely and lost, but it was the anthemic “Rosemary Smith” that really had the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

Having had some serious health troubles over the past few years, Johny has embraced his mortality and come back fighting, in one of the most intensely creative periods of his nigh-on 50-year musical career. He’s a poet, a prose writer and he’s playing acoustic guitar. The man is a marvel. He also told a rather risqué (risky?) story about the late, great Les McKeown of the Bay City Rollers, but we’d best not go into that here. Much love to one of the world’s greatest musical treasures. Johny, not Les.

 

In contrast to the cosy intimacy of Polestar, the next venue I set foot in was the bleak, cavernous expense of the O2 Arena in Leeds, where Ben, Dave and I journeyed to see Godspeed You! Black Emperor play one of only 2 English dates on their 2026 tour. Now I love Leeds, having spent a dizzying year as a postgrad in the LS6 area in the late 80s and Ben spent 4 years there in his student days, but neither of us feel a remote need to overnight there any longer. There just isn’t enough of a sense of adventure, compared to visiting Glasgow for instance, to draw you in. The three of us have seen GY!BE perform jaw-dropping sets at Barrowlands and the Manchester O2, so expectations were high, especially after a couple of enjoyable liveners in North Bar, which seems to have dialled down the Nathan Barley tribute vibes since I was last in, but this was a gig that just didn’t catch fire for any of us. The last time we’d been here was for Mogwai in February last year and I secured a superb spot against the far wall, stage right, to rest my weary legs and aching back. It was pretty packed that night, but not as oppressively rammed as this one, which was to be expected with the scarcity of GY!BE’s live appearances on these shores.

As ever, O2 security checks were as intrusive as anything the IDF could have come up with and having been corralled into the venue, it remained so full we couldn’t get forward in any way shape or form. Stuck behind the mixing desk in an oblong room with an intrusive, overhanging balcony, we barely saw the video projections, never mind the band. With such unfortunate circumstances, I felt curiously disengaged from a band who normally scoop me up into their emotional maelstrom. Yes, it was good as the sounds produced were as fabulous as ever, but it wasn’t great. For a start, they simply weren’t loud enough.

The backing videos seem to have changed from trains and buildings to flowers and trees, and the lead instruments are now as much the bass and drums as the violin. The focus of GY!BE seems to have changed, even if there was no new material to consider, to a more compassionate, less intense vibe. I’m fine with that, but I do hope they return to Barrowlands next time they visit, as it is the best venue on earth. Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the night was investigating the new Greggs product, the chicken roll. Avoid. It tastes like sawdust.

The third and final gig I’ve seen was at a third different venue. The Lumiere Experience; a candlelit classical string trio doing Fleetwood Mac covers at Trinity Church on Gosforth High Street. Now, like everyone I suppose, Fleetwood Mac are a secret pleasure we don’t talk about in public, but this was really good, compared to the execrable Rumours of Fleetwood Mac at North Shields last year (night before Mogwai in point of fact), when we walked out halfway through. Not only were the band lousy, but the audience consisted of beery, coked-up radgies who ignored all the basic protocols of gig etiquette. This was a very different experience, and one I’d quite like to repeat in Winter when the effect of the candles would be even more impressive. The three piece consisted of cello (taking the bass parts), viola (rhythm guitar) and violin (vocals and keyboards). These classical musicians did justice to the whole Fleetwood Mac oeuvre but particularly impressed on “The Chain.” Thankfully we were sat on comfy chairs, which was a relief for my bony arse, and the audience (apart from a wearying number of latecomers) were attentive, though the presumed TB patient in our row did annoy me slightly. In all seriousness, this was a wonderful take on the cover band genre. Imagine how this would work with Teenage Fanclub songs? Perhaps less so with Whitehouse, to be honest.

Another band that probably wouldn’t cut the mustard when reinterpreted by a classical string trio are Throbbing Gristle. Next year marks half a century since “Second Annual Report” was released and I’ve been tasked with reappraising it for TQ magazine. Guess what? I’ve never previously possessed a copy, despite still owning “Third And Final Report” and “20 Jazz Funk Greats” since they hit the racks. As part of my research for this piece, as well as getting a copy of Cosey Fanni Tutti’s “Art Sex Music,” which is next on the to read pile, I sourced a CD of “Second Annual Report” on Discogs. I tell you what, it’s still an astounding piece of work. God only knows what people made of the lyrics to “Slug Bait” or “Maggot Death” at the time, not to mention Genesis haranguing the audience in Southampton. Aside from the violent imagery and confrontational words, it is the primitive electronics that really set TG apart from other acts of that era. Eerie, creepy and utterly unlike anything else at that time. Or now. Glorious.

That’s a word I would also use to describe the Fleet Foxes debut album that I found in a charity bin for a couple of quid. The main question I have is how did I miss this lot almost 20 years ago?  This beautiful record has a timeless quality, drawing on music from many places and periods, including the pre-rock era. The astonishingly accomplished five-piece labelled their work as "baroque harmonic pop jams", a neat way of encapsulating their vocal-led creations that feature a complex mesh of voices but have the instant allure of the most commercial chart hits. Probably their most famous number “White Winter Hymnal” perfectly captures the magic Fleet Foxes weave, with its sense of quasi-religious devotionals, while “He Doesn't Know Why” dovetails the two versions of California suggested by much of Fleet Foxes' music: the doo-wop and barbershop-influenced pop of the Beach Boys and the harmonically rich folk-rock of Crosby Stills Nash & Young. Bloody great.

As is St. James Infirmary’s “At the Globe,” recorded live at a TQ soiree in September 2024. I attended this gig and remarked at the time, “at the last TQ Live event of the year, Gary Lang was accompanied by Mark Oliver, for a Krautrock influenced set that sounded, by turns, remarkably similar to Can and then to Soft Machine’s “We Did It Again”. No bad thing of course and I enjoyed this.” I enjoyed the release of the 2-track CD of the performance from wormhole World even more. Both “Kanthing” and “Dogzenkatz” are excellent bits of work. Well done lads.

I really want to like the current iteration of Swell Maps, as I absolutely adored the original band but, as we sadly know both the Godfrey brothers, Epic Soundtracks and Nikki Sudden (who was a bit of a dick it has to be said) are no longer with us. Hence, the band that released “C21,” which I bought against my better instincts are basically Jowe Head plus some hired hands. Admittedly, these hired hands, including David Lance Callahan and Luke Haines, have got some pedigree, but it’s basically Jowe Head and a backing band. I’ve got a Jowe Head solo album; “Unhinged.” It’s alright in a self-consciously whacky sort of way and “C21” is far better than that, or the live Swell Maps album I got on Record Store Day a couple of years back, which is pretty rank. The Peel Sessions album last year was brilliant, but that was the original band and “C21” sadly isn’t. Several of these songs were written back in the day, by Epic, Phones B Sportsman (David Barrington) and John Cockrill, but only the single “Vertical Take Off and Landing” really hits the spot. The rest of the album is frankly a bit dull. I’d still go and see them mind.

The other little curio I’ve picked up recently was the Norwegian CD zine “Stoy Staffet” #2. This includes 4 different electronic sound artists, the first (Marg) invited by the editor, the second (J. Folke) invited by Marg, the third (Markus Lipsoe) invited by (J. Folke) and the last (Absalon Paaske) invited by Markus Lipsoe. It’s an excellent concept and an intriguing listen, even if electronica isn’t really my bag, but I will be investigating it again, especially if guitars are involved.

BOOKS:

I mentioned last time that I’d bought a load of books from my pal Matt Moir and I’ve slowly been going through them. Some of them I already owned, some I’d read and didn’t have copies of, while others were duplicates and there were some, such as Matt’s A Level History book on Stalin by Alan Bullock and a biography of The La’s that didn’t appeal. Obviously Alan Bullock’s thoughts on The La’s would have been a good read. Hence, after charitable donations, I ended up with 38 books to get through, many of them on music. I’ve found my way quickly through Sam Knee’s photobook of late 80s / early 90s grungy guitar bands and punters, “A Scene In Between,” that was cute and nostalgic. Other titles that didn’t detain me long included plodding, chronological, though superficial biographies of Syd Barrett (“Crazy Diamond” by Mike Watkinson) and the appallingly entitled trustafarian slob Gram Parsons (“God’s Own Singer” by Jason Walker), as well as Tony Wilson’s less than trustworthy hagiautobiography “24 Hour Party People,” which is a jolly good read, even if we’re in the presence of the epitome of the unreliable narrator. Why is he so nasty about A Certain Ratio and Vini Reilly I wonder?

There’s also Mick Middles book “The Fall,” written about 25 years ago when Mark E Smith was still an objectionable drunkard, but at least a talented one, before it all came tumbling down. Middles is at pains to point out how good a pal he was to MES. Whoopee eh? Bryan Charles writes 154 wildly pretentious pages of memoir interspersed with a lucid dissection of Pavement’s “Wowee Zowee.” Lots of long words, but I very much enjoyed it. I also got a lot out of a couple of historical books Matt passed on to me; Jack House’s proto-psychogeographical analysis of his home city, “The Heart of Glasgow,” that I found fascinating. Equally good is the first volume of Robert Kee’s history of Ireland, “The Most Distressful Country,” that mainly covers the 1789-1866 period and leaves the reader in no doubt that Robert Emmett was an absolute charlatan.

I’ve also acquired some other books of my own choice. Staying in Ireland, Brinsley MacNamara’s “Valley of the Squinting Windows” talks of small town prurience and bigotry in County Westmeath around the turn of the twentieth century. It’s a good read, encompassing sexual morality, sexual jealousy, the influence of the Church and Nationalist aspirations. Obviously it was banned by Dev and his lot for years, which is probably why I enjoyed it so much. Collected from the local free library, “The Naked Face” by Sidney Sheldon, is a rattling good whodunnit page turner, whereby a psychoanalyst starts having his patients murdered, but it soon dawns on him, he is the eventual target. Mafia hitmen, a good cop and a bad cop, not to mention an eccentric private dick and lots of blood loss make this is a truly entertaining read, with a trademark plot twist at the end.

When I read “The Shipping News” back in the day I enjoyed it very much, so I was pleased to find E Annie Proulx’s diverting collection of short stories, “Heart Songs” in the free library. It’s a series of brief, homespun country tales that while not establishing her as the Flannery O’Connor of New England, does have some bizarre and surprising takes on rural life in the backwoods near the border. The last free book was Bohomul Hrabal’s “Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age,” a dizzying 100-page sentence about a drunken, lecherous shoe maker in inter war Prague and Moravia. Silly rather than sexy, I still found it a lot of fun. Perhaps I’ll look up “Closely Observed Trains” in the future.

The best and most important book I’ve read this year is David Keenan’s stunning “Boyhood.” The book begins with the abduction of a young boy is abducted outside Partick Thistle’s Firhill ground, the first timestamped reference in a journey that takes the reader from World War II to late 1980s Glasgow. Loosely based on the Ancient Greek concept of anabasis, meaning ascent or journey, multiple histories and story arcs intertwine, drawing on a whole galaxy of characters and ideas.

The relentless pace of Keenan’s anarchic narrative and sense of place demands to be experienced rather than passively read. Huge, monolithic slabs of text, with barely a full stop in sight, give way to shorter bursts spat out like a flurry of blows to the solar plexus. The result is exhilarating and overwhelming in equal measure. Guardian angels, ritualistic murder and talking horses are just a few of the gems in Keenan’s kaleidoscopic imagination. When Keenan’s on this sort of form, he deploys imagery that provokes hilarity, disgust and pure wonder, sometimes at the story’s expense. That said, when one strand of the book melds into another, it feels like a direct hit with an Exocet of language or plot; a bright flash of connection in a deluge of history, mythology and Glaswegian surrealism.

Cutting a clear route through the sensory jungle is Keenan’s love for his home city, soaked into every page. Anyone with a vague memory of those hedonistic times will revel in his descriptions of the rough-and-tumble of those streets and the wild energy of late 80s culture. “Boyhood” is another awesome Keenan book. Genuinely thrilling; furiously precise and furiously ordered. Magnificent is the best word for it. An utterly essential read.