Mar 31, 2019

Seven Inch at the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe


My third Edinburgh Fringe show will debut on August 1st 2019, running for 14 dates as part of the Laughing Horse free festival.

I'm adapting my Lowry show Seven Inch, turning a grand theatre production into something more up-close and personal suitable for the Fringe. I will be able to see the whites of your nostrils.

The show is set in the last record shop still standing, in which I examine life through not-so-teenage kicks. Actually, it's an excuse for me to be silly for an hour, show off stupid cartoons, and to infect your brain with forgettable (and unforgettable) pop music.

It's not been officially announced yet, but how could I not share this video with you?

Mar 18, 2019

Knob-twiddling and Salad Fingers

Things have been quiet around here because I've been under the weather, literally because of the proximity of the sky, and also metaphorically.

So here is a bit of audio and a lot of a video to keep you entertained.

Underworld have posted a 2005 as-live studio session of Twist, from their A Hundred Days Off album, and it sounds pretty sweet. It's free to download too.



David Firth has plopped all the old Salad Fingers episodes onto YouTube, now including more recent ones. It's as sinister as you remember, and of course the soundtrack is excellent.



I advise looping the two simultaneously and see what happens. In the meantime, I shall try my very best to get well soon.

Mar 7, 2019

World Book Day: music books I have read and should have read


This World Book Day piece on the Official Charts website reminds me that I haven't read as many music biographies as I should have done.

I remember reading Chuck D's Fight the Power: Rap, Race, and Reality twenty years ago and thinking he talked a lot about making money. And I tried to read Morrissey's List of the Lost before firing out this status update on Facebook:
"Morrissey's novel. I read some of it yesterday. You know how sometimes people write like teenagers with no knowledge of the well-worn amateur mistakes a lot of beginner writers make? The kind of adverb-strewn purple prose on which we look back and blush, with the sentences all imprecise and confused because when we were young that's how our minds worked? Morrissey should aim to get to that level before putting out another book."
A friend once gifted me John Lennon's nonsensical books, and I really value them. And I've probably read more histories of rave than is wise for one person. I inhale almost anything Underworld-related. Oh and I used to read the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles even though it was just lists.

The problem is when you're buying a musician's book, it could be coffee table dribble with glossy but anodyne photographs, or some kind of ego trip from a lyricist who thinks they can write something other than lyrics.

Or if you're Madonna, just a load of people having sex all over the pages and everything sticking together. Yeeps.

The most interesting one in those Official Charts picks is Stormzy's Rise Up, which launches his #Merky Books imprint that's dedicated to encouraging young writers with submission opportunities and internships. He's a good chap, that Stormzy.

As for my should-read pile, I should read How Music Works by David Byrne. I need to get my hands on that Beastie Boys Book that came out before Christmas. And I'd read a right-riveting biography of Kate Bush, if there's one knocking about.