Outrageous

One of the many highlights of Nottingham's annual Dot to Dot Festival yesterday was the outrageously talented poet, Georgina Wilding. Just before the dreaded Covid she did a brilliant Q&A for this blog. We talked about that yesterday and neither of us could believe it was over four years ago. 

Her thirty minute set at The Angel was pitch perfect; reading selected poems from her acclaimed collection Hag Stone (and some newer ones too), she told, thru prose, the story of her early working class upbringing interspersed with underage dinking, underage sex, together with a side order of pure Nottingham surrealism. Thank you, Georgina. And thank you so much for signing my book.

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Georgina is Events Lead at Nottingham's (brand new) Central Library - here's a breathtaking flythrough tour with Georgie's commemorative poem as the soundtrack...

Flag day

It's Friday. It's a bank holiday weekend. Put the flags up. Well, maybe just a pink one. Like Sunak's call for a snap election this week, Wire's blistering debut album wrong footed a lot of people when it first came out. Even as early as 1978 it was being labelled post-punk. Oh my, has this long player got a lot to answer for.

One of my faves from it is a jaunty little thing called Three Girl Rumba. Justine Frischmann liked it too; probably a little too much - she settled out of court apparently. 

Wire - Three Girl Rumba (1978)

Three of a kind

I was honoured last weekend to take photographs of three Irish siblings who were all a. making me laugh like a drain and b. buying me beer like it was going out of fashion (I think a & b may be linked). They all get on so well (I'm told they always do, with or without the aid of alcohol) and I just wanted to capture some of that vibe. 

You'll also notice a certain building in the background. And a brilliant blue sky. It was the prefect Sunday afternoon. Thank you, Margaret, Michael & Trish. And thank you to everyone at The Abdication for making it my spiritual home.

Three score and ten

Wreckless Eric turns 70 this year. (I know, even as I type those six words I can't quite believe it myself). Ahead of his imminent move back to the UK (he's had his fill of New York County), Eric's playing a few gigs over here. And if, like me, you've been following Eric's diaries, fanzines, blogs & radio shows over the years you can't not like him. What you see is (nearly) what you get. Although he plays the underdog to a tee, don't be fooled; beneath that faux bumbling persona lies a talent so rich (he's written, recorded, produced and played on more records than Paul McCartney's had hot dinners), musical historians in the future will spend the rest of time just cataloguing his work.

A personalised note from Eric, 2004

It was fitting then that in October last year he was invited by Jools Holland to revisit the song that kickstarted it all in 1977. (Back when the idea of Wreckless Eric turning 30 would have been seen as far fetched as Star Wars.)

Wreckless Eric (with Jools Holland) - Whole Wide World - (2023)

Who's gonna pay attention to your dreams?

I finally got round to reading a brilliant book that's been on my shelves for more years than I care to remember. 'Duel - And Other Stories of the Road' is a collection of short stories that loosely fall under a banner, I'm calling, Auto Noir. It's a collection from 1987 curated by William Pattrick and is crammed to the rafters with cracking good reads, all paying homage to the road and the vehicles thereupon. Charles Beaumont, Roald Dahl and Stephen King are all in there but it's Richard Matheson's masterpiece from 1971 that gets top billing: Duel first appeared in Playboy magazine (and anthologised for the first time here), tells the story of one man driving to a sales meeting on a very ordinary day & being stalked by a crazed tanker lorry driver on the open road in California - in broad daylight. Like the film, Stephen Spielberg's first ever movie, it's utterly compelling. And very chilling. Unlike my California road trip in 2022. And James' in 2020; both recorded for posterity above.

Duel - Official Trailer (1971)

Richard Matheson (1926-2013)

Dennis Hopper (1936-2010)