"never explain'.
My next novel will be called Drum. It will be set mostly in the 1980s world of alternative comedy. Available Jan 1st 2026. More details coming soon. https://www.rob-chapman.com
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"never explain'.
And, seemingly, everyone on here.
As I sat on a scuzzy sofa examining my purchases 3 menacing blokes walked in and asked 'do you sell baseball bats? Large baseball bats?' I think I'm missing Manchester.
Dreamed I went into a s/h shop. Eric Ravilious style poster of a removals van in the window captioned 'turning up at the wrong house since 1956'. Guy sold me 2 floor cushions for 10p each. When I unzipped them each contained a house brick and some slack coal. The guy shrugged. 'They're 10p' he said.
They were all soul boys the Fabs, weren't they? Every one of them.
RIP Joe Bugner. Long time Bedford resident which has a long history of welcoming immigrants. Opened our local boxing club in Sandy in 1969 and an all round good guy.
“Compared with the mothers of west Wales, the most implacable intelligence gathering set-up ever known, the members of the old KGB were amateurs. The accused could not have done what they were charged with for one simple reason: someone, somewhere, sometime, would have seen them doing it.”
His interviewees included... the peppery historian AL Rowse, who asked him whether he was “a hetero” and received an affirmative answer. “‘Knew it, knew it,’ he said triumphantly. ‘Knew you were heterosexual as soon as you scuffed my mat, and didn’t straighten it.’”......
Just read the Telegraph obit. "Byron Davies Rogers was born on April 5 1942 at his parents’ home near the village of Bancyfelin, outside Carmarthen, into “a family noted for two things: one was illegitimacy, the other was farting.” more to come...
Just heard this on FIP. New to me altho probably not to you. Lovely version. www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWnH...
Mainstream R1 (which started in 1968 apparently) used to play reggae all the time even if station head Douglas Muggeridge couldn't pronounce it the word. There were times between 1969-71 when nearly half the records in the Top 20 were reggae.
Found him have you? Sounds an utter tosser. Trouble is I've met people like him at conferences.
According to his Uni page CV he also heads "the Global Reggae Research Project". He also uses 'around' all the time.
"the trendy vicar assertions of the half informed" as someone in Wire magazine once said. Can't remember who now.
He then goes on to talk about someone called Desmond Decker. The person who wrote this is a university professor. Gizza job. I can do that. I can get all the names and dates wrong and do power points and that.
Also the grammar is shocking, hence the implication in the second para that there were young people in the 1960s called Radio One.
Just read an academic piece on reggae on Brit radio that commences thus, with one clanger per para. The BBC had a monopoly over legal broadcasting in Britain for fifty years starting in 1923. In 1968, BBC output was reorganized to create a pop music station aimed at young people called Radio One.
Oh I know the link is still there. Hence the scan. I was wondering if new ones still appear anywhere.
Does anyone remember the My First Dictionary blogspot from bitd? I used to love it. Did it ever resurface anywhere?
"I mean some of them don't even know who Owen Jones or Katie Hopkins or Julia Heartless Spewer or Isabelle Oakshite even are. And yet they claim to live in London."
This is something I think about often. Most people I know well, including wife and several close friends aren't on social media and in several cases wouldn't touch it with a bargepole. They seem to function perfectly well without it and have views and taste and all sorts.
On this day in 2005, at around this time actually, I started my radio and chemotherapy. It was only because they had the radio on when I went to be measured up for my mask that I had the foresight to ask if I could bring my own music. This is a record of the artists I selected. My Christie playlist.
I know. That whole Prince Charles section eh? Died on August 3rd apparently. He should not go unmourned.
Obit in the Times for Byron Rogers, who wrote two of the best biographies I have ever read, on RS Thomas and JL Carr. He also wrote an autobiography - Me -with the most unforgettable opening incident I have ever read. If you know you know. RIP.
Ravel's Pavane on R3 just before 8 o clock. Raspberry Beret playing in Morrisons first thing. And a garden visit just now from a flock of long tailed tits. Hello Autumn.
Well that just used to mean pissed here at one time. My uncle used to use it. "Your Auntie Jean was completely stoned". Yeah?....oh I see.
Would be even better if the next sentence read 'I was really pissed'.
Just read an Amazon review that said "Bought for my wife. She is enjoying the Book." He gave it two stars so I'm suspecting there are some subtextual anger issues being worked through here.
It'll be establishing its winter territory about now. And prepared to fight to the death. They're murderous little bastards.
So, United are one point above City in the league table then. Yeah, I'm just going to stare at that for a bit.
Just had a wonderful moment outside, digging up the last of the spuds (see pic) when I was joined by a junior robin, still got the speckled markings of the recently fledged. Dibbing about as bold as brass right next to me as I unearthed worms It's still there and C is trying to get a photo.
As anyone who ever walked thru Manchester city centre in the 90s knows Cavatina was a staple of the old blind guy with the dog.
It was absolutely THAT era wasn't it?
I remember the John Lee Hooker bit at the end made The Independent on Sunday's quotes of the week.
"Your right trope I like. I have nothing against your right trope."
Sifting thru a load of old radio clippings I ponder why have I kept a Guardian from April 93 on the launch of Virgin 1215 and then I spot it. Mouthy and era-bound of course but oh for the time when the Guardian used to actually phone me up and solicit my opinion.
Went to buy a paper but saw that the Observer, a paper that I thought might have turned a corner, had a piece in the Review on 'flagshaggers'. That's social media terminology. I've used it myself. I kind of expect more elevated discourse and terminology in my papers. Naive of me.
Ok, so last night's dream in which I was babysitting a 2 yr old Syd Barrett and he toddled into my finger nail causing a small cut near his eye and his Mum said to me 'you'll have marked him for life. I hope that will be on your conscience'. Perhaps that was plummeting into whole new Freudian depths
WKCR WCBN KPFA Mississippi Jack McDowell Lightning Hopkins Bukka White Charlie Patton Skip James etc etc and rarely the obvious stuff either.
I swear if they ever add a record button to internet radio I'll probably never leave the house again. Two great blues shows on at this time of the evening - mid saturday afternoon is obv the blues slot on US radio - but I have other obligations. They play some fantastic stuff.
Your occasional reminder that Lennon was still doing acid in the mid 70s but no one picked up on the windowpane reference bcos they'd all rather know who Ringo's dustman was. Experts textperts. Scholars schmolars.
Yellow Submarine is the life is an acid cartoon film that Magical Mystery Tour could have been.
Mentioned earlier. Any excuse to big it up on here again. Northern Garage Psych classic. Dancefloor stormer. www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAyk...
Ditto. My copies of Granny Takes A Trip - Purple Gang and Softs Love Makes Sweet Music cost me 5p and 10p respectively off Camden Market early 80s - both look Brillo'd. LMSW even has a tiny crack in the run in groove. Both play near mint.
I mean this is the period in Northampton where the Northern boys were putting me onto pop-psych-soul oddities like David & The Giants, I Can't Face The Animals, Manys the slip between cup and the lip, Outer Limits Just One More Chance etc and I was finding them all for a quid.
From a collecting point of view I suppose this is that limbo period just pre-CDs and re-issue labels like See For Miles etc. The only stuff I remember being silly prices was northern soul rarities but then that was always microclimate of its own and even then there were still bargains to be found.
It's still got the sticker on it! I had completely forgotten that. It has loads of scuff marks on it which is prob why I was so resentful at the time, but one of those cases of looks shit, plays near mint without a crackle.
I picked it up in a tiny record shack in Cotton End in Northampton in 1984 and grumbled about paying £3 for it. Thought he was really taking the piss.
💄❤️
Actually I will still write that Not A Blog piece this winter, if only to set myself up for my next music book, which is still some way off. It will be a good way of shaping my personal manifesto of how you can still write convincingly about music without once using the words icon or tropes.
I honestly thought PAOC would get the same kind of attention as Alex Ross's The Rest Is Noise. That's how deluded I was. The BBC proms website that year mentioned my Debussy/Jeff Beck pedals comparison & the Revolver reissue sleeve notes mentioned my Fabs ch so it was read in high places but yeah...
Electric Eden was a huge influence on PAOC and I told Rob that too. Not in the content obv but in the scope. It gave me permission to go the scenic route. I thought psychedelia needs a book like this. Turns out I was wrong. It just needed the same 60s book to be written again and again.
I had intended to write a lengthy piece this summer about what went down during that period but I appear to have written 11,000 words about cricket instead which was far more enjoyable and which will be going up on my website back end of next week or the week after. x
Thank you Rob. Yes I put my heart and 4 years of my life into that book. I still think it's my best book and it destroyed me when hardly anyone wanted it. A quarter of a million words and not a single newspaper review. Taught me a lesson or three about the tenuous nature of things.
We did indeed. It was only thanks to valued outlets like Quietus that I got any kind of lift at all. Ignored by all the papers, ignored by the festivals apart from Green Man. Some real shit went down during that period that gave me a harsh reality check in how it all works. "You're not a name, Rob."
This Saturday 10 years ago we were in Clitheroe. C pushed 4 yr old Alice on the park swings and I sat and read Rob Young's glowing review of PAOC. Basking in the late summer sunshine and buoyed by the success of AVIH I sat back and waited for more reviews to roll in. And waited. And waited. And....
Hearing this recently made me realise that he used it as the basis for Valentine's Day on The Next Day www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnOG...
Rave was great, one of the best looking mags ever. They should archive the lot of them on line.
All this talk of Wire in my feed reminds me of when I went to see Gilbert & Lewis and Russell Mills do this at the old meat packing warehouse in Aug 81. I seem to recall them doing something similarly environmental in some grungy docklands ruin as well. wireviews.com/reviews/mzui...
In 2012 when we were looking to move from Manchester we sounded out a removals firm who said yes and then wrote to tell us they were now moving full time into high end classical piano transporting. We wishes them well and thanked them for letting us know. We still get LinkedIn updates about them.
On the other side of the valley at the top of the park I can see a small white dog nosing about in the grass. Its rapid movement makes it look like it's on wheels. It looks like a remote controlled toy car doing handbrake turns. The optical illusion is most pleasing.
Ah, yes. The gentlemen of a certain vintage 'here's a thing' where we are supposed to pause in hushed awe at the profundity of the incoming take. It's such an arrogant blokey tic, that phrase.
There is a podcast with two gentleman music journalists of a certain vintage who can be illuminating and amusing when talking about the 60’s through to the 90’s. Their hot takes on Charli XCX and Taylor Swift usually begin with the phrase ”Here’s the thing about…” and are invariably clueless.
There ought to come a point when any pop critic with a sense of self awareness goes look I'm far too old to be talking with any authority about this, get someone younger to do it. But they don't do they?
Bowie couldn't have written In Every Dream Home A Heartache but Ferry could have written Lady Grinning Soul. #thoughtfortheday
Syd Barrett's Swan Lee/Silas Lang.
Amorim showing the Glazers there's more than one way of asset stripping a club. You do it by stealth.
Well done Utd. Sell an academy talent who could put the fear of god into defenders bcos ooh a little bit mouthy. Fergie would have sorted his head out and made him feel wanted. Eff off Amorim. Eff off out of my club with your stupid child's toy pinboard and your broken system that Grimsby sussed.
Sitting in the garden at that point but yes, that's the one.
My Dad's reaction to my entire music career on hearing our John Peel session when it went out. "If you can get away with it boy."
Of course in a proper cricket season summer we'd have been going thank god this weather didn't arrive on Tuesday. Would have ruined the final day of the final Oval test.
Did it take the massive clue? It happens about 5 mins earlier in the same doc. I think of it often. It has such a lovely casual air about it, something my Grandad might have said as an aside. Old people essentially communicate in meaningful asides.
Some people have to go back to school next week. But not me. Because I’m old. Old! Ha ha! I'm too old to even be a teacher! Old, do you hear me? Ha ha! Chew on that, you little rotters! Old! Ha ha ha!
Oh, so can I now! He gets the opening line in my massive cricket piece I've been writing all summer. 10,000 words. Going up on my website in a week or two.
Nah, if you know you know I guess. I'll leave it up another hour or two and then give the answer. Massive Clue. In the same doc, when asked if he had any regrets over a life time, he said "yes, I haven't had enough sex."
No. Not close.
Tesco delivery van went up the hill and has just gone down again. "Someone's had their loaf" I remarked. Huge niche bonus points to anyone who knows where I cribbed that remark from.
Vauxhall Motors were still playing in the same league as my local Sandy Albion - the South Midlands League - when I was kid.
Lunchtime listening. I rarely keep cover mounts but I made an exception for this splendid Mojo comp. And perfect for this time of the year too. The whole thing smells of stubble burning.
Care to join me on my whirlwind jetset tour of the Calder Valley this morning; Amazon drop off point with faulty Alan Bennett DVD, Tip, pick up Steak Bake from Greggs for Alice's lunch, drop off repeat prescription, flea market, get Alice out of her lazy arse teenage bed and tell her it's lunchtime.
Believe me bro it doesn't. We have surplus reserves of humiliation right now.
One good seasonal indicator is the lingering dew on the grass late into the morning and the spiders starting to creep in through the air bricks overnight. Another is that we've started watching Detectorists again from s1 ep1.
Hence my occasional 'you used to be a newspaper' posts. It's a travesty what has happened to that formally excellent publication.
"Rotten Tomatoes wouldn’t do occasional dramatic tally reveals if critical reception was a nonstarter in terms of online eyeballs". Maybe not writing sentences like that would be a start.
After last night's defeat to Grimsby do we drop down into the FA Vase now?
Heads up Reds. Big six pointer at the weekend.
Look forward to Amorim explaining how this is all Garnacho's fault.
I really think there should be a book that gathers together the best of them. It would be called 'Not what I was expecting'.
'The writer went on too many tangents about the most obscure minutia imaginable' Amazon 1* review of Edmund White's The Flaneur. A stroll through the paradoxes of Paris. Some people should be actively discouraged from going anywhere near books.
No I didn't know that. After all these years, that must have completely passed me by.
Can't remember. Remind me.
Cheeky sod. That's common vernacular to me. It's what I do instead of talking like a music critic.
In The Land of Grey And Pink went over quite quickly this year. Like the azalea it wilted quickly in the relentless heat. I think it needed more mulch and powdery mildew, the occasional covers on all day match abandoned as a draw. Not enough glistening flag stones and swan vestas too damp to light.
I never ever repost my own stuff on here, but come on!
'Around' 'Around' 'Around'. I imagine commissioning editors circling that table while they try and make up their mind(set)
If it's any consolation I feel pretty much the same about dub reggae too circa 1974-76.
I'm intrigued by how people make critical/evaluative judgments about Electric Miles. I think of it all as one magnificent slab of sound, an evolutionary process he went through where any one track can it seems to me be swapped interchangeably from one LP to another without interrupting the flow.
Send best wishes and positive vibes, folks.
