The Return of The Knocking Shop

The Return of The Knocking Shop

Caught in rehearsal, the engine room of The Knocking Shop sparking back into life after two decades!
Catch them on Tuesday 26th January in Corsica Studios, 4/5 Elephant Road, London, SE17 1LB
http://www.corsicastudios.com/…/wild-roscoe-record-collect…/
Also playing Final Hour; Triple Blind; Blindman's Rainbow
All bands feature on the Small Town Scenery album to be released this month by Record Collector Magazine.



You can now pre-order Small Town Scenery from Rough Trade, featuring the song Half Orphan from The Knocking Shop! Or you can wait and buy it from the next issue of Record Collector Magazine - due out on January 28th. http://www.roughtrade.com/albums/100250

Books of the Year 2015

Books of the Year 2015

As  I have lapsed somewhat into inactivity on the book blogging front I hope to use this post to quell those pangs of conscience that niggle in the back of my mind when I think of all the books I meant to post about but never have.
I have also been reading less, even with the extra time I should have had due to the lapse in blogging. However I took up running and managed to lose three stone in the first few months of the year and have not put much back on since. Also my band has risen from the ashes, at least briefly. I guess I have a tendency towards single-mindedness and that means that when one thing comes to the fore, another slips back into its wake.
Another possible reason was the revelatory re-read of Nathanael West's Miss Lonelyhearts, which rather than having it's edge blunted by the passage of time had the same impact as when it ravished me a few decades ago. It is my book of the year and re-calibrated my sense of the excitement a book should stir if it is to become a true favourite.

Ship of Fools

Ship of Fools.



Yet another of my 'videos' for The Knocking Shop, with Douglas Fairbanks starring in this nautical romp over a song which seems somehow apt for the beginning of a new year, the one in which we will once more get on deck and brave the choppy waters of live performance.

So, Happy New Year to all who read this and I hope to post some of my more usual 'literary' posts in January as I have brought some draft posts close to completion. It's been a while.