Britpop fascinated me while I lived through it, because I never quite belonged to it, yet somehow it filled the charts and radio playlists with guitar bands. Even as a teenager, I felt something about Britpop was a little too masculine, overly laddish, which wasn't me at all. The entire scene, I'd later discover, was… Continue reading The It Girl by Sleeper
Ze Records was one of the hippest labels of the time. This was their attempt at a Christmas album. It's...something.
Kim Gordon is an idol of mine. Read on to find out why.
Jeff Noon's Vurt was a seminal novel for me, strange and beautiful, it felt like the future - but not one I'd want to live in. Here's my story with this book...
The school I spent nearly six years of my life has changed beyond recognition, but I've changed too. For years I wrote books for young adults, but somehow against the odds successfully switched the writing adult fiction. But while I wrote books for teenagers, I found myself touring, hitching my way around schools across Scotland.… Continue reading Return to Horror High
I saw Patrick Wolf very early on in his career at the original Stereo while he was touring Lycanthropy. The gig wasn't very well attended, which made sense because Patrick was most definitely a cult artist at that point, beloved by critics and photographed for all the coolest magazines, who presented him as the coolest… Continue reading Lycanthropy by Patrick Wolf
From as long as I can remember, my nightmare always starts and ends the same way every single time. I'm in a large bed that's improbably being propelled down a busy road full of cars in a city that vaguely seems like it might be somewhere in America, but only a version I've seen on… Continue reading The joyful noise of The Monkees
Whoever said you should never judge a book by its cover clearly has ugly cover art on their books. I like artwork to say something, even if I can't understand what it's trying to tell me. When Happiness was picked up by Fledgling, I immediately knew what I wanted: "Make it '90s inspired brutalism with… Continue reading The weirdness of Penguin Classic Crime art
Independent music and ideology go hand in hand, the clue being in the word independent. But independence isn't necessarily the label bands sign to, but their mindset, how they present their work. What makes one band stand out from another? The Fall never had that problem. In whatever incarnation they arrived, it was always fully-formed,… Continue reading I Am Kurious Oranj by The Fall
The witch in the supermarket didn’t look like a witch. For a start, she didn’t have a big pointy hat or nose to match. There wasn’t a hairy wart on her chin and her skin wasn’t green. In fact, she had great skin. There was a good reason for her flawless face, and she explained… Continue reading FICTION: Supermarket Sweep
Kirkland Ciccone 
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