B O F F * W H A L L E Y


TEA-BREAK OVER, BACK ON YOUR HEADS: NEWS

 
A ROUND-UP OF THIS YEAR'S PROJECTS AND ADVENTURES

BUT UK BOOK TOUR 2025

Right through March I'll be travelling around with a suitcase full of books (yes, a new book! See below) and an old guitar, visiting bookshops and venues – starting in the UK before heading over to the US. Here are the UK tour dates, with the US dates below. The venues and dates are now all finalised – some links to info will be updated when I get more information.
MARCH

Tue 4 – Pop Recs, Sunderland • Tickets and details

Thu 6 – October Books, Southampton • Tickets and details

Fri 7 – Hardess Studios, London • Venue website

Sat 8 – Blue Green Books, Hastings • Bookstore Facebook page

Sun 9 – Sound Affects, Brighton • Tickets and details

Mon 10 – Five Leaves, Nottingham • Tickets and details

Tue 11 – High Peak Bookstore, Buxton • Bookstore website

Wed 12 – Socialist Club, Bolton • Tickets and details

Thu 13 – Read, Holmfirth • Tickets and details

Fri 14 – Heron & Willow, Jedburgh • Tickets and details

Sat 15 – Greenhouse, Stockport • Tickets and details

Sun 16 – The Golden Lion, Todmorden • Tickets and details

Mon 17 – Online, Live to Your Living Room • Tickets and details

Tue 18 – The Old Woollen, Leeds • Tickets and details


The idea is to base a sort of show around the ideas in the book, drawing on an assortment of songs from 1982 to the present, songs that echo the book's theme of disruption. This means having to re-learn songs I'd written decades ago (so that'll be fun). 
It would be lovely to have you as an audience for these small events, since part of the thing will be having a conversation / Q & A about whatever you fancy talking about, be it Marcel Duchamp's Urinal, climate catastrophe, Burnley FC or Elon Musk. I've never done this before, – not like this, anyway. Should be fascinating. I've been to lots of book readings and I'm usually struck by the formality of it all – so hopefully these events won't be like that, they'll be loose and entertaining. I will bring jokes to fill the silences. 

The barman says, "we don't serve time travellers."
A time traveller walks into a bar.

BUT USA BOOK TOUR 2025

This reminds me of the first time I went on tour in the States, disjointed, exhausting but fun, visiting the West Coast for the first time, a minibus full of wide-eyed northerners along with Eve Libertine and a heap of borrowed equipment. 
MARCH

Sun 23 – The P.I.T., Brooklyn, NY • Details

Tue 25 – Arts At The Armory, Somerville, MA • Details

Wed 26 – The Word Is Change, Brooklyn, NY • Venue website

Thu 27 – Wooden Shoe, Philadelphia, PA • Venue website

Fri 28 – Arden Gild Hall, Arden, DE • Free ticket details

Sat 29 – Red Emmas, Baltimore, MD • Details

Sun 30 – Small Friend Books & Records, Richmond, VA • Bookstore website

Mon 31 – The Beautiful Idea, Charlottesville, WV • Venue Facebook page

APRIL

Tue 1 – Taylor Books, Charleston, WV • Venue website

Thu 3 – Firestorm Books, Asheville, NC • Event details

Fri 4 – Community Books, Stone Mountain, GA • Venue Instagram

Sun 6 – Park Avenue CDs, Orlando, FL • Venue website

Wed 9 – Pegasus Books, Berkeley, CA • Venue website

Fri 11 – Bound Together, San Francisco, CA • Venue Instagram

Sun 13 – Northtown Books, Arcata, CA • Venue website

Tue 15 – Last Word Books, Olympia, WA • Venue website

Wed 16 – Left Bank Books, Seattle, WA • Venue website


New book release

BUT – Life's Not Like That, Is It?
Stories of Disruption and Digression

That's the stupidly long title of the book that is now out and on sale in the US and (hopefully) being shipped in a big crate to the UK.
It's a book about stories, and a book of stories. How the stories we see and hear as films, novels and theatre aren't really the stories we experience in the real world. It's a big dig into storytelling and is mainly about the disruptions that stop our lives being simple narratives. 
This book is threaded through with a travelogue mapped between my meetings with a variety of people – I've called them DISRUPTERS – who disrupted my own life in the best possible ways.
The book is a collaboration with designer/typesetter Christian Brett, who has worked recently with Penny Rimbaud, Sleaford Mods and Killing Joke. But possibly more relevant is the fact that I sit next to him for every Burnley FC home match. He's a sweary curmudgeon and his design and typesetting for the book is incredible. 

The book will be published by PM Press in the USA, on 18 February, and you can pre-order it here and get 20% off. Bargain! 

But: Life Isn't Like That, Is It? is now available in the USA here.

BUT is also published by PM Press in the UK and here is the link to order it here.




COMMONERS CHOIR

Out now is the Choir's collaboration with West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra to sing orchestrated and choral versions of Ramones classics, on a 10" vinyl.

Click here to order your copy of the record.

Commoners are also working on new songs and ideas including a collaboration with Jeremy Deller and Paraorchestra as part of Bradford 25, a filmed performance with artist SIMONE BENNETT and a large-scale immersive day at Brierfield's Queen Street Mill with the brilliant RICKARD SISTERS. 

More details of all these collaborations when I get them. 

THEATRE STUFF

'Sanctuary', a musical I co-wrote with Sarah Woods for Red Ladder Theatre Company, has ended its run, the beautiful harmonies of the CAPA students (acting as community chorus) drifting off into the distance.
I've begun writing the music for a large-scale musical set in Liverpool called 'Speedo Mick', written by John Fay. It will run from May 30th to July 5th at Liverpool's Royal Court Theatre. 
Judging by the script, this will be a GOOD NIGHT OUT. It's based on a real character (yes, Mick) who has become a proper legend around Merseyside for his mad charity walks, all undertaken in the briefest of briefs. Have a look at his story here.
I'm enjoying getting stuck into the songwriting, even though most of the lyrics are John's (I really love and value writing lyrics!). I'm loving messing around with all sorts of different styles. Often at the start of a musical project – especially with theatre work – there's a loose template of style and instrumentation that is dictated by the play/project. So for Red Ladder's 'Mother Courage', I composed music around instruments that felt traditional and could be carried and moved along with Mother Courage's wagon... accordion, clarinet, percussion. 
With 'Speedo Mick' it's all very open, moving from power ballad to ska knees-up to acapella harmonies. 
More about the musical here.

MUSIC AT THE WHITAKER

The Whitaker Museum in Rossendale is an amazing building that straddles the line between museum and contemporary art, between old stuff and new stuff, mixing them up and inviting questions about history and our place in it. A beautifully-curated building full of fascinating things. 
Later this year I'll be working with artist LUCY BERGMAN and a group of young local people to create an installation for the Museum's outside space, a place to discover and listen and find stuff out. 
More on this as it develops.

THESE HILLS ARE OURS
The theatre show with the brilliant Dan Bye about running, land ownership, escape and wildness (with songs), is done, gone, finished. It was fun, except for the cheap and soulless hotel rooms. Days of cryptic crosswords in the van and wondering if the smoke machine would work and around 60 or 70 lovely audiences. If you saw it, thanks for coming.
There is a beautifully-produced 48-page book and 8-track CD available from No Masters. The music part of the package is possibly my first real solo album. 


FASTER! LOUDER! 
A book I wrote about Gary Devine, 1980s punk fell running champion. It's full of punky belligerence and athletic excellence, somehow co-existing. The book has had some lovely reviews (see here) and is available from Great Northern Books.
busking paris

Busking in Paris, 1980

"The individual interests me more than what he makes; because I've noticed that most artists only repeat themselves."  (Marcel Duchamp)