TEA-BREAK OVER, BACK ON YOUR HEADS: NEWS
HERE WE ARE, WELL INTO 2024 AND THE USUAL SIX-MONTHLY UPDATE – MAKING ART IN A WORLD THAT'S GOING MAD
Here's a round-up of current and ongoing projects:
1. WE'RE NOT GOING BACK
A revival of a 10 year-old musical that I wrote to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Miners' Strike. It's ON TOUR RIGHT ABOUT NOW and I'd tell you all about it but... I haven't seen this version yet. It features the same four women – Vicky, Claire-Marie, Stacey and Beccy – who were in the original version. They are just brilliant, talented actors, and you know that thing where actors seem to be really good mates on stage but in fact they don't get on at all backstage – well this lot are the opposite of that.
We've had one letter from a disgruntled right-winger already, complaining to the relevant theatre that Thatcher was in the right to attack the pesky miners, etc. That bodes well. Go to the Red Ladder site for venue details.
2. BUT –
Life's Not Like That, Is It?
Stories of Disruption and Digression
That's the stupidly long title of the book I just finished writing and proofing and sending off to the copy-editors.
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.
Can't beat a bit of disruption!
This book is threaded through with a travelogue mapped between my meetings with a variety of people – I'll call them visionaries – 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 designs for the book (from what I've seen so far) will be incredible.
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 designs for the book (from what I've seen so far) will be incredible.
The book will be published by PM Press in the USA, probably early next year.
3. COMMONERS CHOIR
We recently sang at the Fete of Britain Festival in Manchester – both creating a song in a day with a scratch choir (joined by Brian Eno) and singing on stage as Commoners. Being part of this weekend of discussions, ideas, shows, experiments and songs (and an atmosphere of welcome and warmth) was a privilege. It's what we love doing, being part of something big and fascinating while having fun as a huge singing mob.
The choir have all sorts of plans and projects for 2024, including a feature-length film to be released next year. The title at the moment is 'Collaboration, Disruption, Adventure'.
As the filming progresses, we'll be following the film's premise by involving ourselves in collaborations of various. kinds, political activism and a big and strange adventure. (See below)
Our first collaboration will be a one-off concert with West Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra. On Friday 26 April we will be performing a set to commemorate the birth of The Ramones, fifty years ago in 2024. We will team up to sing orchestrated and arranged versions of Ramones classics and will subsequently hope to release it as a live vinyl album.
We are also planning a big trip to the Scottish island of Jura, to sing a special song about George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. It's 75 years since the book was written and published, in a small cottage on Jura. It's also a nice round 30 years since the K Foundation travelled to Jura to burn a million quid in a boathouse. We'll be making a pilgrimage to the site of the burning and creating our own ritual (and singing, obviously).
Commoners will (at some point) also be setting up a free and accessible open resource of all our songs (about 40 or 50 of the buggers), with musical scores, lyrics and recorded parts for each voice type. We're looking into finding partnerships to help with funding this project.
4. THESE HILLS ARE OURS
A 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. Get it here.
5. 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 in Paris, 1980