Richard Rees-Jones

Have you heard his cover version of Dream Baby Dream? It's on the High Hopes album. Very good it is too.

This flurry of My Bloody Valentine activity has sent me back to mbv for the first time in ages. Turns out it's a fantastic album. It doesn't reach the heights of Loveless, but then again what does?

I know, writing is meant to be its own reward. And often it is. But when your view count remains in the 10s, for writing that I think is good & deserves a wider audience, it's hard not to feel disheartened.

How do you get readership & engagement for your blog? I get fed up with the lack of views. Spent the best part of a day writing a blog about a band, v complimentary review of their new album. Tagged them in my socials so they knew about it, but they didn't repost it to their thousands of followers.

Naked Lunch, Lights and a Slight Taste of Death (Tapete, 2025) When I lived in Vienna, one of my most exciting musical discoveries was the Austrian alternative rock band Naked Lunch. Hearing them play for the first time at the 2008 Donaufestival in Krems, perform...

I reviewed the new Naked Lunch album, Lights and a Slight Taste of Death.

Peter Hammill On Track: Every Album, Every Song Peter Hammill On Track: Every Album, Every Song : Richard Rees-Jones: Amazon.co.uk: Books

If you're one of those lucky people discovering the wonders of Peter Hammill's Charisma/Virgin back catalogue via the recently released box set, I humbly recommend my On Track book as a listener's guide. A deep dive into every album and song ever recorded by the man.

"I cannot abide cruelty to living creatures."
"I'm a creature, you can abide it to me."
"You're not living."

RIP Prunella Scales.

Over on the Henry Cow fan page on fb – the fan page! – I've encountered one of the vanishingly rare "free improvisation isn't actual music" blokes. He's complaining that the music on the forthcoming Henry Now live album will be the sound of them "pissing about".

Your contributor profile confirms that you haven't ventured BTL since April 2022. I can hardly blame you, but I miss your combative responses to the dopier comments that your articles provoked. Can you be persuaded to don your metaphorical hazmat suit and return to the comments section?

The Formless Irregular, a massive and eyebrow-raising book collecting the visual art of Nurse With Wound's Steven Stapleton, just landed. I've kind of lost touch with NWW's output in recent years, so this looks like the perfect opportunity to get reacquainted.

Thanks Peter! One can but hope (my rates are very reasonable...) Glad you enjoyed the book.

Yeah, I never really got into Bleed but I'm blasting Three now and it's sounding incredible, especially Bloom. Haven't listened to Travel for ages, I'll be cueing up that one next.

New Necks album is really hitting the spot today. Four long tracks, all of them keepers but this one is the highlight for me.

Wordle 1,577 1/6

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

(total fluke, never happened to me before and probably never will again. I pick a different starter word every day.)

Facing north: in the footsteps of Tony Harrison I was saddened to hear of the recent death of the English poet Tony Harrison. Harrison spoke to me more clearly than any other poet I’ve read. His peerless command of rhyme and rhythm, his lyrical, elegiac tone and his blend of vernacular language and classical erudition all combined to produce a body of work that I found uniquely affecting and readable. But I’m no literary critic, and I don’t intend to try and analyse Harrison’s poetry in any depth. Instead, I wanted to set down a few personal reflections on the man and his work.

New Substack post: in the footsteps of Tony Harrison.

Good luck if you get as far as Gravity's Rainbow, which is where I started and which I found totally unreadable, putting me off everything else. The new PTA film might provide an alternative way in...

Google Lens suggests it could be a western conifer seed bug. If so, its name is longer than the thing itself.

Did You Hear The Music, by Cultural Amnesia 8 track album

Hi Mike, the label is sold out but the band still have some copies for sale:

#cassunday Cultural Amnesia, Did You Hear The Music (2025) – great, quirky post-punk electronic songs. Limited run of 100 copies, only a few left so don't sleep if you want one of these.

More typos, and – for good measure – one in the very first word of the (excellent) book that comes with the box set.

So many inexcusable typos and howlers on the outer box of the new Peter Hammill box set. Clearly this wasn't checked by a fan (i.e. me) or they would never have slipped through. These detract from an otherwise superb package. Universal (or PH himself!) should employ me as a proof-reader next time.

And for good measure, here's another one in the very first word of the (excellent) book that comes with the box set:

More typos

Another extraordinary concert tonight by Peter Hammill at the Royal Festival Hall. Such riveting power, passion and intensity.

Turn around from the Harrison family grave and you'll see the city of Leeds in the distance. "Find the beef, the beer, the bread, then look behind."

No graffiti on the Harrison family grave, but there was on some other graves.

Turn around from the grave and you see the city of Leeds. "Find the beef, the beer, the bread, then look behind."

I couldn't find Byron the tanner, but I found Wordsworth who built church organs.

Quite moving to find a space on one side of the grave for his 'chiselled epitaph' to be added.

Went on a pilgrimage to Holbeck cemetery in Beeston, Leeds, to find Tony Harrison's family grave as mentioned in 'v.' He was right – I did have to search quite hard. But I found it.