Jackie Leven died on Monday night. I wrote at length about Jackie last year, on his sixtieth birthday, and the song link there is still live. I met him several times over the years. It was hard to reconcile the affable bloke with the fantastic humour and amazing songs with the intense guy I first saw perform. That was with Doll by Doll at Nottingham’s Garage in 1979. Man, he was scary. ‘One of the few good shows we played’, he told me twenty years later. DBD were a great post-punk group with a handful of really strong numbers (including ballads like Janis & Strip Show that pointed the way to some of the later solo work) but they weren’t his first venture. I have…

Dead Money by Ray Banks from Blasted Heath on Vimeo. Blasted Heath is a new epublisher co-run by my agent, Allan Guthrie, which launched this week. Al is a great agent and knows more about eBooks than anybody else I know. So I figure it’s going to be a huge success, but I’m going to wish them luck anyway. Blasted Heath are publishing an interesting range of authors including Gerard Brennan and Douglas Lindsay. I’ve already downloaded two novels from the site. For those of you who are quick off the mark, today they’re GIVING AWAY the new book from the wonderful Ray Banks. I like Ray’s tight, northern noir so much that he’s the only author to get two novelettes in the Crime Express series…

I first heard R.E.M. in 1984 when my friend Mike taped their new album Reckoning for me. It sounded like The Byrds, who we both loved, and became my most played album of the summer. When I saw that they were playing Nottingham’s Rock City that autumn, I had to go, though I couldn’t persuade anyone to go with me. There were less than a hundred people in the audience, but some fans (and Q magazine) have pinpointed this gig as the point where R.E.M. lifted their sound into the classic one that was to define them. Not having seen them before, I can’t comment on the change, but I can say that I went expecting The Byrds and found something more akin to The…

We haven’t visited Wakefield since some old friends moved away, unless you count staying with my  younger brother in nearby Streethouse, but the new Barbara Hepworth gallery drew us over for a fine lunch and a leisurely look around the superb new Barbara Hepworth gallery. Our visit neatly complemented our holiday near St Ives last month, when we revisited Barbara Hepworth’s stunning Sculpture Garden, which was just as magical as we found it on our first visit, back in the 90’s. As a Yorkshireman, I’m particularly proud to see such a magnificent new gallery at the edge of town (remarkably easy to get to by car, too). The David Chipperfield designed building fits the space well, with the windows opening onto superb views of the…

This Sunday there’s Heritage Open Day at Bagthorpe Gardens, Hucknall Road, Sherwood, Nottingham NG5 1DA (Opposite Teesdale Road). These are the allotments at the back of my house, the world’s oldest – dating from the 1840s. Some are cottage gardens, others more traditionally allotmenty. There’ll be displays of photos and artefacts. Refreshments, plants and produce for sale. (My partner’s baking cakes today). Wear stout shoes! Open: 12noon – 4pm. Tours at 12.30pm and 2.30pm. Oh, and I’ll be reading from my new aylum seekers & allotments novel, Secret Gardens, at 2pm. Selling and signing afterwards too. So why not come along? It’s all free (except for the refreshments and books, of course). Good reason to recycle an allotment photo above. This week’s song of the…