AdrianReflections on ten tremendous years of Clay Pipe Music, with founder Frances Castle, through ten totemic releases.
Jake Thackray, Yorkshire’s own chansonnier, led a life that was almost as compelling as his songs, one rich with humour and sadness. Will Ainsley explains why he remains an original to this day
Experts suggest officials saved time by copying and pasting text from old legislation.
More proof that Brexiteers are just stuck in the past? Or just that most governments are clueless when it comes to tech?
It made me laugh anyway.
The arts are not "useful"; they are developmental, and essential to civilisation. Funding the arts is a way of funding civilisation, beyond drab market forces.
It feels endless and anarchic, a riposte to the algorithmically determined monoculture behind everything from the Spotify Recommended section to ghost kitchen-reheated delivery food. Bandcamp, and the half-billion dollars it has paid to artists since its inception in 2008, is real.
Bandcamp is great. It’s refreshing to find a company like this that really does care about artists and music. I’ve built up quite a collection of Bandcamp purchases now.
As co-author (with Phil Smart) of Van der Graaf Generator – The Book in 2005, I was able to interview several of the band’s famous admirers. One of them was Marc Almond, the singer of Soft Cell and a successful solo artist, who had covered a few of Van der Graaf vocalist-songwriter Peter Hammill...