Ian Penman on the Beach Boys - impeccable. My word, he’s good at this. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Found a Mad Men box set in a charity shop. £2 - couldn’t not. (Some sense is kicking in I should be prepping for streamer collapse.) The media outlet calling depictions (S1 alone) of brutal misogyny, blatant racism, forced adoption and workplace bullying “sheer joy”? That’ll be the Mail On Sunday.

Finished this over the weekend. It’s very good. There’s a recurring line that defines America as “an adolescence without end“ and I keep thinking about that.

Happy April 5th, everyone. Here she comes… medium.com/a-longing-lo...

🎶 *bryan ferry voice* “Disposable darling You’ve made so much money My new hobby is flags It’s a national emergency”

👌

Yes it’s the most Partridge moment ever but also, having just read the book thanks to @iammilliam.bsky.social and @andrewmale.bsky.social, I can’ see Goodwin as a akin to Elizabeth Taylor’s Angel - brittle, self-regarding, impervious to reflection, a laughing stock who will never realise it.

As a radio DJ Craig Charles is a great reader-out of words other people have written for him to say, other than he also sounds totally wooden doing that.

My friend fields sometimes 6 calls a day from people demanding he collect his cat. The cat goes missing for days and has been found in pubs, schools, people’s homes. He‘s been in the cathedral, the zoo, followed a guy home from the Thekla once.

New McCartney is just lovely. Feels somewhere between Rubin-produced Johnny Cash and Sufjan’s Carrie And Lowell. Hazy, melancholy, voice soft and occasionally cracking

#nowplaying, special weather turning/refressing edition

Jimmy Webb producing the Supremes doing a motorik sprint through a Joni Mitchell song. Just takes it somewhere else. A whole new energy. www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_Bi...

My gratitude to @andrewwasylyk.bsky.social for his magical ensemble show the other night, and to @bristol247.bsky.social for letting me write a review. A case of place transposed to music which I have attempted to capture in words. www.bristol247.com/culture/musi...

I didn’t march against the Criminal Justice Bill for this.

The last time a Tudor got this badly embarrassed by the Spanish, England schismed christianity.

👀

It would have been Lou Reed’s 86th birthday today. Here’s something I wrote the day he died, back in 2013. jamescaig.medium.com/sunday-mourn...

Watched Total Recall last night. Something familiar about the car driven by the stooge of the mindvirus-wielding authorian bad guy...

Also brilliantly put

Brilliantly put

Cold Champs In With Flavor Flav www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/f...

Name a cover of a song that you love more than the original. www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2m6...

Your outdated pop music references got me in the rush hour

Oh my, just clocked that Jesse Jackson and Andrew Weatherall both died on the 17th Feb, so that this speech, which AW sampled for Come Together, now has an even greater cosmic significance. www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTVw...

“Well, my heart’s in a Charing Cross Road basement, gentle and fair…”

Only 30,000 people saw Melania on its cinema release, but everyone who did became a documentary filmmaker.

Seconded. This is my favourite podcast these days.

Hazel Irvine very much the Michel Barnier of this Masters semi-final discourse. Fear for the Hendry/Parrott camp tbh

By now, asteroid 2026 Dreadstone has impacted the Indian Ocean, sparking a firestorm not seen on this planet since the K–Pg Extinction Event. Most people just want to be with their families. Here are three ways effective business leaders can leverage targeted KPIs to turn tragedy 😔 into triumph 💪

Started that Guardian list of live albums thinking, well, it’s Bill Withers isn’t it, then got to #1 and remembered, no they’re right, it’s this. Ferocious, sexy, all Killer. Perking me right up after daaaays in bed.

Ten years - thats all it’s been! open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...

Trigger warning needed on #thetraitors. Some of us have only just emerged from a gift scenario with our own boomer narcissists, you know.

I have now in turn ranted like a madman on this post. I also couldn’t help myself.

This is ostensibly about my three favourite albums of 2025, but it’s also about what life felt like before and after getting a late ADHD diagnosis, and perhaps, underneath that, about what music can do when we’re feeling unsettled and confused. open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...

What an unexpected writing retreat feels like open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...

I am at a writing retreat and as I debriefed on my morning over lunch someone said in response, “wow you’re well up the magic mountain, aren’t you?” and I’m taking that as a compliment, I think.

Happy Sandy Denny Weekend to all who celebrate. www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQiW...

“The harder I try to paint the picture Of the way it was back then The more I miss the good times, baby. Let it roll again.“ open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...

Published on the what, now?

What a title.

Not been able to stop listening to, watching and thinking about the Stone Roses since Mani died. I tried to write about their elusive and compulsive essence. The album they didn’t make, the promise unfulfilled - always the thing that wasn’t there. open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...

Shut up and deal, Charlie Brown.

“Lodge 49 is that feeling, the Buick and ‘junkyard angel’ feeling, that idea, the sense there’s something else, something more to all this, a secret harmony we might all see and believe if only we’d develop the awareness for it, trust in it.” open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...

The Roses could be The Meters when they wanted. Obvious to say they should have recorded more, but I wish in particular they could have done more of this. Proper funk. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESid...

My eternal gratitude to @andrewmale.bsky.social for guiding me towards the ‘eternal verities’ of Lodge 49. I realised writing this that I miss these characters. I’m sad we’ll never get to know how it ends, but there’s even something appropriate about that. open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...