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Your outdated pop music references got me in the rush hour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...

This is exceptional - a clear take from 5 years ago on the malign forces that cohered to such effect this week.

About 90% of Small Faces records are shoddy compliations, of course. But this was my first contact with them, age 16. It was a cassette. It was perfect.

If you see this, post an album cover with a motor vehicle on it.

And so Aerial is 20. Here’s a thing I wrote as it turned 18, about what it felt like to first hear it on the cusp of parenthood, and reflect as my eldest son stood on the cusp of adulthood. Uncertainty, change, domestic life, choices. I love this record so much. open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...

Comma police, arrest this woman

Aura, but nice. It’s a helluva combo.

Not sure why I’d never seen The Haunting before but it was an absolute treat for the Sunday night of Halloween weekend. Creepy, unsettling and ambiguous. Currently on iplayer.

My word, this is an electrifying listen. On telling the story of civil rights, and how tragedy allows for optimism in the fight still to come. Brilliant. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/o...

Chekov’s Gun only it’s a yellow card shown on Match Of The Day.

A pre-weekend bump for this, a celebration of the joy and silliness and all-round artistic impulse of the Beta Band. Was so good to have them back… www.bristol247.com/culture/musi...

Went to see the Beta Band for @bristol247.bsky.social the other night. Twenty years on they’re still a magical blend of the cerebral and the silly. Art as a form of play, and all a bit totes emosh, actually. www.bristol247.com/culture/musi...

Favourite 10 TV comedies, in no particular order. Cheers Parks & Rec The Day Today Modern Family Arrested Development The Larry Sanders Show Last Week Tonight Fry & Laurie Police Squad Frasier

In which I write about David Hare’s new play at the @theatreroyalbath.bsky.social starring Ralph Fiennes as Henry Irving. I think it asks what should theatre be, it made me wonder where it ends. open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...

I don’t write about theatre very much because I don’t go to the theatre very much. But David Hare’s Grace Pervades has been buzzing round my head since I saw it on Friday. open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...

#nowplaying 1974 Chet Baker. Look at that line-up. I think I was hoping Funk In Deep Freeze would cool me down, it only sounded more sultry. So good.

Goddamn, what a review.

Morning.

What an insightful, enriching discussion @davidnaimon.bsky.social made happen with @robgmacfarlane.bsky.social. Free-flowing but precise, highly literary, and about the power of language to shape not just describe the world. A must-listen to go with a must-read. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/b...

Imagine not playing Columbia

Now playing

Delighted to note that the work taking place to remodel Overton Road here in N Bristol is moving along both slowly and imperceptibly. Fine satirical work, council.

Another bump for my piece on Sly and Brian. It’s about the role voices had within their respective sounds, and what that tells us about the vision each was trying realise. open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...

The cosmic symmetry of Brian and Sly and what set them apart. It’s all there in the voices. Purity vs freedom. open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...