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...

Had a wordless ‘after you, no, after you’ moment with Mick Jones of the Clash as we both tried to walk through a gap in opposite directions in a crowded art gallery.

I have a theory that Brian Wilson presaged our modern attitudes to self-care, creativity, and mindfulness. I think he taught us more than he intended and more than we realise. And it’s all there on Friends, the album that finally turned the family into a group. open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...

This pick of Brian songs from @andrewmale.bsky.social is perfect, beautifully done. No ‘but where is…?’ from me as he’s done a wonderful job (in very little space) of getting Brian’s genius across, and how it feels to listen to his music. Which I’ll do forever. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/j...

A love letter to From The Morning by Nick Drake medium.com/a-longing-lo...

when a Knausgaard-inspired exhibition of paintings was also a writing prompt. open.substack.com/pub/jamescai...

After a pandemic that showed a) how easy it is to stall a just-in-time economy & b) the importance of jobs like this, we avoided talking about optimising for other things, like security/safety/resilience (which, while costlier, would hold advantages) and doubled down on this. Makes me sad is all

Your dating app profile but it’s actually the lead pull quote on the book you’re currently reading.

Lots of huff and puffing from critics but I like this Buddhist philosophy take on The White Lotus. www.thenationalnews.com/arts-culture...

So many threats to leave the country from self-interested, un-self-aware members of a rich elite. Perhaps we shall come to look back on this moment as The White Notice Period?

Eyeing up a Grand National flutter and can’t believe there’s a horse using both my Wu Tang name AND the alter ego I adopted for the second wave of solo LPs

Well it’s April 5th and a very April 5th kind of April 5th at that, so a very happy Talk Talk day to you all. And, breathe. medium.com/a-longing-lo...

Incredible piece. The sense that we’re wilfully commodifying out of existence anything meaningful from work, our lives, the stuff that matters - it’s here in healthcare as it is any place *people are supposed to matter*. What are we doing?

Yes, this is the one.