Yesterday I came across a amazing set of Johnny Hodges/Ellington original HMV mono LPs in their original box. They in such good condition for LPs released in 1960 I pretty sure one owner and that owner did the lovely handwritten notes on box.

Ruth Shelton: Three seasonal poems In the Beginning Star begins the songbreaking her strings from untimed waitingagitating the void, calling along constellations, grazing unknown suns.Chords gather, surge with the tides, grating,rattling the shore, breaking into runs to meet utterance. Now there…

REVIEW: Full Body Reclaim by Caroline Stancer (Five Leaves) – Neil Fulwood  An established figure on the East Midlands literary scene as one half (with Birgit Friedrich) of the poetry collective Dandelions, Caroline Stancer makes her publishing debut with Full Body Reclaim, a handsomely produced…

ok doomscrollers your fake news turkey is in your inbox.... www.openbook.org.uk/chainlink/

OWEN GALLAGHER – THREE POEMS ‘BATMAN AND BATWOMAN ROB THE POUNDSTRETCHER STORE!’ We could set up a graffiti school,get commissions from gangs, let students practicein the basement car park before allocating billboards, churches, banks. We could start up a skunk farm.There are enough empty flats in…

Caroline Stancer – Three Poems WAITING FOR THE RAPTURE When I visit I walk throughcorridors created by everything from your mother’s flat(she was a hoarder too). The sealed boxesare draped with clothes,empty cans, takeaway containers full of ashy slimeand a syringe abandoned by a temporary lodger.…

FAR FROM NOTTINGHAM: THE INSIDE TRACK ON ALAN SILLITOE’S THE GENERAL – Neil Fulwood Although well-received in some quarters (“Sillitoe scores a hat trick” - Punch), The General confounded many people. Highly anticipated after the one-two of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of…

ANDY CROFT’S ESCAPE TO MORIBUNDIA: AN EXCERPT Forthcoming from Broken Sleep in 2027, Andy Croft’s Escape to Moribundia is a verse-novel in Pushkin sonnets. A black comedy about the colonisation of the Future, a study in Hauntology and a bad dream featuring Trump, Musk, Farage, Palaeolithic…

THE SIGNAL-BOX BY NEIL ‘DICKY’ FULWOOD “Hallo!” The word came out of the fog, followed only a second or two later by thevague outline of the man who had shouted it, the more substantial outline of abuilding of some description behind him, and a smudge of grubby yellow-orangewhich seemed to be…

Yeah its on feckin Spotty but it easier than struggling with multiple leads and shit.. new in COB specials from the back of the shop..cleaned up and spinning. tapeheaven.substack.com/p/trailer-st...

Neil Fulwood: Two Poems DIET This is where I am right now, feeling likeI’m in some loose-limbed American poemby one of those hard-living American poets.Mentioning no names, but … those poets,who casually toss their cookiesin the car park of a roadhouse then go back inside.Who work their way…

LEAFE PRESS: Alan Baker your guide. LEAFE PRESS Leafe Press publishes poetry, mainly of the modernist / post-modernist variety. It's a 21st century press and a digital press; it was founded in April 2000 with a launch at Nottingham Central Library and was run with digital printing and desk-top…

On stage at Water Rats London Thursday 6th November 2025...supporting Steady Habits and The Dreaming Spires

I have uploaded my two full sets at Cornerstone to Youtube that has created a podcast type playlist for them. My heartfelt thanks to David Stephenson or Wonderboy Preacher as shown on Normal Town Sounds Map and now Groovy Arts Club band for the videos. www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Dark Weather's coming in...

WELCOME TO THAMES VALLEY TEXAS: I have launched this collection which is now available. Thames Valley Texas: Poems is included with a download of the music. DOWNLOAD HERE FOR FREE trailerstar.bandcamp.com/album/thames...

The FREE download bundle for Thames Valley Texas now includes a sampler of the Normal Town Sounds book which in preparation still. Apparently the chap below never played guitar ... Available now here: trailerstar.bandcamp.com/album/thames...

The Thames Valley Texas booklet of songs and photos as a pdf now available as a FREE download bundle at... trailerstar.bandcamp.com/album/thames...

TRICK OR TREAT... www.openbook.org.uk/chainlink/ Dead Dogs in Space or Poets on the Moon...Telstar, Sputnik, Starlink, Star Wars..CH CH CH Everybody's Talkin about it CH CH CH CHAINLINK

ROSS WILSON: THREE POEMS The Great Stink ‘But the Dragon was loose at the time . . .No one had challenged him lately . . .He got to our part of the world; nobody saw him ofcourse, there was just like a bad smell in the airand everything went sour; people’s mouths and eyeschanged their look…

ANTHONY OWEN: POEM ‘Hurricane Benjamin’ In the heart of a stolen starWe are back to wigwams againNames on limbs just incase it comesHurricane Benjamin destroyer of tents,Destroyer of children and whole bloodlines. Fuck it, lets get back to relatable world events -Someone in England died from the…

THE GOOD LIFE: SOCIALISM IN SURBITON – Robert Kenchington This year marks the 50th anniversary since the original broadcast of one of the most beloved of British television series, The Good Life. Created and written by John Esmonde and Bob Larby, the series' premise is well known: namely the highs…

HALF A CENTURY AGO … Ross Bradshaw Fifty years is a long time in politics... and it was fifty years ago that four young anti-militarists in Aberdeen were arrested under the arcane charge of Incitement to Disaffection. I was one of those accused of trying "to seduce a member of Her Majesty's Forces…

ANGELA TOPPING: THREE POEMS REGRETS He likes to see the faint blue smokestream into darkness as he says farewell.He relishes the paper’s acceptance of flame:a mystic kiss from tender whispered match. He stuffs in remnants of his wedding day,a girl’s name: he loved but never told,the guitar he…

ALAN MORRISON ON THE ALDERBANK WADE (Adapted from the Preface to The Alderbank Wade) I first developed a fascination with the political and religious nuances surrounding the English Civil War, or as it is termed in Marxian historicism, the English Revolution, and subsequent Republic, at 19 when I…

REVIEW: The Alderbank Wade by Alan Morrison (Culture Matters) – Neil Fulwood  Read any good verse novels lately? Personally, I can’t think of anything truly outstanding in that most challenging of verse forms since Robin Robertson’s The Long Take, published seven years ago, and Anne Carson’s…

REVIEW: Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark by Cassandra Peterson (Hachette) – Neil Fulwood  Cassandra Peterson has had quite the life. Bullying mother. Rough diamond father. Traumatic childhood accident (pan; boiling water). Socially awkward. Suddenly voluptuous. Go-go…

A little side story of vinyl in the shires reposted on my Vinyl Squirrel substack. thevinylsquirrel.substack.com/p/white-music

So finally here it is the all new revised second edition of Thames Valley Texas published to coincide with the reading I giving at Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot on Friday 7th November. Download the PDF for FREE here shaunbelcher.com/writing/?p=3...

So finally here it is the all new revised second edition of Thames Valley Texas published to coincide with the event at Cornerstone Arts Centre, Didcot on Friday 7th November. I will be supporting @hannahwhitemusic and @the_dreaming_spires trailerstar.bandcamp.com/album/thames...

Normal Town Sounds is a mini history of music-making Didcot and District I working on for the Didcot reading.....some surprises..it turning into the Berkshire Laurel Canyon! I now got Jimi Hendrix and Stephen Stills, Cat Stevens and Clapton partying at Aston Tirrold!

ELEGY IN A ZOMBIE-INFESTED CHURCHYARD: THE WEIRD AESTHETIC OF REQUIEM FOR A VILLAGE – Lucy Bellingham What’s the weirdest zombie film you’ve ever seen? Zombeavers? Fido? Anna and the Apocalypse? I’ll see you and I’ll raise you: David Gladwell’s Requiem for a Village. Gladwell is mainly remembered…

I am performing Thursday 6th November at Water Rats London and Friday 7th at Cornerstone Arts Centre Didcot as support to The Dreaming Spires whose new album Normal Town is about my hometown as Bruce sings... I will be reading from this collection available soon as a pdf

Now listening to one of my favourite early 1990s 'alt-country' although I think more power-pop/indie LPs. I had the chance to meet and interview Freedy a few years later but missed the boat. Consistent songwriter but this is probably his masterpiece. More info. www.psaudio.com/blogs/copper...?

As for the stolen car the same car different view...take a listen to the late great Terry Clarke here: terryclarke1.bandcamp.com/album/night-...

Annie Keating Band + Robin & Joe Bennett (Dreaming Spires) topped off the ACE Space, Newbury, gig with a fine rendition of ‘The Weight’

‘Stolen Car’ is out today, taken from @the_dreaming_spires forthcoming album ‘Normal Town’. Check out the new single on all your favourite streaming platforms and pre-order the new record as a heavyweight vinyl LP or CD from our bandcamp page. thedreamingspires.bandcamp.com/album/normal...

Channelling the spirit of alt-country circa 1992 it seems. All design aspects were channeled through the ordained minister of the First Church of Lightnin' Hopkins the Reverant Trailer Star. He acted as official advisor throughout. #thedreamingspires #clubhouserecordsuk

So you want to be a rock n roll star.... The Dreaming Spires plus Steady Habits and 'Beat Poet' Shaun Belcher/Trailer Star. Thursday 6th November The Water Rats, London, WC1X

“Normal Town” by @the_dreaming_spires artwork by @therealshaunbelcher. Same typewriter as was used for “Brothers in Brooklyn”. Pre-order your CD or LP now from @clubhouse_records_uk. 💿 thedreamingspires.bandcamp.com/album/normal...

ME AND ARTHUR SEATON: A PERSONAL ODYSSEY THROUGH SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING: Neil Fulwood There had been working class novels before. But they’d generally been written by middle class authors slumming it for the sake of material. When Alan Sillitoe burst onto the literary scene in 1958, the…

Now listening is a bit hit and miss but the Villagers take on Hazey Jane II is fab-u-lous...