🚨This is an emergency🚨 This Government is currently sitting on an EHRC Code of Practice that will lead to the segregation and exclusion of trans people in public life. Use our tool to email your MP: tinyurl.com/scrap-the-bathroom-ban @transsolidarity.bsky.social #ScrapTheBathroomBan

Free Greta Thunberg and the rest of the illegally detained flotilla activists.

This is grim & dangerous over reach. This is a government that have lost the moral argument & are still selling arms to Israel. Now further cracking down on dissent. Absolutely the opposite of what they should be doing - so of course this is what the Labour Government choose.

Hugely excited to be putting on the great Bhutanese experimental guitarist Tashi Dorji @dorjitashi.bsky.social at @starandshadow.bsky.social on Monday 6 October. A post-colonial disembowelment of guitar traditions RIYL Derek Bailey, John Fahey and Bill Orcutt www.starandshadow.org.uk/programme/ev...

One piece of infallible advice I'd pass on to future generations would be to never trust anyone who says they're neither on the left or the right. They're always on the right.

LORT BURN SPECIALS: 3 Featuring OWEN HATHERLEY, ANDREW HANKINSON, KATE LISTON and music from BEN LOWES-SMITH SATURDAY 18 OCTOBER 7PM @alphabettitheatre.bsky.social MAKE NEWCASTLE MITTELEUROPA AGAIN

Newcastle says no to fascism. The far right brought a hundred or so with them, bussed from far and wide. This city turned out 1000s, from local communities, estates and streets. Geordies of all backgrounds coming together and outnumbering the purveyors of hate by some distance. Newcastle united.

No words.

Whether it is out of sheer incompetence or ideological alignment, this government is doing the far right's work The only consistent thing they have done since getting in power is echo reactionary talking points. There is not one bad faith reactionary tirade they won't lap up and recite.

Where is Keir Starmer? Where is the leadership? Fascists marched on our streets yesterday and he hasn’t said a single word. Instead the Prime Minister spends his time defending the “best pals” of paedophiles. He is a coward. He should resign.

absolutely rotten stuff. horrible. fuck off

For the landmark 500th issue @thewiremagazine.bsky.social I had the honour of interviewing the great vocalist, composer & improviser Fay Victor

'McPhee describes #PaulineOliveros as “a philosopher, a poet, an artist, and the most wonderful person in the world.” Oliveros’ Deep Listening Institute commissioned McPhee to write Unquenchable Fire' First Movement, from Unquenchable Fire (2003) - The Strange World Of #JoeMcPhee buff.ly/dzdMvjo

If you’re doing a ‘double tap’ strike on a hospital, you’re a war criminal and a terrorist.

BREAKING: Award-winning Scottish screenwriter Paul Laverty has been arrested after wearing a T-shirt reading 'Genocide in Palestine, time to take action' Police arrested the I, Daniel Blake writer in Edinburgh this morning

'McPhee’s experiments with multi-track recording, microphone feedback and Echoplex take his music into extraordinary electro-acoustic realms informed by Stockhausen, Sun Ra, Lukas Foss and Harry Partch' Cosmic Love from Sound On Sound - The Strange World Of #JoeMcPhee buff.ly/dzdMvjo

U.N. Declares a Famine in Gaza, Where Over 500,000 Face “Starvation, Destitution and Death”

After providing #Severance with the soundtrack to its "defiant jazz" scene, the endlessly explorative work of legendary multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee is enjoying a moment of rare mainstream crossover... The Strange World Of… #JoeMcPhee buff.ly/dzdMvjo

Defiant Jazz! Wrote about the very great Joe McPhee @thequietus.com with ten entry points to the different aspects of his work. Free jazz, punk, sound art, electronics, Po Music, Deep Listening, funk: it's all in here! thequietus.com/interviews/s...

Wrote a guide to some of the jazz/improv/creative musicians exploring microtonality & alternative tuning systems, inc Anna Webber, Alec Goldfarb, Modney, Mat Muntz & Zekkereya El-Marghabel @thequietus.com thequietus.com/subscriber-a...

The Sandie Peggie case is being used to escalate a wider campaign of hatred against trans people, one designed to make it impossible for them to even leave their homes. www.heraldscotland.com/news/2537880...

Israel murdered five al-Jazeera journalists, including Anas Al-Sharif. They did so because they're now liquidating Gaza City, and want to silence the remaining witnesses. To Western journalists silent about the slaughter of your colleagues: Their blood is on your hands, too.

Israel claimed responsibility for killing five Al Jazeera staff in Gaza, including Anas al-Sharif, in a strike on their media tent outside al-Shifa Hospital, bringing the total journalists killed to 237 since the war began. 🔴 Follow our LIVE coverage: aje.io/1490et

Barely an hour ago, Palestinian journalist Anas Al-Sharif warned us all: “If this madness doesn’t end, Gaza will be reduced to ruins, its people’s voices silenced, their faces erased — and history will remember you as silent witnesses to a genocide you chose not to stop.” Israel just killed him.

In a world where International Humanitarian Law was enforced in any meaningful way, Keir Starmer and David Lammy would be sent to the Hague and then to prison for what they've done to the people of Palestine.

Think about every pro-Israel person who denied this was the plan for the past 22 months; who gaslit you; denied this to you; pretended this wasn't the plan. And then never believe those liars about anything ever again.

Great to see Brighde Chaimbeul featured @newyorker.com but the framing of the headline erases all the fine artists who’ve been bringing the pipes into the avant-garde over the past few decades, from Julia Wolfe to Paul Dunmall, Matthew Welch to Yoshi Wada. daily.bandcamp.com/lists/experi...

"The BBC World Service has compiled material on over 160 cases where children have been shot in Gaza, and found that in 95 cases the child was shot in the head or the chest. In most of these cases the victim was under 12 years old"

BREAKING: Palestine Action will be able to challenge the UK Government's ban on the organisation Co-founder Huda Ammori won a legal battle at the High Court today

‘Israel’s allies are still buying time for Israel to change course or come to a deal with Hamas over how many trucks to allow in, as though food were a legitimate bargaining chip. Gazans cannot afford to wait for either.’ Amjad Iraqi on the blog: www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2025/ju...

Happy 65th birthday to the maestro Pat Thomas. One of the greatest musicians & composers of our time. My @theguardian.com interview from last Autumn. www.theguardian.com/music/2024/n...

someone needs to actually grab these people and go ‘we are heading for an unliveable planet within decades, people can’t afford homes, energy prices are sky high, and you are confabulating drivel about “small boats”, what in the fuck is WRONG WITH YOU’

ICYMI: I wrote about some of the best albums of the year so far for my newsletter Research Music. Low key ambient! Post-club mutations! Bosnian folk songs! Free jazz and improv! Tech death metal! There's something for everyone.

Essential business @cafeotodalston.bsky.social Legends Edward George & Mariam Rezaei join the dots between Quincy Jones & Otomo Yoshihide in the latest Strangeness of Jazz. www.cafeoto.co.uk/events/stran...

This is good. All too rare to hear a British politician calling bullshit on the UK’s racist anti-immigration discourse - and the elite interests that narrative serves.

Incontrovertible evidence, now, of *police* investigating families supporting their kids with gender affirming healthcare in the UK. For trying to do the best for your child, following best practice in most of the world, here you get a visit from the police. Thank you, Wes Streeting.

For people much younger than me: literally two incidents like this in the Siege of Sarajevo were correctly held up as outrageous atrocities in a war that was broadly said to shame the entire continent. As opposed to here, where there are two or three a day and important people will not talk about

Thrilled to be programming some Newcastle gigs @starandshadow.bsky.social starting with the great Tashi Dorji @dorjitashi.bsky.social on Oct 6! With 🔥 support from turntable legend Mariam Rezaei & a cassette DJ set from Posset aka Joe Murray. Tickets: starandshadow.org.uk/programme/ev...

Absolutely horrific. We are watching ethnic cleansing and genocide happening in broad daylight, in real time. Our govt has a duty to prevent genocide - and yet is still selling arms to Israel. The UK's complicity must end.

Long shot, but does anyone know about Dave Kennard, who wrote jazz reviews for Peace News in the mid 1960s? Not a name I’ve come across elsewhere so could be an Eric Hobsbwam/Francis Newton style pseudonym. This must be one of the earliest UK reports on the Blue Notes.

Following up this post from yesterday by saying I'm coordinating a celebration of JD via a free album being put together over at ILX, where he regularly posted over the years. Full details at this post if you'd like to join. @robertdallasgray.com perhaps you'd like to contribute or spread the word?

Absolutely grim, a real milestone in Britain's political history. If there's a route back from this, it will surely require turning our backs on the party that brought this about.

I'm sorry this is totally bananas and should be appealed. I'm genuinely staggered. The Judge should lose his position this is such an obviously awful decision and logic for it.

I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard at a headline.

Today, after 14 years, I’m resigning from the Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn and I will co-lead the founding of a new party, with other Independent MPs, campaigners and activists across the country. Join us. The time is now. Sign up here to stay updated: actionnetwork.org/forms/join-t...

I've signed this open letter for writers and publishing workers against the proscription of Palestine Action and so should you: docs.google.com/document/u/0...

No great surprise to see my MP, Dame Chi Onwurah for Newcastle Central & West, voting with the government on this appalling bill. Will be contacting her about it, although I expect it'll be ignored like my previous emails. Worth letting them know how hated they are though.

I'll be away this weekend but if you're in Newcastle you know what to do folks!

Folks, the first six issues of Arthur magazine, pub'd in 2002-3, are now available as free PDFs. Donations to defray and recover costs are extremely appreciated, trust me. arthurmag.com/read-the-mag... Pictured: cover of Arthur No. 2 (Jan. 2003)