BACKBEATS is out tomorrow! And you can read an excerpt of the Charlie Watts chapter at @rollingstone.com, including one of my fav interviews, Steve Albini. www.rollingstone.com/music/music-... As always, preorder at johnlingan.com

Putting my hat in the ring for the BBC Director General job. Key pledges: 1. No more barefoot contempo waft on Strictly 2. A weekly new music show that has no threat of Jools playing boogie boogie piano 3. Open University programmes and arty French films to be shown during the night.

BBC Name New Director General

What sort of people sit in a restaurant and don't even try to talk to each other?

So sorry to hear that Gilson Lavis, Squeeze drummer and long-time member of Jools Holland's Big Band, has passed. A brilliant drummer who was intrinsic to Squeeze's heyday & mid eighties resurgence. The third drummer from that great new wave era to leave this year after Rick Buckler and Clem Burke.

Illustrations from Japanese fireworks catalogues (ca. 1880s) — https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/japanese-fireworks-catalogues #newyearseve #fireworks

Peter Watkins has died. I loved his The War Game, and Punishment Park (each a horror, in a loose sense), and admired his ambition with Edward Munch. An iconoclast to the end, he often refused to engage with attempts to hold revivals of his work, arguing that culture must move forever forward. ❤️‍🔥

Liverpool band The Merseybeats with Queens Road, Everton, in the background, 1960s. Photo by Max Scheler.

Jack DeJohnette, just one of the deepest musicians ever, and a personal hero. Here is my obituary for NPR Music.

Have heard a few of the other Anth 4 leaks - falling in love all over again. In My Life take 1, with its folky vocal stylings, had me thinking of this. Smoothed out for the released version, obvs, but hearing John and Paul duetting feels heartbreakingly beautiful. youtu.be/3vIPpRAVdrg?...

Liverpool's oldest cinema to reopen for Christmas. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Please read this and help us defend public access to this remarkable resource. It's a place I know and love, somewhere where the people and the materials have been of boundless assistance to my work (and my passion) for more than 30 years.

‘I was working as a cook when it went to No 1’: how Norman Greenbaum made Spirit in the Sky

Phwoar! Look at the colour grading on that!

Vivian Maier, Chicago, IL, 1971 #WomensArt #Saturdsy

NEW MUSIC MAPS PODCAST with the Hurdy Gurdy Man DONOVAN @musicmaps.bsky.social Listen where you get podcasts - rocknrollbookclub.co.uk/episodes/86-...

As great as I remembered. youtu.be/4ApGofqRLUw?...

My BFI Classic on The Beatles’ film A Hard Day’s Night is available to preorder now. Here’s the story behind it. I love the cover - inspired by the film poster and a key theme in the book: the power of television in transmitting the Beatles to the world. samiraahmed.blog/why-i-wrote-...

🚨 A unique test panel from the Tottenham Court Road Station murals by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) is coming up at auction with Lyon & Turnbull on Oct 31. Created in 1982-86, the polychromatic glass mosaics at TCR are the ‘Sistene Chapel of art of the Underground’, yet remain unlisted.

finally finished writing about seeing Elvis Costello earlier this week & what it's like to witness our favorites aging in front of us, as we do the same: jukeboxgraduate.com/elvis-costel...

Journalist Tom Doyle on Ringo. Biography published October 23rd. youtu.be/Kh4CiIk2CuM?...

Thelma McGough's fascinating Beatleweek interview. Looking forward to her book. youtu.be/ku5UwGifXQE?...

Dinner at a very lively Govinda's followed by an invigorating hour with John and Yoko at the Dolby Screening Room in the presence of sound engineer Sam Gannon. A memorable Lennon 85th/50th celebration. Power to the People, right on!

New @musicmaps.bsky.social podcast Simon Cardwell uncovers the story of the Everly Brothers with Barry Mazor. Available where you find podcasts 🎧 rocknrollbookclub.co.uk/episodes/85-...

Over at @pitchfork.com, I review Power to the People, a lavish and exhaustive box set that documents John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s radical Sometime in New York City era that just happens to excise the album’s lead single. pitchfork.com/reviews/albu...

Moody Blues singer and bassist John Lodge dies aged 82

A 1970 episode of Nai Zindagi Naya Jeevan showing tonight on BBC4 as part of their 60 Years of South Asian programming celebration. Arguably as influential on my love of all things India as anything Fabs-related that came hand in hand during my '70s childhood... www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Geoff Britton's Beatleweek conversation with Mark Lewisohn youtu.be/ejMCF-NcAZg?...

Oh this is sad news. The Mersey Sound remains my most revisited book of poetry.

hi over the weekend i went to see Chuck Mitchell & the next day saw Mitch Ryder & i wrote about why I am always chasing history when I can: jukeboxgraduate.com/chasing-hist...

The meeting: vancouversun.com/news/vancouv...

Cat On The Road To Findout by Yusuf/Cat Stevens review – fame, faith and charity

Beryl Marsden in conversation with Mark Lewisohn - a great Beatleweek chat youtu.be/c2AXMMDsdlA?...

Andy Burnham today

Danny Thompson and Terry Cox - the dream team - backing Nadia Cattouse in 1970 Pure bliss. youtu.be/uE-Pnpg90Z0?...

No-one sounded quite like him. RIP Danny T. 😔

Godspeed to Danny Thompson. He added so much grace, beauty and guile to so many outstanding pieces of music (you could live a pretty nourishing musical life listening solely to the records he contributed to.) And an unfailingly entertaining and soulful conversationalist. One of the greats 💛

SCOOP — Part of the reason Disney/ABC may have rushed to sort things out with Kimmel is because tomorrow they have a planned price increase for Disney+ streaming, a Disney source tells me. With subscriptions hemorrhaging since last week, they couldn’t risk losing more users with this announcement.

It sounded like Kimmel was driving a pretty hard bargain on coming back on the air—Disney was begging him, not the other way around—so let's hope this is interesting variety.com/2025/tv/news...

Kimmel is back on Tuesday: DISNEY: "We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday."

Well, this is lovely. The Vancouver record shop proprietor Rob Frith, who recently came upon the Beatles' Decca audition master tape, has met up with Paul in LA. We can deduce in whose hands the tapes now reside.

Just noticed that from the early morning of Sunday 12 October Talking Pictures TV are repeating - wait for it - Eurotrash! So if you missed this series first time round or only saw bits like I did then here’s an opportunity to see what all the fuss was about. talkingpicturestv.co.uk/schedule/

Stuart Maconie's Beatleweek interview has been uploaded to YouTube by organisers Cavern City Tours, as has Judd Lander's (link below) youtu.be/0S8f4Hmd3tg?...

Strawberry Fields planning memorial garden for Sir George and Lady Judy Martin. www.strawberryfield.salvationarmy.org.uk/news/strawbe...

Dutch late night TV has its take

Well, well - Anthology 4 to be sold independently