In beautiful Swansea! Playing at The Bunkhouse tonight on a bill with Pete Astor.

Very sad to hear of the death of Danny Thompson, strongest left hand in British bass playing, ingenious provider of bottom end to the likes of Jansch, Martyn, Drake, Renbourn and Thompson. RIP www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwT0...

Well, this wasn’t at all predictable… …except by every single privacy advocate when Google launched Google Glass. #Cassandra

Wonderful @robertrotifer.bsky.social show feat. Peter Henisch, The Crickets (RIP Sonny Curtis), Dead Famous People, @emmaspollock.bsky.social, Kreisky, Michael J Sheehy, @themountaingoats.bsky.social, Patti Smith, The Cords, @laelneale.bsky.social, Brigitte Fontaine. fm4.orf.at/player/20250...

Tonight’s @fm4.orf.at Heartbeat from 22:00 CET / 9pm GMT, paying tribute to Sonny Curtis fighting the law and following the thread of existential angst laid down by our songwriting friends, but who can blame them? Playlist found here: www.instagram.com/p/DO6jQqDjM8...

If the Reform Party plan to abolish indefinite leave to remain also abolishes settled status for EU citizens, that would be a breach of the withdrawal agreement, liable to lead to the EU retaliating by removing trade preferences.

For 56 minutes Sky News and BBC News interrupted everything else and carried a Reform UK feed live, uninterrupted, unchallenged. The stream spluttered, froze, pixelated - dozens of times - still they stuck with it. FOR ONE HOUR. This is an editorial choice. No other party gets this coverage. ~AA

Every time I was told “It’s not about you”, I could see this coming. The phrase “settled status” always had that smell about it, a promise to break when it suits. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

As an Austrian myself, I have to say I find it funny when Austrians voice strong opinions about who deserves to have their own state and who doesn’t (remember they voted to lose theirs in 1938 - and no it wasn’t a free vote, but crowds celebrated in the streets - and got it back in ‘45)

Far right mob were out in Canterbury today trying to “protest” in front of a children asylum seekers’ home. Admit I didn’t go down, but a friend who did told me (with pictures to prove) that counter-demonstrators protecting the home easily outnumbered the far right & kept them at safe distance. Good

German listeners: My review of last night’s Together 4 Palestine gig coming up on your Deutschlandfunk Corso in dieser Stunde.

General pattern in regime change: the comedy gets better and then it gets banned.

There’ll be an edit of my David Byrne interview about his new album on @fm4.orf.at Homebase tonight. This is the blog version of it (auf Deutsch, with bits from the interview in English) fm4.orf.at/stories/3049...

This just came up on my FB feed, an AI-generated tribute song “by Ed Sheeran”, 1.6 million views and counting. Searched it, and there’s tons of them out there. Please give me a reason to think it isn’t all over.

It's time for all mainstream broadcasters, journalists and government institutions across the world to stop using it. It's beyond use.

Just the fact Starmer’s even still posting on the platform belong to the guy who called for a putsch only yesterday is beyond belief, actually…

Was trying to avoid the madness but even I’ve got my head round (I think) Groypers, right-on-right violence and connected coded memes. Now turned on TV to see Sky News are still running yesterday’s story blaming antifascists. Underfunded bad rolling TV news now broken to the point of being a danger.

Austrocentric post: Sehr beglückt, das gerade erschienene Buch zum Peter Henisch Symposium 2023 in Händen zu halten. Enthält meinen Beitrag zu seiner Musik, insbesondere dem dieses Jahr 50 Jahre alten, beharrlich ignorierten ersten Album des Literaten als Singer-Songwriter.

Our favourite radio show w @robertrotifer.bsky.social and Cate Le Bon, Alles Exhausted, @gweniferraymond.bsky.social, Saint Etienne, @modernnature.bsky.social, Big Thief, Leslie Graves & Toby Goodshank, @divinecomedyhq.bsky.social, Sea Cathedral, Blueboy, Stuart Moxham. fm4.orf.at/player/20250...

Spent a week away from everything except tasty mushrooms & some wild boar, returned & put together tonight’s @fm4.orf.at Heartbeat on air 22:00CET/9pmGMT. As the David Byrne song in the playlist linked below goes, this pic I took shows A Door Called Yes. Do step in: www.instagram.com/p/DOWgcgIjBx...

It should be a scandal. It should be a story. It won’t be.

Coming home last night after a week abroad, I heard this on the radio. Almost went off the road by the time Mason got to “Can you imagine Starmer, Badenoch, Dave’s or Swinney pulling that off? Not in a million years.” Sometimes a bit of distance helps realise just how grotesque things have become.

Finally finished reading The Great Exchange, my friend Joad Raymond Wren‘s 500+ page exploration of news culture in early modern Europe and beyond. Highly recommend. Even if you find some of his research into 16th/17th century news networks impenetrably detailed, do persist as you will be rewarded..

What do you do advising governments on extremism when extremists are in government? Pointless to ask this in English as the interview's auf Deutsch, also: Heute im ö1 Diagonal ab 17.05 läuft mein Gespräch mit der anglo-österreichischen Extremismusforscherin Julia Ebner. oe1.orf.at/programm/202...

The other day. A perfect afternoon. Darren is such a great person to spend time and make music with, we don’t do it often enough.

Here’s something I wrote for @fm4.orf.at that may well be challenging for some (and maybe hard for g**gle translating UK friends to get your heads round, it’s quite a different world, not just a different language auf Deutsch). Link in the comments. fm4.orf.at/stories/3049...

You’ve got just four weeks left to see my exhibition at The Pilgrm in London. This hip young influencer liked it!

Thank God someone is stopping the dangerous... uh... violinists in Utah. Entered the US with proper papers at 10, later graduated with a fine arts degree from the University of Utah and stayed. Invasion! There's evidence he's been part of the vicious gang known as The Salt Lake Symphony Orchestra.

Which reminds me I NEED to catch up on this, and so do you:

True, that’s exactly how it feels! I’m not alone in this village though, and remember we have our potion.

Marvellous @robertrotifer.bsky.social show feat. Ada Lea, POST, @emmaswiftsings.bsky.social, Whitney K, Thalija, Cass McCombs, Omni, The Cords, Terry Hall, One Family, @gruffrhys.bsky.social, Paloma 004, @theloftuk.bsky.social, Anna Tivel, Leslie Graves & Toby Goodshank. fm4.orf.at/player/20250...

Playlist for tonight’s @fm4.orf.at Heartbeat, starting 22:00 CET/9pm GMT. Pic is excellent ‘71 7” by Viennese band One Family, in tribute to band member/music shop legend Carl “Flash” Bek who passed away last week. I’m playing the b-side, just as good as the a-side www.instagram.com/p/DNyhcVR2Co...

This summer Austrian radio Ö1 has been running a special series “Österreicher:innen in der Welt” on Austrians living in other places. As I’m one of those, they asked me to do an edition of their music show Spielräume about my own experience. It’s on today 17.10CET/4pm GMT oe1.orf.at/programm/202...

Aspiring pop artists everywhere, you know when you do that thing where the backing stops the bar before the chorus kicks in? This will work at festivals and possibly lead to world domination, but know there’s this one radio DJ working on his show in his study who will bin your link that same second.

I have legitimate concerns about the way the mainstream media has been enabling the rise of the far-right through normalising racist and anti-immigrant narratives & discourse...

Never sure if gig announcements work on bluesky but just to say I’m going to play in Hastings, Barnaby Lounge next Thurs & ahead of that I was interviewed for Hastings Online Times. It's a lot of me blowing my own trumpet, but with interesting bits, I hope. hastingsonlinetimes.co.uk/arts-culture...

Penny Mordaunt commenting on different parties’ policies towards asylum seekers on #newsnight saying people “don’t care what colour the cat is, they just want some flaming mice caught.” People as vermin, the fash classic.

Emile Torres writes here about LLM-induced psychosis: www.realtimetechpocalypse.com/p/why-you-sh... (I don't agree you should never use it under any circumstances, but the piece is a very good roundup of the extremely real dangers. Of which I think the most serious is: will give kids psychosis.)

it's not an "immigration crackdown" if they are 1) revoking legally granted visas for 2) temporary student residence. it's not a crackdown, it's a policy change; and it's not about immigration, it's about weakening the universities and education more generally and signaling white supremacy.

Not at all jealous that @elizabethalker.bsky.social got the artsy McCartney interview we’d all like to do. Apart from that, this is great writing. And that’s a really good suit he’s wearing. www.theguardian.com/music/2025/a...

BBC R4 news bulletin says: “Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Nigel Farage calls for peaceful demonstrations outside asylum hotels.” Couldn’t think of a neater example of the mainstreaming of far right extremism in the UK.

As a man I feel slightly guilty about also loving this (read to see why), but towards end it really hits home because she spells out so well why TS can’t do what Madonna or Bowie once could. It’s the price of all that autobiographical authenticity having ruined pop shape-shifting.

Whether or not you (think you) have heard all about SDS asset infiltration of the Left and the McLibel trial, this by Mark Steel is a really well-produced, politically sound, compelling listen. So sound at times I wondered how it was allowed to slip through… www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/serie...

I wrote this for @fm4.orf.at about how the (not so) genius idea of publicising suspects' ethnicity and nationality to pre-bunk racist rumours actually reproduces racist logic. Auf Deutsch aber... fm4.orf.at/stories/3049...

I read on FB that Carl Bek who ran the fantastic little Viennese music shop Flash (and was called “Flash” himself by friends and customers) has passed away. Apart from being a wonderfully sardonic salesman he was also part of Viennese pop history, having played in the band One Family in the 1970s.

Fabulous @robertrotifer.bsky.social show feat. Sigi Maron, Cate Le Bon, @suedehq.bsky.social, Huah!, Grant-Lee Phillips, swelle, @jamesyorkston.bsky.social, Rebecca Schiffman, Terry Reid, Lila Tristram, @divinecomedyhq.bsky.social, Stuart Moxham, Bobby Conn, Mac DeMarco. fm4.orf.at/player/20250...

Tonight’s @fm4.orf.at Heartbeat, about to start on the hour. Here’s the playlist: www.instagram.com/stories/robe...

From what’s recorded in The One & Only: Peter Perrett, Homme Fatale, Peter Perrett’s mother, Amelia Leopoldina Fischer, had been involved in left-wing politics in Vienna, which got her arrested. After her release, she and her first husband fled down the Danube by boat.

I don’t know about the exact significance of the number/concentration camp tattoo on Peter Perrett’s arm as he is being arrested for showing solidarity with Palestine Action, but remember him telling me about his mother’s escape from Nazi Vienna on one of the last boats leaving via the Danube canal

Saying what I said before, I do think that I wrote quite a decent piece for the new issue of @tagebuchat.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/tage...