How to Beat Facebook Addiction – The Jack Kerouac Method

I must get back that copy of Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums that I lent to my friend Tobias. I keep thinking about it – it’s one of the most significant books I’ve read recently, and here’s why: it cured me of my facebook habit. For the two or three weeks it took me toContinue reading “How to Beat Facebook Addiction – The Jack Kerouac Method”

Hipsters: The Phantom Menace

To many, they are the scapegoats of the age, the visible minority it’s ok to hate. Not gypsies, junkies or chavs but HIPSTERS. Here they come with their beards and bobble hats, on rusty racers and skateboards, to take over derelict buildings, open coffee shops and artists’ studios. Uniformly non-conformist, they are the 21st centuryContinue reading “Hipsters: The Phantom Menace”

My Tour of Beauty…(ten years ago)

Ten years ago this summer, I embarked upon a musical journey through Western Europe, equipped with little more than six strings and a sense of misadventure. It was a memorable trip, and three years later I wrote up the escapade for an issue of The Korovian, the in-house journal of Liverpool music venue Korova (nowContinue reading “My Tour of Beauty…(ten years ago)”

Love on the Streets…

Last month me and my part-time minion Jodie Schofield went out onto the streets of Liverpool to do film a video for my song ‘Like a Wave’. After half an hour of me playing in the street, a cop and a municipal whelk turned up and asked me for my name and address, as partContinue reading “Love on the Streets…”

That’s alright, mama…

Relief is the best emotion. I’ve always found it so. Like the time you were a kid dreaming you were stuck on the roof of a speeding train, screaming through the night with lightning going off all around and smoke and grit flying into your face (it was a steam train, ok?)…and then you wokeContinue reading “That’s alright, mama…”