Short stories about music and sport and politics and the world.
Kevin Rowland cut a weird figure walking around town. He must have lived nearby because he'd always be sat in the Chinese restaurant around the corner from my flat by the seaside. It was one of the nicer restaurants, and as such was often empty. Apart from him. He was the sharpest man everywhere he …
Continue reading "Dexys Midnight Runners’ “Searching For the Young Soul Rebels.”"
He wished he could be in control of his own destiny. But Jürgen May, one of the fastest men in the world, was utterly powerless. His life in the hands of a guy he barely knew. Wedged L shaped into the hollowed out cavity of a ludicrous American car. Preying that the border guards wouldn't …
Though in the end I grew to like him, GMF always carried a hint of menace when he turned up in Tacheles. A cold breeze seemed to follow him into the building. He could never shake it, no matter his intentions. He was unfailingly honest in that way. He described himself as being a freak. …
Continue reading "A Sense of Honesty Once Found on Oranienburger Straße"
Image courtesy of Stefanie Fiebrig at textilvergehen In 1969 Pharoah Sanders recorded a fifteen minute long track called "Hum Allah Hum Allah Hum Allah." You might not know it. Many don't, for it's an impenetrable and challenging record. It's difficult to listen to, especially for those who don't know their late sixties, black consciousness, free …
He said that he was born William George Tucker, though we'll never really be sure. For the life of the man better known as John Henry Barbee is shrouded in as much myth as the man he would re-name himself for. The original John Henry. A steel driving man. Tucker was born in Tennessee in …
When he was the figurehead of a peculiar revolutionary movement sweeping through Corinthians football club in the late 1970s, Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira, MD, used to invite other people, non-footballers, to come and talk with the squad on Fridays before a game. For Brazilian footballers were traditionally sequestered away in the …
Helmut Recknagel never said what it was that made him go back home to Thuringia from a cold, bright day in Bavaria in January, 1956. He'd been jumping off mountains for half his life. He'd grown up in the looming shadow of Germany's first ever ski-jumping slope. And this was his first big chance to …
"You're all I need to get by" could have only been written by a two people who would be married within a decade and remain so for another three. As it could only be sung by two best friends who truly loved each other, staring into each others eyes, teenagers laughing at each others' jokes …
He didn't wear a tie. He said they were for conservatives and if there was one thing he certainly wasn't it was a conservative. A conservative wouldn't have driven a crappy little car from Asia across Europe. Wouldn't have revelled in the uprising of Paris in 1968. Wouldn't have taken on the Iranian authorities when …
When David Ruffin sings at the beginning of "I know I'm losing you" he starts off on point. His coo-ing, woo-ing, ooh slinks promiscuously across the intro, but he slips back behind the beat straight after. By the time he hits "I can feel your love fading," he's already late. The story of his life. …
Jacob Sweetman 