A blog about my writing – currently focused on new writing and extracts from my Nine Inch Nails book – Into The Never. Also posts about my NHS novel, Politics Of The Asylum, and poetry-film project Disappear Here.
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Blog Roll
- Bowie Book Club Podcast – interview – 11/11/2025
Now into its second season, Bowie Book Club is exploring a more speculative, but no less considered, list of books that they feel had a significant connection to the David Bowie universe. In this interview, I speak with the hosts Greg and Kristianne about music, books and Bowie! - SCREAM LIKE A BABY – DAVID BOWIE’S CLASH WITH TYRANNY
In the age of ICE abductions, very public assassinations and far-right marchesContinue reading “SCREAM LIKE A BABY – DAVID BOWIE’S CLASH WITH TYRANNY” - FIRE IN THE LIGHT – NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS MASTERPIECE
It’s a strange thing to look back to the release of GhosteenContinue reading “FIRE IN THE LIGHT – NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS MASTERPIECE” - NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS HIGGS BOSON BLUES
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds unleash hell on earth with Higgs Boson Blues inspired by the CERN small hadron collider. - TEARS OF A CLOWN – DAVID BOWIE AND THE INFINITE MELANCHOLY OF SCARY MONSTERS
1980 would mark the year of one of Bowie’s most iconic looks, the pierrot clown that mixes joy with sadness, perhaps most well-known from the music video for ‘Ashes To Ashes’ - Blood, Tooth and Claw – A Nick Cave Bestiary
Nick Cave has long used classical imagery of plants as metaphors in his songs, from flowers and trees to a bestiary of birds, bees, and hounds from hell. So much of Cave’s work feeds on the inspiration of the natural world as totemic symbols of beauty and threat. - Photographing Nine Inch Nails – Jonathan Rach
Jonthan Rach’s exhibition of photographs presents Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails at the turning point of fame and notoriety as they toured the world after the release of 1994’s The Downward Spiral. - TRENT REZNOR DESCENDS — 25 YEARS OF NINE INCH NAILS THE FRAGILE
After achieving escape velocity with The Downward Spiral, Trent Reznor would struggle to realise his most ambitions project yet — Nine Inch Nails The Fragile — now celebrating its 25-year anniversary. - INTERVIEW — CHUCK HAMMER – David Bowie Discovers The Sounds Of The Future
I speak to Chuck Hammer about his work on David Bowie’s Scary Monsters And Super Creeps album and his pioneering use of the guitar-synth. - ROCK AND ROLL SAVIOUR – NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS BATTLE WITH THE BLUES – PART II
Finding a new beginning in a new country, Nick Cave’s 1992 song “When I First Came Town” would draw upon his time living in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. - ROCK AND ROLL SUICIDE – NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS BATTLE WITH THE BLUES – PART I
From his earliest days with The Birthday Party, Nick Cave has turned traditional blues music on its head to realise an alternative sound that goes beyond genre - 2024 BOWIE CONVENTION COMPETITION – WIN TICKETS!
The 2024 World Bowie Convention takes place Friday-Sunday – 26-28 July in Liverpool this summer — featuringContinue reading “2024 BOWIE CONVENTION COMPETITION – WIN TICKETS!” - INTERVIEW — CARLOS ALOMAR On Bowie, Songwriting, Buddhism and Fighting Back The Fear.
Ahead of his appearance at the 2024 David Bowie Convention inContinue reading “INTERVIEW — CARLOS ALOMAR On Bowie, Songwriting, Buddhism and Fighting Back The Fear.” - PRAYERS ON FIRE: NICK CAVE AND THE BATTLE FOR TRUE FAITH
The songs of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds have long explored religion as a continued struggle between doubt, dogma and belief - FASHION – David Bowie’s Anthem To The Dancefloor Of Doomed Youth
Fashion plays with the extremes of political trends which by 1980 wouldContinue reading “FASHION – David Bowie’s Anthem To The Dancefloor Of Doomed Youth” - INTERVIEW – David Mallet on working with David BowieIn this interview for my book on Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)Continue reading “INTERVIEW – David Mallet on working with David Bowie”
- BIG MAN WITH A GUN– How Nine Inch Nails Took On Censorship and US Gun Culture – And Lost – Pt I
On Big Man With A Gun Nine Inch Nails presented the negative side of guns in America — gross and grotesque, violent and vulgar — another painful reality which some of its citizens prefer not to see. As the narrative voice behind The Downward Spiral album Trent Reznor is forever torn between running away and confronting the issue head-on. - INTERVIEW – Glenn Hendler on David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs
Glenn Hendler is the author of a 33 1/3 book on David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs album. This interview follows on from my initial Bowie book research; where I was able to ask Glenn about his listening experiences of Scary Monsters and his thoughts on crime, terror and thwarted love across Bowie’s discography. - INTERVIEW – BOWIE PHOTOGRAHPER – SUKITA
Masayoshi Sukita is a Japanese photographer, renowned for his rock and roll photography and his long and enduring friendship with David Bowie. As part of the research for my new book Silhouettes And Shadows, a deep dive into Bowie’s Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), I spoke to Sukita about the story behind his photographs that feature in the book. - INTERVIEW – LEAH KARDOS
I first discovered Leah Kardos music and writing during my research for Silhouettes And Shadows – particularly her book Blackstar Theory: The Last Works of David Bowie (2022) and her blog post on Scary Monsters. This interview is a record of our discussion, from Leah’s first encounter with Bowie’s music, working through his back catalogue and how she experiences his albums now. - FREAKS BECOMES US – SCARY MONSTERS, BOWIE FANS AND FREEDOM
The title track of Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) lifts the lid on a restless and troubled mind. A place of monsters, weirdos, freaks that cast long shadows; the song becomes a horror movie populated by people pushed to extremes, wounded, broken and flawed, just like us. - THE KING IS DEAD / LONG LIVE THE KING – Nick Cave Politics & The Lash
Nick Cave, Politics & The Lash – As I write this Nick Cave controversy abounds — an iconoclast, free-thinker, conservative, arch-contrarian, also seminal songwriter - [ MR SELF DESTRUCT ] – NIN – The Downward Spiral
The Downward Spiral album is Nine Inch Nails’ most consistent, unified piece of music and remains one of the most artistically and culturally significant albums of the 1990s, with an influence that reaches well into the present day. - Kingdom Come – David Bowie does Television
If heaven was ever a place on earth by 1980 David Bowie had yet to find it. Adopting “Kingdom Come” a song written by Tom Verlaine, as his chosen cover for Scary Monsters, Bowie elevates the lyrical struggle with God and the search for an afterlife into a new realm of spiritual angst. - /REMAKE//REMODEL///RELIVE – HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAVID BOWIE [2023]
In astronomy we allow for the shift of light years to bring images of stars and planets to us long after they have faded and completely disappeared from our little universe. We witness these events of the past as if they were occurring in the present day but really we are catching the aftermath of their glow – having drifted beyond the half-way point of their explosive birth. So it has been with future-history of David Bowie, the original pop starman whose birthday it is today (the same day, though not the year, as the original king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley 8/1/1935) begging the question – where is his legacy now? - “WHITE LINES, BLACK MAGIC” David’s Dark Doings – And How He Escaped To Tell The Tale: David Bowie’s Station To Station and the “Berlin Trilogy”.
By Ian MacDonald. First published in Uncut Magazine, October, 1998. “I ran across a monster who was sleeping by a tree. And I looked and frowned and the monster was me” (David Bowie, “The Width Of A Circle”, 1971) EMI’s latest batch of mid-price Bowie reissues, discs released at full price in 1990-1, consists of the 1976-8 sequence, Station To Station, Low, “Heroes”, and Stage. It might have been truer to his career to have made a foursome of Low, “Heroes”, Stage and Lodger – the “Berlin Trilogy” plus their complimentary live album – and to have corralled Station To Station with his other “American” albums, David Live and Young Americans. - NINE INCH NAILS AND THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN VIOLENCE: BEFORE AND AFTER COLUMBINE [1994-1999-20??]
Nine Inch Nails “Big Man With A Gun” portrays a negative character in order to question the media-saturation and gangsta-rap glamorization of gun violence and straight, white violent masculinity, highlighting the use and abuse of firearms in America. In spite of this, the song and Nine Inch Nails’ music in general, would stand accused of directly inspiring and causing gun violence in the form of the Columbine High School shooting of April 20, 1999. - REPTILE: REZNOR, BEAUTY, AND SELF (COURTNEY) LOVE
One evening I sat Beauty on my knees – I found herContinue reading “REPTILE: REZNOR, BEAUTY, AND SELF (COURTNEY) LOVE” - STOP SHOUTING, START LISTENING: Trent Reznor and the genesis of The Social Network soundtrack
Within the twisted and broken heart of The Social Network movie we find a story that is really about the the growing pains of those who achieve greatness; behind every brilliant idea there lies the bodies and shattered dreams of peers and former collaborators, once friends, now sworn enemies; the many people who get used, beaten or simply left behind as fame and success, and often a toxic blend of ego and paranoia, take over. - NEW – Edith Bowman interviews Reznor and Ross on Soundtrack Podcast!
BBC Radio presenter Edith Bowman talks to the dynamic duo about their soundtrack work – a really great podcast series – definitely check out the other episodes! - [WHAT A FANTASTIC DEATH ABYSS!] David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails and the Great Beyond
IN REMEMBRANCE OF DAVID BOWIE ON HIS BIRTHDAY – 8/1/1947 – 10/1/2016 – an examination of NIN, Trent Reznor, The Downward Spiral and 1. Outside - [Breaking The Spiral] – Netflix Documentary Reveals How Trent Reznor wrote ‘Hurt’ and The Downward Spiral Broke Into The MainstreamReznor had his doubts about Hurt, conscious that even though it is not explicitly about suicide, perhaps a death revisited, it might still allow people to wallow in its mood long enough to fantasise about their own passing. Even though Hurt perhaps offers a glimpse of hope, it remains mired in realisation perhaps too late, and this distanced perspective can become appealing if it is allowed to be romanticised into the idea of being ‘in a better place’.
- [Heavy Metal Therapy] – Standing At The Edge – Mental Health and Catharsis on The Downward SpiralThe Downward Spiral is commonly acknowledged as a challenging, bleak, and sometimesContinue reading “[Heavy Metal Therapy] – Standing At The Edge – Mental Health and Catharsis on The Downward Spiral”
- INTERVIEW – NINE INCH NAILS AND THE CREATIVE PSYCHE BEHIND TRENT REZNOR’S GREATEST ALBUM
LISTEN – AN EXAMINATION OF THE GROUNDBREAKING ALBUM DETAILS THE SOUND, THEMATIC SCOPE, AND ENDURING LEGACY OF ONE OF NINE INCH NAILS’ MOST IMPORTANT MASTERWORKS! - [RUINER] – REZNOR LEARNS TO LIVE THE LIE
So much of The Downward Spiral deals with things falling apart. AcrossContinue reading “[RUINER] – REZNOR LEARNS TO LIVE THE LIE” - Nin-spirational Music Books
A list of some of my favourite writing about music, books thatContinue reading “Nin-spirational Music Books” - WATCH – Nine Inch Nails – Mini HBO Documentary
In this short film a range of musicians pay tribute to Nine Inch Nails as part of their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction. - Nine Inch Nails Inducted Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame 2020
Nine Inch Nails have taken their place alongside fellow musical legends and industry peers – here’s how the band got there - REAL HORRORSHOW – The Downward Spiral and Trent Reznor’s House of Horrors
The relationship between creation of The Downward Spiral and the house at 10050 Cielo Drive, Los Angeles, is the stuff of musical legend, a dark and disturbing history that connects Nine Inch Nails, Charles Manson, The Beatles’ White Album – and pigs… - How Pretty Hate Machine and Broken created The Downward Spiral
Pretty Hate Machine was released on 20 October 1989 – notable as Nine Inch Nails first album – it was also the meeting point between synth-pop, industrial music, rock, merging into alternative metal and electronica. - WE ARE ALL PIGS. Woodstock 1994 – Nine Inch Nails Go Overground
Fast forward a few years and Trent Reznor hit the road again, revitalized following the critical reception of The Downward Spiral released in April of 1994, Nine Inch Nails entered the stage of Woodstock in that same year like returning heroes. It was with album track, “March Of The Pigs” that Reznor coined perhaps the ultimate festival anthem, its portent of self-abasement, of filth and glorious degradation, would be fulfilled by their performance at Woodstock 1994. - REVIEW – Shard Cinema – Evan Calder WilliamsNew review up on Hong Kong Review of Books Shard Cinema chartsContinue reading “REVIEW – Shard Cinema – Evan Calder Williams”
- Politics of The Asylum – Sample [Extracted]
- READ – Politics of The Asylum – NEW ExtractThe good folks of Dostoyevsky Wannabe have featured a couple of briefContinue reading “READ – Politics of The Asylum – NEW Extract”
- The City of Tomorrow – Today!
Why can’t Coventry have nice things? It’s a question asked time andContinue reading “The City of Tomorrow – Today!” - PoTA – Reading 1An extract from Politics of The Asylum
- PoTA – a sneak peek…
- A Lover of Books – INTERVIEWI wrote Politics of The Asylum with a clear goal in mind: I wanted to provide a critique of the NHS pushed to breaking point
- How To Save The NHSA blog post produced in cooperation with the good folks at HongContinue reading “How To Save The NHS”
- INTERVIEW – Poetry FilmThis was a great interview I was invited to do last year by Chaucer Cameron and Helen Dewbery of Poetry Film Live, mostly around the Disappear Here project, but it was also a great opportunity to talk about Politics of The Asylum.
- Politics of The Asylum – ONE WEEK to Release! 8/3/2018Politics of The Asylum will be released in one week… The bookContinue reading “Politics of The Asylum – ONE WEEK to Release! 8/3/2018”
- Politics of The Asylum – one month to launch!My novel about the NHS, Politics of The Asylum is released onContinue reading “Politics of The Asylum – one month to launch!”
- Featured ContentThis is the excerpt for a featured post.
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