Guest Post – John Doran (The Quietus)

Something magic(k)al happens every time I end up in Northampton. Last time it was hanging out with Alan Moore at Robert Godfrey’s Lodge Studios where I got lost in a haze of Unearthings and Dodgem Logic.

This time round the NN Cafe shook to the dread reverberations and sufferations of Roger Robinson’s dub poetry, the acid jungle of Falling From Cloud 9 and the machine gun outer limits prose of Alistair Fruish. The night was part of my An English Trip project.

Every single night in May I am taking my book Jolly Lad to a new English city, town or village and giving readings alongside the Norwegian musician Kjetil Nernes and hooking up with writers, filmmakers, poets, musicians, DJs, Hull’s second most famous mountaineer, a collective of green undertakers and a counter cultural research group. The venues range from a police station to a library to a church to a Cat A prison and plenty of gig venues, book shops and record stores in between. And our merry venture rolls into Leicester on Wednesday May 20 where we’re sharing the stage with one of the best glam pop goth disco punk bands in the country, Lone Taxidermist aka powerhouse singer/performer/artist Natalie Sharp and her bunch of mysterious acolytes.