It’s always been seen as a fair game to boo, lampoon, insult, attack, complain about and scoff at Bob Dylan. This attitude has made me furious over the years … of course he can sing, he is probably one of the most inventive singers since the beginning of popular music and has influenced the whole… Continue reading A tough crowd sometimes… but Bob is still standing. They won’t get him beat

PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID (KNOCKING ON HEAVEN’S DOOR)                    (A BILLY THE KID PERSPECTIVE) Another grand opus by the quite brilliant Eric Lastick Pat Garrett Texas cowpoke, high call it home.Home wherever the cowboy in him. Tilt barrels of frozen memories—–all through the grimes of… Continue reading VERSIONS OF SO IN-SIGHTED READS OF BOB DYLAN

When Andrea and I moved to Shropshire in 1989 we were the proud owners of a black Jaguar, a black cat, and an Albino golden Retriever. The car might have been a bit of an overdraft-hungry wreck but when we reclined its big leather seats it became a large double-bed, room for the dog and… Continue reading MYSTERY OF THE WOMAN OF OXBOW LAKE

I washed up in Central and Eastern Europe as an itinerant travel journalist in the blistering summer of 2015 … I remember Mr Vlad ‘Action Man’ Putin was still, daily, baring his chest and his teeth after annexing Crimea. Mr Putin was obviously emboldened by his new war of attrition. After all, he’d got noticed… Continue reading STORIES OF HEARTACHE, HORROR, FEAR AND LOATHING IN THE BOMBED AND BLEEDING LAND OF THE SLAVS

It would be so easy to go with my tabloid mates and write a short eulogy to Sinead O’Connor headlined Nothing Compared to Her … And it would be true. I met her once, on a dark rainy night in a dingy back-street pub in Birmingham. And nothing did compare to her, way back when,… Continue reading Remembering the incomparable Sinead O’Connor

Update on the story I may never be able to tell you PART III THE PLEDGE Storm clouds are gathering … the town looks like it’s on fire, Genghis’s ghost army is billowing. Yep, those good ol’ good fellas are getting ready for war… they’re pumping up their ancient smoke and mirror machines.  Stirrup pumps… Continue reading Bada bing, bada boom… I’m ready to fight Genghis’s ghost army now

Many years ago I was commissioned by a leading magazine to investigate the burgeoning interest in ancient hauntings in the early 2000s … I got quite well paid for the articles over three years and retained the copyright. Anyway, I ‘sold’ myself as the Skeptical Occultist with a mission to prove or disprove existence of… Continue reading A Curious Night in Electric Lady Land

Nice guy who crooned his life away for us all I was sad to hear of the death of crooner and all-round good guy Tony Bennett at the age of 96. In some ways he was the urbane smiling, freshly showered, elegant face of smartness and comfy shoes, no matter how patent. This is a… Continue reading Left in San Francisco… memories of Tony and a song from Bob

Sadly, we have to defend a frog-eyed monster to protect our own freedoms Coutts, perceived as an international private bank for the super-rich,  has cancelled one of the most dangerous men in the UK. But this censorship had nothing to do with Farage’s political pontifications or the fact that the ex-banker-turned-big-w*!nk*r has been erroneously described… Continue reading A BRIDGE TO FAR-(AGE) BY A FISTFUL OF POMPOUS COUTTS

Society’s good fellas use their dull knives of lies to play ‘split the kipper’ with my life Yep, it has happened again … they are gathering at my back door. The lights of the road don’t reach there. I am going to have to fight them again, aren’t I. I beat them off last time,… Continue reading Another darkness falls on the TRUE story I may never be able to tell you…