At the Movies

Want to look cool and dangerously sophisticated next time someone asks you what you're reading on your Kindle? Then look no further. I've got the very thing for you. 'At the Movies' a bowel-shaking compendium of blackest noir crime and horror stories lovingly collected, perculated and dry-roasted by those excellent fellows Luca Veste and Paul D.Brazil.
And what's more - It's for charity!
And what's even more................. my story 'Memphis Belle' is in there.

Available from Amazon Kindle 

Also bleedin' well available as a  paperback from Lulu. (No, not the ginger haired midget singer, stupid)

Sunny Days

Let's start today with a song. Okay, not a particularly cheery sort of song. In fact, it's a downright curl up in the corner clutching your bottle of Prozac type of song. Ironically titled 'Sunny Days' this is a live rehearsal performance of a track from the Lol Robinson & Hazey Jane album 'Songs From Lucy's Cottage'. Featuring me, John Gilmour Smith, Cheryl Reid and Stevie Patrick - we were rehearsing for a live radio session and decided to film a few songs for posterity. Just as well as the radio gig got cancelled. Hmmm, maybe they saw the video. If you're wondering why everyone is so static, that's because we were standing on a chip-board platform that creaked alarmingly like a sinking ship if anyone so much as blinked.

Funeral (and embalming) for a Friend

I embalmed an old friend today. She was very dear to me. A special friend who shared some of my greatest triumphs. The sort of memories you cherish until your dying day. Strictly speaking she died over ten years ago, but since then I've kept her safe and snug in my garage. There's barely been any decomposition. She really was a mainstay in my life and no matter how bad things got she was always behind me - quite literally - as moving a guitar amp out front of the stage would result in terrible ear-clutching, face-grimacing, fingernails-down-a-blackboard electrical feedback. What? You didn't realise I was talking about my dear old Peavey Bandit combo amp? What on earth did ........... Oh never mind. I don't want to know.

As it happens (sorry, did that sound too much like Jimmy Savile?), it was clear-out-the-garage time again and I finally decided I was going to do the decent thing and dispose of her mortal remains. I even got as far as putting her in the car to take to the dump, where I planned on saying some moving words before dropping her respectfully into a skip. Then I got a great idea. I carried her back into the house, ripped her guts out (anyone need a 12"  24 Ohmn speaker?) and installed a plasma globe inside the hollow carcass of her shapely form. Now she's more beautiful than she ever was before, arcing jagged bolts of lighting through the black mesh of the speaker grill. I think I may just have created an after-life for amplifiers.

Chow-a-mama
(trying out some farewell salutations for the blog. I've quite a few to get through so bear with me)

Allan

Right, to business. Thought I'd dip a toe in the murky waters of the Blogging world. This page is somewhere I can publish strange stories and waffle on about whatever musical projects I happen to be involved in from time to time. I'll also be able to showcase my more talented friends who dabble in art, photography, music, writing and naked scuba-diving.

To commemorate this blog-fest with a bang I've added a brand new short story called Mezzanine. It's about this girl who gets date-eviscerated and then............... well, you gotta read it to find out.

Coming up later this month I'll have a world exclusive interview with best selling author Phil Rickman on his upcoming novel 'The Heresy of Dr Dee'.

For the meantime I'll erm.... make the rest up as I go along.

Thanks for dropping by.

Allan

PS Groovy guitaring photo courtesy of Murray Kerr