Grey Noise: Rock and Roll can be Murder
Now available on Amazon: What happens when a disturbed sound engineer snaps? Patrick McDonagh is a Liverpool sound tech who truly understands the old saying that “silence is golden”. Highly-skilled behind a mixing desk, but undervalued due to his lack of charisma and social graces, he remains forever on the fringes of the music industry,…
Tuning Up
Photographed in Crash Studios, Liverpool during rehearsals with psychedelic rock trio Limehawk.
Happiest Moments of my Birthday
1. Opening my cards, especially my nephew Baxter’s, which he had picked himself. It had three Bengal tigers on it, just like Richard Parker from Life of Pi. 2. Listening to Rory Gallagher with my dad, like we used to on our way to work in the van. 3. Nando’s for lunch with the family,…
The Horseman’s Dream Map
A rough map of the British Isles as they will be in the future, having been decimated by rising sea levels. It’s based on elevation, but also evacuation points for major cities in the event of such a disaster. Edinburgh and Glasgow sadly did not survive, but two old Navy warships are anchored where they used to…
The Bridge
I sit in a restaurant, thinking about The Bridge. The fading autumn sunlight lends the Albert Dock an air of melancholy, deepening the pits and furrows in the brickwork. Tourists still point and shop and take photographs. Smart office workers negotiate the cobbled walkways with a practised hustle, while art students drift in and out…
Short Days
‘The nights are really drawing in now, aren’t they?’ ‘Aye.’ ‘Nip in the air.’ ‘That time of year.’ The old man, who had been stalking me across the desolate golf course with a huge Great Dane, fell silent as he looked out over the estuary. ‘Got to take as much in while we can.’ It was…
Working in a Department Store
It wasn’t that bad. My father often tells me about his father’s job as a steeplejack: that sounds bad. At least I was indoors and not teetering hundreds of feet above the cold, hard ground. At the interview, I didn’t have a panic attack and smash up a waiting room as Tony Black does in A Smaller Hell. Instead, I…
Recent Comments