Search Results for The

3 Nov – 20 Dec A brilliant new exhibition and time capsule of screen-printed posters from Matthew Rich. BUY PRINTS HERE Matthew Rich is a screen-printer and artist based in Glasgow. In 2025 he is a facilitator at the heart of the Glasgow art and music scene but in 1982 he was a working screenprinter … Continued

As part of our ongoing quarter-century celebrations we’ve launched a super limited t-shirt in two colourways, printed by the lovely folks at Simple Print Studio in Bristol. Support The Social and grab yourself a garm to show off! Only £25, all money goes straight back to the venue. Cheers all x

THE SOCIAL 25TH ANNIVERSARY STREET PARTY It has always been a dream of ours to throw a little party actually on Little Portland St. So with our 25th anniversary year upon us we pulled out all the stops to try and make it happen, we have asked the powers very nicely to close the road … Continued

A surprise Four Tet DJ set in the basement! Part of our on going Social 25th anniversary celebrations.  + Very special guest Chloé Robinson  + Robin and Carl + Pete Fowler (upstairs) 1900 start. £20. Tickets on the door only.  

There are few days we love more here at the Social. The Social Christmas Market 2022 is fast approaching, mark Saturday 10 Dec in your diaries. No one knows for sure when this annual Christmas Fayre started here on Little Portland St, some say there were people selling socks, records and nature books here as … Continued

Photo: Dani Bolton (@theredbeanienz) It’s the last week before the Christmas lock downs were enforced, and we’re at a sold out Sunday show with a performance by Social family members Pet Deaths, with the band showcasing new tracks from their as of yet un-released 2nd record ‘Unhappy Ending’. It was but a short couple weeks … Continued

It is a year to the day that we reopened the new + improved Social after almost 18 months of pandemic enforced closure. Been an incredible 12 months Eternal blessings to everyone who has supported us, bought a pint, a ticket, a tshirt, put on a night or played on our stage x

Saturday 11 + 18 Dec – midday to 5pm Our legendary market is back over both floors and two Saturdays, stalls packed with music, books, art and other Christmas gifts for good people, and a bar full of booze! Two of the very best days of the year. Come and join us x Special guest stall … Continued

This week started badly. Like so many weeks of its kind it was proceeded by a triumphant weekend. A reunion with some sorely missed co-conspirators above a pub in Streatham. The session cast a long shadow. The minute I was capable of more than just laying around, I had to march two hundred meters from … Continued

As luck would have it we received news that Lias would be DJing at The Social and this piece entirely by coincidence on the very same day. Except there is no such thing as coincidence is there. It’s been a long time since I’ve spoken to you, you who kept me going through the darkest … Continued

“Wow, it’s just two corridors on top of each other”. Thats how I described The Social to a mate, the first time we stepped in. the year was 2007, Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip were tearing through radio and Myspace with their debut single, Thou Shalt Always Kill. Their biggest supporter, a DJ called … Continued

In the dingy backrooms of beer-damp pubs, where the snakebite and black  glowed in plastic cups, and the curling wraiths of cigarette smoke  slowly choked us, I’d held the blue volts of youth aloft. Triumphant, above the shaggy-haired crowd too young to drink, already buzzed on Hooch  and hormones, thudding  in the dark of a … Continued

A true legend. Big love and huge thanks to David Rodigan for joining us here at The Social on Friday night. It was really special to have that happen in the new basement. A killer set and unforgettable night. All the pictures below from Dani Bolton! Respect to Mistah Brown and Champian who smashed it … Continued

We’re not going to die because I’m positively sure that music cannot die. The music is eternal in my thoughts. The music heal brain and heal heart and make you happy. If the music die, everybody going to die. (Lee Perry) Its 1982 and I’m barefoot in the Octagon centre in High Wycombe. The land … Continued

Brian Hamill was a phenomenally talented writer, a visionary editor and a genius publisher. He took the capability of literature to transform your life incredibly seriously and the way he would write about books, especially in his reviews, was rapturous and one of the first things that alerted me to his talents. Brian engaged with … Continued

John Constantine aka Hellblazer is what you’d get if you wanted Sherlock Holmes, but as a blonde haired, yellow-trenchcoat wearing Liverpudlian,who skulks around the grimy under-garms of London, dabbling in the otherworldly and bringing tragedy and despair to everyone near and dear to him. A Diamond Geezer. Columbo in the UK, via Hell. Created by … Continued

We’re honoured to publish an extract from Rob Young’s The Magic Box. Dreamt up as a companion piece to Rob’s peerless 2010 book Electric Eden, The Magic Box does for British television what Electric Eden did for this country’s post-war folk music. In this extract, Rob blows the dust off a dystopian classic broadcast by … Continued

This Monday (9 August) we have a brilliant event happening in the basement, the Group Therapy Collective coming to host a much belated launch party for the two sets of cassettes they released throughout the pandemic last year to support NHS charities and Music Venues Trust. They brought together a properly amazing set of artists … Continued

In January 2022, White Rabbit will publish a revised and updated edition of Shirley Collins’ singular memoir America Over the Water, which chronicles her journey through America’s southern states with Alan Lomax. We are delighted to share a short piece from Shirley below, as well as an ‘in conversation’ with Shirley and her collaborator Matthew … Continued

– Limbless Boys with Blackened Torsos – choristers. – Limping Waiter in a Cafe in Greece – chorister. – Line of German Soldiers Stood Motionless Along the Cliffs – choristers. – The Lion of Judah – ravish me, in the moment, extinguish me, now. – The Little Girls of France – how their fathers kiss … Continued

– Please don’t come to The Social if you’re experiencing any symptoms or have been told to isolate. This may seem obvious but it’s important. – We won’t be checking vaccination status or test results on the door, but we encourage you to keep testing regularly and to act responsibly to protect your mates, our … Continued

I turned to my boy, and without thinking, without an idea in mind, I began. Let me tell you the story of a man who tries to build himself a time machine, I said to him. He decides that he will take note of a certain period in time and space, I began, a certain … Continued

It was a typical Friday night in. I put on Netflix and chose Army Of The Dead as my evening’s entertainment. I’m a hardcore zombie movie fan, and the director, Zack Snyder, previously made one of my all time fave zombie flicks (Dawn Of The Dead remake, 2003)  Therefore, my reptile brain’s two-plus-two-equals-seven logic predicted … Continued

As we start to think about the reality of being a real life bar again we’re coming back with some brand new membership cards for you all to come pick up next time you make it down our way.  Now along with all the other changes, the membership has moved along a little as well. We’ll … Continued

The more perceptive among you might have noticed we missed a few entries into the Social Library. Well for one reason or another we got a bit behind, many apologies. But we’re back with a fantastic review and recommendation from Matt Thorne, introducing the June Social Library entry, Got to Be Something Here: The Rise … Continued

Last week saw the publication of Daniel O’Connor’s astonishing debut Nothing – an irreverent and mischievous novel about a man who can imagine things out of existence; about a world where nothing is as it seems. The Social Gathering is delighted to share an exclusive and equally memorable short story from Daniel about a John Lennon stripper. … Continued

Some of The Glorious Heresies was made after midnight in darkened rooms in Cork City, and lots of The Blood Miracles and The Rules of Revelation. I met people like me there; impressions came in strong currents; moods, coaxed out so often, needed careful definition. I felt it was my job to capture those moods, … Continued

With special guests Lias Saoudi, Anna Wood, Pete Fowler, Sophie Green + more The first in a new series of real life Social Gathering events in the basement of Little Portland St… a chance to invite some of our wonderful contributors downstairs to read, talk and play music. A Social Gathering Social if you like. Or a … Continued

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? In the thrill of easing and the queue to get jabbed TV has taken a back seat, a rare thing around here for sure. But there remain some real gems out there to unearth. You’ll need a fair chunk of time for this week’s first highlight. BARON NOIR, (Amazon … Continued

And then what happens: a body is discovered. A body is discovered come down a river entombed in a mysterious stone. It is a river of Africa. An unknown stone is come upon by a group of villagers in a river of Africa, which like the garden of Delius is for us an invisible village, … Continued

(PLEASE NOTE, DUE THE EASING OF RESTRICTIONS DELAY THIS EVENT WILL NOW TAKE PLACE ON FRI 30 JULY) After a year of online gathering, The Social is delighted to be able to finally announce a real life party in the basement. Time to resocialise! Since the start of lockdown, The Social Gathering has become our … Continued

Wild, mercurial, uncategorisable – three words that could be applied to both William Blake and the author of a radical new biography of the poet, artist and visionary who has inspired and baffled for generations. John Higgs takes us on an unexpected journey through culture, science, philosophy and religion to better understand William Blake in … Continued

I saw a ghost once, the man with the obnoxious tattoo interrupted, steering the story somewhere else completely, and despite what you say, in my experience, ghosts are quite beautiful, he continued, and this story, he interjected, might go some way towards explaining the provenance of my unfortunate tattoo, which, believe me, I am aware … Continued

Outside the back door a thin layer of snow has started to settle on the old stonework and the wooden decking. The mulch I’d put down on the borders a week ago is covered in what looks like a delicate lattice of white flakes. I can see my breath on the air as I walk … Continued

Human beings themselves are at risk – not just on some survival-of-civilization level, but more basically on the level of heart and soul. We are ignorant of our own nature and confused about what it is to be a human being. Gary Snyder I live on the edge of a magic perimeter. The Lake District … Continued

When you write a book about foghorns you end up in strange and unexpected places.  Jennifer Lucy Allan Accounts of animal and bird life at lighthouse stations are often dream-like or nightmarish. A  lighthouse is a solid, unmoving structure built to improve safety at sea for humans. It is also an accidental observation tower, a … Continued

Let me begin by saying that I envy people their gods. I envy their ghosts, their unseen guides, their visions and shivers of intuition. Not unrelatedly, I also envy people’s transgression and transcendence, their states of expansive wildness. Ekstasis — the experience of being outside of oneself — comes in many forms; its absence or … Continued

Just before Christmas I leave London, where I have been sleepless for most of the month, and go back to Dublin. I’m finally observing a more normal sleep schedule. Sleep came back slowly; the heaviness, and the half-open eyes. I began to surrender, taking naps during the day, then late in the day, then easing … Continued

Peter Laughner is dead. That’s the first line of the greatest piece of music writing I ever read, “Peter Laughner”, by Lester Bangs, re-published in Bangs’ seminal collection, Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung in 1988 when I was 17 years old. Lester Bangs is dead, too. Yet I have lived with Bangs and Laughner ever … Continued

As part of our on going ‘We Are One’ week we’re pleased to share this special broadcast from Lias Saoudi with you. Lias’ posts for us have been a hugely important part of The Social Gathering, he’s been with us since the first week (a year ago) and contributed some truly brilliant writing. Big thank … Continued

The clock is ticking…soon you will be allowed out again and you won’t need this handy guide to a random list of new and old things to watch to stave off the ennui and help you ignore the familiar walls and ceiling. Unlucky thirteen. If only there was some catastrophe that could keep me writing….. … Continued

Thank you to everyone who contributed and turned up to celebrate a year of the Social Gathering! For those that missed it here is what happened at our virtual event on Monday 29 March 2020. White Rabbit Books Twitter drinks with Lee Brackstone at the controls Will Burns in conversation with our own Carl Gosling … Continued

In 1703 a student returned from studying at Oxford to the family home in Worcestershire. His name isn’t known – it might have been Thomas Appletree – because he did not mark his name in the weather diary he kept that year. While his diary predates the Met Office by 150 years, even by the … Continued

My sister, Anna, messaged me on Monday morning (22nd March) telling me that the musician Dan Sartain died over the weekend. He was 39 years old. The news shocked and saddened me. Since his first full album, ​Dan Sartain Vs. the Serpientes​ was released in 2005, I have been a fan of Sartain’s brand of rockabilly garage … Continued

A few years before the outbreak of the war I set out on a walking tour of Scotland, she began. I was caught in much the same conundrum. I pictured my calling as being somewhere out there, wrapped up in experience, secreted in a future that could be unlocked with a precise series of actions, … Continued

It’s All Sensations – Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay. Reviewed By Will Burns How do we come to our musical heroes and heroines? How do we find them, those figures from our own young and emergent tastes, and through that finding start to build ourselves? Jackie Kay’s book on Bessie Smith, originally published in 1997 … Continued

22/10/1884 A letter has been delivered to Gordon of Khartoum. The small boy with the limp was entrusted to carry it from the lines to the palace. Gordon of Khartoum read it to his mouse and laughed. It is a forgery, a dastardly piece of ill prophecy. It claims to be from the Mahdi himself. … Continued

If I asked her why she was always trying to need more than she needed, she’d say that borrowing brought you closer to other people, while buying mostly made you lonelier. You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine, Alexandra Kleeman Vaporwave is happening to you. It’s a way of seeing, of being, pitched somewhere … Continued

We’ve always been big fans of Cold War Steve over here, The Social put on his first ever exhibition back in 2018 and then last year with everything closed we stepped in to host the amazing Benny’s Babbies on The Social Gathering. So when we heard that a guy from Bristol called Nick had been … Continued

The view from the back yard. ‘Conquer your way of being.’ Speaking desperanto on the road to Lyon. Early morning, before sunrise. Bleary-eyed in the back of a cab. Hurtling down Ronda Litoral. Head still spinning. Stumbling and mumbling through a conversation in broken Spanish—mine broken, the taxi driver’s rapid-fire and of the mother tongue … Continued

The perfect performance of the music of J.S. Bach would consist of a setting of ‘Cantata BWV 172’, the cantata for the first day of Pentecost that begins ‘Ring forth, o songs, resound, you strings!/ O most blessed time!/ God Himself shall prepare our souls to be His temples’, followed by Bach’s setting of the … Continued

Reviewed By Martha Sprackland ‘all days have their inheritance’, the anxious narrator of little scratch muses. This particular day – the single, threaded day of Rebecca Watson’s debut novel – begins with a mild hangover, an almost-missed train, and proceeds through the mundanity of a day at the office. Soup for lunch, chitchat with anonymous … Continued

Doomscrolling, as wikipedia defines it, is “the act of consuming a large quantity of negative online news at once. Mental health experts have stated that the practice can be detrimental to mental health.” Isn’t that the understatement of the new decade, lol: you’re stuck at home because Covid said no, you can’t see your mates, … Continued

In the latest in a series of collaborative exchanges with Lias Saoudi of the band Fat White Family – which I’m thinking of titling ‘Have They Nothing Better To Do?’ – Lias sent me a few dozen subject headings; I randomly plucked fifteen of these from a bowl and wrote about them. I present the … Continued

There was a moment a week or so ago when I thought about the next guide and wondered if there was anything left to write about. Sure, there is plenty of stuff I haven’t covered here that is worth your time, THE SERPENT being probably top of the list, but I figure you already know … Continued

From next week, we’re going to build a library.  This will be an ever-expanding bookcase full of recommendations from the people behind the Social Gathering (the Social and White Rabbit Books). Each month, one new favourite will be written up as a book of the month by one of our contributors and added to the … Continued

Riots? In the Netherlands? Many UK pals have asked me privately what’s going on. Most Brits think the Dutch walk around (when allowed out of course) drawing on a joint the size of Wales whilst preaching free love for all sentient beings. Others – usually my more well-heeled pals – love it that the country … Continued

Our aim in collecting these stories together is to take what scares us seriously. Fear is rarely treated with the same respect as other more prestigious or edifying emotions, and, in the horror genre particularly, fear is often dismissed as a technical contrivance or mere gimmick. As such, it is diminished, and employed as an … Continued

I recently asked the Irish novelist Rob Doyle to make a contribution to an edition of AMBIT magazine I’d been asked to guest edit (more on that later) and he suggested we attempt an Oulipo; a kind of literary exercise built around prescribed constraints. He asked me to send him fifty or so prompts which … Continued

There was a certain man I used to see almost every weekday night in the pub. This man was a builder and worked for another man here in the village, and at the weekends he would travel back to the Kent coast where he ‘lived properly’, as he called it, with his wife. One night, … Continued

Back in April last year I was on Dobbins Lane in ‘the village’ where I live when I chanced upon Will Burns out walking. I think he was coming back from the allotment which isn’t remarkable in itself except I hadn’t seen him in almost six weeks. We instinctively made space for each other, he … Continued

First things first: if this is the first time you are hearing about Gamestop, in relation to Stocks, or – and I can’t believe I’d ever have to type this – Elon Musk, please understand: you are already too late. You’re worse than a spectator: You’re watching a re-run of the match, mate. You’re playing … Continued

New Year = Groundhog Year. Having barely made it out of my lounging clothes for most of the holidays, I find that the New Year only requires a top half change for the obligatory Zoom calls meaning that I can save precious minutes getting back into my favourite hoodie for long nights in front of … Continued

‘How did it come to this?’ The commentators wailed. Lemme help you out…  As I watched the mob rampaging through the Capitol, numb on the sofa along with the rest of the world, I thought back to when I first began to worry about America.    It was twelve years ago, early in 2009, not … Continued

We clapped for carers every week like our lives depended on it. Because they did.  That weekly trip to the front doorstep was both a genuine display of appreciation and the mobilisation of a nation of individuals, all selfishly pleading for those frontline workers – the people facing down Covid day after day after day … Continued

How much time have you spent daydreaming about going out dancing? In the past few months, in your kitchen, in the shower, walking along the pavement with your headphones on. Where will it be, who will be there? In your daydream maybe everyone is there, like you’ve arrived in heaven, although that would probably freak … Continued