Samuel Hickson is an illustrator and cartoonist based in Staffordshire.  His style blends traditional drawing techniques with digital colour and has…

As part of our ongoing quarter-century celebrations we’ve launched a super limited t-shirt in two colourways, printed by the lovely…

THE SOCIAL 25TH ANNIVERSARY STREET PARTY It has always been a dream of ours to throw a little party actually…

A surprise Four Tet DJ set in the basement! Part of our on going Social 25th anniversary celebrations.  + Very…

Social Membership news! The Social has run a free membership for the last 25 years, there have been many versions…

Monday 21 Aug Douglas MacIntyre, co-author of HUNGRY BEAT, joins Vic Godard as they talk to Ben Thompson about the…

We’re back this year with a HOT, fresh run of SOCIALISM caps plus some t-shirts and tote bags, only available…

Welcome to the brand new Social Membership! After a couple years resetting things here, we’re ready to re-start our much…

There are few days we love more here at the Social. The Social Christmas Market 2022 is fast approaching, mark…

Photo: Dani Bolton (@theredbeanienz) It’s the last week before the Christmas lock downs were enforced, and we’re at a sold…

It is a year to the day that we reopened the new + improved Social after almost 18 months of…

Our accidental dance tent returns to the fields of Worthy Farm next week for the first time since 2019! We’re…

We have joined forces with @weare1of100 to launch the new (old) original Socialism t-shirt! Support your local venue: grab a ticket, arrive…

– Please don’t come to The Social if you’re experiencing any symptoms or have been told to isolate. This may…

I am very sad to announce that we’re having to cancel our NYE SOCIAL 23 party on 31 Dec. It’s…

Saturday 11 + 18 Dec – midday to 5pm Our legendary market is back over both floors and two Saturdays,…

This week started badly. Like so many weeks of its kind it was proceeded by a triumphant weekend. A reunion…

As luck would have it we received news that Lias would be DJing at The Social and this piece entirely…

After hooking up with Velocity Press during lockdown it is a great pleasure to finally have a real life event…

“Wow, it’s just two corridors on top of each other”. Thats how I described The Social to a mate, the…

Six months or so into the life of White Rabbit Books  I was contacted by David Katz, informing me his…

In the dingy backrooms of beer-damp pubs, where the snakebite and black  glowed in plastic cups, and the curling wraiths…

You know what, 2021 is the year that killed some of my favourite movies, dead. So you know how it’s…

“And so I’m saying goodbye, although God knows I don’t want to…” ‘You Say’ – Michael Chapman  I’ve listened to…

A true legend. Big love and huge thanks to David Rodigan for joining us here at The Social on Friday…

Soon after Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry threw off this mortal coil on Sunday, I received a missive from my author, Richard…

We’re not going to die because I’m positively sure that music cannot die. The music is eternal in my thoughts….

Brian Hamill was a phenomenally talented writer, a visionary editor and a genius publisher. He took the capability of literature…

John Constantine aka Hellblazer is what you’d get if you wanted Sherlock Holmes, but as a blonde haired, yellow-trenchcoat wearing…

We’re honoured to publish an extract from Rob Young’s The Magic Box. Dreamt up as a companion piece to Rob’s…

This Monday (9 August) we have a brilliant event happening in the basement, the Group Therapy Collective coming to host…

When news hit of a new release from the fabled Paisley Park Vaults, we immediately asked The Social Gathering’s Prince…

In January 2022, White Rabbit will publish a revised and updated edition of Shirley Collins’ singular memoir America Over the…

This month saw the publication of Australian author Jamie Marina Lau’s UK debut Gunk Baby – a cutting critique of consumer culture…

– Limbless Boys with Blackened Torsos – choristers. – Limping Waiter in a Cafe in Greece – chorister. – Line…

This week, The Social reopened; the upstairs walls feature an exhibition of pieces taken from the first year of The…

– Please don’t come to The Social if you’re experiencing any symptoms or have been told to isolate. This may…

I turned to my boy, and without thinking, without an idea in mind, I began. Let me tell you the…

My love for The Doors is such that I have been known to walk out of bars, exit cabs and…

A SIRK publication © The Flashlight/Token Bob, 1995 Victory Garden (short story, originally published in Plus de Choses Dans le Ciel et…

When we visit a place as a tourist or disciple, we often want to return with a part of that…

Ahead of the hugely anticipated (sold out) event with Will Sergeant and Bill Drummond at The Social later this month,…

It was a typical Friday night in. I put on Netflix and chose Army Of The Dead as my evening’s…

As we start to think about the reality of being a real life bar again we’re coming back with some brand…

The more perceptive among you might have noticed we missed a few entries into the Social Library. Well for one…

Last week saw the publication of Daniel O’Connor’s astonishing debut Nothing – an irreverent and mischievous novel about a man who can…

Some of The Glorious Heresies was made after midnight in darkened rooms in Cork City, and lots of The Blood…

The moon is a balloon, Muldoon announced to a half-empty auditorium. After all, who cared about the thoughts of an…

With special guests Lias Saoudi, Anna Wood, Pete Fowler, Sophie Green + more The first in a new series of real…

(Photo: Nigeria, 1999) Wasn’t sure if the world needed another article on DMX, to be honest. Everything that could be…

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? In the thrill of easing and the queue to get jabbed TV has taken…

And then what happens: a body is discovered. A body is discovered come down a river entombed in a mysterious…

(PLEASE NOTE, DUE THE EASING OF RESTRICTIONS DELAY THIS EVENT WILL NOW TAKE PLACE ON FRI 30 JULY) After a…

Wild, mercurial, uncategorisable – three words that could be applied to both William Blake and the author of a radical…

Acid House guru and astral traveller Justin Robertson has just announced his debut novel The Tangle, due for publication on November…

The world is covered in a thick fog. I open the kitchen window and sniff the air.  Nothing. No cars,…

We love Anna Wood here at The Social Gathering. When we were collating pieces for the collection we put out…

As a very amateur DJ myself it’s great to share this with you today, taken from Harold Heath’s new book…

I saw a ghost once, the man with the obnoxious tattoo interrupted, steering the story somewhere else completely, and despite…

It was the album cover that caught my eye. The strange mood that the photograph evoked. That’s something you don’t…

Outside the back door a thin layer of snow has started to settle on the old stonework and the wooden…

Human beings themselves are at risk – not just on some survival-of-civilization level, but more basically on the level of…

When you write a book about foghorns you end up in strange and unexpected places.  Jennifer Lucy Allan Accounts of…

Let me begin by saying that I envy people their gods. I envy their ghosts, their unseen guides, their visions…

Lenny Kaye has been working on his new book, Lightning Striking: Ten Transformative Moments in Rock & Roll for half a decade but…

Just before Christmas I leave London, where I have been sleepless for most of the month, and go back to…

Hate to say it, but Joe fucking bloody bastarding Wicks   The Red Book by Jung: always The Terror Luke…

Peter Laughner is dead. That’s the first line of the greatest piece of music writing I ever read, “Peter Laughner”,…

As part of our on going ‘We Are One’ week we’re pleased to share this special broadcast from Lias Saoudi…

The clock is ticking…soon you will be allowed out again and you won’t need this handy guide to a random…

We’re delighted to be able to share with you this cracking extract from Craig Taylor’s new book New Yorkers. The…

TL:DR Review: 2020. Shit Year. 0/10. Would not recommend. Oh, you still want a long read? Alright then. When I…

Thank you to everyone who contributed and turned up to celebrate a year of the Social Gathering! For those that…

A year ago today, we started our pandemic posts at The Social Gathering. Carl, or Robin, called me up –…

In 1703 a student returned from studying at Oxford to the family home in Worcestershire. His name isn’t known –…

This coming Monday is be the anniversary of our first Social Gathering post. We thought when we started that we’d…

My sister, Anna, messaged me on Monday morning (22nd March) telling me that the musician Dan Sartain died over the…

A few years before the outbreak of the war I set out on a walking tour of Scotland, she began….

The night sleeps tight and thick as ink, wrapped around the house, head tucked under its tail. On the top…

HEALING STUDIO Come for a half-price ear-clean therapy service. Limited time only! Or 25% off shoulder massage Exclusive organic candle…

It’s All Sensations – Bessie Smith by Jackie Kay. Reviewed By Will Burns How do we come to our musical…

We were surrounded by streets of tenements. They were constructed like impregnable medieval forts in a rectangular shape. Our block…

It’s our great pleasure to share with you the opening chapter of author Lesley Chow’s new collection You’re History here on The Social…

22/10/1884 A letter has been delivered to Gordon of Khartoum. The small boy with the limp was entrusted to carry…

If I asked her why she was always trying to need more than she needed, she’d say that borrowing brought…

We’ve always been big fans of Cold War Steve over here, The Social put on his first ever exhibition back…

We Are I.E. was one of the first records to signal a shift away from the European and American music…

When you write a book about foghorns you end up in strange and unexpected places.  Jennifer Lucy Allan The last…

The view from the back yard. ‘Conquer your way of being.’ Speaking desperanto on the road to Lyon. Early morning,…

In 2009, on our honeymoon, my wife and I went in search of Lawrence Ferlinghetti on the west coast of…

The Dianettes! The Cerazettes! The Yasmins! The Ciliques! The Aranelles! The Karivas! The Levoras! The Nordettes! The Ocellas! The Seasoniques!…

‘Here comes the wine,’ Abigail told me. True enough, the waitress was approaching with the wine in her hands. I…

When Serge Gainsbourg died 30 years ago, he was a musical footnote outside of France. Gainsbourg was considered a novelty…

The perfect performance of the music of J.S. Bach would consist of a setting of ‘Cantata BWV 172’, the cantata…

Reviewed By Martha Sprackland ‘all days have their inheritance’, the anxious narrator of little scratch muses. This particular day –…

Doomscrolling, as wikipedia defines it, is “the act of consuming a large quantity of negative online news at once. Mental…

In the latest in a series of collaborative exchanges with Lias Saoudi of the band Fat White Family – which…

There was a moment a week or so ago when I thought about the next guide and wondered if there…

From next week, we’re going to build a library.  This will be an ever-expanding bookcase full of recommendations from the…

Riots? In the Netherlands? Many UK pals have asked me privately what’s going on. Most Brits think the Dutch walk…

Our aim in collecting these stories together is to take what scares us seriously. Fear is rarely treated with the…

I recently asked the Irish novelist Rob Doyle to make a contribution to an edition of AMBIT magazine I’d been…

“I have come to rescue all of the disappeared, to reunite all true loves, to turn history to dust.” –…

There was a certain man I used to see almost every weekday night in the pub. This man was a…

As a teen in the 80’s, I didn’t need Henri Bergson to explain to me the idea of objective and…

Back in April last year I was on Dobbins Lane in ‘the village’ where I live when I chanced upon…

If you were walking near Tottenham Court Road underground in the late 1970’s – and if you were lucky –…

First things first: if this is the first time you are hearing about Gamestop, in relation to Stocks, or –…

Boredom was having a night of it.  He stood alone in front of the bar. Dead in the centre. Legs…

Gordon Burn wrote in a prescient way about celebrity, its glitz, tawdriness and corrosive power.  In his fiction and non-fiction,…

There’s a Sleaford Mods song called Elocution on which Jason Williamson announces, in the kind of mock-posh voice the hard kids at…

SHINY AND NEW, is a completely new take on the Eighties, a book which not only shines a light into…

Dear John Niven, Nothing good ever came after the phrase “Let me just start by saying I’m a fan”, so…

FOOLS! LUNATICS! NUTJOBS! How dare The Social Gathering ask me to write this – what is it – thingy thing…

Back in 1988 life as a closeted gay teenager felt to me like being a spy in a cold war…

New Year = Groundhog Year. Having barely made it out of my lounging clothes for most of the holidays, I…

We asked our correspondent in Pennsylvania, Lenny Kaye to write some words about his friend and fellow mid-70s rock n…

I lived in an ancient tenement building decades ago, that was so creepy and weird I knew it would one…

Our story starts in the jungle. The man who whistles is the harbinger of chaos. But we don’t see him…

‘How did it come to this?’ The commentators wailed. Lemme help you out…  As I watched the mob rampaging through…

There’s a big Sainsbury’s in Stockport and I go there all the time. I walk there from my house; it…

We clapped for carers every week like our lives depended on it. Because they did.  That weekly trip to the…

How much time have you spent daydreaming about going out dancing? In the past few months, in your kitchen, in…

It is traditional between Christmas and New Year for The Social (the real one on Little Portland St) to shut…

It’s Christmas Eve. Hopefully you’ve got a mince pie, a carrot and two fingers of decent brandy ready to arrange…

Quick, there’s very little time to spare. We’re almost at the end. The weekends here are impossible as far as…

“I don’t want to go blind,” That’s what you said. You just came out with it. “I don’t want to…

For Z. In Slavoj Žižek’s documentary A Pervert’s Guide to Cinema there is an analysis of the famous opening scene…

Welcoming Nuggets legend, Mr Lenny Kaye to The Social Gathering for reflections on the photographs of David Godlis and the…

The foghorn sounds.  Its abrupt and terrific interjection comes from a square black mouth, a colossal metallic holler that is…

Long before Christan Marclay was proverbially dragging in people who don’t normally go to art galleries to see his conceptual…

In keeping with the wider-held traditions of Macclesfield, my longsuffering girlfriend Gillian had been working at Halle Models’ lingerie mill…

It was ages since I’d read a treatise on something. Too, too long. So I was holding one in either…

I’ve spent the past week engrossed in Erik Davis’ incredible High Weirdness (recently published by Strange Attractor).  A depth charge…

Between February and August this year, I listened to all Andrew Weatherall’s Music’s Not For Everyone shows broadcast on NTS…

Having been sober for almost five years – sober through the death of my Mum and the grief of my…

God, I miss the pub. With two harsh lockdowns, a fleeting partial respite and one period of baffling regulation apparently…

When this crisis started, when every live music event in the entire world was cancelled pretty much over night for…

Being a film-maker, there’s always a point after completing a film where you start thinking about all the things that…

Double figures! I have to say I am a little surprised to still be writing this, ten episodes in. What…

Today Katy issuch a motherfucken bitch.I hate her guts somuch that she belongsin hell. She theUglyest, trashest, stupidest, fuckestmother fuckenassole damnhell…

The vehicle is a huge grey pickup. A farmer’s car, a hillbilly tank. Over the course of the last few…

In a conversation with Michael Barbaro for the New York Times’ podcast ‘The Daily’, journalist Wesley Morris says “You know,…

There is – Phil Collins aside – something gloriously deranged about the very idea of the singing drummer. It’s the…

Yesterday saw the publication of Robin Turner’s book …Believe In Magic: the First 30 Years of Heavenly Recordings. As you…

Its Friday. 5 o’clock is looming, work’s about to shut down for 48 hours. With all that in mind, why…

The Hissing of Summer Lawns is the story of the 1970s, according to The Snork, I read this in one…

A Conversation About Bagpipes and Improvisations with Jennifer Lucy Allan Last year Richard Youngs popped up in my inbox asking…

I’ve just moved to Hove, in East Sussex, a part of the country I know almost not at all, having…

This is a reflection on time, a train and some presidents of the United States. It’s about the non-linear eddies…

This morning I was yearning for the umpteenth time for things to go back to normal- only to realise I…

A friend suggested I call it a musical meta-biography, but until that catches on, here’s me trying to explain what…

Turquoise eyes, cherry lips, jelly bracelets, twist-a-beads untwisted, lace leggings, black heels, slick clip-on plastic hundred dollar bills; a nice…

When I was a small boy my best friend Richard and I created a game of startling complexity. It grew…

Happy Halloween! In anticipation of what might be next week’s election horror, and to celebrate the season, Rough Trade Books…

There are plenty of reasons why Jeremy Deller is The Social Gathering’s favourite British artist. He consistently lifts pop culture…

Halloween isn’t just for kids. No, it’s basically Christmas and New Year rolled into one for the true Metal Lords…

Today’s Rough Trade Books treat involves two of the most exciting young writers around talking all things Goblin… Jen Calleja is…

And… we’re closed. For now. It’s not as if we really had to. But we felt we had to. Recently,…

Aided by a witch and the magician Alan Moore, David Bramwell takes an occult journey back in time up the river…

Today’s Halloween hangout is a conversation between Belfast’s Wendy Erskine and Glasgow’s David Keenan. Two of The Social’s favourite writers got…

Running The Light is the first novel by Denver stand-up comedian Sam Tallent. Electrifying the wider comedy community since its…

Like it or loathe it, Halloween is here to stay. It is a night of contradictions: a night of glitter…

When I’m wandering about by ours, popping the shops or walking the dogs, and I bump into someone I know,…

In a past life I travelled for work. I stayed in hotel rooms with starched sheets that smelled like industrial…

My grandmother on my mum’s side, Patricia, died young, in her early fifties. My memories of her are faint, the…

We first met Steve and Kavus at Glastonbury in 2016 when they played to the biggest crowd we have ever…

Yes she did. Have you ever tried not being scum? Last week I wrote something about how in the 80s…

According to John Higgs, we gave up on the future in the 1980s. Before then our shining vision of a…

Tuesday’s tuna sandwich was pretty bloody meagre; a scant serving of pulped, anaemic meat pressed between two slices of bread…

The final part of our extracts from the new collection of work from 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE. All 4…

There follows, in the life of Muntu, a peaceful interlude, a brief snatching at bliss, as he moves into Vlada’s…

This is the third part of our extracts taken from the new set of work by 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO…

As the urban areas of England and Wales prepare to lock down again, I’ve gotta ask, why aren’t any of…

This is Part 2 of our posts from the excellent new set of pamphlets from 4 BROWN GIRLS WHO WRITE….

Purely coincidental but its all gone a bit ‘hygge’ at Wasted Towers of late. A preponderance of new and rediscovered…

Sweet Dreams: The Story Of The New Romantics, the newly published book by Dylan Jones, has sent me back down…

Last night, a short text arrived from my older brother that simply read, “Fuck”. A minute or so later, my…

We received the latest release from Rough Trade Books the other day, actually boxes of them because Nina uses my…

Hi Dad.  Sorry it’s been so long since I last wrote to you. There’s a lot going on. I’ve not…

“I’d like to cover the world with hope,” said Robert Indiana in 2008. This is 2020 though. ‘HOPE deflated’ is a series…

I don’t know what you believe about the nature or existence of luck, but whether you think a person makes…

Make Some Space by Emma Warren was my favourite book of 2019. Ostensibly about a single space – the Total…

She would have been surprised, a few months ago, if someone had told her that she was one day going…

The big question with any super deluxe edition of a legendary album is whether it’s better than the myth.  Often…

Preface: Plato’s Cave  ‘Obviously I’m into myself, but I’m not walking around just saying, “Oh, everybody look at me.” I…

When he was twenty-five, Muntu finally returned to Poland. We say returned, although he had never actually developed a single…

In a state of frenzied arrogance around 18 months ago I took it upon myself to hurl a few digital…

Burroughs and Reed had mutual friends, but the two didn’t actually meet face-to-face until 1979. By then Burroughs had become…

During the pandemic I saw for the first time Jim Jarmusch’s epic film Only Lovers Left Alive, in which the…

One thing that I have noticed whilst writing this guide over the last few months is how much TV output…

I felt a huge responsibility writing this book. It felt like this was the one chance in a generation that…

Yesterday I went to visit an old friend. I’d heard that he was unwell, and I was concerned. We had…

Introducing our second piece from writer Patrick Ofosu. Going by the name Epytion he describes himself as ‘a learner expressing…

I first saw The Snork, I used to pass him regularly, when I was de-mobbed to Greece, and I maintain…

(Artwork by Jason Vaughan) Ahead of their new EP release – ACID ZOO – next month, The White Hotel’s BOMB…

I still have the spiral bound notebook that was my companion while writing, where I would note down my historical…

In poetic thought the role of the subconscious is played by euphony. – Joseph Brodsky The cover of Hiroshi Yoshimura’s…

And so we reach our 23rd and final weekly Broadsheet. 23 weeks ago Robin declared that we would put together…

Around the time I started writing these posts I also started writing a collection of personal essays about various periods…

Today, September 3rd 2020, is perhaps the most demented day in British publishing history with over 650 titles released. I doubt…

Thanks to my older brother, I was a pre-teen metal head. I can’t blame him though. Growing up in South…

A subject like this is to all intents and purposes open ended, so towards the end you need to start…

Apricot trees are slow and temperamental: they reject the cold and, for their first five years, bear no fruit at…

The book’s point of departure – William Morris – snuck up on me after I discovered his 1890 novel News…

This week we’re on holiday in the rain. And the internet has turned against us. Please accept this minimal mail…

My novels often take their titles from songs and mention music that grooves me. The latest She’s My Witch is no exception…

“A clock spends its life marking time, but does it understand mortality?” goes the Chain and The Gang lyric, “Music’s…

I enjoyed the responsibilities given to me at The Camp. Answering the phone to people hunting for last minute holidays…

Like many of you I have spent way too much time on social media over the past 6 months. Occasionally,…

Out of the dozens of colourfully-named selectors which fill the daily programming of Palestinian internet radio station Radio Al-Hara, the one…

Back in January I cycled from Blackfriars to Little Portland Street on a gloomy evening to celebrate the 20thbirthday party…

Arriving Somewhere But Not Here Last Tuesday morning. There’s sunshine blitzing through tent canvas and I’m awake. It’s around 6am…

The smell of woodsmoke and heavy, Welsh mud, and the mist lifting off the field as I cross it in…

What news from the Continent I hear you cry? Well, we enter into the arena of the unknown.  Rotterdam in…

The sing-songs around the piano of years gone by were replaced with the juke box. This permanently contained predominantly 80’s…

It’s 7:16pm in Heathfield, East Sussex and I’m “working from home” while listening to Radio Al-Hara. The DJ, Mango Thief,…

We asked publisher Julian Vinuales (Libros de Kultrum) to report back from his home in Barcelona, only to discover he…

This week all of us behind The Social Gathering have found ourselves staycationing all at once, in one way of…

Artist Mark James releases a timely new piece of work tomorrow, Friday 14th August. ANGERLAND is a set of three…

My grandparents were almost in retirement when they bought the camp. I knew my nan wanted to be by the…

William Burroughs is a highly significant figure in the world of music, even if he professed little knowledge about the…

I’ve got to get this off my chest: just how completely fucking shit the phonies and bellends that have made…

Summer finally arrived this week and the British public suddenly became all sun boiled, stuck in traffic jams on irascible…

Hey Dad,  How are you doing?  No need to answer.  I know.  Wish you were here, just the two of…

Today, White Rabbit Books announces publication of Harry Sword’s debut Monolithic Undertow: In Search of Sonic Oblivion (February 2021), a colossal…

A few weeks ago, our friend Mathew Clayton got in touch about a book he thought we’d like. Mathew is…

As the weeks drag on and everything apart from the things I care about seems to open – no gigs,…

“You already rang me two hours ago saying you were at a funeral in Essex.” “I’m on my way now”…

This week I tried to be nicer. It’s hard in the face of everything that is going on isn’t it,…

A few months back I had an opportunity to premiere my rarely seen feature documentary about Vashti Bunyan on the…

Crossing Rannoch Moor, Scotland. Late May 1969. Our days went walking by with no other souls, just us and the…

Over the last few months, The Social Gathering has occasionally published a daydream travel supplement. Imagine An Island is your semi-regular first class ticket…

The Orielles’ Disco Volador barely left our record player for months after release, the celestial orange vinyl got a lot…

Sit down, I’ve got some bad news. I hate to be the one to break it you, but we’re currently in…

Apologies if this week’s condensed edition has arrived later than normal – the summer holidays have kicked in with all…

In deepest darkest Cornwall, within the enchanting fishing harbour of Boscastle you’ll find a museum with a difference—the Museum of…

Randell Jarrell wrote, ‘a good poet is someone who manages, in a lifetime of standing out in thunderstorms, to be…

Will Burns writes on John Carpenter’s cult classic They Live, using Craig Oldham’s book published by Rough Trade Books,  They…

There were thousands of them. Millions maybe. All across the sky, billowing around like some dusty gold and yellow snowstorm….

1965 Our old neighbours at Appletree Wick had a party, just before my twentieth birthday. My mother persuaded me to…

This week we’re honoured to be hosting a week long online birthday party for our friends, the wonderful Rough Trade Books….

Other than what we’ve published on the website I’ve found reading anything other than Twitter near impossible for 3 months….

They came from houses on the sides of hills, from bedrooms that looked out onto shades of green, the smell…

(Social x Pete Fowler slipmat pictured above available now) On Saturday night myself and Jeff O’Toole – our good friend…

1945/1961 My family moved from Newcastle upon Tyne when I was six months old – to Oak House, number 5…

My 2 by 4 Inglish, bare grammatical errors. I man, result to broken English. Deh propa name be pidgin, mix…

Our pals from the excellent band Pet Deaths are releasing their nightones mixtape on cassette at the end of the…

X Inn-dependence Day. Super Saturday. The end of the lockdown brought to you by the marketing department of England. A…

You’re in a band, dance pop trio Benin City, based in London. You imagine yourself as Roisin Murphy and Hot…

Underworld’s Karl Hyde began mapping territories via human marks left on the environment. Over years, those marks that have rooted themselves  into…

On a classic midwinter deep-freeze evening on the 21st January 2015, I first saw Savages perform at Bowery Ballroom in New…

Catch One Leaf, Lake District, 1968 It was becoming autumnal and wet, cold even by now. No stove in the…

Inspired by Une sale histoire by Jean Eustache 1 My story is the kind of story that women will scorn…

Although lots of pubs and restaurants across the country reopened this weekend for most live music venues and clubs the…

In a move akin to giving the role of brewery tour guide to an alcoholic, last week I was given…

IX I wake to a dawn chorus of pure wood pigeon. From somewhere far off, in an instantly-forgotten dream I…

Austin Collings (author, filmmaker and Creative Director of The White Hotel venue in Salford) has been following our Social Gathering…

Rubbish Tip, July 1968 Approaching the town of Derby with the wagon and Bess, we had a choice to make….

Last week, for the first time in ages, I sat on WORM’s terrace on the corner of the Witte de…

Between 1985 and 2003 I went to Glastonbury loads of times. Some weekends I remember like it was yesterday; others…

It was all Karl’s fault. He’d been bunking in for years, sleeping in the dub tent, even playing on the…

Me and Robin were chatting the other morning about how the festival this year has been stolen from us. We’ve…

Massive thank you to Sherelle for doing this. We’re gutted this is not happening tonight at Glastonbury, it was already…

VIII. If you were to mark its position on a map of the country, the village would be just about…

11 years ago Mathew Clayton and his friend Simon Benham set up the Free University of Glastonbury, a programme of…

It’s been such a long, long time… The last original material we heard from Bob was 2012’s Tempest. The next…

One of the staunchest people in lockdown has without doubt been Pete Fowler, not least for his 9 (!) Social…

July 1968.  London Garden Our first stop in London was in Islington where Robert’s one-time tutor and now friend Anthony…

It shouldn’t come as a surprise when certain things end up knocking you back on your heels during lockdown. I’m…

Wendine escapes to Dallas with Jerry Lee: a flash fiction homage to Nick Tosches by Wendy Erskine. With artwork by Babak…

On 14th of March, we threw what was planned to be the last party in the bar we have next…

VII Mid-June and the weather has given in. Finally, rain. Storms have begun to appear as if from nowhere in…

Why the UK is failing the music industry. This Saturday is the first Love Record Stores day. We’ll be marking…

Among the first reported covid cases in Mexico are prominent businessmen who were skiing with their families in Vail, Colorado….

In 1968 Vashti Bunyan set out on a journey that still resonates five decades later. Today we’re publishing the first…

The reality of the pandemic descended upon me during a Guns n´Roses concert in Mexico City. The date was March…

2016 has been a difficult year, of course it has.  It’s as though my radar has been scrambled.  This has…

VI There are two fields, one to the north, one to the south, intersected by the road that runs through…

Stood outside Downing Street yesterday I saw something that cut through even my own iron clad pessimism. I haven’t been…

I was born and raised in a house of cars and maps. The cars went over my head, sometimes through…

So much can change in a short space of time. I started writing this before we were all talking about…

We have covered the premature death of Andrew Weatherall age 56 from many angles in these pages over the past…

Back to normal eh? Eh? I can’t honestly work out if I feel happy or tense about this Big Reopening…

As every fan knows, Prince recorded far more songs than he ever released.  Most years he put out less than…

Four years ago I was contacted by a writer whose work I knew from The Wire and other publications on Twitter called…

V Lonely, fraught, strange days. I am up at four with the sun and the birdsong. My days have taken…

At the end of July, White Rabbit Books publishes a memoir by Chris Frantz, who has the distinction of founding,…

Today on The Social Gathering, we’re pleased to bring you an extract from an interview with artist Junior Tomlin. It’s…

At the end of last week we asked friends in the States if they could paint us the view from…

With Q – and all of the music press – under even greater threat as the covid recession looms, Katherine…

IV Perhaps the Paper Lantern itself—this suddenly strange, suddenly useless and rather sad building just off the main road in…

The opening sequence of Ken Hughes’ 1963 beat-crime masterpiece The Small World of Sammy Lee is a collage of tracking…

Dig if you will the picture. It’s 3.20am and about 200 of the most forward-thinking, risk-embracing, party-loving publishers in Europe…

I don’t know how to break this to everyone, but you’ve got your infamous seducer metaphors all messed up. He’s…

One of the biggest questions raised by lockdown is what happens next. And specifically, will we all just go back…

Last month we brought you the first part of the hugely popular Cold War Steve/Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery collaboration….

The last 8 weeks have been defined by an absence of action – at least any action that involved moving…

III The morning after the VE Day celebrations comes on with a violent reminder of the previous world of this…

On working with Bob Stanley & Pete Wiggs on their seminal ‘Presents’ compilation series by Liz Buckley, Label Manager at…

The explosion of digital TV means that, even now, many weeks into lockdown, there is still a massive amount of…

In my first piece for this esteemed publication, I ended by posing a question: can the Netherlands really survive and…

Phil May was born in Erith , a bleak, industrial town in the most easterly corner of London.  He lived…

A few weeks back, The Social Gathering opened the doors on its daydream travel agency. Imagine An Island is here to transport…

On February the 18th 1956, Tutti Frutti hit #21, its highest position in the US top 100. Or rather, the…

The biggest thing clouding my vision is my martyr complex. Even with all the bountiful fruits that life has delivered…

(artwork by Caio Wheelhouse) I shouldn’t have been surprised that as the world altered entirely, I’d be watching from the…

II. What could be worse than spending these last few weeks alone in a place defined by its public communal…

If I was to say Wind of Change by Scorpions was a guilty pleasure of mine, it would be a lie. It’s…

An occasional installation project in which I cement an mp3 player into the fabric of a structure, somewhere in the…

Stayed alert – well as alert as you can be in a soporific stupor, muscles atrophied through never leaving the…

If there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the last month or so, it’s that people are nervous about telling secrets…

We’re extremely proud to bring you the second part of The Social Gathering’s podcast series, where Steve Mason’s reads from one…

I’ve finally had it with the footy. I don’t even know where to start, 30 odd years with a Liverpool…

Of all the weird and wonderful tales to have emerged in the last six weeks, my little brother deciding to…

When it’s a ritual.   Enter the Temple of Gnostic Sonics, a sanctuary of sound from the Music’s Not For…

I. We will begin with a rough physical description. The place is a small market town which, for some reason,…

What to say of these times on the other side of the North Sea? In this sorry business the Netherlands…

Listened to Florence blasting My Sharona from her room constantly. Bought a massive new fern which was delivered upside down…

OK, so week three. Nice of the BBC to bring back Killing Eve, though I’m not feeling it like I…

“Eventually they turned up in Manchester, but they parked where the River Irwell is in Salford, it’s a big island….

Here at The Social Gathering we’ve been marking May Day by celebrating how we come together to fight the power,…

The only memory and association I have for May Day is the ritual of making wreaths at my grandmother’s home…

Nineteen years ago, at the anticapitalist protest in central London, me and my friend Ellie and a few hundred other…

Hack a path through the briars and push open the gate. The creak is a music that wakes the dead…

“So the scholars say it was one of our religions when we lived in caves… I can’t say whether its…

BDS is one of my favourite photographers but somehow I’ve never seen these photos he took at the May Day…

A few years back, I met Jonny Trunk in a pub in Stoke Newington on a sunny afternoon to talk…

To mark the launch of Mark Lanegan’s memoir SING BACKWARDS AND WEEP in the UK, we teamed with White Rabbit to celebrate…

Talking about things you like is fun. Fun is fun. High energy is fun, low energy is fun. Coffee is…

Abandoned bras. Abandoned the hairdryer. Abandoned face wash. Abandoned razors. Abandoned any clothing without an elasticated waistband and three way…

We asked Hayden Thorpe, formerly singer in one of the great British bands of the past decade, Wild Beasts, to…

So, we’re still here. I’m guessing that you are pretty much done now with all the stuff you knew about….

This weekend, The Social Gathering launches its semi-regular daydream travel section. Imagine An Island is your first class ticket on the next flight out…

A classic Social logo tee with our ‘Because No One Should Drink Alone’ manifesto designed by Raissa Pardini on the…

Certain aspects of my personal hygiene have taken a backseat in recent weeks, with nobody around who could possibly care,…

(The Most Approximate Anti-Christ Blackboard by Babak Ganjei) — It’s 1984, a noisy Belfast classroom at break-time and some numerology…

It was around the time the airline cancelled our flights that I began to dream of an island.  Easy Jet’s…

Four years have passed to the day since the most singular, talented and prolific musician and songwriter of his generation…

Announced internally “right that’s it now, I can’t do this anymore”, like that gave me license to take some forbidden…

I guess it must have been a few weeks ago that I saw a story about a couple of Italian…

Your time has come your second skinThe cost so high the gain so lowWalk through the valleyThe written word is…

In September 2019 (a properly different world it was then!) the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery approached Cold War Steve…

“Sir Edmund Hillary said… ‘For scientific discovery, give me Scott. For speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundson. But…

In the second of our regular collection of letters from Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi, the writer’s mind travels from Brixton’s…

Fourth week of lockdown and we’ve all done Succession twice, we’re not sure about the new Westworld, the kids have…

‘At the restaurant he put his phone face-down on the table, so I did the same as if for me,…

Thanked God for immigrants (thank you Jeremy Deller). Missed drinking cocktails on a Saturday afternoon with Jen and Louise. Missed…

Last week, Catherine Eccles talked us through her archival journey piecing tracks from Andrew Weatherall’s peerless NTS shows into playlists. The…

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When starting The Social Gathering, we sent out a message to friends outside of Britain’s big cities asking how our they were getting…

A few years back, our friend Kieran Evans made a beautiful and intimate film with legendary singer / songwriter Vashti…

In the early noughties, Tesco Extra-esque supermarkets were hailed the new superclubs. A place of consumerist worship for the Nespresso…

The View From Here One of the first things we wanted to do when we started The Social Gathering was…

White Rabbit: I’m assuming the film is set in Hartlepool judging by those accents. When did you first come across…

Waved at people a lot. Bathed less regularly than I’d imagined I would in the circumstances. Thanked God this wasn’t…

During the last decade or so, Andrew Weatherall was a regular presence at The Social. It wasn’t uncommon to see…

flaneur  noun  a man who saunters around observing society —————————  Of all Andrew Weatherall’s many celebrated talents, the most under-appreciated…

It’s impossible to know how you’re going to react when someone dies.  In early February, my good friend Lee Brackstone…

This is an extract from the new book I’ve been working on, about a bloke having a midlife crisis while…

Arthur Schopenhauer, it was reputed, would stick to a strict daily routine. He would reveille at 7am, drink a strong…

Earlier today, our friends at Sonic Cathedral announced ‘Bedroom’, the debut album by the brilliant Leeds/Hull-based band bdrmm. To celebrate,…

Happy publication day to Will Burns, whose long-awaited debut collection, Country Music, is now out! We had a big blowout launch…

Less than a year after it opened, The Social hosted a huge birthday party for Annie Nightingale on both floors of the bar….

The escalation of the virus has coincided with the Vernal Equinox, the immediate prospect of the clocks going backwards (time…

Thanked God I didn’t have to tell my children Tom Hanks had died. Wore a lot of big earrings. Extended…

Rap, Rave & The Rise of XL Recordings

Collecting up music, words, art & conversation to bring The Social to wherever you are in the world. Because if we have to do this in isolation, we should at least have our mates with us, reading over our shoulders & getting the beers in

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