J is for the Jericho Tavern, the location of the first scene in Dead Man Singing. A confession: despite living in nearby Thame for a couple of years in the 90s, I have never been to a gig at the Jericho. It first rose to wider national notoriety as the legendary venue for early Radiohead gigs, but t...

What was the best ever year for music? Strangely, I own two books dedicated to arguing the case for particular years: Dave Hepworth’s Never A Dull Moment (which puts forward 1971 as the peak of musical creation) and James Acaster’s Perfect Sound Whatever (which argues for 2016).

The case...

I is for ‘I Think It’s Going to Work Out Fine’, a beautiful Ry Cooder instrumental which seemed like a perfect note of optimism on which to end the story. You can find it on his Bop Till You Drop album. If there is ever a film version of the novel (I’m open to offers, just sa...

One of the things I kept in mind when curating Dave’s own taste in music for Dead Man Singing was trying to ensure that he was his own person, not just an identikit reflection of my own record collection. One of the big areas of difference is personified in Billy Bragg.

Dave was from the gener...

So, the Beatles are number 1 again. Despite being too young to remember them as an active, going concern of a group, the Beatles were the first band I truly loved. Sometime in the 1970s, when I was at Primary School, the BBC showed a series of Beatles films at Christmas, and I was hooked. My older c...