Good morning to one and all,
Welcome to your Wednesday edition of The New Cue. Master Chris Catchpole, the world’s youngest old man, or oldest young man - you decide - has taken a moment from his archival work this week to get on a video call (“hello, is anybody there?”) with 1960s legends Rod Argent and Colin Blunstone of The Zombies, to ask them about the twists and tales behind their undisputed, stone-cold classic Time Of The Season. Groovy, baby.
We interrupt this Wednesday welcome for a word from our sponsors: Ted Kessler has today, this morning, right now, announced details of his memoir, Paper Cuts: How I Destroyed the British Music Press and Other Misadventures. It’s to be published on July 21 by White Rabbit. According to the press release, Paper Cuts is the inside story of the slow death of the British music press. But it’s also a love letter to it, the tale of how music magazines saved one man’s life after Kessler was arrested for theft behind the counter of the record shop he managed during acid house’s long hot summer of love. Paper Cuts tells how Kessler found redemption through music and writing and takes us on a journey alongside the stars he interviewed and the work-place dramas he navigated as a senior staffer at NME through the boom-time ‘90s and on to the monthly Q in 2004, where he worked for sixteen years before it folded with him at its helm as editor in 2020.
Sounds good doesn’t it? Want to see the book’s jacket?
Anyway, we may mention this book again before July. There may be exclusive extracts, new chapters just for TNC subs, competitions. Who knows? There may even be podcasts. Perhaps there’ll be some live events, too, with early or even exclusive access for New Cue subscribers. We’ll have to wait and see. If you live near a good venue or great independent book shop and would like us to put on an event, drop us an email on thenewcue1@gmail.com and we’ll see what we can do. Thank you.
And that’s the end of our commercial broadcast. Please settle back and enjoy our friends The Zombies, who appear just after the paywall for our valued subscribers.
We’ll see you again on Friday, for Recommender time,
Ted, Niall and Chris
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