Author: Paul Gallagher

Yeah, I know. I’m late to the coven. But living in ye olde ancient fog-bound DM castle on yon bonnie banks of Loch McBebetterlatethannever, I…

Success was a long time a-coming for Alex Harvey. He started out on a high in the mid-1950s when he won the title of the…

Bob Hope was late. Ten minutes late. But it was a ten minutes that probably saved his life. Hope was en route to entertain US…

The Soft Machine line-up was always kinda fluid but didn’t fully set until Kevin Ayers (bass, vocals) joined Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals), Daevid Allen (guitar),…

The sole object of a ghost story, wrote M. R. James, is to inspire “a pleasing terror in the reader”. James was an academic and…

According to his parents David Bowie was a smart kid. He was rolling paper into a typewriter and tapping keys writing gobble-de-gook lines and even…

Surgery to correct strabismus, a misalignment of the eyes. The artist Francis Bacon spent many hours poring over illustrated medical books looking at surgical procedures…

A friend of mine died at the weekend. He was a good, kind man in his forties, far too young to die. But death doesn’t…

Over the weekend, I got a message from writer, cultural historian, and all-round-good guy Simon Wells. He’s a DM pal and has written a shelf-load…

Star Wars or Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, to give the film its proper title, is the single most influential, and thus arguably,…