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I’ve written a lot about my love of pop music, but I don’t think I’ve included a particular favourite: pop music played on chainsaws. What I mean by that is strong melodic pop music played in a very aggressive way, usually through ridiculously distorted amplifiers by young men and women full of substances they’ll regret [more]
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It’s international men’s day today. This, on masculinity, is very good. There’s nothing wrong with masculinity. But to be a man often means trying to live up to a very narrow definition of what masculinity means, and that can be suffocating if you don’t fit that definition. Fraser Stewart articulates it very well in this [more]
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My friend Chris posted an interesting question on Twitter last night. What would be the worst outcome of your innermost thoughts – not literally ‘your internet history’, but it’s a decent proxy, I guess – being made public? What would be the best? I’m thinking a lot just now about how we hold onto unvoiced [more]
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I spent many years playing in bands, and despite public demand I’ve joined another one. This time it’s different, though, because this time I won’t be presenting male. That means thinking about things I’ve never had to think about before: what I should or shouldn’t wear on stage, whether I can fake the confidence I [more]
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This is Gangstagrass, a band that combines bluegrass and hip-hop. I came to mock, because bluegrass is the music of yokels with bad teeth, but it’s really quite wonderful. The combination works both musically and thematically: both genres of music come from people at the very bottom of the heap, from the poorest working class [more]
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This is wonderful. The TIE Campaign on Twitter: We did it! @JohnSwinney has announced that @scotgov has fully accepted the recommendations of the LGBTI Inclusive Education Working Group. This is a monumental victory. LGBTI-inclusive education will now become a reality in all of Scotland’s state schools #EducatetoLiberate pic.twitter.com/sLgYikCANw — TIE (@tiecampaign) November 8, 2018 It’s [more]
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INT: A MEETING ROOM – DAY A small group of people sit on plastic chairs. Some are young; some are very old. One of them coughs and stands. CARRIE (visibly nervous):Â Hi everyone. My name’s Carrie and I… I… YOUNG WOMAN: It’s okay, Carrie. You can do this. Be strong! CARRIE (sobbing): My name’s Carrie [more]
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Imagine this. It’s 2018 and a publicity-seeking entrepreneur embarks on a high-profile court case. “If it’s okay for black men to marry white women, then it should be OK for me to marry my pet pig,” he chuckles. Newspapers and radio make it their light-hearted story of the week. No? Let’s try this one. It’s [more]
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Last month, the extremely dodgy anti-trans group Fair Play For Women dropped a five-figure sum on a full page advert in the Metro claiming that reforms to the Gender Recognition Act would threaten women’s safety. It was cynical. It was designed to whip up hatred. And it was absolute bullshit. Some of us complained to [more]
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When is “random person has an opinion” news? When it’s a “concerned parent”. This is from yesterday’s Scottish Daily Mail. The text describes how a “father-of-two” criticised the First Minister. “Edinburgh parent Richard Lucas…” Now, Mr Lucas is indeed a parent. But he also has another role. He’s the head of the ultra-right wing [more]
Read me in books
My debut memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was a Scotsman book of the year and Damian Barr’s Literary Salon book of the week, and it was shortlisted for the 2023 British Book Awards book of the year in the Discover category.
My latest book, Small Town Joy, is a celebration of queer influences on and queer artists in Scots music and is out now.
I’m also a contributor to the excellent anthology Fierce Salvage, which is also out now.
