Photo by Stuart Spence Here we have the next instalment in What Comes To Mind, an alternative series in the Wind Back Wednesday space, based on the work of the brilliant photographer Stuart Spence. Each time, he will dig out a photo from his archives going back almost 50 years and challenge me to respond with what comes to mind when I look at that image. It might be serious or ridiculous, personal or historical but it will be inspired by a photo I’ve not seen before, and mayb

BILL CALLAHAN My Days Of 58 (Drag City)   HAPPY BILL CALLAHAN, wise Bill Callahan, is a comfortable presence now, some years and several albums into what you might call a transformation, though it probably is better described as an expansion, a broadening of what might matter and who he could be, for himself and for others. It took a while to get used to, and some people never really did, finding comfortable the antithesis of interesting, but really it just felt good, even wh

If you've got it, flaunt it, sing it, sell it. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN Find more playlists from me, some with more Neil, at Spotify.

Sam Beam's biblical Iron & holy Wine. Photo by Kim Arlington IRON & WINE City Recital Hall, Sydney, March 4   SAM BEAM AND INCONGRUITY are hardly strangers. If not his secret weapon as Iron & Wine, it is definitely a potent one. He looks like a stern 19th century cult leader who loves whole grains and hates sex: long beard pointing to hell, high hair reaching for God, and deepish-set eyes evaluating your frailties. But he smiles and jokes like a backwoodsman who hasn’t bother

Karma chameleons Felicity and Josh. Photo by Asha Kidd. NONE OF THIS FLASH hotel room malarkey, not even a café in some on-trend spot with a hissing coffee machine in the background, for Felicity Urquhart and Josh Cunningham in interview mode. Today they greet me, partly off-camera each – turn your phone to landscape! – from the salubrious confines of the front of their van. With their dog, Wilson, a silent partner. Working musicians with an extensive tour starting on Friday?

Come May, armed with an orchestra, maybe a rumpled suede suit, but definitely songs from albums like Sea Change , Mutations  and Morning Phase , the artist once, currently and very likely forever known as Beck will be in Australia. Or at least Sydney and Melbourne, which is not quite the same thing admittedly, but if you don't tell Adelaide et al, I won't. (Tickets on sale tomorrow, see below.) It’s not his first tour here, obviously, but will be the tour with the highest bo

Jalen Ngonda, looking for a driver, not just a car. Photo by Rosie Cohe. CAUGHT AT THE BEGINNING of his second visit to Australia – maybe you saw one of his irresistible groove shows in January 2025 – just as he is announcing a second album due out mid-year, Jalen Ngonda is busy. Busy reviving the golden age of soul – from the dawn of Sam Cooke via tight suits in Detroit to tight harmonies in Philadelphia a decade later, like he didn’t just hear this stuff but might have act

Seasonal greetings as the leaves fall but the songs rise. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN Almost as many of my playlists as there are leaves can be found at Spotify. Rake them in.

MITSKI Nothing’s About To Happen To Me (Dead Oceans)   BACK WHEN I USED TO do a lot of travelling for work, occasionally in packs but much of it solo, with the daytimes filled with meetings or interviews or simply getting from one place to another in a strange city or a strange country, beginnings and ends of days had quite different versions of me. At breakfast in the dining room or common area I wanted no one, no conversation or interactions. It’s not that I’m some anti-mor