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In 1999 Warren Ellis watched Nina Simone play live at Meltdown. After the show ended he rushed on stage and carefully rescued her chewing gum in a towel from where she'd stuck it to her piano. His new book, sparked off by this incident, is about the alchemy that produces art, obsessiveness and memory
Sarah Elaine Smith's new novel Marilou is Everywhere is a vividly brought to life tale of youthful misdeeds and a very peculiar kind of friendship told in sparking, vivacious prose. Here, the author guides us through the soundtrack to the book's writing
In August, 95-year-old American composer George Walker had his first-ever piece performed at the Proms, as part of a concert that became the breakout story of the festival. In his own way, he’s as radical and pioneering as Nina Simone, who was famously refused entry to the same music school that Walker had already graduated from
In this week's Baker's Dozen, Santigold takes Tara Joshi through 13 favourite albums from Salt-N-Pepa to the Cocteau Twins, Fela Kuti, Nina Simone and Bad Brains, and points out that while Morrissey might have gone wrong, you can't take away what his songs once gave her
Ahead of his appearance at the Southbank Centre as part of Erased Tapes' tenth birthday celebrations later this year, Peter Broderick speaks to Elizabeth Aubrey about 13 records that inspired him, from Dylan to Arvo Part and Philip Glass
As well as being the lynchpin of suited rock howlers Gallon Drunk, James Johnston has played with Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and PJ Harvey - but we're not going to hold the fact that he's picked both of them for his Baker's Dozen against him. Portrait by Steve Gullick.
With The Brian Jonestown Massacre's UK and Ireland tour in support of recent LP Revelation starting in Brighton on Saturday, the band's frontman shirks the album rundown request, opens up his DJ bag and gives Julian Marszalek a top 13 songs mixtape