Culture
The very best in film, art, books, television and more
Stroppy, Optimistic, Overdressed Young Men: Robert Elms Remembers the Blitz Club
Blitz: The Club That Created the Eighties, a new book by Robert Elms, returns the reader to a bygone London of squats full of future popstars and cans of Red Stripe to recall the nightclub that birthed Spandau Ballet and Visage and might just have invented the future
Film
How Sheffield Film Tales From A Hard City set the Scene for Pulp’s Different Class
Daniel Dylan Wray argues that the depiction of Steel City life in a little-known 1995 film (currently being celebrated in an art exhibition and series of screenings) acts as a "companion and contrast piece" to Jarvis Cocker & co's commercial breakthrough, released the same year. Black and white still photography by Bill Stephenson.
Books
Demolishing the Outmoded Society: Michel Faber on Situationism and the French Rock Underground
Ian Thompson’s new book Synths, Sax & Situationists explores the legacy of soixante-huit through the music of bands like Cheval Fou, Barricade, Maajun and Fille Qui Mousse. It offers a “vivid” account with an “impressive” number of interviews, finds Michel Faber
Books
From the esoteric to the sonic, tQ's bookshelf revealed
Books
Hypnosis for Cats: Ben Pester’s Expansion Project Playlist
Ben Pester's brilliantly surreal new book is a "horror novel about office work" where the monster is a business park. Here he takes us through the songs he played while writing and the songs the book seems to summon for him now it's finished and (almost) out in the world
Books
“This is My Happening – and it Freaks Me Out!”: 10 of the All-Time Weirdest Rock’n’Roll Movies
Shane Pinnegar, author of the new book, Rocksploitation, picks out ten of the strangest marriages of movies and rock music
Books
“Want to Change My Clothes, My Hair, My Face”: How Springsteen Helped Me Come Out
In an exclusive edited extract from Niko Stratis’s new book The Dad Rock That Made Me A Woman, the award-winning Canadian writer explores trans identity, the music of the American heartlands and how the Boss changed her life for good
Books
Hypnosis for Cats: Ben Pester’s Expansion Project Playlist
Ben Pester's brilliantly surreal new book is a "horror novel about office work" where the monster is a business park. Here he takes us through the songs he played while writing and the songs the book seems to summon for him now it's finished and (almost) out in the world
Books
“Want to Change My Clothes, My Hair, My Face”: How Springsteen Helped Me Come Out
In an exclusive edited extract from Niko Stratis’s new book The Dad Rock That Made Me A Woman, the award-winning Canadian writer explores trans identity, the music of the American heartlands and how the Boss changed her life for good
Film
The big screen brought to your little screen
Film
Still Turning Heads: The Exorcism reviewed
JR Moores casts a cynical eye over the exorcism genre and asks whether Russell Crowe's contribution to the form adds anything new. Contains spoilers for a variety of exorcism and shark attack-related films
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Exploring the hidden recesses of the small screen
Television
Notes On True Detective: Night Country By Eugene Thacker & Tariq Goddard
The pessimistic philosophical text In The Dust Of This Planet was an influence on Season 1 of True Detective; its author and publisher settle in for the long dark night of Season 4. Contains some light spoilers for early episodes of Night Country
Television
Trumpidation: Reviewing The US Election TV Coverage
Brit Sean Kitching and American StarLynn Jacobs’ marriage has to date spanned the four-years of Donald Trump’s chaotic presidency - they sat up through the night to review the television coverage. Words: Sean Kitching and StarLynn Jacobs
Television
Notes On True Detective: Night Country By Eugene Thacker & Tariq Goddard
The pessimistic philosophical text In The Dust Of This Planet was an influence on Season 1 of True Detective; its author and publisher settle in for the long dark night of Season 4. Contains some light spoilers for early episodes of Night Country
Television
Trumpidation: Reviewing The US Election TV Coverage
Brit Sean Kitching and American StarLynn Jacobs’ marriage has to date spanned the four-years of Donald Trump’s chaotic presidency - they sat up through the night to review the television coverage. Words: Sean Kitching and StarLynn Jacobs
Art
Visual culture in interviews, reviews and opinion
Art
Borderlands: Alex Niven on Harry Lawson’s Stepney Western
At Newcastle Contemporary Art gallery, an exhibition featuring a new film by Harry Lawson plus archival photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Martine Franck, Chris Killip, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Tish Murtha and others, draws links between the fabled American West and England’s North-East
Art
Beryl Cook, Tom of Finland & The Horny Complexity of the Bisexual Gaze
The ribald, hot and at times hilarious art of Tom of Finland and British artist Beryl Cook are currently part of a joint exhibition at London's Studio Voltaire. In an essay originally presented as an reading at the gallery, Luke Turner explores how their work relates to the assumptions, fantasies and at times harsh realities of his bisexual identity.
Art
Borderlands: Alex Niven on Harry Lawson’s Stepney Western
At Newcastle Contemporary Art gallery, an exhibition featuring a new film by Harry Lawson plus archival photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Martine Franck, Chris Killip, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Tish Murtha and others, draws links between the fabled American West and England’s North-East
Art
Beryl Cook, Tom of Finland & The Horny Complexity of the Bisexual Gaze
The ribald, hot and at times hilarious art of Tom of Finland and British artist Beryl Cook are currently part of a joint exhibition at London's Studio Voltaire. In an essay originally presented as an reading at the gallery, Luke Turner explores how their work relates to the assumptions, fantasies and at times harsh realities of his bisexual identity.
