Bookshelves

 

So, Christmas has been and gone, and you’re left with book tokens you don’t know what to buy with or, far, far worse, the dreaded One4All card that allows you to spend in hundreds of different stores but none of which seem to allow you to or have anything remotely worth buying.

This is where I come in.

Maybe.

You see, I’ve got books for sale. Not the ones in the photo above; technically they are mine, because I own them, but they’re not my books.

You can buy my books from any bookshop, online or physical, including Waterstones for whom the One4All card is acceptable. You may need to wait a week or so as they may not be in stock, but you can still buy them. 

But which to buy?

Well. 

‘The Broken Bottle’, ‘How Green Are Your Eyes’ and ‘This Is Not The End’ are a trilogy of books aimed at readers from 12 to adult. Indeed, most of the readers seem to be adults, so you’ll be in good company. They tell the story of Wilf, a teenager in Croalworth, near Manchester, as he goes to school, forms a band, falls in love, gets scammed, gets involved in gun and drug crime, goes to Ireland, searches for an awol alcoholic, stumbles across an arms dump, is befriended by a mysterious girl, meets the most drunk stop/go sign holder in the world, goes home, goes to university, makes some new friends, finds his flatmate is a bit weird and unhinged, finds his bag mistaken for an unattended package by the bomb squad, is the victim of mistaken identity and rings his sister to take him home. 

https://books2read.com/b/3nBzEP

https://books2read.com/b/bPGOPl

https://books2read.com/b/m00DAA

‘Capturing the Wry’ and ‘Welcome To The Underachievers’ are memoirs of my time in actual real bands writing and recording actual real music and playing actual real gigs. Across the two you can read the trails and tribulations of nearly being signed to record labels, the highs and lows of playing in youth clubs, restaurants and universities, and marvel at just how many venues I have played gigs in which have now closed down and become housing developments.

https://books2read.com/b/3LVWp1

https://books2read.com/b/b5JlqO

‘Seasonal Adjustments’ is a poetry anthology. I once wrote a poem that came in the top 0.17% of a national competition, and still didn’t win. But it shows the potential quality, even if it is up to you to decide the actuality of it. ‘Out of Tune’ meanwhile is the cleverly-titled collection of lyrics presented without their tune. Do you see what I did there?

https://books2read.com/b/49LEaw

https://books2read.com/b/b5W5wk

‘The View From Orlando Bridge’ is another memoir, this time about supporting Bolton Wanderers in the 1980s and 1990s. Yes, it’s that bleak.

https://www.lulu.com/shop/john-hartley/the-view-from-orlando-bridge/paperback/product-m5z964.html?srsltid=AfmBOopiLnNATy_RPJS1AEiE2eEbyl3Ghqjk84MvuYSWnweTsQmh8kgm&page=1&pageSize=4

You can get all of these anywhere, really, including Amazon. You can also get signed copies of most of the titles directly from me at www.brokendownrecords.bandcamp.com/merch

So come on, don’t be shy. Spend those vouchers, or just your hard earned cash, and you too can have my books on your bookshelves (but not the ones in the photograph for reasons already established).

The Making of ‘This Is Not The End’ (the soundtrack)

The first book I had published was ‘Capturing the Wry’, a musical memoir of my first band The Irony Board. It came with a free 15-song CD of our studio recordings. It seemed a logical idea, the reader being able to hear the songs that were being described in the story. They wouldn’t have any other way of hearing them, unless the reader had known me when I was 22 and bought the demo tapes.

However, for me the soundtrack idea maybe has its roots a bit further back in time. My family used to go camping in Alderney. It’s a small island, with very little to do. That was largely the joy of it, there being very little to do. Looking for some new musical ideas to keep me busy, I created a compilation CD of fictional artists, signed to a fictional record label based on the very real island. I posted copies to the various family addresses, with a fictional press release, anonymously. I waited for the copies to arrive, and then the ruse to be rumbled. For some it was rumbled sooner than others… And then I wrote the story of the search for the fictional record label and its fictional artists. And posted copies through their doors on Christmas Eve.

You might get to read it at some point.

The curation of songs to accompany stories is nothing new. Nick Hornby’s ‘31 songs’ had a CD with it. I’m sure that wasn’t the first, but it was the first time I’d considered it. Magnus Mills’ ‘The Forensic Records Society’ did similar, but again they were  other people’s songs.

I’m not naive enough to think I’m the only writer to have created a soundtrack to a novel, but it’s certainly not a routine thing. When ‘The Broken Bottle’ was published I enjoyed writing and recording the fictional demo tape from the story. For ‘This Is Not The End’ though I wanted to go further.

The soundtrack contains ten separate pieces of music. Two of these have lyrics, eight do not. I took inspiration from songs I wrote either at the time Wilf finds himself at University, or that I wrote about that time. The lead track ‘Scotswood Terrace’ is about any of the streets that lead down to the river Tyne from the old Roman Road in the west of Newcastle. I lived on one of them. An instrumental variation of the song appears later. The last song also has words; ‘This Is Not The End’ is an outlier, originally recorded in 2009ish and nothing to do with the time or location, but definitely in keeping with the narrative. Again, an instrumental variation appears elsewhere.

For the remaining instrumentals, some are based on the first song I wrote for The Irony Board, very much in keeping with the time and place. Indeed, one of the events in the story features in the lyrics. Another couple are based on the song ‘TLLS’, an early Broken Down Lorry recording whose initials stand for Tender Little Love Song. It’s a song Wilf could have written. One of the tracks meanwhile features the inimitable and much-loved voice of Mike Neville, local newsreader on both BBC and ITV regional broadcasts.

It’s very much the intention that the soundtrack adds to the reading experience of ‘This Is Not The End’, although I suppose that should go without saying…

You can get the soundtrack free with purchases of physical and digital copies of the book from www.brokendownrecords.bandcamp.com

You can also listen to it on streaming services like Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/1BKGuKSiDsKzeYZdIrHgpD?si=XjzN0f0vTzOs4dOfheBywg

Pauline, Neville, Maureen and Kevin

 

‘Welcome to the Underachievers’ is officially published on Friday. Hooray! This means you can now get it from your favourite ebook store, from your local bookshop, and also A*@%on should that be your preferred location.

You may also choose, like the wonderful folk who pre-ordered print copies that came with a free CD, to order direct from the author - ie me - at the Bandcamp store. You won’t now get the CD, but you should get a digital download of the songs soundtracking the book, along with a print version or ebook version depending on your choice.

Hard sell over, let’s move onto the video. It’s another home-made affair, again using analogue technology with essentially no training, and is for the song ‘Pauline and Neville’. The song began life as ‘Maureen and Kevin’ after I saw some graffiti in Harrow, NW London. When I discovered that this was the name of a band, I renamed the track. Susie Woo Marsh sang ‘Maureen and Kevin’, whilst Ria Foxette sang ‘Pauline and Neville’. We did a full studio version of the latter version, but I think the video version is possibly our lo-fi version.

I hope you enjoy it, whatever.

Welcome to the Underachievers

So, here we have it: the follow-up to 'Capturing the Wry'. It's taken a long time to get this out into the big wide world - not that it is completely there yet - and even after the pre-sale launch I've been correcting errors so you get the best possible reading experience. That said, I refuse to rule out any more errors being discovered, but like wrong notes in a piece of recorded music and heavier-than-intended brush strokes on a painting, we'll just have to live with them. I am human after all, and if there's one thing humans are good at it is making mistakes.

I feel privileged to be including a foreword written by Richard Blackborow of the band BOB. BOB have been a source of continual musical pleasure for me since I first stumbled upon them in a 1989 Peel Session. I was lucky enough to write the band's official biography, and very much appreciate Richard taking the time to write the introductory words to  'Welcome to the Underachievers'.

'Welcome to the Underachievers' picks up from where 'Capturing the Wry' left off. Meeting Jacques Cachecarte was a significant marker in my social life; he was the first person I can remember sharing the love of similarly obscure bands as I did, other than my newly-acquired extended family. He could (and still does) write terrific songs and was (and still is) a really talented musician. I may have written the songs, made the videos, done the posters, written this book, but his role in the story cannot be underestimated.

In keeping with its predecessor, 'Welcome to the Underachievers' is being published with an accompanying CD. This time, however, you will have to be quick to get a copy, as only the earliest purchasers from the pre-sale at Bandcamp will get one. 

Here's the link

Beyond ‘Capturing the Wry’

 ‘Capturing the Wry’ is a musical memoir of being in an indie band in the early to mid 1990s. At the time it felt like came and fortune were both a single song and a million miles away. I mean, who would really be interested in the songcraft of an unemployed twenty year old from the periphery of Bolton? Would the bass guitarist really find his golden ticket away from the Royal Mail in a jangly indie band as lacking in confidence as they were riddled with daydreams? Would the band be enough to keep my cousin away from a proper career? Would it be sufficient to persuade one of my best friends to put his profession on hold?

In 1995 I moved to the outskirts of London and began a new life. It took me a couple of years to find a kindred musical spirit again, and when I did it was in a unit of an industrial estate in the darker reaches of Southall, where a day service for adults with autism and extremely challenging behaviour was located. I didn’t really want to form a band again; my heart was still wrapped up in the Irony Board even though we had been out of commission for a good while by then. However, once you push a cartoon snowball down a cartoon mountain it quickly gathers animated pace and ends up chasing Yosemite Sam through a canyon or something daft like that. And that’s sort of what happened with Echolalia.

The sequel to ‘Capturing the Wry’ will be published shortly. It tells the story of Echolalia, and how I got even closer to the dream of one day holding in my hand a 7”single of my musical wares. ‘Welcome to the Underachievers’ - for that is the title - will be published in early summer. A strictly limited edition print run will be accompanied by a CD containing the songs that soundtrack the story. An ebook version will also be available. Advance orders coming soon.

In the meantime, here’s a video for one of the songs…

Welcome to Croalworth

 Welcome to Croalworth.

Nestling in the West Pennine Moors in Lancashire, north west England, Croalworth’s history is dominated by industry. Weaving and coal feature heavily in the local museum, both industries now far less relevant in the modern world than they had been, leaving the once-proud town now resting its reputation upon fading glory. 

Much the same can be said about the town’s football team, winners of some of football’s most prestigious prizes in the early parts of the last century, now resigned to kicking balls aimlessly around a crumbling stadium in front of supporters whose humour is blacker than the coals upon which the town once relied.

The town takes its name from the river that runs through it. Its source is one of the many deep springs that pepper the hilly terrain and it eventually joins Manchester’s famous River Irwell. At one time the river, whose name is derived from old English meaning ‘winding stream’, was used to power the local industry. These days it mainly transports discarded plastics and other non-recyclables, although a family of rogue terrapins is reputed to live on its banks close to the town centre.

Modern day Croalworth has been hampered by the growth of out-of-town shopping centres, leaving the pedestrianised town hall squad much quieter than it would have been thirty years ago. However, a shift in town planning policy has seen an increase of former commercial premises returning to the family accommodation that could have been found a hundred years ago, and a number of fiercely proud and independent local businesses are beginning for take control of the retail sector. This is drawing in many more visitors from neighbouring towns, and the historic indoor market is becoming a cultural focal point.

Croalworth’s most recent claim to fame is it being the home of Wilfred Hughes, a fictional character in the novel ‘The Broken Bottle’ by John Hartley.

The View from Orlando Bridge

Paperback published by Broken Down Books via Lulu.com 2020 ISBN 9781716632686 

Order print copy here

Following the success of 'Capturing the Wry' I published 'The View from Orlando Bridge' in 2020. The book recounts memories of supporting and watching Bolton Wanderers during the 1980s and 1990s, tracking the club's fortunes (and misfortunes.) 

Each chapter focuses on one specific game, although several others are detailed throughout the tale, which is as much about growing up in the north west of England as it is about football. Chapters are arranged as a starting eleven with a substitute for good measure (there was only one allowed in the days the 10-year old John first went to watch Bolton play). Whether you choose to read the book in a 4-4-2, 4-3-3 or 5-3-2 formation is entirely up to you.

 

Capturing the Wry

Paperback published by i40Publishing via Biddles, 2018 ISBN 9781999582784

ebook published by Broken Down Books via Draft2Digital 2022 ISBN 9798215725719

Order copy (ebook only)

Order copy (ebook with digital soundtrack)

This was the first book published by the micropress i40Publishing, an offshoot of the Everything Indie Over 40 social media community, and the first book I had written to be formally published. Telling the factual story of Bolton-based indie band the Irony Board between 1993 and 1995, the book was accompanied by a 15-song CD containing all the band's studio recordings. 

I launched the book with readings and live song performances at the LP Cafe in Watford. 100 copies of the paperback were printed and the edition sold out within weeks. I say 100 copies were sold, one was given away in a competition, and another was left out in the wild to be read and then passed on. Who knows where that one resides now?

Due to subsequent popular demand, an ebook version was published. This is available to buy via the links above, with or without the songs.