Jude Rogers: The Sound Of Being Human: How Music Shapes Our Lives
Writer and broadcaster Jude Rogers’ fantastic first book, The Sound Of Being Human, explores the reasons "why music plays such a deep-rooted role in so many lives, from before we are born to our last days”.
Jude will be in conversation with Emma Warren, talking about music’s power to help us tell stories.
Read an extract from Jude’s book, Caught by the River’s April 2022 Book of the Month, here.
Richard King
Photo: Elijah KingLongtime Caught by the River contributor Richard King’s essential new book, Brittle With Relics, is a landmark history of Wales between the early ’60s and late ’90s.
He returns to the Gladstone Estate to talk about the roots of modern Wales with writer and editor Darren Chetty.
Richard’s other work includes Original Rockers (shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and a Rough Trade, The Times and Uncut Book of the Year), How Soon Is Now? (the Sunday Times Music Book of the Year) and The Lark Ascending (a Rough Trade, Mojo and Evening Standard Book of the Year, shortlisted for the Penderyn Prize), all published by Faber & Faber.
He was born into a bilingual family in South Wales and for the last twenty years has lived in the rural county of Powys, Mid Wales.
Lucy Cooke: Bitch! A Revolutionary Guide to Sex, Evolution and the Female Animal
The CBTR crew first booked ace zoologist and broadcaster Lucy Cooke to talk about her favourite animal — the sloth — back in 2015.
This time, she’s talking about her fascinating book on sex and the female animal, described by telly’s Sue Perkins as “the evolutionary reboot us bitches have been waiting for.”
Lucy will read from and discuss the book as part of our lineup for this year’s Camp Good Life. Read an edited extract from Lucy Cooke’s revolutionary guide to sex, evolution and the female animal, on the Caught by the River website, here.
“From lemurs to spiders, this gleeful exploration of female sexuality in the animal world overturns a host of outdated assumptions.”
Read the wonderful review here.
DJ Kath McDermott
Photo: Tom Quaye33 years DJing in every den of inequity Manchester has to offer and still hasn't got a proper bio...
Kath was a resident at queer jamboree Flesh at the Hacienda for 5 years, then on to Paradise Factory. After a while she was the first resident at a new night called Homoelectric. ("It'll never last" they said).
She played regularly at lots of other places- Vague, Garlands, Trash, Ministry of Sound.
She still plays occasionally when it’s a good do because she is a terrible show-off, but most of the time when she is near bass bins she would rather be dancing like a loon than having to concentrate on putting on records.
She makes exceptions for special nights run by special people who really care about clubbers having fun like Social Service, Homolectric, Bollox, Kiss Me Again, Homobloc and the lovely Heavenly crew.
Kath is proud to be a co-founder of the annual fundraiser for women’s charities and one of the best nights she has ever played at - Suffragette City.
H. Hawkline
Hawkline — Huw Evans to his mates — will be performing with his full band, playing long-promised new music.
Multi-talented Huw is also an accomplished designer, having recently put together album covers for Aldous Harding, Cate Le Bon, Gwenno and Katy J Pearson.
Cherry Ghost
The Ivor Novello award winning songwriter Simon Aldred makes a very rare solo live appearance at Camp Good Life 2022.
Celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of his peerless debut album Thirst for Romance, Simon will be performing his favourite songs from that album and the other two Cherry Ghost records released on Heavenly.
Band Pres Llareggub
Photo: Kristina BanholzerNorth Wales’ very finest brass band ensemble, Band Pres Llareggub’s music invokes the sumptuous flavours of New Orleans marching bands thrown in a tumble dryer with Bronx-inspired hip hop and Welsh language pop music.
Peter Riley
Author of a recent CBTR book of the month, Peter came to our attention when we were pitched a copy of Strandings: Confessions of a Whale Scavenger — an illuminating and fascinating book about a deeply strange obsession.
Peter is in conversation with author Ali Millar.
Zaffar Kunial
Zaffar is a former Faber New Poet (from the same vintage intake as Will Burns) and a familiar face at many Caught by the River events.
Us (Faber, 2018) was shortlisted for the Costa Poetry Award and the T. S. Eliot Prize. His second poetry collection, England’s Green, is forthcoming from Faber in September 2022.
Eels with Michael Malay and Luke Thompson
The perfect opening to any Caught by the River weekend, as a pair of avowed eel enthusiasts — site contributor Michael Malay and Guillemot Press founder Luke Thompson — share their enthusiasm for everybody’s favourite snake-like, catadromous fish.
About Michael.
Michael Malay is a writer and teacher based in Bristol. He was raised in Jakarta, Indonesia, before moving to Australia with his family at the age of ten. His writing has been published in various journals, including The Clearing, Caught by the River, and The Willowherb Review. He is currently working on his first book about migration, extinction and uncharismatic creatures.
About Luke Thompson.
Born in Cornwall surrounded by animals (monkeys, parrots, frogs, dogs, bugs, mice, pigs, chickens and whatever else turned up) Luke now finds myself back in Cornwall writing about animals.
In 2016 he co-founded Guillemot Press, a very small publisher of beautiful books, with Sarah Cave.
He is a senior lecturer at Falmouth University, teaching non-fiction, poetry, publishing and collaboration.
DJ Pete Fowler
The Monsterist himself, artist/Seahawk and our favourite party DJ Pete Fowler has been providing music to blame the next day’s hangover on at more Caught by the River events than we can remember.
Laura Groves
Photo: Suzie HowellAn artist and producer born in West Yorkshire and based in South London, Laura Groves is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter who explores themes of inner worlds, healing, connection, imagined environments and real-life surroundings.
Her music mixes traditional songwriting with experimental synthesised sounds and textural electronic layering.
Now signed to Bella Union, she has previously released killer records on XL and DEEK Records, created with long-time collaborator Bullion.
Fran Lobo
Fran is a singer, songwriter, producer, choral composer and sound artist from London.
Her work is centred around the importance of having a voice and enabling others to do the same through her creative and facilitation endeavours. Described by Dazed as ‘one of a kind… she is currently carving out a niche of her own, creating music that all at once manages to be ethereal, empowering and perfect for a sing-along’.
Perfect for Friday night then.
Molly Linen
Molly is a songwriter and guitarist from the West Midlands.
Making records for the greatest bothy-based label in the world (Lost Map), she creates atmospheric, captivating and personal songs, led by melodic guitar lines and lulling yet hypnotic vocals.
For fans of This Is The Kit, Cat Power, Anne Briggs and Nick Drake.
Praise for Molly Linen’s recent EP ‘Days Awake’, out on Lost Map Records:
“Remarkable...a delicate, hugely emotional return”
“Gorgeous and precise, ‘Days Awake’ is a masterful piece of work that takes Linen’s signature serene sound and elevates it with varied instrumentation and ambient-inspired elements.”
“Beautiful”
“...Molly Linen returns with six majestically realised new songs that feel as natural as breathing, as hopeful as the beam from a lighthouse.”
Cerys Hafana
Cerys’ music was brought to our attention by Heavenly Recordings artist Gwenno.
She is a triple harpist, pianist and composer from Mid Wales.
Her music is inspired by anything from nursery rhymes to the sound of the rain and she uses techniques and effects on the triple harp to evoke the sound of both the language and weather of Wales.
She is also a contributor to Welsh Plural: Essays on Future of Wales, from which she will read later in the weekend.
Heavenly Jukebox DJs
The DJ arm of the legendary Heavenly Recordings.
What do you want to hear?
Soul, hip hop, disco & boogie classics, house, fresh edits, new electronic records, rock n roll, balearic, afro, party jams? It’s all in the Heavenly Jukebox.
Playing only the finest records and tearing up the dance floors of festivals, clubs, basements or wherever since 1990, this is sure to be an all-encompassing lesson in the rich tapestry of music, what else would you expect from the DJ arm of the legendary Heavenly Recordings?