iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

I always think I can do other stuff while printing something out. I never learn that something will always go wrong unless I'm giving the printer my 100% full attention the whole time.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The title is almost an anagram of "UN CIA guys' idea"

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Proof copies of my two new books, with stunning artwork by Lisa Jayne Wylde. More info and how to buy at bleedingcheekpress.bigcartel.com - pre-order to get signed, hand numbered copies ahead of everyone else and, if you buy both books, use the discount code UNDERGROUND23 at checkout.

Proof copies of my two forthcoming novels, Electric Tibet and Savage Jubilee, showing off Lisa Jayne Wylde's hand-cut cover art.

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Reposted by Ben Graham

The Invisible College @jjstannard.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

The Invisible College begins broadcasting via @slackcityradio.bsky.social this coming Tuesday at 9:30pm. Tune in and help us solve the problem of education.

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hookland.bsky.social @hookland.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

A reminder that not all of us middle-aged (I prefer the term old) give a shit about Public Information Films.

Hadleigh Great Wood, one of the great play territories
of my life, became much darker when that nice lady from
Orchill Drive was brutally killed within it. Police cordons as
magic circle, detectives hidden in the undergrowth shout
ing at you when you accidentally discovered them, the new
2 When the four-minute warning system accidentally activates in your locality,
this fear was already greatly amplified without the Protect and Survive PIF or
any viewing of Threads.
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Hookland Fragments Volume One
ghost zones a murder makes – all these were more powerful
a fear engine than any stranger danger PIF.
The long shadows of remembrance are different for every
one. What infects and inspires across time is not always
collective. While many of us children were co-parented by
the television screen, we did not all learn the same lessons.
We writers are always scratching out our haunted pasts
with crowds of black ink, but the seeds of our dread are
often ridiculously private and hyper-local. So yes, Lonely
Water is deeply, deliciously disturbing, but it really does
still have Jack All to do with Stay Belows

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Of course - no criticism of Hookland ever intended. I read and greatly appreciated Fragments Volume One last weekend by the way, and have passed it on to my partner who's currently enjoying it (we're all of the same vintage, and as she's an Essex girl there's an extra layer of resonance for her).

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

They've still got that to worry about too.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

The middle-aged "we are the haunted generation because we had scary public information films and serious stories about UFOs on the news" thing must seem pretty hollow to kids whose earliest memories are of lockdown and who now have headline news stories about how AI will probably wipe out humanity.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

I never hid behind the sofa from the Daleks, but I did worry about hearing that scary noise that meant the TARDIS was about to materialise in a room I was in, and not knowing where to stand so it didn't land on top of you.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Either you like the idea of a novel about how the 1967 Human Be-In was an occult hypersigil to manifest the US Summer of Love or you don't. If the latter, I apologise in advance for banging on incessantly about my new book over the next few months. bleedingcheekpress.bigcartel.com/product/elec...

bleedingcheekpress.bigcartel.com

Electric Tibet

An occult reimagining of the January 1967 Human Be-In in San Francisco that gave birth to the Summer of Love, Electric Tibet is the first book in the American Underground sequence of novels that toget...

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

If you want to order both books together, use the code UNDERGROUND23 at checkout to get £5 off.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I'm self-publishing 2 novels on 1/14/27. Electric Tibet imagines the 1967 San Francisco Human Be-In as a magical act to manifest the Summer of Love. Savage Jubilee goes back a generation to explore the world of 1940s psychedelia. Pre-orders are now live at bleedingcheekpress.bigcartel.com

bleedingcheekpress.bigcartel.com

Bleeding Cheek Press

Books, zines, and pamphlets by Ben Graham. Occasionally other things.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

I bought a copy in a Brighton charity shop 3 or 4 years ago for £3.50. Still with dust jacket, albeit slightly torn at the edges.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

My favourite film at age 20 was A Taste Of Honey, which came out 10 years before I was born.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Introduce Yourself With 10 Acts You've Seen Live The Cannibal Swamp Rabbits Dandelion Adventure Stitched Back Foot Airman Gary Whitfield's Big Secret Truncated Spur Go Van Go They Came From The Stars I Saw Them Burning Idiot Noise The Blue Minkies The Shite Girls

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

An ivy League 'Handbags And Gladrags' is my unqualified opinion.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Every million-selling megahit from the 80s is basically a wildly overconfident singer who can do one note really well, a keyboard riff you can play with one finger and a drum machine / sequencer just running the preset factory demo straight out of the box.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Buff Manilla has left the building.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 07/08/2026

I've never seen a hummingbird hawk moth before, but saw two close-up while out and about in East Sussex yesterday. Beautiful creatures.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 26/07/2026

Following @scribblerrob.bsky.social's excellent thread on artists you really should like but don't, I was thinking about the opposite: artists your overall tastes suggest you should hate, but which you unaccountably love. Steely Dan is the prime example for me.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Coming soon from Bleeding Cheek Press: the second book in the American Underground quartet. A novel of 1940s psychedelia.

Cover of forthcoming novel, Savage Jubilee, by Ben Graham, featuring an abstract mandala design.

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Reposted by Ben Graham

Rob Chapman @scribblerrob.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

@bleeding-cheek.bsky.social occasionally of this parish came along to the Piper in St Leonards a couple of weeks ago and gave me this. Krumlin's legacy was well known to me at the time as the disaster festival's disaster festival, but cripes what a read. A How Not To guide par excellence.

A wonderful account of a festival in the West Yorkshire hills where everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Thanks, Rob! Good to see you the other week.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 15/07/2026

I feel slightly ashamed about this, but Kate Bush. I love 70s art rock, 80s synth pop, magical folk, hauntology stuff, eccentric visionaries, goth, glam and idiosyncratic female voices (no problem with Laura Nyro or Judy Sill here) but even though I know she's good, Kate just doesn't do it for me.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

When I was a student and Suede first appeared they seemed so targeted at my specific tastes and dress sense that it immediately put me off. More recently, I keep meeting people who assume I must be a big Cardiacs fan. I know several ex-members and they're all lovely and talented, but no, really no.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

New issue of Shindig! out today with another cover story by me. I interviewed lovely Robyn Hitchcock about his new album, punk, psychedelia, family and his "write now, ask questions later" approach to lyrics.

Cover of Shindig magazine #176 with Robyn Hitchcock.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 02/06/2026

Tebay Rising Watford Gap: Songs & Stories

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 23/05/2026

Still disappointed that neither of Roger & Pete's 21st Century comeback albums was called 'Who New'

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

What year were you born, Johnnie?

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

It's not a deliberate thing of seeking out records from that year; the 2 or 3 years before are almost neck and neck with it, although the number drops off significantly the year after. The fact I keep track of these things also says a lot about me I think.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

I was born on the cusp of My Sweet Lord and Baby Jump, with T.Rex rising.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

My parents had long since stopped buying new LPs by the time I was born, and I don't have any older siblings, so it's not music I grew up hearing. Most of this stuff I discovered for myself many years later. I was born in 1971.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

The year I own the most albums from is the year I was born. I'm not sure if that says more about me or about music (as in, is it a coincidence that i was born in a peak year for the kind of music I like, or am I weirdly drawn to pop/rock that I'm just slightly too young to remember being released?)

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

Who is Karen Council and what authority does she have over mystical harp-playing snow elves?

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

I'd expect Hebden to have a large Green presence. Had a strong Labour base back in the day, though the Calder Valley tended to lean Tory by default. I had a summer job working for Halifax's Labour MP Alice Mahon in the late 80s, and regularly leafleted for Labour in Sowerby Bridge, pre-Blair.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Election here a two-horse race between Lib Dems and Reform. Labour may as well not be standing: no leaflets, no posters, no presence at all. Same with Greens. Desultory Tory flyer appeared 2 days ago.

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Reposted by Ben Graham

Lord Jubalon Flux @lordflux.co.uk · 07/04/2026

Geographically specific unease

A small booklet I found in a charity shop entitled “Sussex After The Bomb”. It’s subtitle, above an image of the couple from When The Wind Blows, “What will happen to Newhaven, Lewes, the Ouse Valley, Seaford, Eastbourne and Brighton?”

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

It's really a pre-word processing concept from when you 'd have to retype the whole thing with your corrections and rewrites included. Also keeping the original version (the 'first draft') on file for posterity / in case you change your mind about the edits / in case you lose every other version.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

I probably have more albums by Bowie than any other artist, and stacks of music books and biographies on my shelves, but all the conventional Bowie biographies I've read went back to the library or charity shops. Not that they were necessarily dreadful or badly written, but none were keepers.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

"Here's a chord. Here's another. Too late, forget it, we've already moved on."

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

I've seen the Spiral Scratch EP described as post-punk. Which presumably means the only actual UK punk records were Anarchy In The UK and New Rose. After that, everything is post-punk or retro revivalism. As a ridiculous revisionist theory it sort of appeals.

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Reposted by Ben Graham

David Lance Callahan @davidlancecallahan.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

Someone just uploaded this today. More folk-scifi than folk-horror, and featuring the ace Toni Arthur, ladies and gentlemen, Stargazy on Zummerdown in all its Dr Who meets the Archers, faux Shakespearian glory: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JPc...

youtube.com

Stargazy on Zummerdown.

YouTube video by Simon Berberian

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Q: Which Liverpool post-punk pop band were all sad-eyed former policemen? A: The Teardrop Explods

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

On the other hand, I'm currently revising my fifth novel; I've published four books of music journalism, and countless articles and reviews; and I live in a house full of books and music with a very understanding partner. So it's not gone too badly. And it's a nice hardware shop.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 19/02/2026

That should read 30 years since my first (and only) anthologised-by-a-major-publisher short story. The first story I ever submitted anywhere. This professional writing lark is a piece of piss, I thought. Gentle reader; I currently work in a hardware shop and copyedit AI drivel for peanuts.

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Ben Graham @bleeding-cheek.bsky.social · 18/02/2026

Nice. I wrote about the strangely post-Woodstock vibe of Terry Wogan's breakfast show, from the POV of a pre-teen listener in the rainy Calder Valley, on my old music blog. hellisforhipsters.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/a...

hellisforhipsters.wordpress.com

After The Flood

When I was a child it was the 1970s, and we listened to Radio Two. Specifically, we listened to Terry Wogan’s Breakfast Show, to get us up in the mornings for work …

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