Rob Massey

A great debut by an engaging author who writes from experience. There are elements that evoke a sense of Colin MacInnes novel Absolute Beginners, and moments that are like the original tale that Nik Cohn wrote and was later developed into the blockbusting American movie Saturday Night Fever. Yes - Rob Massey has produced a novel that really captures the British urban young man educating himself. It's summertime in England and the flowers are in bloom. But, for a recent college boy like Artie, the prospects are not good. These are the early eighties and there's a collapsing economy and three million unemployed. So what does Artie do? Does he let it put him off his stride? That's not the way he lives his life. The big, bad age of responsibility is on the horizon so he's going to enjoy himself while he can. Forget the negative, concentrate on the music, the clothes, the parties, the other delights out there. There's fun to be had and he's going to find it in the technicolor world of rhythm and soul that emanates from his stereo and beyond. Put on the threads, turn down the lights, turn up the jukebox. Artie's on a voyage of fun and discovery as he loses himself in his very own Indian summer.

Up Beat Down is a worthy successor to the earlier volume Beat Dimensions. It contains Cat In The Sack, Danny's first real attempt at spontaneous rhyme, and many more which have been fired by a burst of inspiration, such as a phrase or a newspaper article. Some poems were influenced by the brilliance of John Cooper Clarke, who's voice Danny could hear as he worked. There's social observation here, a kitchen sink visit to reality, twenty-twenty-four style, with an emphasis on authenticity rather than what might be presented by the mainstream media. You'll be taken to Paris, to a tourist landmark, but you won't see it like you would in the brochure. You'll go to a traditional English pub but it won't be a picture postcard. You'll encounter contemporary mores, contemporary bores, the trend for home deliveries and dialling a ride, the lives that are lived beneath a major flight path, a world where the use of AI is taking over. But there are contemporary inspirations as well. You'll sing to these melodies. You'll hear what spurs the muse, where it can take you if you write for yourself and don't worry about restrictions. In the world unseen by the mainstream, you'll feel the pulse of the imagination, the beat, the bebop, the soul. You'll be taken to Soho, to the land of the absolute beginner, the home of the hip, you'll touch the creases of the cloth, meet the hedonistic delights that take you to the moon and back. It's all there in a phrase, a moment of truth that you will recognise, whether you knew it before or not. There are nods to modernism, art, culture, music. You'll visit subculture, eighteenth century style. You'll find a oneness with nature. There will be descriptions of reality, from the gentle pursuit of angling, so real in fact that you could almost be there, to the pleasures of plonk. There are personal recollections, innermost memories. Fears coming alive in the corridors of nightmares. The underclass personified in the decline of small towns. The blight of waste products littering the urban landscape. This is a book that brings Modernist Beat Poetry into the spotlight. As writer Jason Brummell says you need to, "Dig in, and Dig it "

A Destination of Dreams is Jason Disley's essential collection of Modernist Beat Poetry that continues to explore what is both real and surreal, along with the art of existence. Caught between thoughts of the past, musings of the present and an uncertainty of the future, Jason Disley's poetry distils the questions of identity and purpose and the age-old existential problems of being and belonging, against a filmic backdrop of familiar urban images played out in short, literary scenes. His latest anthology is a hybrid- a poetic-musical gem, set out as an album of diverse, long-playing tracks, aptly matching his contemporary beat-style to familiar snapshots of life which seem as dreamy as they are real. In connecting us, Disley skilfully juxtaposes the reader's imagination into an infectious stream of consciousness narrative which snaps with pace and jazzy rhythms. They are knowingly familiar. A Destination of Dreams catches the voyeur at the window, the sound of traffic on wet, city streets, and the mad philosophies of the professor of thought. Jason Disley continues to develop his poetry here, or is it there? His delicious wordplay will throw your imagination across the liminal spaces of human existence.

An exciting collection of short stories edited by Jason Disley that take the reader down the varied avenues of jazz. From musicians, to lifestyle - to the nights that can change everything with a moment of intricate spontaneity. Expect the unexpected, an element of cool that jazz enthusiasts will recognise. From Soho to Paris, from postwar modernity in Manchester to traditional dixieland in America - these writers deliver the beat and soul that will haunt you like a piece of music. With contributions from Rob Massey, Nathan James Le-Bas, Jason Brummell, Pete Mckenna, Jason Disley himself, and Paul Anderson -you enter the realms of entertainment and experience. DJ, and jazz enthusiast Tom Hoy provides the foreword.