David Lance Callahan
@davidlancecallahan
English Primitive reinventor, Moonshake/Wolfhounds ranter, Swell Maps supply guitarist, nature writer. #MDANT
Finally managed to get down to Cattawade Marshes, Essex, on Saturday morning to see the lonesome Hudsonian Godwit feeding on the mud and even flashing its lovely black underwing. A niche pleasure, I'll grant you, but a wholesome one.
Back on BBC Radio Live for the first time tonight - listen in on 6Music from 9pm. It's not like there's anything else on ... ;)
If you're in East London on Saturday afternoon, I'll be performing a few songs and bouncing ideas around with sound artist David Chapman at UEL's Wild East London Imaginarium event. It's FREE, it starts at midday, and it's at their USS Campus – check the flyer!
Quiz app Whendle definitely knows what the most important historical events of the 20th century were ...
The problem with being a muso of a certain age, is post-gig activities are no longer nefarious. Thus, after the triumphant Swell Maps show in Sheffield on Friday, the lure of a small record fair led me back into old expensive habits ...
RIP bloke from the Village People. Thought I'd audition for the new vacancy. Wish me luck!
A major part of my Mull trip was to find the one remaining UK breeding species I'd never seen: Corncrake, summering on the tiny island of Iona. So, it was exciting when one leapt onto a wall by the abbey and started singing in the open for many minutes – and I had it to myself the whole time.
The traditional bad photos of Brìghde Chaimbeul, Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman bringing the bagpipes, banjo and fiddle drone to a sell-out crowd at Earth Hackney tonight. Highly recommended (though more banjo would have been even better) ...
It's been quite a good spring for migration in the South-East. Here's a photo dump of some highlights. Particularly exciting was the Ross's Gull in Tilbury – a lifer for me, and a dream bird anywhere ...
Nice to see someone posting this early review from Sounds in 1986. Despite what the writer says, I'd happily buy that brown corduroy jacket again if I still fitted in it...
Today would have been Orson Welles' birthday. Why not treat yourself to a (re)watching of Touch of Evil, The Lady from Shanghai (from where I pinched the phrase 'Bright & Guilty' for the Wolfhounds' 2nd album), The Third Man, Catch 22, F for Fake, etc, etc?
Fast becoming one of my favourite-ever LPs. Found this cheap 80s reissue a few weeks ago. Dr John the Nighttripper moods + plenty of off-kilter jazz, soul & funk + slinky version of Mr You're a Better Man Than I = unlauded genius.
Vote Reform if you want bastards like this to run the country.
40 years and one week ago precisely, The Wolfhounds got our first feature in the NME, courtesy of Jerry Thackray. I rushed down to WH Smith in Romford, snapped one up and read it – twice – on the fountain wall. I'd been reading the magazine for 10 years by that point. It was all downhill from there.
Very pleased to be on site when five Little Gulls were found this morning, pitter-pattering over Aveley Pools like albino storm-petrels. With the Spoonbills at Abberton Reservoir, I'm now on 132 for my South-East year and 77 for Rainham ...
Great review of the new Swell Maps LP, C21, in the latest Mojo by Andy Cowan – even name-checking me and Luke. Hear and buy it here: swellmapsc21.bandcamp.com/album/c21
The Cartier-Bresson of gig photography strikes again. Tonight's indecisive moments come from the excellent Samantha Crain show at the Union Chapel. Viewers, it was emotional.