Looking Sideways: 10 Things
Here are ten things I thought were worth sharing this week
1. Me and friend-of-the-show Olie sporting the classic LS logo tee there - and the good news is I have free shipping across the entire Looking Sideways merch range until midnight Sunday midnight on Sunday 3rd!
I know - everybody is heavily on the sales tip right now. And I know ‘buying things from small independents is to cast a vote for the type of world you want to live in’ is a thundering cliche. ‘Tis kinda true tho. So if you do feel like spending some of your festive ‘buy more shit or we’re all fooked’ budget on yourself or a LS loving pal, this might be a good place to start. Speaking of which….
2 …we still have some copies of our book Looking Sideways Vol. 1 available. A couple of years later, now the scars have healed, I’m really proud of this collaborative piece of work between myself and Owen Tozer.
It came about because we travelled to California to record a load of episodes, and got so much done we realised we had enough material for a book. The first print run flew out, so we made a second one. Chas Smith from Beach Grit described it as ‘ a work of art’ which I think is primarily down to Owen’s beautiful photography and art direction.
It features contributions from Jamie Brisick, Chris Cote, Annie Fast, Dibi Fletcher, Lauren Hill, Jeff Johnson, Ed Leigh, Ben Powell, Rob Machado, Keith Malloy, Ben Mondy, Craig Peterson, Todd Richards, Jen Sherowski, Chas Smith, Demi Taylor and Circe Wallace.
Find out more and grab a copy here.
3. Congratulations to my pal Sam McMahon on his new film Left/Right, ‘a film about turning’ but really much, much more than that. Is this doesn’t get you amped for winter, I don’t what will.
4. I didn’t have ‘Outkast’s Andre 3000 makes a flute-based ambient-prog record’ on my 2023 card. And I enjoyed his specially curated jazz playlist even more than the record itself (which is brilliant btw). Listen above.
5. Matahi Drollet’s latest update on the campaign against the new aluminium tower at Teahupoo is a pretty stark example of what happens when sideways culture meets the immovable mainstream.
Want to stoke out that Looking Sideways-loving pal this Christmas AND help support what I do? Hit the button below 🎅🏻 🎄🚀🦈🍺
6. My pals at The Snowboard Asylum have just the podcast ranks with Thank U Snowboarding, with my old pal Chris Cracknell in the hosting chair. Looking forward to seeing how this one evolves. Check the first episode with Ed Leigh here.
7. Simon Sebag Montefiore’s The Romanovs is one of the books I enjoyed the most this year, and I learned a lot about Jerusalem and Palestine from his interview on Leading.
8. Nate Florence and friends X the 24th November North Shore swell 😳
9. ICYMI - I want to reshape the latest episode of Roundtable, which this time was a special collab episode with the great Matt Pycroft from The Adventure Podcast, recorded in front of a live audience at the 2023 Kendal Mountain Festival.
We invited our pals Adam Rajah, Soraya Abdel-Hadi and Roundtable regular Lauren MacCallum to join us, and this conversation is the result:
This one was really special. I’m really grateful to Matt of being such a great collaborator; to Adam, Lauren and Soraya for their trust and openness; and to the audience for being so engaged and receptive to this format and conversation. Let’s do it again!
10. Finally - my 2023 playlist now has 263 songs, or 18 hours of listening on there. Whack it on shuffle.
Got a story or link you think might work for my weekly Ten Things, which goes out to many thousands of readers each week? Let me know! Enjoyed this dispatch?