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#HearthstoneCottage makes HappyGoatHorror’s Top 10 Ghostly Horror Books list!
#TheCure concerts I have known & loved: Hyde Park, 7th July 2018
The Cure’s 40th anniversary was always going to be special. But quite this special? What a day. What a night. Let’s rewind to 7th July 2018…
It was a scorchingly sunny Summer’s day in Londontown & 65,000 of the faithful descended on Hyde Park in a shimmer of summer hats beneath a black cloud of tour t-shirts. Robert Smith had curated quite the line-up (something of a continuation of his amazing Meltdown Festival during the preceding month).
Editors, Pale Waves, Lisa Hannigan, The Twilight Sad, Ride, Goldfrapp (spent most of their set queueing for a t-shirt), Interpol, (and more!) all went down a storm before The Cure arrived onstage to a truly rapturous heroes’ welcome.
What followed was the consummate festival set (reminiscent of their standout Bestival shows from 2011 & 2016) featuring an embarrassment of hits & some strategically placed deeper & darker grooves like Burn & If Only Tonight We Could Sleep.
The encores had everyone singing along, (their voices already raw from cheering for Engerland in the World Cup quarter final earlier) and The Cure brought its anniversary to a close with a clutch of the tunes that have helped them endure in the hearts & on the stereos and playlists of so many.
I’m glad that I was lucky enough to have seen the ‘Curaetion-25’ Meltdown show a couple of weeks earlier, when they played two tracks off each album forwards then backwards along the Cure’s timeline. It meant that i was (a little) less obsessive about hearing songs from Pornography & Faith than i usually am!
I couldn’t help but think of the stark contrast with the band’s previous Hyde Park outing, in 2002. That was one of their darkest outdoor sets (and one of my favourites, natch!) and really felt like the end of a chapter for the band — whereas this anniversary show felt like a joyous pause, a playful stocktake before the beginning of a new one.
Early on, Robert apologised for his lack of banter between songs, but as the sun went down he opened up a bit. “Thanks to everyone around me, I’m still here…” Robert mumbled, “and to you as well, so thank you very much!”
We had the opportunity to relive this special show all over again, in cinemas, with the Anniversary film shot by none other than Tim Pope, and then at home with the sumptuous 40 Live box set.
“It’s been a good four decades, here’s to the next one,” Robert said at the end of this epic gig, “here’s to the next one! See you again very soon!”
And we did. But as ever, that’s another story…
See what The Cure played on 7th July 2018 here.
Follow The Cure on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and visit the official website.
Comment below with your Cure memories! I’d love to hear them!
Out now: Shadows on the Water
Happy to announce the publication of Shadows on the Water from Flame Tree Publishing, which features my short story To Take the Water Down and Go to Sleep.
This gorgeous book is stacked with so many amazing authors and stories, both classic and contemporary, and is a must for Gothic Fantasy & Horror readers.
Don’t delay, order your copy today!
https://mybook.to/shadowsonthewater
Cheers for reading,
Frazer x
Happy Goat Horror’s Top 10 Horror Novels of 2023
Thanks to Happy Goat Horror for including my novel Greyfriars Reformatory in their Top 10 Horror Novels of 2023! Some amazing authors & books on this list, it’s a great honour.
https://happygoathorror.com/2024/01/05/my-top-10-horror-novels-of-2023/
A nervous glance back at 2023 & a cheeky peek forward to 2024
As i sat beside the fire last night, nursing a Guinness & burning the Yule Log & last year’s Xmas tree offcut, i got to thinking about the importance of rituals in daily life.
And, as is customary on this blog, it’s time once more to ritualistically take a quick look back at events of last year before stepping into the unfolding mystery of the new.
(I know these year-in-review posts can be the last thing you might wish to read if you’re struggling right now. If that’s the case, I’d just like to send you my love & all best wishes for the year ahead.)
2023 was a year of highs & lows for sure, as I’m sure was the case for many of you. The terrible loss of so many luminaries hit hard each and every time. Personally speaking, losing both Chris Fowler & Benjamin Zephaniah in 2023 was nothing short of savage. Both had such an impact on anyone who knew them, and their work, and both left us far too soon.
The highs kept me going some. 2023 was The Year of The Doctor, and not only because it was the 60th anniversary of the much beloved franchise. After 5 years of research, which flew by, I completed my PhD and can now call myself a Doctor of horror. And I finally got to achieve a lifetime ambition to write something officially within the Whoniverse, in the form of Gobbledegook, a 5th Doctor audio adventure for Big Finish Productions.
I was also lucky enough to publish Planet of the Dead, a short story in the Blake’s 7 universe, as part of Cult Edge’s charity annual project — another ambition fulfilled.
My novella series The Daniel Gates Adventures was collected in paperback for the first time by Crossroad Press — just in time for my only live event of 2023, the brilliant Haunted Landscapes Conference in Falmouth, where I presented a short paper (snappily entitled The Jackboot in the Green: Writing Corporate Horrors in Folkloresque Landscapes).
Post-Covid lockdowns, the indie film industry finally kicked into gear again, with my folk horror short The Stay picking up its 30th award on the film festival circuit. I signed a shopping agreement with Play House Studios for my psychological horror feature screenplay Knock Three Times, and launched my next directorial project, Death By PowerPoint with my partners at Reel Fearz, Ash Verma Consulting & Brunel University, and which will hopefully shoot in 2024.
Early 2024 will see the publication of my horror story To Take the Water Down and Go to Sleep, and… beyond that? Well, to be honest it’s all a bit of a mystery right now, and hopefully in a good way! (I won’t even mention the possibility of that ever elusive new The Cure album… oops!)
So, I hope I’ll see you here again this time next year to take stock, count blessings, and to commiserate if necessary. In the meantime, here’s wishing you a happy, healthy, imaginative 2024.
Take care out there and, as always, thanks for reading.
Love, Frazer x
#TheCure concerts I have known & loved: Hammersmith Apollo, 21 & 22 December 2014
Hard to believe it’s already nine(!?) years since The Cure played their festive run of gigs at the Hammersmith Apollo, a venue that keeps changing its name but which to me will always be, well… Hammersmith Apollo.
There was a lot of speculation from fans online about the gigs. Would they be like the Trilogy shows? Would they play the Top, The Head on the Door, and Kiss Me albums over the three nights? Would there be new songs?
The announcement of the support act was a big hint. And Also the Trees would join our heroes just as they did for the 1984 shows at the same venue. The Top album formed the backbone (or Bananafishbones?) of the set, which also included some rareties and plenty of crowd pleasers. (Tantalisingly, The Cure also soundchecked Stop Dead, but it didn’t appear in the set…)
The first night was a brilliant timewarp of the band’s back catalogue, and reminded me that a Cure gig really is like time travel through past, present (and sometimes into the future). Like Cockatoos was a feathery flurry of nostalgia (a favourite of mine, which The Cure played at my first ever Cureshow). Many of The Top tracks were performed for the first time in 30 years, and the unhinged brilliance that is A Man Inside My Mouth made its live debut.
Another rare outing (Hey You!!!) brought festivities to a joyous close, with the crowd singing & dancing along in the aisles. But the at-close-quarters party atmosphere inside the packed and sweaty venue also meant that I got ill and couldn’t attend the third and final night. But two out of three ain’t bad when you’re seeing the best band in the (empty) world.
See what The Cure played here.
Check out some video footage, while it’s still available.
and Happy Winter Solstice x
Frazer x
Happy 60th, #DoctorWho
Seems like only yesterday that we were celebrating the 50th & yet somehow today is the 60th Anniversary of Doctor Who’s first appearance on our tellybox screens!
I remember an excitable & (much) younger me dragging my poor Grandmother around the Dr Who Exhibition in Blackpool like it was yesterday too…
And as a grown up (or perhaps because I refused to become one!?) I feel very blessed indeed to have been allowed to make my own small contribution to the Whoniverse during the show’s 60th year.
So, from one Doctor to another — Happy birthday! And here’s to many more x
Happy #DoctorWhoDay
Love from Dr Lee x
Check out Happy Goat Horror’s review of my novel #GreyfriarsReformatory
Grateful to Happy Goat Horror for this thoughtful review of Greyfriars Reformatory. Here’s a snippet.
“Lee’s character work is great. We have five young women thrust together in this old girls’ reformatory, and Principal Quick who is in charge […] I had no trouble distinguishing between them as their personalities were all so strong and fully-formed. I love a writer who can just drop individuals into a story like that.”
Read the full review here, and then buy the book – it’s perfect reading for spooky season!
Thanks for reading,
Frazer x
Coming in 2024! Shadows on the Water…
Thrilled to have my short story ‘To Take the Water Down and Go to Sleep’ in this gorgeous anthology from Flame Tree Press (publishers of my novels Hearthstone Cottage & Greyfriars Reformatory).
Never in a million years would I have dreamt that my work would be in a book with Bram Stoker & so many luminaries.
Can’t wait to read them all!
The book is out January 2024 (February 2024 in North America).
Full Table of Contents and further details here.
Thanks for reading,
Frazer x
FrazerLee.com 