Matt’s originally from Manchester but has made his home in Newport. In between writing novels (check out Playing Mercy, it’s ace) and writing plays for theatre group Slunglow, he buys loads of music in Diverse. He seemed like a good person to ask…

Recorded music highlights of 2008
I can never remember what year things came out but these are five records I’ve listened to lots this year:

Dear Science – TV On The Radio
Underwater Dancehall – Pinch
Soundboy Punishments – Skull Disco
Dancehall: The Rise Of Jamaican Dancehall Culture – Soul Jazz Records
Where You Go I Go Too – Lindstrom

Live music highlights of 2008
Does that include people playing records live? If so, Pinch in Newport, mainly for when he played Benga & Coki’s ‘Night’ and I found myself, dare-I-say-it, ‘doing the bogle’. His support Joker was very good too.
I don’t get out much, and usually end up in a state that means I can never remember if the event was a recent one or years old. I think I went to a Rockabilly night that I enjoyed but I can’t even remember where that was. I also went to a Northern Soul All-Nighter at Bury Town Hall but was deeply disappointed. Parts of Spiritualized in Manchester were very good, other bits were really boring. I left The Green Man Festival after being there for less than an hour. I went to a good Motown night in Leeds and an excellent Spearmint Rhino in Bournemouth. Yeah, Spearmint Rhino is pushing the ‘live music’ aspect a little far no isn’t it? When did I go to Nashville? Was that this year? If so, the band on Printer’s Alley who had a pedal operated desk fan to blow their hair back for important choruses was almost unbeatable. And on a serious note, The Easy Dream are always excellent.

What else did you enjoy this year?
Well, the Champions League Final (He’s a Man U fan – Ed.) was both hilarious and joyous, it’s not often you can say that; Slunglow taking different shows to London’s Barbican and Liverpool City of Culture within a month of each other was something approaching an experimental theatre pincer movement; Getting commissioned by the Lowry, Almeida and Barbican for next year was pleasing to say the least (okay, I’ll put my own trumpet away for a bit).

Books: I know some of these aren’t 2008 but you don’t read books like that do you? I did read and love these in 2008 though: Willy Vlautin’s ‘Northline’ made me hate him with a jealous rage as it proved ‘The Motel Life’ wasn’t a fluke; ‘Tokyo Year Zero’ by David Peace just illustrated once again why he absolutely runs things at the minute; ‘Humanity’ by Jonathan Glover and ‘Black Mass’ by John Gray were good for the old grey matter; finally read ‘Fup’ by Jim Dodge after everyone in the world telling me how good it is (and for good reason); Gerry Feehily’s ‘Fever’ and Tristan Hughes’ ‘Revenant’ were great. Also read some good, and a lot of shit, fiction online. An awful lot of posers out there, beware.

Favourite telly? Yank TV shat on everyone else again (apart from the Italian version of Deal Or No Deal – seek it out). Everybody’s saying The Wire so I’ll say Brotherhood even though it isn’t as good as The Wire; Peter Flannery’s writing in ‘The Devil’s Whore’ actually made me watch a costume drama as well, so all is not lost in the UK.

What else did I enjoy? One particularly long train journey singing along to The Band on my iPod made me happy, if not the rest of the carriage; Toddla T’s ‘Fill Up Mi Portion’ was a great single; I got collared for unintentionally Nazi saluting a building-sized poster of Pope John Paul II in Krakow, which was a great laugh for my mate taking a photos of the whole debacle; and George Osbourne on the Yacht made me laugh loads.

However, easily my highlight of the year was falling asleep in the bath with a shuffle on iTunes only to be awoken by the key change in Sisqo’s ‘Thong Song’.

Pretty sensational year all round.

2008 was…
…and still is, BOOZ backwards if you spell it on a calculator.

2009 will be…
…the last year we will use the words ‘Two-Thousand’ as the prefix to the date. Enjoy it while you can, it’s going to be Twenty all the way after next year.