Jan 7: Trivia Quiz - Question #1

What is the geographical connection included in the track 'Pharaohs' on this Tears for Fears album?

Answer in the comments below - 'points' for the first person to provide the answer - more questions each week or two as we go through the year...

And bonus points for the person who can suggest a Jethro Tull song which has the same geographical connection.

Jan 7: Remembering 'the Professor'

Through the year we will be marking anniversaries of events: some joyful and some immensely sad. The loss of this musician was particularly hard to take....

It's been six years today since the passing of the master musician and lyricist Neil Peart of the band Rush. 

I count myself extremely lucky to have seen him perform many times since 1982. He always gave 100% and the musicality of his drumming was beyond parallel. I've seen many great drummers play live, and he was the best.

Here's one of my favourite Rush songs, which we will also return to later in the year because of its theme of alienation in the suburbs, or subdivisions:

He was a part of my life for over 40 years, and Rush have to be one of the bands that I have played the most whether on LP, CD or streamed on Spotify. 

I was privileged to see Rush play live 7 or 8 times I think from 1982 onwards, to the final live gig I attended in Sheffield on the Time Machine tour in 2012 - I will always regret not seeing them on the Clockwork Angels tour now.... 

One of my favourite non-Rush videos is when Peart laid down a drum track for his friend Matt Scannell from the Australian band Vertical Horizon. 

The enjoyment of Matt as his friend and hero plays drums for him is infectious, and the drum track is awesome.... There are so many Rush tracks I could embed here... but check this out next...



And then check out Red Barchetta live from that Time Machine tour that I saw.

Along with his music, he was a great traveller - particularly on motorbikes but also on bicycles and he wrote about his travels in a series of books, most of which I have. These were excellent travelogues and observations of people, although he was a very private person. He also wrote lengthy pieces for Rush tour programmes - some of which I still have in my collection of tour memorabilia.

In October 2025, we had an interesting announcement from Geddy and Alex...

I'll not be partaking of this particular musical moment.

Here's a well conceived tribute video from Hudson Music... gives a flavour of his legacy and drum technique.

And check out his website.

Neil was partial to ending the day with a glass of the Macallan. But have you seen the price of it? 

I'll raise a glass of something more affordable to Neil tonight, as I have done each year since his passing.

Rest in peace Professor.

Jan 6: The Birth of Music - Radio 4

As we are at the birth of this new blog, this is a programme made for Radio 4 and presented by Jude Rogers, who was featured on the 2nd of January because of her book on the importance of music to our lives.

This looks back at when music first started. 

How did we come to develop a range of sounds which became music and mixed with our voices?

Details:

The ancient West Kennet Long Barrow burial chamber near Avebury in Wiltshire was built around 3650 BC. Its cave-like spaces, formed by vast rocks, are the setting for Jude Rogers’ exploration of how Neolithic people of that time might have made music.

We can’t know for sure of course, but music, ritual and dance are universal features of human life, and so it must have been even in pre-history. So what might be the links between prehistoric music gatherings and dance music culture today? A rave in the cave?

Jude is joined by Professor Rupert Till from the University of Huddersfield aka Professor Chill, a DJ and electronic music producer who knows about sound frequencies in ancient sites, and Letty Stott, a musician and PHD student who can get a tune from a conch. Historical context is provided by Dr Ben Chan, a highly experienced archaeologist from the University of Bristol who works at Avebury nearby.

We also hear from Ritta Rainio in Finland, whose research into prehistoric pendants culminated in a wild dance in a costume of rattling elk teeth. Artist and musician Jem Finer tells us the story of the Gurdy Stone.

Meanwhile musician ‘Spaceship’ Mark Williamson is hard at work recording sounds inside a neolithic tomb in Anglesey.

It was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2024 but is still available to listen to on BBC Sounds, and was repeated a week or so ago.

Jan 5: Come and see more at the GA Conference 2026

I'm pleased to say that you will be able to find out more about the work being done to populate this blog at the GA Conference in 2026 - by which time there will be 3 months-worth of posts to share.

I'm going to be co-presenting a session with Matt Podbury.

Matt Podbury and I are putting the band back together...

 

Our session at the GA Conference 2026 has been accepted and we've teamed up for some musical improvisation... this one's in 9/8....

Here's the details, we submitted, which will appear in the programme in due course:

Musical Geographies: Sense of Place and Storytelling in the curriculum

Music is a dynamic, everyday phenomenon that connects billions of people, places, and cultures. It offers a powerful lens through which to understand the world and our place within it. From local rhythms to global genres, music, and its associated visuals provide students and teachers with meaningful insights into diverse environments which help shape their worldview. 

For this collaborative lecture, Matt Podbury and Alan Parkinson are putting the band back together!

Matt will share how an idea to showcase his vinyl collection evolved into a rich, three-week unit on the Geography of Music for KS3 students. This explores themes such as sense of place, landscape and emotion, and the role of music in shaping our cultural identity, and addresses how music can be both a unifying and divisive force. Students design and produce their own vinyl LPs to end the unit.

Alan will share his new collaborative World of Music blog, which charts a year long journey through curriculum resources and collaborative pedagogy around music and its meanings; a playlist of ideas for teaching everyday geographies.

You will gain practical ideas, resources and inspiration for incorporating music into your own geography curriculum.

Browse the programme and Schedule us in here.

This one goes up to 11!

For my contribution, I've put together a Google Form here.

Jan 5: Matt Podbury's innovative 'Music and Place' unit

In November 2024, I was fortunate enough to attend Practical Pedagogies 3 in Cologne. Particularly as I'd already been to Iceland that half term which meant two trips away from family. It was another cracking event organised by Russel Tarr and hosted by a school just outside of the city, with provocations and entertainment by Hywel Roberts. The 2026 event is now open with a call for sessions.

"To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world – and at the same time that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.”

Marshall Berman

One session I went to at Practical Pedagogies was by my friend Matt Podbury: who is also a colleague of the organiser Russel Tarr at the International School of Toulouse, where he teaches geography.

He had been trialling a new unit on music and its connections with our emotional landscape. This includes a look at favourite music, emotional music and lyrics, sense of place and also the connections with landscapes. It's a chance for younger students to be introduced to some of the classics as well.

For Matt that meant Pulp (with connections with Sheffield where he used to teach) and Queen.

The session was really nicely put together and presented. We will also come back to Sheffield again later in the blog as it has a great musical heritage.

The unit is available on the GeographyPods website.

Matt finished by showing a tool called SUNO, which is an AI tool that generates a musical track or song in just a few sentences, based on the prompts it is given.

One particularly nice aspect of the work was the creation of physical artefacts which were in the form of LPs. Matt had sourced blank white LP sleeves, and also some cheap €1 vinyl records. It also helps that he has a sizeable record collection dating back to the 1990s which he could use to model what we was hoping for. 

The unit also had an element of emotional geographies about it.

Give it a look... and a go...

I've created a great song with Suno... it will appear later in the blog.

And Matt will be reprising this workshop in a joint session with me at the GA Conference in April 2026.

Jan 4: Guest blogger Carl Lee #1: Galang and the Sheffield ‘clank’

Carl will be contributing regular posts as we go through the year exploring a huge variety of alternative musical genres, well away from the beaten track... thanks in advance to Carl for expanding my personal musical horizons.

When Mathangi Arulpragasam, aka M.IA, the London born (of Sri Lankan heritage) singer, rapper and musician, released her debut single ‘Galang’ in August 2003 it was a 500 copy limited edition white label vinyl. 

It blew up. 

It is now a way-marker on Britain’s musical trajectory.



With its opening line ‘London Calling, speak the slang now’ the song became an early 2000’s anthem to the street life of the city of London, but the roots of the tune's sound lay partly some 170 miles north of London in the South Yorkshire city of Sheffield. This is where it was recorded: in a small ‘home-grown’ studio sitting just off the city’s London Road. 

It was here with Russ Orton and Pulp’s Steve Mackey aka ‘The Cavemen’, that the clanking beat of Galang was honed onto MIA’s Roland CC-505 composition.

The Sheffield clank is a sound that helped shape Sheffield’s musical identity in the late 80s. When the aptly named Sheffield musical collective ‘Forgemasters’ released in 1989 the seminal ‘Track with No Name’, which is widely credited as being one of the first techno records to gain any recognition in the UK, the clank was the rhythmic pulse of the track. 

This was also the starting point for Sheffield’s Warp Records, (the 'Track with no Name' having catalogue number Warp 001) that has evolved into becoming a leading film production company aside from having a back catalogue of techno, drum and bass and abstract beats second to none. 

As Winston Hazel, an original member of Forgemasters and celebrated Sheffield DJ, sets out, place was intrinsic to the evolution of this sound and Winston also insists it is spelt ‘clank’.

“The drop hammers from the Don Valley used to ricochet 24 hours a day. The sound used to bounce up the Valley and bounce off the hills and every hill you heard it from had a different resonant sound, and when the 700 ton drop hammer went off you could feel it in the air. You’d hear the sound at night-time, you’d go to sleep to it, and wake up to it and whenever you went into a studio to make music you had recognition of that. You’re a product of your environment and your music is as well”.

My dad: Alf Parkinson was a steelworker throughout this period, working at Templeborough, Steel Peech and Tozer and Meadowhall, then over to Parkgate. I remember dropping him off to work with my mum in the 1970s and seeing the sparks from the blast furnaces spewing out as he walked up the slope and into the mill. (AP)

MIA is also very much a product of her environment as well. 

Born in South London and then raised in Jaffna, Sri Lanka, after her Tamil activist parents moved back to Sri Lanka, eventually the family returned as refugees from the brutal civil war that engulfed Jaffna. MIA’s sound is a fusion of those experiences and places and draws on the hybridity of music that filled the streets of South London.

Although some might hesitate to afford Galang with its up-front sass, bleeps and clanking a deeper musicality the jazz pianist Vijay Iyer unlocks its rhythmic melodies in virtuoso fashion. 

Iyer is not only a Harvard Professor of music and celebrated jazz pianist but like MIA his family’s roots are in Sri Lanka’s Tamil community, in his case transposed to the USA. 

On his 2009 album 'Historically' he hammers his way through a masterclass of syncopation, rhythm and flow as he lays out Galang’s propulsive core minus any lyric content. It is startling modern jazz.



Yet MIA’s lyrics are central to the song's essential sense of place. 

This is multicultural South London, mashed up and drawing on a myriad of musical influences and with MIA’s practiced Tooting drawl. It really couldn’t have been from anywhere else – except it was, 

Sri Lanka via Sheffield and then marinated in South London's streets and clubs.

“Girls say what what.”

Carl Lee is retired but was a lecturer at The University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, taught A level Geography for 20 years at Sheffield College, is the author of five books about geography and has a PhD in economic geography. He has been nuts about music since buying his first single in 1973: 10cc’s 'Rubber Bullets' if you were wondering.

Jan 4: First gigs

What was the first live concert you attended?

Who was playing and what was the venue?

What year was the gig?

What are your memories of it?

I've made a Google Form to capture these answers, and let's see which bands you managed to see.

I'll post in a week or so with some of the responses that I receive from the form... I already have some that were sent through earlier.

My first concert was Mike Oldfield on one of his first tours. 

He had previously toured the album 'Incantations' in a tour which led to the Exposed album. I really wanted to see this tour but I was just a little too young I guess.

The Exposed tour was a major undertaking and very expensive with a huge ensemble of musicians and choirs. The band for this second tour was much smaller, but included some of the same musicians. I had a ticket on the front row of the balcony of Sheffield's City Hall which was the perfect place to see the stage set-up. I didn't know anyone else who liked him at the time.

This was the programme for the concert. I still have my copy of it.

It was May 1980 and in support of his 'Platinum' album which was influenced by the work of another minimalist composer Philip Glass.

This page also has the details of the concert tour, and the musicians in the band at the time.

Musicians: 

Pierre Moerlen (drums) 

Nico Ramsden (guitar) 

Benoit Moerlen (vibraphones) 

Hansford Rowe (bass) 

Tim Cross and Pete Lemer (keyboards) 

Pete Acock (sax and woodwind) 

Mike Frye (percussion) 

Wendy Roberts & Maggie Reilly (vocals)

My seat was on the front row of the balcony, in the middle - a perfect view to see Mike playing the guitar. He was wearing his shiny t-shirt which he also wore at Glastonbury. The gig was awesome, particularly the guitar improvisations.

Pierre Moerlen's drum solo was so good I can remember its impact even now... The vibes with Benoit were hypnotic.

Here's a Set List.

Not bad at all... More on the 'Blue Peter' theme recording later in the blog, and the disco experimentation of 'Guilty'....

Please share your first gig memories below.....

Thanks in advance for any responses. Anonymous responses are welcome.

Jan 3: o/i - another year of releases from Peter Gabriel to look forward to

Good news announced yesterday. 

Following the month by month, full moon releases of tracks from Peter Gabriel's i/o during 2023, 2026 will see the monthly releases of tracks from the follow up album. These will appear at each full moon: the Wolf Moon was the first of the New Year.

Via Peter Gabriel

‘I’m delighted to say that tonight, at the full moon, we will be beginning another year of full moon releases under the name o\i.

The songs are a mix of thoughts and feelings.

I have been thinking about the future and how we might respond to it. We are sliding into a period of transition like no other, most likely triggered in three waves; AI, quantum computing and the brain computer interface. Artists have a role to look into the mists and, when they catch sight of something, to hold up a mirror.

These are my lumpy bits – i/o: the inside has a new way out and o\i: the outside has a new way in.'

Listen to the track here:

This is excellent.

Jan 3: Follow my new Spotify playlist for the blog

I have started a Spotify playlist for the blog.

I shall add each of the songs that I mention on the blog to the playlist as the year goes by. The end result is going to be fairly long and eclectic by the end of the year.

You can see the playlist on this link here. A link can also be seen on the side bar.

And it's embedded below and will grow as the blog grows.

And here's another Playlist - one I made for my 2022 GA Conference with the theme of 'Everyday Geographies'. I still play this one from time to time as it's got some crackers on it....

Jan 2: Music Books #1: "The Sound of being human"

I am going to share a few books that are relevant to my musical adventures as the year progresses.

This particular book was the one that gave me the idea of starting this blog project in fact.

It was the model for this year of blogging - my latest 365 project. My GeoLibrary project is also still going strong after 12 years.

The book is written by Jude Rogers, who is a Guardian journalist and writer. You can use the website to search for her pieces, most of which are connected to the theme of the blog in some way. She will be mentioned quite a few times during the course of the year I am sure.

The book is now available in paperback too.

‘Too often we treat popular music as wallpaper surrounding us as we live our lives. 

Jude Rogers shows the emotional and cerebral heft such music can have. 

It’s a personal journey which becomes universal. Fascinating’

Ian Rankin

Jude discusses the importance of music to people's lives through the medium of a number of songs which were important to her at stages in her life.

Here's a description of the book from the publishers:

The sound of being human explores, in detail, why music plays such a deep-rooted role in so many lives.

At its heart is Jude's own story: how music helped her wrestle with the grief of losing her father at age five; concoct her own sense of self as a lonely adolescent; sky-rocket her relationships, both real and imagined, in the mad flushes of early womanhood, and propel her own journey into working life, adulthood and parenthood. through memoir and scientific enquiry, this book shows how different songs shape different versions of ourselves; how we rely upon music for comfort, for epiphanies, for sexual and physical connection; how we grow with music and songs grow inside us and help us come to terms with grief and powerful memories. 

It is about music's power to help us tell our own stories, whatever they are, and make them sing.

The book is excellent, and feature a number of songs which are of particular importance to the author and the period of time when they remember them being siginficant - all articulated really beautifully.

This article is an extract from the book and will give you a sense of how good it is.

“A piece of familiar music [therefore] serves as a soundtrack for a mental movie that starts playing in our head. It calls back memories of a particular person or place, and you might all of a sudden see that person’s face in your mind’s eye.... 

Often a song has been a soundtrack for them during a particular summer, or a period hanging out with a specific group of friends, or a time spent with significant others. This is why the teenage years, for many people, are quite common triggers for these memories.”

Professor Petr Janata, University of California

The structure of the book, themed around songs was also the structure of a John Harris book - 'Maybe I'm Amazed' on the power of music to connect with his son. More on that later in the year...

I'm going to try to do something similar as the year progresses, and identify songs or albums which are significant to particular periods of time in my life - and if you have similar songs please get in touch to tell me all about them.

I'll also be asking you at various times about the songs that matter so much to you.... and will be sharing some of the memories of geographers of my acquaintance and others.

As well as books, there are various social media feeds which I will also share.

One which is particularly useful is Albumism.

It shares details of albums released on each day... some days had a remarkable number of important albums released over the years....

Let me know of any other musical books that are significant to you in the comments below, and I'll share a reading list in a month or so.... thanks to those who have shared some ideas on the Google Form which you can find on the first post on the blog.

Jan 1: Welcome to a new blog for 2026

Music has always been part of my life. I have always been to see as many concerts as I can from an eclectic mix of bands (although life events have reduced their numbers over time due to reduced availability, plus the ever increasing cost of concert tickets compared to when I started going to live events in the 1980s). 

Having said that I've now got used to paying close to (and occasionally over) £100 for a ticket for some big-ticket gigs, but I wouldn't go to the extent that some fans recently did to secure Oasis, Radiohead etc. tickets.

The ticket below was from a concert which had perhaps the best opening of any live concert I've been to...

Peter Gabriel ticket from 1993 - Alan Parkinson - shared on Flickr under CC license

You can watch it here... treat yourself to six minutes of joy, and incredible vocal performances.

I used to have a very large collection of vinyl which sadly mostly had to make way when I last moved house in 2011 to a house with less storage. I think it would have been worth a lot of money had I kept more of it as there was a good range of albums, although they had mostly been played to death.

Ah well. 

Perhaps I'll go back to buying vinyl again when I retire... I still have a turntable and some decent speakers and amplifier - but nowhere to put it out at the moment.

I have a fairly large collection of CDs, which I mostly play in the car, or on my Bose sound system. I will still buy about 10 CDs a year for this purpose when I want to have a decent sound and not the compressed streaming option.

I subscribe to Spotify, and have done for well over a decade, which means I own less physical media than I might otherwise have done, but have also been able to access a range of music from artists who I would not have 'risked' spending money on - thankfully I didn't make too many 'mistakes' in my time buying physical media. I've had a few trials of Apple Music too. There are some people who point out issues with relying on such services for our music - the algorithm, the politics, the lack of proper payment for the artists involved.

There is also Bandcamp, where I can obtain higher quality downloads and buy CDs direct from artists, which lets them see a fairer proportion of the value of what is purchased.

In this blog, as the year goes on, I shall be sharing memories of bands I have seen, and also music that has been of particular importance to me. Many of these songs and albums date back to a particular period of time, or connect to particular places. 

They include Glastonbury, which was an experience... and for a week or so the largest settlement in Somerset.

Glastonbury from the hill - Alan Parkinson - shared on Flickr under CC license

I'll also share some pictures of some of my old tour t-shirts, and post on the anniversary of some of my favourite gigs or notable dates in music history or personal memories.

There'll often be connections to geography too of course... in the lyrics of the songs, the theme of the songs, the origin of the album (or musicians), the changing nature of gig-going, the venues, the politics and some other personal connections. 

Hence the name of the blog 'World of Music'. This will include a look at the music from particular countries, or which have connected with politics, the environment, particular places or landscapes or other geographical processes. 

One thing that is different to my other 20 blogs is that this one will very much welcome guest blog posts. Get in touch if you have an idea for something you'd like to write about and I'll send you a few more details of how you can do that.

I've already contacted a whole range of geographers and asked them to share their own musical memories and connections and will be filtering those in too. Carl Lee has already sent me the first tranche of a whole series of eclectic posts, and others have promised to share a guest post during the year ahead.

I'll also be adding lots of polls and Google Forms to compile a 'compilation tape' of your own geographical ideas. There'll be lots of potential for you to get involved and share your own musical stories - we all have them. 

Ultimately I hope this may lead to a resource exploring musical geographies that could be shared more widely.

It's good to know that my daughter also shares my love of live music, including a trip to Copenhagen last year to see one of her favourite bands: The Wombats, and Paris for Charli XCX, plus Latitude Festival of course (a very geographically relevant name). My son also has accompanied me on several recent gigs, and we are off to a few more during this year. My wife is very much an 80s girl and has seen the Pet Shop Boys many times over the years in particular.

For more details on musical connections, come and see Matt Podbury and I's session at the GA Conference in April 2026. More on that in a few day's time.

OK, let's press play on the blog, and drop the stylus into the groove. 

Oh, and there won't be any of that noise that the younger generation calls music... just proper stuff...