Cold Turkey’s Soggy Stuffing: with Paul Smith (Maxïmo Park), Hollie McNish, Michael Pedersen & Withered Hand – plus Leyla Josephine

FEATURING: SPOKEN WORD, MUSIC & DREAMDUST
YES, THE GREEDY FIFTH PLATE FULL — FRESH FROM LAST YEAR’S SELL-OUT.

Paul Smith (Maxïmo Park) is a Newcastle-based musician best known as the singer for the British alternative rock group Maxïmo Park, who released their debut album on Warp Records in 2005. Smith continues to perform and record with the band, who released their seventh album, Nature Always Wins, last year, reaching #2 in the Pop Charts. He released his debut solo album, ‘Margins’, in 2010, alongside ‘Thinking In Pictures’, a book of Polaroid photographs. He’s also collaborated with Field Music’s Peter Brewis (on the 2014 album, ‘Frozen By Sight’), poet Lavinia Greenlaw, and Tricky. His latest collaboration, an album with Rachel Unthank, will arrive in the New Year. Pertinently, given the literary nature of this event, he has also hosted The Penguin Podcast. He acquired his first ever Christmas jumper last year at the behest of his young daughter, but will not be donning it for this particular performance. Expect to hear songs from Diagrams, his third, and most recent, solo album, plus the occasional oldie but goodie. Photo credit: Ivan Jones

Hollie McNish is a poet and author based between Glasgow and Cambridge. She won the Ted Hughes Award for New Work in Poetry for her poetic parenting memoir – Nobody Told Me – of which The Scotsman stated ‘The World Needs this Book’. She has published four further collections of poetry – Papers, Cherry Pie, Plum and her most recent poetic memoir Slug…and other things I’ve been told to hate, which is a Sunday Times Bestseller. With fellow poet Sabrina Mahfouz, she co-wrote Offside , a play relating the history of UK women’s football, and has just completed a re-imagining of Sophocles’ Greek Tragedy Antigone, published in October 2021 with Hachette. Her poetry has been translated into German, Spanish, Hungarian, Polish, Japanese and French. She is a patron of Baby Milk Action. She puts her decorations up on December 1st.

Michael Pedersen is a prize-winning Scottish poet, scribbler, stitcher. He’s produced two acclaimed collections of poetry (Polygon Books) with a poetic prose debut, Boy Friends, published by Faber & Faber in July 2022. He won a Robert Louis Stevenson Fellowship, the John Mather’s Trust Rising Star of Literature Award, and was a finalist for the 2018 ‘Writer of the Year’ at The Herald Scottish Culture Awards. With work anthologised by the likes of Pan MacMillan and Canongate Books, his writing has attracted plaudits from voices as luscious as: Irvine Welsh, Jackie Kay, Stephen Fry, Shirley Manson, Kae Tempest & Charlotte Church. Pedersen also co-founded the literary collective Neu! Reekie!, and has 15 Christmas Jumpers: responsibly sourced and worn shamelessly from mid-October.

Withered Hand is Edinburgh-based singer-songwriter Dan Willson, who started writing songs and singing in his thirties following the birth of his first child and the death of a close friend. Alongside activity with his band, Dan is a well-travelled solo musician with a cult following since the release of his debut ‘Good News’ in 2009. The release of a strident second album ‘New Gods’ in 2014 propelled Withered Hand into the charts, featuring appearances by friends, luminaries and supporters from the Scottish music scene, from Belle & Sebastian to Frightened Rabbit to The Vaselines and beyond. He has come to believe that Father Christmas is in everybody.

The event will be co-hosted by Leyla Josephine, an artist originally from Glasgow, now residing in Prestwick. She is a performance poet, theatre maker, screenwriter, facilitator and project leader. She has had poems featured in The National, The Scotsman, The Guardian, Huffington Post, Upworthy, BBC Scotland, BBC Radio 4, BBC Social and Gutter magazine. Her book In Public/In Private will be out in winter 2022.

n.b. Cold Turkey was founded as a collective by Michael Pedersen, Scott Hutchison, Hollie McNish & Withered Hand. Since Scott’s leaving, Michael, Hollie & WH have been joined by such special guests as Kae Tempest and Kathryn Joseph. This sleigh sails on — in tribute and for the love & the joy.