Sleaford Mods Grilled Live At Green Man By MOJO
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THE UNIQUE AND PUNGENT worldview of Sleaford Mods’ poet-vocalist Jason Williamson will be explored live in an onstage MOJO Interview at Green Man Festival in August. Expect Williamson to hold forth with typical frankness on the Sleafords’ rise to infamy and how that’s impacted (or not) on the group’s defiantly no-bullshit, street-level perspective. Ace MOJO scribe and rock memoir-whisperer Ben Thompson puts the questions.

Sleaford Mods' Jason Williamson (front) and Andrew Fearn: they’re Drayton Manored.

Over the past decade, The MOJO Interview has become a popular staple on the festival’s Talking Shop stage, a sparky, sparkling venue where the musical meets the literary. Previous subjects have included The Fall’s Mark E Smith, Belle & Sebastian, Billy Bragg, Donovan and Scritti Politti’s Green Gartside.

Also just announced: this year’s Talking Shop contributors will include literary legend Irvine Welsh, plain-spoken Pop Dungeon proprietoress Charlotte Church and Cardiff-born writer/filmmaker/psychogeographer Iain Sinclair.

Billy Bragg returns, discussing his brilliant new book, Roots, Radicals and Rockers: How Skiffle Changed The World. So does English folk music doyenne Shirley Collins, in conversation with Jude Rogers.

The vinyl revival is addressed in The Plural Of Vinyl Is Vinyl, a conversation with Laura Barton, Richard King (who has also curated this year’s Talking Shop line-up) and Paul Noble of Spiritland. Pete Brown match beers with the bands of Green Man 2017, and Pete Paphides and Bob Stanley reprise their legendary Pop Quiz.

Shirley Collins: experience her folk wisdom.

Showcasing the stage’s wider cultural remit, Lynsey Hanley, Dawn Foster and Emma Jackson examine the roots and consequences of 10 Years Of The UK Housing Crises, and Nikesh Shukla presents a special panel discussion based on Guardian Readers’ Book Of 2016 – The Good Immigrant.

Meanwhile, fans of landscape-based narratives should follow signs to Let’s Get Lost, where Will Ashon (author of the acclaimed journey into Epping Forest (Strange Labyrinth), John Grindrod (whose forthcoming book Outskirts looks at the Green Belt) and Travis Elborough (author of The Park) explore the art of getting lost in places that seem familiar.

Green Man Festival takes place in Glanusk Park in the Brecon Beacons over 17-20 August, 2017. For more information and tickets go to http://www.greenman.net/