Oliver Cable is a writer, poet and organiser of London-based live music and spoken word nights called Nowhere Nights. His first novel, Fresh Air and Empty Streets was published in 2016 and follows a young man traveling to Paris, getting to know his estranged father on a journey through smoky jazz bars, artists’ studios and along the banks of the Seine.
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In his own words
I aim to write on the knife-edge of reality, where metaphor, dream and everyday life meld into one. I see writing as an escape from the mundane, a window into a world less ordinary and a way to convey the beauty that exists in the things others pass by without a second glance.
Over the coming months (and maybe years), I will be spilling my thoughts onto the page for Riffs & Rhymes from the myriad of live performances I go to: from jazz basements to classical music and from indie gigs to spoken word nights. There’ll be short stories, musings on music, the odd poem here and there. It won’t be technical, it won’t be journalism: it’ll be the things my brain thinks up when stimulated by the beautiful series of sounds we’ve come to love as music.
I hope you enjoy reading the CableWrites column – feel free to drop me a line at any point if you particularly like or dislike something I’ve written, or if there’s an artist coming to London who I just have to see. The first column is out in a week, so until then, stay jazzy, folks.
Riffs & Rhymes 