Has there been a busier musician over the last two years? A more prolific artist? More creative? More heroic?

Tim Burgess – as self-effacing a band leader, solo star, label runner, repeat memoirist and all-round caffeinated can-do kid as you’ll find – would certainly shrink from the latter accolade.

Over the course of the first year of the pandemic, Tim’s Twitter Listening Parties were a lifeline. At a time when the world shut down, we all retreated indoors, alone, and cancelled gigs were the least of our worries, the North Country Boy’s idea of utilising social media to unite us round a digital turntable was inspired.

An innovation he’d imagineered a few years previously to peer under the bonnet of The Charlatans’ back catalogue albums now became a meeting place for fans of artists of all sizes, stripes, vintages.

The guests were as eclectic as they were electrifying as they were enthusiastic, with the eager participants including everyone from Run the Jewels to Roisin Murphy, Kylie Minogue to Iron Maiden. At a time when we couldn’t go anywhere, Tim Burgess helped us go everywhere.

Tim play anything from a blend of indie dance classics to Motown and northern soul floor fillers - his collection of over 3,000 seven inch singles means every base is covered (for practicality reasons he also has these on memory sticks too).