Founded and run by Alex Hobbis (editor) and Adam Hinks (design) Good On Paper was launched in February 2015 to provide a definitive guide to arts, music, theatre, film, dance, comedy, literature and spoken word events across the Stroud District to both its residents and visitors.
As well as producing listings the magazine also supports the work of local artists, authors, musicians, filmmakers and other creatives...It also provides budding writers, photographers and filmmakers the opportunity to hone their skills and gain invaluable experience in print and media.
First launched in 2016 the GOP Party (not the Americurrr one) acts as a fundraiser for the magazine; whilst bringing forth a hoard of artists, musicians, poets, DJ's and more to celebrate the vibrant, creative scene which Stroud is increasingly becoming renowned for. A one day festival if you will. An eclectic mix of live music, spoken word and art. As well as securing a future for the magazine which remains a part time project it will also raise vital funds for the venues hosting it.
This year we will be taking over one street in the centre of Stroud. Lansdown. Huge thanks to d&b audiotechnik who will be installing their world renowned system at Lansdown Hall…
As well as live music, poetry and art there will also be popup bars and street food. Read on for a guide!
LANSDOWN HALL / MUSIC
COLOSSAL SQUID
A Good On Paper Party veteran! The solo project of producer/drummer Adam Betts is exploring where electronic music meets organic drumming in a visceral performance, and the latest music celebrates the music of his youth, an all consuming curiosity for the new and unusual, at the point where dance music and punk meet. As a member of Brian Eno’s favourite London experimentalists Three Trapped Tigers, Betts has spent years exploring the boundaries between electronic and live music, and celebrating the flaws thrown up when one tried to replicate the other. Taking the ‘Drums Vs Electronics / Man Vs Machine' idea he’s been developing behind the kit for Three Trapped Tigers and The Heritage Orchestra (and more recently with Shobaleader One after being headhunted by Squarepusher), Goldie and JARVIS (with Jarvis Cocker) his last album has a wider focus: Betts decided the best way for the live show to truly represent the album (and vice versa), was to make them one and the same. Having originally written, developed and recorded an earlier version of the album over a few months in various studios around London, the opportunity arose to record a live session. The recordings captured such an enthralling energy that they instantly replaced the previous 'studio' versions.
22:15 - 23:15
THE CROMAGNON BAND
The Cromagnon Band was formed in 2015 and is a trio of artists who compose and produce their own work. Drummer Tom Watt and Bassist Lenny Walker are both from a musicproduction background whilst Bert Page is a classically trained musician who plays all thekeys as well as sax and clarinet. As well as being a studio entity The Cromagnon Band playout as a live trio, adapting and arranging their tracks to the live stage with Bert playing Moogand Rhodes simultaneously. The band describe their approach to music as reverse engineering. Having earned their chops from years producing beats they switched directions and swapped MPCs for instruments. But what they make isn’t simply instrumental hip hop. Rather, it’s the sound that haunts the dreams of beat diggers and obsessive record collectors alike. 21:00 - 21:45
WOOOLHEADS
Wooolheads is a collaboration between artist and poet Uta Baldauf and sonic experimentalist Sean Roe.(aka Sseeaann Rrooee) Together they produce jumpers of sweaty dance grooves and cardigans of electronic noise and narrative tone poetry. 20:00 - 20:30
CENTRE FOR SCIENCE AND ART / MUSIC
KAYLA PAINTER
Kayla Painter is an experimental sound artist, musician, producer and DJ. 2024 saw her biggest release to date, with her debut album ‘Fractures’. Written about NASA’s mission to Jupiter's Frozen moon. Kayla was awarded ‘Best Electronic Album of the year’ by Bandcamp for Fractures, as well as the Women Make Music PRSF award for the album’s creation. She has appeared at the Great Escape, Camp Elsewhere, Bluedot, We Out Here and her releases have received heavy airplay and features, with spins from Mary-Anne Hobbs, Gilles Peterson, Tom Ravenscroft, Nemone and Huw Stephens on BBC 6Music. 00:00 - 01:00
THE LEAFLETS
Nobody knows the true identity of the secretive ‘Leaf’, whose Leaflets remain shrouded in mystery and myth. What is known is that their music is both terrifying and captivating in equal measure; a pressure cooker-mix of guitar, industrial-acoustic beats, heady samples, and something a whole lot stranger. 23:00 - 23:30
CENTRE FOR SCIENCE AND ART / SPOKEN WORD
This year's spoken-word stage has been curated by Martha Sprackland, an editor, writer, translator and GOP contributor.: "I'm excited to bring these three talented poets and radioheads, John Osborne, Ella Frears and Joe Dunthorne, to Stroud for poetry, laughs and tunes. They'll read their own work, as well as bringing the radio show Stress Test – 'like an anxiety dream made real' – to the stage for one night only..."
JOE DUNTHORNE
Joe Dunthorne was born and brought up in Swansea, Wales. His debut novel, Submarine, was translated into twenty languages and made into an award-winning film by Richard Ayoade. His second novel, Wild Abandon, won the Encore Award. His third novel is The Adulterants. His stories have been published in McSweeney's, The Paris Review, Esquire, The Baffler and The Guardian - and have been twice shortlisted for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award. His widely acclaimed first collection of poems, O Positive, was published by Faber & Faber in 2019. His latest book Children of Radium is a family memoir that records the mazy path by which the prize-winning Welsh novelist discovered just how little he knew of his German Jewish heritage. 21:00 - 21:20
ELLA FREARS
Ella Frears is a poet based in London. Shine, Darling (2020) was shortlisted for the T S Elliot Prize and the Forward Prize, and Goodlord (2024) which takes the form of one long email to an estate agents, was shortlisted for the Forward Prize and a Sky Arts Award. 20:30 - 20:50
JOHN OSBOURNE
John Osbourne writes poems, scripts and stories. His new poetry collection To Make People Happy is nominated for the 2026 East Anglian Book Awards. Osbourne co-created the Sky 1 comedy drama After Hours. and created the sell out Edinburgh show John Peel's Shed and has written and performed six thirty minute storytelling shows for Radio 4. 20:00 - 20:20
STRESS TEST
Presented by Rough Trade Books, Stress Test on SoHo Radio is like an anxiety dream made real, the presenters of this show - Joe Dunthorne, Martha Sprackland, Ella Frears and John Osborne - invite special guest poets to produce new poems under timed conditions and make them read them aloud on the radio. Then they talk about what went wrong….And they will be doing it again, a special version of it as part of the GOP Party. Live. For one night only. 21:30-22:00
KLANG TONE RECORDS / MUSIC
ARBOURING
Arbouring are a Stroud-based experimental folk duo blending the talents of double bassist Elian Moisey and textile artist, singer and poet Myfanwy Brice. Rooted in Welsh folk traditions, they fuse traditional song with electronics, tape loops and unconventional instruments to create a haunting, hard-to-categorise sound. Their music treats folk as a living language - open, fluid and inclusive - bridging Welsh and English audiences while honouring cultural memory. Known for gigs where no two performances are alike, Arbouring craft gentle yet powerful work that explores community, belonging and the quiet radicalism of making space through sensitivity and experimentation. 22:00 - 22:30
RAYMOND MACDONALD AND CHRISTIAN FERLAINO
Raymond MacDonald is a saxophonist and composer with an extensive career in music, cross- disciplinary arts and academia. He has played on and released over 100 albums, toured and broadcast worldwide and has composed music for film, television, theatre, radio and art installations. He is a founding member of the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, and his work is informed by a view of improvisation as a social, collaborative, and uniquely creative process that provides
opportunities to develop new ways of engaging musically. Christian Ferlaino is an Italian saxophonist, improviser, composer and ethnomusicologist. He composes for ensembles of improvisers, both from the jazz and improvised music scene, as well as for contemporary music ensembles. As a saxophone player, he has performed many different genres of popular music such as cumbia, Balkan music, funk, rock, jazz and free improvisation. Their album A Jig in the Future will be released on Klang Tone Records
In Feb 2026 All the tracks come from a live concert at Sharmanka, a beautiful and unique museum of kinetic sculptures in Glasgow, and throughout the record, the sounds of the sculptures moving are incorporated into their improvisations. 21:00 - 21:30
MIKE ADCOCK
Mike Adcock is a musician, composer and writer whose work bridges art, history and sonic experimentation. After earning a degree in art history and teaching for a decade, he shifted his focus to music, releasing numerous solo and collaborative recordings, particularly within free improvisation. He writes on music education and ethnomusicology - including research on ancient Vietnamese stone instruments - and contributes reviews to Roots World. Adcock is also the author of Music Stones: The Rediscovery of Ringing Rock, a vivid exploration of lithophones and the cultural histories of sounding stone. Known for his curiosity about unconventional materials, he even crafts instruments from broken roof slates. 20:00 - 20:30
HOLY WATER - DJ SETS
This year’s DJ sets have been curated by Los Domingos - a Stroud based DJ collective founded by Ben Pearce, Vinyl Ritchie and Jack Duplock playing upbeat global grooves with a revolving door of special guests…20:00 - 02:00
BEN PEARCE
Local artist and Los Domingos co-founder Ben Pearce cut his teeth playing at house parties and club nights in London, with a regular night at Soho’s Net Bar and the legendary Dogstar in Brixton. His sets are an eclectic blend of dancefloor jazz, breezy latin, MPB, cumbia, reggae, highlife, deep funk and disco.
VINYL RICHIE
A teenage funk epiphany set Vinyl Richie on a path he never quite stepped off. Since then, music has pulled him into bands, studios, the DJ booth, and now the workshop, where he builds boutique guitars under his brand, Uberfrank. With a love of the tropical dancefloor inspired by his travels, his sets drift through deep warm currents of Afrobeat, Latin, disco, psychedelic rock, and jazz.
JACK DUPLOCK
Jack is a Stroud based visual artist and DJ. Listening to John Peel while doing his homework and attending WOMAD at 14, he was drawn to eclectic sounds from an early age. From the spirituality of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to the rhythm laden sounds of the Zimbabwe group The Four Brothers. From funk and French disco to the weirder edges of psychedelia, expect a set that keeps your feet moving while inviting you to stretch your ears and your mind.
DJ SELVA
Born to Chilean parents, Selva grew up in Scotland to a backdrop of South American music at home and at the Latin parties her parents hosted. After travelling around Brazil she later became a samba dancer and tam player and now performs at festivals and carnival processions around the UK. Selva DJs at various venues in Stroud and Bristol playing South American folk, cumbia, salsa, boogaloo, mpb, tropicalia, amazonica, Peruvian psychedelic and samba funk.
MYOGENIKS
Eoghan aka @Myogeniks is the co-founder of Medina Presents. His sets are characterised by texture and colour, focussing on melody and percussive elements. Expect a coherent yet unpredictable blend of genres and styles - gathering momentum with smiles and dancing.
LANSDOWN GALLERY / EXHIBITION
WordArt
An exhibition bringing together the crafts of signwriting, letterpress printing, typography, sculpture and more for a vibrant celebration of visual language and literary artistry by Stroud District dwelling artists...
Featuring works by Mark Amis, Harvey Steele, Dan Rawlings, Eleanor Harper, Joe Magee, (Both Laughing), The Sunny Sign Co, Dennis Gould, Isobel Harper, Rooksmoor Press, Emma Luczyn, Leigh Charman, Andrew Wood and Joe Mitchell. 19:00 - 23:15