A 40th anniversary special with two of its presenters (Hepworth and Ellen) and old pal and TV critic Boyd Hilton who watched on the day aged 18 (“young, pretentious, idiotic”) and reviews the new BBC documentary. We look back at …

… the ways Live Aid changed television – “not about music but spectacle and scale”.

… would the idea of staging it have ever come about in the world of social media?

… being in the room for the Geldof F-Bomb.

… Ian Astbury smoking on live TV, the concrete mausoleum of the old Wembley Stadium, Concorde, Status Quo and other things that now seem so 1985.

… how Live Aid was the death of the New Romantics – “they don’t work in daylight” – and why Boy George turned it down.

… the footage set to the Cars’ video, the emotional pivot of the day, and the interview with the Ethiopian girl Birhan Woldu in the new documentary.

… how the thin sound of ’80s acts like the Style Council and Ultravox didn’t have the impact of old-school guitar/bass/drums.

 … was Live Aid the first live televised rock concert event?

…and fragments of our fading memories – the U2 drama, Adam Ant, Sade, the lost link to Ian Botham, Billy Connolly in tears, acts unwisely playing new singles, Noel Edmonds’ helicopter shuttle, the BBC insisting it “mustn’t feel like a Telethon” – and all achieved without mobile phones.

Plus the return of Oasis, the BBC’s tangle with Neil Young at Glastonbury and the fall-out from the Bob Vylan broadcast.  

… and a few Glastonbury moments - Rod Stewart’s cocktail-dress cabaret girls and the 1975’s Matt Healy stumbling on with a fag and a pint of Guinness.

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Ian Anderson is touring again in 2026 and talks to us here about tweed stage-wear, an audience of four, his teenage heroes and the first shows he ever saw and played. There’s all sorts within, including …  

… playing his first gig to Catholic schoolgirls at the Holy Family Youth Club in Blackpool – “we emptied the room”.

… queues round the block at the Marquee in 1968 – “the moment I knew we’d arrived.”

… how Joe Cocker nicked his breakfast.

… seeing Cliff at the ABC in Blackpool – “he was our Elvis.”

… guitarists who played “nicely”– Hank Marvin, Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Ritchie Blackmore. “Precise, accurate, they sang melodies.”

 … the ceremonial christening of Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond.

… exotic clothes, stage names and parallels with Beefheart’s Magic Band.

… recording Feel Like Makin’ Love with the 90-year-old Engelbert Humperdinck.

… learning Guitar Tango by the Shadows - “not blues or rock and roll - progressive pop!”

… the fine art of dressing up: Jethro Tull in America – tweeds and deerstalkers v check shirts and denim.  

… fund-raising shows for imperilled cathedrals.  

… the allure of touring by train – “I’m Michael Portillo with a flute”.

… the three songs Jethro Tull always play.

Tickets for the Curiosity Tour 2026 here: jethrotull.com

Ian Anderson presents Christmas With Jethro Tull:

Thursday 18 December 2025 - Bath Abbey

Friday 19 December 2025 - Peterborough Cathedral

Saturday 20 December 2025 - Southwark Cathedral

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Liam Gallagher calls Ted Kessler and Hamish MacBain “the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore of music journalism”. Both worked at the NME (and Ted at Q), both interviewed the band many times and have just published ‘A Sound So Very Loud’ which, in the grand tradition of Revolution In The Head, tells the story of every Oasis song ever recorded. They talk to Mark here about …  

… why Oasis struck such an almighty chord and were the band the press were waiting for.

… their dismantling of the notion of rock stardom.

… “a visceral dislike”: why they were so socially divisive in the ‘90s.

… Liam “waking up in police custody with two missing teeth”.

… the Gallaghers’ dependable flair for the Smiths-style “performative interview” and why it sold the rock press.

… what Noel stole from Tony Blair’s maiden speech for the lyrics of Magic Pie.

… the turning point in the shift in the brothers’ powerbase.  

… Liam and the invention of “Stillism”.  

… “70 per cent of a band is the singer’s identity”.

… Noel’s blog and Liam’s Twitter and how the split might have been avoided if their debate hadn’t been played out in public.

… Supersonic, Cigarettes and Alcohol and the admirable honesty of Noel’s “brazen theft”.

… how Stop Crying Your Heart Out became an X-Factor standard.  

… and the 5am Liam Gallagher social media publicity machine.

‘A SOUND SO VERY LOUD’ BY TED KESSLER AND HAMISH MACBAIN

Preorder link here!: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/ted-kessler/a-sound-so-very-loud/9781035078257

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Christine McVie - one of only two British girl rock musicians in the ‘60s and part of the greatest pop soap opera of all time. Neither in the backline or the frontline but occupying a unique middle ground. Packed it in for 16 years then returned to the fold. Lesley-Ann Jones’ fresh and emotional memoir Songbird follows “the trajectory of a male rock star played by a woman”, the home she was keen to escape, the outer limits of life in Fleetwood Mac’s “toxic Camelot” and the rigours of holding her ground in a man’s world. We cover all sorts here including …

… the lasting effect of not having “an ordinary mother”.  

… the night in Sunderland that made her think again.

… when your best friend sleeps with your fiancée.

… supporting the Shadows when she was 15 at the 2I’s in Soho.  

… Etta James, Chicken Shack and playing the Reeperbahn.

… why rock stars can never be part of a village community.

… Fleetwood Mac’s West Coast Elysium: “they were all as bad as each other”.

… “cute and dangerous” meets “lifeline and anchor”: the love affair with Dennis Wilson.

… why she and John McVie both needed a wife.

… and her lifelong connection with the blues, “a sadness you can’t cure”.

Order Songbird here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Songbird-Intimate-Biography-Christine-McVie/dp/1789467217

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Nick Heyward was one of our favourite cover stars when we were at Smash Hits in the ‘80s, the days when hardcore Haircut One Hundred fans turned out in Fair Isle sweaters and Sou’Westers. He now lives mostly in Florida, he’s made nine solo albums – one magnificently titled Open Sesame Seed - and he’s toured again with his old band after ten years’ painful separation. Touring the UK in October, he couldn’t be more upbeat about the road ahead – “I can do anything!” – and looks back here at the first shows he saw and played himself. Which involves …

… seeing Count Basie, Ray Charles and Oscar Peterson on the same bill when he was 12.

… “if you stop playing music you’re like the boxer that gave up the fight”.

… pop dress codes, knock-off pop merchandise and trips to Shellys Shoes.

… growing up in Beckenham where Bowie was “the lighthouse beam that made being a pop star possible”.

… old schoolfriends and Haircut One Hundred members Les and Graham and how “we got our friendship back”.

… why seeing XTC was “like plugging into electricity”.

… Buzzcocks and Boomtown Rats at the Croydon Greyhound.  

… how he was saved by management.

… singing Love Plus One in Salisbury Cathedral.

… and the lingering thrill of his first reviews (by Graham K Smith and Adrian Thrills).

Nick’s tour dates here:

https://nickheyward.com/

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“There was no Command-Zed back then!” John Wood engineered or produced some of the most magical, timeless and affecting records ever made - by Nick Drake, John Martyn, the McGarrigles, Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, John Cale, Squeeze and many more. He’s 85 now and looks back here at a luminous career that started with mastering singles at Decca and transferred to Sound Techniques, the mecca he co-founded in an old cowshed in Chelsea when takes were spontaneous and even the tape-op was part of the performance. He misses those days, when albums were organic and the labels had less control, and talks here about …

… “the age when sound had perspective and seemed three-dimensional”.

… Nick Drake’s confidence and his guiding lights - eg the Beach Boys and Randy Newman (“who I’d never heard of”). And his final nighttime sessions.

… the way Fairport recorded – “We’re only going to do it once” – and why they could make three albums a year.

…managing the girls in the Incredible String Band, “especially when Licorice played drums”.

… John Cale in “maniac mode” and his sudden and unexpected friendship with Nick Drake.

… Cale and Nico at the Chelsea Hotel.

… and why ‘Geoff Muldaur Is Having A Wonderful Time’ was the job he remembers the fondest.

Also mentioned: the Downliners Sect, Judy Collins, The Marmalade, Graham Gouldman and Squeeze.

John’s got nothing to plug and just wanted to talk to us. Thanks, John, and bless your cotton socks.

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Ian Hunter – an image so familiar you’d recognise his silhouette - now lives in Connecticut and he’s just released expanded versions of two of his best-selling solo albums, You’re Never Alone With A Schizophrenic and Short Back N' Sides. He’s 85, born before any of the Beatles. We talk to him here about life growing up in the ‘40s and ‘50s when your father’s a copper and “music wasn’t allowed in the house”, and touch upon …

… the debt he owes Freddie ‘Fingers’ Lee.

… café jukeboxes full of Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Fats Domino.

… beating 165 acts at a talent contest at Butlins.

… the record that made the Beatles (which they didn’t write).

… “a two-piece corduroy suit, open-toed sandals, overweight …”: the Mott the Hoople audition.

… Bowie playing All The Young Dudes – “a monster” – cross-legged on the floor in Denmark Street after they’d turned down Suffragette City.

… why Hendrix was thrown out of Regent Sound studios.

… playing the Reeperbahn in 1963.

… recording ‘Schizophrenic’ with three members of the E Street Band.

… “Do you want a cuddle?” The Mick Ronson recording method.

… the good thing about Covid.

… watching punk bands with Mick Jones.

… plus a ‘dyed-black’ Ford Anglia and the Greatest Record Ever Made.

Order Ian’s re-released albums here:

Buy link: https://ianhunter.lnk.to/sbns

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As the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness draws in, we poke the embers of this week’s rock and roll bonfire and rake out the following chestnuts …

… Maggie Smith on ‘70s chat shows.

… when Radiohead meets Shakespeare.

… the strange, circuitous and downright disgraceful launch of Francis Ford Coppola’s majestically bonkers Megalopolis.

… Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter: the slow ascent of two ‘overnight sensations’.

… is it big events anymore or just a low-level hum of distraction?

… Bryan Ferry as an interpreter: why we love his clubby renditions of Dylan, Amy, Frank, Elvis, Broadway ballads and old sea shanties.

… Movies In Waiting no 97: Butlin’s, skiffle, Hamburg and Ian Hunter’s 26-year clamber to the top.

... can any film still have instant world impact?

… the unsettling structure of the Graham Norton show.

… Simon Raymonde’s dad’s oceanic jazz adventure, 1949.

… plus birthday guest Matthew North sees Wayne Rooney doing Ring Of Fire at a Plymouth open mic night.

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Simon Raymonde’s affecting and beautifully written memoir ‘In One Ear’ records life in the ‘60s growing up with a father who wrote and arranged for Dusty Springfield, Helen Shapiro and the Walker Brothers, the impossibly shy promotional activities of the Cocteau Twins and This Mortal Coil and the struggles and eventual jackpot of the Bella Union record label he founded. He’s so perceptive, observant and self-mocking and we loved this energetic podcast which, among much else, lands upon …  

... why 1979 was the Golden Year.

… the time Scott Walker came to his parents’ house.

… why the Cocteau Twins might have tanked in the current age of self-promotion.

… how a loathing for Phil Collins was a Sliding Doors moment.  

… the problem with bands that don’t talk to each other.

… why they refused to appear on Top Of The Pops.

… following Rancid and the Ramones at Lollapalooza in 1996 and the sobering events that ensued.

… why the Old Grey Whistle Test was “not a happy experience”.

… the cryptic language of Elizabeth Fraser’s lyrics why he never asked her what they meant.  

… “if I hadn’t worked at the Beggars record shop I wouldn’t be talking to you now”.

… why bands are “less naïve now”.

… and “Cocteau Twins - swirling sepulchral shards of sound that patter like raindrops against the windows of your mind” – ©️ the Music Press in 1985.

Order Simon’s book here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Ear-Cocteau-Twins-Raymonde/dp/1788709381

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Abba’s biographer Jan Gradvall met and interviewed Abba many times and builds a fresh picture of their internal chemistry in his new book Melancholy Undercover. Highlights of this illuminating pod include …

… how Sweden rejected their early hits for not being sufficiently “socialist”.

…. the discomfiting early life of Anni-Frid Lyngstad.

… what Max Martin and Denniz Pop thought made Abba’s music so durable. 

… Strindberg, Bergman, the climate, the eight months of darkness and the role of melancholia in Swedish pop culture. 

… the influence of the Human League on their later catalogue.

… why manager Stig Anderson “became a burden”.

… “Norway has Grieg, Finland has Sibelius, Sweden has Benny …”

… the first band to write about divorce.

… the Abba song with 57 chords and the only two samples Abba ever approved.

… Elvis Costello, Joe Strummer and Ian Dury backstage at a 1979 London show.

… when Sid Vicious ran into Abba at an airport on the Pistols’ 1977 Swedish tour. 

… the role of the Lionesses football team, Kurt Cobain, Erasure, U2, Madonna and the Sydney gay community in the Abba revival. 

… why the Abbatars are better than Abba. 

… the myth of Agnetha as “the Greta Garbo of Pop”. 

… and why The Day Before You Came is more than the Abba swansong.

Order Melancholy Undercover here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-ABBA-Melancholy-Undercover/dp/0571390986

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A free-form spontaneous jam this week - the Dark Star of podcasts – which navigates the outer reaches of the rock and roll stratosphere by way of the following …

… was Michael Stipe’s father a military helicopter pilot in Korea?

… our fantasy Odd Couple tragi-comedy: Morrissey and Marr in a thin-skinned middle-aged flat share.  

… how the Golden Egg launched Roxy Music.

… can anyone name more than one member of Coldplay?

… did Paddy McAloon’s mum make the sets for the Clangers?

… the ’80s version of the Internet.

 … memories of lost London: international magazine shops, drinking in offices, Protein Man, roaming Hare Krishnas, “floating a curry”, wasp-covered sarnies in café windows, band flyers on derelict buildings, the romance of old Fleet Street.

… the tangled saga of Bonfire Of The Teenagers.

… “Oasis is the last of the household-name bands”.

… why Toyah is a movie waiting to happen.

… and birthday guest Jelltex on bands he thought had given up now filling stadiums.

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Mike Batt still wrestles with the emotional legacy of the Wombles, the act that simultaneously made him and cast a shadow over the rest of his career, not least his early days as a songwriter at Liberty Records, discussed here, hired after he’d answered the same ad as Elton John and Bernie Taupin, a time when A&R men wore kipper ties and had Picassos on their wall. He forged a path through psychedelia and into TV and films, taking huge financial risks with musicals, orchestral works and big-selling acts like Katie Melua, his Art Garfunkel hit ‘Bright Eyes’ eventually promoting him from the Haves to the Have-Yachts. Life, he says, has been “like running through traffic”. His memoir is just out, ‘The Closest Thing to Crazy: My Life of Musical Adventures’. All sorts discussed here including ...

… his brief satin-jacketed tenure in Hapshash & the Coloured Coat.

… parallels between record producers and traffic cops.

… Happy Jack and songs about outsiders.

… being in Savile Row when the Beatles played the Apple roof.

… life as “a square” during psychedelia.

… a snatch of abandoned teenage composition ‘The Man With The Purple Hand’.

… John D. Laudermilk and the magic of writing credits.

… how Bright Eyes “got me into the Officers’ Mess of Songwriters”.

… his publishers insisting there was a Womble on the book jacket.

… “circumcising” the world in a seven-crew yacht.

... and feeling simultaneously smug and guilty when driving a Roller.

Order ‘The Closest Thing To Crazy: My Life of Musical Adventures’ here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Closest-Thing-Crazy-Musical-Adventures/dp/1785120840

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Joe Boyd produced Fairport Convention, Nick Drake and many others, released acts from all over the globe on his Hannibal label and has just written a mighty and definitive account of the history of popular music, And The Roots Of Rhythm Remain, tracing the way different sounds from different countries became interwoven. Nobody is better qualified to write this book as you’ll discover from this enthralling conversation. Among the highlights …

… “if Mick and Keith had had Spotify there’d have been no Rolling Stones.”

… the African roots of Little Richard’s horn section.

… how a Zulu folk tune from 1939 ended up on the Lion King soundtrack.

… “Western musicians are governed by keys, valves and frets but what matters is the notes in between”.

… the evolution of ska as rock and roll was too exhausting in the heat of Jamaican dancehalls.

… Alan Freed, the “Pied Piper” that led white American teenagers into black music.

… Duke Ellington and music “too complicated for white audiences to follow”.

… the bossa nova in Nick Drake’s River Man.

… Paul Simon’s Graceland and the meaning of authenticity.

… world music’s problem with drum machines.

.. the attraction of music whose origin you can hear before the vocal comes in.

Order Joe’s highly recommended book here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roots-Rhythm-Remain-Journey-Through/dp/0571360009

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Elkie Brooks was on a package tour aged 15, supported the Beatles and the Animals, made a single when she was 19, joined the jazz-rock Dada, then Vinegar Joe (with Robert Palmer) and has since made 20 albums. She’s now out on her ‘Long Farewell Tour’ and looks back with us here from her home in Devon at …

… supporting the Beatles in ’64 and an audience already screaming for the headliners.  

… memories of Dusty, Cilla and Maggie Bell and how few girl singers there were in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

… singing Cliff Richard’s ‘Pointed Toe Shoes’, aged 15, at the Don Arden talent show that won her a tour with Conway Twitty and Wee Willie Harris.

… supporting the Animals at the Paramount, New York.

… the male-weighted music world and how long it took to win any respect.

… seeing Ella Fitzgerald when she was 12 and being fired up by the range and phrasing of Billie Holiday.

… what she learnt from Humphrey Lyttelton and Eric Delaney.

… life on the scampi-in-the-basket cabaret circuit as a teenager.

… trying to keep Vinegar Joe together after Robert Palmer left.  

Book tickets to the Long Farewell Tour here: https://www.elkiebrooks.com/

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With Mark Ellen rambling in the West Country it’s left to David Hepworth to talk Alex Gold down from the ledge in the light of the Dave Grohl news and discuss:

•⁠ ⁠just how many offers come the way of rich and famous rock stars

•⁠ ⁠whether his recent admission will in any way detract from the most winning smile in rock

•⁠ ⁠is this an opportunity for Jon Bon Jovi to step up?

•⁠ ⁠how a quick word from Taylor Swift is worth all the five star reviews in the world

•⁠ ⁠Nick Lowe’s infallibly entertaining story of Jet Harris and seven pints of Kaliber

•⁠ ⁠When they organised a reunion of all the progeny of Screaming Jay Hawkins

•⁠ ⁠... and the greatest music book ever with Patreon supporter Ed Newman

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The Netflix series of David Nicholls’ worldwide hit novel One Day was Top Ten in 89 countries and he’s been heavily involved in its soundtrack album, a process as enjoyable, he says, as devising the compilation tape the fictional Emma made for Dexter in 1989 featuring the Smiths, Prefab Sprout and Public Enemy. We talk to him here about the glorious pitfalls of using pop music to broadcast your personality. All bases covered, from the Geoff Love Orchestra to Joy Orbison, along with …

… prog rock drummer replacement fantasies.

… when a compilation tape is a Valentine’s card.

… music as a way of telegraphing a time.

… what the 1812 Overture does to a five year-old.

… the eternal impact of Shipbuilding and Running Up That Hill.

… “punk terrified me”.

… classic male musical taste paranoia.

… memories of Live Aid – Bowie onstage, Kiki Dee in the car park.

… buying a knock-off cassette of Sgt Pepper.

… remembering every note of a record you haven’t heard for 50 years.

… and the greatest record of all time!

Order the One Day Netflix soundtrack here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jessica-Jones-Morrish-Anne-Nikitin/dp/B0CXJNM4WV

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Old friend of the podcast, Nick Lowe has just released his 15th solo album, Indoor Safari, and he’s about to tour with Los Straitjackets. This absorbing conversation looks back at 60 years onstage and takes in the following …

… the secret of a long career.

… why he resolved “not to get that famous again”.

… touring Germany aged 15 in Brinsley Schwarz’s dad’s Dormobile.

… the Small Faces at the village hall in Hornchurch.

… to the Six Bells for seven pints with “photographer for all occasions” Jet Harris.

… playing Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent in the school band and wrestling with the chords to Cliff’s Living Doll.

… Kippington Lodge at Ally Pally, New Year’s Eve 1968, supporting Joe Cocker, the Bonzos and Amen Corner - “the Grand Canyon with a roof”.

… 270 dog walks with his son Roy during Covid and the things they discussed.

… the unique magic of working with “America’s premier instrumental surf band”.

… how ‘I Knew The Bride When She Used To Rock And Roll’ is now a wedding staple.

… and the sole mention of ‘freakbeat’ vendors the Fleur De Lys in the history of our podcast.

Nick’s tour starts at the London Palladium on September 24:

https://nicklowe.com/tour-dates/

Order Indoor Safari here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Indoor-Safari-Nick-Lowe/dp/B0D5TXRLDD

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Louis Armstrong, Wild Man Fischer, Irving Berlin and Lucinda Williams all started out as buskers and Cary Baker’s ‘Down On The Corner’ traces the romance and influence of street players from Ancient Rome via Chicago’s Maxwell Street to Elvis Costello outside the CBS conference and beyond. Cary, David and Mark chuck coins in the conversational hat, among them …  

… the turban and rollerblades stagewear of Harry Perry aka “the Skating Sikh”.

… Blind Arvella Gray who took up busking because of a gun battle.

… the sight of Bongo Joe on his daily commute (a moped loaded with steel drums).  

… what Mick Jagger learnt from Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.

… Ted Hawkins' journey from Venice Beach to Geffen Records.

… the time Cary met Moondog dressed as a Viking and why he was a symbol of old New York.

… how Billy Bragg learnt festival crowd control playing street corners.

… Madeleine Peyroux, aged 15, playing Paris subways.

… Jesse Fuller, father of the one-man band.

… do buskers now make it via Instagram?

… the only gig where you can play the same song repeatedly.

… and when is busking just noise pollution?

Order Cary Baker’s Down On The Corner here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Down-Corner-Adventures-Busking-Street/dp/1916829104

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We applied dynamic pricing to this week’s news and various stories trebled in value, among them … 

… further adventures in the Oasis ticket fiasco.

… the greatest band name ever.

… the only rock star born under Adolf Hitler.

… Marianne Faithfull? Ian Anderson? Elvis Costello? Musicians you’d rather hear talk than play.

… rock stars telling jokes.

… “if it isn’t hard to get it’s not worth having.”

… is hype generated from above or below?

... the return of old-school analogue: David Gilmour’s Golden Ticket.

… the velvet rope and the repercussions of Clubbing.

… and has anyone seen Lobby Lud?

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David’s seventh book in his ‘orange series’ is just out and you’re guaranteed to love it. He and Mark discussed ‘Hope I Get Old Before I Die’ at a sold-out launch event at Waterstones in Piccadilly on the evening of September 3, recorded here. Among the highlights you’ll find …

… the rock career as a three-act play.

… the tour that started the Age Of Spectacle.

… why Live Aid was the dawn of pop nostalgia.

… the rock star who retired from retirement.

… Woodstock – “the Somme with Santana”.

… the terrible fallout in the Byrds.

… why no act is ever forgotten.

… Nick Lowe and the few others who got even better as they got older.

… band reunions are about symbolism not music.

… how the rock generation took power.

… why Ron Wood’s memoir can be read as either comedy or tragedy.

… bands that will achieve immortality.

… why Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous seems like period drama.

… the worst group ever.

… and the only act that became bigger than the Beatles.  

Order David’s new book here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hope-Get-Old-Before-Die/dp/1787632784

https://linktr.ee/dhepworth

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David, Mark and our token bucket-hatted parka monkey Alex tackle the return of Oasis, its grip on the public imagination and why they’re the biggest band of the last 30 years, which includes …  

… the Gallaghers’ mixed fortunes since 2009.

 … who won the battle of the underdogs.

… “Noel has a thousand buttons, Liam has a thousand fingers”.

… why the ‘90s was just like the ‘60s, a golden age of British pop culture.  

… no whizz-bangs required, no props, no choreography, no lasers, no extras … why Oasis is the cheapest stadium gig to stage imaginable.

… what happens to the ticket money between now and the tour.

… Noel, the media and the common touch.  

… “a level of public demand that’s almost a sickness”.

… why “Oasis tickets are like utility bills”.

… the fate of bands that fall out with each other’s wives.

… how Liam was rescued by Debbie Gwyther and Noel’s ruinous divorce.

… the kind of watertight contracts and insurance required to ensure the band won’t fall apart again.

… “Liam, stay away from the fruit bowl!”.

… and Mark’s breakfast with Peggy Gallagher.

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In a concerted effort to put the world to rights, David and Mark ruminate upon the following …

… Kylie and the Wiggles? Canned Heat and the Chipmunks? Real or invented pop star/childrens’ entertainer collaborations.

.. the charmed life of Greg Kihn.

… will the BBC have any archive left if it keeps cancelling presenters?

… why Inside Llewyn Davis works and so many other biopics fail.

… the full story of the statement Springsteen made with the Born To Run cover shoot.

… Stewart Lee’s long-running beef with Ricky Gervais.

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Rock journalism as an occupation is rapidly heading in the direction of the watch-mender or lamplighter so Chris Charlesworth’s account of life at the Melody Maker in the ‘70s is already starting to feel like an historic document. ‘Just Backdated’ covers a time when the rock press set the agenda, sold over half a million copies a week and was courted by attention-seeking musicians of every rank, a lost world remembered in this conversation with Mark Ellen which includes …

… the unwritten rules of ‘70s rock journalism and its limitless access.

… the “homesick and slightly lost” John Lennon when living with May Pang.

… life at Melody Maker’s Fleet Street office and staff writer Max Jones’s fling with Billie Holiday.

… touring with Led Zeppelin alongside the 17 year-old Cameron Crowe (part of the inspiration for Almost Famous).

… “Beatles to reform?” and other coverline staples.

… the night Frank Zappa was thrown off the Rainbow stage – ‘people thought he’d been killed’.

… the first British interview with Steely Dan.

… Debbie Harry when she was still in the Stillettos and the day Blondie asked him to manage them.  

... why the Bay City Rollers at an airport was “the nearest thing to a nightmare while being awake”.

… his time as MM’s West and East Coast correspondent aka “the best job in the world”.

Order ‘Just Backdated’ here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Just-Backdated-Melody-Maker-Seventies/dp/1915858224

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With David asleep on a French sun-lounger beneath a copy of Summer Lightning, Alex and Mark pour themselves a cold drink and consider …

… the great ska floor-fillers.

… taking kids to rock concerts.

… the fate of all bands: “as musicianship improves, vocals decline”.

… left-field Beatles songs reworked as nursery rhymes.

… why 2-Tone had pop’s “triple threat” (and the genius of Mike Barson).

… of the five big acts with all original members intact, only one should reform.

… how “Tay-gating” became a thing.

… the secret life of Chris Ballew, former leader of minimal grunge trio the Presidents Of The United States of America.

… is the Jam a “young man’s concept”?

… the downside of “Cuddly Liam”.  

… Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran: has normality replaced escapism?

… and Frank Carter as the new Johnny Rotten.

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Facing down the leg spinners of rock and roll news while trying to wallop the odd shot across the pavilion roof. On the scoreboard this week …

… has there ever been a rock feud as bitter as Trump v Musk?

… what Ray Charles, Taylor Swift and Dave Clark have in common.

… the 30-year golden age music video.

… things Van Morrison can’t forget.

… how some songs about lying in hammocks necking cocktails ended up worth $275m.  

… Beyoncé, Stetsons, pink Cadillacs and how all visiting American acts bring with them the aura of America.

… the greatest and most influential video ever made.

… the song Carly Simon wrote about Cat Stevens.

… “Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)”

… Nick Mason’s menagerie: things your teenage self never imagined would happen.

… Kraft Cheese slices, Kylie videos, the cut above David Beckham’s eye and other things labelled ‘iconic’.

… and Birthday guest Paul Thompson’s night at the Music Video Preservation Society!

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Love’s official biographer John Einarson tells David Hepworth the star-crossed tale of the band who made the least psychedelic album of the psychedelic era. Their conversation takes in:

….Lee’s growing up between Memphis and L.A., dealing with the problems of looking more like Johnny Mathis than Otis Redding.

….how being indulged as a youngster by his family made him a tyrant as a band leader.

….growing up with a prodigious musical talent but without the mastery of a single instrument.

….refusing to put up with the inconvenience of touring and bearing personal grudges which prevented him taking up life-changing offers.

….their competition with The Doors, who would do all the things that Love wouldn’t.

…how Arthur Lee heard Forever Changes in his head and how he transferred that knowledge to an arranger who’d never heard a pop record.

….why Brian Wilson, John Sebastian and Arthur Lee “never got past 1967”.

….the gun charges that put Arthur Lee in jail and the third act he enjoyed when he came out.

You can order the book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Forever-Changes-Authorized-Biography-Arthur/dp/1916829120/

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As Mark Ellen goes shrimping at Frinton David Hepworth and Alex Gold links hands across the Atlantic to discuss:

….why a quick turn around Mount Hood in a Cessna should never be confused with pleasure

….why all the highly-rated albums are actually over-rated.

….why Timothee Chalamet has no hope of being able to capture more than one facet of Bob Dylan

….the name of the only music-related location in the whole of Oxford Street which has managed to survive the great hollowing-out

….why there really is no point corporations spending fortunes on renaming the places which were christened in our hearts

…the likelihood and desirability of Oasis getting back together

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A small Pastis, a game of boules and a conversation putting the rock and roll world to rights, which this week includes …

… why Debbie Harry and Mick Jagger worked so well on the small screen.

… Elvin Pelvin on the Bilko Show and how Elvis was modelled on Tony Curtis.

… An American Werewolf In London, The Birds, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, Don’t Look Now, Nightmare On Elm Street and other old movies being rebooted.

… how Patti Smith based an entire career on looking like Keith Richards in 1972 and making records that sounded like they were produced by someone who looked like Keith Richards in 1972.

… a record separated from its sleeve ceases to exist.

… why doesn’t anyone remake classic albums?

… “Once we had something complete and perfect. And what happened? You spent it!”

… how CDs never have “materiality”.

… further proof that Oasis are the most conservative thing in pop music.

… primitive connections and how the album sleeve is the same size as a native American warrior’s shield.

… sounds that date records precisely - eg the syndrum.

Plus birthday guest Patrick Butler.

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Rockfield is a converted farmhouse in the Welsh countryside where, for over 50 years, bands have lived while recording. In the ‘70s Tiffany Murray’s mum was the in-house cook, filling Motorhead to the brim with boeuf bourguignon and Black Sabbath with salmon en croute. Her touching memoir My Family And Other Rock Stars – hailed as “a rock and roll Cider With Rosie” – sees a succession of visiting bands though the wide eyes of a child and in a wholly new light - Freddie Mercury is the man who “smelt of sweet wood and oranges” and was nice to her dog, Julian Cope is “pretty and dressed in a white sheet”. It’s a movie waiting to happen. We loved this highly original and revealing book and our conversation with Tiff which involves …

… the ‘Saffy from Ab Fab’ relationship she had with her mum who began her professional life spying on the Duchess of Argyll from a wardrobe.

… floppy hats, Biba dresses and a purple beach buggy.

… the only woman who recorded at Rockfield in the ‘70s.

… the realisation that the men singing “Galileo” repeatedly in the stables were the same people later on Top Of The Pops.

… her mother’s Book Of Rules for visiting rock stars, “a matron in the body of Julie Christie in Darling”.

… ample proof that rock music allows a life of extended adolescence.

… shelved albums and unpaid bills.

… Tiff’s stepfather and in-house Rockfield producer Fritz Fryer.

… Nick Lowe through the eyes of a 10 year-old – “tall, kind and looked like a bird”.

... Graham Parker’s trout in almonds and how the cook was paid extra “just to get food into Lemmy”.

… and mentioned in despatches – Squeeze, the Tyla Gang, Showaddywaddy, Van Der Graaf Generator and Dr Feelgood.

Order ‘My Family And Other Rock Stars' here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Family-Other-Rock-Stars-groundbreaking/dp/0349727538

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Mark Blake calls Dreams: the Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac a “mosaic biography”, their almost six-decade saga presented as a series of enthralling short stories with titles like ‘Mick Fleetwood’s Great Epiphany’ and ‘Rumours: A Doomed Romance in Six Acts’. It opens in fact with a “cast of characters”, the 18 one-time members, as if dramatis personae in a play, a play that gets more outlandish and dumbfounding with every new discovery and much of it based on his interviews and meetings with most of them (including Peter Green). A few highlights here …

… how Stevie Nicks arrived as the spare part of a package deal and rose to become indispensable.

… the fake Fleetwood Mac and the Jeremy Spencer and Peter Green impersonators (which involves an egg and potato farmer from Essex).

… why you should watch the Tusk video repeatedly (and its ruinous cost).

 … Bill Clinton, Daisy Jones & the Six, the dancing pony, Guardians of the Galaxy and other key factors in the return of the Mac.   

… from model to muse to psychotherapist, the story of the real life Black Magic Woman.

… “Oh Lord, she’s writing another song.”

… internal romantic tangles that give their music a poignancy.

… the horrors of Kiln House.

… Lyndsey Buckingham’s Armani/Clash episode.

… Stevie’s love affair with Derek Taylor who then had to promote a slow-selling album containing a secret song about it.

… Mick Fleetwood, “old ham”, drag act, compulsive show-off, unsuitable band manager.  

Order ‘Dreams: the Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac’ here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dreams-Many-Lives-Fleetwood-Mac/dp/1639367322

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Beloved Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith, old pal of the pod, is touring the UK in November, two of the nights at the Palladium, and looks back here at the first shows he saw and played himself. Which delights include …

… what you learn playing Canadian bars aged 16.

… seeing Elton John in a 75,000-seater stadium when he was 12.

… early memories of the Kinks and the Who.

… why every gig is “a mini-battle”.

… Bob Dylan’s courage to do what the crowd don’t expect.

… original fans in middle-age: they’re back and they bring their kids!

… why a support tour with Robyn Hitchcock took him in a new direction.

… exotic wild ‘critters’ in his yard in Ontario.

… and how the UK launched his international career.

Tickets from: https://ronsexsmith.com/tours/ 

Ron’s ‘Cobblestone Runway’ and ‘Retriever’ albums have just been re-released.

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Passing the baton of discourse on the rock and roll racetrack, our Olympian hosts sprint in the following direction …

… watching Toumani Diabaté play in the pitch-black Malian night.

… Laurel Canyon, the Brain Damage Club and the great fire of ‘79.

… the Kinks in Fortis Green Road, the Beatles in Chiswick House and other alternative London rock landmarks.

… is Cerrone’s Supernature nicked from the Days Of Pearly Spencer?

… lower-level graduates from the John Mayall Academy – Jon Hiseman, Keef Hartley, Larry Taylor, Aynsley Dunbar – and how being sacked from the Bluesbreakers was a badge of honour.

… why do songwriters value suffering over joy?

… “the more seriously someone takes musical taste, the more you should disregard them”.

… what connects Bob Dylan and the Life of Brian?

… a blueser from Preston in a Sioux headdress and one from Macclesfield pretending to hop a freight train.  

… and why “song and dance man” Leadbelly had to play “complaining songs”.

Plus Birthday guest Gianluca Tramontana.

The Beatles at Chiswick House:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvvVNaU_qa8

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Once again the ping-pong ball of conversation is batted across the rock and roll net and these are the scores on the doors …

 … how to wreck the national anthem.

… cover versions that are better than the original.

… the genius of Bob Newhart - "nutty Walt", Abraham Lincoln and that gag about country music.

… virtue signalling in rock magazines.

… why we connect with pop stars on the slide.

… how Tainted Love went from the Northern Clubs to the top of the American charts via a cloakroom in Leeds.

… Ingrid Andress and the curse of ‘cursive singing’.

… the comedy album that saved Warners Brothers Records.

… parenthood and Bruce Springsteen: “the world of love and the world of fear – and they’re the same world”.

… who’d rather Elvis Costello played (whisper it) other people’s songs?

… have there been any great album sleeves since the arrival of CDs?

… why Don Rickles and Bob Newhart’s friendship proves all showbiz is just an act.

... musicians, athletes, comedians, politicians and the addiction of adrenaline.

Rolling Stone’s 100 best album covers:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-album-covers-1235035232/#recipient_hashed=228eb87724435002888d7f82108650021cdb318bf64d1067e1ebef25cd1818de&recipient_salt=d0d82b7aaf06cd217ba5546bced15f5c8c98f6e3776c6c1b2145e79711b91e18

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There’s something romantic about glorious failure and Will nails it perfectly in ‘Street Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence’. Over 40 years plagued by bad luck and self-sabotage with Felt, Denim and Mozart Estate, Lawrence has pursued fame and success while refusing to do what’s required to achieve them. Will spent 12 months wandering the streets of London with him to paint a fond, touching and extremely entertaining portrait of the worst-equipped pop star attempting a comeback, a man on a holy, monastic mission in a book about “sacrifice and the price of a dream”. Among many highlights here, we talk about …

… where Lawrence fits in the pantheon of great underachievers like Syd Barrett, Nick Drake and Arthur Lee.

… and his similarity to Kevin Shields and Kevin Rowland.

… the wisdom of a former girlfriend: “stop trying to be the pop star you don’t want to be and you might get somewhere”.

… is lack of success the central dream of the indie world?  

… why Denim were Britpop before Britpop happened and why EMI melted down all copies of their last single.

… his rules before the book began - “No anecdotes, no interviews with former members of Felt …”

… what his stalker planned to get his attention.

… fantasy girlfriends and “a fear of cheese”.

… why he didn’t go to his mother’s funeral.

… and why Truman Capote’s portrait of Marlon Brando, the Duke and His Domain, was a touchstone for this book.

Order ‘Street Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence’ here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Street-Level-Superstar-Lawrence-Will-Hodgkinson/dp/1785120220

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Employing controversial VAR technology, we re-examine various events on the rock and roll pitch and suggest a new perspective. Those key moments include … 

… the “bucolic frolic” at Knebworth 50 years ago as seen from 100 yards away just past the burger van and featuring Tim Buckley, Alex Harvey, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Van Morrison, the Doobie Brothers and the Allman Brothers Band. And a stark naked Jesus.

… when did the Age of Spectacle begin?

… how Two-Way Family Favourites helped start Live Aid.

… Waters v Gilmour, a feud way beyond candour and honesty.  

… the moment Van Morrison first became ‘Captain Letdown’.

… memories of Wembley Stadium on July 13 1985 – Status Quo, U2, the non-appearance of Cat Stevens, the planned link with Ian Botham at Trent Bridge and swapping Tony Hancock lines with a man on Concorde.

... the three stages of rock and roll.

… life before mobile phones.

… The Revenant and Zone Of Interest, films that feel like the past without trying to make the past look cool.

… “the older I get, the older I wanna get”.

… Joni Mitchell and why we love an old curmudgeon.

… and birthday guest Andrew Stocks wonders why some bands can’t bury the hatchet.

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Stuart Maconie – broadcaster, prolific author – has a brilliant and original new perspective on the Beatles. His latest book With A Little Help From Their Friends identifies the 100 people who had the greatest impact on their story, from the inner circle to bit-part players – schoolfriends, girlfriends, managers, muses, support acts, advisors and exploiters. It’s immensely entertaining – and revealing, even for obsessives like us. Look out for these in particular …

… memories of his Mum taking him to see the Beatles in Wigan when he was three.

… the Shakespearian supporting cast – “we know the Othellos and King Lears but there are a lot of Rosencrantz and Guildensterns” such as Marsha Albert, Melanie Coe, Pablo Fanque, Mr Mustard and the night with the poet Royston Ellis that inspired Polythene Pam.

… villains of the piece who might have been misunderstood like the Maharishi and Allen Klein.

… what Derek Taylor shouted at Peter Blake at the Q Awards.

… the full extent of the Beatles’ American merchandise catastrophe.

… the “moving and spooky” sensation of standing on the spot in Woolton where John and Paul first met - and its repercussions.

… the Sliding Doors moments and why no other band merits this kind of depth and detail.

… the hoary redundant old saw about John v Paul – “guerilla genius v slick vaudevillian” and how Peter Jackson’s Get Back made us all fall in love with them even harder and deeper than before.

.

… the regrettable question he asked McCartney about Gerry & the Pacemakers.

… the tragedy of Jimmie Nicol – “being a member of the Beatles, even briefly, was the nearest equivalent to going to the Moon”.

… the impact of Paul’s life with the Ashers on the band’s intersections with art, theatre and poetry.

… how the ‘Oldies But Goldies’ album broke the band beyond the Iron Curtain.

.. why Penny Lane is like a Play for Today.

… and the greatest song the Beatles recorded.

Order With A Little Help From Our Friends here: https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/with-a-little-help-from-their-friends-the-beatles-changed-the-world-but-who-changed-theirs-stuart-maconie?variant=54870051815803

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Broadcaster and music writer Ann Powers lives in Nashville and grew up listening to Kate Bush and Blondie. The siren call of Blue sparked a life-long and deep-rooted devotion and her new book Travelling: On The Path Of Joni Mitchell takes a different tack from the standard biographies, mapping the context of the songs, the forces that drove her, the steel will it took to succeed and the love affairs that shaped her and her music. All discussed here. As is this ... 

… the scale of your ambition when your heroes are Nietzsche, Beethoven and Picasso.

… how she got her revenge for not being allowed to go to Woodstock.

… “she had to learn to walk three times”.

… the psychological impact of her “dynamic father and homemaker mother”.

… the love affairs with Leonard Cohen, David Crosby and Graham Nash.

… her capacity to turn disaster into triumph.

… the influence of Laurel Canyon neighbour Derek Taylor and the Beatles.

… the many reasons she declared the music business “a corrupt cesspool”.

… the tone of Rolling Stone’s ‘70s coverage and the letters she wrote to Mo Austin about the way she was marketed.

… David Crosby’s regret about not involving her in Crosby Stills & Nash.

… her reaction to the continued success of Tom Petty, Peter Gabriel and Don Henley in a world where mid-career women are “put out to pasture”.

… why the current renaissance seems “all legend, no bite”.

… and Laura Nyro, Tom Rush, Judy Collins, Patti Smith, Aretha Franklin, Maggie Roach, Stevie Wonder, Thomas Dolby.

Order Travelling: On the Path Of Joni Mitchell here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Travelling-Path-Mitchell-Ann-Powers/dp/0008332967

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The first EPs appeared in the late ‘40s and ‘50s (Frank Sinatra, Elvis) hitting a magical sweet spot between the album and the single and they’ve cast a spell ever since, an exotic reminder that record labels are part of the packaged goods business. Music writer Corey duBrowa stumbled across one by Oingo Boingo in the original Licorice Pizza store in Long Beach, California, when he was 13 and began a lifelong collection that eventually led to ‘An Ideal For Living: a Celebration of the EP’, a book full of fabulous sleeve art and seven decades of 3- and 4-track classics. He talks here about every aspect of EP World and flags up some favourites, among them ones by the Goons, the Beatles, Donovan, Alice In Chains, Buzzcocks, the Clash, the Stones, Ice Cube, ‘A Factory Sample’, the Pogues, the EP that topped the album chart and a Joy Division disc worth $7,000.

Order ‘An Ideal For Living’ here:

https://hozacrecords.com/product/aifl/

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The rock and roll ballot-box is stuffed with votes and the exit polls suggest how this week’s debate might play out. Along these lines …

… is there still such a thing as British music?

… John Lennon as a lavatory attendant.

… Pink Floyd’s miming lessons.

.. how Neil Finn cheered up the All Blacks.

… the staggering difference in the UK album charts in the weeks the last two Labour Prime Ministers were elected (1997 and 2024) - male British bands v international female solo acts.

… ‘Starman’ on Top Of The Pops and the tricks it plays on the memory.

… “current chart acts are either in the spotlight or don’t seem to exist at all.”

… the wit and wisdom of James Blunt.

.. the Herd’s guest spot in the Tom Courtenay caper Otley.

… the Phil Collins syndrome: “when people are tired of duffing up pop stars, they tend to re-embrace them”.

… plus birthday guest Richard Lewis and songs that should be longer – eg Dancing the Night Away by the Motors, I Can Fly by the Herd (cue military bugle and church bell and choir).

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We’ve known Dylan since the days he was editing i-D, Arena and GQ and he’s been a regular on our podcasts talking about his books on Live Aid, the ‘80s, David Bowie and Wichita Lineman. And he’s finally written his memoir, These Foolish Things, full of insights and stories about glam rock, punk, the Blitz, four decades of the magazine world and the people he interviewed and shepherded into awards shows. You’ll hear the delightful clang of the odd dropped name here, along with …

… Shirley MacLaine, Michael Caine and the power of fame when it was harder to achieve.

… seeing Leigh Bowery in daylight.

 … the real story of Kylie’s “bare bum” tennis shoot.

… does every good memoir involve a degree of treachery?

… why Hollywood’s still obsessed with print.

… William Hague’s 14 pints, Nick Clegg’s 30 women and other self-selling GQ scoops.

… Piers Morgan and Alastair Campbell (“the rottweilers”) and other interrogators who’d always come back with a cover line, usually involving a number.

… how politicians make great interviews as they’re used to aggression.

… “not now, I’m filming!”: life in the Arena office.

… i-D, the Face, nightclubs and “intoxicating” London in the early ‘80s.

… magazine covers and the fine art of horse-trading.

Order These Foolish Things here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/These-Foolish-Things-Dylan-Jones/dp/1408719851

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In which we hoof a few balls round the rock and roll pitch and try to stick some in the net. Extracts from the live match commentary include ….

… “Whipping Post!” “Paint it black, you devil!”: when did the audience become part of the show?

… the special, unrepeatable thing about Bill Evans At The Village Vanguard.

… GambleGate and the most we’ve ever bet on anything.

… why young musicians today are so good. And why most Americans could outplay the British.

… ‘60s Jamaican ska, 2-Tone and other imperfect imitations of the original.

 … does the mainstream exist anymore?

… did the Animals’ House of the Rising Sun invent folk-rock?

… the voice of Word In Your Ear, Kerry Shale: who is that masked man?

… the new Al Murray promotional tactic.

… and does anyone else remember Alice’s Restaurant?

Plus Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, the Beatles playing Motown, Emily Roberts of the Last Dinner Party playing Gershwin and birthday guest Blaine Allan.

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The two-man tandem of curiosity wobbles its way down the rock and roll cyclepath pausing here to admire the view …

… “We’re captive on the carousel of TIME-AH!!”: tuneless Northern club singer Reg “Reg” Snipton performs Ver Greats.

… is going to gigs alone becoming a thing?

... why Phil Oakey was a better musician than any of ELP.

… Seven Nation Army in football stadiums - and does Jack White make any money from it?

… what rock stars spend their fortunes on.

… people who are ‘jewellery-blind’ (eg D Hepworth).

… the scariest intention a musician can announce.  

… Dutch fans dancing.

… the poignancy of all John Lennon’s possessions.

… how to wreck the Great American Songbook (may involve xylophone solo).

… from the Euros to a trip on the tube: how selfies have invaded our space.

… the strange, unfinished story of John Lennon’s Patek, “the El Dorado of lost watches”.

… you’re never alone with an iPhone.

… and does virtuoso musicianship ruin pop music, asks birthday guest Guy Constant? (Answer: yes).

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Clare Grogan, a regular on our podcasts and rarely off the cover when we were at Smash Hits, is on tour again with Altered Images and playing festivals in the summer – indeed her fabulous description of the bus ferrying her, Midge Ure, Nik Kershaw, Kim Wilde and Living in A Box to the stage at Rewind sounds like an old Smash Hits cartoon come to life. As she points out, “the ‘80s revival has gone on longer than the decade itself.” We don’t know anyone who enjoys and appreciates being a pop star more and talk here about the first gigs she ever went to and played herself, which involves …

… what she wore (aged 13) to see the Bay City Rollers at the Glasgow Apollo (includes “cork platform clogs”).

… winning the Alternative school beauty pageant dressed as Debbie Harry in a bin bag.

… her sister Margaret’s re-enactments of David Bowie, Leo Sayer and Roxy Music.

… why the furniture at the Middlesbrough Rock Garden was screwed to the floor.

… memories of 2-Tone, the Banshees, Madness, the Stranglers and the Blockheads.

… the riot at a Scottish festival when they ran out of alcohol.

… violence at early ‘80s gigs when your only security was “Ginge the Roadie”.

… Echo & the Bunnymen and the Psychedelic Furs at the Bungalow Bar in Paisley.

… do you focus on the people in the crowd who are enjoying it or the ones that need winning over?

… horizontal rain when wearing a ballet dress and playing to “a sea of cagoules”.

… the best way to tell the audience you’re about to play a new song.

… David Hepworth’s Altered Images album review in Smash Hits: ouch!

… and her daughter watching old Altered Images clips on YouTube.  

----------------

Altered Images autumn tour dates and tickets here: http://alteredimages.band/

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Graeme is an old friend of the podcast. We’ve talked to him in the past about his books on Phil Lynott and John Martyn. ‘Under The Ivy: the Life And Music of Kate Bush’ first appeared in 2010, and was revised in 2015 after her Before the Dawn concerts and it’s now been updated again as, despite no new music or public appearances, her worldwide reputation has rocketed through the roof. We look back here at various key points in the story including ...  

… why the way she made records was ahead of its time.

… the ‘70s footage and recordings that were “supressed”.

… the “reclusive” decade and how the press filled the vacuum.

… divinely daft and humorous TV appearances eg with Delia Smith: “Waldorf Salad – that’s got waldorfs in it!”

… her bohemian childhood and the powerful influence of male counterparts, particularly eldest brother and erotic poet John Carder Bush.

… the unconventional Smash Hits interview of 1981.

… the ‘Before the Dawn’ concerts and the reason she staged them.

… her seven-year stand-off with Top Of The Pops.

… her ‘70s rock group – the KT Bush Band (still going!) – and the songs they played eg The Stealer by Free, Brooklyn by Steely Dan, Shame Shame Shame by Johnny Winter.

… Danny Baker’s NME review – “nothing she writes about matters”.

… Pamela Stephenson’s vicious pastiche and Alan Partridge’s part in her comeback.

... Talk Talk, Blackadder, Monty Python, Powell & Pressburger, Oscar Wilde, Celtic folk, the Pre-Raphaelites and other early influences.

… and the advantage of never being cool.

Order 'Under The Ivy' here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Under-Ivy-Music-Omnibus-Remastered/dp/1915841356

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Among the logs tossed on the conversational bonfire this week to combat mid-June’s British winter you’ll find …

… ‘I Managed Van Morrison’ and other films screaming to be made.

 … how it feels to watch someone play from the best seat in the house.

… Françoise Hardy, her unsmiling photos and legions of besotted male admirers (ie us and everyone else).

 … the time she met Dylan and Nick Drake.

 … Juliette Greco, Edith Piaf and the handful of French stars who made it across the Channel.

… the joy of small venues: “the bigger the gig, the smaller a component of the experience the actual performance is”.

 … Elvis Costello’s photographic memory.

 … Maria Muldaur with Earl Palmer and Amos Garrett.

 … why Twenty Twelve says more about British life than any other TV show.

 ... the terrible jokes of Ronnie Scott.

… “Kate Bush grew up in a world without sarcasm.”

 … Siobhan Sharpe, Bertie Wooster, the Artful Dodger, Basil Fawlty, Edina & Patsy and other deathless British fictional stereotypes.

 … plus birthday guest Paul Thompson and books tracking down people who’ve played with Dexys and Dylan. And who should be next – Hawkwind, Van Morrison?

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Stewart Lee – beloved writer, columnist and stand-up - was on the podcast in 2022 talking about the first records he bought, immensely funny and fascinating, and we’ve been praying for an excuse to get him back since. And it’s here! - he’s on tour again and his ‘Basic Lee’ show is on Sky/Now TV on July 20. This covers his first memories of live entertainment - in the audience and as a performer – and the people who influenced him and stops off at the following stations …

… why the Wombles were just like Crass.

… how he writes and tests new material.

… why Ted Chippington inspired his stand-up career.

… television comedy is now “two-screen TV” as the viewer’s always watching something else at the same time.

… how Lockdown made audiences forget how to behave.

… “Comedian In Bum Phone Fury”: how he stopped people filming his gigs.

… deliberately using negative reaction shots in his TV edits.  

… improvisation in music and comedy and why every night should be unique.

… the tense protocol of comedians at other comedians’ gigs. 

… Mark E Smith doing things “out of necessity irrespective of how they were received” and his reaction to seeing Stewart in his audience.

… why festival crowds are a challenge.

… the Drifters, the Applejacks and Napalm Death and how they are related.

… the music playing when his son was born.

… arriving in full early Dexys rig - donkey jacket, woolly hat - to find they were now the “raggle-taggle gypsies”.

… the sole performance of Peter Richardson’s Mexican bandit act.

… Daniel Kitson, “the world’s greatest living stand-up”.

… plus the Nightingales, Chris Spedding, Clem Cattini, Kirk Brandon, the Bevis Frond, Geddy Lee, Throbbing Gristle and Brighton Psych Fest’s Secluded Bronte – “is it music or are they just moving furniture around?”

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All information about Stewart Lee tour dates here …

https://www.stewartlee.co.uk/

‘Basic Lee’ is on Sky/Now TV on July 20.

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Rob Caiger is one of those special people who turned their teenage obsession with music into a job

… from being the only one in ELO’s office who knew where the old tapes were

… to learning that what it says on the outside of the box isn’t always what’s on the tape

… through embarking on a ten-year project to put out the last Small Faces album from 1970 in its proper form  

… via blindfolded journeys to mysterious destinations with the promise of finding some long-lost jewels

… and hearing a Rolling Stones out-take bleeding through a multi-track by the Move

… through the vault under Smithfield Market out of which tapes would sometimes emerge covered in blood

… to preparing for a future where nobody who was there will be able to explain how and why things were recorded

… this is the world as seen by the remarkably dedicated people who put together the box sets we all hanker for.

The Small Faces: The Autumn Stone record and CD - https://www.thesmallfaces.com/shop/

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You’ll always find us in the kitchen at parties, near the hoppy summer ale and sausage rolls and, and this week discussing …

… he hasn't changed his look or sound for 30 years: is there a more conservative concept than Liam Gallagher? And how he became the one-man Oasis.

… the eye-watering sum Kevin Hart made from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.

… Loudermilk, Rob Gordon in High Fidelity and other Rock Snob stereotypes in fiction - “I’m a Rock Snob? It comes with the territory being right!” And how rock critics are always cast as cynical, joyless curmudgeons.  

… why Courteney Cox was chosen for the Dancing In The Dark video and how Springsteen turned live performance into spectacle.

… the diplomatic skills of A&R men in pursuit of hit singles.

… why Born In The USA was a masterclass in branding.

… the Word in Your Ear podcast and Taylor Swift, both up and running since 2006!

… plus Abba, Peter ‘King Mod’ Meaden, Jon Savage’s book on LGBTQ pop culture, Liam Gallagher’s hair and Springsteen’s dancing lessons.

Great clip of Steve Harley on Australian TV sent by listener Brian Nankervis …

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10154289171249235

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“I thought Dave Davies of the Kinks was a girl. When I discovered he was a boy, that’s when I got interested.” Jon’s an old friend of the podcast and the author of some highly regarded and influential books about pop and its repercussions, ‘England’s Dreaming’ and ‘1966: the Year The Decade Exploded’ among them. His latest is ‘The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Performers Shaped Popular Culture 1955-1979’ which looks at five particular moments and the pivotal people in the mix at the time. We couldn’t recommend it more highly and cover seven decades in this conversation, stopping off at …

… how “homosexuality was a career-killer” until Bowie’s spectacular Melody Maker interview in 1972.

… new male identities - Valentino, Nureyev, Sinatra and the “subversive” stage act of Johnnie Ray.

… does pop drive change or reflect it?

… Andrew Loog Oldham, Kit Lambert, Simon Napier-Bell and the supposed “gay managers mafia” and how Oldham used camp as a weapon.

… Dusty Springfield and the Gateway Club.

… how Brian Epstein invented a new type of manager.

... Andy Warhol at the Factory, pop art, the launch of the Velvet Underground and his jukebox time-capsule of ‘60s gay pop taste.

… was Tom Robinson the first out gay British pop star?

… Mary Whitehouse v the Gay Times.

… the Clash (“hurt, vulnerable boys”), Siouxsie, Poly Styrene, the Slits, Vic Godard and punk’s other new stage identities.

Order ‘the Secret Public’ here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Public-Resistance-Popular-1955-1979/dp/0571358373

… and Jon’s 2-CD soundtrack here …

https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/various/jon-savages-the-secret-public-how-the-lgbtq-aesthetic-shaped-pop-culture-1955-1979?channable=409d9269640032313931333434ec&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwvIWzBhAlEiwAHHWgvQetjeRXO03PVnpFYq75PMG_pmDd42hKBO8VytbDerJqZw3ycIY7pxoCFxIQAvD_BwE#cd-x2

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Giles was 12 when he watched Abba win Eurovision in 1974 and was instantly besotted – and thus required to spend the next 20 years wrestling with The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name. His thunderingly funny, fond and illuminating book – My My!: Abba Through The Years – traces their story, looks at the snobbery and critical mauling they endured and figures out how they made records so universally popular and which still move him to tears 50 years later. It’s also the best example of any book we’ve read that can explain the mechanics of music to a non-musician. It’s highly recommended, as is this podcast which alights upon …

… a 50 year-old story – “for 42 of which they haven’t existed”.

.. the vicious early press reaction - “calculatingly commercial”, “dispassionate” …

… the divine clunkiness of their early TV appearances.

… the sense of the melancholy we’ve attached to their music - and why.

... the immense value of splitting up early and never reforming or publicly falling out.  

… the immaculate construction of Dancing Queen (which opens with the second half of the chorus) and why “there are two types of wedding disco – ones that start with Dancing Queen and terrible ones.”

… the maturity of Abba’s lyrics – about marriages, relationships, children and other subjects pop music rarely tackles.

 … why Abba Voyage is so affecting that he’s seen it three times.

… and Muriel’s Wedding, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and other key factors in The Comeback.

Order Giles Smith’s My My!: Abba Through The Ages here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-ABBA-Through-Ages-ebook/dp/B0CF73GNN4

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