Anyone Can Play Guitar – Details, episodes & analysis

Hello and welcome to episode 177 of the ACPG Podcast.

This week Ben is in Newcastle and zooming with Matthew Murphy of The Wombats and Love Fame Tragedy who is in LA.

Ben and Murph talk about his second album from his side project Love, Fame, Tragedy. We talk about writing for this project and The Wombats, talk about the heritage of great scouse bands (there’s a few), playing live, living in LA, and much more.

Even for a writer beloved by his fans for being so frank and open about his romantic failings, tempestuous marriage and issues with drugs and depression, Life Is A Killer is Murph’s truest and most lyrically raw album to date, documenting one of the most difficult years of his life. As the now sober songwriter navigates his way through balancing life as a new father of two and touring the world with The Wombats, he explores the mental struggles of managing family life amid self-destructive excess. Written in between London and LA, Murph enlisted the help of producers Jacknife Lee (U2, The Killers) and Mark Crew (Bastille, Rag N Bone Man, The Wombats) to push his sonic boundaries further than ever, with new sounds and even voice notes from his wife Akemi.

As singer, guitarist and primary songwriter of The Wombats, Murph has sold over a million albums, garnered nearly 2 billion streams, and, in 2022 secured his first ever UK #1 album with the acclaimed Fix Yourself, Not The World.

Thank you to Murph, Charlie and Murph’s dog for coming on and support with this episode.

See you very soon for season six.

Hello and welcome to episode 176 of the ACPG podcast.

This episode is the last interview of the series. But don’t worry we will be back for a new series and our much loved outro episode.

In this episode Ben is zooming with J Willgoose, Esq of the fantastic Public Service Broadcasting.

The talk about PSB’s new live album, approaching playing live, writing new albums, and more.

A celebration of the power of radio written in recognition of the centenary of the BBC, This New Noise saw the band joining forces with the 88 piece BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Jules Buckley. A standout performance from 2022’s BBC Proms, it received 5*s in The Telegraph who called it “a resonant, timely and ultimately touching show”. Founder member J. Willgoose, Esq. remixed the concert from scratch, bringing out even more depth and texture from a multi-layered performance and showing it in a new light.

This New Noise is the second time Public Service Broadcasting have been commissioned for the BBC Proms. In 2019 the band performed an orchestral arrangement of their 2015 studio album The Race for Space with The Multi-Story Orchestra to mark the 50th anniversary of the first manned mission to the Moon.

Thank you to J Willgoose, Esq, Jodie, and Elliott for their support with this episode.

Hello and welcome to episode 167 of the ACPG podcast.

This week Ben is zooming with too proper geezers, Bruce and Simon of the fantastic Good Health Good Wealth.

With a mix of Streetesqe spoken word vocals and dirty dirty beats. GHGW are a heading mix of Queens market and a eastern European club. And I love it (to quote them).

Ben, Bruce, and Simon discuss how they good started, their approach to making music, touring and playing live, and how London influences their sound.

Good Health Good Wealth are East London vocalist/songwriter/producer Bruce Breakey and Lithuania-born guitarist/producer Simon Kuzmickas; two friends who met in a central London Wetherspoons a decade ago.  

Like some of the best partnerships in the history of music, there’s an odd couple quality to Good Health Good Wealth, but one that just seems to work. The pair have been winning fans with a sound that combines the poetic everyday storytelling of The Streets, Baxter Dury or Mac Miller with a taut, lightly funk influenced production style that takes its cues from everything from peak-era Neptunes productions to Justice, Daft Punk and Prince.

Despite their differences, Bruce and Simon bonded over a shared love of everything from Action Bronson to Tom Waits and played together in a punk band for years. But it was when the covid pandemic struck that they decided to take things in a different direction.  With an almost spoken word delivery and knack for creating an inescapable melody, their songs have tackled everything from pining for the escape of the weekend while struggling without a job, to the thrill of finding new love in the city. Each new song showcasing Bruce’s lyrical ability to bring the minutiae of the everyday to life with an almost cinematic quality.

Thank you to Bruce, Simon, and Sarah for this interview

See you next week for JW Francis.

This week Ben is backstage at the Newcastle Academy with Jimmy Adkins, lead singer and guitarist of the might Jimmy Eat World.

We crammed a lot in a our chat including recording, touring, fans, joining a band, song writing, and even more.

Bleed American was my (Ben) album of year one at uni.  Amazing memories.

Jimmy's good cause of the week is Team Taylor, check them out at http://www.teamtayloraz.com/ 

In this episode we hear from a fans perspective. Brian Garcia has amassed one of the largest and most impressive memorabilia collections of his favourite band, Oasis. This is to the point of needing storage units to house it all.

So what gets somebody from the point of liking a song, to a super fan.

The good cause for this week comes from Brian and is the MDS foundation.

This week Ben is back at the think tank in Newcastle, back at the Hit the North festival with Louisa of She Drew the Gun.

We managed to cram a lot in a short episode including identity, location, support from other artists, Liverpool, and so much more.

Louisa's charity of the week is The Whitechapel Centre, check them out here. https://www.whitechapelcentre.co.uk/

This week is back on the ‘phone’, this time with Zach Hangauer of howtoreleasearecord.com

James and Zach spoke a lot, you guessed it, about releasing your music and what Zach does to support new and emerging artists through howtoreleasearecord.com.

Zach’s charity of the weeks is a returning good cause.  It’s ACLU, check them out at aclu.org

This week Ben is back at the Riverside in Newcastle with We Are Scientists.

Ben catches up with Keith and Chris pre gig to talk about the pitfalls of social media takeovers, song writing, dealing with record companies and so much more.

The good causes for Keith and Chris are www.pS9pets.com and www.children.org.

This week Ben is backstage at the Newcastle arena with Jon Fratelli of The Fratellis.

Jon and Ben talk about naming a band, touring, support slots, massive hits, getting started and so much more.

Jon’s charity of the week is the Eilidh Brown Memorial Fund.  Find out more here eilidhbrown.co.uk

This week James is back on the phone, this time with Matthew Rusk founder of MGR Music and our season two partner.

They look at a career in music in more detail and how to get the best out of a career in this industry.

Matthew's charity of the week is the WAVE trauma centre, find out more here. http://wavetraumacentre.org.uk/