The CAT Club (Classic Album Thursdays) – Details, episodes & analysis

BLUE – JONI MITCHELL with special guest Barney Hoskyns.

Sad, spare, and beautiful, 'Blue' is the quintessential confessional singer/songwriter album. Forthright and poetic, Joni Mitchell's songs are raw nerves, tales of love and loss. Mitchell's music moves beyond the constraints of acoustic folk into more intricate and diverse territory, setting the stage for the experimentation of her later work. Unrivalled in its intensity and insight, 'Blue' remains a watershed.

With special guest BARNEY HOSKYNS.
Barney Hoskyns edited the acclaimed 2017 publication 'Joni: The Anthology.' He has worked for, and contributed to Melody Maker, NME, Vogue, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, The Observer, Rolling Stone, Mojo, Uncut, Spin, The BBC and many more. He is the co-founder of Rock’s Backpages. He has been referred to as one of the country’s best rock journalists & the finest British rock writer of his generation. Barney Hoskyns has written some of the best music books ever published.

In the interviewer’s chair for the very first time was Allan Wilkinson who ensured that a splendid time was by all.

This event took place on 25th July 2024 in the Pigeon Loft at The Robin Hood, Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

To find out more about the CAT Club please visit: www.thecatclub.co.uk

This podcast has been edited for content and for copyright reasons.

Happy Trails.

AN AUDIENCE WITH MANZANERA . . .

Phil Manzanera is one of the UK’s best-known musicians and record producers, having shot to prominence in the early ‘70’s as the lead guitarist with the seminal band, Roxy Music. He is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s leading guitarists and is in much demand both as a performer and record producer. In 2019 Roxy Music were inducted into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame playing live at the ceremony.

As a writer, producer and solo artist, Phil Manzanera has worked with many of the luminaries of modern music, such as Steve Winwood, David Gilmour, John Cale, Godley and Creme, Nico (Velvet Underground) and John Wetton (King Crimson, Asia). He has co-written material with many artists, including Brian Eno, Tim Finn, Robert Wyatt and David Gilmour. Manzanera co-wrote Pink Floyd’s single ‘One Slip’ from their 1988 ‘Momentary Lapse of Reason’ album. In the world of Rock en Español Manzanera has also produced seminal albums for Draco Rosa, Enrique Bunbury, Héoes del Silencio Aterciopelados, Paralamas and fFto Paez.

His state of the art Gallery Studios, now also a post production studio for films, in West London. Artists that have recorded there include Robert Wyatt, Roxy Music, Brian Eno, Hot Chip, David Gilmour, Annie Lennox, Paul Weller, Kevin Ayers and Chrissie Hynde.

The Rock And Roll Hall of Famer has written his acclaimed memoir, titled Revolución To Roxy, and he was with us at The CAT Club to talk about the book and his extraordinary life. Phil will also brought along his guitar . . .

In the interviewer’s chair was Jason Barnard who ensured that a splendid time was by all.

This event took place on 13th June 2024 in the Pigeon Loft at The Robin Hood, Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

To find out more about the CAT Club please visit: www.thecatclub.co.uk

This podcast has been edited for content and for copyright reasons.

Happy Trails.

AN AUDIENCE WITH GLEN MATLOCK

We were delighted when the Sex Pistols and Rich Kids legendary bass player, Glen Matlock joined us at The CAT Club to talk about his fascinating new book, Triggers: A Life In Music – which charts his life and career through the lens of thirty of his most formative songs – from the ones that influenced him as a child to the ones he wrote and played on as a star.

CAT Club stalwart, JASON BARNARD of Strange Brew podcasts was in the interviewer's chair.

The interview was followed by a live performance.

Happy Trails.

This event took place on 3rd December 2023 in the Pigeon Loft at The Robin Hood, Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

To find out more about the CAT Club please visit: www.thecatclub.co.uk

This podcast has been edited for content and for copyright reasons.

THE BAND – The eponymous second album with special guest JOHN NIVEN.

This interview took place before and after we listened to the vinyl album.

The Band’s debut, ‘Music From Big Pink’ and their eponymous second LP are two of the most influential albums ever made.

John Niven’s novella, Music From Big Pink caused the Band’s Robbie Robertson to ask, “Was that guy in the room?”

John is one of the UK’s greatest writers and has published over ten acclaimed books. His latest offering is the truly wonderful O Brother. It’s a brutally honest family memoir about his young brother Gary, that is both hilarious and devastatingly tragic.

CAT Club stalwart, Ian Clayton was in the interviewer's chair.

THE BAND – edited review by Jason Draper (www.udiscovermusic.com)

The self-titled second album by The Band honed everything from ‘Music From Big Pink’ with deft performances and an innate knack for storytelling.

If The Band single-handedly created Americana with their debut album, on their self-titled sophomore effort (aka “The Brown Album”), they honed everything that made ‘Music From Big Pink' so quietly epochal. Initially, the group relocated from their iconic Woodstock home to a New York studio in order to work up the 12 songs that formed their self-titled second album, but the pro facilities didn’t suit the group’s laidback, down-home approach.

Packing up and heading west, they recreated the Big Pink vibe with what lead guitarist Robbie Robertson called “a clubhouse feel” at 8850 Evanview Drive in West Hollywood, a house that had previously been owned by Sammy Davis Jr. The place had enough bedrooms that the group could reside there with their families and a pool house where they set up the studio.

The Band’s second album came after a difficult period. Bassist Rick Danko had broken his neck in a serious car crash and had taken time to recover. The move from East Coast to West Coast proved an invigorating change. Crossing the vast expanse of North America was apt: The Band was almost simply titled America, and its songs are populated with characters from the continent’s past; like the lucky hopefuls who set off west in search of the American Dream in the mid-1800s, The Band struck gold.

Truckers, sailors, Civil War soldiers: it’s the sort of roll call that would feel contrived in lesser hands, but Robertson and co’s deft performances and innate knack for storytelling allowed these disparate characters – like the wide array of instruments the group rotated through – to coalesce, working up a collection of songs that, as Ralph J. Gleason put it in his Rolling Stone review, are “equal sides of a 12-faceted gem, the whole of which is geometrically greater than the sum of the parts.”

This event took place on 30th November 2023 in the Pigeon Loft at The Robin Hood, Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

To find out more about the CAT Club please visit: www.thecatclub.co.uk

This podcast has been edited for content and for copyright reasons.

Happy Trails.

THE BEATLES – A HARD DAY'S NIGHT with special guests Peter Mills & James McGrath.

This interview took place before and after we listened to the vinyl album.

Considering the quality of the original material on 'With the Beatles,' it shouldn't have been a surprise that Lennon & McCartney decided to devote their third album to all-original material. Nevertheless, that decision still impresses, not only because the album is so strong, but because it was written and recorded at a time when the Beatles were constantly touring, giving regular BBC concerts, appearing on television and releasing non-LP singles and EPs, as well as filming their first motion picture. In that context, the achievement of 'A Hard Day's Night' is all the more astounding. Not only was the record the de facto soundtrack for their movie, not only was it filled with nothing but Lennon-McCartney originals, but it found the Beatles truly coming into their own as a band by performing a uniformly excellent set of songs. 

Peter Mills and James McGrath teach in the School of Cultural Studies and Humanities at Leeds Beckett University. They have been friends and colleagues for many years, and Peter supervised James's PhD on the music of Lennon & McCartney. So it seems only right that they have co-edited a book of 14 brand new essays on The Beatles, entitled 'The Beatles in Perspective: A Carnival of Light', published by Equinox Books in 2023. 

They chose 1964's 'A Hard Day's Night' album as their CAT Club subject.

CAT Club stalwart, Ian Clayton was in the interviewer's chair.

Happy Trails.

This event took place on 16th November 2023 in the Pigeon Loft at The Robin Hood, Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

To find out more about the CAT Club please visit: www.thecatclub.co.uk

This podcast has been edited for content and for copyright reasons.

Happy Trails.

GEORGE MICHAEL – FAITH with special guest JOHN ALTMAN.

This interview took place before and after we listened to the vinyl album.

It has to be said that John Altman is one of the great raconteurs and his stories caused many a jaw to drop in what was a truly classic CAT Club gathering. Unfortunately, George Michael didn't get much of a look in, but after listening this podcast you will understand why we've invited John back in 2024 for 'An Evening with John Altman.'

So, back to George Michael's 'Faith' . . .
One of the best selling albums of all time and the first album by a white solo artist to hit number one on the Billboard Top Black Albums chart. 

Faith featured JOHN ALTMAN on saxophone. John is also a composer, arranger and conductor who has worked with Muddy Waters, Jimmy Page, Nick Drake, Tina Turner, Barry White, Chet Baker, Alicia Keys, Amy Winehouse, Chaka Khan, Quincy Jones, Björk, Peter Green and many, many others. His tv and film work includes James Bond Movies, Monty Python, Titanic, The Sheltering Sky, The Rutles and Léon.

In the interviewer’s chair, performing admirably under the circumstances, was JASON BARNARD.

Happy Trails. 

This event took place on 26th October 2023 in the Pigeon Loft at The Robin Hood, Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

To find out more about the CAT Club please visit: www.thecatclub.co.uk

This podcast has been edited for content and for copyright reasons.

Happy Trails.

'THE DOUBLE LIFE OF BOB DYLAN VOLUME 2 (1966-2021) Far Away From Myself' with CLINTON HEYLIN.

We were delighted that author and leading rock journalist, Clinton Heylin chose The CAT Club to mark the official launch of his second volume of 'The Double Life of Bob Dylan.’

Clinton is one of the leading rock historians in the world and, according to Rolling Stone magazine, “the world's authority on all things Dylan.” 

The first half of this event featured readings from the book by Clinton and the evening concluded with a very interesting Q&A.

Happy Trails.

This event took place on 5th October2023 in the Pigeon Loft at The Robin Hood, Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

To find out more about the CAT Club please visit: www.thecatclub.co.uk

This podcast has been edited for content and for copyright reasons.

AN EVENING WITH CHAZ JANKEL

On 31st August 2023 we at The CAT Club were lucky to be in the company of one of the most fertile talents in British pop music, Chaz Jankel was at the epicentre of Ian Dury & The Blockheads, acting as the mercurial Londoner's sidekick, songwriting partner and musical director. If Dury brought the rock and the roll to their music, then Jankel delivered the funk into punk.

But there is another side to Chaz: that of songwriter and solo performer and thanks to cult club hits like 3,000,000 Synths and Glad To Know You, an underground dance hero. Working alongside studio wiz, Phlip Bagenal, who not only engineered many of his best works, and with whom he also founded Eastcote Studios, Jankel was responsible for some of best and most experimental dance records to come from these shores. 

Jankel's first solo collaboration was with veteran songwriter Kenny Young (who co-wrote Under The Boardwalk) whose lyrics had been inspired by a recent and controversial Japanese movie called Ai No Corrida. It eventually ended up in the hands of Quincy Jones, and it was enough to win a deal with A&M, which eventually yielded five albums. Glad To Know You, co-written with Ian Dury (and later covered by Kitty Grant), was a huge club hit in the USA, spending 6 weeks on top of the Billboard Hot 100. 

His latest release is the acclaimed Flow album.

Chaz was with us at The CAT Club in 2020 when the featured album was Ian Dury’s New Boots and Panties! Six of the album’s ten tracks were co-written by Dury and Jankel as was the legendary Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. 

We were delighted to welcome him back for what proved to be a truly wonderful evening with the great man.

CAT Club stalwart JASON BARNARD was in the interviewer's chair.

This episode has been edited for copyright reasons. Original music used in this podcast by kind permission of Chaz Jankel.

To find out more about the CAT Club please visit: www.thecatclub.co.uk

Happy Trails.

SONIC YOUTH – EVOL with special guest Dave Hallam

This interview took place before and after we listened to the vinyl album.

EVOL – Sonic Youth 

Released in May 1986, Evol is the third full-length studio album by Sonic Youth. A raucous but beguiling mix of dissonance, attitude, weird guitar tunings, and beating rhythms (it was their first album with drummer Steve Shelley). Sonic Youth have been lauded by the likes of David Bowie who described them as the most Important group of the 1980s.

Sonic Youth released two further albums in the Eighties, Sister and Daydream Nation, but in the opinion of the website Pitchfork,  Evil is “the true departure point of Sonic Youth's musical evolution … where the seeds of greatness were sown”.

With special guest DAVE HASLAM

Dave Haslam is a DJ and writer whose 2018 memoir ‘Sonic Youth Slept on My Floor’ was hailed as book of the year by Gilles Peterson – he’s also the author of several other full-length and short format books. He staged two Sonic Youth shows in Manchester, in May 1986 and June 1987. He interviewed the band in Leeds for his fanzine and reviewed EVOL for ‘NME’ on its release.

In the interviewer’s chair was RYAN WALKER.

Happy Trails. 

This event took place on 27th July 2023 in the Pigeon Loft at The Robin Hood, Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

To find out more about the CAT Club please visit: www.thecatclub.co.uk

This podcast has been edited for content and for copyright reasons.

Happy Trails.

“This sparky woman has done so much, lived so much, crammed so much in. Most of all, she has informed our appreciation of British and North American folk music, like very, very few people have. Then factor in her multiple roles in illuminating the folk, political song and feminist scenes and how her songs have enriched the folk idiom, and you have somebody worth getting amazed about.” - Ken Hunt / Folk Roots Magazine.

PEGGY SEEGER was born on 17 June, 1935 in New York City. She is one of the most important figures in the history of folk music. An American folk singer who also achieved renown in Britain, where she lived for more than 30 years, as the wife of songwriter and activist Ewan MacColl.

Seeger's father was Charles Seeger (1886–1979), an important folklorist and musicologist; her mother was Seeger's second wife, Ruth Porter Crawford. Ruth Crawford Seeger, who died in 1953, was a modernist composer and was one of the first women to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship.

One of her brothers is Mike Seeger, and the well-known songwriter Pete Seeger is her half-brother.

Among Peggy Seeger's first recordings in 1955 was ‘American Folk Songs for Children’, considered one of her most enduring, and probably the best-selling, collection of children's songs ever recorded.

Together with MacColl, Seeger joined The Critics Group, performing satirical songs in a mixture of theatre, comedy and song. Seeger and MacColl recorded as a duo and as solo artists; MacColl wrote "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" in Peggy's honour.

Her critically acclaimed classic biography, ‘First Time Ever – A Memoir’ was published in 2018.

We were delighted to welcome Peggy to The CAT Club for a memorable evening. A splendid time was had by all.

CAT Club stalwart IAN CLAYTON was in the interviewer’s chair.

This event took place on 16 July 2023 in the Pigeon Loft at The Robin Hood, Pontefract, West Yorkshire.

To find out more about the CAT Club please visit: www.thecatclub.co.uk

Music used in this podcast by kind permission of Peggy Seeger.

Happy Trails.