Avsnitt
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They Might Be Giants – old school fiends John Flansburgh and John Linnell – have been making elliptical, funny and adventurous records for over 40 years and writing music for children, advertising and TV comedies. We talk to John Linnell here about songwriting, early shows in art spaces, the way you saw the world when a "wiseacrey teenager" and what you can expect from their autumn tour. Which, incidentally, will include the "pointlessy difficult exercise" of performing Sapphire Bullets Of Love every night in reverse which they'll film and run backwards and then send the clip to audience members so they can gauge its accuracy ("like watching people sing for whom English is a second language"). Some illuminating moments here ...
... the rich vein of '50s music outside of rock and roll.
... communicating by posting cassettes and how they built a following with an ansaphone.
... working in a record store in Massachussetts.
... playing on the same bill as Steve Buscemi at New York performance venues in the '80s and gigs involving papier mache hands and masks.
... why children are "a tough crowd" and the unsettling news that their albums for kids were outselling their usual records.
... the fine art of survival after a 1990 worldwide hit.
... and Yoko Ono, Pere Ubu, Elvis Costello and the disturbing effect of Frank Zappa's Weasels Ripped My Flesh.
They Might Be Giants tickets here …
https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/they-might-be-giants-tickets/artist/945181
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Guy Chambers was a teenager in Liverpool and at John Lennon’s old school - "same headmaster, Mister Pobjoy". He remembers the Beatles, Queen, Abba and Jesus Christ Superstar sparking his interest in the "perfect song package" and went on to work with Tina Turner, Rufus Wainwright, Kylie, Diana Ross and scores of others. He talks here about early shows he saw, records bought and his own tour in the autumn, "An Evening With Guy Chambers", stopping off at various points on the way, among them ...
... how YOU can write a song with him.
... Bowie's reaction on discovering he was third on the bill below George Michael and Robbie Williams at Netaid.
... seeing XTC and Generation X at the teen shows at Eric's.
... Benny Hill's Ernie, the Scaffold's Lily the Pink and other singles bought at Probe Records.
... "the great harmony bands" like the Eagles, Byrds and the Mamas & the Papas.
..."A Is For Banana", his song about dyslexia.
... writing a string quartet aged 11 and the magic of hearing four people bring his sheet music to life.
... "the wastage": composers who write 50 songs and throw 40 away.
.. the cinematic internal worlds of the Cocteau Twins and Lana Del Ray.
... the "subversive harmonies" on Strawberry Fields Forever and what makes Eleanor Rigby so perfect.
... everything that now needs to be in place to get a hit record.
... mass song-writing teams and how he can't operate with more than three people in the room.
... and what you can expect from his upcoming tour.
Tickets for An Evening With Guy Chambers here …
https://www.guychambers.co.uk/live
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Saknas det avsnitt?
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We’ve known Alan Edwards since the days when we’d ring him for a quote from Blondie or the Stranglers in the late ‘70s and he’s still one of the key figures in music PR. He’s looked after the Stones, Prince, Michael Jackson, Blondie, Amy Winehouse, the Beckhams and many others. No-one is better positioned to see how that world has changed, from the pre-Google days when you could invent a story and the press would happily buy it to a 21st century where his flat was burgled in pursuit of lucrative celebrity leads. PRs, he believes, "are not messengers but storytellers” and his memoir ‘I Was There: Dispatches From A Life In Rock And Roll’ is full of them. He looks back here at …
… striking a £1m photo deal for the Beckhams’ wedding.
… Midge Ure, Gen X and other prime examples of fake news.
… hotel workers, waiters and airline pilots who sold stories to the press.
… the days when a battery-operated portable phone gave you the edge.
… why he was hired by Blondie.
… the chilly, manipulative and inscrutable Lou Reed.
… Bowie’s disappearance in Berlin in the ‘70s and other things that would be impossible in the age of social media.
… Keith Moon in mid-air.
… and how it feels to be hacked.
Order Alan’s book here …
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Was-There-Dispatches-Life-Rock/dp/1398525243
The Outside Organisation …
https://outside-org.co.uk/
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This week’s items slapped on the rock and roll barbecue and lightly grilled include …
… why Eurovision will never avoid political controversy.
… when AI does David Hepworth!
… what’s the secret of NTS radio?
… “there are two types of wedding disco, ones that start with Abba's Dancing Queen and terrible ones.”
… Tony Hall’s prophetic preview of Revolver in May '66 – “they shatter convention and may well have a far-reaching effect on the whole future of music”.
… when listening to the radio was a group activity.
… Daniel Kramer, Dezo Hoffman, Robert Freeman, Anton Corbijn and other photographers who shaped the way music looked.
... the rogue punctuation of "Paint It, Black".
… songs that start with the chorus.
… Elvis’s unrepeatable train journey from New York to Memphis in 1956.
… “there’s glass in the back of my head and my toenails don’t fit properly” – Dylan’s ’66 London press conference.
…. and hurry hurry hurry to Lot 71 in Danny Baker’s record auction, a snip at only £70!
Danny Baker’s record auction …
https://bid.omegaauctions.co.uk/auction/details/a230a-the-danny-baker-collection/?au=162&g=1
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We’ve followed Paul Carrack for 50 years, a big hit single – How Long – when he was with Ace, 19 albums, countless sessions (the Smiths, Eagles and Pretenders among them) and a touring band member with Squeeze, Roxy Music, Roger Waters and Nick Lowe. He once put out an album called ‘I Know That Name’ as for so many people he’s still under the radar. His newsagent assumes he’s called “Mike” as he was the singer in Mike & the Mechanics. He's touring the UK in the autumn and looks back here at …
… seeing the Beatles, Chuck Berry, the Stones, Dylan and the Shadows at Sheffield Town Hall. And Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band at Mojos promoted by Pete Stringfellow.
… playing Cologne, Frankfurt and Hamburg clubs in the early ‘70s.
… his time with earnest prog adventurers Warm Dust – “please don’t look them up”.
… the value of having your own label in the world of streaming.
… when Elvis Costello got him to sing the vocal on Tempted by Squeeze.
… supporting Fleetwood Mac and Free.
… playing Ray Charles, Nat King Cole and Sinatra tunes with a big band.
… how it feels to be “dropped like a stone” by Radio Two when you no longer fit the demographic.
… the real meaning of the song How Long and what he has in common with Troy McClure of the Simpsons.
Paul Carrack tour dates here …
https://paulcarrack.net/
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Nige Tassell used to go to school in full donkey-jacket-and-woolly-hat ensemble to express his boundless devotion to Dexys Midnight Runners. Forty years later he set out to find and interview everyone who’d ever been a member. For some, their time in the ranks was a joyful, career-launching delight. Others felt it was like a slightly chilly and controlling cult. They all took a while to recover and they all had extraordinary stories to tell in his latest book ‘Searching For Dexys Midnight Runners’. Here’s a flavour of what gets discussed …
… ‘No drugs or alcohol! No smiling! No eye contact with the audience!’ and other unsettling Dexys mantras.
… examples of Kevin Rowland ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’.
… the many ways the band made themselves deliberately different’.
… the event supporting Bowie that got their power cut onstage in Paris and had them thrown off the tour.
... the heavy-handed recruitment of Helen O’Hara.
… Geno Washington and other strands of the Dexys DNA.
… the ad they took in the NME that soured their relationship with the music press.
… and how Rowland’s approach today remains resolutely unchanged.
Order Nige’s book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Searching-Dexys-Midnight-Runners-Tassell/dp/178512059X
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Missing being on tour and exasperated by internal disputes, Nick Mason set out to tour small-scale venues with his band Saucerful Of Secrets in 2018. They’re mid-way through another world tour (Gary Kemp’s the main singer and one of the guitarists). He doesn’t miss the stadium circuit where “you need a golf cart to get from one side of the stage to the other” and they play only the early psychedelic Floyd material, from their first singles up to (but not including) the Dark Side of the Moon, which audiences are less inclined to want to be note-perfect versions of the records. And he talks mid-set about the origins of the songs and his memories of Syd Barrett and life at the time. This podcast looks back at the first live shows he saw and played himself and how Saucerful of Secrets came about. Which includes …
… Tommy Steele at the Hackney Empire – “I came straight from school in short trousers with my satchel”.
… seeing the Rolling Stones on a ‘63 package tour.
… performing Beatles songs at parties in Cuban heels and Oliver Goldsmith shades.
… playing the International Times launch party at the Roundhouse in ‘66 on the back of a cart.
…. early gigs at the Countdown Club, Regent Street Poly and the Albert Hall (with Alan Price and Peter & Gordon).
… the difference between Saucerful of Secrets and the stadium circuit – and the time Roger Waters played with them in New York.
… and the ‘60s demos of unreleased Floyd songs they’re hoping to add to the set.
Saucerful of Secrets tour dates here …
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kjkhMKXv4wPaR2XVbZ6h3WVMJ4ivesVn/view?usp=drivesdk
Buy tickets here …
https://myticket.co.uk/artists/nick-mason-saucerful-of-secrets
Nick’s re-released solo albums here …
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uwB_CYLuszOUNqsfeiWQH3nXd2TxGVf7/view
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We were at the Curzon Mayfair on May 7 for the premier of the rebooted Let It Be in all its burnished finery and came away with a ton of things to unravel, among them …
… what we never knew when the film came out 54 years ago.
.. seeing it in the shadow of Peter Jackson’s Get Back.
… how the edit was overtaken by events and the tangled reasons it turned out the way it did.
… why Lindsay-Hogg’s amphitheatre concept would never have worked.
… the divine symbolism of the Beatles v the police.
… why it’s a perfect social document of late-’60s London.
… the band’s three-film film contract.
… was the world really as distraught about their break-up as the 21st Century assumes?
… herringbone coats, red plastic macs, hairy black jackets: why someone should open a Beatles ‘69 clothes emporium.
Plus … the noble philosophies of the late Steve Albini expressed in a letter to Nirvana in November 1992.
… and what happens when rock stars don’t leave wills: Exhibit A - Steve Marriott.
Read Steve Albini’s letter to Nirvana here: https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/nirvana
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We stuck a few coins in this week’s Wurlitzer and these were the tunes that got played …
… when records became all about sound not songs.
… Fonzworth Bentley, Puff Daddy’s butler, the man who held an umbrella over him on the beach at Cannes.
… what Henry Kissinger, Martha Stewart and Leonardo DiCaprio kept very quiet about.
… Manchester’s Co-Op, a tale of unprecedented hopelessness.
… what’s the definition of a song? And can you steal a record?
… the magical skill of Aston Barrett on I Shot The Sheriff and James Jamerson on You Can’t Hurry Love.
… ‘Duane Eddy Does Bob Dylan’ and its ingenious sleeve.
… does anybody still want pop posters?
… “I'd watch Jeremy Clarkson boil an egg.”
… Moneybagg Yo & DaBaby, Cigarettes After Sex and other acts playing the O2 and Wembley Arena we’ve ever heard of.
… the ultimate autograph.
… and New Whirl Odor, Road To Rouen, Sax And Violins, Lead Me Not Into Penn Station and other tortuous album titles.
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Steve Diggle met Pete Shelley when the Pistols played Manchester in 1976 and the Diggle-fronted Buzzcocks are now on a world tour that began in Mexico and takes in North and South America, Europe and Australasia before winding up at the 100 Club where they played the Punk Festival 48 years ago – “we’ve come full circle”. He looks back here at the first shows he saw and played himself and talks about Silverhead, Status Quo, Leo Sayer dressed as a clown, George Best, the Groundhogs, The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells, the Buzzcocks as “Lennon and McCartney in a blender”, “Led Zeppelin for Comprehensive schoolkids, Deep Purple for Grammar schoolkids” and a great story about Patrick Moraz of Yes with a bank of keyboards like a telephone exchange and an alpine horn.
Buzzcocks world tour dates here: https://www.buzzcocks.com/events
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This week’s theories, rants, ruminations, recollections, weak gags and free and frank exchanges of view alight upon the following …
… is pop music now all about identity?
…. the recording of the Animals’ House of the Rising Sun and other apocryphal tales.
… has any act been as ubiquitous since Frankie Goes to Hollywood in 1984?
… or has anyone inspired a greater level of personal devotion than Taylor Swift?
… Peter Green, a shotgun and his accountant.
… books bought but never read.
.. re-reading Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity and the changing benchmarks for good and bad musical taste.
… intriguing parallels between the book and record industries.
… and Neil Tennant braves the digital lynch-mob.
Plus Adam Clayton’s garden, Konstantin Chernenko, Richard Burton, Rebel Wilson, Dark Academia, creepy weepies and birthday guest John Montagna looks at singles by the same act that are ‘descendants’ – ie pretty much identical – eg the Monkees’ Teardrop City and Last Train To Clarksville, the Kinks’ You Really Got Me and All Day And All of the Night and Mark Knopfler’s Cannibals and Walk Of Life. Or just try the first few seconds of these four by the Inkspots – Maybe, I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire, If I Didn’t Care and Whispering Grass.
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File this under ‘right place, right time’. Harold Bronson was a teenager in mid-60’s Los Angeles and saw every act imaginable. Then wrote for the Daily Bruin and Rolling Stone and interviewed everyone that interested him. Then managed a music store and co-founded Rhino Records, pretty much inventing the idea of the top-end reissue – “Sooner or later everyone ends up in a box.” All of this is in his memoir, ‘Time Has Come Today: Rock and Roll Diaries 1967 – 2007’, and many of its cast of thousands appear in this podcast, among them Johnny Horton and ‘the Battle of New Orleans’, the Purple People Eaters, the Temple City Kazoo Orchestra, the Doors at the Hollywood Bowl, the Stones supported by Ike & Tina (for $12), Ozzy Osbourne (“I’d never meet anybody with a tattoo before”), Hilton Valentine working at a Henry The Eighth-themed restaurant, Groucho Marx at a Led Zeppelin launch, a ‘Best of Louie Louie’ that sold 100,000 copies and a Ritchie Valens record made on a dictaphone.
You can order Harold’s book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Has-Come-Today-Diaries/dp/B0CGTX2YN8
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With Mark Ellen in foreign parts David Hepworth and Alex Gold light cigars, pass the port in the correct direction and discuss…..
…..the fact that there is only one way to play a Beatles song and that is the way the Beatles did it.
…..the chances that Taylor Swift is reaching her imperial phase and nobody is prepared to tell her what she really needs to hear.
….the very good reason that all contemporary pop records do literally sound the same.
…the 50th anniversary of Richard and Linda Thompson’s “I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight”.
….the story of the Allman Brothers’ “Jessica”, a jam that turned into Dickey Betts’ pension.
….how the Blue Nile got a plug which is worth all the bought media in the world.
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We lobbed the feathered arrows of enquiry at the rock and roll dartboard this week and these got the highest scores …
… rock stars v the new league of the Super-Rich.
… package tours of the mid-‘60s – eight acts, an interval, a compere plus God Save the Queen.
… ‘Hits, Flops and Other Illusions’ by Edward Zwick and the fantastic tale about arrogance, money-squandering and Julia Roberts at the Halcyon Hotel.
... pop music used to be about persuading people to cut loose; now it’s about getting them to tighten up.
… why you can read Ron Wood’s memoir as either comedy or tragedy.
.. Chris Blackwell’s post-production trickery that sold Bob Marley to a rock audience.
… Master Tape Rescue: the arduous task of panning for gold.
... and why there should be a movie about the making of Shakespeare in Love.
Plus birthday guest Chuck Loncon in Savannah, Georgia – Neil Young v Spotify, Lady Antebellum, the Dixie Chicks and the tangled world of political correctness.
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Neil’s an old friend from our days back at Smash Hits in the early ‘80s. The first Pet Shop Boys demos were played on the office tape machine, though he was a bit self-conscious about “the one with the rap on it”. He’s always had a journalistic capacity for story-telling, remembering everything in famously entertaining detail, and we had so much material from this reunion we turned it into a two-part podcast. Here’s a taste of what you’ll find in this second half ...
… “every group has to have an angle”.
… pop’s current obsession with identity.
… why Bronski Beat were so significant.
… David Bowie’s scathing one-word reviews of Michael Jackson and Oasis at the Brits.
… “the whole world of pop songs is a giant ever-expanding artwork”.
… meeting Frida from Abba, “a song waiting to happen”.
… the ‘Pits & Perverts’ gay benefit for the miners in 1984.
… London clubs in the early ‘80s - “we had a competition to see who could wear the highest heels”.
… how everyone at Smash Hits thought Michael Jackson’s Thriller was “a damp squib”.
… recording West End Girls.
… first hearing a 12-inch single.
… appearing on Soul Train with Don Cornelius – “like being on a different planet”.
… why Dusty Springfield gave Jerry Wexler a nervous breakdown.
… seeing the last Ziggy Stardust show.
… meeting Steven Spielberg, Micky Dolenz and Joni Mitchell.
… and Boy George's gag about George Michael.
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PSB tour dates: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/pet-shop-boys-tickets/artist/735852
Order the new Pet Shop Boys album ‘Nonetheless’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/nonetheless-Deluxe-2CD-Shop-Boys/dp/B0CTKKBBVF
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Richard Thompson first appeared onstage aged 14 playing Beatles covers in a school group “so bad we were pelted with pennies”. Sixty years later his range of operations includes touring solo and with his band, occasional reunions with Fairport Convention, residencies on Adriatic cruise ships and running a Guitar Camp in the Catskill Mountains (along with his sons and grandson). Much has he seen and learned about live entertainment along the way and he talks to us here from his home on the American East Coast on the day of the solar eclipse. Among the highlights …
… memories of the Marquee in 1965 – the Who, the Yardbirds, the Spencer Davis Group: “if you wanted to see both sets, you’d have to walk ten miles home”.
… seeing Nick Drake and the value of being “a silent, tortured genius”.
… life as a support act and how to “attack an audience”.
… Carl Perkins and Chuck Berry at the Finsbury Park Astoria in 1963 “when Chuck was at the height of his attention span”.
… Segovia at the Festival Hall.
… the perils of playing on sea cruises in rough weather.
… old and current album sleeves. “Dressed as a fly and now dressed as a fisherman … that’s progress.”
… how Ian Anderson and Captain Beefheart told the audience who’s boss.
… and watching the Band at the Albert Hall from a box with Fairport Convention.
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Richard Thompson tour dates: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/richard-thompson-tickets/artist/736296
Order the new album Ship To Shore here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ship-Shore-Richard-Thompson/dp/B0CVXHMFPB
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Neil’s an old friend from our days back at Smash Hits in the early ‘80s. The first Pet Shop Boys demos were played on the office tape machine, though he was a bit self-conscious about “the one with the rap on it”, and he’s one of the few people who’s seen the music press from every angle - as a reader in the ‘70s, as a writer and interviewer and as a musician on its front covers. We had so much great material from this wide-ranging conversation that we’ve turned it into a two-part podcast. Here’s a taste of what you’ll find in this first half ...
… the NME article he and his brother pinned to their bedroom wall.
… the event at a Sex Pistols show “which stopped me going to gigs for about three years”.
… the first time he saw his name in print.
… interviewing Marc Bolan in his “fat phase”.
… a barbed chat with Morrissey.
… the pop press shift from “super-showbiz to super-counter-culture”.
… Television, the Clash and other music he discovered through the NME.
… meeting John Taylor 35 years after interviewing him.
… the pop decade when “something extraordinary happened every day”.
… his mother’s horrified reaction when he left Smash Hits to start the Pet Shop Boys.
… the Human League in their Imperial Phase.
… Phil Collins showing him round Abba’s studio in Stockholm.
… and why ‘80s pop stars were “the most controlling”.
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PSB tour dates: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/pet-shop-boys-tickets/artist/735852
Order the new Pet Shop Boys album ‘Nonetheless’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/nonetheless-Deluxe-2CD-Shop-Boys/dp/B0CTKKBBVF
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We lobbed the cracked wooden ball of enquiry at the rock and roll coconut shy this week and a few choice items dropped off their perch, among them …
… was Kate Bush ‘the Queen of Prog’?
… ELP, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple playing to 350,000 people on a Speedway track.
… the three things that sparked the Abba revival.
… the Further Adventures of Desmond and Molly Jones, Mean Mr Mustard, Polythene Pam, Father McKenzie, Rocky Raccoon, Maxwell Edison, Rose and Valerie, Sweet Loretta Martin, Vera, Chuck and Dave … Beatles characters awaiting development deals.
… was Britpop the moment the engine went into reverse?
… the two years went rock went ‘fancy dress’.
… why the Stones in 1964 were five walking fashion statements.
… Bookends by Simon & Garfunkel and its Yes connection.
… how the Beatles were in uniform on every album cover.
… David Vine at the 1974 Eurovision: “if all the judges were men, this lot would get a lot of votes and you’ll see why in a moment!”
… plus a birthday guest party - Al Hearton’s life in a Kate Bush tribute band and Stephen Lambe on the complicated birth of 90125 by Yes.
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We’ve applied our celebrated sheep/goats separation technique to the rock and roll pasture and shepherded the following into this week’s pod …
… Beyoncé and why it’s hard to connect with songs written by committee.
… are we too old for biopics?
… Marvel films, the Arctic Monkeys and other things you either love or avoid.
… reviewing Human Touch and Lucky Town in a high-security studio (and how you can only tell if an album’s any good if you’ve lived with it for two months).
… why Tony Blackburn is the greatest British DJ.
… “Bing was no more Bing than Sinatra was Sinatra”.
… hoary old tales that were the engine of the rock press - the Clash shooting pigeons, Kevin Rowland stealing his own master-tapes, Cliff v Elvis, Beatles v Stones, Hendrix v Clapton, Bowie v Bolan, Clash v the Pistols, Spandau v Duran, Oasis v Blur.
… are Oasis songs mostly about being Oasis?
… “fame is no longer enacted in the public space”.
… indie cliches – escaping the drudgery of the Man and mundanity of Small Town life.
… “the harder I practice, the luckier I get”.
… Scots punk act get movie soundtrack windfall!
… Alex is arranging a woke stag do - “you go to places where ladies put clothes ON”.
… plus birthday guest Andrew Newbury wonders if Country is more than “the three Ds - driving, dogs and divorce”.
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Paul Cook’s post-Pistols band the Professionals were once, rather surprisingly, on the cover of Smash Hits - “the pinnacle of our success!” – and they’re including the 100 Club on their upcoming tour, the location of another career highlight. He talks to us here about how the first time he played live was also the Pistols’ first appearance (Saint Martin’s College of Art - “utter chaos”), how their old Denmark Street rehearsal room is now an AirBnB (Rotten’s cartoons still on the wall), old punks in the audience, Danny Boyle’s TV series and the very slim chance of a reunion (“never say never”). But much of this is about climbing through back windows to see bands in the early ‘70s, Stevie Wonder, the Four Tops, Queen and Mott the Hoople among them. And seeing Alex Harvey on the day the whole of Scotland descended on London for the match against England at Wembley.
The Professionals are playing four UK dates (and often chuck in a couple of Pistols' tunes):
https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/the-professionals-1-1
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- Visa fler
