Roxy, Traffic, Nick Drake, Mott the Hoople & the magic of Island Records
The third instalment of ‘The Island Book of Records’ is out, another sumptuous, elegantly designed, LP-sized chronicle of every album releas...
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Word Podcast
David Hepworth, Mark Ellen and kindred spirits talk about music and laugh until they cry.
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20 of 1,016 episodes
Gary Kemp bought Brian Epstein’s address book and discovered ‘the DNA of the Beatles’
A lifelong Beatles obsessive, Gary Kemp bought Epstein’s black leather address book at auction and (with Simon Halfon) researched its 404 na...
‘Metal Machine Music is a masterpiece!’ David Holzer has played it 1,000 times
David Holzer was a Lou Reed fan from the moment he saw Walk On The Wild Side on Top Of The Pops but avoided Metal Machine Music for 42 years...
Todd Rundgren’s outbursts, ‘too old to mosh’ & the happiest and saddest songwriters
A long-running conversation that shifts from major to minor, back to major and all notes inbetween, this week’s lyrics including … … can peo...
Jon Savage loathed the 1976 singles chart so he’s made an album of should-have-been hits
Jon Savage detested the UK’s mid-‘70s hits with a vengeance, “records so bad they made you want to strangle every deejay on Radio One, espec...
Stevie Wonder’s masterpiece and the daft, chequered history of Ties In Rock!
The two-man conversational canoe paddles the rock and roll tideway, stopping off this week at … … Van Morrison’s set-opener is Kidney Stew B...
Why can’t brothers in bands ever get along?
While Mark Ellen visits his Scottish estates, David Hepworth and Alex Gold keep the home fires burning with a wide-ranging conversation, tak...
Sid Griffin: the Long Ryders leader laughs at the absurdity of teenage life!
A whole new format we’ve invented for people who’ve been guests before and were so entertaining we wanted them back. So we’ve devised some r...
An Indie Sleaze special! – up and down with the Strokes, Libertines and Arctic Monkeys
“Good hair, good shoes, something to say” were the requirements of Indie Sleaze whose vanguard lit up the fading music press in the first de...
Nicky Hopkins’ hidden genius, the Oasis film and the best songs about rain
This week’s news in three separate files - the Good, the Bad and the Befuddling. Which involves … … have Oasis created their own economy? …...
Clint Boon saw Manchester lift off twice and auditioned the young Noel Gallagher
Clint Boon was at the heart of “the two biggest musical revolutions of my lifetime” – as a teenager for Joy Division and Buzzcocks, and late...
The Slits, a movie in waiting - “Marvel superheroes with their pants on the outside!”
The Slits burned very brightly – but briefly - and were gone, their bumpy and courageous tale crisply told in Zoë Howe’s updated ‘Typical Gi...
Shawn Colvin – songwriter, storyteller, urban cowgirl, singing waitress
Shawn Colvin was in the spotlight from the age of 10 playing her parents’ parties, singing in bars at college, acting off-Broadway and joini...
The world’s greatest radio station! & things we loved about Dolly Parton
Passing the conversational Dutchie 'pon the left hand side, we fire up the following … … “speech, not music, brings people together” … if mu...
Blur’s thrilling early years in words and pictures by Dave Rowntree
Dave Rowntree had a camera with him as Blur took off in the early ‘90s and his book ‘No-One You Know’ distils the thrill of a band in ascent...
Natalie Merchant returns playing ‘Mother Goose as an 18th Century feminist’
Natalie Merchant joined 10,000 Maniacs when she was 17, had a long and successful solo career and then began teaching children in New York S...
The Proclaimers know the exquisite delight of your songs being sung in football stadiums
The Proclaimers have only had a handful of hits but they’re songs that have kept expanding for nearly 40 years. And the World Cup was a remi...
What are the great singles that have entered our bloodstream? “Nobody hums an album!”
The original rock podcast - now in its 20th year! – knocks the week’s news across the conversational net. Amid the top-spin, rallies and dou...
Martin Simpson’s 60 years on the folk circuit ‘making people cry for a living’
Martin Simpson got backstage when he was 15 and met Jimmy Reed and Big Joe Williams and it changed his life forever. He’s been on the folk c...
The Shadows and the chequered tale of the first British rock’n’roll band
The Shadows were the strongest brand in British pop, adored and widely imitated. When they went out of fashion, no-one wanted them to change...