Podcasts about Alan Clarke

In this captivating conversation, Payman welcomes Alan Clarke, the innovative founder of Paste Dental in Belfast and creator of Paste Presents. Alan shares his journey from growing up in Northern Ireland to developing a global mindset through international experiences. Throughout the episode, he discusses building a lifestyle dental brand, his groundbreaking international dental mastermind events, and his passion for community building within dentistry. Alan's entrepreneurial spirit, faith-driven purpose, and willingness to take calculated risks showcase a refreshing perspective on leadership that transcends geographical boundaries and traditional dental practice limitations.In This Episode00:02:10 - Tall poppy syndrome00:04:30 - Growing up as an only child with supportive parents 00:08:10 - Life-changing Washington Ireland Program experience00:14:35 - Behind the scenes of American politics 00:19:20 - Reflections on Northern Ireland and the Troubles 00:22:15 - Bloom where you're planted: returning to Belfast 00:25:25 - Cultural differences between UK, US and European business00:33:15 - Clinical education at Queen's University Belfast 00:43:40 - Buying and rebranding a dental practice during COVID 00:47:15 - Managing patient expectations during practice transition 00:51:55 - Creating a lifestyle brand in dentistry 00:54:55 - Providing exceptional patient experiences 01:00:05 - Empowering staff to create memorable moments 01:07:30 - Adding value through communication and technology 01:11:10 - Creating Paste Presents: a global dental mastermind 01:17:15 - Building relationships through shared experiences 01:23:50 - Free university events to support dental students 01:29:15 - Faith as a foundation for business and life 01:35:05 - Perspectives on AI in dentistry 01:42:45 - Fantasy dinner party 01:48:45 - Last days and legacyAbout Alan ClarkeAlan Clarke is a dentist, entrepreneur and visionary from Belfast, Northern Ireland. As the founder of Paste Dental, he has transformed a traditional practice into a modern lifestyle brand offering high-end dentistry with exceptional patient experiences. Alan is also the creator of Paste Presents, an exclusive international dental mastermind that brings together influential dentists from around the world for immersive learning experiences in exotic locations. A graduate of Queen's University Belfast with further education in medical law and ethics at Edinburgh, Alan balances his clinical work with entrepreneurial ventures and a passion for elevating the dental profession. His international connections, particularly in the US, have helped him develop a unique perspective that combines American entrepreneurial spirit with Northern Irish values.

Rye River Brewing Company, Ireland's leading independent craft brewery, based in Celbridge Co. Kildare, has signed a one-year Corporate Power Purchase Agreement (CPPA) with Pinergy, the energy transition company. This agreement will enable the award-winning brewery to power its entire operation using renewable energy sourced from Beale Hill wind farm in Listowel Co. Kerry. The initiative is among the first of such contracts to be put in place for an indigenous Irish owned craft brewery committed to sustainable energy and environmental practices. The CPPA forms part of Pinergy's Guarantee of Origin offering, which allows companies to purchase electricity generated from wind or solar farms based in Ireland that is feeding into the national grid. With this agreement, Rye River Brewing Company joins a growing number of forward-thinking Irish businesses embracing sustainable energy solutions. This CPPA will meet 100% of the brewery's annual energy requirements, significantly reducing its carbon footprint and bolstering its commitment to environmental responsibility. This move to renewable energy will significantly reduce Rye River Brewing Company's carbon footprint, the equivalent of up to 222.5 flights from Dublin to New York annually. Commenting on the Power Purchase Agreement, Tom Cronin, Founder & CEO of Rye River Brewing Company., stated, "We are very proud of the fact that by partnering with Pinergy, every KW of energy coming in to Rye River Brewing Company comes from Beale Hill wind farm in Kerry, generating green and renewable energy. Sustainable energy creates very little to no carbon emissions and offsets our need for fossil fuels. The transition to a sustainable energy system is crucial for mitigating climate change and creating a more sustainable future." Rye River Brewing Company's commitment to sustainability has been at the forefront of the business for a number of years. They have invested approximately €5 million in enhancing efficiency at their brewery, reducing water usage by over 25% in recent years and electricity consumption by 15% since 2018. Rye River Brewing Co. has also recently partnered with Pinergy to utilise their energy management system, Acutrace, which provides clear visibility of exactly where and when energy and other utilities such as water, are used and what it costs, empowering Rye River Brewing Co. to make data-driven decisions and further optimise their energy and water consumption. Alan Clarke, Pinergy Energy Consultant said; "We are delighted to announce this new CPPA with Rye River Brewing Company, a true leader in the Irish craft brewing scene. This agreement demonstrates their unwavering commitment to sustainability and reducing their environmental impact. This move sets a fantastic example and standard for the craft brewing industry and we hope to see more breweries follow their lead." To date, Pinergy has secured corporate power purchase agreements for more than 220GWh of annual Irish wind generation under its Guarantee of Origin offering with demand expected to increase substantially in the coming years as more companies look to reduce their carbon footprint. See more stories here.

Joining us on Zero Ambitions this week is Chris Carus co-founder of Loco Home Retrofit, a Glasgow-based 'emerging one-step shop'.Loco Home Retrofit is a retrofit operation that's most interesting for its approach to developing a viable retrofit offer, focused on building trust in communities and with its supply chain as a means to catalysing the decarbonisation of our homes (or at least Glasgow's homes). And now, they're hiring, seeking to fill three positions (below) so if you know of anyone suitable please share the ads:Marketing and community engagement manager Technical manager Innovation programme managerAs much as anything else, we love how they think about the retrofit challenge. Their considered approach to building a proposition and a method is what has really sold us, possibly because it resonates with our UX-focused approach to everything, but mainly because it seems to make sense.Notes from the showThe Loco Home Retrofit websiteChris on LinkedIn Loco Home Retrofit on LinkedInAll three job ads, againChris's interview with BE-ST after winning the Gamechanger award at the Accelerate to Zero Awards 2023Designing an ‘optimal' domestic retrofit programme by Aaron Gillich et al (2017) – The paper Chris couldn't remember the name forLoco Home Retrofit's 2023/24 impact report detailing their innovation efforts to dateResearch Report - The right time for heat pumps in retrofit (Alan Clarke for Passive House Trust) – the other paper that Chris and Jeff reference**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn page (we still don't have a proper website)Jeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

In this episode of the Real World Entrepreneurship Podcast, hosts Bhairav Patel and Alan Clarke dive deep into the reasons why projects often fail and share valuable insights on how to avoid common pitfalls. Drawing from their extensive experience in the business and technology worlds, they highlight the importance of the "CPOP" principles - Communication, People, Oversight, and Planning - in ensuring project success. Key topics covered in this episode include: 1. The critical role of thorough planning and requirements gathering at the outset of a project 2. The importance of maintaining open, honest communication between all stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle 3. The impact of having the right people involved who are invested in the project's success and empowered to make decisions 4. The need for regular oversight to track progress against milestones and course-correct as necessary 5. How the "CPOP" principles should be applied at every stage of a project, not just at the beginning Bhairav and Alan share real-world examples and anecdotes to illustrate these points, making the lessons both relatable and actionable for entrepreneurs and project managers alike. They also touch on the dangers of letting ego-driven agendas derail projects and emphasize the importance of staying focused on the ultimate goal. Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, this episode offers valuable wisdom on navigating the challenges of bringing a project to fruition. Tune in for some hard-won insights and practical tips on keeping your next project on track and avoiding the common reasons why projects fail. Follow the Real World Entrepreneurship Podcast for more no-nonsense advice and real talk on building and growing a successful business.

As we're in the middle of putting together the next season of the Atom CTO podcast, we thought we'd introduce the Real World Entrepreneurship podcast which is hosted by Bhairav Patel and Alan Clarke, from the Business Growth Partnership For the next few weeks we will be showcasing various episodes that will resonate with you, our audience

Alan comes in to chat to David about his new book release! 

GJ Williams, AJ Aberford & Alec Marsh chat to Paul Burke about their latest novels. Coming into the Christmas period it's easy for the major players to get publicity but what about Indie authors are they squeezed out at this time of the year. Not on this platform.GJ Williams THE WOLF'S SHADOW Tudor Kardashians, Dr. Dee polymath, Tudor politics and intrigue. Legend Press.AJ Aberford THE CAR HORN REVOLUTION, Malta, conspiracy and corruption, humour. Hobeck Books.Alec Marsh CUT AND RUN, Frank Champion, WWI, blue light/red light, Sharpe Books.Mentions: Dr Nicola Tallis, CJ Sansom, Philippa Gregory, Ian Rankin Midnight and Blue, Devil's Breath Jill Johnson, Alan Clarke, James Wilson The Pieces, Katy Hayes, Robert Graves Goodbye to All That, Jane Thynne Midnight in Vienna, Vaseem Khan City of Destruction, Vera Brittain Testament of Youth.Paul Burke writes for Monocle Magazine, Crime Time, Crime Fiction Lover and the European Literature Network, Punk Noir Magazine (fiction contribution). He is also a CWA Historical Dagger Judge 2024. His first book An Encyclopedia of  Spy Fiction will be out in late 2025.Produced by Junkyard DogCrime TimeCrime Time FM is the official podcast ofGwyl Crime Cymru Festival 2023CrimeFest 2023CWA Daggers 2023& Newcastle Noir 20232024 Slaughterfest, National Crime Reading Month, CWA Daggers

The Big News Coming Soon Live Show at The Diamond Coast Hotel, Co.Sligo. Hosted by Alan Clarke & Kieran O'Malley. Special guests, Stephen Cowboy Kelly, Rachel Gorry & Donal Byrne. *CONTAINS BAD LANGUAGE Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Story behind Hushabye by The Mystics Connect the Dots This Week in Music History The Five Second Quiz Graham Nash remembers playing clubs and pubs with Alan Clarke before The Hollies Tribute to Quincy Jones Behind the Hits - We've Only Just Begun by The Carpenters

The lads discuss stalkers, begrudgers and a big book release with special guest Alan Clarke.

What does it take to elevate your recruiting career from average to elite? In this episode, Susanna Gray-Jones is joined by the esteemed recruitment trainer, Alan Clarke, founder of RecruiterFit. With over 27 years of industry expertise, Alan shares his mission of empowering recruiters to refine their skills and build resilience in a demanding field.  He dives into the art of developing essential recruiting techniques and enhancing softer skills that many overlook, emphasizing how mastering these can elevate one's career from ordinary to elite.  Alan's unique blend of practical insights and motivational guidance helps listeners tap into their fullest potential, pushing beyond perceived limits to succeed in today's tough market. They also explore the mindset shifts that separate top-performing recruiters from the rest and discuss why investing in continuous improvement and self-discipline is key to navigating the industry's highs and lows. Must-Hear Insights and Key Moments Getting RecruiterFit – Alan's mission is to help recruiters build resilience and sharpen both hard and soft skills to elevate their performance. Mastering the Basics – Success in recruitment starts with consistently excelling at fundamentals like thorough candidate qualification and understanding the client's real needs. Deep Qualifying – Going beyond surface-level motivations, Alan recommends uncovering six or more reasons a candidate wants to move, ensuring a stronger commitment. Referrals Done Right – Referrals are strategic when done well. Alan shares tips for framing referral requests that tap into top-performer networks. Building Resilience – In a tough market, keep relationships active with long-term thinking, even if immediate opportunities aren't there. Backfill Opportunities – Leverage open roles left by placed candidates. Backfilling is a powerful, often overlooked way to secure new business. About Alan Clarke Alan Clarke is an experienced recruitment trainer with over 25 years in the industry, having trained more than 11,500 recruiters across 17 countries. From new consultants to business owners, Alan equips professionals with the essential skills to excel in recruitment, build successful desks, and lead teams effectively. As the founder of RecruiterFit, he offers a wide range of tailored training programs, from induction to advanced management courses, all aligned with each client's unique brand and values. His resources extend beyond the classroom, featuring over 100 online training videos and practical 'Response Handlers' for managing client and candidate calls. Alan's dedication to enhancing recruitment standards and his commitment to empowering recruiters have established him as a highly valued mentor and expert in the industry. Connect with Alan Clarke: ⁠Website⁠ ⁠LinkedIn⁠ Follow The Counter Offer: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn Host⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn Podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Tiktok⁠⁠⁠

September marks Suicide Prevention Month, and GibSams have come together with several charities for an awareness day at John Mackintosh Square. Today's podcast was recorded live from Piazza, where we spoke to of the key figures advocating for mental health. This year's theme is “Changing the Narrative”, aiming to inspire people, communities, organisations and governments to face up to the challenge that suicide poses. Before diving into this important conversation, sports reporter Jose Mari Ruiz brought us the latest in local sport from the weekend. ‘Love, Compassion, Hope' is emblazoned on the banners for the charity ‘Walking Together'. Denise Wilkinson and Alan Clarke told us what their support group represents, and how they help those who have lost loved ones to suicide. The Youth Service has been running in Gibraltar since 1963. Rebecca Figueras told us more about the variety of opportunities and services for the youth and have worked with partner organisations to support young people. Conchita Triay from the Mental Welfare Society spoke about how mental health awareness has come a long way in the last few years, but now the focus needs to be on implementing an efficient system to support those in need. GibSams' Brendy Cuby told us what the impetus was for organising this event, and how the goal is for people to feel free to talk about suicide without fear or stigma. Department of Education's Jackie Linares and Natasha Cerisola from The Health Authority told us how young people are being supported and how vital it is to focus on suicide prevention. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of the Real World Entrepreneurship Podcast, hosts Bhairav Patel and Alan Clarke dive deep into the reasons why projects often fail and share valuable insights on how to avoid common pitfalls. Drawing from their extensive experience in the business and technology worlds, they highlight the importance of the "CPOP" principles - Communication, People, Oversight, and Planning - in ensuring project success.Key topics covered in this episode include:1. The critical role of thorough planning and requirements gathering at the outset of a project2. The importance of maintaining open, honest communication between all stakeholders throughout the project lifecycle3. The impact of having the right people involved who are invested in the project's success and empowered to make decisions4. The need for regular oversight to track progress against milestones and course-correct as necessary5. How the "CPOP" principles should be applied at every stage of a project, not just at the beginningBhairav and Alan share real-world examples and anecdotes to illustrate these points, making the lessons both relatable and actionable for entrepreneurs and project managers alike. They also touch on the dangers of letting ego-driven agendas derail projects and emphasize the importance of staying focused on the ultimate goal.Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting out, this episode offers valuable wisdom on navigating the challenges of bringing a project to fruition. Tune in for some hard-won insights and practical tips on keeping your next project on track and avoiding the common reasons why projects fail.Follow the Real World Entrepreneurship Podcast for more no-nonsense advice and real talk on building and growing a successful business.

We're back discussing the 2nd film in Gus Van Sant's "Death Trilogy" ELEPHANT. Yes, this is his Columbine movie... yes, heavy subject matter is perhaps not our forte... but don't worry, we can still have fun right? Of course we can!Joining us for said fun is returning guest Katherine Vienneau and first time guest, longtime listener and even longertime friend of Ben, Matthew Nicholson (all the way from sunny Saskatoon, SK)We goof off in the first half and are rattled and angered by the news of the potential hostile takeover of our beloved Revue Cinema by a 96 year-old crank. We also talk about Alan Clarke's incredible 1989 BBC film ELEPHANT from which G Van S took inspiration for his ELEPHANT.Join us next week for the final film in this series, LAST DAYS. Smells like teen spirit!Follow us @thefranchisees on Instagram and Twitter and email us at thefranchiseespod@gmail.com

The whole Junk Food Dinner crew is back this month, with two roller flicks and one rock 'n roller flick.Up first, Roger Corman. AIP and the guy that directed Fade to Black team up to get in on the popular roller derby trend of the 1970's with Unholy Rollers from 1972 about a woman trying to become a star in the roller world while navigating creepy promoters and jealous teammates. Next, the BBC and director Alan Clarke give British youths a glimpse into their dystopian future with Stars of the Roller State Disco from 1984, a made-for-TV movie about a group of young people who are forced to hang out in a roller rink/arcade, while they wait for shitty jobs to become available. And finally, a mysterious punk rocker on the run from the law teams up with an awkward young woman to find love and rebellion in 2020's Dinner in America from the director of Snack Shack and The Bunny Game.All this plus discussion of Yorgos Lanthimos' Kinds of Kindness, In a Violent Nature, and Parker watching Lord of the Rings and NOT falling asleep. Plus sports gambling chat, Severin releasing an obscure 60's mummy movie, the sequel to Nobody, and Three Stooges and Nico Mastorakis blu-ray box sets coming soon.LISTEN NOW!MP3 Direct DonloydAlso, if you like the show, please take a minute and subscribe and/or comment on us on iTunes, Stitcher, Blubrry or Podfeed.net. Check us out on Facebook and Twitter! We'd love to see some of your love on Patreon - it's super easy and fun to sign up for the extra bonus content. We'll keep this podcast going with your love and support.

A Partizán Filmklub idei évadának utolsó alkalmával Takács Ákost, az első adás vendégét hívtuk vissza, hogy a szervezett és a megbomlott szabadidő tereiről, építészeti kérdéseiről beszélgessünk a Spare Time (Humphrey Jennings, 1939) és a Road (Alan Clarke, 1987) című filmek kapcsán.Mi a munkásosztály történetének az a kitüntetett, átmeneti pillanata, amelyet Humphrey Jennings megragad 1939-ben? Mit állít Jennings a munkások birodalomhoz, magaskultúrához fűződő viszonyáról? Miért lesz a hadsereg rendre a nosztalgia, az édesbús visszanézés kulcsmotívuma? Mit jelent, hogy valaminek a valahogyanja szökhet meg a profanizáltságból és a kilátástalanságból? Mit mond Alan Clarke a kapitalizmus magánéletre, intimitásra gyakorolt hatásáról?A SZABADIDŐ program véget ért. Amíg az új tematikával nem jelentkezünk, rendeljétek meg a Partizán webshopjából a kiadványunkat, hogy fel tudjátok eleveníteni, miket néztünk, mikről gondolkodtunk közösen az elmúlt évadban.Támogasd te is a Partizán munkáját!https://csapat.partizanmedia.hu/fundraising/partizan/Nézd, olvasd, hallgasd - minden péntek reggel: https://pentekreggel.huA Partizán Podcast oldalait itt találod: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@PartizanPodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/partizanpodcast/A Partizán videóit itt tudod megnézni:https://www.youtube.com/c/@PartizanmediaTovábbi támogatási lehetőségekről bővebben: https://www.partizanmedia.hu/tamogatas

In this episode of the Real World Entrepreneurship podcast, hosts Alan Clarke and Bhairav Patel explore the surprising parallels between running a political campaign and building a successful startup. Drawing on insights from the current UK general election, they discuss key lessons founders can take away from the world of politics to help their businesses thrive.

Alan Clarke is an Irish social media influencer and podcast host who has built an impressive following over the past number of years. His live podcast stage shows, 'Big News Coming Soon', has been filling venues right around Ireland, not just in his home county of Mayo. And in this episode of the Colm Flynn Podcast, Alan talks about the reality behind why he started the live shows, and how much work goes into each episode. He also opens up about his personal life and the fact he dropped out of school before his Leaving Cert exams, the teachers telling him he wouldn't amount to much. Hear Alan Clarke's inspiring story of not waiting for anyone to give him a break, but instead doing it for himself! Colm Flynn Podcast Season 3 Episode 1instagram.com/colmflynnire

In Episode 045 of the #kilnroadtrip, created and produced by The Swell Pod, hosts Spencer McKeown and Josh Taylor interview Alan Clarke, Chief Strategy & Product Director at Ayyeka. Alan discusses his company's work in providing IoT and AI solutions to help cities manage environmental impacts. He shares his journey from running an environmental monitoring company in South America to joining Ayyeka to expand into the US market. Check out today's episode and every other installment of the Kiln.Roadtrip by listening, watching, and subscribing to the podcast here - https://linktr.ee/theswellpod ayyeka.com - The best data creation, management, and utilization for remote infrastructure assets Location: Kiln. Boulder The Kiln Road Trip: Uncovering Deep Truths with 100 Pleasantly Rebellious Humans. 10 days. 5 States. 3,580 Miles.100 Interviews! Daily episodes starting on March 5, Monday to Friday, for the next 100 days, followed by a short documentary and a book about the journey. Thank you to the partners and sponsors who made the kiln.roadtrip possible: KILN, MOTERRA, TORUS And thank you to the crew who helped us document and share the journey: DENISSE LEON, TY COTTLE, NATHAN Clarke, FINDLAY MCKEOWN Bullets: Kiln Road Trip: A journey across five states to interview 100 individuals challenging the status quo Interview with Alan Clarke, Chief Strategy and Project Director for Ayyeka Ayyeka's focus on providing solutions for water, energy, and environmental infrastructure using IoT and AI technologies Discussion on the challenges of creating something new and impactful Alan Clarke's role in Ayyeka and the innovative solutions they provide Alan's background and interest in environmentally friendly products and monitoring Impact of Ayyeka's work in South America Challenges faced by Ayyeka and future innovations Timestamps: The Kiln Road Trip (00:00:03) Introduction to the podcast series and the purpose of the road trip, covering the challenge to interview 100 individuals. Alan Clark's Introduction (00:00:54) Introduction of Alan Clarke, Chief Strategy and Project Director for Ayyeka, and his role in providing solutions for water, energy, and environmental infrastructure. IOT and AI for Environmental Issues (00:02:06) Discussion on the use of IoT and AI for collecting and processing data to mitigate environmental impacts in cities. Company Founding and Evolution (00:04:00) Alan Clarke's explanation of the founding of Ayyeka, its unique device, and the company's evolution over the years. Alan Clark's Background (00:06:10) Alan Clarke's background, from childhood to his work experience in various countries and the founding of his previous company in South America. Impact of Environmental Monitoring (00:09:16) Discussion on the impact of Ayyeka's equipment on the environment and the significance of environmental monitoring. Challenges and Future Innovations (00:11:49) Challenges faced by Ayyeka in keeping up with evolving technologies and a sneak peek into future innovations related to low-earth orbit satellites and LTE connectivity. Kiln's Role for ICA (00:15:33) Discussion on the role of Kiln as an ecosystem for ambitious individuals and a supportive environment for scaling the company. Creating a Movement (00:20:25) Alan Clarke's perspective on the importance of creating something with a positive impact on humanity to drive passion and innovation. Tags: #SwellPod, #KilnRoadTrip, #Kiln, #MotorraCamperVans, #podcast, #interview, #innovation, #resilience, #communitybuilding, #passion, #purpose, #community, #diversity, #collaboration, #thoughtleadership, #100interviews, #entrepreneur, #CEO, #leadership

In this episode, host Dr Pasquale Iannone is joined by Don Boyd, a Scottish-born filmmaker with more than fifty years experience working in both Hollywood and the UK. As well as directing his own successful features and documentaries, Don produced some of the most bold and boundary-pushing British films of the 70s and 80s - works as diverse as Alan Clarke's borstal drama Scum (1979) and Derek Jarman's flamboyant adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest (1979).In this fascinating, wide ranging conversation, Don talks to Pasquale about producing the 1987 film Aria. For this project, Don invited ten internationally acclaimed directors to make a short film based on an operatic aria. The stellar line-up  included Nicolas Roeg, Ken Russell, Robert Altman and Jean-Luc Godard. As well as providing insight into his working relationship with these giants of world cinema, Don reflects on the enduring legacy of Aria and discusses some of the contemporary directors he would approach were he making a modern opera film.

In this episode, host Dr Pasquale Iannone is joined by acclaimed Scottish-born filmmaker Don Boyd. As well as directing his own acclaimed features and documentaries, Don produced some of the most bold and boundary-pushing British films of the 70s and 80s - works as diverse as Alan Clarke's borstal drama Scum (1979) and Derek Jarman's flamboyant adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest (1979).In this fascinating, wide ranging conversation, Don talks to Pasquale about producing the 1987 film Aria. For this project, Don invited ten internationally acclaimed directors to make a short film based on an operatic aria. The stellar line-up of filmmakers included Nicolas Roeg, Ken Russell, Robert Altman and Jean-Luc Godard. As well as providing fascinating insight into his working relationship with these giants of world cinema, Don reflects on the enduring legacy of Aria and discusses some of the contemporary directors he would approach were he making a modern opera film.

In this episode, Ralph and Owen journey into the spectral wastes of British film, asking: what went wrong, and what is to be done? Through kitchen sink realism, folk-horror spooks, socially-engaged documentarians, materially-inclined avant-gardism, and more than a handful of oddballs, the situation seems as underwhelming as it was in 1927, when Kenneth Macpherson opined that “it is no good pretending one has any feeling of hope about it”. Ninety-seven years later, is the landscape still as dispiriting – and why did ‘we' never get our own New Wave – and why are we still stuck in the kitchen sink? Through cash, ‘character', class, and capital, there's a lot to unpick. Regardless, the boys do their best to keep the aspidistra flying. Who do they discuss? Who don't they! Anderson, Macpherson, Grierson, Hogg, Keillor, Reisz, Clark, Watkins, Jarman, Brook, Greenaway, Powell & Pressburger, Reed, Lean, Hitchcock, Loach, Leigh. The lot. 00:00:00:00 Intro 00:04:20:04 Early Silent British film 00:05:27:03 Talent leaving Britain for America 00:06:52:14 British documentaries and municipal filmmaking 00:09:09:17 The Studios of the interwar years 00:12:01:16 Powell and Pressburger 00:15:22:14 Class and politics in film 00:17:56:16 Free Cinema movement 00:24:30:13 Woodfall 00:28:15:05 The Third Man 00:30:37:10 60s-70s studio films/Merchant Ivory 00:31:54:13 60s counterculture 00:35:12:00 Folk horror 00:37:04:09 London Filmmakers Coop 00:48:04:15 Playwrights 00:55:27:00 The Paternalism of Social Realism 01:00:11:03 Pedro Costa as a counterpoint to social realism 01:04:16:13 Peter Watkins 01:09:47:05 Lindsay Anderson making an arse of himself 01:10:55:10 Peter Wollen's 1963 essay on the British New Wave 01:13:10:09 Kenneth MacPherson's 1927 article about British film 01:19:02:16 TV's influence in the 70s-80s 01:19:16:09 Alan Clarke 01:23:05:18 Sally Potter 01:30:10:24 Peter Brook 01:31:47:19 90s 01:32:34:21 British art film/essay films 01:37:09:20 00s and 10s 01:40:06:10 Joanna Hogg 01:43:08:18 Borderline (Kenneth Macpherson) 01:48:13:19 Peter Greenaway 01:55:09:09 Top 5 worst tendencies 01:57:31:14 Alternative Top 5 British films 01:59:59:23 Conclusion Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6hdAjXtGPpeQTCcuJ3KNmH?si=Ud_f__90TOSa28tzYPA5GQ Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/muub-tube/id1515030490 Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@returntoformpod

This week we have Lloyd's latest Passive House Plus Revisited, a conversation with passive house heads Alan Clarke and Nick Grant about the passive house archive project that left Lloyd so smitten when he visited it last summer.That we're discussing archive systems shouldn't put folk off - the point is about thinking differently, about what the challenge really is, recognising the reality of systems, the elevation of simplicity, and reclaiming the phrase “value engineering”.Notes from the showFollow Nick Grant on Twitter and Bluesky Follow Alan Clarke on Twitter and BlueskyThe Passive House Plus article that inspired the episode: Hereford archive chooses passive preservation, by Kate de SelincourtElemental Solutions, their practiceThe Conservation Physics website that we mention**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Happy post-Christmas day, hope you made it through OK. Today we have part two of the latest Passive House Plus revisited, looking at Lloyd Alter's favourite article of 2021: Seeing the wood for the trees - Placing ecology at the heart of construction.Again, we're joined by authors Lenny Antonelli and Andy Simmonds talking about mass timber, embodied carbon, why we should just use less and, unexpectedly, the place of AI.It turned out to be an extra long one but it felt deserving of the space, so rather than butcher the conversation we thought we'd just cut it in two and let you hear the lot. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.Notes from the showThe PH+ article: Seeing the wood for the trees - Placing ecology at the heart of constructionLenny Antonelli on LinkedinAndy Simmonds on LinkedInAn article with the 'just do less pyramid' from Treehugger: Can Architects Survive in a World Where We Have to Build Less?Another article with the 'just do less pyramid' from Treehugger: The Key to Green Building Is to Use Less StuffA link to the Half earth paper: Protecting half of the planet could directly affect over one billion peopleThe AECB Youtube channelBiomass - a burning issue, the AECB-commissioned article by Nick Grant and Alan Clarke (only the cached version appears to exist online now)The Guardian article about the 10% contributing the most carbon emissions  The Finnish paper Lloyd references: The sufficiency perspective in climate policy: How to recompose consumption**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

Merry Christmas!This week we have a Passive House Plus revisited two-parter for you, led by our occasional co-host Lloyd Alter, looking at his favourite article of 2021: Seeing the wood for the trees - Placing ecology at the heart of construction.We're joined by authors Lenny Antonelli and Andy Simmonds and the conversation wheels around, covering the place of mass timber as a solution to construction's problems, embodied carbon, why we should just use less, and why it's so hard to use less, amongst lots of other things.It turned out to be an extra long one but it felt deserving of the space, so rather than butcher the conversation we thought we'd just cut it in two and let you hear the lot. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.Notes from the showThe PH+ article: Seeing the wood for the trees - Placing ecology at the heart of constructionLenny Antonelli on LinkedinAndy Simmonds on LinkedInAn article with the 'just do less pyramid' from Treehugger: Can Architects Survive in a World Where We Have to Build Less?Another article with the 'just do less pyramid' from Treehugger: The Key to Green Building Is to Use Less StuffA link to the Half earth paper: Protecting half of the planet could directly affect over one billion peopleThe AECB Youtube channelBiomass - a burning issue, the AECB-commissioned article by Nick Grant and Alan Clarke (only the cached version appears to exist online now)The Guardian article about the 10% contributing the most carbon emissions  The Finnish paper Lloyd references: The sufficiency perspective in climate policy: How to recompose consumption**SOME SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**We don't actually earn anything from this, and it's quite a lot of work, so we have to promote the day jobs.Follow us on the Zero Ambitions LinkedIn pageJeff, Alex, and Dan about websites, branding, and communications - zap@eiux.agency; Everything is User ExperienceSubscribe and advertise with Passive House Plus (UK edition here too)Check Lloyd's Substack: Carbon UpfrontJoin ACANJoin the AECB Join the IGBCCheck out Her Own Space, the renovation and retrofit platform for women (but not in a patronizing way)**END OF SELF-PROMOTING CALLS TO ACTION**

In celebration of Delia Derbyshire Day 2023 and the 60th Anniversary of the Doctor Who theme, Caro C is joined by fellow devotees Mark Ayres, David Butler and Cosey Fanni Tutti to discuss the Delia Derbyshire Day archives and the importance of her contributions to the development of electronic music.Chapters00:00 - Introduction01:26 - Delia Derbyshire ArchiveMark Ayres03:15 - Mark Ayres Introduction 07:44 - The Beginnings Of Electronic Music10:12 - Electronic Sound Sources13:10 - The Delia Derbyshire Archives18:40 - Favourite Piece - The Makeup Tape Of Blue Veils22:21 - The Future Of The ArchivesDavid Butler24:38 - David Butler Introduction28:59 - The Contents Of The Archives33:17 - Building A Network Of Collaborators35:03 - Methods And Techniques Revealed36:59 - Manipulating The Voice39:05 - Favourite Piece - Two Houses And Demo Cue Cosey Fanni Tutti41:42 - Cosey Fanni Tutti Introduction 43:42 - Delia Derbyshire Musical Influences45:24 - A Background In Physics48:50 - Favourite Piece - Amor Dei53:34 - The Importance Of The Archiveshttps://deliaderbyshireday.com/dd-archive/Delia Derbyshire BiogDelia Derbyshire (1937-2001) was a key figure in the development of electronic music in the UK. Born in Coventry but evacuated to Preston during the Blitz, Delia cites the sound of air raid sirens as inspiring her interest in electronic sound. She went on to study Maths and Music at Cambridge University and launched her career at the BBC in 1960 as a trainee Studio Manager. She moved to the Radiophonic Workshop in 1962, where she spent the next 11 years developing experimental sounds and music for their TV and radio shows, in addition to working as a freelancer on film, theatre and other live projects. Her most famous work is her electronic arrangement of Ron Grainer's Doctor Who theme, created in 1963.Delia composed and produced electronic music using tape, plus early synthesis and sampling methods before specific instruments were created for these purposes. Her work has influenced and inspired many modern artists including The Chemical Brothers, Aphex Twin, Portishead, Nainita Desai, Amon Tobin and Cosey Fanni Tutti, while Pink Floyd, Orbital and Hannah Peel have reinterpreted her work.Mark Ayres BiogMark Ayres is a composer, arranger, sound designer, mixer and mastering engineer. Mark wrote incidental music for Doctor Who in the 1980s. More recently he wrote the music for, sound-designed and mixed the reconstructed 'lost' Tom Baker adventure, “Shada”, and a celebratory feature length version of the original 1963 “Daleks” serial transmitted on BBC4 on 23rd November 2023, Doctor Who's 60th birthday. He has also composed for television and film including scores for 1996 feature "The Innocent Sleep" and the more recent "Scar Tissue".Mark was involved in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop's final days and went on to become their archivist. A personal friend of Delia Derbyshire, he was entrusted with her personal archive after her death in 2001, which is now on permanent loan to the University of Manchester John Rylands Library and accessible for study. He is a Trustee of the Delia Derbyshire Day Charity.His devotion to the Workshop after Doctor Who ceased broadcasting in 1989 proved vital in regenerating interest in their work, and he is now the driving force behind their live revival on the festival circuit and in the creation of new works including the score for Matthew Holness' disturbing psychological horror film, "Possum". He has produced and mastered many recordings for Silva Screen Records and others, and his work remastering classic television programmes including Doctor Who, Quatermass, and the films of Ken Russell and Alan Clarke for broadcast, DVD and Blu-ray, including 5.1 remixes of many titles, has been highly acclaimed.David Butler BiogDavid Butler is a Senior Lecturer in Drama and Film Studies at the University of Manchester. He helped to bring the Delia Derbyshire Archive  to the John Rylands Library, Manchester in 2007 and is one of the archive's lead researchers and curators. David is the chair of trustees for Delia Derbyshire Day and helped set up the charity in 2016.Cosey Fanni Tutti BiogCosey Fanni Tutti is a musician and writer, best known for her part in experimental electronic bands Throbbing Gristle and Chris & Cosey. Cosey interacted with the Delia Derbyshire Archive when she composed the soundtrack for Caroline Catz's film 'Delia Derbyshire: The Myths And The Legendary Tapes' and in the writing of her book Re-Sisters: The Lives and Recordings of Delia Derbyshire, Margery Kempe and Cosey Fanni Tutti published by Faber in 2022.https://www.coseyfannitutti.com/Caro C BiogCaro C is an artist, engineer and teacher specialising in electronic music. Her self-produced fourth album 'Electric Mountain' is out now. Described as a "one-woman electronic avalanche" (BBC), Caro started making music thanks to being laid up whilst living in a double decker bus and listening to the likes of Warp Records in the late 1990's. This 'sonic enchantress' (BBC Radio 3) has now played in most of the cultural hotspots of her current hometown of Manchester, UK. Caro is also the instigator and project manager of electronic music charity Delia Derbyshire Day.URL: http://carocsound.com/Twitter: @carocsoundInst: @carocsoundFB: https://www.facebook.com/carocsound/

British Indie Film Club is a limited podcast series from Truth & Movies, in partnership with the British Independent Film Awards (BIFA). In this final episode, national treasure Shane Meadows joins us to reflect on the legacy of his 2004 film Dead Man's Shoes – back in cinemas in a new restoration – and how he was inspired early in his career by another British indie stalwart, Alan Clarke.Edited by Bob Stankus.Produced by TCO. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The third of our satirical specials this summer. In a topical mash-up of prank calls, interviews and features, Dom Joly offers his mischievously surreal take on the people and stories that are hitting the week's headlines. As Dom attempts to get to the bottom of the biggest stories of the week, he challenges experts and makes calls to the wrong people about the wrong thing, often at the wrong time. Best known for Trigger Happy TV which reinvented the hidden camera format, Dom actually has a degree in politics and is a former diplomat. He once stood against Alan Clarke in the 1997 general election. So make no mistake, in Dom Joly Breaks the News, Dom's asking serious questions about that week's actual news. He just wonders whether approaching things from a slightly different angle might give us more interesting answers. Presenter – Dom Joly Producers – Alison Vernon-Smith and Julian Mayers A Yada-Yada Audio production for BBC Radio 4

In this episode we warm up the speculum with our breath, give the old forceps a wipe with our handkerchief and insert the internal ultrasound wand right up the birth canal to study the embryonic beginnings of heavy metal in the womb. The debut self-titled 1970 album, Black Sabbath, by the band Black Sabbath, featuring the number one song on Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Songs of All Time list, Black Sabbath.Featuring cameo appearances from Birmingham, Tony Iommi, Bill Ward, Geezer Butler, Jimmy Phillips, Alan Clarke, Ozzy Osbourne, The Polka Tulk Blues Band, Earth, Jim Simpson, Boris Karloff, Dad's Army, Rodger Bain, Aleister Crowley, Kory Grow, J.R.R. Tolkien, H.P. Lovecraft, a 15th century watermill in Oxfordshire, Inspector Morse, Keith McMillan, Culture Club, Blondie, Pat Benatar, Queen, Bob Marley, Simple Minds, Kiss, Ian Gillan, Paul McCartney, Mike Oldfield, Motörhead, Kate Bush, Bananarama, Billy Squier, Foreigner, Wings, The Clash, Louisa Livingstone, Faculty of Astrological Studies in London, Lester Bangs and Geezer Butler's mum. SAUCES https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-greatest-heavy-metal-songs-1234688425/black-sabbath-black-sabbath-4-1234688429/ https://www.metalsucks.net/2022/02/14/the-cover-model-from-black-sabbaths-debut-is-a-hardcore-anti-vaxxer/ https://www.revolvermag.com/music/black-sabbaths-debut-50-wild-facts-about-metals-first-album 

Recorded live at Anderson's Tremendous Events Centre - 20 July 2023

Such sad news has broken this evening about the sad passing of the legend that is Tina Turner! Her music has enthralled fans around the world since the 60s with a string of absolute classics, such as River Deep Mountain High, Nutbush City Limits, Proud Mary, What's Love Got To Do With It, Goldeneye, Private Dancer, Simply the Best and many many more! I interviewed Tina's former musical director last year, Alan Clarke from the band Dire Straits. In this short clip, Alan pays tribute to Tina Turner, talking about what she is like as a person, what she was like to work with and he shares a wonderful story from their time in Memphis. Rest in peace Anna Mae Bullock, the Queen of Rock & Roll! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

     This week- two movies about people trapped in places they are unable to leave. Some metaphorically, others literally.     Sascha drifts through her days, getting by as well as she can at work and with occasional visits to her young son. Maria is a dreamer who wants to be a performer and poet. When sparks fly between them, both women embrace their blooming romance but can't see how it could be threatened by their individual outlooks. The second feature by Henrika Kull, Bliss.     Carlin just wants to keep to himself after he is transferred to a new borstal. Archer is doing his best to inconvenience the staff as peacefully as possible until his sentence is over. Alan Clarke's scathing and unflenching look at the brutality of the old UK borstal sytem, Scum.     All that and Tyler self soothes, Craig ends his hibernation, Dave feels the ennui, and Kevin's plan for world domination begins to germinate. Join us, won't you?    Episode 306- Daddy's Back

Alan Clarke explains the role of a mechanical services engineer on a low energy house build, in designing a heating and ventilation system that works efficiently and is affordable. Check out the show notes for more information.

Welcome to Reel Britannia-a very British podcast about very British movies ...with just a hint of professionalism. Classic comedy from the 80s this week as Siobhan Finneran stars in this darkly funny drama set in Thatcher's Britain.    Rita Sue and Bob Too (1987) Following an acclaimed career in hard-hitting TV drama, director Alan Clarke achieved a cinema hit with his much-loved comedy. Bradford teenagers Rita and Sue regularly babysit for successful couple Bob and Michelle, whose comfortable suburban lifestyle contrasts with their own bleak existence. One evening when Bob is taking them home, he suggests a detour to the moors. Impressed by his flashy car and worldly ways the girls are smooth-talked into a three-way sexual relationship that becomes very much part of their lives. At first it's a bit of a laugh but people are quick to point the finger and the affair is soon out in the open. The screenplay was adapted from a series of acclaimed plays by Andrea Dunbar, which were based on her own upbringing on Bradford's Buttershaw estate. The contrast of bawdy laughs with astute social comment results in one of the more memorable and enduring British films from the period. "Oh no, I'll have to wear a bra. When I'm dancing all the fellas'll be watching me tits wobblin' up and down - I can't do with that." You can find this and all our previous episodes at: Amazon Music Apple Podcasts Libsyn Player FM Podtail Owltail ListenNotes Follow us on Twitter @rbritanniapod Join us over at our Facebook Group ….we'd love to chat with you email: reelbritannia@gmail.com #britmovie #reelbritannia #ritasueandbobtoo Thanks for listening Scott, Steven and Anthony

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the greatest vampire snooker movie of all time. Yes, it's Alan Clarke's 1985 rock musical "Billy the Kid and the Green Baize Vampire." (originally published 02/25/2022)See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Western Expansion The Hounds have been released, but how will they fare in 2023? The 2022 expansion team went 0-16 but seems to be building a strong fanbase. The 2021 expansion team smashed the league, nabbed the shield, but now are a relic of the past. Given the fact that Chicago inherited two top sides in the west via the "Expansion Draft", they'll be expected to compete for a playoff spot. Bold Prediction: Chicago wins the west in their first year. No one will be hungrier to win now than the players and coaches that got dumped in the GillyGate decision last year. The Hounds are a barkin' and dem dogs is hungry. Argies Do Dallas There's new Argentinian brass in the Jackals front office, and the only thing they give a shit about is winning games in 2023. Just like the (kiwi owned) Rugby (United) New York imported in kiwis late last year for a playoff run, Dallas will likely absorb some Argentinian test players throughout the season. It's a World Cup year, and every player who has RWC dreams is chomping at the bit to be seen by selectors. If a prominent Argentinian player isn't seeing time in a European competition, don't be surprised if he ends up doing Dallas. Bold Prediction: Dallas wins 6 or more games. Stands up in the Western conference, and plays spoiler down the stretch in May. They won't make the playoffs, but they will be night and day from their form last year. Sleepers in Seattle Is it even possible to Sleep on a 2x MLR Champ? Seattle has been consistently good since the league's inception. They've been building something fierce under head coach Allen Clarke. Hometown products like Eric Duechle and Cole Zarcone return to a strong roster of Seawolves that know how to hunt in a pack (or is it a pod?). Starfire Stadium remains a surefire place for a loud home field advantage ... (ps, we love and fully support the heckling of visiting team place kickers). Bold Prediction: Seattle makes the western playoffs and strikes up a new rivalry with the Chicago Hounds. We'll call it ... "The Battle for the Right to Wear Forest Green". Bit of a mouthful, but that's the working title for this soon to form Western conference rivalry. As we alluded to above, it's not necessarily BOLD to predict a perennial contender to make the big dance, so we'll throw in another BOLD prediction ... Alan Clarke = coach of the year 2023. PICKEM!

A British classic is next up courtesy of Patreon Matt Bates, and it's the 1987 comedy-drama, Rita, Sue and Bob Too. Based on the play by Andrea Dunbar, this is Directed by Alan Clarke and stars Michelle Holmes, Siobhan Finneran, George Costigan, and Lesley Sharp. If you enjoy the show we have a Patreon, become a supporter. www.patreon.com/thevhsstrikesback Plot Summary: Realistic story of working-class Yorkshire life, alternately serious and light-hearted, as two schoolgirls have a sexual fling with a married man. thevhsstrikesback@gmail.com https://linktr.ee/vhsstrikesback --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thevhsstrikesback/support

Episode 160 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Flowers in the Rain" by the Move, their transition into ELO, and the career of Roy Wood. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-minute bonus episode available, on "The Chipmunk Song" by Canned Heat. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Note I say "And on its first broadcast, as George Martin's theme tune for the new station faded, Tony Blackburn reached for a record." -- I should point out that after Martin's theme fades, Blackburn talks over a brief snatch of a piece by Johnny Dankworth. Resources As so many of the episodes recently have had no Mixcloud due to the number of songs by one artist, I've decided to start splitting the mixes of the recordings excerpted in the podcasts into two parts. Here's part one . I had problems uploading part two, but will attempt to get that up shortly. There are not many books about Roy Wood, and I referred to both of the two that seem to exist -- this biography by John van der Kiste, and this album guide by James R Turner.  I also referred to this biography of Jeff Lynne by van der Kiste, The Electric Light Orchestra Story by Bev Bevan, and Mr Big by Don Arden with Mick Wall.  Most of the more comprehensive compilations of the Move's material are out of print, but this single-CD-plus-DVD anthology is the best compilation that's in print. This is the one collection of Wood's solo and Wizzard hits that seems currently in print, and for those who want to investigate further, this cheap box set has the last Move album, the first ELO album, the first Wizzard album, Wood's solo Boulders, and a later Wood solo album, for the price of a single CD. Transcript Before I start, a brief note. This episode deals with organised crime, and so contains some mild descriptions of violence, and also has some mention of mental illness and drug use, though not much of any of those things. And it's probably also important to warn people that towards the end there's some Christmas music, including excerpts of a song that is inescapable at this time of year in the UK, so those who work in retail environments and the like may want to listen to this later, at a point when they're not totally sick of hearing Christmas records. Most of the time, the identity of the party in government doesn't make that much of a difference to people's everyday lives.  At least in Britain, there tends to be a consensus ideology within the limits of which governments of both main parties tend to work. They will make a difference at the margins, and be more or less competent, and more or less conservative or left-wing, more or less liberal or authoritarian, but life will, broadly speaking, continue along much as before for most people. Some will be a little better or worse off, but in general steering the ship of state is a matter of a lot of tiny incremental changes, not of sudden u-turns. But there have been a handful of governments that have made big, noticeable, changes to the structure of society, reforms that for better or worse affect the lives of every person in the country. Since the end of the Second World War there have been two UK governments that made economic changes of this nature. The Labour government under Clement Atlee which came into power in 1945, and which dramatically expanded the welfare state, introduced the National Health Service, and nationalised huge swathes of major industries, created the post-war social democratic consensus which would be kept to with only minor changes by successive governments of both major parties for decades. The next government to make changes to the economy of such a radical nature was the Conservative government which came to power under Margaret Thatcher in 1979, which started the process of unravelling that social democratic consensus and replacing it with a far more hypercapitalist economic paradigm, which would last for the next several decades. It's entirely possible that the current Conservative government, in leaving the EU, has made a similarly huge change, but we won't know that until we have enough distance from the event to know what long-term changes it's caused. Those are economic changes. Arguably at least as impactful was the Labour government led by Harold Wilson that came to power in 1964, which did not do much to alter the economic consensus, but revolutionised the social order at least as much. Largely because of the influence of Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary for much of that time, between 1964 and the end of the sixties, Britain abolished the death penalty for murder, decriminalised some sex acts between men in private, abolished corporal punishment in prisons, legalised abortion in certain circumstances, and got rid of censorship in the theatre. They also vastly increased spending on education, and made many other changes. By the end of their term, Britain had gone from being a country with laws reflecting a largely conservative, authoritarian, worldview to one whose laws were some of the most liberal in Europe, and society had started changing to match. There were exceptions, though, and that government did make some changes that were illiberal. They brought in increased restrictions on immigration, starting a worrying trend that continues to this day of governments getting ever crueler to immigrants, and they added LSD to the list of illegal drugs. And they brought in the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act, banning the pirate stations. We've mentioned pirate radio stations very briefly, but never properly explained them. In Britain, at this point, there was a legal monopoly on broadcasting. Only the BBC could run a radio station in the UK, and thanks to agreements with the Musicians' Union, the BBC could only play a very small amount of recorded music, with everything else having to be live performances or spoken word. And because it had a legal obligation to provide something for everyone, that meant the tiny amount of recorded music that was played on the radio had to cover all genres, meaning that even while Britain was going through the most important changes in its musical history, pop records were limited to an hour or two a week on British radio. Obviously, that wasn't going to last while there was money to be made, and the record companies in particular wanted to have somewhere to showcase their latest releases. At the start of the sixties, Radio Luxembourg had become popular, broadcasting from continental Europe but largely playing shows that had been pre-recorded in London. But of course, that was far enough away that it made listening to the transmissions difficult. But a solution presented itself: [Excerpt: The Fortunes, "Caroline"] Radio Caroline still continues to this day, largely as an Internet-based radio station, but in the mid-sixties it was something rather different. It was one of a handful of radio stations -- the pirate stations -- that broadcast from ships in international waters. The ships would stay three miles off the coast of Britain, close enough for their broadcasts to be clearly heard in much of the country, but outside Britain's territorial waters. They soon became hugely popular, with Radio Caroline and Radio London the two most popular, and introduced DJs like Tony Blackburn, Dave Lee Travis, Kenny Everett, and John Peel to the airwaves of Britain. The stations ran on bribery and advertising, and if you wanted a record to get into the charts one of the things you had to do was bribe one of the big pirate stations to playlist it, and with this corruption came violence, which came to a head when as we heard in the episode on “Here Comes the Night”, in 1966 Major Oliver Smedley, a failed right-wing politician and one of the directors of Radio Caroline, got a gang of people to board an abandoned sea fort from which a rival station was broadcasting and retrieve some equipment he claimed belonged to him. The next day, Reginald Calvert, the owner of the rival station, went to Smedley's home to confront him, and Smedley shot him dead, claiming self-defence. The jury in Smedley's subsequent trial took only a minute to find him not guilty and award him two hundred and fifty guineas to cover his costs. This was the last straw for the government, which was already concerned that the pirates' transmitters were interfering with emergency services transmissions, and that proper royalties weren't being paid for the music broadcast (though since much of the music was only on there because of payola, this seems a little bit of a moot point).  They introduced legislation which banned anyone in the UK from supplying the pirate ships with records or other supplies, or advertising on the stations. They couldn't do anything about the ships themselves, because they were outside British jurisdiction, but they could make sure that nobody could associate with them while remaining in the UK. The BBC was to regain its monopoly (though in later years some commercial radio stations were allowed to operate). But as well as the stick, they needed the carrot. The pirate stations *had* been filling a real need, and the biggest of them were getting millions of listeners every day. So the arrangements with the Musicians' Union and the record labels were changed, and certain BBC stations were now allowed to play a lot more recorded music per day. I haven't been able to find accurate figures anywhere -- a lot of these things were confidential agreements -- but it seems to have been that the so-called "needle time" rules were substantially relaxed, allowing the BBC to separate what had previously been the Light Programme -- a single radio station that played all kinds of popular music, much of it live performances -- into two radio stations that were each allowed to play as much as twelve hours of recorded music per day, which along with live performances and between-track commentary from DJs was enough to allow a full broadcast schedule. One of these stations, Radio 2, was aimed at older listeners, and to start with mostly had programmes of what we would now refer to as Muzak, mixed in with the pop music of an older generation -- crooners and performers like Englebert Humperdinck. But another, Radio 1, was aimed at a younger audience and explicitly modelled on the pirate stations, and featured many of the DJs who had made their names on those stations. And on its first broadcast, as George Martin's theme tune for the new station faded, Tony Blackburn reached for a record. At different times Blackburn has said either that he was just desperately reaching for whatever record came to hand or that he made a deliberate choice because the record he chose had such a striking opening that it would be the perfect way to start a new station: [Excerpt: Tony Blackburn first radio show into "Flowers in the Rain" by the Move] You may remember me talking in the episode on "Here Comes the Night" about how in 1964 Dick Rowe of Decca, the manager Larry Page, and the publicist and co-owner of Radio Caroline Phil Solomon were all trying to promote something called Brumbeat as the answer to Merseybeat – Brummies, for those who don't know, are people from Birmingham. Brumbeat never took off the way Merseybeat did, but several bands did get a chance to make records, among them Gerry Levene and the Avengers: [Excerpt: Gerry Levene and the Avengers, "Dr. Feelgood"] That was the only single the Avengers made, and the B-side wasn't even them playing, but a bunch of session musicians under the direction of Bert Berns, and the group split up soon afterwards, but several of the members would go on to have rather important careers. According to some sources, one of their early drummers was John Bohnam, who you can be pretty sure will be turning up later in the story, while the drummer on that track was Graeme Edge, who would later go on to co-found the Moody Blues.  But today it's the guitarist we'll be looking at. Roy Wood had started playing music when he was very young -- he'd had drum lessons when he was five years old, the only formal musical tuition he ever had, and he'd played harmonica around working men's clubs as a kid. And as a small child he'd loved classical music, particularly Tchaikovsky and Elgar. But it wasn't until he was twelve that he decided that he wanted to be a guitarist. He went to see the Shadows play live, and was inspired by the sound of Hank Marvin's guitar, which he later described as sounding "like it had been dipped in Dettol or something": [Excerpt: The Shadows, "Apache"] He started begging his parents for a guitar, and got one for his thirteenth birthday -- and by the time he was fourteen he was already in a band, the Falcons, whose members were otherwise eighteen to twenty years old, but who needed a lead guitarist who could play like Marvin. Wood had picked up the guitar almost preternaturally quickly, as he would later pick up every instrument he turned his hand to, and he'd also got the equipment. His friend Jeff Lynne later said "I first saw Roy playing in a church hall in Birmingham and I think his group was called the Falcons. And I could tell he was dead posh because he had a Fender Stratocaster and a Vox AC30 amplifier. The business at the time. I mean, if you've got those, that's it, you're made." It was in the Falcons that Wood had first started trying to write songs, at first instrumentals in the style of the Shadows, but then after the Beatles hit the charts he realised it was possible for band members to write their own material, and started hesitantly trying to write a few actual songs. Wood had moved on from the Falcons to Gerry Levene's band, one of the biggest local bands in Birmingham, when he was sixteen, which is also when he left formal education, dropping out from art school -- he's later said that he wasn't expelled as such, but that he and the school came to a mutual agreement that he wouldn't go back there. And when Gerry Levene and the Avengers fell apart after their one chance at success hadn't worked out, he moved on again to an even bigger band. Mike Sheridan and the Night Riders had had two singles out already, both produced by Cliff Richard's producer Norrie Paramor, and while they hadn't charted they were clearly going places. They needed a new guitarist, and Wood was by far the best of the dozen or so people who auditioned, even though Sheridan was very hesitant at first -- the Night Riders were playing cabaret, and all dressed smartly at all times, and this sixteen-year-old guitarist had turned up wearing clothes made by his sister and ludicrous pointy shoes. He was the odd man out, but he was so good that none of the other players could hold a candle to him, and he was in the Night Riders by the time of their third single, "What a Sweet Thing That Was": [Excerpt: Mike Sheridan and the Night Riders, "What a Sweet Thing That Was"] Sheridan later said "Roy was and still is, in my opinion, an unbelievable talent. As stubborn as a mule and a complete extrovert. Roy changed the group by getting us into harmonies and made us realize there was better material around with more than three chords to play. This was our turning point and we became a group's group and a bigger name." -- though there are few other people who would describe Wood as extroverted, most people describing him as painfully shy off-stage. "What a  Sweet Thing That Was" didn't have any success, and nor did its follow-up, "Here I Stand", which came out in January 1965. But by that point, Wood had got enough of a reputation that he was already starting to guest on records by other bands on the Birmingham scene, like "Pretty Things" by Danny King and the Mayfair Set: [Excerpt: Danny King and the Mayfair Set, "Pretty Things"] After their fourth single was a flop, Mike Sheridan and the Night Riders changed their name to Mike Sheridan's Lot, and the B-side of their first single under the new name was a Roy Wood song, the first time one of his songs was recorded. Unfortunately the song, modelled on "It's Not Unusual" by Tom Jones, didn't come off very well, and Sheridan blamed himself for what everyone was agreed was a lousy sounding record: [Excerpt: Mike Sheridan's Lot, "Make Them Understand"] Mike Sheridan's Lot put out one final single, but the writing was on the wall for the group. Wood left, and soon after so did Sheridan himself. The remaining members regrouped under the name The Idle Race, with Wood's friend Jeff Lynne as their new singer and guitarist. But Wood wouldn't remain without a band for long. He'd recently started hanging out with another band, Carl Wayne and the Vikings, who had also released a couple of singles, on Pye: [Excerpt: Carl Wayne and the Vikings, "What's the Matter Baby"] But like almost every band from Birmingham up to this point, the Vikings' records had done very little, and their drummer had quit, and been replaced by Bev Bevan, who had been in yet another band that had gone nowhere, Denny Laine and the Diplomats, who had released one single under the name of their lead singer Nicky James, featuring the Breakaways, the girl group who would later sing on "Hey Joe", on backing vocals: [Excerpt: Nicky James, "My Colour is Blue"] Bevan had joined Carl Wayne's group, and they'd recorded one track together, a cover version of "My Girl", which was only released in the US, and which sank without a trace: [Excerpt: Carl Wayne and the Vikings, "My Girl"] It was around this time that Wood started hanging around with the Vikings, and they would all complain about how if you were playing the Birmingham circuit you were stuck just playing cover versions, and couldn't do anything more interesting.  They were also becoming more acutely aware of how successful they *could* have been, because one of the Brumbeat bands had become really big. The Moody Blues, a supergroup of players from the best bands in Birmingham who featured Bev Bevan's old bandmate Denny Laine and Wood's old colleague Graeme Edge, had just hit number one with their version of "Go Now": [Excerpt: The Moody Blues, "Go Now"] So they knew the potential for success was there, but they were all feeling trapped. But then Ace Kefford, the bass player for the Vikings, went to see Davy Jones and the Lower Third playing a gig: [Excerpt: Davy Jones and the Lower Third, "You've Got a Habit of Leaving"] Also at the gig was Trevor Burton, the guitarist for Danny King and the Mayfair Set. The two of them got chatting to Davy Jones after the gig, and eventually the future David Bowie told them that the two of them should form their own band if they were feeling constricted in their current groups. They decided to do just that, and they persuaded Carl Wayne from Kefford's band to join them, and got in Wood.  Now they just needed a drummer. Their first choice was John Bonham, the former drummer for Gerry Levene and the Avengers who was now drumming in a band with Kefford's uncle and Nicky James from the Diplomats. But Bonham and Wayne didn't get on, and so Bonham decided to remain in the group he was in, and instead they turned to Bev Bevan, the Vikings' new drummer.  (Of the other two members of the Vikings, one went on to join Mike Sheridan's Lot in place of Wood, before leaving at the same time as Sheridan and being replaced by Lynne, while the other went on to join Mike Sheridan's New Lot, the group Sheridan formed after leaving his old group. The Birmingham beat group scene seems to have only had about as many people as there were bands, with everyone ending up a member of twenty different groups). The new group called themselves the Move, because they were all moving on from other groups, and it was a big move for all of them. Many people advised them not to get together, saying they were better off where they were, or taking on offers they'd got from more successful groups -- Carl Wayne had had an offer from a group called the Spectres, who would later become famous as Status Quo, while Wood had been tempted by Tony Rivers and the Castaways, a group who at the time were signed to Immediate Records, and who did Beach Boys soundalikes and covers: [Excerpt: Tony Rivers and the Castaways, "Girl Don't Tell Me"] Wood was a huge fan of the Beach Boys and would have fit in with Rivers, but decided he'd rather try something truly new. After their first gig, most of the people who had warned against the group changed their minds. Bevan's best friend, Bobby Davis, told Bevan that while he'd disliked all the other groups Bevan had played in, he liked this one. (Davis would later become a famous comedian, and have a top five single himself in the seventies, produced by Jeff Lynne and with Bevan on the drums, under his stage name Jasper Carrott): [Excerpt: Jasper Carrott, "Funky Moped"] Most of their early sets were cover versions, usually of soul and Motown songs, but reworked in the group's unique style. All five of the band could sing, four of them well enough to be lead vocalists in their own right (Bevan would add occasional harmonies or sing novelty numbers) and so they became known for their harmonies -- Wood talked at the time about how he wanted the band to have Beach Boys harmonies but over instruments that sounded like the Who. And while they were mostly doing cover versions live, Wood was busily writing songs. Their first recording session was for local radio, and at that session they did cover versions of songs by Brenda Lee, the Isley Brothers, the Orlons, the Marvelettes, and Betty Everett, but they also performed four songs written by Wood, with each member of the front line taking a lead vocal, like this one with Kefford singing: [Excerpt: The Move, "You're the One I Need"] The group were soon signed by Tony Secunda, the manager of the Moody Blues, who set about trying to get the group as much publicity as possible. While Carl Wayne, as the only member who didn't play an instrument, ended up the lead singer on most of the group's early records, Secunda started promoting Kefford, who was younger and more conventionally attractive than Wayne, and who had originally put the group together, as the face of the group, while Wood was doing most of the heavy lifting with the music. Wood quickly came to dislike performing live, and to wish he could take the same option as Brian Wilson and stay home and write songs and make records while the other four went out and performed, so Kefford and Wayne taking the spotlight from him didn't bother him at the time, but it set the group up for constant conflicts about who was actually the leader of the group. Wood was also uncomfortable with the image that Secunda set up for the group. Secunda decided that the group needed to be promoted as "bad boys", and so he got them to dress up as 1930s gangsters, and got them to do things like smash busts of Hitler, or the Rhodesian dictator Ian Smith, on stage. He got them to smash TVs on stage too, and in one publicity stunt he got them to smash up a car, while strippers took their clothes off nearby -- claiming that this was to show that people were more interested in violence than in sex. Wood, who was a very quiet, unassuming, introvert, didn't like this sort of thing, but went along with it. Secunda got the group a regular slot at the Marquee club, which lasted several months until, in one of Secunda's ideas for publicity, Carl Wayne let off smoke bombs on stage which set fire to the stage. The manager came up to try to stop the fire, and Wayne tossed the manager's wig into the flames, and the group were banned from the club (though the ban was later lifted). In another publicity stunt, at the time of the 1966 General Election, the group were photographed with "Vote Tory" posters, and issued an invitation to Edward Heath, the leader of the Conservative Party and a keen amateur musician, to join them on stage on keyboards. Sir Edward didn't respond to the invitation. All this publicity led to record company interest. Joe Boyd tried to sign the group to Elektra Records, but much as with The Pink Floyd around the same time, Jac Holzman wasn't interested. Instead they signed with a new production company set up by Denny Cordell, the producer of the Moody Blues' hits. The contract they signed was written on the back of a nude model, as yet another of Secunda's publicity schemes. The group's first single, "Night of Fear" was written by Wood and an early sign of his interest in incorporating classical music into rock: [Excerpt: The Move, "Night of Fear"] Secunda claimed in the publicity that that song was inspired by taking bad acid and having a bad trip, but in truth Wood was more inspired by brown ale than by brown acid -- he and Bev Bevan would never do any drugs other than alcohol. Wayne did take acid once, but didn't like it, though Burton and Kefford would become regular users of most drugs that were going. In truth, the song was not about anything more than being woken up in the middle of the night by an unexpected sound and then being unable to get back to sleep because you're scared of what might be out there. The track reached number two on the charts in the UK, being kept off the top by "I'm a Believer" by the Monkees, and was soon followed up by another song which again led to assumptions of drug use. "I Can Hear the Grass Grow" wasn't about grass the substance, but was inspired by a letter to Health and Efficiency, a magazine which claimed to be about the nudist lifestyle as an excuse for printing photos of naked people at a time before pornography laws were liberalised. The letter was from a reader saying that he listened to pop music on the radio because "where I live it's so quiet I can hear the grass grow!" Wood took that line and turned it into the group's next single, which reached number five: [Excerpt: The Move, "I Can Hear the Grass Grow"] Shortly after that, the group played two big gigs at Alexandra Palace. The first was the Fourteen-Hour Technicolor Dream, which we talked about in the Pink Floyd episode. There Wood had one of the biggest thrills of his life when he walked past John Lennon, who saluted him and then turned to a friend and said "He's brilliant!" -- in the seventies Lennon would talk about how Wood was one of his two favourite British songwriters, and would call the Move "the Hollies with balls". The other gig they played at Alexandra Palace was a "Free the Pirates" benefit show, sponsored by Radio Caroline, to protest the imposition of the Marine Broadcasting (Offences) Act.  Despite that, it was, of course, the group's next single that was the first one to be played on Radio One. And that single was also the one which kickstarted Roy Wood's musical ambitions.  The catalyst for this was Tony Visconti. Visconti was a twenty-three-year-old American who had been in the music business since he was sixteen, working the typical kind of jobs that working musicians do, like being for a time a member of a latter-day incarnation of the Crew-Cuts, the white vocal group who had had hits in the fifties with covers of "Sh'Boom" and “Earth Angel”. He'd also recorded two singles as a duo with his wife Siegrid, which had gone nowhere: [Excerpt: Tony and Siegrid, "Up Here"] Visconti had been working for the Richmond Organisation as a staff songwriter when he'd met the Move's producer Denny Cordell. Cordell was in the US to promote a new single he had released with a group called Procol Harum, "A Whiter Shade of Pale", and Visconti became the first American to hear the record, which of course soon became a massive hit: [Excerpt: Procol Harum, "A Whiter Shade of Pale"] While he was in New York, Cordell also wanted to record a backing track for one of his other hit acts, Georgie Fame. He told Visconti that he'd booked several of the best session players around, like the jazz trumpet legend Clark Terry, and thought it would be a fun session. Visconti asked to look at the charts for the song, out of professional interest, and Cordell was confused -- what charts? The musicians would just make up an arrangement, wouldn't they? Visconti asked what he was talking about, and Cordell talked about how you made records -- you just got the musicians to come into the studio, hung around while they smoked a few joints and worked out what they were going to play, and then got on with it. It wouldn't take more than about twelve hours to get a single recorded that way. Visconti was horrified, and explained that that might be how they did things in London, but if Cordell tried to make a record that way in New York, with an eight-piece group of session musicians who charged union scale, and would charge double scale for arranging work on top, then he'd bankrupt himself. Cordell went pale and said that the session was in an hour, what was he going to do? Luckily, Cordell had a copy of the demo with him, and Visconti, who unlike Cordell was a trained musician, quickly sat down and wrote an arrangement for him, sketching out parts for guitar, bass, drums, piano, sax, and trumpets. The resulting arrangement wasn't perfect -- Visconti had to write the whole thing in less than an hour with no piano to hand -- but it was good enough that Cordell's production assistant on the track, Harvey Brooks of the group Electric Flag, who also played bass on the track, could tweak it in the studio, and the track was recorded quickly, saving Cordell a fortune: [Excerpt: Georgie Fame, "Because I Love You"] One of the other reasons Cordell had been in the US was that he was looking for a production assistant to work with him in the UK to help translate his ideas into language the musicians could understand. According to Visconti he said that he was going to try asking Phil Spector to be his assistant, and Artie Butler if Spector said no.  Astonishingly, assuming he did ask them, neither Phil Spector nor Artie Butler (who was the arranger for records like "Leader of the Pack" and "I'm a Believer" among many, many, others, and who around this time was the one who suggested to Louis Armstrong that he should record "What a Wonderful World") wanted to fly over to the UK to work as Denny Cordell's assistant, and so Cordell turned back to Visconti and invited him to come over to the UK. The main reason Cordell needed an assistant was that he had too much work on his hands -- he was currently in the middle of recording albums for three major hit groups -- Procol Harum, The Move, and Manfred Mann -- and he physically couldn't be in multiple studios at once. Visconti's first work for him was on a Manfred Mann session, where they were recording the Randy Newman song "So Long Dad" for their next single. Cordell produced the rhythm track then left for a Procol Harum session, leaving Visconti to guide the group through the overdubs, including all the vocal parts and the lead instruments: [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "So Long Dad"] The next Move single, "Flowers in the Rain", was the first one to benefit from Visconti's arrangement ideas. The band had recorded the track, and Cordell had been unhappy with both the song and performance, thinking it was very weak compared to their earlier singles -- not the first time that Cordell would have a difference of opinion with the band, who he thought of as a mediocre pop group, while they thought of themselves as a heavy rock band who were being neutered in the studio by their producer.  In particular, Cordell didn't like that the band fell slightly out of time in the middle eight of the track. He decided to scrap it, and get the band to record something else. Visconti, though, thought the track could be saved. He told Cordell that what they needed to do was to beat the Beatles, by using a combination of instruments they hadn't thought of. He scored for a quartet of wind instruments -- oboe, flute, clarinet, and French horn, in imitation of Mendelssohn: [Excerpt: The Move, "Flowers in the Rain"] And then, to cover up the slight sloppiness on the middle eight, Visconti had the wind instruments on that section recorded at half speed, so when played back at normal speed they'd sound like pixies and distract from the rhythm section: [Excerpt: The Move, "Flowers in the Rain"] Visconti's instincts were right. The single went to number two, kept off the top spot by Englebert Humperdinck, who spent 1967 keeping pretty much every major British band off number one, and thanks in part to it being the first track played on Radio 1, but also because it was one of the biggest hits of 1967, it's been the single of the Move's that's had the most airplay over the years. Unfortunately, none of the band ever saw a penny in royalties from it. It was because of another of Tony Secunda's bright ideas. Harold Wilson, the Prime Minister at the time, was very close to his advisor Marcia Williams, who started out as his secretary, rose to be his main political advisor, and ended up being elevated to the peerage as Baroness Falkender. There were many, many rumours that Williams was corrupt -- rumours that were squashed by both Wilson and Williams frequently issuing libel writs against newspapers that mentioned them -- though it later turned out that at least some of these were the work of Britain's security services, who believed Wilson to be working for the KGB (and indeed Williams had first met Wilson at a dinner with Khrushchev, though Wilson was very much not a Communist) and were trying to destabilise his government as a result. Their personal closeness also led to persistent rumours that Wilson and Williams were having an affair. And Tony Secunda decided that the best way to promote "Flowers in the Rain" was to print a postcard with a cartoon of Wilson and Williams on it, and send it out. Including sticking a copy through the door of ten Downing St, the Prime Minister's official residence. This backfired *spectacularly*. Wilson sued the Move for libel, even though none of them had known of their manager's plans, and as a result of the settlement it became illegal for any publication to print the offending image (though it can easily be found on the Internet now of course), everyone involved with the record was placed under a permanent legal injunction to never discuss the details of the case, and every penny in performance or songwriting royalties the track earned would go to charities of Harold Wilson's choice. In the 1990s newspaper reports said that the group had up to that point lost out on two hundred thousand pounds in royalties as a result of Secunda's stunt, and given the track's status as a perennial favourite, it's likely they've missed out on a similar amount in the decades since. Incidentally, while every member of the band was banned from ever describing the postcard, I'm not, and since Wilson and Williams are now both dead it's unlikely they'll ever sue me. The postcard is a cartoon in the style of Aubrey Beardsley, and shows Wilson as a grotesque naked homunculus sat on a bed, with Williams naked save for a diaphonous nightgown through which can clearly be seen her breasts and genitals, wearing a Marie Antoinette style wig and eyemask and holding a fan coquettishly, while Wilson's wife peers at them through a gap in the curtains. The text reads "Disgusting Depraved Despicable, though Harold maybe is the only way to describe "Flowers in the Rain" The Move, released Aug 23" The stunt caused huge animosity between the group and Secunda, not only because of the money they lost but also because despite Secunda's attempts to associate them with the Conservative party the previous year, Ace Kefford was upset at an attack on the Labour leader -- his grandfather was a lifelong member of the Labour party and Kefford didn't like the idea of upsetting him. The record also had a knock-on effect on another band. Wood had given the song "Here We Go Round the Lemon Tree" to his friends in The Idle Race, the band that had previously been Mike Sheridan and the Night Riders, and they'd planned to use their version as their first single: [Excerpt: The Idle Race, "Here We Go Round the Lemon Tree"] But the Move had also used the song as the B-side for their own single, and "Flowers in the Rain" was so popular that the B-side also got a lot of airplay. The Idle Race didn't want to be thought of as a covers act, and so "Lemon Tree" was pulled at the last minute and replaced by "Impostors of Life's Magazine", by the group's guitarist Jeff Lynne: [Excerpt: The Idle Race, "Impostors of Life's Magazine"] Before the problems arose, the Move had been working on another single. The A-side, "Cherry Blossom Clinic", was a song about being in a psychiatric hospital, and again had an arrangement by Visconti, who this time conducted a twelve-piece string section: [Excerpt: The Move, "Cherry Blossom Clinic"] The B-side, meanwhile, was a rocker about politics: [Excerpt: The Move, "Vote For Me"] Given the amount of controversy they'd caused, the idea of a song about mental illness backed with one about politics seemed a bad idea, and so "Cherry Blossom Clinic" was kept back as an album track while "Vote For Me" was left unreleased until future compilations. The first Wood knew about "Cherry Blossom Clinic" not being released was when after a gig in London someone -- different sources have it as Carl Wayne or Tony Secunda -- told him that they had a recording session the next morning for their next single and asked what song he planned on recording. When he said he didn't have one, he was sent up to his hotel room with a bottle of Scotch and told not to come down until he had a new song. He had one by 8:30 the next morning, and was so drunk and tired that he had to be held upright by his bandmates in the studio while singing his lead vocal on the track. The song was inspired by "Somethin' Else", a track by Eddie Cochran, one of Wood's idols: [Excerpt: Eddie Cochran, "Somethin' Else"] Wood took the bass riff from that and used it as the basis for what was the Move's most straight-ahead rock track to date. As 1967 was turning into 1968, almost universally every band was going back to basics, recording stripped down rock and roll tracks, and the Move were no exception. Early takes of "Fire Brigade" featured Matthew Fisher of Procol Harum on piano, but the final version featured just guitar, bass, drums and vocals, plus a few sound effects: [Excerpt: The Move, "Fire Brigade"] While Carl Wayne had sung lead or co-lead on all the Move's previous singles, he was slowly being relegated into the background, and for this one Wood takes the lead vocal on everything except the brief bridge, which Wayne sings: [Excerpt: The Move, "Fire Brigade"] The track went to number three, and while it's not as well-remembered as a couple of other Move singles, it was one of the most influential. Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols has often said that the riff for "God Save the Queen" is inspired by "Fire Brigade": [Excerpt: The Sex Pistols, "God Save the Queen"] The reversion to a heavier style of rock on "Fire Brigade" was largely inspired by the group's new friend Jimi Hendrix. The group had gone on a package tour with The Pink Floyd (who were at the bottom of the bill), Amen Corner, The Nice, and the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and had become good friends with Hendrix, often jamming with him backstage. Burton and Kefford had become so enamoured of Hendrix that they'd both permed their hair in imitation of his Afro, though Burton regretted it -- his hair started falling out in huge chunks as a result of the perm, and it took him a full two years to grow it out and back into a more natural style. Burton had started sharing a flat with Noel Redding of the Jimi Hendrix Experience, and Burton and Wood had also sung backing vocals with Graham Nash of the Hollies on Hendrix's "You Got Me Floatin'", from his Axis: Bold as Love album: [Excerpt: The Jimi Hendrix Experience, "You Got Me Floatin'"] In early 1968, the group's first album came out. In retrospect it's arguably their best, but at the time it felt a little dated -- it was a compilation of tracks recorded between late 1966 and late 1967, and by early 1968 that might as well have been the nineteenth century. The album included their two most recent singles, a few more songs arranged by Visconti, and three cover versions -- versions of Eddie Cochran's "Weekend", Moby Grape's "Hey Grandma", and the old standard "Zing! Went the Strings of My Heart", done copying the Coasters' arrangement with Bev Bevan taking a rare lead vocal. By this time there was a lot of dissatisfaction among the group. Most vocal -- or least vocal, because by this point he was no longer speaking to any of the other members, had been Ace Kefford. Kefford felt he was being sidelined in a band he'd formed and where he was the designated face of the group. He'd tried writing songs, but the only one he'd brought to the group, "William Chalker's Time Machine", had been rejected, and was eventually recorded by a group called The Lemon Tree, whose recording of it was co-produced by Burton and Andy Fairweather-Low of Amen Corner: [Excerpt: The Lemon Tree, "William Chalker's Time Machine"] He was also, though the rest of the group didn't realise it at the time, in the middle of a mental breakdown, which he later attributed to his overuse of acid. By the time the album, titled Move, came out, he'd quit the group. He formed a new group, The Ace Kefford Stand, with Cozy Powell on drums, and they released one single, a cover version of the Yardbirds' "For Your Love", which didn't chart: [Excerpt: The Ace Kefford Stand, "For Your Love"] Kefford recorded a solo album in 1968, but it wasn't released until an archival release in 2003, and he spent most of the next few decades dealing with mental health problems. The group continued on as a four-piece, with Burton moving over to bass. While they thought about what to do -- they were unhappy with Secunda's management, and with the sound that Cordell was getting from their recordings, which they considered far wimpier than their live sound -- they released a live EP of cover versions, recorded at the Marquee. The choice of songs for the EP showed their range of musical influences at the time, going from fifties rockabilly to the burgeoning progressive rock scene, with versions of Cochran's "Somethin' Else", Jerry Lee Lewis' "It'll Be Me", "So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star" by the Byrds, "Sunshine Help Me" by Spooky Tooth, and "Stephanie Knows Who" by Love: [Excerpt: The Move, "Stephanie Knows Who"] Incidentally, later that year they headlined a gig at the Royal Albert Hall with the Byrds as the support act, and Gram Parsons, who by that time was playing guitar for the Byrds, said that the Move did "So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star" better than the Byrds did. The EP, titled "Something Else From the Move", didn't do well commercially, but it did do something that the band thought important -- Trevor Burton in particular had been complaining that Denny Cordell's productions "took the toughness out" of the band's sound, and was worried that the group were being perceived as a pop band, not as a rock group like his friends in the Jimi Hendrix Experience or Cream. There was an increasing tension between Burton, who wanted to be a heavy rocker, and the older Wayne, who thought there was nothing at all wrong with being a pop band. The next single, "Wild Tiger Woman", was much more in the direction that Burton wanted their music to go. It was ostensibly produced by Cordell, but for the most part he left it to the band, and as a result it ended up as a much heavier track than normal. Roy Wood had only intended the song as an album track, and Bevan and Wayne were hesitant about it being a single, but Burton was insistent -- "Wild Tiger Woman" was going to be the group's first number one record: [Excerpt: The Move, "Wild Tiger Woman"] In fact, it turned out to be the group's first single not to chart at all, after four top ten singles in a row.  The group were now in crisis. They'd lost Ace Kefford, Burton and Wayne were at odds, and they were no longer guaranteed hitmakers. They decided to stop working with Cordell and Secunda, and made a commitment that if the next single was a flop, they would split up. In any case, Roy Wood was already thinking about another project. Even though the group's recent records had gone in a guitar-rock direction, he thought maybe you could do something more interesting. Ever since seeing Tony Visconti conduct orchestral instruments playing his music, he'd been thinking about it. As he later put it "I thought 'Well, wouldn't it be great to get a band together, and rather than advertising for a guitarist how about advertising for a cellist or a French horn player or something? There must be lots of young musicians around who play the... instruments that would like to play in a rock kind of band.' That was the start of it, it really was, and I think after those tracks had been recorded with Tony doing the orchestral arrangement, that's when I started to get bored with the Move, with the band, because I thought 'there's something more to it'". He'd started sketching out plans for an expanded lineup of the group, drawing pictures of what it would look like on stage if Carl Wayne was playing timpani while there were cello and French horn players on stage with them. He'd even come up with a name for the new group -- a multi-layered pun. The group would be a light orchestra, like the BBC Light Orchestra, but they would be playing electrical instruments, and also they would have a light show when they performed live, and so he thought "the Electric Light Orchestra" would be a good name for such a group. The other band members thought this was a daft idea, but Wood kept on plotting. But in the meantime, the group needed some new management. The person they chose was Don Arden. We talked about Arden quite a bit in the last episode, but he's someone who is going to turn up a lot in future episodes, and so it's best if I give a little bit more background about him. Arden was a manager of the old school, and like several of the older people in the music business at the time, like Dick James or Larry Page, he had started out as a performer, doing an Al Jolson tribute act, and he was absolutely steeped in showbusiness -- his wife had been a circus contortionist before they got married, and when he moved from Manchester to London their first home had been owned by Winifred Atwell, a boogie piano player who became the first Black person to have a UK number one -- and who is *still* the only female solo instrumentalist to have a UK number one -- with her 1954 hit "Let's Have Another Party": [Excerpt: WInifred Atwell, "Let's Have Another Party"] That was only Atwell's biggest in a long line of hits, and she'd put all her royalties into buying properties in London, one of which became the Ardens' home. Arden had been considered quite a promising singer, and had made a few records in the early 1950s. His first recordings, of material in Yiddish aimed at the Jewish market, are sadly not findable online, but he also apparently recorded as a session singer for Embassy Records. I can't find a reliable source for what records he sang on for that label, which put out budget rerecordings of hits for sale exclusively through Woolworths, but according to Wikipedia one of them was Embassy's version of "Blue Suede Shoes", put out under the group name "The Canadians", and the lead vocal on that track certainly sounds like it could be him: [Excerpt: The Canadians, "Blue Suede Shoes"] As you can tell, rock and roll didn't really suit Arden's style, and he wisely decided to get out of performance and into behind-the-scenes work, though he would still try on occasion to make records of his own -- an acetate exists from 1967 of him singing "Sunrise, Sunset": [Excerpt: Don Arden, "Sunrise, Sunset"] But he'd moved first into promotion -- he'd been the promoter who had put together tours of the UK for Gene Vincent, Little Richard, Brenda Lee and others which we mentioned in the second year of the podcast -- and then into management. He'd first come into management with the Animals -- apparently acting at that point as the money man for Mike Jeffries, who was the manager the group themselves dealt with. According to Arden -- though his story differs from the version of the story told by others involved -- the group at some point ditched Arden for Allen Klein, and when they did, Arden's assistant Peter Grant, another person we'll be hearing a lot more of, went with them.  Arden, by his own account, flew over to see Klein and threatened to throw him out of the window of his office, which was several stories up. This was a threat he regularly made to people he believed had crossed him -- he made a similar threat to one of the Nashville Teens, the first group he managed after the Animals, after the musician asked what was happening to the group's money. And as we heard last episode, he threatened Robert Stigwood that way when Stigwood tried to get the Small Faces off him. One of the reasons he'd signed the Small Faces was that Steve Marriott had gone to the Italia Conti school, where Arden had sent his own children, Sharon and David, and David had said that Marriott was talented. And David was also a big reason the Move came over to Arden. After the Small Faces had left him, Arden had bought Galaxy Entertaimnent, the booking agency that handled bookings for Amen Corner and the Move, among many other acts. Arden had taken over management of Amen Corner himself, and had put his son David in charge of liaising with Tony Secunda about the Move.  But David Arden was sure that the Move could be an albums act, not just a singles act, and was convinced the group had more potential than they were showing, and when they left Secunda, Don Arden took them on as his clients, at least for the moment. Secunda, according to Arden (who is not the most reliable of witnesses, but is unfortunately the only one we have for a lot of this stuff) tried to hire someone to assassinate Arden, but Arden quickly let Secunda know that if anything happened to Arden, Secunda himself would be dead within the hour. As "Wild Tiger Woman" hadn't been a hit, the group decided to go back to their earlier "Flowers in the Rain" style, with "Blackberry Way": [Excerpt: The Move, "Blackberry Way"] That track was produced by Jimmy Miller, who was producing the Rolling Stones and Traffic around this time, and featured the group's friend Richard Tandy on harpsichord. It's also an example of the maxim "Good artists copy, great artists steal". There are very few more blatant examples of plagiarism in pop music than the middle eight of "Blackberry Way". Compare Harry Nilsson's "Good Old Desk": [Excerpt: Nilsson, "Good Old Desk"] to the middle eight of "Blackberry Way": [Excerpt: The Move, "Blackberry Way"] "Blackberry Way" went to number one, but that was the last straw for Trevor Burton -- it was precisely the kind of thing he *didn't* want to be doing,. He was so sick of playing what he thought of as cheesy pop music that at one show he attacked Bev Bevan on stage with his bass, while Bevan retaliated with his cymbals. He stormed off stage, saying he was "tired of playing this crap". After leaving the group, he almost joined Blind Faith, a new supergroup that members of Cream and Traffic were forming, but instead formed his own supergroup, Balls. Balls had a revolving lineup which at various times included Denny Laine, formerly of the Moody Blues, Jackie Lomax, a singer-songwriter who was an associate of the Beatles, Richard Tandy who had played on "Blackberry Way", and Alan White, who would go on to drum with the band Yes. Balls only released one single, "Fight for My Country", which was later reissued as a Trevor Burton solo single: [Excerpt: Balls, "Fight For My Country"] Balls went through many lineup changes, and eventually seemed to merge with a later lineup of the Idle Race to become the Steve Gibbons Band, who were moderately successful in the seventies and eighties. Richard Tandy covered on bass for a short while, until Rick Price came in as a permanent replacement. Before Price, though, the group tried to get Hank Marvin to join, as the Shadows had then split up, and Wood was willing to move over to bass and let Marvin play lead guitar. Marvin turned down the offer though. But even though "Blackberry Way" had been the group's biggest hit to date, it marked a sharp decline in the group's fortunes.  Its success led Peter Walsh, the manager of Marmalade and the Tremeloes, to poach the group from Arden, and even though Arden took his usual heavy-handed approach -- he describes going and torturing Walsh's associate, Clifford Davis, the manager of Fleetwood Mac, in his autobiography -- he couldn't stop Walsh from taking over. Unfortunately, Walsh put the group on the chicken-in-a-basket cabaret circuit, and in the next year they only released one record, the single "Curly", which nobody was happy with. It was ostensibly produced by Mike Hurst, but Hurst didn't turn up to the final sessions and Wood did most of the production work himself, while in the next studio over Jimmy Miller, who'd produced "Blackberry Way", was producing "Honky Tonk Women" by the Rolling Stones. The group were getting pigeonholed as a singles group, at a time when album artists were the in thing. In a three-year career they'd only released one album, though they were working on their second. Wood was by this point convinced that the Move was unsalvageable as a band, and told the others that the group was now just going to be a launchpad for his Electric Light Orchestra project. The band would continue working the chicken-in-a-basket circuit and releasing hit singles, but that would be just to fund the new project -- which they could all be involved in if they wanted, of course. Carl Wayne, on the other hand, was very, very, happy playing cabaret, and didn't see the need to be doing anything else. He made a counter-suggestion to Wood -- keep The Move together indefinitely, but let Wood do the Brian Wilson thing and stay home and write songs. Wayne would even try to get Burton and Kefford back into the band. But Wood wasn't interested. Increasingly his songs weren't even going to the Move at all. He was writing songs for people like Cliff Bennett and the Casuals. He wrote "Dance Round the Maypole" for Acid Gallery: [Excerpt: Acid Gallery, "Dance Round the Maypole"] On that, Wood and Jeff Lynne sang backing vocals. Wood and Lynne had been getting closer since Lynne had bought a home tape recorder which could do multi-tracking -- Wood had wanted to buy one of his own after "Flowers in the Rain", but even though he'd written three hit singles at that point his publishing company wouldn't give him an advance to buy one, and so he'd started using Lynne's. The two have often talked about how they'd recorded the demo for "Blackberry Way" at Lynne's parents' house, recording Wood's vocal on the demo with pillows and cushions around his head so that his singing wouldn't wake Lynne's parents. Lynne had been another person that Wood had asked to join the group when Burton left, but Lynne was happy with The Idle Race, where he was the main singer and songwriter, though their records weren't having any success: [Excerpt: The Idle Race, "I Like My Toys"] While Wood was writing material for other people, the only one of those songs to become a hit was "Hello Suzie", written for Amen Corner, which became a top five single on Immediate Records: [Excerpt: Amen Corner, "Hello Suzie"] While the Move were playing venues like Batley Variety Club in Britain, when they went on their first US tour they were able to play for a very different audience. They were unknown in the US, and so were able to do shows for hippie audiences that had no preconceptions about them, and did things like stretch "Cherry Blossom Clinic" into an eight-minute-long extended progressive rock jam that incorporated bits of "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring", the Nutcracker Suite, and the Sorcerer's Apprentice: [Excerpt: The Move, "Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited (live at the Fillmore West)"] All the group were agreed that those shows were the highlight of the group's career. Even Carl Wayne, the band member most comfortable with them playing the cabaret circuit, was so proud of the show at the Fillmore West which that performance is taken from that when the tapes proved unusable he kept hold of them, hoping all his life that technology would progress to the point where they could be released and show what a good live band they'd been, though as things turned out they didn't get released until after his death. But when they got back to the UK it was back to the chicken-in-a-basket circuit, and back to work on their much-delayed second album. That album, Shazam!, was the group's attempt at compromise between their different visions. With the exception of one song, it's all heavy rock music, but Wayne, Wood, and Price all co-produced, and Wayne had the most creative involvement he'd ever had. Side two of the album was all cover versions, chosen by Wayne, and Wayne also went out onto the street and did several vox pops, asking members of the public what they thought of pop music: [Excerpt: Vox Pops from "Don't Make My Baby Blue"] There were only six songs on the album, because they were mostly extended jams. Other than the three cover versions chosen by Wayne, there was a sludge-metal remake of "Hello Suzie", the new arrangement of "Cherry Blossom Clinic" they'd been performing live, retitled "Cherry Blossom Clinic Revisited", and only one new original, "Beautiful Daughter", which featured a string arrangement by Visconti, who also played bass: [Excerpt: The Move, "Beautiful Daughter"] And Carl Wayne sang lead on five of the six tracks, which given that one of the reasons Wayne was getting unhappy with the band was that Wood was increasingly becoming the lead singer, must have been some comfort. But it wasn't enough. By the time Shazam! came out, with a cover drawn by Mike Sheridan showing the four band members as superheroes, the band was down to three -- Carl Wayne had quit the group, for a solo career. He continued playing the cabaret circuit, and made records, but never had another hit, but he managed to have a very successful career as an all-round entertainer, acting on TV and in the theatre, including a six-year run as the narrator in the musical Blood Brothers, and replacing Alan Clarke as the lead singer of the Hollies. He died in 2004. As soon as Wayne left the group, the three remaining band members quit their management and went back to Arden. And to replace Wayne, Wood once again asked Jeff Lynne to join the group. But this time the proposition was different -- Lynne wouldn't just be joining the Move, but he would be joining the Electric Light Orchestra. They would continue putting out Move records and touring for the moment, and Lynne would be welcome to write songs for the Move so that Wood wouldn't have to be the only writer, but they'd be doing it while they were planning their new group.  Lynne was in, and the first single from the new lineup was a return to the heavy riff rock style of "Wild Tiger Woman", "Brontosaurus": [Excerpt: The Move, "Brontosaurus"] But Wayne leaving the group had put Wood in a difficult position. He was now the frontman, and he hated that responsibility -- he said later "if you look at me in photos of the early days, I'm always the one hanging back with my head down, more the musician than the frontman." So he started wearing makeup, painting his face with triangles and stars, so he would be able to hide his shyness. And it worked -- and "Brontosaurus" returned the group to the top ten. But the next single, "When Alice Comes Back to the Farm", didn't chart at all. The first album for the new Move lineup, Looking On, was to finish their contract with their current record label. Many regard it as the group's "Heavy metal album", and it's often considered the worst of their four albums, with Bev Bevan calling it "plodding", but that's as much to do with Bevan's feeling about the sessions as anything else -- increasingly, after the basic rhythm tracks had been recorded, Wood and Lynne would get to work without the other two members of the band, doing immense amounts of overdubbing.  And that continued after Looking On was finished. The group signed a new contract with EMI's new progressive rock label, Harvest, and the contract stated that they were signing as "the Move performing as The Electric Light Orchestra". They started work on two albums' worth of material, with the idea that anything with orchestral instruments would be put aside for the first Electric Light Orchestra album, while anything with just guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, and horns would be for the Move. The first Electric Light Orchestra track, indeed, was intended as a Move B-side. Lynne came in with a song based around a guitar riff, and with lyrics vaguely inspired by the TV show The Prisoner, about someone with a number instead of a name running, trying to escape, and then eventually dying.  But then Wood decided that what the track really needed was cello. But not cello played in the standard orchestral manner, but something closer to what the Beatles had done on "I am the Walrus". He'd bought a cheap cello himself, and started playing Jimi Hendrix riffs on it, and Lynne loved the sound of it, so onto the Move's basic rhythm track they overdubbed fifteen cello tracks by Wood, and also two French horns, also by Wood: [Excerpt: The Electric Light Orchestra, "10538 Overture"] The track was named "10538 Overture", after they saw the serial number 1053 on the console they were using to mix the track, and added the number 8 at the end, making 10538 the number of the character in the song. Wood and Lynne were so enamoured with the sound of their new track that they eventually got told by the other two members of the group that they had to sit in the back when the Move were driving to gigs, so they couldn't reach the tape player, because they'd just keep playing the track over and over again. So they got a portable tape player and took that into the back seat with them to play it there. After finishing some pre-existing touring commitments, the Move and Electric Light Orchestra became a purely studio group, and Rick Price quit the bands -- he needed steady touring work to feed his family, and went off to form another band, Mongrel. Around this time, Wood also took part in another strange project. After Immediate Records collapsed, Andrew Oldham needed some fast money, so he and Don Arden put together a fake group they could sign to EMI for ten thousand pounds.  The photo of the band Grunt Futtock was of some random students, and that was who Arden and Oldham told EMI was on the track, but the actual performers on the single included Roy Wood, Steve Marriott, Peter Frampton, and Andy Bown, the former keyboard player of the Herd: [Excerpt: Grunt Futtock, "Rock 'n' Roll Christian"] Nobody knows who wrote the song, although it's credited to Bernard Webb, which is a pseudonym Paul McCartney had previously used -- but everyone knew he'd used the pseudonym, so it could very easily be a nod to that. The last Move album, Message From The Country, didn't chart -- just like the previous two hadn't. But Wood's song "Tonight" made number eleven, the follow-up, "Chinatown", made number twenty-three, and then the final Move single, "California Man", a fifties rock and roll pastiche, made the top ten: [Excerpt: The Move, "California Man"] In the US, that single was flipped, and the B-side, Lynne's song "Do Ya", became the only Move song ever to make the Hot One Hundred, reaching number ninety-nine: [Excerpt: The Move, "Do Ya"] By the time "California Man" was released, the Electric Light Orchestra were well underway. They'd recorded their first album, whose biggest highlights were Lynne's "10538 Overture" and Wood's "Whisper in the Night": [Excerpt: The Electric Light Orchestra, "Whisper in the Night"] And they'd formed a touring lineup, including Richard Tandy on keyboards and several orchestral instrumentalists. Unfortunately, there were problems developing between Wood and Lynne. When the Electric Light Orchestra toured, interviewers only wanted to speak to Wood, thinking of him as the band leader, even though Wood insisted that he and Lynne were the joint leaders. And both men had started arguing a lot, to the extent that at some shows they would refuse to go on stage because of arguments as to which of them should go on first. Wood has since said that he thinks most of the problems between Lynne and himself were actually caused by Don Arden, who realised that if he split the two of them into separate acts he could have two hit groups, not one. If that was the plan, it worked, because by the time "10538 Overture" was released as the Electric Light Orchestra's first single, and made the top ten -- while "California Man" was also still in the charts -- it was announced that Roy Wood was now leaving the Electric Light Orchestra, as were keyboard playe

Colm Flynn is a world renowned journalist working for EWTN, RTE, BBC and many others. Colm is a man I have admired and looked up to for many years. I really admire his confidence, work ethic and above all, his endless talent. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

A Christadelphian Video Production: CHRISTADELPHIANVIDEO.ORG, a worldwide collaboration by Christadelphians to help promote the understanding of God's Word to those who are seeking the Truth about the Human condition and God's plan and Purpose with the Earth and Mankind upon it. Christadelphianvideo.org is an online tool for establishing just how far removed today's mainstream Christianity is from the 'True Christian Teachings' of the 1st Century Apostles. You can follow us online at.. Some of our other services.. #1 Our Main site... https://cdvideo.org #2 Our podcast on android... https://cdvideo.org/podcast #3 Our podcast on Apple...https://cdvideo.org/podcast-apple #4 Our facebook...https://facebook.com/OpenBibles #5 Our Whats App... http://cdvideo.org/WhatsApp #6 Our Instagram... http://cdvideo.org/Instagram #7 Our twitter... http://cdvideo.org/twitter #8 Our YouTube Channel... http://cdvideo.org/youtube Watch / read / Listen to other thoughts for the day on our site here https://christadelphianvideo.org/tftd/ #Christadelphianvideo #christadelphianstalk #Christadelphians #openbible #cdvideo #bibleverse #thoughts #thoughtoftheday #meditate #think #christadelphian #God #truth #faith #hope #love #cdvideo #Gospeltruth #truebibleteaching #thegospelmessage #thegospeltruth #firstprinciples #bibletruth #bibleunderstanding #exploringthebible #thoughtfortheday --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/christadelphians-talk/message

Paul Stenson, is the owner of the White Moose Cafe in Phibsborough, part of the Charleville Lodge hotel on the North Circular Road. Paul spoke to me about his outspoken nature, life in the hospitality industry and why he felt the need to relocate to an island in Mayo. In an exclusive, Paul also spoke about the ongoing legal battle with his neighbours over a noise complaint at his popular cafe in Dublin. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Following on from my chat with Tara last week I wanted to sit down with my Uncle Martins daughter, Charlene McCrossan. Charlene had to step into Martins shoes and since doing so has brought Martin McCrossan tours to the next level along with her mum Sharon. This episode is not an advertisement for any of the businesses mentioned, but you SHOULD visit Derry and do a Martin McCrossan Tour when you visit. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I invited David Cuddy to North Mayo to take part in a day of water activities with Wave Sweeper Adventures and The Western Strand Hotel, Belmullet. David is a 42 year, land locked man who has NEVER taken part in surfing, kayaking or SUP. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I spoke to Tara Rafter A.K.A The Navigation Coach, who is an award winning life coach and Master Neuro-Linguistic Programming Practitioner (It's ok, I don't know what that is either). Tara works with people who feel lost, overwhelmed or at a crossroads and who want to embark on a voyage of self discovery. We laughed and cried together..........but most importantly we laughed again. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

At the age of 14 David (Fabu D) was sent to Ireland by his Mother. She said she would follow him over to Ireland in a couple of days but what he didn't know at the time was, she wouldn't visit him in Ireland for 20 years. We have a brilliant chat about the rise of fame for "The Black Paddy" and all the positives and negatives that come with it. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A Christadelphian Video Production: CHRISTADELPHIANVIDEO.ORG, a worldwide collaboration by Christadelphians to help promote the understanding of God's Word to those who are seeking the Truth about the Human condition and God's plan and Purpose with the Earth and Mankind upon it. Christadelphianvideo.org is an online tool for establishing just how far removed today's mainstream Christianity is from the 'True Christian Teachings' of the 1st Century Apostles. You can follow us online at.. Some of our other services.. #1 Our Main site... https://cdvideo.org #2 Our podcast on android... https://cdvideo.org/podcast #3 Our podcast on Apple...https://cdvideo.org/podcast-apple #4 Our facebook...https://facebook.com/OpenBibles #5 Our Whats App... http://cdvideo.org/WhatsApp #6 Our Instagram... http://cdvideo.org/Instagram #7 Our twitter... http://cdvideo.org/twitter #8 Our YouTube Channel... http://cdvideo.org/youtube Watch / read / Listen to other thoughts for the day on our site here https://christadelphianvideo.org/tftd/ #Christadelphianvideo #christadelphianstalk #Christadelphians #openbible #cdvideo #bibleverse #thoughts #thoughtoftheday #meditate #think #christadelphian #God #truth #faith #hope #love #cdvideo #Gospeltruth #truebibleteaching #thegospelmessage #thegospeltruth #firstprinciples #bibletruth #bibleunderstanding #exploringthebible #thoughtfortheday --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/christadelphians-talk/message

Another difficult but honest discussion, this time with Virgin Media News Reporter Paul Quinn. Paul is from a small village called Riverstown, just outside Sligo. He spoke to Alan about how he always wanted to be a journalist, how he turned a dream into a reality and Paul also spoke about living with a secret until he was 30 years old. A very brave converstaion that he didnt intend to have. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In recent months David has become one of my closest friends. On this podcast David was open and honest as always, speaks about the recent loss of his dad and dealing with grief for the first time at 42 years of age. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

An open and honest conversation with Irish Country Music Legend Patrick Feeney. Patrick is known nationally for his remarkable tenor voice. He has won many prestigious awards over the years and is a versatile performer. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this episode of Sick on Cinema the boys dive into the works of one of the best filmmakers the UK has offer Alan Clarke. We will be checking out Made in Brittian, The Firm, and Scum.