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Welcome to the Cross Border Interviews, Today's guest is Bon Accord Mayor Brian Holden Cross Border Interviews is Part of the Cross Border Network. ©2024
At Chapel, our mission is to AWAKEN and EMPOWER you to live and love like Jesus. We desire to see each person experience their own spiritual awakening to the truth of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit. We want to see every person be empowered by the Holy Spirit to live and love like Jesus in their everyday lives.
Get ready for an earful. Professor Birthday claims her rightful place as the most famous holiday character of all time. Brought to you by a star-studded cast of internet musical favorites: Jaime Lyn Beatty, Brian Holden, Dylan Saunders, Joey Richter, Brian Rosenthal, Lauren Lopez & Jamie Burns. Music and Lyrics: Clark Baxtresser Writing and Lyrics: Eric Kahn Gale
Good morning, Chapel! We're so honored you chose to worship with us this morning. Today, Pastor Brian will be bringing the word, as we move forward with our "Fire + Formation" series. We pray the Lord speaks to you today!
Adam heads to Salem to talk to recovering bullies Jay and (N)Ice (Brain Holden and Meredith Stepien) about how being locked in a cage can change your outlook on life in this Hocus Pocus themed episode. For more with Brian and Meredith check out an extended interview while supporting the show over on our Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/myneighborsaredead ________________ SHOW INFORMATION Twitter: @MyDeadNeighbors Instagram: @MyNeighborsAreDead Email: MyNeighborsAreDead@gmail.com Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/myneighborsaredead Merchandise: TeePublic Subscribe: Apple Podcasts Subscribe: Spotify
Persistent Prayer | Masterclass | Matt. 7:7-12 | Brian Holden | 7.24.2022 | SERMON
Persistent Prayer | Masterclass | Matt. 7:7-12 | Brian Holden | 7.24.2022 | SERMON
Hey Ochenta Stories, this week we're recommending a series that you'll love! REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a weekly, family-friendly exploration of our galaxy (and beyond!) with hosts Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien.On this episode, the REACH team is honored to talk to geoscientist, explorer, space artist, author, and astronaut Dr. Sian Proctor about the Inspiration4 all-civilian orbital mission to space, her Space2Inspire, and a special surprise in store for National Poetry Month.You can follow REACH: A space podcast for kids on Instagram and Twitter @reachthepodcastEnjoy!
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week we're addressing numerous questions that have come in about the purpose of space telescopes by sharing a recent discovery. One for the record books! NASA just announced an exciting new finding from the Hubble Space Telescope – the farthest star ever seen in the universe. Nicknamed “Earendel” by its discoverers, this star's light took a whopping 12.9 billion years to reach us. Here to answer our questions is Dr. Michelle L Thaller, Assistant Director of Science at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Nate DuFort with Sandy Marshall, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Dr. Michelle L Thaller, Assistant Director of Science at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Click here to learn more about the Hubble Space Telescope https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.htmlFind Hubble on social media!! @NASAHubble Additional thanks to the team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center:Michelle Handleman (KBRwyle): Lead ProducerAaron E. Lepsch (ADNET): Technical SupportKatrina Jackson (ADVOCATES IN MANPOWER MANAGEMENT, INC): Lead ProducerChristina Brooke Mitchell (KBRwyle): Lead ProducerJessica Sansarran (NASA): Lead Producer
This week the REACH team is honored to talk to geoscientist, explorer, space artist, author, and astronaut Dr. Sian Proctor about the Inspiration4 all-civilian orbital mission to space, her Space2Inspire, and so much more. Then we have a special surprise in store for National Poetry Month - all on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Dr. Sian Proctor, geoscientist, explorer, space artist, author, speaker, and astronaut. To purchase a copy of Space2Inspire: The Art of Inspiration, go to https://myspace2inspire.com. Dr. Sian Proctor online:Website: https://www.drsianproctor.com/Twitter: @DrSianProctorInstagram: @DrSianProctorFacebook: @Dr.Sian.ProctorYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/DrSianProctorInspiration4https://inspiration4.com/Art Prints by Dr. Sian Proctor https://myspace2inspire.com/prints.htmlSpecial thanks to Astro Ryan for sharing the poem “My Dream of Outer Space!” We'd also like to offer a special thanks to Kay Ferrari at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and to everyone at NASA Space Place.About Dr. Sian Proctor:Dr. Proctor is a geoscientist, explorer, space artist, and astronaut. She is the mission pilot for the Inspiration4 all-civilian orbital mission to space. She is also one of The Explorer's Club 50: Fifty People Changing the World. Her motto is called Space2inspire where she encourages people to use their unique, one-of-a-kind strengths, and passion to inspire those within their reach and beyond. She believes that we need to actively strive for a J.E.D.I. space: a just, equitable, diverse, and inclusive space as we advance human spaceflight. Watch Meredith (as Stacey Quasar) interview Dr. Proctor for Adler Planetarium's space comedy show Wow! Signal here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_3NgGT27I0 NASA: Extreme Space Factshttps://www.nasa.gov/stem-ed-resources/Extreme_Space_Facts.html
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week we have a special episode as author Mary Roach stops by to talk about her new middle-grade book Packing for Mars for Kids. Don't miss it! Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Nate DuFort with Sandy Marshall, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to author Mary Roach whose latest book, Packing for Mars for Kids, is available now wherever you find books. About the book:“America's funniest science writer” (Washington Post) asks the questions children ask in this young readers adaptation of her best-selling Packing for Mars.What is it like to float weightlessly in the air? What happens if you vomit in your helmet during a spacewalk? How do astronauts go to the bathroom? Is it true that they don't shower? Can farts really be deadly in space?Best-selling Mary Roach has the answers. In this whip-smart, funny, and informative young readers adaptation of her best-selling Packing for Mars, Roach guides us through the irresistibly strange, frequently gross, and awe-inspiring realm of space travel and life without gravity. From flying on NASA's Weightless Wonder to eating space food, Packing for Mars for Kids is chock-full of firs-hand experiences and thorough research. Roach has crafted an authoritative and accessible book that is perfectly pitched to inquiring middle grade readers. 35 black-and-white photographsFor more info, go to: https://maryroach.net/
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week we're actually digging into a question both Brian and Meredith had on a past episode: "What is Planet 9?" Joining us with the answer is Dr. Mike Brown, Richard and Barbara Rosenberg Professor of Planetary Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Nate DuFort with Sandy Marshall, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Dr. Mike Brown, Richard and Barbara Rosenberg Professor of Planetary Astronomy at the California Institute of Technology. We'd also like to thank Kay Ferrari at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and everyone at NASA Space Place.Dr. Mike Brown, Richard and Barbara Rosenberg Professor of Planetary Astronomy at the California Institute of Technologyhttps://mikebrown.caltech.edu/ The Search for Planet NineKonstantin Batygin and Mike Brownhttps://findplanetnine.blogspot.com/ “How I Killed Pluto, and Why It Had It Coming” by Mike Brownhttps://www.amazon.com/How-Killed-Pluto-Why-Coming-ebook/dp/B003F3FJTG/ref=sr_1_1?crid=BDGZGZ51KG8&keywords=why+i+killed+pluto+mike+brown&qid=1645974183&s=digital-text&sprefix=why+i+killed+pluto+mike+brown%2Cdigital-text%2C66&sr=1-1 Want to support our friend Mick and The Past and the Curious podcast while pre-ordering his latest book I See Lincoln's Underpants? Head on over to the Kickstarter to find out how: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/heartallybooks/i-see-lincolns-underpants-from-the-past-and-the-curiousAnd then go listen to The Past and the Curious available wherever you get podcasts!
This week the REACH team is over the moon to have a longform sit-down with renowned author, retired astronaut, and the first Canadian to walk in space, Col. Chris Hadfield. Then we get a visit from the icy moon of Jupiter, Europa (the great Kevin Vidal!), - all on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Col. Chris Hadfield, renowned author and retired astronaut, and the first Canadian to walk in space. To purchase a copy of The Apollo Murders and The Darkest Dark, go to https://chrishadfield.ca/books/.Col. Chris Hadfield photo credit: Shye Klein. Col. Chris Hadfield online:Website: www.chrishadfield.caTwitter: @Cmdr_HadfieldFacebook: @AstronautChrisHadfieldInstagram: @colchrishadfieldYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ChrisHadfieldAstronautTikTok: @cmdr_hadfieldCol. Chris Hadfield plays “Space Oddity” by David Bowie from the ISS:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNo Europa was voiced by the great Kevin Vidal. You can catch Kevin on Working Moms, Strays, and Odd Squad: The Movie.Kevin Vidal online:Instagram: @notkevinvidalFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/kevinvidalactorTwitter: @notkevinvidal Special thanks to Shannon Abbott, Cheryl-Ann Horrocks, Ashley Comeau, Janet Davidson-Marshall, and our REACH learning community. All about Europahttps://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/europa/overview/
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Bella who asks "What is a satellite?" Joining us with the answer as well as an overview on how CubeSats are opening up space exploration to all of us is Will Saunders, PhD candidate in Astronomy at Boston University, contributor to Brainspace Magazine, and co-host of the podcast astro[sound]bites Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Nate DuFort with Sandy Marshall, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven LyonsSpecial thanks to Will Saunders, PhD candidate in Astronomy at Boston University, contributor to Brainspace Magazine, and co-host of the podcast astro[sound]bites. We'd also like to thank Nicky Middleton and the team at Brainspace, the interactive augmented reality magazine for kids 8-14. Astro[sound]bites podcast: https://astrosoundbites.comWill Saunders online: williamrsaunders.comBrainspace Magazine: https://brainspacemagazine.com
This week we are thrilled to have a longform sit-down with Rob Manning, Chief Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, before we get a visit from the dwarf planet Ceres (the amazing Ashley Comeau!), - all on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Rob Manning, Chief Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. You can follow JPL on Instagram and Twitter at @NASAJPL.Ceres was voiced by the incomparable Ashley Comeau, Ashley is not only one of our favorite humans, but you can also catch her as the science teacher on Degrassi:Next Class and the evil Jamie Jam on Odd Squad and Odd Squad Mobile Unit.We'd also like to offer a special thanks to Kay Ferrari and Dolores Zawol at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and to everyone at NASA Space Place. Rob Manning NASA Biohttps://mars.nasa.gov/people/profile/?id=23225NASA JPL Missionshttps://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missionsMars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account from Curiosity's Chief Engineer, by Rob Manning and William Simonhttps://www.amazon.ca/Mars-Rover-Curiosity-Curiositys-Engineer/dp/1588344037All about Cereshttps://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf-planets/ceres/overview/
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week we're addressing listeners questions concerning global warming by talking about NASA and NOAA's latest global temperature update for 2021. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Nate DuFort with Sandy Marshall, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Dr. Steven Pawson, NASA Chief of the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office:https://sciences.gsfc.nasa.gov/sed/bio/steven.pawson-1 Additional thanks to Jessica Sansarran and to Katie Atkinson, Audio Storytelling Lead at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA: Global Climate Change https://climate.nasa.gov/NOAA: Climate Resources https://www.noaa.gov/climate
This week we talk all things Mars Rover with Dr. Rachel Kronyak, Systems Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Then we hear actual sounds from the surface of Mars AND get a visit from the Mars Perseverance Rover (Stoopkid Stories Melly Victor!), - all on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Dr. Rachel Kronyak, Systems Engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. You can follow Dr. Kronyak on Twitter at @RachelKronyak. Percy was voiced by Melissa “Melly” Victor, creator of Stoopkid Stories, a story podcast available wherever you listen. Follow Stoopkid Stories on Twitter, Instagram, or on the web at https://stoopkidstories.com.We'd also like to offer a special thanks to Kay Ferrari and Sarah Marcotte at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and to everyone at NASA Space Place. Dr. Rachel Kronyak NASA Biohttps://mars.nasa.gov/people/profile/?id=23225Perseverance Roverhttps://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/Curiosity Roverhttps://mars.nasa.gov/msl/homeAll about Marshttps://mars.nasa.gov/Article: Kicking off the Sampling Sol Path at Citadellehttps://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/mission/status/328/kicking-off-the-sampling-sol-path-at-citadelle/The Sounds of Marshttps://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/participate/sounds/
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Max in Illinois who asks "What Do Exoplanets Look Like?"Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Dr. Doug Hudgins, Program Scientist for NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters.https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/organization-and-staff/staff-bios/dr-douglas-hudginsWe'd also like to offer thanks to our friends at NASA Space Place, along with Calla Cofield and Kay Ferrari at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and Alise Fisher at NASA Headquarters.NASA Space Place: What is an Exoplanet?https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/all-about-exoplanets/en/NASA: All about Exoplanetshttps://exoplanets.nasa.gov/
We are thrilled to launch the new season of REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids with Dr. James Green, formerly NASA's Chief Scientist and now NASA Scientist and Senior Advisor and host of the Gravity Assist Podcast, who shared his experience and expertise on everything from starting NASA's first internet and conducting groundbreaking research, to having an asteroid named after him, and more. Then we are lucky enough to be visited by a Comet (as voiced by the incomparable Kay Cannon) - all on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseCasting Consultant: Beth Kligerman Logo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Dr. James Green, NASA Scientist and Senior Advisor and host of the Gravity Assist podcast. Listen to Gravity Assist via NASA.gov or wherever you get your podcasts.Comet was voiced by the incomparable Kay Cannon, who you know from the Pitch Perfect films and as the writer/director of Cinderella starring Camila Cabello available to stream now on Amazon Prime. Follow Kay online at @KayKayCannon.We'd also like to offer a special thanks to Kay Ferrari at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Liz Landau, and to everyone at NASA Space Place. Dr. James Green:https://www.nasa.gov/offices/ocs/chief-scientist_bioDr. James Green: TED Talkhttps://www.ted.com/talks/james_green_3_moons_and_a_planet_that_could_have_alien_life#t-20694NASA Gravity Assist Podcasthttps://www.nasa.gov/gravity-assistAll about Cometshttps://spaceplace.nasa.gov/comet-quest/en/
The next season of REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is launching into your ears January 25th, 2022. Make sure you're subscribed wherever you get podcasts. Reach: A Space Podcast for Kids is a weekly, family friendly exploration of our galaxy (and beyond!) with hosts Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien. Built for kids and based on questions from kids, Reach educates with entertaining segments, fun at-home experiments, and interviews presented in association with subject matter experts & thought partners from leading institutions like the Adler Planetarium, Cosmosphere, Exploration Place, and more. Subscribe today, and get knowledge...within your Reach. Do you have a space related question for a future episode of our Reaching Out mini-episodes? Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402. Then leave us a message with your first name, where you're from, and your space-related question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. We can also accept your questions via email! Just send us your first name, where you're from, and what question you'd like answered at reachthepodcast@gmail.comFollow us on Twitter and Instagram for more or go to www.reachthepodcast.com .
We've compiled a mega episode of some of our favorite scenes of the year! We had so many highlights in 2021 and they couldn't all make the cut but below are some of the scenes most enjoyed by us and our listeners. Unlike most of our shows, there's no relation between any of these scenes - it's simply a highlight reel! We did everything we could to make sense of these scenes but some may be lacking a bit of context at first - if you enjoy a scene their respective shows are below... 1:20 - Episode 15 (w/ Deb Duncan) 8:12 - Episode 16 (w/ Mike Brunlieb) 17:10 - Episode 20 (w/ Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien) 25:10 - Episode 23 (w/ Nia D'Emilio, Trent Dozier, Hannah Rehak, Cam Herdt) 32:50 - Episode 26 (w/ Kevin Bigley) 40:08 - Episode 27 (w/ Gretchen Eng and Brad Pike) 50:27 - Episode 33 (w/ Kennedy Baldwin and Jonah Cooper) 58:36 - Episode 35 (w/ Mitra Jouhari) 1:08:51 - Episode 36 (w/ Brett Lyons and Damian Anaya) 1:22:53 - Episode 61 (w/ Lily Sullivan and Kyle Bethea) 1:32:26 - Episode 47 (w/ Erin Keif and Sean Coyle) 1:35:48 - Episode 53 (w/ Damian Anaya and Kyle Bethea) 1:46:25 - Episode 57 Bonus (w/ Jonah Cooper) 1:53:53 - Episode 37 (w/ TJ Jagodowski) 2:01:11 - Episode 52 (w/ Laurel Krabacher and Lawrence Collerd) 2:09:58 - Episode 46 (w/ Farrell Walsh, Louie Saunders, and Jorin Garguilo) Support this podcast
On Wednesday, September 1st, 2021 REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids was given the distinct honor of interviewing NASA Astronauts Megan McArthur and Mark Vande Hei onboard the International Space Station LIVE via NASA TV. We discussed what it's like to live in space, work on the ISS, and asked questions from REACH's middle-grade listeners. We are thrilled to present this conversation in its entirety on today's episode. If you like the conversation, don't forget to give it a share and drop us a review in your podcast player of choice. Special thanks to NASA Astronauts Megan McArthur and Mark Vande Hei. You can follow Megan via @Astro_Megan, and Mark at @Astro_Sabot.We'd also like to offer a special thanks to Victoria Ugalde and Rodrigo Mireles at NASA's Johnson Space Center, to Kay Ferrari and Calla Cofield at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and to everyone at NASA Space Place.Learn about NASA Astronaut Megan McArthur: https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/biographies/k-megan-mcarthurLearn about NASA Astronaut Mark Vande Hei: https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/biographies/mark-t-vande-heiLearn about NASA Astronauts: https://www.nasa.gov/astronautsLearn about the International Space Station: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/main/index.html or follow on social media via @Space_Station.Learn about REACH in Daddy's Digesthttps://daddysdigest.com/article/interstellar-conversation-nasa-astronauts-live-from-issLearn about REACH in the Chicago Sun-Timeshttps://chicago.suntimes.com/education/2021/9/3/22652930/space-podcast-connects-kids-nasa-astronauts-international-space-stationWe'd also like to offer a special thanks to our ongoing partners and collaborators:The Cosmosphere International Science Center & Space Museumhttps://cosmo.org/The Adler Planetariumhttps://www.adlerplanetarium.org/The Kids Listen Communityhttps://www.kidslisten.org/Exploration Placehttps://exploration.org/NASA Space Placehttps://spaceplace.nasa.gov/You can find Madison's podcast All Things Madison at:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/all-things-madison-podcast/id1512260906and Olivia's podcast Curious Kid Podcast at:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/curious-kid-podcast/id1437708666And a very spacial thanks to:Janet Davidson-MarshallLiz AndersonJesse CaseSteven LyonsBeth KligermanJoalda MorancySuzanna StaplerKate Evans, CBC RadioThe REACH Learning CommunityAnd all of our guestsStay tuned for Season 3 coming October 2021!
Mark your calendars:.. REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids will be broadcasting LIVE with the crew orbiting the Earth aboard the International Space Station!NASA Astronauts Megan McArthur and Mark Vande Hei will join hosts Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien from the ISS for a truly interstellar conversation. They'll discuss what it's like to live in space, work on the ISS, and answer questions from our amazing listeners.The broadcast is targeting Wednesday, September 1st via NASA TV (stay tuned for specific timing via our social channels @reachthepodcast). Our thanks to the teams at NASA for this incredible opportunity, and remember to subscribe to REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids wherever you get your podcasts!
The school year and this season of REACH may be over, but that doesn't mean we're not still excited to talk about space! This week we bring you the REACH Summer Break Special featuring an amazing conversation with NASA Astronaut Dr. Kjell Lindgren and a visit from the classiest of moons, Callisto ( Niki Lindgren Moran) - all on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Joalda Morancy, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseAdditional audio processing by the amazing Steve Blizin. Logo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to NASA Astronaut Dr. Kjell Lindgren. You can follow Kjell on Twitter at @Astro_Kjell, and on behalf of everyone at REACH, thanks again to Kjell for joining us on the show.Callisto was voiced by the incomparable Niki Lindgren Moran, who's an alum of the legendary Second City, and has appeared on shows like ER. We'd also like to offer a special thanks to John Stephen, Courtney Beasley, and Megan Sumner in NASA's Public Affairs Office, to Kay Ferrari at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and to everyone at NASA Space Place. Learn more about Dr. Kjell Lindgren at: https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/biographies/kjell-n-lindgren/biographyNASA Astronauts at: https://www.nasa.gov/astronautsNASA's Artemis Team: https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis-teamTo learn more about NASA's Artemis program, visit www.nasa.gov/artemisprogram, or follow on social media via @NASAArtemis.All about Callisto: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Callisto_(moon) Do you have a space related question that we didn't get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode.You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.comREACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from James and Eli in California who ask "What is the Big Bang?" Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Dr. Phil Korngut, Instrument Scientist on NASA's SPHEREx Mission and Research Scientist at the Observational Cosmology Laboratory at Caltech Special thanks to NASA Space Place and Kay Ferrari at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory NASA Space Place: What is the Big Bang?https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/big-bang/en/NASA’s SPHEREx missionhttps://spherex.caltech.eduhttps://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/spherex Do you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to www.soundsingtonmedia.com
Humans first landed on the moon in 1969. As we prepare to return for the first time in almost fifty years, we have some questions about the technology that will get us there for returning special guest Michael Staab. Then we are lucky enough to be visited by the star Proxima Centauri (Woke, New Girl's Lamorne Morris) and hear a new audio essay from our own Joalda Morancy - all on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Joalda Morancy, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseCasting Consultant: Beth Kligerman Logo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Michael Staab, Fault Management and System Autonomy Principal Engineer for Lunar Missions at Northrop Grumman. Follow Michael online at @AstroStaab. Proxima Centauri was voiced by the incredible Lamorne Morris, who you know from the show New Girl. Hulu's Woke, and the QCODE action-comedy series Unwanted. Follow Lamorne on Twitter at @LamorneMorris. Special thanks to Mimi Meredith, Michele McCartney, JoAnna Strecker, and Jim Remar at the Cosmosphere International Science Center and Space Museum for sharing the Build a Better Lander Activity from the Cosmosphere Camps. To learn more about Cosmosphere Camps, visit https://cosmo.org and @kscosmosphere. To learn more about NASA’s Artemis program, visit www.nasa.gov/artemisprogram, or follow on social media via @NASAArtemis. Special thanks to NASA Space Place and Kay Ferrari at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Build a Better Lander Activityvia Cosmosphere Campswww.cosmo.org@kscosmosphereBelow is an engineering design activity called Build a Better Lander. During this activity, kids are invited to build a model lunar lander that is safe for 6 astronauts (represented by small marshmallows). During the Cosmosphere’s Lunar Base camp, kids will experience activities like these as they learn about the Moon. The main focus of the camp is to learn the science, history, and challenges of getting to the Moon from the launch and testing in Project Mercury/Gemini, to landing humans on the Moon and returning them safely to Earth in Project Apollo.In 1969, we landed the first two people on the Moon: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Now, NASA wants to go back to the Moon and needs a new design for the lunar lander. First, NASA will build a prototype of the lunar lander to be sure it is safe for the astronauts. Here are the constraints they must consider in building the model:There is no atmosphere on the Moon, so the design cannot use any parachutes.You will be using six small marshmallows to represent your astronauts and a styrofoam cup to represent the cockpit. To make sure it is safe, we need to see how the marshmallows react to the landing. You cannot cover the top of the cup or restrain the astronauts (marshmallows) in any way.A successful landing means that the lunar lander lands upright with all six astronauts still inside the cockpit. If the lander tips over, it is not safe for the astronauts. If some of the astronauts bounce out of the cup, the landing was too hard and unsafe.You will follow the Engineering Design Process, listed below, to create these prototype lunar landers.Engineering Design ProcessAsk: How do we land six astronauts (marshmallows) safely on the moon?Imagine: Gather your materials. You will need small marshmallows and a styrofoam cup. Brainstorm about other materials you could use. Some suggested items include: masking tape, cardboard, straws, and notecards.Plan: Sketch a picture of your lunar lander. Label all the major components and what you will use to build them.Create: Build the lunar lander.Experiment: Stand up and drop the lunar lander with the astronauts inside the styrofoam cup. Note what happens when it lands. Ask an adult to drop the lunar lander from a taller height (from a step stool or small ladder).Improve: Brainstorm ways to improve the lunar lander. What is causing it to tip over? Why are the astronauts bouncing out of the cup?Repeat: Keep experimenting and improving until you are satisfied with your lunar lander. Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode.You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.comREACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week we are celebrating Earth Day and what NASA is doing to study global climate change with some help from Dr. Dalia Kirschbaum, Chief of the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Nate DuFort, with Sandy Marshall, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks: Dr. Dalia Kirschbaum, Chief of the Hydrological Sciences Laboratory at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterKatie Atkinson, Audio Storytelling Lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterTo learn more about NASA’s Earth Day initiatives including activities, coloring pages, and more visit www.nasa.gov/earth-day-2021 Do you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to www.soundsingtonmedia.com
What can satellites teach us about preserving life on Earth? What can whales teach us about climate change? On this episode of REACH we talk to Steve Iris at the Canadian Space Agency to find out more. Then we get some special visits from a black hole (Reply All's Alex Goldman) and Saturn's largest moon Titan (Star Trek: Lower Decks and Space Force's Tawny Newsome) - all on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseCasting Consultant: Beth Kligerman Logo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Steve Iris, Manager, Manager of Applications and Utilization at the Canadian Space Agency. To learn more about the CSA’s smartWhales initiative, visit https://www.canada.ca/en/space-agency/news/2021/01/data-from-space-could-help-protect-the-endangered-north-atlantic-right-whale.html. The Black Hole was voiced by the incredible Alex Goldman, co-host of the Reply All podcast from Spotify and Gimlet Media. Subscribe to Reply All wherever you find your podcasts, and follow the show on Twitter at @ReplyAll. Titan was voiced by the incomparable Tawny Newsome, who you know from the hit shows Space Force on Netflix and Star Trek: Lower Decks. Follow Tawny on Twitter at @TrondyNewman. Special thanks to Marie-Eve Roy at the Canadian Space Agency. Follow the CSA on Twitter at @csa_asc, and visit https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca to learn about the CSA’s exciting initiatives and programs. And special thanks to Nicky Middleton at Brainspace, the interactive magazine for kids ages 8-14 designed to launch young minds into big thinking. Learn more at https://brainspacemagazine.com. Thanks as always to NASA Space Place and Kay Ferrari at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode.You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.comREACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Ella who asks "What causes the seasons?" Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Dr. Josh Fisher, Science Lead, ECOSTRESS Mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion LaboratoryNASA Space Place: All about the Seasons https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/seasons/en/Ecostress https://ecostress.jpl.nasa.gov/ Do you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to www.soundsingtonmedia.com
How do you prepare for space travel? Have you ever thought about what happens if you have an emergency in space? Today's guest, Teresa Sindelar, Medical Operations Crew Training Instructor at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. helps astronauts train for just that. Then special contributor Joalda Morancy has some thoughts on space settlements. And we receive a visit from the Gemini Twins an all new "Did You Know...?" - all on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien, Brian Holden and Joalda Morancy. Special Contributor: Joalda Morancy Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Teresa Sindelar, Medical Operations Crew Training Instructor at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. The Gemini Twins were voiced by the amazing Kylee Evans and Sandy Jobin-Bevans, who co-host the television game show Just Like Mom and Dad. You know Kylee as Stephanie Borden on the Hallmark series Good Witch, and Sandy stars in the upcoming sitcom The Parker Andersons. Follow Kylee on Instagram at @KyleeEvansHere, and follow Sandy on Instagram at @SandyJBevans. Special thanks to Mimi Meredith, Michele McCartney, Chuck McClary and JoAnna Strecker at the Cosmosphere International Science Center and Space Museum for sharing the Astronaut Training Neutral Buoyancy Activity at the Cosmosphere Camps. To learn more about Cosmosphere Camps, visit https://cosmo.org and @kscosmosphere. Thanks to our friends at NASA Space Place, and Kay Ferrari from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. All about NASA Astronaut Traininghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvT3hMVrSzsAll about NASA Careershttps://www.nasa.gov/careersAll about NASA Medical and Clinicalhttps://www.nasa.gov/content/medical-and-clinical Neutral Buoyancy Activityvia Cosmosphere Campswww.cosmo.org@kscosmosphereBackground: In order to train for doing spacewalks in microgravity environments, astronauts conduct simulated spacewalks in the Neutral Buoyancy Lab (NBL) in Houston. The NBL is a giant pool which contains a model of the International Space Station. Astronauts put on spacesuits and the correct amount of weight to make them float in one spot without moving up or down. This simulates the microgravity environment on the International Space Station. In the Cosmosphere Camp, Mission: Astro Lab, students receive SCUBA training and conduct microgravity missions much like an astronaut.In this activity, students will make their own neutral buoyancy device, essentially like a submarine’s ballast tank. These are large tanks inside the sub that are filled with some water and some air. If they want to make the sub float, they let water out of the tanks. If they want it to sink, they put water in the tanks. SuppliesPlastic water bottlePush pinPenniesDuct tapeAbout 14 inches of flexible plastic tubingInstructionsUse a push pin to poke three holes in the middle of one side of the bottle. Then use the pin to make the holes larger.Put about 2 inches of plastic tube into the bottle, then use duct tape to seal it into the mouthpiece.Your ballast tank is almost done, but it needs some weight to make it sink when you take the air out. You can use duct tape to attach pennies to the side of the bottle. Experiment with the best place on the bottle to attach the pennies. For instance, does it work better if the pennies are on the same side as the holes? The opposite side? Both sides? How many pennies do you need? Should they all be in the same spot?Now, when you put the bottle into the water with the holes down, water will go inside the bottle, making it sink. When you blow air into the bottle, water will leave, making it float.
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Miriam in Waterloo, Ontario who asks "Why does Saturn have rings?" Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons All about Saturn’s Ringshttps://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/in-depth/#:~:text=Saturn's%20rings%20are%20thought%20to,another%20material%20such%20as%20dustTo learn more about Saturn, visit https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/overview/ Do you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to www.soundsingtonmedia.com
We talk to each other via technology, our phones, computers, and tablets, almost every day. Do you ever wonder how our voices and information actually get transmitted through our devices and to their intended destinations? Well, what if we wanted to send information to the other side of the solar system? We talk to special guest Germaine Aziz about just that. Then the center of the solar system stops by for an all new "Did You Know...?" AND we talk about the importance of PI - all on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseCasting Consultant: Beth Kligerman Logo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to:Germaine Aziz, Deep Space Network Aperture Enhancement Project System Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. To learn more about NASA’s Deep Space Network, visit https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/heo/scan/services/networks/deep_space_network/about.Visit DSN Now at https://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html The Sun was voiced by the legendary Rachel Dratch, who you know from her many years on Saturday Night Live and so much more. Follow Rachel on Twitter @TheRealDratch Thanks to our friends at NASA Space Place, and Kay Ferrari at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. NASA Space Place https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/NASA’s Pi Day Challenge https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/nasapidaychallenge18 Ways NASA uses Pi https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/learn/list/oh-the-places-we-go-18-ways-nasa-uses-pi/DSN Uplink Downlink Game https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/dsn-game/en Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode.You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.comREACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Brooklyn in Illinois who asks "What is gravity?" Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Dr. Felix Landerer, Project Scientist of NASA’s GRACE Follow-On satellite mission at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratoryhttps://science.jpl.nasa.gov/people/Landerer/We’d also like to offer thanks to our friends at NASA Space Place, along with Jane Lee and Kay Ferrari at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.To learn more about NASA’s GRACE-FO, please visit:https://gracefo.jpl.nasa.gov/To learn more gravity, visit NASA Space Place at https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/what-is-gravity/en/ Do you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to www.soundsingtonmedia.com
We all have a lot of questions when it comes to space exploration: Where should we go? What should we pack? What are the ethical questions we should be considering? Wait..what? This week special guest Dr. Lucianne Walkowicz walks us through some of the questions we should be asking in regards to space exploration. Then we're lucky enough to get a surprise drop in from the seventh planet from the sun - all on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseCasting Consultant: Beth Kligerman Logo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to:Dr. Lucianne Walkowicz, Astronomer at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium. Follow Lucianne on Twitter @RocketToLulu, and learn more about the Just Space Alliance at https://justspacealliance.org. Uranus was voiced by the incomparable Ithamar Enriquez, who you know from Marvel’s WandaVision on Disney+, and can also be seen in Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Follow Ithamar on Twitter @IthamarEnriquez. Thanks to our friends at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium who have an amazing podcast of their own, The Aquarius Project Podcast. Stick around after the credits this week to hear a trailer for the exciting story of the Aquarius Project available wherever you get your podcasts.. And to learn more about the Adler, visit https://www.adlerplanetarium.org or on Twitter at @AdlerPlanet. To learn all about Uranus, visit: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/uranus/overview. Parastronaut Feasibility Project:https://www.esa.int/About_Us/Careers_at_ESA/ESA_Astronaut_Selection/Parastronaut_feasibility_projectSpace Junk: https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2021/01/12/removing-space-junk
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Dee in Arkansas who asks "How Can I Become an Astronomer?" For an answer, we turn to REACH Special Contributor Joalda Morancy . Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to the latest addition to the REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids team, Joalda Morancy, for sharing her passion and tons of great space education resources. Look for Joalda as a Special Contributor for upcoming episodes of REACH. You can follow Joalda on Twitter @solarrsystemTo view some of Joalda's favorite YouTube videos, follow the links below:Astronaut Chris Hadfield making a peanut butter and honey sandwich on the International Space Station: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-knoQh0kB20A music video Chris Hadfield made while in space, covering Space Oddity by David Bowie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaOC9danxNoThis video comparing the sizes of different objects in the universe (which makes her think about how small we are!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i93Z7zljQ7IAnd as always, we encourage you to check out the incredible resources at NASA Space Place at https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/light-year/en/ Do you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to www.soundsingtonmedia.com
We've learned about the Mars Perseverance Rover, but how will the rover actually get to the surface of the red planet? Guest Gregory Villar, EDL Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, walks us through the landing before we have a return visit from the red planet itself on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseCasting Consultant: Beth Kligerman Logo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to:Gregory Villar, EDL Systems Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Follow Gregory on Instagram @gregoryvillar. Mars was voiced by the great Randy Havens, who you know as Mr. Clarke on Stranger Things, and can also be seen in Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Halt and Catch Fire. Follow Randy on Twitter @MrRandyHavens. Thanks to our friends at NASA Space Place, and Kay Ferrari and Andrew Good at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. To learn more about NASA’s Mars 2020 mission and Perseverance rover, visit https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020. For a description of the Mars 2020 landing, visit https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/landing/entry-descent-landing/All about Mars: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/mars/overviewJoin the Mission to Mars Student Challenge with the Mars 2020 STEM Toolkit:https://www.nasa.gov/stem/nextgenstem/moon_to_mars/mars2020stemtoolkitMake a Paper Mars Helicopter:https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/learn/project/make-a-paper-mars-helicopter/Mars-related games and activities via NASA Space Place: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/search/mars/Play the Explore Mars game via NASA Space Place:https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/explore-mars/en/Send your name to Mars on a future NASA mission:https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/send-your-name/future And as always, a big thank you to our REACH learning community . Thanks this week to Orin, Rosie, Pepper, Ocelia, and Keira. Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
Double guest alert! We sat down with our old U of M pals Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden who you may recognize from their work with iO Chicago, the Adler Planetarium, or Team StarKid. We have a great chat with them about Pure Michigan, audiobooks, and... sex with friends! (Recorded June 2020)• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • Featuring:Brian Holden (https://twitter.com/Brian_Holden)Meredith Stepien (https://twitter.com/ghostydiddy)Corey Lubowich (https://twitter.com/CoreyLubo) Joey Richter (https://twitter.com/JoeyRichter) Brian Rosenthal (https://twitter.com/Brian_Rosenthal)Tin Can Bros Theme Song by Jack Stratton (https://vulfpeck.com/)To join the Tin Can Fam and support TCB on Patreon: https://patreon.com/tincanbrosTwitter: https://twitter.com/tincanbros Instagram: https://instagram.com/tincanbros Website: https://tincanbros.com
We're releasing this episode from behind the Patreon paywall! This very special BONUS episode features additional conversation and scenes from this week's main feed episode with Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Performers: Meredith Stepien (https://twitter.com/ghostydiddy (@ghostydiddy)) Brian Holden (https://twitter.com/brian_holden?lang=en (@Brian_Holden)) Tim Lyons (https://twitter.com/timlyons (@TimLyons)) Dan White (https://twitter.com/atdanwhite (@atdanwhite)) Join our Patreon for more Improv is Dead! Every week you'll receive an extended version of the main feed episode on Tuesday, a weekly bonus episode on Thursday, access to our discord, and additional premium content! Become an improv pervert today! www.Patreon.com/improvisdead Support this podcast
February is our Month of Love! Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden join Tim and Dan to chat 'n 'prov about their isolated retreat to Northern Michigan, StarKid's most recent production, and Firebringer going viral on TikTok. Meredith and Brian are members of StarKid productions. They host a weekly children's astronomy podcast called https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reach-a-space-podcast-for-kids/id1513671470 (REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids) and Meredith recently worked on an educational web series for the Adler Planetarium called https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ABu2HXK7r4&t=91s (Wow! Signal) Performers: Meredith Stepien (https://twitter.com/ghostydiddy (@ghostydiddy)) Brian Holden (https://twitter.com/brian_holden?lang=en (@Brian_Holden)) Tim Lyons (https://twitter.com/timlyons (@TimLyons)) Dan White (https://twitter.com/atdanwhite (@atdanwhite)) Improv set begins around 28:00 Support the pod! Join our Patreon for an extended version of this episode, weekly bonus episodes, and additional premium content. www.Patreon.com/improvisdead Support this podcast
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Owen in Michigan who asks "What is a light year?" Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven LyonsSpecial thanks to Dr. Doug Hudgins, Program Scientist for NASA’s Exoplanet Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters. https://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/organization-and-staff/staff-bios/dr-douglas-hudginsWe’d also like to offer thanks to our friends at NASA Space Place, along with Calla Cofield and Kay Ferrari at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.To learn more about light-years, visit NASA Space Place at https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/light-year/en/ Do you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to www.soundsingtonmedia.com
Could life exist on other worlds? What if the answer could be found on an ice covered moon of Jupiter? If you could go anywhere in the solar system, where would you go? We discuss all of this and more and have a visit with a very popular moon on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseCasting Consultant: Beth Kligerman Logo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to:Dr. Cynthia B. Phillips, Europa Project Staff Scientist and Science Communications Lead at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Io was played by good friend Jaime Moyer who you may know from voicing two characters on Bob's Burgers, NBC’s A.P. Bio, Modern Family and K.C. Undercover. Follow her on Twitter @Jaime_Moyer Our friends at NASA Space Place, and Kay Ferrari at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory To learn more about the NASA’s Europa Clipper Mission, visit https://europa.nasa.gov/All about Europa: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/europa/en/All about Io: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/jupiter-moons/io/overview/NASA’s “Scientist for a Day” Essay Contest: https://rps.nasa.gov/scientist-for-a-day/At-home activity: Looking for Life: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/teach/activity/looking-for-life/Check-out NASA’s Ocean Currents Game: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/ocean-currents/en/ And as always, a big hooray to our REACH learning community. Thank you to Hank and Ari. You can hear Hank and his mother Phoebe on their podcast The Adventures of Power Dog in Dogland! and you can hear Ari on his podcast At Your Level both available wherever you get your podcasts. Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
The five members Acoustic Concussion, JT and Chris Bates, Brad Holden, Joe Mayo and Brian do a lot of things in jazz. But when they gather to perform as Acoustic Concussion, the focus is on Sam Rivers, Ornette Coleman and Lee Konitz. In a conversation with Phil Nusbaum, Brian Holden, one of the saxophone players, explained the reason for the focus.
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Hunter and Greta in Minnesota who ask "Is Time Travel Possible?" Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven LyonsSpecial thanks to Dr. Alina Kiessling, Astrophysicist and Dr. Jason Rhodes, Senior Research Scientist: both from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.We’d also like to offer thanks to Jessica Stoller-Conrad, Heather Doyle, and Kay Ferrari at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.To learn more about time travel, visit NASA’s Space Place at: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/time-travel/en/ Do you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to www.soundsingtonmedia.com
What makes a space telescope different from a telescope here on Earth? If you could take a picture of anything in space, what would you photograph? We discuss all of this and more and have a visit with our favorite former planet on this episode of REACH. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseCasting Consultant: Beth Kligerman Logo by: Steven Lyons Thank you to Dr. Eric Smith, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Program Scientist, and Astrophysics Division Chief Scientist. To learn more about space telescopes check out the links below. Pluto was voiced by the incredible Jack McBrayer who you may know from his amazing work inWreck-It Ralph, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Disney’s Wander Over Yonder, NBC’s 30 Rock and so much more. Special thanks to: Natasha Pinol, Communications Chief for the James Webb Space Telescope ProgramKay Ferrari at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory To learn more about the NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, visit https://www.jwst.nasa.gov Key Facts translated in 40 different languages: https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/features/keyFactsInternational/All about Pluto: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/dwarf-planets/pluto/overview/Hubble Inspires: https://www.nasa.gov/content/hubble-inspires-online-activitiesHow Telescopes Work: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/telescopes/en/James Webb Space Telescope juried art: https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/content/features/jwstArt/ And as always, a big hooray to our REACH learning community. Thank you to Rosie, Orin, Ocie, and Blythe. Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
The next season of REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is launching into your ears January 19th, 2021. Make sure you're subscribed wherever you get podcasts. Reach: A Space Podcast for Kids is a weekly, family friendly exploration of our galaxy (and beyond!) with hosts Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien. Built for kids and based on questions from kids, Reach educates with entertaining segments, fun at-home experiments, and interviews presented in association with subject matter experts & thought partners from leading institutions like the Adler Planetarium, Cosmosphere, Exploration Place, and more. Subscribe today, and get knowledge...within your Reach. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for more or go to www.reachthepodcast.com
REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a weekly, family friendly exploration of our galaxy (and beyond!) with hosts Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien. Exoplanets with Ashley Walker & Marc Evan Jackson On this episode of REACH Brian and Meredith ask the questions "What is an Exoplanet?" and "What does #BlackinAstro mean?" of expert Astrochemist and Planetary Scientist Ashley Walker. Then we get a very special visit from our closest celestial neighbor on a segment entitled "Did You Know...?"
This week on REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids we present the first episode of the new season of fellow Soundsington Media show Unspookable entitled "Book of the Dead.". (Recommended for ages 8+) Unspookable is a family friendly look at the histories and mysteries behind your favorite scary stories, myths and urban legends. Each week host Elise Parisian discusses such topics as Bloody Mary, Charlie Charlie, and Ouija Boards to find the stories behind the scares. Unspookable - Book of the Dead What do you think of when you hear the word mummy? Some of us may imagine a bandaged figure, arms outstretched, stumbling through the desert, but did you know that mummification of the dead served another purpose? Mummification is just a small part of a sacred ritual of Going Forth By Day as captured in something we call The Egyptian Book of the Dead. But this is no book at all as we will find out on this episode of Unspookable. Host: Elise ParisianWritten by: Ellenor Riley-ConditCreated, Produced, Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic Direction and Composition: Jesse Case: https://www.jessecasemusic.com/Logo by: Natalie Khuen http://nataliek.myportfolio.comYou can find Unspookable on Twitter and Instagram at:https://twitter.com/ImUnspookablehttps://www.instagram.com/unspookablepodcast/Unspookable is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Alin in Romania who asks "What Are Neutron Stars?" Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Do you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to www.soundsingtonmedia.com
On this episode of REACH, Brian and Meredith learn what it takes to be an astronaut from a very special guest, we hear some space related jokes from the REACH Learning Community, and we have a visit from TWO planets in our segment "Did You Know...?" Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to NASA Astronaut and U.S. Navy Commander Matthew Dominick. On behalf of everyone at REACH, thanks again to Matthew for joining us on the show. We’d also like to offer a thanks to Jennifer Hernandez and everyone at NASA’s Public Affairs Office, and to Kay Ferrari at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.Learn more about Matthew Dominick at :https://www.nasa.gov/astronauts/biographies/matthew-dominickAnd more about all NASA Astronauts at: https://www.nasa.gov/astronautsFor space-inspired, at-home creative activities: NASA’s Space Place is launching an art challenge! Each month, Space Place readers will get a new drawing prompt, from which Space Place will feature select drawings on their website.For more info, visit https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/art-challenge. Venus was voiced by our very own Starkid, the incomparable Darren Criss, who you know as Blaine Anderson on the hit television show Glee and on the Quibi series Royalties. You can find Darren online at @darrencriss. Jupiter was voiced by the legendary Sean Astin who you know from unforgettable movies like The Goonies, Rudy, and of course The Lord of the Rings trilogy and television series such as No Good Nick and Stranger Things. Find Sean online at @seanastin. And as always, a big hooray to our REACH learning community for the really fun space jokes! Thanks to James and Blythe and Bella who you can regularly hear on the Soundsington Media podcast Unspookable. giving their takes on the origins of urban legends and scary stories. Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
Date: May 10, 2012 Speaker: Brian Holden Reid Topic: The Strategy of the Civil War - Chicago Civil War Round Table Monthly Meeting
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Megan in Perth Australia who asks "How are solar systems formed?" Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Do you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to www.soundsingtonmedia.com
On this episode of REACH, Brian and Meredith learn the importance of teamwork when problem solving in space, what it means to curate a museum collection, we have a visit from the fastest planet, and then try to make a telescope at home. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Shannon Whetzel, Curator at the Cosmosphere International Science Center and Space Museum, which is the only place in the Midwest where you can see flown spacecrafts from all three early spaceflight programs. Discover more at cosmo.org. Mercury was voiced by the amazing Dan Saks. Dan is a musician and music educator as well as the host and producer of Noodle Loaf, a popular music education podcast for kids and grown ups alike. Noodle Loaf is available on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get podcasts. You can also find Dan’s latest book entitled Families Belong at noodleloaf.com or wherever books are sold. And special thanks this week to our REACH learning community: Blythe and Merrick. You can hear more of Merrick weekly on the Hello Family podcast available wherever you get podcasts. and more of Blythe on Soundsington Media's own Unspookable. Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. Build Your Own Telescope ActivityYou will need:two small dollar store magnifying glasses (it works best if one is larger than the other but not necessary)a cardboard tube - paper towel roll or gift-wrapping paper roll (it helps if it is long)duct tape or other strong tapescissorsa ruler, or tape measuresheet of paper with print on it like a newspaper, magazine, or even a book Here's what you need to do:Get the two magnifying glasses and a sheet of printed paper.Hold one of your magnifying glasses between you and printed paper. The image of the print will may blurry, but that's okay.Hold the second magnifying glass between your eye and the first magnifying glass.Move the second glass until the print comes into focus where you will see that the print is both larger and upside down.Have a friend or family member measure the distance between the two magnifying glasses and write the distance down.Cut a slot in the cardboard tube about one inch away from the front opening, but do not cut all the way through the tube. The slot should be wide enough to hold the first magnifying glass.Cut your second slot in the tube the same distance from the first slot as your friend or family member wrote down. This is where your second magnifying glass will go.Place the two magnifying glasses in their slots and tape them in with the duct tapeLeave approximately 1 inch of tube behind the second magnifying glass and cut off any excess tube remaining.Check to see that it works by looking at the printed page. You may have to adjust slightly to get the exact distances between the two glasses right so that the image comes to a focus.We'll post a photo of Brian and Meredith's telescope on our Instagram and if you're having issues we found a lot of similar plans online with the google search "how to build a telescope at home" ranging from simple like ours to very detailed plans. Choose the one that's right for you and thanks to National Geographic Kids, Space.com, How Stuff Works, Instructables, and WikiHow for the idea. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Ryan in Philadelphia who asks "What is a shooting star?" Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Do you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to www.soundsingtonmedia.com
On this episode of REACH, Brian and Meredith learn about skywatching with a little help from some friends, we have a visit from the coolest planet, and a fun activity you can do day or night! Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to our great friend Nick Lake, Manager of Theater Experience and Presentation at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium. You can catch Nick’s Skywatch Weekly videos on YouTube, and learn more about the Adler by visiting www.adlerplanetarium.org.And here are some great Skywatching tips from NASA Neptune was portrayed by the amazing Eric O’Keeffe, co-creator and host of What If World, a storytelling podcast for kids. Follow the show online at www.whatifworldpodcast.com or wherever you get podcasts And special thanks this week to our REACH learning community: Blythe and Olivia. You can hear more of Olivia on the Curious Kid podcast and more of Blythe on Soundsington Media's own Unspookable. Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Millie in Canada (via her big brother Abi) who asks "Why is our sky blue, but space is black?" Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith StepienWritten by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden.Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy MarshallEdited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Geza Gyuk quote via www.livescience.com Do you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to www.soundsingtonmedia.com
Double guest alert! We sat down with our old U of M pals Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden who you may recognize from their work with iO Chicago, the Adler Planetarium, or Team StarKid. We have a great chat with them about Pure Michgian, audiobooks, and... sex with friends! (Recorded June 2020)
On this episode of REACH , Brian and Meredith learn more about the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover from a very special guest, we have an activity that will make you want to suit up, and we get a visit from the sixth planet from the sun. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Special thanks to Christina Hernandez, Mars 2020 PIXL Instrument Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Follow Christina online Christina Hernandez, Mars 2020 PIXL Instrument Engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Follow Christina online @estrellasycafe Saturn was voiced by the great Gary Jones, who you may know from his recurring role as Walter Harriman on Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. Follow Gary online at @TheGaryJones And thanks as well to Daniel Bateman, Public Programs Manager at Exploration Place for this week’s at-home activity. To learn more about Exploration Place, visit www.wxploration.org And special thanks this week to our REACH learning community: Olivia, Brady, Jaguar, Clara, Carter, Mirabel and all of our friends from the Cool Facts About Animals, Book Power for Kids, and Curious Kid podcasts. Find links to all of these great shows in our show notes. Skywatching tips for August:https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/planner.cfm Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode.You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.comREACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Will and Jack from Charlotte who ask "How many Earths fit in the Sun?"Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven LyonsDo you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.comREACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
On this episode of REACH , Brian and Meredith learn about NASA's Mars 2020 Mission and more as we are joined by an expert in launching these missions and receive a very special visit from the red planet itself on our segment "Did You Know...?"Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Thanks to Michael Staab, Fault Management and System Autonomy Engineer for Lunar Missions at Northrop Grumman. For more on his work, you can follow Michael on Twitter @AstroStaabThis Thursday, join the Cosmosphere and Michael for a virtual broadcast featuring live insights & commentary about the Perseverance rover and Mars 2020 mission. Event begins at 6.30 CST (time subject to change). Mark your calendars!Click this link to follow the Mars 2020 Mission and the journey of the Perseverance Rover. Mars was played by the always amazing Randy Havens. You can catch Randy on Netflix’s Stranger Things as everyone’s favorite science teacher, Mr. Clarke. Follow Randy online @MrRandyHavens And a big thanks to our friend Sarah Smail and Chicago’s Adler Planetarium for this week’s at-home activity. To see the detailed Mars surface that Sarah mentioned you can visit NASA's site at this link. And for more information on Sarah and Adler Planetarium visit adlerplanetarium.org And special thanks this week to our REACH learning community: Thanks Blythe and Desmond! Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode.You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.comREACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's questions comes from Addison in Canada and Alex in Utah who have questions about Pluto and about stars which we answer with a little help from Dr. Aaron Geller. Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven LyonsDo you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.comREACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
On this episode of REACH Brian and Meredith ask the questions "What is an Exoplanet?," "What does the hashtag #BlackinAstro mean?," and more before we are joined by an expert Astrochemist and Planetary Scientist and a very special visit from our closest celestial neighbor on a segment entitled "Did You Know...?"This week's Activity from Ashley Walker:We want to see your Exoplanet! Using materials around the house make your own planet and give it a name. Get creative!Then take a photo of your Exoplanet and send it to the show at reachthepodacst@gmail.com or by tagging us on Twitter or Instagram @ReachThePodcast Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Thanks to Ashley Walker (Ashley Lindalía), Astrochemist, Planetary Scientist, and Intern at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. For more on Ashley's work and the latest on #BlackinAstro follow Ashley on Twitter @That_Astro_ChicThe Moon was played by Marc Evan Jackson. You may know Marc from his work on NBC’s The Good Place, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, or Netflix’s The Babysitters Club. Marc is also the President and Co-founder of The Detroit Creativity Project whose Improv Project offers training in communication, collaboration, and relationship building skills to students in Detroit schools. To find out more please go to www.detroitcreativityproject.orgAnd special thanks this week to our REACH learning community: Thanks Bella and Blythe!Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode.You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.comREACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from Zoë from Toronto who asks "Why is Mars red?"Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven LyonsDo you have a question for a future edition of “Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.comREACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
On the second episode of REACH Brian and Meredith ask the questions "What are Black Holes?," "Will we ever get sucked into one?," and more before we are joined by an expert from Adler Planetarium and a very special guest star on a segment entitled "Did You Know...?"This week's Activities:To learn more about our closest star, visit adlerplanetarium.org and read “The Secret Life of the Sun.”Learn more about “A Wrinkle in Time” by Madeleine L'Engle, as mentioned by Nikki the StarDraw a picture of the Sun. It can be sent to the show at reachthepodacst@gmail.com or by tagging us on Twitter or Instagram @ReachThePodcast Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Thank you to Dr. Geza Gyuk, Director of Astronomy, Adler Planetarium. For more information on Geza’s work, please visit www.adlerplanetarium.orgNikki the Star was played by Janet Varney. You may know Janet as the voice of Korra from Nickelodeon's The Legend of Korra, or from her podcasts The JV Club and Voyage to the Stars. You can find them both wherever podcasts are availableAnd special thanks this week to our REACH learning community: Thanks Blythe!Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, you can submit that question for our bi-weekly “Reaching Out” episodes. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode.You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.comREACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
This week Unspookable presents REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids a weekly, family friendly exploration of our galaxy (and beyond!) with hosts Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien. Built for kids and based on questions from kids, REACH educates with entertaining segments, fun at-home experiments, and interviews with subject matter experts & thought partners from leading institutions like the Adler Planetarium, Cosmosphere, and more. Subscribe today, and get knowledge...within your Reach. A co-production between Soundsington Media and Sandy Marshall. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get podcasts. On the first episode of REACH Brian and Meredith ask the questions "What IS space?," "Is Pluto a planet?," and more before we are joined by an expert from Adler Planetarium and a very special guest on a segment entitled "Did You Know...?" This week's Activities:“Life of the Pleiades” movie from AdlerSVL and todays guest Aaron GellerAdler Planetarium's "Aquarius Project” interactive websiteOnline interactive about exoplanets and the future of our Solar System Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Thank you to Aaron Geller, Astronomer at the Adler Planetarium and Northwestern University. For more information on Aaron’s work, please visit his website. And don't forget to check out his recommended website www.zooniverse.com Planet Earth was played by Dania Ramos, the series creator and head writer of Timestorm by Cocotazo Media and TRAX from PRX . Timestorm follows the time traveling Ventura Twins on a mission to preserve their Puerto Rican heritage. Check it out at www.cocotazomedia.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And special thanks this week to our REACH learning community Blythe and Bella Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, next week we start a new bi-weekly segment entitled “Reaching Out” where we’ll be answering YOUR questions. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
REACHing Out are bi-weekly mini-episodes where we answer YOUR Questions. This week's question comes from James and Charlie from Minnesota who ask "How hot is the Sun? And why?" Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Do you have a question for a future edition of“Reaching Out?” Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
On the first episode of REACH Brian and Meredith ask the questions "What IS space?," "Is Pluto a planet?," and more before we are joined by an expert from Adler Planetarium and a very special guest on a segment entitled "Did You Know...?" This week's Activities:“Life of the Pleiades” movie from AdlerSVL and todays guest Aaron GellerAdler Planetarium's "Aquarius Project” interactive websiteOnline interactive about exoplanets and the future of our Solar System Hosts: Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien Written by: Sandy Marshall with Nate DuFort, Meredith Stepien and Brian Holden. Co-Created, Produced by: Nate DuFort and Sandy Marshall Edited by: Nate DuFortMusic composed by: Jesse CaseLogo by: Steven Lyons Thank you to Dr. Aaron M. Geller, Astronomer at the Adler Planetarium and Northwestern University. For more information on Aaron’s work, please visit his website. And don't forget to check out his recommended website www.zooniverse.com Planet Earth was played by Dania Ramos, the series creator and head writer of Timestorm by Cocotazo Media and TRAX from PRX . Timestorm follows the time traveling Ventura Twins on a mission to preserve their Puerto Rican heritage. Check it out at www.cocotazomedia.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And special thanks this week to our REACH learning community Blythe and Bella Do you have a space related question that we didn’t get to? Well, next week we start a new bi-weekly segment entitled “Reaching Out” where we’ll be answering YOUR questions. Just get your parents permission and give us a call at 312-248-3402 (or an email at ReachthePodast@gmail.com) and leave us a message with your first name, where you're from and your question for a chance to be featured in an upcoming episode. You can find REACH on Twitter and Instagram or at http://www.ReachThePodcast.com REACH: A Space Podcast for Kids is a production of Soundsington Media committed to making quality programing for young audiences and the young at heart. To find out more go to http://www.soundsingtonmedia.com
Reach: A Space Podcast for Kids is a weekly, family friendly exploration of our galaxy (and beyond!) with hosts Brian Holden and Meredith Stepien. Built for kids and based on questions from kids, Reach educates with entertaining segments, fun at-home experiments, and interviews presented in association with subject matter experts & thought partners from leading institutions like the Adler Planetarium (and many more). Subscribe today, and get knowledge...within your Reach. Launching June 16th, 2020. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram for more or go to www.reachthepodcast.com
Episode seventy-seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Brand New Cadillac” by Vince Taylor and the Playboys, and the sad career of rock music’s first acid casualty. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers have two bonus podcasts this week. There’s a haf-hour Q&A episode, where I answer backers’ questions, and a ten-minute bonus episode on “The Hippy Hippy Shake” by Chan Romero. 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/ —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. There are several books available on Vince Taylor, including an autobiography, but sadly these are all in French, a language I don’t speak past schoolboy level, so I can’t say if they’re any good. The main resources I used for this episode were the liner notes for this compilation CD of Taylor’s best material, this archived copy of a twenty-year-old homepage by a friend of Taylor’s, this blogged history of Taylor and the Playboys, and this Radio 4 documentary on Taylor. But *all* of these were riddled with errors, and I used dozens of other resources to try to straighten out the facts — everything from a genealogy website to interviews with Tony Sheridan to the out-of-print autobiography of Joe Barbera. No doubt this episode still has errors in it, but I am fairly confident that it has fewer errors than anything else in English about Taylor on the Internet. Errata I say that Gene Vincent also appeared on Oh Boy! — in fact he didn’t appear on UK TV until Parnes’ next show, Boy Meets Girls, which would mean Taylor was definitely the originator of that style. A major clanger — I say that Sheridan recorded “Why” while he was working on “Oh Boy!” — in fact this wasn’t recorded until later — *with the Beatles* as his backing band. I should have known that one, but it slipped my mind and I trusted my source, wrongly. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript On the twenty-first of May 1965, at the Savoy Hotel in London, there was a party which would have two major effects on the history of rock and roll music, one which would be felt almost immediately, and one whose full ramifications wouldn’t be seen for almost a decade. Bob Dylan was on the European tour which is chronicled in the film “Don’t Look Back”, and he’d just spent a week in Portugal. He’d come back to the UK, and the next day he was planning to film his first ever televised concert. That plan was put on hold. Dylan was rushed to hospital the day after the party, with what was claimed to be food poisoning but has often been rumoured to be something else. He spent the next week in bed, back at the Savoy, attended by a private nurse, and during that time he wrote what he called “a long piece of vomit around twenty pages long”. From that “long piece of vomit” he later extracted the lyrics to what became “Like a Rolling Stone”. But Dylan wasn’t the only one who came out of that party feeling funny. Vince Taylor, a minor British rock and roller who’d never had much success over here but was big in France, was also there. There are no euphemisms about what it was that happened to him. He had dropped acid at the party, for the first time, and had liked it so much he’d immediately spent two hundred pounds on buying all the acid he could from the person who’d given it to him. The next day, Taylor was meant to be playing a showcase gig. His brother-in-law, Joe Barbera of Hanna Barbera, owned a record label, and was considering signing Taylor. It could be the start of a comeback for him. Instead, it was the end of his career, and the start of a legend: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Playboys, “Brand New Cadillac”] There are two problems with telling the story of Vince Taylor. One is that he was a compulsive liar, who would make up claims like that he was related to Tenzing Norgay, the Nepalese mountaineer who was one of the two men who first climbed Everest, or that he was an airline pilot as a teenager. The other is that nobody who has written about Taylor has bothered to do even the most cursory fact-checking For example, if you read any online articles about Vince Taylor at all, you see the same story about his upbringing — he was born Brian Holden in the UK, he emigrated to New Jersey with his family in the forties, and then his sister Sheila met Joe Barbera, the co-creator of the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Sheila married him in 1955 and moved with him to Los Angeles — and so the rest of the family also moved there, and Brian went to Hollywood High School. Barbera decided to manage his brother-in-law, bring him over to London to check out the British music scene, and get him a record deal. There’s just… a bit of a problem with this story. Sheila did marry Joe Barbera, but not until the mid 1960s. Her first marriage, in 1947, was to Joe Singer, and it was Singer, not Barbera, who was Taylor’s first manager. That kind of inaccuracy appears all over the story of Vince Taylor So, what we actually know is that Brian Maurice Holden — or Maurice Brian Holden, even his birth name seems to be disputed — was born in Isleworth Middlesex, and moved to New Jersey when he was seven, with his family, emigrating on the Mauretania, and that he came back to London in his late teens. While there was a real Hollywood High School, which Ricky Nelson among others had attended, I suspect it’s as likely that Holden decided to just tell people that was where he’d been to school, because “Hollywood High School” would sound impressive to British people. And sounding impressive to British people was what Brian Holden had decided to base his career on. He claimed to an acquaintance, shortly after he returned to the UK, that he’d heard a Tommy Steele record while he was in the US, and had thought “If this is rock and roll in England, we’ll take them by storm!” [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, “Rock With the Caveman”] Holden had been playing American Legion shows and similar small venues in the US, and when his brother-in-law Joe Singer came over to Britain on a business trip, Holden decided to tag along, and Singer became Holden’s manager. Holden had three great advantages over British stars like Steele. He had spent long enough in America that he could tell people that he was American and they would believe him. In Britain in the 1950s, there were so few Americans that just being from that country was enough to make you a novelty, and Holden milked that for all it was worth, even though his accent, from the few bits of interviews I’ve heard with him, was pure London. He was also much, much better looking than almost all the British rock and roll stars. Because of rationing and general poverty in the UK in the forties and fifties as a result of the war, the British fifties teenage generation were on the whole rather scrawny, pasty-looking, and undernourished, with bad complexions, bad teeth, and a general haggardness that meant that even teen idols like Dickie Pride, Tommy Steele, or Marty Wilde were not, by modern standards, at all good looking. Brian Holden, on the other hand, had film-star good looks. He had a chiselled jaw, thick black hair combed into a quiff, and a dazzling smile showing Hollywood-perfect teeth. I am the farthest thing there is from a judge of male beauty, but of all the fifties rock and roll stars, the only one who was better looking than him was Elvis, and even Elvis had to grow into his good looks, while Holden, even when he came to the UK aged eighteen, looked like a cross between James Dean and Rock Hudson. And finally, he had a real sense of what rock and roll was, in a way that almost none of the British musicians did. He knew, in particular, what a rockabilly record should sound like. He did have one tiny drawback, though — he couldn’t sing in tune, or keep time. But nobody except the unfortunate musicians who ended up backing him saw that as a particular problem. Being unable to sing was a minor matter. He had presence, and he was going to be a star. Everyone knew it. He started performing at the 2Is, and he put together a band which had a rather fluid membership that to start with featured Tony Meehan, a drummer who had been in the Vipers Skiffle Group and would later join the Shadows, but by the time he got a record deal consisted of four of the regular musicians from the 2is — Tony Sheridan on lead guitar, Tony Harvey on rhythm, Licorice Locking on bass and Brian Bennett on drums. He also got himself a new name, and once again there seems to be some doubt as to how the name was chosen. Everyone seems agreed that “Taylor” was suggested by his sister Sheila, after the actor Robert Taylor. But there are three different plausible stories for how he became Vince. The first is that he named himself after Vince Everett, Elvis’ character in Jailhouse Rock. The second is that he was named after Gene Vincent. And the third is that he took the name from a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes, which had a logo with the Latin motto “in hoc signo vinces” — that last word spelled the same way as “Vinces”. And while I’ve never seen this suggestion made anywhere else, there is also the coincidence that both Licorice Locking and Tony Sheridan had been playing, with Jimmy Nicol, in the Vagabonds, the backing band for one of Larry Parnes’ teen idol acts, Vince Eager, who had made one EP before the Vagabonds had split from him: [Excerpt: Vince Eager, “Yea Yea”] So it may be that the similarity of names was in someone’s mind as well. Taylor and his band, named the Playboys, made a huge impression at the 2is, and they were soon signed to Parlophone Records, and in November 1958 they released their first single. Both sides of the single were cover versions of relatively obscure releases on Sun records. The B-side was a cover version of “I Like Love”, which had been written by Jack Clement for Roy Orbison, while the A-side, “Right Behind You Baby” was written by Charlie Rich and originally recorded by Ray Smith: [Excerpt: Ray Smith, “Right Behind You Baby”] Taylor’s version was the closest thing to an American rockabilly record that had been made in Britain to that point. While the vocal was still nothing special, and the recording techniques in British studios created a more polite sound than their American equivalents, the performance is bursting with energy: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor, “Right Behind You Baby”] It’s Sheridan, though, who really makes the record — he plays a twenty-four bar guitar solo that is absolute light years ahead of anything else that was being done in Britain. Here, for example, is “Guitar Boogie Shuffle”, an instrumental hit from Britain’s top rock and roll guitarist of the time, Bert Weedon: [Excerpt: Bert Weedon, “Guitar Boogie Shuffle”] As you can hear, that’s a perfectly good guitar instrumental, very pleasant, very well played. Now listen to Tony Sheridan’s guitar solo on “Right Behind You Baby”: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor, “Right Behind You Baby”] That’s clearly not as technically skilled as Weedon, but it’s also infinitely more exciting, and it’s more exciting than anything that was being made by any other British musicians at the time. Jack Good certainly thought so. While “Right Behind You Baby” wasn’t a hit, it was enough to get Vince on to Oh Boy!, and it was because of his Oh Boy! performances that Vince switched to the look he would keep for the rest of his career — black leather trousers, a black leather jacket, a black shirt with the top few buttons undone, showing his chest and the medallion he always wore, and black leather gloves. It was a look very similar to that which Gene Vincent also adopted for his performances on Oh Boy! — before that, Vincent had been dressing in a distinctly less memorable style — and I’ve seen differing accounts as to which act took on the style first, though both made it their own. Taylor was memorable enough in this getup that when, in the early seventies, another faded rocker who had been known as Shane Fenton made a comeback as a glam-rocker under the name Alvin Stardust, he copied Taylor’s dress exactly. But Good was unimpressed with Taylor’s performance — and very impressed with Sheridan’s. Sheridan was asked to join the Oh Boy! house band, as well as performing under his own name as Tony Sheridan and the Wreckers. He found himself playing on such less-than-classics as “Happy Organ” by Cherry Wainer: [Excerpt: Cherry Wainer, “The Happy Organ”] He also released his own solo record, “Why”: [Excerpt: Tony Sheridan, “Why”] But Sheridan’s biggest impact on popular music wouldn’t come along for another few years… Losing the most innovative guitarist in the British music industry should have been a death-blow to Taylor’s career, but he managed to find the only other guitarist in Britain at that time who might be considered up to Sheridan’s standard, Joe Moretti — who Taylor nicknamed Scotty Moretti, partly because Moretti was Scottish, but mostly because it would make his name similar to that of Scotty Moore, Elvis’ guitarist, and Taylor could shout out “take it, Scotty!” on the solos. While Sheridan’s style was to play frantic Chuck Berry-style licks, Moretti was a more controlled guitarist, but just as inventive, and he had a particular knack for coming up with riffs. And he showed that knack on Taylor’s next single, the first to be credited to Vince Taylor and the Playboys, rather than just to Vince Taylor. The A-side of that single was rather poor — a cover version of Johnny Ace’s “Pledging My Love”, which was done no favours by Taylor’s vocal: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Playboys, “Pledging My Love”] But it was the B-side that was to become a classic. From the stories told by the band members, it seems that everyone knew that that song — one written by Taylor, who otherwise barely ever wrote songs, preferring to perform cover versions — was something special. But the song mentioned two different brand names, Cadillac and Ford, and the BBC at that time had a ban on playing any music which mentioned a brand name at all. So “Brand New Cadillac” became a B-side, but it’s undoubtedly the most thrilling B-side by a British performer of the fifties, and arguably the only true fifties rock and roll classic by a British artist. “Move It” by Cliff Richard had been a good record by British standards — “Brand New Cadillac” was a great record by any standards: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Playboys, “Brand New Cadillac”] Unfortunately, because “Pledging My Love” was the A-side, the record sold almost nothing, and didn’t make the charts. After two flops in a row, Parlophone dropped Vince Taylor and the Playboys, and Taylor went back to performing at the 2Is with whatever random collection of musicians he could get together. Brian Bennett and Licorice Locking, meanwhile, went on to join Marty Wilde’s band the Wildcats, and scored an immediate hit with Wilde’s rather decent cover version of Dion and the Belmonts’ “Teenager in Love”: [Excerpt: Marty Wilde and the Wildcats, “Teenager in Love”] Moretti, Locking, and Bennett will all turn up in our story in future episodes. Taylor’s career seemed to be over before it had really begun, but then he got a second chance. Palette Records was a small label, based in Belgium, which was starting operations in Britain. They didn’t have any big stars, but they had signed Janis Martin, who we talked about back in episode forty, and in August 1960 they put out her single “Here Today and Gone Tomorrow Love”: [Excerpt: Janis Martin, “Here Today and Gone Tomorrow Love”] And at the same time, they put out a new single by Vince Taylor, with a new lineup of Playboys. The A-side was a fairly uninspired ballad called “I’ll Be Your Hero”, very much in the style of Elvis’ film songs, but they soon switched to promoting the flip side, “Jet Black Machine”, which was much more in Taylor’s style. It wasn’t up to the standards of “Brand New Cadillac”, but it was still far more exciting than most of the records that were being made in the UK at the time: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Playboys, “Jet Black Machine”] That seemed like it would be a turning point in Taylor’s career — according to one source I’ve read, it made the top twenty on the NME charts, though I haven’t been able to check those charts myself, and given how unreliable literally everything I’ve read about Taylor is, I don’t entirely trust that. But it was definitely more successful than his two previous singles, and the new lineup of Playboys were booked on a package tour of acts from the 2Is. Things seemed like they were about to start going Taylor’s way. But Taylor had always been a little erratic, and he started to get almost pathologically jealous. He would phone his girlfriend up every night before going on stage, and if she didn’t answer he’d skip the show, to drive to her house and find out what she was doing. And in November 1960, just before the start of the tour, he skipped out on the tour altogether and headed back to visit his family in the States. The band carried on without him, and became the backing group for Duffy Power, one of the many acts managed by Larry Parnes. Power desperately wanted to be a blues singer, but he was pushed into recording cover versions of American hits, like this one, which came out shortly after the Playboys joined him: [Excerpt: Duffy Power, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”] The Playboys continued to back Power until June 1960, when they had a gig in Guildford, and a remarkable coincidence happened. They were unloading their equipment at the 2Is, to drive to Guildford with it, when Taylor walked round the corner. He’d just got back from the USA and happened to be passing, and they invited him along for the drive to the show. He came with them, and then Duffy Power, who was almost as unreliable as Taylor, didn’t turn up for the show. They invited Taylor to perform in his place, and he did, and blew the audience away. Power eventually turned up half-way through the show, got angry, punched the drummer in the face during the interval, and drove off again. The drummer got two stitches, and then they finished the show. Taylor was back with the Playboys, and Duffy Power was out, and so the next month when Power was booked for some shows in Paris, on a bill with Vince Eager and Wee Willie Harris, Taylor took his place there, too. France was about as far behind Britain in rock and roll terms as Britain was behind America, and no-one had ever seen anything like Vince Taylor. Taylor and the Playboys got signed to a French label, Barclay Records, and they became huge stars — Taylor did indeed get himself a brand new Cadillac, a pink one just like Elvis had. Taylor got nicknamed “le diable noir” — the black Devil — for his demonic stage presence, and he inspired riots regularly with his shows. A review of one of his performances at that time may be of interest to some listeners: “The atmosphere is like many a night club, but the teenagers stand round the dancing floor which you use as a stage. They jump on a woman with gold trousers and a hand microphone and then hit a man when he says “go away.” A group follows, and so do others, playing ‘Apache’ worse than many other bands. When the singer joins the band, the leather jacket fiends who are the audience, join in dancing and banging tables with chairs. The singers have to go one better than the audience, so they lie on the floor, or jump on a passing drummer, or kiss a guitar, and then hit the man playing it. The crowd enjoy this and many stand on chairs to see the fun, and soon the audience are all singing and shouting like one man, but he didn’t mind. Vince (Ron, Ron) Taylor finally appeared and joined the fun, and in the end he had so much fun that he had to rest. But in spite of this it had been a wonderful show, lovely show…lovely.” That was written by a young man from Liverpool named Paul McCartney, who was visiting Paris with his friend John Lennon for Lennon’s twenty-first birthday. The two attended one of Taylor’s shows there, and McCartney sent that review back to run in Mersey Beat, a local music paper. Lennon and McCartney also met Taylor, with whom they had a mutual friend, Tony Sheridan, and tried to blag their way onto the show themselves, but got turned down. While they were in Paris, they also got their hair cut in a new style, to copy the style that was fashionable among Parisian bohemians. When they got back to Liverpool everyone laughed at their new mop-top hairdos… Taylor kept making records while he was in Paris, mostly cover versions of American hits. Probably the best is his version of Chuck Willis’ “Whatcha Gonna Do?”: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor et ses Play-Boys, “Watcha Gonna Do (When Your Baby Leaves You)?”] But while Taylor was now a big star, his behaviour was becoming ever more erratic, not helped by the amphetamines he was taking to keep himself going during shows. The group quit en masse in November 1962, but he persuaded them back so they could play a two-week residency at the Star Club in Hamburg, before a group from Liverpool called the Beatles took over for Christmas. But Taylor only lasted four days of that two-week residency. Just before midnight on the fifth night, just before they were about to go on, he phoned his girlfriend in Paris, got no answer, decided she was out cheating on him, and flew off to Paris instead of playing the show. He phoned the club’s manager the next day to apologise and say he’d be back for that night’s show, but Horst Fascher, the manager, wasn’t as forgiving of Taylor as most promoters had been, and said that he’d shoot Taylor dead if he ever saw him again. The residency was cancelled, and the Playboys had to sell their mohair suits to Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers to pay for their fare back to Paris. For the next few years, Taylor put out a series of fairly poor records with different backing groups, often singing sickly French-language ballads with orchestral backings. He tried gimmicks like changing from his black leather costume into a white leather one, but nothing seemed to work. His money was running out, but then he had one more opportunity to hit the big time again. Bobby Woodman, the drummer from the second lineup of the Playboys, had been playing with Johnny Hallyday, France’s biggest rock and roll star, under the stage name Bobbie Clarke, but then Hallyday was drafted and his band needed work. They got together with Taylor, and as Vince Taylor and the Bobbie Clarke Noise they recorded an EP of blues and rock covers that included a version of the Arthur Crudup song made famous by Elvis, “My Baby Left Me”. It was a quite extraordinary record, his best since “Brand New Cadillac” seven years earlier: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Bobbie Clarke Noise, “My Baby Left Me”] They played the Paris Olympia again, this time supporting the Rolling Stones. Vince Taylor was on his way to the top again. And they had the prospect of an American record deal — Taylor’s sister Sheila had married Joe Barbera, and he’d started up a new label and was interested in signing Taylor. They arranged a showcase gig for him, and everyone thought this could be the big time. But before that, he had to make a quick trip to the UK. The group were owed money by a business associate there, and so Taylor went over to collect the money, and while he was there he went to Bob Dylan’s party, and dropped acid for the first time. And that was the end of Vince Taylor’s career. One of the things that goes completely unreported about the British teen idols of the fifties is that for whatever reason, and I can’t know for sure, there was a very high incidence of severe mental illness among them — an astonishingly high incidence given how few of them there were. Terry Dene was invalided out of the Army with mental health problems shortly after he was drafted. Duffy Power attempted suicide in the early sixties, and had recurrent mental health problems for many years. And Dickie Pride, who his peers thought was the most talented of the lot, ended up dead aged twenty-seven, after having spent time in a psychiatric hospital and suffering so badly he was lobotomised. Vince Taylor was the one whose mental problems have had the most publicity, but much of that has made his illness seem somehow glamorous or entertaining, so I want to emphasise that it was anything but. I spent several years working on a psychiatric ward, and have seen enough people with the same condition that Taylor had that I have no sense of humour about this subject at all. The rest of this podcast is about a man who was suffering horribly. Taylor had always been unstable — he had been paranoid and controlling, he had a tendency to make up lies about himself and act as if he believed them, and he led a chaotic lifestyle. And while normally LSD is safe even if taken relatively often, Taylor’s first acid trip was the last straw for his fragile mental health. He turned up at the showcase gig unshaven, clutching a bottle of Mateus wine, and announced to everyone that he was Mateus, the new Jesus, the son of God. When asked if he had the band’s money, he pulled out a hundred and fifty francs and set fire to it, ranting about how Jesus had turfed the money-lenders out of the temple. An ambulance was called, and the band did the show without him. They had a gig the next day, and Taylor turned up clean-shaven, smartly dressed, and seemingly normal. He apologised for his behaviour the night before, saying he’d “felt a bit strange” but was better now. But when they got to the club and he saw the sign saying “Vince Taylor and the Bobbie Clarke Noise”, he crossed “Vince Taylor” out, and wrote “Mateus” in a felt pen. During the show, instead of singing, he walked through the crowd, anointing them with water. He spent the next decade in and out of hospital, occasionally touring and recording, but often unable to work. But while he was unwell, “Brand New Cadillac” found a new audience. Indeed, it found several audiences. The Hep Stars, a band from Sweden who featured a pre-ABBA Benny Andersson, had a number one hit in Sweden with their reworking of it, just titled “Cadillac”, in 1965, just a month before Taylor’s breakdown: [Excerpt: Hep Stars, “Cadillac”] In 1971, Mungo Jerry reworked the song as “Baby Jump”, which went to number one in the UK, though they didn’t credit Taylor: [Excerpt: Mungo Jerry, “Baby Jump”] And in 1979, the Clash recorded a version of it for their classic double-album London Calling: [Excerpt: The Clash, “Brand New Cadillac”] Shortly after recording that, Joe Strummer of the Clash met up with Taylor, who spent five hours explaining to Strummer how the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were trying to kill him with poisoned chocolate cake. Taylor at that time was still making music, and trying to latch on to whatever the latest trend was, as in his 1982 single “Space Invaders”, inspired by the arcade game: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor, “Space Invaders”] But the new music he was making was almost an irrelevance — by this point he had become a legend in the British music industry, not for who he was in 1982, but for who he was in 1958, and he has had songs written about him by people as diverse as Adam Ant and Van Morrison. But his biggest influence came in the years immediately after his breakdown. Between 1966 and 1972, Taylor spent much of his time in London, severely mentally ill, but trying to have some kind of social life based on his past glories, reminding people that he had once been a star. One of the people he got to know in London in the mid-sixties was a young musician named David Jones. Jones was fascinated by Taylor, even though he’d never liked his music — Jones’ brother was schizophrenic, and he was worried that he would end up like his brother. Jones also wanted to be a rock and roll star, and had some mildly messianic ideas of his own. So a rock and roll star who thought he was Jesus — although he sometimes thought he was an alien, rather than Jesus, and sometimes claimed that Jesus *was* an alien — and who was clearly severely mentally ill, had a fascination for him. He talked later about not having been able to decide whether he was seeing Taylor as an example to follow or a cautionary tale, and about how he’d sat with Taylor outside Charing Cross Station while Taylor had used a magnifying glass and a map of Europe to show him all the sites where aliens were going to land. Several years later, after changing his name to David Bowie, Jones remembered the story of Vince Taylor, the rock and roll star who thought he was an alien messiah, and turned it into the story of Ziggy Stardust: [Excerpt: David Bowie, “Ziggy Stardust”] In 1983, Taylor retired to Switzerland with his new wife Nathalie. He changed his name back to Brian Holden, and while he would play the occasional gig, he tried as best he could to forget his past, and seems to have recovered somewhat from his mental illness. In 1991 he was diagnosed with cancer, and died of it three months later. Shortly before he died, he told a friend “If I die, you can tell them that the only period in my life where I was really happy was my life in Switzerland”.
Episode seventy-seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Brand New Cadillac” by Vince Taylor and the Playboys, and the sad career of rock music’s first acid casualty. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers have two bonus podcasts this week. There’s a haf-hour Q&A episode, where I answer backers’ questions, and a ten-minute bonus episode on “The Hippy Hippy Shake” by Chan Romero. 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/ —-more—- Resources As always, I’ve created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. There are several books available on Vince Taylor, including an autobiography, but sadly these are all in French, a language I don’t speak past schoolboy level, so I can’t say if they’re any good. The main resources I used for this episode were the liner notes for this compilation CD of Taylor’s best material, this archived copy of a twenty-year-old homepage by a friend of Taylor’s, this blogged history of Taylor and the Playboys, and this Radio 4 documentary on Taylor. But *all* of these were riddled with errors, and I used dozens of other resources to try to straighten out the facts — everything from a genealogy website to interviews with Tony Sheridan to the out-of-print autobiography of Joe Barbera. No doubt this episode still has errors in it, but I am fairly confident that it has fewer errors than anything else in English about Taylor on the Internet. Errata I say that Gene Vincent also appeared on Oh Boy! — in fact he didn’t appear on UK TV until Parnes’ next show, Boy Meets Girls, which would mean Taylor was definitely the originator of that style. A major clanger — I say that Sheridan recorded “Why” while he was working on “Oh Boy!” — in fact this wasn’t recorded until later — *with the Beatles* as his backing band. I should have known that one, but it slipped my mind and I trusted my source, wrongly. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript On the twenty-first of May 1965, at the Savoy Hotel in London, there was a party which would have two major effects on the history of rock and roll music, one which would be felt almost immediately, and one whose full ramifications wouldn’t be seen for almost a decade. Bob Dylan was on the European tour which is chronicled in the film “Don’t Look Back”, and he’d just spent a week in Portugal. He’d come back to the UK, and the next day he was planning to film his first ever televised concert. That plan was put on hold. Dylan was rushed to hospital the day after the party, with what was claimed to be food poisoning but has often been rumoured to be something else. He spent the next week in bed, back at the Savoy, attended by a private nurse, and during that time he wrote what he called “a long piece of vomit around twenty pages long”. From that “long piece of vomit” he later extracted the lyrics to what became “Like a Rolling Stone”. But Dylan wasn’t the only one who came out of that party feeling funny. Vince Taylor, a minor British rock and roller who’d never had much success over here but was big in France, was also there. There are no euphemisms about what it was that happened to him. He had dropped acid at the party, for the first time, and had liked it so much he’d immediately spent two hundred pounds on buying all the acid he could from the person who’d given it to him. The next day, Taylor was meant to be playing a showcase gig. His brother-in-law, Joe Barbera of Hanna Barbera, owned a record label, and was considering signing Taylor. It could be the start of a comeback for him. Instead, it was the end of his career, and the start of a legend: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Playboys, “Brand New Cadillac”] There are two problems with telling the story of Vince Taylor. One is that he was a compulsive liar, who would make up claims like that he was related to Tenzing Norgay, the Nepalese mountaineer who was one of the two men who first climbed Everest, or that he was an airline pilot as a teenager. The other is that nobody who has written about Taylor has bothered to do even the most cursory fact-checking For example, if you read any online articles about Vince Taylor at all, you see the same story about his upbringing — he was born Brian Holden in the UK, he emigrated to New Jersey with his family in the forties, and then his sister Sheila met Joe Barbera, the co-creator of the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Sheila married him in 1955 and moved with him to Los Angeles — and so the rest of the family also moved there, and Brian went to Hollywood High School. Barbera decided to manage his brother-in-law, bring him over to London to check out the British music scene, and get him a record deal. There’s just… a bit of a problem with this story. Sheila did marry Joe Barbera, but not until the mid 1960s. Her first marriage, in 1947, was to Joe Singer, and it was Singer, not Barbera, who was Taylor’s first manager. That kind of inaccuracy appears all over the story of Vince Taylor So, what we actually know is that Brian Maurice Holden — or Maurice Brian Holden, even his birth name seems to be disputed — was born in Isleworth Middlesex, and moved to New Jersey when he was seven, with his family, emigrating on the Mauretania, and that he came back to London in his late teens. While there was a real Hollywood High School, which Ricky Nelson among others had attended, I suspect it’s as likely that Holden decided to just tell people that was where he’d been to school, because “Hollywood High School” would sound impressive to British people. And sounding impressive to British people was what Brian Holden had decided to base his career on. He claimed to an acquaintance, shortly after he returned to the UK, that he’d heard a Tommy Steele record while he was in the US, and had thought “If this is rock and roll in England, we’ll take them by storm!” [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, “Rock With the Caveman”] Holden had been playing American Legion shows and similar small venues in the US, and when his brother-in-law Joe Singer came over to Britain on a business trip, Holden decided to tag along, and Singer became Holden’s manager. Holden had three great advantages over British stars like Steele. He had spent long enough in America that he could tell people that he was American and they would believe him. In Britain in the 1950s, there were so few Americans that just being from that country was enough to make you a novelty, and Holden milked that for all it was worth, even though his accent, from the few bits of interviews I’ve heard with him, was pure London. He was also much, much better looking than almost all the British rock and roll stars. Because of rationing and general poverty in the UK in the forties and fifties as a result of the war, the British fifties teenage generation were on the whole rather scrawny, pasty-looking, and undernourished, with bad complexions, bad teeth, and a general haggardness that meant that even teen idols like Dickie Pride, Tommy Steele, or Marty Wilde were not, by modern standards, at all good looking. Brian Holden, on the other hand, had film-star good looks. He had a chiselled jaw, thick black hair combed into a quiff, and a dazzling smile showing Hollywood-perfect teeth. I am the farthest thing there is from a judge of male beauty, but of all the fifties rock and roll stars, the only one who was better looking than him was Elvis, and even Elvis had to grow into his good looks, while Holden, even when he came to the UK aged eighteen, looked like a cross between James Dean and Rock Hudson. And finally, he had a real sense of what rock and roll was, in a way that almost none of the British musicians did. He knew, in particular, what a rockabilly record should sound like. He did have one tiny drawback, though — he couldn’t sing in tune, or keep time. But nobody except the unfortunate musicians who ended up backing him saw that as a particular problem. Being unable to sing was a minor matter. He had presence, and he was going to be a star. Everyone knew it. He started performing at the 2Is, and he put together a band which had a rather fluid membership that to start with featured Tony Meehan, a drummer who had been in the Vipers Skiffle Group and would later join the Shadows, but by the time he got a record deal consisted of four of the regular musicians from the 2is — Tony Sheridan on lead guitar, Tony Harvey on rhythm, Licorice Locking on bass and Brian Bennett on drums. He also got himself a new name, and once again there seems to be some doubt as to how the name was chosen. Everyone seems agreed that “Taylor” was suggested by his sister Sheila, after the actor Robert Taylor. But there are three different plausible stories for how he became Vince. The first is that he named himself after Vince Everett, Elvis’ character in Jailhouse Rock. The second is that he was named after Gene Vincent. And the third is that he took the name from a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes, which had a logo with the Latin motto “in hoc signo vinces” — that last word spelled the same way as “Vinces”. And while I’ve never seen this suggestion made anywhere else, there is also the coincidence that both Licorice Locking and Tony Sheridan had been playing, with Jimmy Nicol, in the Vagabonds, the backing band for one of Larry Parnes’ teen idol acts, Vince Eager, who had made one EP before the Vagabonds had split from him: [Excerpt: Vince Eager, “Yea Yea”] So it may be that the similarity of names was in someone’s mind as well. Taylor and his band, named the Playboys, made a huge impression at the 2is, and they were soon signed to Parlophone Records, and in November 1958 they released their first single. Both sides of the single were cover versions of relatively obscure releases on Sun records. The B-side was a cover version of “I Like Love”, which had been written by Jack Clement for Roy Orbison, while the A-side, “Right Behind You Baby” was written by Charlie Rich and originally recorded by Ray Smith: [Excerpt: Ray Smith, “Right Behind You Baby”] Taylor’s version was the closest thing to an American rockabilly record that had been made in Britain to that point. While the vocal was still nothing special, and the recording techniques in British studios created a more polite sound than their American equivalents, the performance is bursting with energy: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor, “Right Behind You Baby”] It’s Sheridan, though, who really makes the record — he plays a twenty-four bar guitar solo that is absolute light years ahead of anything else that was being done in Britain. Here, for example, is “Guitar Boogie Shuffle”, an instrumental hit from Britain’s top rock and roll guitarist of the time, Bert Weedon: [Excerpt: Bert Weedon, “Guitar Boogie Shuffle”] As you can hear, that’s a perfectly good guitar instrumental, very pleasant, very well played. Now listen to Tony Sheridan’s guitar solo on “Right Behind You Baby”: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor, “Right Behind You Baby”] That’s clearly not as technically skilled as Weedon, but it’s also infinitely more exciting, and it’s more exciting than anything that was being made by any other British musicians at the time. Jack Good certainly thought so. While “Right Behind You Baby” wasn’t a hit, it was enough to get Vince on to Oh Boy!, and it was because of his Oh Boy! performances that Vince switched to the look he would keep for the rest of his career — black leather trousers, a black leather jacket, a black shirt with the top few buttons undone, showing his chest and the medallion he always wore, and black leather gloves. It was a look very similar to that which Gene Vincent also adopted for his performances on Oh Boy! — before that, Vincent had been dressing in a distinctly less memorable style — and I’ve seen differing accounts as to which act took on the style first, though both made it their own. Taylor was memorable enough in this getup that when, in the early seventies, another faded rocker who had been known as Shane Fenton made a comeback as a glam-rocker under the name Alvin Stardust, he copied Taylor’s dress exactly. But Good was unimpressed with Taylor’s performance — and very impressed with Sheridan’s. Sheridan was asked to join the Oh Boy! house band, as well as performing under his own name as Tony Sheridan and the Wreckers. He found himself playing on such less-than-classics as “Happy Organ” by Cherry Wainer: [Excerpt: Cherry Wainer, “The Happy Organ”] He also released his own solo record, “Why”: [Excerpt: Tony Sheridan, “Why”] But Sheridan’s biggest impact on popular music wouldn’t come along for another few years… Losing the most innovative guitarist in the British music industry should have been a death-blow to Taylor’s career, but he managed to find the only other guitarist in Britain at that time who might be considered up to Sheridan’s standard, Joe Moretti — who Taylor nicknamed Scotty Moretti, partly because Moretti was Scottish, but mostly because it would make his name similar to that of Scotty Moore, Elvis’ guitarist, and Taylor could shout out “take it, Scotty!” on the solos. While Sheridan’s style was to play frantic Chuck Berry-style licks, Moretti was a more controlled guitarist, but just as inventive, and he had a particular knack for coming up with riffs. And he showed that knack on Taylor’s next single, the first to be credited to Vince Taylor and the Playboys, rather than just to Vince Taylor. The A-side of that single was rather poor — a cover version of Johnny Ace’s “Pledging My Love”, which was done no favours by Taylor’s vocal: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Playboys, “Pledging My Love”] But it was the B-side that was to become a classic. From the stories told by the band members, it seems that everyone knew that that song — one written by Taylor, who otherwise barely ever wrote songs, preferring to perform cover versions — was something special. But the song mentioned two different brand names, Cadillac and Ford, and the BBC at that time had a ban on playing any music which mentioned a brand name at all. So “Brand New Cadillac” became a B-side, but it’s undoubtedly the most thrilling B-side by a British performer of the fifties, and arguably the only true fifties rock and roll classic by a British artist. “Move It” by Cliff Richard had been a good record by British standards — “Brand New Cadillac” was a great record by any standards: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Playboys, “Brand New Cadillac”] Unfortunately, because “Pledging My Love” was the A-side, the record sold almost nothing, and didn’t make the charts. After two flops in a row, Parlophone dropped Vince Taylor and the Playboys, and Taylor went back to performing at the 2Is with whatever random collection of musicians he could get together. Brian Bennett and Licorice Locking, meanwhile, went on to join Marty Wilde’s band the Wildcats, and scored an immediate hit with Wilde’s rather decent cover version of Dion and the Belmonts’ “Teenager in Love”: [Excerpt: Marty Wilde and the Wildcats, “Teenager in Love”] Moretti, Locking, and Bennett will all turn up in our story in future episodes. Taylor’s career seemed to be over before it had really begun, but then he got a second chance. Palette Records was a small label, based in Belgium, which was starting operations in Britain. They didn’t have any big stars, but they had signed Janis Martin, who we talked about back in episode forty, and in August 1960 they put out her single “Here Today and Gone Tomorrow Love”: [Excerpt: Janis Martin, “Here Today and Gone Tomorrow Love”] And at the same time, they put out a new single by Vince Taylor, with a new lineup of Playboys. The A-side was a fairly uninspired ballad called “I’ll Be Your Hero”, very much in the style of Elvis’ film songs, but they soon switched to promoting the flip side, “Jet Black Machine”, which was much more in Taylor’s style. It wasn’t up to the standards of “Brand New Cadillac”, but it was still far more exciting than most of the records that were being made in the UK at the time: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Playboys, “Jet Black Machine”] That seemed like it would be a turning point in Taylor’s career — according to one source I’ve read, it made the top twenty on the NME charts, though I haven’t been able to check those charts myself, and given how unreliable literally everything I’ve read about Taylor is, I don’t entirely trust that. But it was definitely more successful than his two previous singles, and the new lineup of Playboys were booked on a package tour of acts from the 2Is. Things seemed like they were about to start going Taylor’s way. But Taylor had always been a little erratic, and he started to get almost pathologically jealous. He would phone his girlfriend up every night before going on stage, and if she didn’t answer he’d skip the show, to drive to her house and find out what she was doing. And in November 1960, just before the start of the tour, he skipped out on the tour altogether and headed back to visit his family in the States. The band carried on without him, and became the backing group for Duffy Power, one of the many acts managed by Larry Parnes. Power desperately wanted to be a blues singer, but he was pushed into recording cover versions of American hits, like this one, which came out shortly after the Playboys joined him: [Excerpt: Duffy Power, “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”] The Playboys continued to back Power until June 1960, when they had a gig in Guildford, and a remarkable coincidence happened. They were unloading their equipment at the 2Is, to drive to Guildford with it, when Taylor walked round the corner. He’d just got back from the USA and happened to be passing, and they invited him along for the drive to the show. He came with them, and then Duffy Power, who was almost as unreliable as Taylor, didn’t turn up for the show. They invited Taylor to perform in his place, and he did, and blew the audience away. Power eventually turned up half-way through the show, got angry, punched the drummer in the face during the interval, and drove off again. The drummer got two stitches, and then they finished the show. Taylor was back with the Playboys, and Duffy Power was out, and so the next month when Power was booked for some shows in Paris, on a bill with Vince Eager and Wee Willie Harris, Taylor took his place there, too. France was about as far behind Britain in rock and roll terms as Britain was behind America, and no-one had ever seen anything like Vince Taylor. Taylor and the Playboys got signed to a French label, Barclay Records, and they became huge stars — Taylor did indeed get himself a brand new Cadillac, a pink one just like Elvis had. Taylor got nicknamed “le diable noir” — the black Devil — for his demonic stage presence, and he inspired riots regularly with his shows. A review of one of his performances at that time may be of interest to some listeners: “The atmosphere is like many a night club, but the teenagers stand round the dancing floor which you use as a stage. They jump on a woman with gold trousers and a hand microphone and then hit a man when he says “go away.” A group follows, and so do others, playing ‘Apache’ worse than many other bands. When the singer joins the band, the leather jacket fiends who are the audience, join in dancing and banging tables with chairs. The singers have to go one better than the audience, so they lie on the floor, or jump on a passing drummer, or kiss a guitar, and then hit the man playing it. The crowd enjoy this and many stand on chairs to see the fun, and soon the audience are all singing and shouting like one man, but he didn’t mind. Vince (Ron, Ron) Taylor finally appeared and joined the fun, and in the end he had so much fun that he had to rest. But in spite of this it had been a wonderful show, lovely show…lovely.” That was written by a young man from Liverpool named Paul McCartney, who was visiting Paris with his friend John Lennon for Lennon’s twenty-first birthday. The two attended one of Taylor’s shows there, and McCartney sent that review back to run in Mersey Beat, a local music paper. Lennon and McCartney also met Taylor, with whom they had a mutual friend, Tony Sheridan, and tried to blag their way onto the show themselves, but got turned down. While they were in Paris, they also got their hair cut in a new style, to copy the style that was fashionable among Parisian bohemians. When they got back to Liverpool everyone laughed at their new mop-top hairdos… Taylor kept making records while he was in Paris, mostly cover versions of American hits. Probably the best is his version of Chuck Willis’ “Whatcha Gonna Do?”: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor et ses Play-Boys, “Watcha Gonna Do (When Your Baby Leaves You)?”] But while Taylor was now a big star, his behaviour was becoming ever more erratic, not helped by the amphetamines he was taking to keep himself going during shows. The group quit en masse in November 1962, but he persuaded them back so they could play a two-week residency at the Star Club in Hamburg, before a group from Liverpool called the Beatles took over for Christmas. But Taylor only lasted four days of that two-week residency. Just before midnight on the fifth night, just before they were about to go on, he phoned his girlfriend in Paris, got no answer, decided she was out cheating on him, and flew off to Paris instead of playing the show. He phoned the club’s manager the next day to apologise and say he’d be back for that night’s show, but Horst Fascher, the manager, wasn’t as forgiving of Taylor as most promoters had been, and said that he’d shoot Taylor dead if he ever saw him again. The residency was cancelled, and the Playboys had to sell their mohair suits to Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers to pay for their fare back to Paris. For the next few years, Taylor put out a series of fairly poor records with different backing groups, often singing sickly French-language ballads with orchestral backings. He tried gimmicks like changing from his black leather costume into a white leather one, but nothing seemed to work. His money was running out, but then he had one more opportunity to hit the big time again. Bobby Woodman, the drummer from the second lineup of the Playboys, had been playing with Johnny Hallyday, France’s biggest rock and roll star, under the stage name Bobbie Clarke, but then Hallyday was drafted and his band needed work. They got together with Taylor, and as Vince Taylor and the Bobbie Clarke Noise they recorded an EP of blues and rock covers that included a version of the Arthur Crudup song made famous by Elvis, “My Baby Left Me”. It was a quite extraordinary record, his best since “Brand New Cadillac” seven years earlier: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Bobbie Clarke Noise, “My Baby Left Me”] They played the Paris Olympia again, this time supporting the Rolling Stones. Vince Taylor was on his way to the top again. And they had the prospect of an American record deal — Taylor’s sister Sheila had married Joe Barbera, and he’d started up a new label and was interested in signing Taylor. They arranged a showcase gig for him, and everyone thought this could be the big time. But before that, he had to make a quick trip to the UK. The group were owed money by a business associate there, and so Taylor went over to collect the money, and while he was there he went to Bob Dylan’s party, and dropped acid for the first time. And that was the end of Vince Taylor’s career. One of the things that goes completely unreported about the British teen idols of the fifties is that for whatever reason, and I can’t know for sure, there was a very high incidence of severe mental illness among them — an astonishingly high incidence given how few of them there were. Terry Dene was invalided out of the Army with mental health problems shortly after he was drafted. Duffy Power attempted suicide in the early sixties, and had recurrent mental health problems for many years. And Dickie Pride, who his peers thought was the most talented of the lot, ended up dead aged twenty-seven, after having spent time in a psychiatric hospital and suffering so badly he was lobotomised. Vince Taylor was the one whose mental problems have had the most publicity, but much of that has made his illness seem somehow glamorous or entertaining, so I want to emphasise that it was anything but. I spent several years working on a psychiatric ward, and have seen enough people with the same condition that Taylor had that I have no sense of humour about this subject at all. The rest of this podcast is about a man who was suffering horribly. Taylor had always been unstable — he had been paranoid and controlling, he had a tendency to make up lies about himself and act as if he believed them, and he led a chaotic lifestyle. And while normally LSD is safe even if taken relatively often, Taylor’s first acid trip was the last straw for his fragile mental health. He turned up at the showcase gig unshaven, clutching a bottle of Mateus wine, and announced to everyone that he was Mateus, the new Jesus, the son of God. When asked if he had the band’s money, he pulled out a hundred and fifty francs and set fire to it, ranting about how Jesus had turfed the money-lenders out of the temple. An ambulance was called, and the band did the show without him. They had a gig the next day, and Taylor turned up clean-shaven, smartly dressed, and seemingly normal. He apologised for his behaviour the night before, saying he’d “felt a bit strange” but was better now. But when they got to the club and he saw the sign saying “Vince Taylor and the Bobbie Clarke Noise”, he crossed “Vince Taylor” out, and wrote “Mateus” in a felt pen. During the show, instead of singing, he walked through the crowd, anointing them with water. He spent the next decade in and out of hospital, occasionally touring and recording, but often unable to work. But while he was unwell, “Brand New Cadillac” found a new audience. Indeed, it found several audiences. The Hep Stars, a band from Sweden who featured a pre-ABBA Benny Andersson, had a number one hit in Sweden with their reworking of it, just titled “Cadillac”, in 1965, just a month before Taylor’s breakdown: [Excerpt: Hep Stars, “Cadillac”] In 1971, Mungo Jerry reworked the song as “Baby Jump”, which went to number one in the UK, though they didn’t credit Taylor: [Excerpt: Mungo Jerry, “Baby Jump”] And in 1979, the Clash recorded a version of it for their classic double-album London Calling: [Excerpt: The Clash, “Brand New Cadillac”] Shortly after recording that, Joe Strummer of the Clash met up with Taylor, who spent five hours explaining to Strummer how the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were trying to kill him with poisoned chocolate cake. Taylor at that time was still making music, and trying to latch on to whatever the latest trend was, as in his 1982 single “Space Invaders”, inspired by the arcade game: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor, “Space Invaders”] But the new music he was making was almost an irrelevance — by this point he had become a legend in the British music industry, not for who he was in 1982, but for who he was in 1958, and he has had songs written about him by people as diverse as Adam Ant and Van Morrison. But his biggest influence came in the years immediately after his breakdown. Between 1966 and 1972, Taylor spent much of his time in London, severely mentally ill, but trying to have some kind of social life based on his past glories, reminding people that he had once been a star. One of the people he got to know in London in the mid-sixties was a young musician named David Jones. Jones was fascinated by Taylor, even though he’d never liked his music — Jones’ brother was schizophrenic, and he was worried that he would end up like his brother. Jones also wanted to be a rock and roll star, and had some mildly messianic ideas of his own. So a rock and roll star who thought he was Jesus — although he sometimes thought he was an alien, rather than Jesus, and sometimes claimed that Jesus *was* an alien — and who was clearly severely mentally ill, had a fascination for him. He talked later about not having been able to decide whether he was seeing Taylor as an example to follow or a cautionary tale, and about how he’d sat with Taylor outside Charing Cross Station while Taylor had used a magnifying glass and a map of Europe to show him all the sites where aliens were going to land. Several years later, after changing his name to David Bowie, Jones remembered the story of Vince Taylor, the rock and roll star who thought he was an alien messiah, and turned it into the story of Ziggy Stardust: [Excerpt: David Bowie, “Ziggy Stardust”] In 1983, Taylor retired to Switzerland with his new wife Nathalie. He changed his name back to Brian Holden, and while he would play the occasional gig, he tried as best he could to forget his past, and seems to have recovered somewhat from his mental illness. In 1991 he was diagnosed with cancer, and died of it three months later. Shortly before he died, he told a friend “If I die, you can tell them that the only period in my life where I was really happy was my life in Switzerland”.
Episode seventy-seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Brand New Cadillac" by Vince Taylor and the Playboys, and the sad career of rock music's first acid casualty. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers have two bonus podcasts this week. There's a haf-hour Q&A episode, where I answer backers' questions, and a ten-minute bonus episode on "The Hippy Hippy Shake" by Chan Romero. 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/ ----more---- Resources As always, I've created a Mixcloud streaming playlist with full versions of all the songs in the episode. There are several books available on Vince Taylor, including an autobiography, but sadly these are all in French, a language I don't speak past schoolboy level, so I can't say if they're any good. The main resources I used for this episode were the liner notes for this compilation CD of Taylor's best material, this archived copy of a twenty-year-old homepage by a friend of Taylor's, this blogged history of Taylor and the Playboys, and this Radio 4 documentary on Taylor. But *all* of these were riddled with errors, and I used dozens of other resources to try to straighten out the facts -- everything from a genealogy website to interviews with Tony Sheridan to the out-of-print autobiography of Joe Barbera. No doubt this episode still has errors in it, but I am fairly confident that it has fewer errors than anything else in English about Taylor on the Internet. Errata I say that Gene Vincent also appeared on Oh Boy! -- in fact he didn't appear on UK TV until Parnes' next show, Boy Meets Girls, which would mean Taylor was definitely the originator of that style. A major clanger -- I say that Sheridan recorded "Why" while he was working on "Oh Boy!" -- in fact this wasn't recorded until later -- *with the Beatles* as his backing band. I should have known that one, but it slipped my mind and I trusted my source, wrongly. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript On the twenty-first of May 1965, at the Savoy Hotel in London, there was a party which would have two major effects on the history of rock and roll music, one which would be felt almost immediately, and one whose full ramifications wouldn't be seen for almost a decade. Bob Dylan was on the European tour which is chronicled in the film "Don't Look Back", and he'd just spent a week in Portugal. He'd come back to the UK, and the next day he was planning to film his first ever televised concert. That plan was put on hold. Dylan was rushed to hospital the day after the party, with what was claimed to be food poisoning but has often been rumoured to be something else. He spent the next week in bed, back at the Savoy, attended by a private nurse, and during that time he wrote what he called "a long piece of vomit around twenty pages long". From that "long piece of vomit" he later extracted the lyrics to what became "Like a Rolling Stone". But Dylan wasn't the only one who came out of that party feeling funny. Vince Taylor, a minor British rock and roller who'd never had much success over here but was big in France, was also there. There are no euphemisms about what it was that happened to him. He had dropped acid at the party, for the first time, and had liked it so much he'd immediately spent two hundred pounds on buying all the acid he could from the person who'd given it to him. The next day, Taylor was meant to be playing a showcase gig. His brother-in-law, Joe Barbera of Hanna Barbera, owned a record label, and was considering signing Taylor. It could be the start of a comeback for him. Instead, it was the end of his career, and the start of a legend: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Playboys, "Brand New Cadillac"] There are two problems with telling the story of Vince Taylor. One is that he was a compulsive liar, who would make up claims like that he was related to Tenzing Norgay, the Nepalese mountaineer who was one of the two men who first climbed Everest, or that he was an airline pilot as a teenager. The other is that nobody who has written about Taylor has bothered to do even the most cursory fact-checking For example, if you read any online articles about Vince Taylor at all, you see the same story about his upbringing -- he was born Brian Holden in the UK, he emigrated to New Jersey with his family in the forties, and then his sister Sheila met Joe Barbera, the co-creator of the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Sheila married him in 1955 and moved with him to Los Angeles -- and so the rest of the family also moved there, and Brian went to Hollywood High School. Barbera decided to manage his brother-in-law, bring him over to London to check out the British music scene, and get him a record deal. There's just... a bit of a problem with this story. Sheila did marry Joe Barbera, but not until the mid 1960s. Her first marriage, in 1947, was to Joe Singer, and it was Singer, not Barbera, who was Taylor's first manager. That kind of inaccuracy appears all over the story of Vince Taylor So, what we actually know is that Brian Maurice Holden -- or Maurice Brian Holden, even his birth name seems to be disputed -- was born in Isleworth Middlesex, and moved to New Jersey when he was seven, with his family, emigrating on the Mauretania, and that he came back to London in his late teens. While there was a real Hollywood High School, which Ricky Nelson among others had attended, I suspect it's as likely that Holden decided to just tell people that was where he'd been to school, because "Hollywood High School" would sound impressive to British people. And sounding impressive to British people was what Brian Holden had decided to base his career on. He claimed to an acquaintance, shortly after he returned to the UK, that he'd heard a Tommy Steele record while he was in the US, and had thought "If this is rock and roll in England, we'll take them by storm!" [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, "Rock With the Caveman"] Holden had been playing American Legion shows and similar small venues in the US, and when his brother-in-law Joe Singer came over to Britain on a business trip, Holden decided to tag along, and Singer became Holden's manager. Holden had three great advantages over British stars like Steele. He had spent long enough in America that he could tell people that he was American and they would believe him. In Britain in the 1950s, there were so few Americans that just being from that country was enough to make you a novelty, and Holden milked that for all it was worth, even though his accent, from the few bits of interviews I've heard with him, was pure London. He was also much, much better looking than almost all the British rock and roll stars. Because of rationing and general poverty in the UK in the forties and fifties as a result of the war, the British fifties teenage generation were on the whole rather scrawny, pasty-looking, and undernourished, with bad complexions, bad teeth, and a general haggardness that meant that even teen idols like Dickie Pride, Tommy Steele, or Marty Wilde were not, by modern standards, at all good looking. Brian Holden, on the other hand, had film-star good looks. He had a chiselled jaw, thick black hair combed into a quiff, and a dazzling smile showing Hollywood-perfect teeth. I am the farthest thing there is from a judge of male beauty, but of all the fifties rock and roll stars, the only one who was better looking than him was Elvis, and even Elvis had to grow into his good looks, while Holden, even when he came to the UK aged eighteen, looked like a cross between James Dean and Rock Hudson. And finally, he had a real sense of what rock and roll was, in a way that almost none of the British musicians did. He knew, in particular, what a rockabilly record should sound like. He did have one tiny drawback, though -- he couldn't sing in tune, or keep time. But nobody except the unfortunate musicians who ended up backing him saw that as a particular problem. Being unable to sing was a minor matter. He had presence, and he was going to be a star. Everyone knew it. He started performing at the 2Is, and he put together a band which had a rather fluid membership that to start with featured Tony Meehan, a drummer who had been in the Vipers Skiffle Group and would later join the Shadows, but by the time he got a record deal consisted of four of the regular musicians from the 2is -- Tony Sheridan on lead guitar, Tony Harvey on rhythm, Licorice Locking on bass and Brian Bennett on drums. He also got himself a new name, and once again there seems to be some doubt as to how the name was chosen. Everyone seems agreed that "Taylor" was suggested by his sister Sheila, after the actor Robert Taylor. But there are three different plausible stories for how he became Vince. The first is that he named himself after Vince Everett, Elvis' character in Jailhouse Rock. The second is that he was named after Gene Vincent. And the third is that he took the name from a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes, which had a logo with the Latin motto "in hoc signo vinces" -- that last word spelled the same way as "Vinces". And while I've never seen this suggestion made anywhere else, there is also the coincidence that both Licorice Locking and Tony Sheridan had been playing, with Jimmy Nicol, in the Vagabonds, the backing band for one of Larry Parnes' teen idol acts, Vince Eager, who had made one EP before the Vagabonds had split from him: [Excerpt: Vince Eager, "Yea Yea"] So it may be that the similarity of names was in someone's mind as well. Taylor and his band, named the Playboys, made a huge impression at the 2is, and they were soon signed to Parlophone Records, and in November 1958 they released their first single. Both sides of the single were cover versions of relatively obscure releases on Sun records. The B-side was a cover version of "I Like Love", which had been written by Jack Clement for Roy Orbison, while the A-side, "Right Behind You Baby" was written by Charlie Rich and originally recorded by Ray Smith: [Excerpt: Ray Smith, "Right Behind You Baby"] Taylor's version was the closest thing to an American rockabilly record that had been made in Britain to that point. While the vocal was still nothing special, and the recording techniques in British studios created a more polite sound than their American equivalents, the performance is bursting with energy: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor, "Right Behind You Baby"] It's Sheridan, though, who really makes the record -- he plays a twenty-four bar guitar solo that is absolute light years ahead of anything else that was being done in Britain. Here, for example, is "Guitar Boogie Shuffle", an instrumental hit from Britain's top rock and roll guitarist of the time, Bert Weedon: [Excerpt: Bert Weedon, "Guitar Boogie Shuffle"] As you can hear, that's a perfectly good guitar instrumental, very pleasant, very well played. Now listen to Tony Sheridan's guitar solo on "Right Behind You Baby": [Excerpt: Vince Taylor, "Right Behind You Baby"] That's clearly not as technically skilled as Weedon, but it's also infinitely more exciting, and it's more exciting than anything that was being made by any other British musicians at the time. Jack Good certainly thought so. While "Right Behind You Baby" wasn't a hit, it was enough to get Vince on to Oh Boy!, and it was because of his Oh Boy! performances that Vince switched to the look he would keep for the rest of his career -- black leather trousers, a black leather jacket, a black shirt with the top few buttons undone, showing his chest and the medallion he always wore, and black leather gloves. It was a look very similar to that which Gene Vincent also adopted for his performances on Oh Boy! -- before that, Vincent had been dressing in a distinctly less memorable style -- and I've seen differing accounts as to which act took on the style first, though both made it their own. Taylor was memorable enough in this getup that when, in the early seventies, another faded rocker who had been known as Shane Fenton made a comeback as a glam-rocker under the name Alvin Stardust, he copied Taylor's dress exactly. But Good was unimpressed with Taylor's performance -- and very impressed with Sheridan's. Sheridan was asked to join the Oh Boy! house band, as well as performing under his own name as Tony Sheridan and the Wreckers. He found himself playing on such less-than-classics as "Happy Organ" by Cherry Wainer: [Excerpt: Cherry Wainer, "The Happy Organ"] He also released his own solo record, "Why": [Excerpt: Tony Sheridan, "Why"] But Sheridan's biggest impact on popular music wouldn't come along for another few years... Losing the most innovative guitarist in the British music industry should have been a death-blow to Taylor's career, but he managed to find the only other guitarist in Britain at that time who might be considered up to Sheridan's standard, Joe Moretti -- who Taylor nicknamed Scotty Moretti, partly because Moretti was Scottish, but mostly because it would make his name similar to that of Scotty Moore, Elvis' guitarist, and Taylor could shout out "take it, Scotty!" on the solos. While Sheridan's style was to play frantic Chuck Berry-style licks, Moretti was a more controlled guitarist, but just as inventive, and he had a particular knack for coming up with riffs. And he showed that knack on Taylor's next single, the first to be credited to Vince Taylor and the Playboys, rather than just to Vince Taylor. The A-side of that single was rather poor -- a cover version of Johnny Ace's "Pledging My Love", which was done no favours by Taylor's vocal: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Playboys, "Pledging My Love"] But it was the B-side that was to become a classic. From the stories told by the band members, it seems that everyone knew that that song -- one written by Taylor, who otherwise barely ever wrote songs, preferring to perform cover versions -- was something special. But the song mentioned two different brand names, Cadillac and Ford, and the BBC at that time had a ban on playing any music which mentioned a brand name at all. So "Brand New Cadillac" became a B-side, but it's undoubtedly the most thrilling B-side by a British performer of the fifties, and arguably the only true fifties rock and roll classic by a British artist. "Move It" by Cliff Richard had been a good record by British standards -- "Brand New Cadillac" was a great record by any standards: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Playboys, "Brand New Cadillac"] Unfortunately, because "Pledging My Love" was the A-side, the record sold almost nothing, and didn't make the charts. After two flops in a row, Parlophone dropped Vince Taylor and the Playboys, and Taylor went back to performing at the 2Is with whatever random collection of musicians he could get together. Brian Bennett and Licorice Locking, meanwhile, went on to join Marty Wilde's band the Wildcats, and scored an immediate hit with Wilde's rather decent cover version of Dion and the Belmonts' "Teenager in Love": [Excerpt: Marty Wilde and the Wildcats, "Teenager in Love"] Moretti, Locking, and Bennett will all turn up in our story in future episodes. Taylor's career seemed to be over before it had really begun, but then he got a second chance. Palette Records was a small label, based in Belgium, which was starting operations in Britain. They didn't have any big stars, but they had signed Janis Martin, who we talked about back in episode forty, and in August 1960 they put out her single "Here Today and Gone Tomorrow Love": [Excerpt: Janis Martin, "Here Today and Gone Tomorrow Love"] And at the same time, they put out a new single by Vince Taylor, with a new lineup of Playboys. The A-side was a fairly uninspired ballad called "I'll Be Your Hero", very much in the style of Elvis' film songs, but they soon switched to promoting the flip side, "Jet Black Machine", which was much more in Taylor's style. It wasn't up to the standards of "Brand New Cadillac", but it was still far more exciting than most of the records that were being made in the UK at the time: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Playboys, "Jet Black Machine"] That seemed like it would be a turning point in Taylor's career -- according to one source I've read, it made the top twenty on the NME charts, though I haven't been able to check those charts myself, and given how unreliable literally everything I've read about Taylor is, I don't entirely trust that. But it was definitely more successful than his two previous singles, and the new lineup of Playboys were booked on a package tour of acts from the 2Is. Things seemed like they were about to start going Taylor's way. But Taylor had always been a little erratic, and he started to get almost pathologically jealous. He would phone his girlfriend up every night before going on stage, and if she didn't answer he'd skip the show, to drive to her house and find out what she was doing. And in November 1960, just before the start of the tour, he skipped out on the tour altogether and headed back to visit his family in the States. The band carried on without him, and became the backing group for Duffy Power, one of the many acts managed by Larry Parnes. Power desperately wanted to be a blues singer, but he was pushed into recording cover versions of American hits, like this one, which came out shortly after the Playboys joined him: [Excerpt: Duffy Power, "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On"] The Playboys continued to back Power until June 1960, when they had a gig in Guildford, and a remarkable coincidence happened. They were unloading their equipment at the 2Is, to drive to Guildford with it, when Taylor walked round the corner. He'd just got back from the USA and happened to be passing, and they invited him along for the drive to the show. He came with them, and then Duffy Power, who was almost as unreliable as Taylor, didn't turn up for the show. They invited Taylor to perform in his place, and he did, and blew the audience away. Power eventually turned up half-way through the show, got angry, punched the drummer in the face during the interval, and drove off again. The drummer got two stitches, and then they finished the show. Taylor was back with the Playboys, and Duffy Power was out, and so the next month when Power was booked for some shows in Paris, on a bill with Vince Eager and Wee Willie Harris, Taylor took his place there, too. France was about as far behind Britain in rock and roll terms as Britain was behind America, and no-one had ever seen anything like Vince Taylor. Taylor and the Playboys got signed to a French label, Barclay Records, and they became huge stars -- Taylor did indeed get himself a brand new Cadillac, a pink one just like Elvis had. Taylor got nicknamed "le diable noir" -- the black Devil -- for his demonic stage presence, and he inspired riots regularly with his shows. A review of one of his performances at that time may be of interest to some listeners: "The atmosphere is like many a night club, but the teenagers stand round the dancing floor which you use as a stage. They jump on a woman with gold trousers and a hand microphone and then hit a man when he says "go away." A group follows, and so do others, playing 'Apache' worse than many other bands. When the singer joins the band, the leather jacket fiends who are the audience, join in dancing and banging tables with chairs. The singers have to go one better than the audience, so they lie on the floor, or jump on a passing drummer, or kiss a guitar, and then hit the man playing it. The crowd enjoy this and many stand on chairs to see the fun, and soon the audience are all singing and shouting like one man, but he didn't mind. Vince (Ron, Ron) Taylor finally appeared and joined the fun, and in the end he had so much fun that he had to rest. But in spite of this it had been a wonderful show, lovely show...lovely." That was written by a young man from Liverpool named Paul McCartney, who was visiting Paris with his friend John Lennon for Lennon's twenty-first birthday. The two attended one of Taylor's shows there, and McCartney sent that review back to run in Mersey Beat, a local music paper. Lennon and McCartney also met Taylor, with whom they had a mutual friend, Tony Sheridan, and tried to blag their way onto the show themselves, but got turned down. While they were in Paris, they also got their hair cut in a new style, to copy the style that was fashionable among Parisian bohemians. When they got back to Liverpool everyone laughed at their new mop-top hairdos... Taylor kept making records while he was in Paris, mostly cover versions of American hits. Probably the best is his version of Chuck Willis' "Whatcha Gonna Do?": [Excerpt: Vince Taylor et ses Play-Boys, "Watcha Gonna Do (When Your Baby Leaves You)?"] But while Taylor was now a big star, his behaviour was becoming ever more erratic, not helped by the amphetamines he was taking to keep himself going during shows. The group quit en masse in November 1962, but he persuaded them back so they could play a two-week residency at the Star Club in Hamburg, before a group from Liverpool called the Beatles took over for Christmas. But Taylor only lasted four days of that two-week residency. Just before midnight on the fifth night, just before they were about to go on, he phoned his girlfriend in Paris, got no answer, decided she was out cheating on him, and flew off to Paris instead of playing the show. He phoned the club's manager the next day to apologise and say he'd be back for that night's show, but Horst Fascher, the manager, wasn't as forgiving of Taylor as most promoters had been, and said that he'd shoot Taylor dead if he ever saw him again. The residency was cancelled, and the Playboys had to sell their mohair suits to Cliff Bennett and the Rebel Rousers to pay for their fare back to Paris. For the next few years, Taylor put out a series of fairly poor records with different backing groups, often singing sickly French-language ballads with orchestral backings. He tried gimmicks like changing from his black leather costume into a white leather one, but nothing seemed to work. His money was running out, but then he had one more opportunity to hit the big time again. Bobby Woodman, the drummer from the second lineup of the Playboys, had been playing with Johnny Hallyday, France's biggest rock and roll star, under the stage name Bobbie Clarke, but then Hallyday was drafted and his band needed work. They got together with Taylor, and as Vince Taylor and the Bobbie Clarke Noise they recorded an EP of blues and rock covers that included a version of the Arthur Crudup song made famous by Elvis, "My Baby Left Me". It was a quite extraordinary record, his best since "Brand New Cadillac" seven years earlier: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor and the Bobbie Clarke Noise, "My Baby Left Me"] They played the Paris Olympia again, this time supporting the Rolling Stones. Vince Taylor was on his way to the top again. And they had the prospect of an American record deal -- Taylor's sister Sheila had married Joe Barbera, and he'd started up a new label and was interested in signing Taylor. They arranged a showcase gig for him, and everyone thought this could be the big time. But before that, he had to make a quick trip to the UK. The group were owed money by a business associate there, and so Taylor went over to collect the money, and while he was there he went to Bob Dylan's party, and dropped acid for the first time. And that was the end of Vince Taylor's career. One of the things that goes completely unreported about the British teen idols of the fifties is that for whatever reason, and I can't know for sure, there was a very high incidence of severe mental illness among them -- an astonishingly high incidence given how few of them there were. Terry Dene was invalided out of the Army with mental health problems shortly after he was drafted. Duffy Power attempted suicide in the early sixties, and had recurrent mental health problems for many years. And Dickie Pride, who his peers thought was the most talented of the lot, ended up dead aged twenty-seven, after having spent time in a psychiatric hospital and suffering so badly he was lobotomised. Vince Taylor was the one whose mental problems have had the most publicity, but much of that has made his illness seem somehow glamorous or entertaining, so I want to emphasise that it was anything but. I spent several years working on a psychiatric ward, and have seen enough people with the same condition that Taylor had that I have no sense of humour about this subject at all. The rest of this podcast is about a man who was suffering horribly. Taylor had always been unstable -- he had been paranoid and controlling, he had a tendency to make up lies about himself and act as if he believed them, and he led a chaotic lifestyle. And while normally LSD is safe even if taken relatively often, Taylor's first acid trip was the last straw for his fragile mental health. He turned up at the showcase gig unshaven, clutching a bottle of Mateus wine, and announced to everyone that he was Mateus, the new Jesus, the son of God. When asked if he had the band's money, he pulled out a hundred and fifty francs and set fire to it, ranting about how Jesus had turfed the money-lenders out of the temple. An ambulance was called, and the band did the show without him. They had a gig the next day, and Taylor turned up clean-shaven, smartly dressed, and seemingly normal. He apologised for his behaviour the night before, saying he'd "felt a bit strange" but was better now. But when they got to the club and he saw the sign saying "Vince Taylor and the Bobbie Clarke Noise", he crossed "Vince Taylor" out, and wrote "Mateus" in a felt pen. During the show, instead of singing, he walked through the crowd, anointing them with water. He spent the next decade in and out of hospital, occasionally touring and recording, but often unable to work. But while he was unwell, "Brand New Cadillac" found a new audience. Indeed, it found several audiences. The Hep Stars, a band from Sweden who featured a pre-ABBA Benny Andersson, had a number one hit in Sweden with their reworking of it, just titled "Cadillac", in 1965, just a month before Taylor's breakdown: [Excerpt: Hep Stars, "Cadillac"] In 1971, Mungo Jerry reworked the song as "Baby Jump", which went to number one in the UK, though they didn't credit Taylor: [Excerpt: Mungo Jerry, "Baby Jump"] And in 1979, the Clash recorded a version of it for their classic double-album London Calling: [Excerpt: The Clash, "Brand New Cadillac"] Shortly after recording that, Joe Strummer of the Clash met up with Taylor, who spent five hours explaining to Strummer how the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were trying to kill him with poisoned chocolate cake. Taylor at that time was still making music, and trying to latch on to whatever the latest trend was, as in his 1982 single "Space Invaders", inspired by the arcade game: [Excerpt: Vince Taylor, "Space Invaders"] But the new music he was making was almost an irrelevance -- by this point he had become a legend in the British music industry, not for who he was in 1982, but for who he was in 1958, and he has had songs written about him by people as diverse as Adam Ant and Van Morrison. But his biggest influence came in the years immediately after his breakdown. Between 1966 and 1972, Taylor spent much of his time in London, severely mentally ill, but trying to have some kind of social life based on his past glories, reminding people that he had once been a star. One of the people he got to know in London in the mid-sixties was a young musician named David Jones. Jones was fascinated by Taylor, even though he'd never liked his music -- Jones' brother was schizophrenic, and he was worried that he would end up like his brother. Jones also wanted to be a rock and roll star, and had some mildly messianic ideas of his own. So a rock and roll star who thought he was Jesus -- although he sometimes thought he was an alien, rather than Jesus, and sometimes claimed that Jesus *was* an alien -- and who was clearly severely mentally ill, had a fascination for him. He talked later about not having been able to decide whether he was seeing Taylor as an example to follow or a cautionary tale, and about how he'd sat with Taylor outside Charing Cross Station while Taylor had used a magnifying glass and a map of Europe to show him all the sites where aliens were going to land. Several years later, after changing his name to David Bowie, Jones remembered the story of Vince Taylor, the rock and roll star who thought he was an alien messiah, and turned it into the story of Ziggy Stardust: [Excerpt: David Bowie, "Ziggy Stardust"] In 1983, Taylor retired to Switzerland with his new wife Nathalie. He changed his name back to Brian Holden, and while he would play the occasional gig, he tried as best he could to forget his past, and seems to have recovered somewhat from his mental illness. In 1991 he was diagnosed with cancer, and died of it three months later. Shortly before he died, he told a friend "If I die, you can tell them that the only period in my life where I was really happy was my life in Switzerland".
He is a man of justice, he is a man of might! Sofia chats with the TOTALLY AWESOME Brian Holden (A Very Potter Sequel, Holy Musical B@man!, Ani: A Parody, Starship, Me and My Dick, A Very Potter Senior Year)!!! Brian is a founding member of Team StarKid and has played many different roles in... Continue Reading →
Green Beans, Mushroom Soup, & Strawberry Ice Cream_with your host Marc Gladstone
A show focusing only on the music of Vancouver and surrounding area. There’s a lot of amazing music going on right here. Listen to Garrett, HEAD, Mike Luno Band, Borg Queen, Brian Holden and more. http://www.pacificnorthwestradio.com/ (Support the show.) Support this podcast
Since it's Musical Week at the DC TV Podcast network, the Classics crew has assembled the major players from StarKid Productions' Holy Musical B@man! Joining Keith, Britney, and Desiree are Nick Lang -- who played Robin, Joe Walker -- who played Batman, and Brian Holden -- who played Superman. And rounding out the panel is someone who knows a thing or two about musicals, former Warbler on Glee: Curt Mega! Together they discuss everything from the show's origins, why Batman was the perfect superhero for a musical, which Hogwarts House they'd sort their characters into, and what a Holy Musical sequel might contain. About the podcast: DC TV Classics, a product of DC TV Podcasts, is dedicated to reflecting and discussing the previous DC Comics television shows that have come before, such as The Adventures of Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman ’66, Smallville, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Birds of Prey, Batman: The Animated Series, Justice League, and much more. Join Keith Chow, Britney Monae and Desiree Rodriguez twice per month as they explore some of these beloved and classic DC TV shows. DC TV Classics is not affiliated with DC Comics or Warner Bros. Television. Logos and artwork featuring DC Comics characters or properties, are trademark of DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Television. Find DC TV Classics on: Social Media: Facebook – @DCTVClassics – Instagram Subscribe: iTunes – Stitcher Radio – YouTube – DC TV Podcasts Contact: dctvepodcasts@gmail.com
Finally, the Holodeck gets used for something other than a place for Riker to mope about girl problems, as Picard takes a virtual-reality vacation to live the life of a 1940s private eye. Brian Holden of Starkid joins Pat and Pat to discuss his Star Trek fandom and whether or not the Holodeck is actually an elaborate execution chamber.
Brian Holden is here to help us discuss ... wait, is that Brian or Erica? Are there some straight up Mrs. Doubtfire shenanigans going on in this studio of ours? We're gonna have to get to the bottom of this, but in the meantime, let's just assume it was Brian who helped us discuss Goodbye, Mr. Bear, in which Danny's frothing enthusiasm for spring cleaning results in Stephanie losing her most prized companion. And if you think it won't take a hard turn into depression, think again. This one is SAD, folks, so break out your tissues and tuck in. Then when it's all said and done be sure to head on over to the iTunes Store and let us know what you think. Go-go-go! P.S. Do you think Erica would go out with us? She seems super hot!
In this year-end episode, Jimmy, Producer Ben Capraro, and Head of Interns Lauren Carrane sit down to discuss their favorite moments of the show in 2013. Listen in as we review moments with Rossy Bryant, Matt Besser, Andy St. Clair, Chris Witaske, John Hartman, Frank Caeti, Edgar Blackmon, Brian Holden and Brett Lyons. We also debut a new segment - Lauren Carrane, Starfucker! Please enjoy and Happy New Year!
Team StarKid has taken the internet by storm with its staged parodies of Harry Potter and our guest Brian Holden is a founding member of the group. In this episode, Brian sits down with Jimmy to discuss Team StarKid's process, how he got involved in improv, and what it's like to instantly have a massive fan base.
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