Podcasts about hokey pokey

For those who haven't heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the second part of a two-episode look at the song “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” by Fairport Convention, and the intertwining careers of Joe Boyd, Sandy Denny, and Richard Thompson. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-one-minute bonus episode available, on Judy Collins’ version of this song. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by editing, 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/ Erratum For about an hour this was uploaded with the wrong Elton John clip in place of “Saturday Sun”. This has now been fixed. Resources Because of the increasing problems with Mixcloud’s restrictions, I have decided to start sharing streaming playlists of the songs used in episodes instead of Mixcloud ones. This Tunemymusic link will let you listen to the playlist I created on your streaming platform of choice — however please note that not all the songs excerpted are currently available on streaming. The songs missing from the Tidal version are “Shanten Bells” by the Ian Campbell Folk Group, “Tom’s Gone to Hilo” by A.L. Lloyd, two by Paul McNeill and Linda Peters, three by Elton John & Linda Peters, “What Will I Do With Tomorrow” by Sandy Denny and “You Never Know” by Charlie Drake, but the other fifty-nine are there. Other songs may be missing from other services. The main books I used on Fairport Convention as a whole were Patrick Humphries' Meet On The Ledge, Clinton Heylin's What We Did Instead of Holidays, and Kevan Furbank's Fairport Convention on Track. Rob Young's Electric Eden is the most important book on the British folk-rock movement. Information on Richard Thompson comes from Patrick Humphries' Richard Thompson: Strange Affair and Thompson's own autobiography Beeswing.  Information on Sandy Denny comes from Clinton Heylin's No More Sad Refrains and Mick Houghton's I've Always Kept a Unicorn. I also used Joe Boyd's autobiography White Bicycles and Chris Blackwell's The Islander.  And this three-CD set is the best introduction to Fairport's music currently in print. Transcript Before we begin, this episode contains reference to alcohol and cocaine abuse and medical neglect leading to death. It also starts with some discussion of the fatal car accident that ended last episode. There’s also some mention of child neglect and spousal violence. If that’s likely to upset you, you might want to skip this episode or read the transcript. One of the inspirations for this podcast when I started it back in 2018 was a project by Richard Thompson, which appears (like many things in Thompson’s life) to have started out of sheer bloody-mindedness. In 1999 Playboy magazine asked various people to list their “songs of the Millennium”, and most of them, understanding the brief, chose a handful of songs from the latter half of the twentieth century. But Thompson determined that he was going to list his favourite songs *of the millennium*. He didn’t quite manage that, but he did cover seven hundred and forty years, and when Playboy chose not to publish it, he decided to turn it into a touring show, in which he covered all his favourite songs from “Sumer Is Icumen In” from 1260: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Sumer is Icumen In”] Through numerous traditional folk songs, union songs like “Blackleg Miner”, pieces by early-modern composers, Victorian and Edwardian music hall songs, and songs by the Beatles, the Ink Spots, the Kinks, and the Who, all the way to “Oops! I Did It Again”: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Oops! I Did it Again”] And to finish the show, and to show how all this music actually ties together, he would play what he described as a “medieval tune from Brittany”, “Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt”: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt”] We have said many times in this podcast that there is no first anything, but there’s a reason that Liege and Lief, Fairport Convention’s third album of 1969, and the album other than Unhalfbricking on which their reputation largely rests, was advertised with the slogan “The first (literally) British folk rock album ever”. Folk-rock, as the term had come to be known, and as it is still usually used today, had very little to do with traditional folk music. Rather, the records of bands like The Byrds or Simon and Garfunkel were essentially taking the sounds of British beat groups of the early sixties, particularly the Searchers, and applying those sounds to material by contemporary singer-songwriters. People like Paul Simon and Bob Dylan had come up through folk clubs, and their songs were called folk music because of that, but they weren’t what folk music had meant up to that point — songs that had been collected after being handed down through the folk process, changed by each individual singer, with no single identifiable author. They were authored songs by very idiosyncratic writers. But over their last few albums, Fairport Convention had done one or two tracks per album that weren’t like that, that were instead recordings of traditional folk songs, but arranged with rock instrumentation. They were not necessarily the first band to try traditional folk music with electric instruments — around the same time that Fairport started experimenting with the idea, so did an Irish band named Sweeney’s Men, who brought in a young electric guitarist named Henry McCullough briefly. But they do seem to have been the first to have fully embraced the idea. They had done so to an extent with “A Sailor’s Life” on Unhalfbricking, but now they were going to go much further: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Matty Groves” (from about 4:30)] There had been some doubt as to whether Fairport Convention would even continue to exist — by the time Unhalfbricking, their second album of the year, was released, they had been through the terrible car accident that had killed Martin Lamble, the band’s drummer, and Jeannie Franklyn, Richard Thompson’s girlfriend. Most of the rest of the band had been seriously injured, and they had made a conscious decision not to discuss the future of the band until they were all out of hospital. Ashley Hutchings was hospitalised the longest, and Simon Nicol, Richard Thompson, and Sandy Denny, the other three surviving members of the band, flew over to LA with their producer and manager, Joe Boyd, to recuperate there and get to know the American music scene. When they came back, the group all met up in the flat belonging to Denny’s boyfriend Trevor Lucas, and decided that they were going to continue the band. They made a few decisions then — they needed a new drummer, and as well as a drummer they wanted to get in Dave Swarbrick. Swarbrick had played violin on several tracks on Unhalfbricking as a session player, and they had all been thrilled to work with him. Swarbrick was one of the most experienced musicians on the British folk circuit. He had started out in the fifties playing guitar with Beryl Marriott’s Ceilidh Band before switching to fiddle, and in 1963, long before Fairport had formed, he had already appeared on TV with the Ian Campbell Folk Group, led by Ian Campbell, the father of Ali and Robin Campbell, later of UB40: [Excerpt: The Ian Campbell Folk Group, “Shanten Bells (medley on Hullaballoo!)”] He’d sung with Ewan MacColl and A.L. Lloyd: [Excerpt: A.L. Lloyd, “Tom’s Gone to Hilo” ] And he’d formed his hugely successful duo with Martin Carthy, releasing records like “Byker Hill” which are often considered among the best British folk music of all time: [Excerpt: Martin Carthy and Dave Swarbrick, “Byker Hill”] By the time Fairport had invited him to play on Unhalfbricking, Swarbrick had already performed on twenty albums as a core band member, plus dozens more EPs, singles, and odd tracks on compilations. They had no reason to think they could actually get him to join their band. But they had three advantages. The first was that Swarbrick was sick of the traditional folk scene at the time, saying later “I didn’t like seven-eighths of the people involved in it, and it was extremely opportune to leave. I was suddenly presented with the possibilities of exploring the dramatic content of the songs to the full.” The second was that he was hugely excited to be playing with Richard Thompson, who was one of the most innovative guitarists of his generation, and Martin Carthy remembers him raving about Thompson after their initial sessions. (Carthy himself was and is no slouch on the guitar of course, and there was even talk of getting him to join the band at this point, though they decided against it — much to the relief of rhythm guitarist Simon Nicol, who is a perfectly fine player himself but didn’t want to be outclassed by *two* of the best guitarists in Britain at the same time). And the third was that Joe Boyd told him that Fairport were doing so well — they had a single just about to hit the charts with “Si Tu Dois Partir” — that he would only have to play a dozen gigs with Fairport in order to retire. As it turned out, Swarbrick would play with the group for a decade, and would never retire — I saw him on his last tour in 2015, only eight months before he died. The drummer the group picked was also a far more experienced musician than any of the rest, though in a very different genre. Dave Mattacks had no knowledge at all of the kind of music they played, having previously been a player in dance bands. When asked by Hutchings if he wanted to join the band, Mattacks’ response was “I don’t know anything about the music. I don’t understand it… I can’t tell one tune from another, they all sound the same… but if you want me to join the group, fine, because I really like it. I’m enjoying myself musically.” Mattacks brought a new level of professionalism to the band, thanks to his different background. Nicol said of him later “He was dilligent, clean, used to taking three white shirts to a gig… The application he could bring to his playing was amazing. With us, you only played well when you were feeling well.” This distinction applied to his playing as well. Nicol would later describe the difference between Mattacks’ drumming and Lamble’s by saying “Martin’s strength was as an imaginative drummer. DM came in with a strongly developed sense of rhythm, through keeping a big band of drunken saxophone players in order. A great time-keeper.” With this new line-up and a new sense of purpose, the group did as many of their contemporaries were doing and “got their heads together in the country”. Joe Boyd rented the group a mansion, Farley House, in Farley Chamberlayne, Hampshire, and they stayed there together for three months. At the start, the group seem to have thought that they were going to make another record like Unhalfbricking, with some originals, some songs by American songwriters, and a few traditional songs. Even after their stay in Farley Chamberlayne, in fact, they recorded a few of the American songs they’d rehearsed at the start of the process, Richard Farina’s “Quiet Joys of Brotherhood” and Bob Dylan and Roger McGuinn’s “Ballad of Easy Rider”: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Ballad of Easy Rider”] Indeed, the whole idea of “getting our heads together in the country” (as the cliche quickly became in the late sixties as half of the bands in Britain went through much the same kind of process as Fairport were doing — but usually for reasons more to do with drug burnout or trend following than recovering from serious life-changing trauma) seems to have been inspired by Bob Dylan and the Band getting together in Big Pink. But very quickly they decided to follow the lead of Ashley Hutchings, who had had something of a Damascene conversion to the cause of traditional English folk music. They were listening mostly to Music From Big Pink by the Band, and to the first album by Sweeney’s Men: [Excerpt: Sweeney’s Men, “The Handsome Cabin Boy”] And they decided that they were going to make something that was as English as those records were North American and Irish (though in the event there were also a few Scottish songs included on the record). Hutchings in particular was becoming something of a scholar of traditional music, regularly visiting Cecil Sharp House and having long conversations with A.L. Lloyd, discovering versions of different traditional songs he’d never encountered before. This was both amusing and bemusing Sandy Denny, who had joined a rock group in part to get away from traditional music; but she was comfortable singing the material, and knew a lot of it and could make a lot of suggestions herself. Swarbrick obviously knew the repertoire intimately, and Nicol was amenable, while Mattacks was utterly clueless about the folk tradition at this point but knew this was the music he wanted to make. Thompson knew very little about traditional music, and of all the band members except Denny he was the one who has shown the least interest in the genre in his subsequent career — but as we heard at the beginning, showing the least interest in the genre is a relative thing, and while Thompson was not hugely familiar with the genre, he *was* able to work with it, and was also more than capable of writing songs that fit in with the genre. Of the eleven songs on the album, which was titled Liege and Lief (which means, roughly, Lord and Loyalty), there were no cover versions of singer-songwriters. Eight were traditional songs, and three were originals, all written in the style of traditional songs. The album opened with “Come All Ye”, an introduction written by Denny and Hutchings (the only time the two would ever write together): [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Come All Ye”] The other two originals were songs where Thompson had written new lyrics to traditional melodies. On “Crazy Man Michael”, Swarbrick had said to Thompson that the tune to which he had set his new words was weaker than the lyrics, to which Thompson had replied that if Swarbrick felt that way he should feel free to write a new melody. He did, and it became the first of the small number of Thompson/Swarbrick collaborations: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Crazy Man Michael”] Thompson and Swarbrick would become a brief songwriting team, but as much as anything else it was down to proximity — the two respected each other as musicians, but never got on very well. In 1981 Swarbrick would say “Richard and I never got on in the early days of FC… we thought we did, but we never did. We composed some bloody good songs together, but it was purely on a basis of “you write that and I’ll write this, and we’ll put it together.” But we never sat down and had real good chats.” The third original on the album, and by far the most affecting, is another song where Thompson put lyrics to a traditional tune. In this case he thought he was putting the lyrics to the tune of “Willie O'Winsbury”, but he was basing it on a recording by Sweeney’s Men. The problem was that Sweeney’s Men had accidentally sung the lyrics of “Willie O'Winsbury'” to the tune of a totally different song, “Fause Foodrage”: [Excerpt: Sweeney’s Men, “Willie O’Winsbury”] Thompson took that melody, and set to it lyrics about loss and separation. Thompson has never been one to discuss the meanings of his lyrics in any great detail, and in the case of this one has said “I really don't know what it means. This song came out of a dream, and I pretty much wrote it as I dreamt it (it was the sixties), and didn't spend very long analyzing it. So interpret as you wish – or replace with your own lines.” But in the context of the traffic accident that had killed his tailor girlfriend and a bandmate, and injured most of his other bandmates, the lyrics about lonely travellers, the winding road, bruised and beaten sons, saying goodbye, and never cutting cloth, seem fairly self-explanatory: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Farewell, Farewell”] The rest of the album, though, was taken up by traditional tunes. There was a long medley of four different fiddle reels; a version of “Reynardine” (a song about a seductive man — or is he a fox? Or perhaps both — which had been recorded by Swarbrick and Carthy on their most recent album); a 19th century song about a deserter saved from the firing squad by Prince Albert; and a long take on “Tam Lin”, one of the most famous pieces in the Scottish folk music canon, a song that has been adapted in different ways by everyone from the experimental noise band Current 93 to the dub poet Benjamin Zephaniah to the comics writer Grant Morrison: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Tam Lin”] And “Matty Groves”, a song about a man killing his cheating wife and her lover, which actually has a surprisingly similar story to that of “1921” from another great concept album from that year, the Who’s Tommy. “Matty Groves” became an excuse for long solos and shows of instrumental virtuosity: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Matty Groves”] The album was recorded in September 1969, after their return from their break in the country and a triumphal performance at the Royal Festival Hall, headlining over fellow Witchseason artists John and Beverly Martyn and Nick Drake. It became a classic of the traditional folk genre — arguably *the* classic of the traditional folk genre. In 2007 BBC Radio 2’s Folk Music Awards gave it an award for most influential folk album of all time, and while such things are hard to measure, I doubt there’s anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of British folk and folk-rock music who would not at least consider that a reasonable claim. But once again, by the time the album came out in November, the band had changed lineups yet again. There was a fundamental split in the band – on one side were Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson, whose stance was, roughly, that Liege and Lief was a great experiment and a fun thing to do once, but really the band had two first-rate songwriters in themselves, and that they should be concentrating on their own new material, not doing these old songs, good as they were. They wanted to take the form of the traditional songs and use that form for new material — they wanted to make British folk-rock, but with the emphasis on the rock side of things. Hutchings, on the other hand, was equally sure that he wanted to make traditional music and go further down the rabbit hole of antiquity. With the zeal of the convert he had gone in a couple of years from being the leader of a band who were labelled “the British Jefferson Airplane” to becoming a serious scholar of traditional folk music. Denny was tired of touring, as well — she wanted to spend more time at home with Trevor Lucas, who was sleeping with other women when she was away and making her insecure. When the time came for the group to go on a tour of Denmark, Denny decided she couldn’t make it, and Hutchings was jubilant — he decided he was going to get A.L. Lloyd into the band in her place and become a *real* folk group. Then Denny reconsidered, and Hutchings was crushed. He realised that while he had always been the leader, he wasn’t going to be able to lead the band any further in the traditionalist direction, and quit the group — but not before he was delegated by the other band members to fire Denny. Until the publication of Richard Thompson’s autobiography in 2022, every book on the group or its members said that Denny quit the band again, which was presumably a polite fiction that the band agreed, but according to Thompson “Before we flew home, we decided to fire Sandy. I don't remember who asked her to leave – it was probably Ashley, who usually did the dirty work. She was reportedly shocked that we would take that step. She may have been fragile beneath the confident facade, but she still knew her worth.” Thompson goes on to explain that the reasons for kicking her out were that “I suppose we felt that in her mind she had already left” and that “We were probably suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, though there wasn't a name for it back then.” They had considered inviting Trevor Lucas to join the band to make Denny more comfortable, but came to the (probably correct) conclusion that while he was someone they got on well with personally, he would be another big ego in a band that already had several, and that being around Denny and Lucas’ volatile relationship would, in Thompson’s phrasing, “have not always given one a feeling of peace and stability.” Hutchings originally decided he was going to join Sweeney’s Men, but that group were falling apart, and their first rehearsal with Hutchings would also be their last as a group, with only Hutchings and guitarist and mandolin player Terry Woods left in the band. They added Woods’ wife Gay, and another couple, Tim Hart and Maddy Prior, and formed a group called Steeleye Span, a name given them by Martin Carthy. That group, like Fairport, went to “get their heads together in the country” for three months and recorded an album of electric versions of traditional songs, Hark the Village Wait, on which Mattacks and another drummer, Gerry Conway, guested as Steeleye Span didn’t at the time have their own drummer: [Excerpt: Steeleye Span, “Blackleg Miner”] Steeleye Span would go on to have a moderately successful chart career in the seventies, but by that time most of the original lineup, including Hutchings, had left — Hutchings stayed with them for a few albums, then went on to form the first of a series of bands, all called the Albion Band or variations on that name, which continue to this day. And this is something that needs to be pointed out at this point — it is impossible to follow every single individual in this narrative as they move between bands. There is enough material in the history of the British folk-rock scene that someone could do a 500 Songs-style podcast just on that, and every time someone left Fairport, or Steeleye Span, or the Albion Band, or Matthews’ Southern Comfort, or any of the other bands we have mentioned or will mention, they would go off and form another band which would then fission, and some of its members would often join one of those other bands. There was a point in the mid-1970s where the Albion Band had two original members of Fairport Convention while Fairport Convention had none. So just in order to keep the narrative anything like wieldy, I’m going to keep the narrative concentrated on the two figures from Fairport — Sandy Denny and Richard Thompson — whose work outside the group has had the most influence on the wider world of rock music more broadly, and only deal with the other members when, as they often did, their careers intersected with those two. That doesn’t mean the other members are not themselves hugely important musicians, just that their importance has been primarily to the folk side of the folk-rock genre, and so somewhat outside the scope of this podcast. While Hutchings decided to form a band that would allow him to go deeper and deeper into traditional folk music, Sandy Denny’s next venture was rather different. For a long time she had been writing far more songs than she had ever played for her bandmates, like “Nothing More”, a song that many have suggested is about Thompson: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “Nothing More”] When Joe Boyd heard that Denny was leaving Fairport Convention, he was at first elated. Fairport’s records were being distributed by A&M in the US at that point, but Island Records was in the process of opening up a new US subsidiary which would then release all future Fairport product — *but*, as far as A&M were concerned, Sandy Denny *was* Fairport Convention. They were only interested in her. Boyd, on the other hand, loved Denny’s work intensely, but from his point of view *Richard Thompson* was Fairport Convention. If he could get Denny signed directly to A&M as a solo artist before Island started its US operations, Witchseason could get a huge advance on her first solo record, while Fairport could continue making records for Island — he’d have two lucrative acts, on different labels. Boyd went over and spoke to A&M and got an agreement in principle that they would give Denny a forty-thousand-dollar advance on her first solo album — twice what they were paying for Fairport albums. The problem was that Denny didn’t want to be a solo act. She wanted to be the lead singer of a band. She gave many reasons for this — the one she gave to many journalists was that she had seen a Judy Collins show and been impressed, but noticed that Collins’ band were definitely a “backing group”, and as she put it “But that's all they were – a backing group. I suddenly thought, If you're playing together on a stage you might as well be TOGETHER.” Most other people in her life, though, say that the main reason for her wanting to be in a band was her desire to be with her boyfriend, Trevor Lucas. Partly this was due to a genuine desire to spend more time with someone with whom she was very much in love, partly it was a fear that he would cheat on her if she was away from him for long periods of time, and part of it seems to have been Lucas’ dislike of being *too* overshadowed by his talented girlfriend — he didn’t mind acknowledging that she was a major talent, but he wanted to be thought of as at least a minor one. So instead of going solo, Denny formed Fotheringay, named after the song she had written for Fairport. This new band consisted at first of Denny on vocals and occasional piano, Lucas on vocals and rhythm guitar, and Lucas’ old Eclection bandmate Gerry Conway on drums. For a lead guitarist, they asked Richard Thompson who the best guitarist in Britain was, and he told them Albert Lee. Lee in turn brought in bass player Pat Donaldson, but this lineup of the band barely survived a fortnight. Lee *was* arguably the best guitarist in Britain, certainly a reasonable candidate if you could ever have a singular best (as indeed was Thompson himself), but he was the best *country* guitarist in Britain, and his style simply didn’t fit with Fotheringay’s folk-influenced songs. He was replaced by American guitarist Jerry Donahue, who was not anything like as proficient as Lee, but who was still very good, and fit the band’s style much better. The new group rehearsed together for a few weeks, did a quick tour, and then went into the recording studio to record their debut, self-titled, album. Joe Boyd produced the album, but admitted himself that he only paid attention to those songs he considered worthwhile — the album contained one song by Lucas, “The Ballad of Ned Kelly”, and two cover versions of American singer-songwriter material with Lucas singing lead. But everyone knew that the songs that actually *mattered* were Sandy Denny’s, and Boyd was far more interested in them, particularly the songs “The Sea” and “The Pond and the Stream”: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “The Pond and the Stream”] Fotheringay almost immediately hit financial problems, though. While other Witchseason acts were used to touring on the cheap, all packed together in the back of a Transit van with inexpensive equipment, Trevor Lucas had ambitions of being a rock star and wanted to put together a touring production to match, with expensive transport and equipment, including a speaker system that got nicknamed “Stonehenge” — but at the same time, Denny was unhappy being on the road, and didn’t play many gigs. As well as the band itself, the Fotheringay album also featured backing vocals from a couple of other people, including Denny’s friend Linda Peters. Peters was another singer from the folk clubs, and a good one, though less well-known than Denny — at this point she had only released a couple of singles, and those singles seemed to have been as much as anything else released as a novelty. The first of those, a version of Dylan’s “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” had been released as by “Paul McNeill and Linda Peters”: [Excerpt: Paul McNeill and Linda Peters, “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere”] But their second single, a version of John D. Loudermilk’s “You’re Taking My Bag”, was released on the tiny Page One label, owned by Larry Page, and was released under the name “Paul and Linda”, clearly with the intent of confusing particularly gullible members of the record-buying public into thinking this was the McCartneys: [Excerpt: Paul and Linda, “You’re Taking My Bag”] Peters was though more financially successful than almost anyone else in this story, as she was making a great deal of money as a session singer. She actually did another session involving most of Fotheringay around this time. Witchseason had a number of excellent songwriters on its roster, and had had some success getting covers by people like Judy Collins, but Joe Boyd thought that they might possibly do better at getting cover versions if they were performed in less idiosyncratic arrangements. Donahue, Donaldson, and Conway went into the studio to record backing tracks, and vocals were added by Peters and another session singer, who according to some sources also provided piano. They cut songs by Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band: [Excerpt: Linda Peters, “You Get Brighter”] Ed Carter, formerly of The New Nadir but by this time firmly ensconced in the Beach Boys’ touring band where he would remain for the next quarter-century: [Excerpt: Linda Peters, “I Don’t Mind”] John and Beverly Martyn, and Nick Drake: [Excerpt: Elton John, “Saturday Sun”] There are different lineups of musicians credited for those sessions in different sources, but I tend to believe that it’s mostly Fotheringay for the simple reason that Donahue says it was him, Donaldson and Conway who talked Lucas and Denny into the mistake that destroyed Fotheringay because of these sessions. Fotheringay were in financial trouble already, spending far more money than they were bringing in, but their album made the top twenty and they were getting respect both from critics and from the public — in September, Sandy Denny was voted best British female singer by the readers of Melody Maker in their annual poll, which led to shocked headlines in the tabloids about how this “unknown” could have beaten such big names as Dusty Springfield and Cilla Black. Only a couple of weeks after that, they were due to headline at the Albert Hall. It should have been a triumph. But Donahue, Donaldson, and Conway had asked that singing pianist to be their support act. As Donahue said later “That was a terrible miscast. It was our fault. He asked if [he] could do it. Actually Pat, Gerry and I had to talk Sandy and Trevor into [it]… We'd done these demos and the way he was playing – he was a wonderful piano player – he was sensitive enough. We knew very little about his stage-show. We thought he'd be a really good opener for us.” Unfortunately, Elton John was rather *too* good. As Donahue continued “we had no idea what he had in mind, that he was going to do the most incredible rock & roll show ever. He pretty much blew us off the stage before we even got on the stage.” To make matters worse, Fotheringay’s set, which was mostly comprised of new material, was underrehearsed and sloppy, and from that point on no matter what they did people were counting the hours until the band split up. They struggled along for a while though, and started working on a second record, with Boyd again producing, though as Boyd later said “I probably shouldn't have been producing the record. My lack of respect for the group was clear, and couldn't have helped the atmosphere. We'd put out a record that had sold disappointingly, A&M was unhappy. Sandy's tracks on the first record are among the best things she ever did – the rest of it, who cares? And the artwork, Trevor's sister, was terrible. It would have been one thing if I'd been unhappy with it and it sold, and the group was working all the time, making money, but that wasn't the case … I knew what Sandy was capable of, and it was very upsetting to me.” The record would not be released for thirty-eight years: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “Wild Mountain Thyme”] Witchseason was going badly into debt. Given all the fissioning of bands that we’ve already been talking about, Boyd had been stretched thin — he produced sixteen albums in 1970, and almost all of them lost money for the company. And he was getting more and more disillusioned with the people he was producing. He loved Beverly Martyn’s work, but had little time for her abusive husband John, who was dominating her recording and life more and more and would soon become a solo artist while making her stay at home (and stealing her ideas without giving her songwriting credit). The Incredible String Band were great, but they had recently converted to Scientology, which Boyd found annoying, and while he was working with all sorts of exciting artists like Vashti Bunyan and Nico, he was finding himself less and less important to the artists he mentored. Fairport Convention were a good example of this. After Denny and Hutchings had left the group, they’d decided to carry on as an electric folk group, performing an equal mix of originals by the Swarbrick and Thompson songwriting team and arrangements of traditional songs. The group were now far enough away from the “British Jefferson Airplane” label that they decided they didn’t need a female vocalist — and more realistically, while they’d been able to replace Judy Dyble, nobody was going to replace Sandy Denny. Though it’s rather surprising when one considers Thompson’s subsequent career that nobody seems to have thought of bringing in Denny’s friend Linda Peters, who was dating Joe Boyd at the time (as Denny had been before she met Lucas) as Denny’s replacement. Instead, they decided that Swarbrick and Thompson were going to share the vocals between them. They did, though, need a bass player to replace Hutchings. Swarbrick wanted to bring in Dave Pegg, with whom he had played in the Ian Campbell Folk Group, but the other band members initially thought the idea was a bad one. At the time, while they respected Swarbrick as a musician, they didn’t think he fully understood rock and roll yet, and they thought the idea of getting in a folkie who had played double bass rather than an electric rock bassist ridiculous. But they auditioned him to mollify Swarbrick, and found that he was exactly what they needed. As Joe Boyd later said “All those bass lines were great, Ashley invented them all, but he never could play them that well. He thought of them, but he was technically not a terrific bass player. He was a very inventive, melodic, bass player, but not a very powerful one technically. But having had the part explained to him once, Pegg was playing it better than Ashley had ever played it… In some rock bands, I think, ultimately, the bands that sound great, you can generally trace it to the bass player… it was at that point they became a great band, when they had Pegg.” The new lineup of Fairport decided to move in together, and found a former pub called the Angel, into which all the band members moved, along with their partners and children (Thompson was the only one who was single at this point) and their roadies. The group lived together quite happily, and one gets the impression that this was the period when they were most comfortable with each other, even though by this point they were a disparate group with disparate tastes, in music as in everything else. Several people have said that the only music all the band members could agree they liked at this point was the first two albums by The Band. With the departure of Hutchings from the band, Swarbrick and Thompson, as the strongest personalities and soloists, became in effect the joint leaders of the group, and they became collaborators as songwriters, trying to write new songs that were inspired by traditional music. Thompson described the process as “let’s take one line of this reel and slow it down and move it up a minor third and see what that does to it; let’s take one line of this ballad and make a whole song out of it. Chopping up the tradition to find new things to do… like a collage.” Generally speaking, Swarbrick and Thompson would sit by the fire and Swarbrick would play a melody he’d been working on, the two would work on it for a while, and Thompson would then go away and write the lyrics. This is how the two came up with songs like the nine-minute “Sloth”, a highlight of the next album, Full House, and one that would remain in Fairport’s live set for much of their career: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sloth”] “Sloth” was titled that way because Thompson and Swarbrick were working on two tunes, a slow one and a fast one, and they jokingly named them “Sloth” and “Fasth”, but the latter got renamed to “Walk Awhile”, while “Sloth” kept its working title. But by this point, Boyd and Thompson were having a lot of conflict in the studio. Boyd was never the most technical of producers — he was one of those producers whose job is to gently guide the artists in the studio and create a space for the music to flourish, rather than the Joe Meek type with an intimate technical knowledge of the studio — and as the artists he was working with gained confidence in their own work they felt they had less and less need of him. During the making of the Full House album, Thompson and Boyd, according to Boyd, clashed on everything — every time Boyd thought Thompson had done a good solo, Thompson would say to erase it and let him have another go, while every time Boyd thought Thompson could do better, Thompson would say that was the take to keep. One of their biggest clashes was over Thompson’s song “Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman”, which was originally intended for release on the album, and is included in current reissues of it: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Poor Will and the Jolly Hangman”] Thompson had written that song inspired by what he thought was the unjust treatment of Alex Bramham, the driver in Fairport’s fatal car crash, by the courts — Bramham had been given a prison sentence of a few months for dangerous driving, while the group members thought he had not been at fault. Boyd thought it was one of the best things recorded for the album, but Thompson wasn’t happy with his vocal — there was one note at the top of the melody that he couldn’t quite hit — and insisted it be kept off the record, even though that meant it would be a shorter album than normal. He did this at such a late stage that early copies of the album actually had the title printed on the sleeve, but then blacked out. He now says in his autobiography “I could have persevered, double-tracked the voice, warmed up for longer – anything. It was a good track, and the record was lacking without it. When the album was re-released, the track was restored with a more confident vocal, and it has stayed there ever since.” During the sessions for Full House the group also recorded one non-album single, Thompson and Swarbrick’s “Now Be Thankful”: [Excerpt, Fairport Convention, “Now Be Thankful”] The B-side to that was a medley of two traditional tunes plus a Swarbrick original, but was given the deliberately ridiculous title “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament For The 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat From The Straits Of Loch Knombe, In The Year Of Our Lord 1727, On The Occasion Of The Announcement Of Her Marriage To The Laird Of Kinleakie”: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sir B. McKenzie’s Daughter’s Lament For The 77th Mounted Lancers Retreat From The Straits Of Loch Knombe, In The Year Of Our Lord 1727, On The Occasion Of The Announcement Of Her Marriage To The Laird Of Kinleakie”] The B. McKenzie in the title was a reference to the comic-strip character Barry McKenzie, a stereotype drunk Australian created for Private Eye magazine by the comedian Barry Humphries (later to become better known for his Dame Edna Everage character) but the title was chosen for one reason only — to get into the Guinness Book of Records for the song with the longest title. Which they did, though they were later displaced by the industrial band Test Dept, and their song “Long Live British Democracy Which Flourishes and Is Constantly Perfected Under the Immaculate Guidance of the Great, Honourable, Generous and Correct Margaret Hilda Thatcher. She Is the Blue Sky in the Hearts of All Nations. Our People Pay Homage and Bow in Deep Respect and Gratitude to Her. The Milk of Human Kindness”. Full House got excellent reviews in the music press, with Rolling Stone saying “The music shows that England has finally gotten her own equivalent to The Band… By calling Fairport an English equivalent of the Band, I meant that they have soaked up enough of the tradition of their countryfolk that it begins to show all over, while they maintain their roots in rock.” Off the back of this, the group went on their first US tour, culminating in a series of shows at the Troubadour in LA, on the same bill as Rick Nelson, which were recorded and later released as a live album: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Sloth (live)”] The Troubadour was one of the hippest venues at the time, and over their residency there the group got seen by many celebrities, some of whom joined them on stage. The first was Linda Ronstadt, who initially demurred, saying she didn’t know any of their songs. On being told they knew all of hers, she joined in with a rendition of “Silver Threads and Golden Needles”. Thompson was later asked to join Ronstadt’s backing band, who would go on to become the Eagles, but he said later of this offer “I would have hated it. I’d have hated being on the road with four or five miserable Americans — they always seem miserable. And if you see them now, they still look miserable on stage — like they don’t want to be there and they don’t like each other.” The group were also joined on stage at the Troubadour on one memorable night by some former bandmates of Pegg’s. Before joining the Ian Campbell Folk Group, Pegg had played around the Birmingham beat scene, and had been in bands with John Bonham and Robert Plant, who turned up to the Troubadour with their Led Zeppelin bandmate Jimmy Page (reports differ on whether the fourth member of Zeppelin, John Paul Jones, also came along). They all got up on stage together and jammed on songs like “Hey Joe”, “Louie Louie”, and various old Elvis tunes. The show was recorded, and the tapes are apparently still in the possession of Joe Boyd, who has said he refuses to release them in case he is murdered by the ghost of Peter Grant. According to Thompson, that night ended in a three-way drinking contest between Pegg, Bonham, and Janis Joplin, and it’s testament to how strong the drinking culture is around Fairport and the British folk scene in general that Pegg outdrank both of them. According to Thompson, Bonham was found naked by a swimming pool two days later, having missed two gigs. For all their hard rock image, Led Zeppelin were admirers of a lot of the British folk and folk-rock scene, and a few months later Sandy Denny would become the only outside vocalist ever to appear on a Led Zeppelin record when she duetted with Plant on “The Battle of Evermore” on the group’s fourth album: [Excerpt: Led Zeppelin, “The Battle of Evermore”] Denny would never actually get paid for her appearance on one of the best-selling albums of all time. That was, incidentally, not the only session that Denny was involved in around this time — she also sang on the soundtrack to a soft porn film titled Swedish Fly Girls, whose soundtrack was produced by Manfred Mann: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “What Will I Do With Tomorrow?”] Shortly after Fairport’s trip to America, Joe Boyd decided he was giving up on Witchseason. The company was now losing money, and he was finding himself having to produce work for more and more acts as the various bands fissioned. The only ones he really cared about were Richard Thompson, who he was finding it more and more difficult to work with, Nick Drake, who wanted to do his next album with just an acoustic guitar anyway, Sandy Denny, who he felt was wasting her talents in Fotheringay, and Mike Heron of the Incredible String Band, who was more distant since his conversion to Scientology. Boyd did make some attempts to keep the company going. On a trip to Sweden, he negotiated an agreement with the manager and publisher of a Swedish band whose songs he’d found intriguing, the Hep Stars. Boyd was going to publish their songs in the UK, and in return that publisher, Stig Anderson, would get the rights to Witchseason’s catalogue in Scandinavia — a straight swap, with no money changing hands. But before Boyd could get round to signing the paperwork, he got a better offer from Mo Ostin of Warners — Ostin wanted Boyd to come over to LA and head up Warners’ new film music department. Boyd sold Witchseason to Island Records and moved to LA with his fiancee Linda Peters, spending the next few years working on music for films like Deliverance and A Clockwork Orange, as well as making his own documentary about Jimi Hendrix, and thus missed out on getting the UK publishing rights for ABBA, and all the income that would have brought him, for no money. And it was that decision that led to the breakup of Fotheringay. Just before Christmas 1970, Fotheringay were having a difficult session, recording the track “John the Gun”: [Excerpt: Fotheringay, “John the Gun”] Boyd got frustrated and kicked everyone out of the session, and went for a meal and several drinks with Denny. He kept insisting that she should dump the band and just go solo, and then something happened that the two of them would always describe differently. She asked him if he would continue to produce her records if she went solo, and he said he would. According to Boyd’s recollection of the events, he meant that he would fly back from California at some point to produce her records. According to Denny, he told her that if she went solo he would stay in Britain and not take the job in LA. This miscommunication was only discovered after Denny told the rest of Fotheringay after the Christmas break that she was splitting the band. Jerry Donahue has described that as the worst moment of his life, and Denny felt very guilty about breaking up a band with some of her closest friends in — and then when Boyd went over to the US anyway she felt a profound betrayal. Two days before Fotheringay’s final concert, in January 1971, Sandy Denny signed a solo deal with Island records, but her first solo album would not end up produced by Joe Boyd. Instead, The North Star Grassman and the Ravens was co-produced by Denny, John Wood — the engineer who had worked with Boyd on pretty much everything he’d produced, and Richard Thompson, who had just quit Fairport Convention, though he continued living with them at the Angel, at least until a truck crashed into the building in February 1971, destroying its entire front wall and forcing them to relocate. The songs chosen for The North Star Grassman and the Ravens reflected the kind of choices Denny would make on her future albums, and her eclectic taste in music. There was, of course, the obligatory Dylan cover, and the traditional folk ballad “Blackwaterside”, but there was also a cover version of Brenda Lee’s “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Let’s Jump the Broomstick”] Most of the album, though, was made up of originals about various people in Denny’s life, like “Next Time Around”, about her ex-boyfriend Jackson C Frank: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Next Time Around”] The album made the top forty in the UK — Denny’s only solo album to do so — and led to her once again winning the “best female singer” award in Melody Maker’s readers’ poll that year — the male singer award was won by Rod Stewart. Both Stewart and Denny appeared the next year on the London Symphony Orchestra’s all-star version of The Who’s Tommy, which had originally been intended as a vehicle for Stewart before Roger Daltrey got involved. Stewart’s role was reduced to a single song, “Pinball Wizard”, while Denny sang on “It’s a Boy”: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “It’s a Boy”] While Fotheringay had split up, all the band members play on The North Star Grassman and the Ravens. Guitarists Donahue and Lucas only play on a couple of the tracks, with Richard Thompson playing most of the guitar on the record. But Fotheringay’s rhythm section of Pat Donaldson and Gerry Conway play on almost every track. Another musician on the album, Ian Whiteman, would possibly have a profound effect on the future direction of Richard Thompson’s career and life. Whiteman was the former keyboard player for the mod band The Action, having joined them just before they became the blues-rock band Mighty Baby. But Mighty Baby had split up when all of the band except the lead singer had converted to Islam. Richard Thompson was on his own spiritual journey at this point, and became a Sufi – the same branch of Islam as Whiteman – soon after the session, though Thompson has said that his conversion was independent of Whiteman’s. The two did become very close and work together a lot in the mid-seventies though. Thompson had supposedly left Fairport because he was writing material that wasn’t suited to the band, but he spent more than a year after quitting the group working on sessions rather than doing anything with his own material, and these sessions tended to involve the same core group of musicians. One of the more unusual was a folk-rock supergroup called The Bunch, put together by Trevor Lucas. Richard Branson had recently bought a recording studio, and wanted a band to test it out before opening it up for commercial customers, so with this free studio time Lucas decided to record a set of fifties rock and roll covers. He gathered together Thompson, Denny, Whiteman, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Pat Donaldson, Gerry Conway, pianist Tony Cox, the horn section that would later form the core of the Average White Band, and Linda Peters, who had now split up with Joe Boyd and returned to the UK, and who had started dating Thompson. They recorded an album of covers of songs by Jerry Lee Lewis, the Everly Brothers, Johnny Otis and others: [Excerpt: The Bunch, “Willie and the Hand Jive”] The early seventies was a hugely productive time for this group of musicians, as they all continued playing on each other’s projects. One notable album was No Roses by Shirley Collins, which featured Thompson, Mattacks, Whiteman, Simon Nicol, Lal and Mike Waterson, and Ashley Hutchings, who was at that point married to Collins, as well as some more unusual musicians like the free jazz saxophonist Lol Coxhill: [Excerpt: Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band, “Claudy Banks”] Collins was at the time the most respected female singer in British traditional music, and already had a substantial career including a series of important records made with her sister Dolly, work with guitarists like Davey Graham, and time spent in the 1950s collecting folk songs in the Southern US with her then partner Alan Lomax – according to Collins she did much of the actual work, but Lomax only mentioned her in a single sentence in his book on this work. Some of the same group of musicians went on to work on an album of traditional Morris dancing tunes, titled Morris On, credited to “Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, John Kirkpatrick and Barry Dransfield”, with Collins singing lead on two tracks: [Excerpt: Ashley Hutchings, Richard Thompson, Dave Mattacks, John Kirkpatrick and Barry Dransfield with Shirley Collins, “The Willow Tree”] Thompson thought that that album was the best of the various side projects he was involved in at the time, comparing it favourably to Rock On, which he thought was rather slight, saying later “Conceptually, Fairport, Ashley and myself and Sandy were developing a more fragile style of music that nobody else was particularly interested in, a British Folk Rock idea that had a logical development to it, although we all presented it our own way. Morris On was rather more true to what we were doing. Rock On was rather a retro step. I'm not sure it was lasting enough as a record but Sandy did sing really well on the Buddy Holly songs.” Hutchings used the musicians on No Roses and Morris On as the basis for his band the Albion Band, which continues to this day. Simon Nicol and Dave Mattacks both quit Fairport to join the Albion Band, though Mattacks soon returned. Nicol would not return to Fairport for several years, though, and for a long period in the mid-seventies Fairport Convention had no original members. Unfortunately, while Collins was involved in the Albion Band early on, she and Hutchings ended up divorcing, and the stress from the divorce led to Collins developing spasmodic dysphonia, a stress-related illness which makes it impossible for the sufferer to sing. She did eventually regain her vocal ability, but between 1978 and 2016 she was unable to perform at all, and lost decades of her career. Richard Thompson occasionally performed with the Albion Band early on, but he was getting stretched a little thin with all these sessions. Linda Peters said later of him “When I came back from America, he was working in Sandy’s band, and doing sessions by the score. Always with Pat Donaldson and Dave Mattacks. Richard would turn up with his guitar, one day he went along to do a session with one of those folkie lady singers — and there were Pat and DM. They all cracked. Richard smashed his amp and said “Right! No more sessions!” In 1972 he got round to releasing his first solo album, Henry the Human Fly, which featured guest appearances by Linda Peters and Sandy Denny among others: [Excerpt: Richard Thompson, “The Angels Took My Racehorse Away”] Unfortunately, while that album has later become regarded as one of the classics of its genre, at the time it was absolutely slated by the music press. The review in Melody Maker, for example, read in part “Some of Richard Thompson’s ideas sound great – which is really the saving grace of this album, because most of the music doesn’t. The tragedy is that Thompson’s “British rock music” is such an unconvincing concoction… Even the songs that do integrate rock and traditional styles of electric guitar rhythms and accordion and fiddle decoration – and also include explicit, meaningful lyrics are marred by bottle-up vocals, uninspiring guitar phrases and a general lack of conviction in performance.” Henry the Human Fly was released in the US by Warners, who had a reciprocal licensing deal with Island (and for whom Joe Boyd was working at the time, which may have had something to do with that) but according to Thompson it became the lowest-selling record that Warners ever put out (though I’ve also seen that claim made about Van Dyke Parks’ Song Cycle, another album that has later been rediscovered). Thompson was hugely depressed by this reaction, and blamed his own singing. Happily, though, by this point he and Linda had become a couple — they would marry in 1972 — and they started playing folk clubs as a duo, or sometimes in a trio with Simon Nicol. Thompson was also playing with Sandy Denny’s backing band at this point, and played on every track on her second solo album, Sandy. This album was meant to be her big commercial breakthrough, with a glamorous cover photo by David Bailey, and with a more American sound, including steel guitar by Sneaky Pete Kleinow of the Flying Burrito Brothers (whose overdubs were supervised in LA by Joe Boyd): [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Tomorrow is a Long Time”] The album was given a big marketing push by Island, and “Listen, Listen” was made single of the week on the Radio 1 Breakfast show: [Excerpt: Sandy Denny, “Listen, Listen”] But it did even worse than the previous album, sending her into something of a depression. Linda Thompson (as the former Linda Peters now was) said of this period “After the Sandy album, it got her down that her popularity didn't suddenly increase in leaps and bounds, and that was the start of her really fretting about the way her career was going. Things only escalated after that. People like me or Martin Carthy or Norma Waterson would think, ‘What are you on about? This is folk music.'” After Sandy’s release, Denny realised she could no longer afford to tour with a band, and so went back to performing just acoustically or on piano. The only new music to be released by either of these ex-members of Fairport Convention in 1973 was, oddly, on an album by the band they were no longer members of. After Thompson had left Fairport, the group had managed to release two whole albums with the same lineup — Swarbrick, Nicol, Pegg, and Mattacks. But then Nicol and Mattacks had both quit the band to join the Albion Band with their former bandmate Ashley Hutchings, leading to a situation where the Albion Band had two original members of Fairport plus their longtime drummer while Fairport Convention itself had no original members and was down to just Swarbrick and Pegg. Needing to fulfil their contracts, they then recruited three former members of Fotheringay — Lucas on vocals and rhythm guitar, Donahue on lead guitar, and Conway on drums. Conway was only a session player at the time, and Mattacks soon returned to the band, but Lucas and Donahue became full-time members. This new lineup of Fairport Convention released two albums in 1973, widely regarded as the group’s most inconsistent records, and on the title track of the first, “Rosie”, Richard Thompson guested on guitar, with Sandy Denny and Linda Thompson on backing vocals: [Excerpt: Fairport Convention, “Rosie”] Neither Sandy Denny nor Richard Thompson released a record themselves in 1973, but in neither case was this through the artists’ choice. The record industry was changing in the early 1970s, as we’ll see in later episodes, and was less inclined to throw good money after bad in the pursuit of art. Island Records prided itself on being a home for great artists, but it was still a business, and needed to make money. We’ll talk about the OPEC oil crisis and its effect on the music industry much more when the podcast gets to 1973, but in brief, the production of oil by the US peaked in 1970 and started to decrease, leading to them importing more and more oil from the Middle East. As a result of this, oil prices rose slowly between 1971 and 1973, then very quickly towards the end of 1973 as a result of the Arab-Israeli conflict that year. As vinyl is made of oil, suddenly producing records became much more expensive, and in this period a lot of labels decided not to release already-completed albums, until what they hoped would be a brief period of shortages passed. Both Denny and Thompson recorded albums at this point that got put to one side by Island. In the case of Thompson, it was the first album by Richard and Linda as a duo, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”] Today, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight is widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time, and as one of the two masterpieces that bookended Richard and Linda’s career as a duo and their marriage. But when they recorded the album, full of Richard’s dark songs, it was the opposite of commercial. Even a song that’s more or less a boy-girl song, like “Has He Got a Friend for Me?” has lyrics like “He wouldn’t notice me passing by/I could be in the gutter, or dangling down from a tree” [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “Has He got a Friend For Me?”] While something like “The Calvary Cross” is oblique and haunted, and seems to cast a pall over the entire album: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “The Calvary Cross”] The album itself had been cheap to make — it had been recorded in only a week, with Thompson bringing in musicians he knew well and had worked with a lot previously to cut the tracks as-live in only a handful of takes — but Island didn’t think it was worth releasing. The record stayed on the shelf for nearly a year after recording, until Island got a new head of A&R, Richard Williams. Williams said of the album’s release “Muff Winwood had been doing A&R, but he was more interested in production… I had a conversation with Muff as soon as I got there, and he said there are a few hangovers, some outstanding problems. And one of them was Richard Thompson. He said there’s this album we gave him the money to make — which was I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight — and nobody’s very interested in it. Henry the Human Fly had been a bit of a commercial disappointment, and although Island was altruistic and independent and known for only recording good stuff, success was important… Either a record had to do well or somebody had to believe in it a lot. And it seemed as if neither of those things were true at that point of Richard.” Williams, though, was hugely impressed when he listened to the album. He compared Richard Thompson’s guitar playing to John Coltrane’s sax, and called Thompson “the folk poet of the rainy streets”, but also said “Linda brightened it, made it more commercial. and I thought that “Bright Lights” itself seemed a really commercial song.” The rest of the management at Island got caught up in Williams’ enthusiasm, and even decided to release the title track as a single: [Excerpt: Richard and Linda Thompson, “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight”] Neither single nor album charted — indeed it would not be until 1991 that Richard Thompson would make a record that made the top forty in the UK — but the album got enough critical respect that Richard and Linda released two albums the year after. The first of these, Hokey Pokey, is a much more upbeat record than their previous one — Richard Thompson has called it “quite a music-hall influenced record” and cited the influence of George Formby and Harry Lauder. For once, the claim of music hall influence is audible in the music. Usually when a British musician is claimed to have a music ha

CTR Secrets and Social Shakeups It's another jam-packed ride on EDGE of the Web as Erin is joined by Duncan Alney of Firebelly to discuss News in Social this week. With Google hyping up AI Overviews but dodging every meaningful CTR question, it seems the only thing spinning faster than SERP layouts are the PR answers. Get the inside scoop on how ChatGPT gobbles up over 80% of AI search traffic (Google, take notes), why Meta's launching a CapCut rival to remix your socials, and how Reddit is scrambling to keep the bots at bay after AI sock puppets could sway opinions 3-6x better than humans. Meanwhile, Pinterest is charging ahead with AI content labeling so you can actually see—surprise!—real images again. Plus, political maneuvering has TikTok advertisers doing the Hokey Pokey while Meta rolls out shiny new ad options across Threads and more. Our hot take? If you thought getting a blue check was easy, wait until you see Blue Sky put the power of verification in the hands of users and newsrooms—finally, checkmarks that mean something! So, whether you're lamenting lost organic traffic, trying to dodge AI slop, or just want to keep your brand out of the spammy dog pile, grab your headphones and catch Erin, Duncan, and Jacob as they break it all down with wit, wisdom, and maybe one too many tinfoil hats. See you at the EDGE—don't be a piece of cyber driftwood! News from the EDGE: [00:03:03] Google hypes AI Overviews, refuses to answer CTR question [00:09:19] ChatGPT Leads AI Search Race While Google & Others Slip [00:15:28] U.S. Copyright Office Cites Legal Risk At Every Stage Of Generative AI  Social News from the EDGE: [00:20:11] Meta releases its CapCut rival Edits globally [00:22:45] Meta rolls out ads globally on Threads feed [00:26:15] Meta adds dynamic overlays to Advantage+ Catalog ads [00:29:12] A New Form of Verification on Bluesky [00:31:31] Cracking Down on Spammy Content on Facebook [00:36:44] Trump Says He May Extend TikTok Sell-off Deadline Once Again [00:40:26] Pinterest launches new tools to fight AI slop [00:42:44] Reddit Looks To Add Human Checks To Weed Out AI Profiles   Thanks to our sponsors! Site Strategics https://edgeofthewebradio.com/site WAIKAY https://edgeofthewebradio.com/waikay   Thanks to our Social News Expert: Duncan Alney X: @firebelly LinkedIn: Duncan Alney Firebelly Follow Us: X: @ErinSparks X: @TheMann00 X: @EDGEWebRadio

Season 8, Episode 3 | In this episode, we're joined by the remarkable Suzanne Spaulding, a Senior Advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), where she founded the Defending Democratic Institutions Project. With a career that spans critical roles across the intelligence and national security landscape—including Legal Advisor at the CIA's Nonproliferation Center, Chief Counsel to both the Senate and House Intelligence Committees, Executive Director of major Congressional Commissions, and member of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission—Suzanne brings a wealth of insight, wit, and candid reflection.She shares stories from a life spent at the intersection of law, policy, and global security, including unforgettable moments like meeting Gaddafi, leading bipartisan efforts in Congress, and, yes, doing the hokey pokey and singing kumbaya with the KGB. Importantly, we talk about the next generation—how efforts like Girl Security are helping to inspire and prepare young women to lead in national security and public service. It's a conversation that's as thought-provoking as it is delightfully unexpected.Tune in for an episode filled with wisdom, stories, and a few good laughs.

We're back with another Friday news download, starting with a story about Cybertrucks in the Treasure Valley. Owners of the Tesla vehicles are being shamed, and the trucks are being vandalized. Is it justified backlash against Elon Musk and the Trump Administration, or does it cross the line? Meanwhile, state lawmakers quietly ended public pool inspections, raising questions about summer safety. And Idaho Gives is closing out strong, while a local foundation helps students thanks to… the Hokey Pokey. KTVB's Brian Holmes joins host Lindsay Van Allen, this week, to break down the latest Treasure Valley stories. Want some more Boise news? Head over to our Hey Boise newsletter where you'll get a cheatsheet to the city every weekday morning. Learn more about the sponsor of this May 2nd episode:  Aura Frames - Get $35-off plus free shipping on the Carver Mat frame with Promo Code CITYCAST Cozy Earth - Use code COZYBOISE for 40% off best-selling sheets, towels, pajamas, and more. Interested in advertising with City Cast Boise? Find more info HERE. Reach us at boise@citycast.fm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Previously on Christine Lahti in Space: After being sent into space by NASA (the Natalie Appleton Space Academy), a troop of monkeys has contracted a rare strain of Space Pox. Thankfully, Dr Christine Lahti knows the only cure - a conversation with Special Guest Star LaToya Jackson. However LaToya and her giant hat are missing. Elsewhere Antonio Sabato Jr's body is rejecting his new cake head, and it's up to Space Nurse Alyssa Milano to find the exact temperature to keep his head cool, and his body warm. Pencil (Daphne Zuniga) faces her biggest fear, the Hokey Pokey. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What’s the Why? Why the flip flop on tariffs? 

Click here to Shop Affirmation Decks, Oracle Decks, and more! Use Promo code: RCPODCAST20 for 20% off your first order!   Today's Power Affirmation: I release my urge to force happenings. I surrender to my flow.   Today's Oracle of Motivation: If your world goes looney tunes and the path forward seems confusing, step back, chillax, and surrender to your flow (the stuff that feels exciting and easy). Slow down and enjoy something beautiful right in front of you. Perhaps that beautiful something in the mirror is a good place to start. When you become the Sun, you bypass the clouds. When you flow like the ocean, you wash out the drought. Stop trying so fucking hard to figure things out, because what if the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about? :)   Designed to Motivate Your Creative Maniac Mind The 60-Second Power Affirmations Podcast is designed to help you focus, affirm your visions, and harness the power within your creative maniac mind! Join us every Monday and Thursday for a new 60-second power affirmation followed by a blast of oracle motivation from the Universe (+ a quick breathing meditation). It's time to take off your procrastination diaper and share your musings with the world!   For more musings, visit RageCreate.com     Leave a Review & Share! Apple Podcast reviews are one of THE most important factors for podcasts. If you enjoy the show, please take a second to leave the show a review on Apple Podcasts! Click this link: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Hit “Listen on Apple Podcasts” on the left-hand side under the picture. Scroll down under “Ratings & Reviews” & click “Write A Review” Leave an honest review. You're awesome!  

This week the boys talk about a new fat, gay rom-com, Things Like This, and Sebastian Conelli's eloquent Instagram rant against fat-joke politics. Then we discuss the fear and desire of chubs and chasers on the dance floor.

She's ready for player two.Based on the post of MsCherylTerra, in 3 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at My First Time.Player one is me, Ramona Roth. I'm nineteen, blue hair, pierce eyebrow, former president of the student council, virgin.War is hell, they say, but I say they're wrong.Hell is insanity, and insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.Hell is false hopes and flagrant disappointment.Hell is knowing that the squabbling of Ilyra, the princess from the far-off planet of Nianus, and Jostok, the snarky-but-pleasantly-ripped humanoid alien soldier from Quighnan, would attract the attention of Izzon's monstrous space beast.It's knowing that the beast would destroy the vent your plucky band of misfits was crawling through.It's knowing that you'd all tumble into the cavernous belly of the spaceship with only the last-second triggering of a force-field from your omni-cuff to prevent you from turning into gizzard soup on the space-grey floor.I watched Jostok realize that the force field hadn't prevented the princess from being crushed beneath the weight of the metal that tumbled from above. I watched him separate her from the tangled pile of bodies and bionic limbs, cradling her barely conscious form against one beefy, armor-clad bicep.I watched her brilliant violet eyes flutter open, and saw the little half-smile on her face as he called her by her name, and heard the weakness in her voice as she reminded him that it was Princess Ilyra to him. I heard Jostok chuckle wetly and assure her she was going to make it.After all, she was the princess. This was not how princesses died.Which was true, because she didn't die like that.Izzon's beast hurled itself to the ground in front of us, its weight making the spaceship itself shudder violently. A beam of light shot forth from its gaping maw, wrenching Ilyra from Jostok's arms. He reached for her, but before his bionic arm was even fully extended, the beast had pulled her into the air, clutched her between its massive claws, and snapped her in half like she was a fucking Kit Kat bar.So, she died like that instead.There was a beat; a pause as horror dawned across the party. A splash of blood splattered on the floor followed by the delicate circlet Ilyra always wore."No," breathed Jostok.A metallic cackle from above filled the room."So much for your princess," Izzon said as he descended on a floating platform.He landed just in front of the beast. Two long strides brought him to the circlet, and he plucked it from the pool of blood before making a mockery of Ilyra's memory and placing the fragile band of metal on his horned forehead."You killed her," Jostok said, his voice wavering."Well, duh," Izzon said, chuckling. "What, you think this is your fairytale or something, Quighnan? You kill the horrible, evil, sad little man who was just trying to get back what was rightfully his? You think you save the world, you get the girl, you get the glory?"His smile faded, and he straightened the circlet before reaching for his omni-cuff."Well, Quighnan, I have news for you. You failed. The world is mine, the girl is dead, and you; ""Shut up, you piece of Cul excrement!" Jostok roared."Or what?" Izzon taunted."Or this," I muttered.Surprise flashed across Izzon's face as Jostok smashed his omni-cuff, using the last of its power to create his trademark rocket launcher. Hefting it over his shoulder, he screamed as he fired it. Izzon's beast stepped forward, snatching its master from the ground seconds before the ball of certain death hit him, and it was time for me to take over.The battle was hell. It was a place I'd been a million times before, and I let the world around me fade as I focused on Izzon and Izzon alone. His beast didn't like that, of course, but the beast wasn't my concern. There were others to fight the beast; only I could fight Izzon.Sweat beaded on my forehead and dryness scratched at my eyes. I refused to look away, refused to be distracted for even a millisecond from my task. Izzon darted around the battlefield, firing laser after laser in my direction, but I knew how to dodge them. I knew how to use them against him; I knew how to lure the beast to just the right spot for Izzon to maim it himself.And I knew what would happen next.The world shook, a rumbling that vibrated through my bones. Izzon's platform shot up, and I tracked it, ignoring the shouts and cries of the battle raging around me. High above, I saw the flash of light, and I hurled myself out of the way moments before a ball of plasma crashed down and punched a hole through the entire ship.A rush of air sucked through the floor, and I clung to the strategically placed pole for dear life, still refusing to take my eyes off Izzon's platform. I waited, watched, my heart racing as he descended, and descended, and;"Now," I said through clenched teeth, and I jumped.Wind and suction twirled around me as I fought against the force with everything in me. It was a Hail Mary, a last-ditch effort, a moment of pure insanity as I mashed at the omni-cuff wildly. I mashed, and mashed, and mashed, and;I made it.I got to the platform."Oh my fuck," I breathed. "Oh fuck, oh frak, oh; fruck."I finally did it.Izzon stood before me, his wretched face twisted in anger. I pointed my weapon at him, just as I dreamed I would a thousand times before, and without so much as a second thought, I began to fire. One shot hit and his body jostled; another and red splattered around me; one more and;And all went dark.Sudden silence replaced the sounds of battle as blackness overtook me. For half a moment, I thought I had died, like for-real died. Then, my eyes adjusted, and across from me I saw the form of a woman with pale skin, wide eyes, and bright blue hair in the depths of a black mirror."No," I whispered.The woman mimicked me."No," I said again, a low groan as realization dawned on me.The woman's face crumpled. A bolt of lightning flashed through the basement window, and as thunder roared, I screamed."You've got to be frucking kidding me!" I shrieked, and I'm not at all ashamed to admit that I burst into tears."Ramona!" my mom shouted distantly.I ignored her cry; tears were streaming down my cheeks as frantic footsteps thudded on the stairs. Despondently, I slid off the couch and crumpled to the floor, clutching my controller to my chest as I sobbed."Ramona!" Mom gasped again, the faint glow of her cell phone flashlight spilling across the basement. "Are you hurt? Ramona, talk to me, w-what happened, are you; ""The power," I whimpered as she reached me and hesitantly touched my shoulder. "The power went out, and I was so close.""Close to; what?""Beating Izzon," I sniffed.Silent tension filled the basement."In a game," she said flatly."Well, yeah, but; ""You screamed bloody murder in the middle of a huge thunderstorm because the power went out during a game."It was no use trying to explain to her that I'd been stuck on the boss fight in The Circlet of Nianus for days. I stared sullenly across the basement at the darkened TV as Mom launched into another one of her ranting lectures that had become routine since I'd returned home for the summer after my first year of university."This is not proper behavior for a nineteen-year-old woman," she said, probably. I would've had to have been listening to know for sure, which I wasn't, but all her lectures were pretty much the same. "Christ, Ramona, it's like I don't even know who you are anymore. What happened to the sweet girl who left for university last August?"Then, if that lecture was anything like the other ones; which it likely was, but I still wasn't listening; she would have started tearing up."I don't know what I did to deserve you acting like this,   Ramona," she probably said in a watery voice. "What happened to my goody-two-shoes straight-laced brown-noser who would never dream of putting a toe out of line and who I, as the head of the Minwack Falls Homeowners Association, could truly be proud of since she was as cookie-cutter and put-together as the yards and fences I work so hard to keep in line at all times?"Well, she probably didn't say that last part. At least, not out loud. But the implication was there. When I tuned back in to the conversation, she was shaking her head as she looked dramatically in the other direction."Honestly,   Ramona, maybe we made a mistake," she was saying, for real that time. "Sending you to that school; I worried that you weren't ready and now; ""I was perfectly ready to go to university," I said dully. "And I'm an adult, so you didn't send me anywhere. I chose to go. And my name is Ramona.""Adults don't throw tantrums because of a silly game.""It's not silly," I said through gritted teeth. "This is what I want to do with my life.""Play games.""Make games.""Hmm," she said. "Be that as it may, I highly doubt you'll find a summer job making games. I charged the laptop battery up earlier today, so if the power stays out, we can still work on your resume tonight."I sighed. "I have a resume. I already asked if they were hiring at The Sword and Dice and they said they'd get back to me.""I doubt the comic book store is hiring," she said, unimpressed, before she started towards the stairs. "I'm surprised Jordan Cooper's managed to keep it open as long as he has. I'll go down to The Enchanted Florist tomorrow and speak with Owen. That girl he has working there was incredibly rude to me the other day and refused to call him so I could make a complaint about her.""Okay, Karen," I muttered under my breath.Mom turned. "What was that?""Nothing."She clearly didn't believe me and shot a very Karen-esque look in my direction. "Well, if he's willing to hire her, I bet he's one of the few people in town who would be willing to overlook your new; style and possibly offer you a job."And there it was; yet another dig at my hair, and my new eyebrow piercing, and the fact that I wasn't dressed like her President of the Student Council Princess anymore.I wish I could say it had been a gradual transformation, that I hadn't been the stereotypical example of the good-girl going wild as soon as she was on her own for the first time. However, years of living with Liz Roth, head of the Minwack Falls Homeowners Association, vice-president of the Minwack Falls High School Parent-Teacher Association, and volunteer board member for the Minwack Falls Good Neighbor Society, had instilled an almost-detrimental instinct to be honest in me.I was absolutely the model of a rebellious girl experiencing life away from an overbearing mother and semi-absent father.I'd left for university as a geeky girl with suitcases full of modest blouses and nice-but-not-too-tight jeans. At the end of the semester, I returned home with suitcases full of pop culture t-shirts, dark jeans that were ripped in all the right places, and Chuck Taylors that I'd kept on my feet day in and day out so I could get that worn-in look as fast as possible. I was still geeky and still a girl, but now that girl had bright blue hair, an eyebrow ring, and an exasperatedly cynical attitude.I loved who I had become. I loved being Ramona, the girl with wild hair and full of laughter. I loved geeking out with my friends over video games and sci-fi movies and superheroes. I loved being able to show people that girl instead of the girl I had to be under my mother's roof.Back home, though, that girl wasn't welcome. That girl was an embarrassment to the head of the H O A. Worse, I was in for another three full months of putting up with my mom's pressure to dye my hair back to a respectable color and stop wearing studded belts and ripped jeans."Teach you that your choices have consequences," Mom was saying, and I'd been so distracted I hadn't even bothered imagining what she might have said. "If The Enchanted Florist won't hire you, you'll need to get your hair fixed.""My hair isn't broken.""I'm not letting you sit down here playing video games all summer. You need to get a job.""Trust me, I'd like nothing more," I said. "I could use the break."Before Mom could respond; and trust me, her inner Karen was desperate to give me a piece of its mind; we were interrupted by the sound of the door opening above us. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly."Your father's home," she said unnecessarily. "Finish tidying up here and come set the table."I waited until she had started back up the basement stairs to let out the breath I'd been holding, leaning miserably against the couch as the darkness enveloped me again.It was going to be a long frucking summer.Summer Expectations.I was saved from having to work on my resume with my mom peering over my shoulder by her innate need to be involved in every disaster.Dinner was blissfully quiet. Dad didn't say much, as per usual, and Mom's constant chatter manifested as mumbled frustrations while she scrolled through the town Facebook page on her phone, the mushy broccoli and dry chicken on her plate abandoned as she took control of the situation via social media.As quickly as I could, I shoveled bite after bite of mediocre, overcooked blandness into my mouth. Like most of my classmates in first year, I'd gained the ubiquitous Freshman Fifteen, but I hadn't minded in the slightest. I'd been relatively thin most of my life, and putting on some weight had finally made me look less like a twelve-year-old boy and more like an actual, honest-to-God woman.Unfortunately, a full summer of my mom's cooking meant that I'd probably slim down to nothingness again unless I started stopping by the Hokey Pokey Ice Cream Parlor twice a day. Which wasn't a terrible idea, actually; their ice cream was all homemade and it was phenomenal.Except that would take money, and while I was rich in Rupees and Bells and Caps, the owners of the Hokey Pokey only accepted boring old dollars.

She's ready for player two.Based on the post of MsCherylTerra, in 3 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at My First Time.Player one is me, Ramona Roth. I'm nineteen, blue hair, pierce eyebrow, former president of the student council, virgin.War is hell, they say, but I say they're wrong.Hell is insanity, and insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.Hell is false hopes and flagrant disappointment.Hell is knowing that the squabbling of Ilyra, the princess from the far-off planet of Nianus, and Jostok, the snarky-but-pleasantly-ripped humanoid alien soldier from Quighnan, would attract the attention of Izzon's monstrous space beast.It's knowing that the beast would destroy the vent your plucky band of misfits was crawling through.It's knowing that you'd all tumble into the cavernous belly of the spaceship with only the last-second triggering of a force-field from your omni-cuff to prevent you from turning into gizzard soup on the space-grey floor.I watched Jostok realize that the force field hadn't prevented the princess from being crushed beneath the weight of the metal that tumbled from above. I watched him separate her from the tangled pile of bodies and bionic limbs, cradling her barely conscious form against one beefy, armor-clad bicep.I watched her brilliant violet eyes flutter open, and saw the little half-smile on her face as he called her by her name, and heard the weakness in her voice as she reminded him that it was Princess Ilyra to him. I heard Jostok chuckle wetly and assure her she was going to make it.After all, she was the princess. This was not how princesses died.Which was true, because she didn't die like that.Izzon's beast hurled itself to the ground in front of us, its weight making the spaceship itself shudder violently. A beam of light shot forth from its gaping maw, wrenching Ilyra from Jostok's arms. He reached for her, but before his bionic arm was even fully extended, the beast had pulled her into the air, clutched her between its massive claws, and snapped her in half like she was a fucking Kit Kat bar.So, she died like that instead.There was a beat; a pause as horror dawned across the party. A splash of blood splattered on the floor followed by the delicate circlet Ilyra always wore."No," breathed Jostok.A metallic cackle from above filled the room."So much for your princess," Izzon said as he descended on a floating platform.He landed just in front of the beast. Two long strides brought him to the circlet, and he plucked it from the pool of blood before making a mockery of Ilyra's memory and placing the fragile band of metal on his horned forehead."You killed her," Jostok said, his voice wavering."Well, duh," Izzon said, chuckling. "What, you think this is your fairytale or something, Quighnan? You kill the horrible, evil, sad little man who was just trying to get back what was rightfully his? You think you save the world, you get the girl, you get the glory?"His smile faded, and he straightened the circlet before reaching for his omni-cuff."Well, Quighnan, I have news for you. You failed. The world is mine, the girl is dead, and you; ""Shut up, you piece of Cul excrement!" Jostok roared."Or what?" Izzon taunted."Or this," I muttered.Surprise flashed across Izzon's face as Jostok smashed his omni-cuff, using the last of its power to create his trademark rocket launcher. Hefting it over his shoulder, he screamed as he fired it. Izzon's beast stepped forward, snatching its master from the ground seconds before the ball of certain death hit him, and it was time for me to take over.The battle was hell. It was a place I'd been a million times before, and I let the world around me fade as I focused on Izzon and Izzon alone. His beast didn't like that, of course, but the beast wasn't my concern. There were others to fight the beast; only I could fight Izzon.Sweat beaded on my forehead and dryness scratched at my eyes. I refused to look away, refused to be distracted for even a millisecond from my task. Izzon darted around the battlefield, firing laser after laser in my direction, but I knew how to dodge them. I knew how to use them against him; I knew how to lure the beast to just the right spot for Izzon to maim it himself.And I knew what would happen next.The world shook, a rumbling that vibrated through my bones. Izzon's platform shot up, and I tracked it, ignoring the shouts and cries of the battle raging around me. High above, I saw the flash of light, and I hurled myself out of the way moments before a ball of plasma crashed down and punched a hole through the entire ship.A rush of air sucked through the floor, and I clung to the strategically placed pole for dear life, still refusing to take my eyes off Izzon's platform. I waited, watched, my heart racing as he descended, and descended, and;"Now," I said through clenched teeth, and I jumped.Wind and suction twirled around me as I fought against the force with everything in me. It was a Hail Mary, a last-ditch effort, a moment of pure insanity as I mashed at the omni-cuff wildly. I mashed, and mashed, and mashed, and;I made it.I got to the platform."Oh my fuck," I breathed. "Oh fuck, oh frak, oh; fruck."I finally did it.Izzon stood before me, his wretched face twisted in anger. I pointed my weapon at him, just as I dreamed I would a thousand times before, and without so much as a second thought, I began to fire. One shot hit and his body jostled; another and red splattered around me; one more and;And all went dark.Sudden silence replaced the sounds of battle as blackness overtook me. For half a moment, I thought I had died, like for-real died. Then, my eyes adjusted, and across from me I saw the form of a woman with pale skin, wide eyes, and bright blue hair in the depths of a black mirror."No," I whispered.The woman mimicked me."No," I said again, a low groan as realization dawned on me.The woman's face crumpled. A bolt of lightning flashed through the basement window, and as thunder roared, I screamed."You've got to be frucking kidding me!" I shrieked, and I'm not at all ashamed to admit that I burst into tears."Ramona!" my mom shouted distantly.I ignored her cry; tears were streaming down my cheeks as frantic footsteps thudded on the stairs. Despondently, I slid off the couch and crumpled to the floor, clutching my controller to my chest as I sobbed."Ramona!" Mom gasped again, the faint glow of her cell phone flashlight spilling across the basement. "Are you hurt? Ramona, talk to me, w-what happened, are you; ""The power," I whimpered as she reached me and hesitantly touched my shoulder. "The power went out, and I was so close.""Close to; what?""Beating Izzon," I sniffed.Silent tension filled the basement."In a game," she said flatly."Well, yeah, but; ""You screamed bloody murder in the middle of a huge thunderstorm because the power went out during a game."It was no use trying to explain to her that I'd been stuck on the boss fight in The Circlet of Nianus for days. I stared sullenly across the basement at the darkened TV as Mom launched into another one of her ranting lectures that had become routine since I'd returned home for the summer after my first year of university."This is not proper behavior for a nineteen-year-old woman," she said, probably. I would've had to have been listening to know for sure, which I wasn't, but all her lectures were pretty much the same. "Christ, Ramona, it's like I don't even know who you are anymore. What happened to the sweet girl who left for university last August?"Then, if that lecture was anything like the other ones; which it likely was, but I still wasn't listening; she would have started tearing up."I don't know what I did to deserve you acting like this,   Ramona," she probably said in a watery voice. "What happened to my goody-two-shoes straight-laced brown-noser who would never dream of putting a toe out of line and who I, as the head of the Minwack Falls Homeowners Association, could truly be proud of since she was as cookie-cutter and put-together as the yards and fences I work so hard to keep in line at all times?"Well, she probably didn't say that last part. At least, not out loud. But the implication was there. When I tuned back in to the conversation, she was shaking her head as she looked dramatically in the other direction."Honestly,   Ramona, maybe we made a mistake," she was saying, for real that time. "Sending you to that school; I worried that you weren't ready and now; ""I was perfectly ready to go to university," I said dully. "And I'm an adult, so you didn't send me anywhere. I chose to go. And my name is Ramona.""Adults don't throw tantrums because of a silly game.""It's not silly," I said through gritted teeth. "This is what I want to do with my life.""Play games.""Make games.""Hmm," she said. "Be that as it may, I highly doubt you'll find a summer job making games. I charged the laptop battery up earlier today, so if the power stays out, we can still work on your resume tonight."I sighed. "I have a resume. I already asked if they were hiring at The Sword and Dice and they said they'd get back to me.""I doubt the comic book store is hiring," she said, unimpressed, before she started towards the stairs. "I'm surprised Jordan Cooper's managed to keep it open as long as he has. I'll go down to The Enchanted Florist tomorrow and speak with Owen. That girl he has working there was incredibly rude to me the other day and refused to call him so I could make a complaint about her.""Okay, Karen," I muttered under my breath.Mom turned. "What was that?""Nothing."She clearly didn't believe me and shot a very Karen-esque look in my direction. "Well, if he's willing to hire her, I bet he's one of the few people in town who would be willing to overlook your new; style and possibly offer you a job."And there it was; yet another dig at my hair, and my new eyebrow piercing, and the fact that I wasn't dressed like her President of the Student Council Princess anymore.I wish I could say it had been a gradual transformation, that I hadn't been the stereotypical example of the good-girl going wild as soon as she was on her own for the first time. However, years of living with Liz Roth, head of the Minwack Falls Homeowners Association, vice-president of the Minwack Falls High School Parent-Teacher Association, and volunteer board member for the Minwack Falls Good Neighbor Society, had instilled an almost-detrimental instinct to be honest in me.I was absolutely the model of a rebellious girl experiencing life away from an overbearing mother and semi-absent father.I'd left for university as a geeky girl with suitcases full of modest blouses and nice-but-not-too-tight jeans. At the end of the semester, I returned home with suitcases full of pop culture t-shirts, dark jeans that were ripped in all the right places, and Chuck Taylors that I'd kept on my feet day in and day out so I could get that worn-in look as fast as possible. I was still geeky and still a girl, but now that girl had bright blue hair, an eyebrow ring, and an exasperatedly cynical attitude.I loved who I had become. I loved being Ramona, the girl with wild hair and full of laughter. I loved geeking out with my friends over video games and sci-fi movies and superheroes. I loved being able to show people that girl instead of the girl I had to be under my mother's roof.Back home, though, that girl wasn't welcome. That girl was an embarrassment to the head of the H O A. Worse, I was in for another three full months of putting up with my mom's pressure to dye my hair back to a respectable color and stop wearing studded belts and ripped jeans."Teach you that your choices have consequences," Mom was saying, and I'd been so distracted I hadn't even bothered imagining what she might have said. "If The Enchanted Florist won't hire you, you'll need to get your hair fixed.""My hair isn't broken.""I'm not letting you sit down here playing video games all summer. You need to get a job.""Trust me, I'd like nothing more," I said. "I could use the break."Before Mom could respond; and trust me, her inner Karen was desperate to give me a piece of its mind; we were interrupted by the sound of the door opening above us. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly."Your father's home," she said unnecessarily. "Finish tidying up here and come set the table."I waited until she had started back up the basement stairs to let out the breath I'd been holding, leaning miserably against the couch as the darkness enveloped me again.It was going to be a long frucking summer.Summer Expectations.I was saved from having to work on my resume with my mom peering over my shoulder by her innate need to be involved in every disaster.Dinner was blissfully quiet. Dad didn't say much, as per usual, and Mom's constant chatter manifested as mumbled frustrations while she scrolled through the town Facebook page on her phone, the mushy broccoli and dry chicken on her plate abandoned as she took control of the situation via social media.As quickly as I could, I shoveled bite after bite of mediocre, overcooked blandness into my mouth. Like most of my classmates in first year, I'd gained the ubiquitous Freshman Fifteen, but I hadn't minded in the slightest. I'd been relatively thin most of my life, and putting on some weight had finally made me look less like a twelve-year-old boy and more like an actual, honest-to-God woman.Unfortunately, a full summer of my mom's cooking meant that I'd probably slim down to nothingness again unless I started stopping by the Hokey Pokey Ice Cream Parlor twice a day. Which wasn't a terrible idea, actually; their ice cream was all homemade and it was phenomenal.Except that would take money, and while I was rich in Rupees and Bells and Caps, the owners of the Hokey Pokey only accepted boring old dollars.

Here are your stats for February and more real estate news. Happy Real Estate!Check us on Feedspot as one of the ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Top 25 Toronto Real Estate Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠*FOLLOW US FOR TORONTO HOUSING UPDATES*IG: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/jenellecameronteam/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FB: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/JenelleCameronTeam⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠WEBSITE: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://www.jenellecameron.com/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hokey Pokey Pharisee by FCC Palmer, IA

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What kinda flaming Hokey Pokey? This week, Johnny and Tyler are covering the Bazar de la Charité fire of 1897, as well as the death Elfrieda Knaak. Plus: Drag Race leaves us fed, a mermaid vs fish encounter that was on no one's 2025 bingo card, and filling Tyler in on the secret children of the Arnold! Join the Secret Society That Doesn't Suck for exclusive weekly mini episodes, livestreams, and a whole lot more! patreon.com/thatsspookyCheck out our new and improved apparel store with tons of new designs! thatsspooky.com/storeCheck out our website for show notes, photos, and more at thatsspooky.comFollow us on Instagram for photos from today's episode and all the memes @thatsspookypodWe're on Twitter! Follow us at @thatsspookypodDon't forget to send your spooky stories to thatsspookypod@gmail.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Get your Bananaraptor on with this fruity version of the sing-along song The Hokey Pokey.

Text us your questions or topics for the show! We got you!Cass Morrow, Author of Disrupting Divorce: The NEW Man. Saving Struggling, Sexless, and Toxic Marriages.Kathryn Morrow, Author of Behind The White Picket Fence.The Hokey Pokey Is Messing You Up!In Ep227 of The 'NEW' Marriage, we delve into how the classic "Hokey Pokey" might be more than just a fun song—it could be a metaphor for the way you're approaching your relationship. Are you putting your foot in and taking it out too often, unsure of your stance? Learn how to stop dancing around key issues and instead, step forward with clarity, confidence, and commitment. It's time to take control of your relationship and stop the back-and-forth.

Kayla and Isabel discuss the complications of reward in the context of a partner relationship. How does it affect time with children? How about intimacy?

Join Daton and Lee as they break down Oklahoma State's 20th straight Bedlam victory as well as look ahead at the Virginia Tech - Oklahoma State dual.. or the Hokey Pokey, as some are calling it.

Time to angrily sing "The Hokey Pokey" as we discuss Mom and Dad directed by Brian Taylor. The boys are joined by Scott K (Church of Tarantino Podcast) to discuss the fears & insecurities of being a a parent, Selma Blair as the perfect Nic Cage scene partner, and all the memes. Don't forget your Sawsall!New episodes drop every Tuesday, subscribe so you don't miss out. Rate us 5 stars while you're at it! Next week, we're escaping hell to talk Drive Angry! Enter The Phantom Zone to access all sorts of bonus goodies like our monthly side show "Watching the Watchlist", movie commentaries, and polls to help shape the podcast: https://patreon.com/spectercinemaHaunt Vanessa on social media:TwitterBlueskyInstagramHaunt Garrett on social media:TikTokTwitterBlueskyInstagramLetterboxdYouTubeHaunt DeVaughn on social media:BlueskyTwitterTikTokInstagramLetterboxdYouTubeSpecter Cinema Club Original Theme by Andrey Kinnard

Click here to Shop Affirmation Decks, Oracle Decks, and more! Use Promo code: RCPODCAST20 for 20% off your first order!   Today's Power Affirmation: I release my urge to force happenings. I surrender to my flow.   Today's Oracle of Motivation: If your world goes looney tunes and the path forward seems confusing, step back, chillax, and surrender to your flow (the stuff that feels exciting and easy). Slow down and enjoy something beautiful right in front of you. Perhaps that beautiful something in the mirror is a good place to start. When you become the Sun you bypass the clouds. When you flow like the ocean, you wash out the drought. Stop trying so fucking hard to figure things out, because what if the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about? :)   Designed to Motivate Your Creative Maniac Mind The 60-Second Power Affirmations Podcast is designed to help you focus, affirm your visions, and harness the power within your creative maniac mind! Join us every Monday and Thursday for a new 60-second power affirmation followed by a blast of oracle motivation from the Universe (+ a quick breathing meditation). It's time to take off your procrastination diaper and share your musings with the world!   For more musings, visit RageCreate.com     Leave a Review & Share! Apple Podcast reviews are one of THE most important factors for podcasts. If you enjoy the show please take a second to leave the show a review on Apple Podcasts! Click this link: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Hit “Listen on Apple Podcasts” on the left-hand side under the picture. Scroll down under “Ratings & Reviews” & click “Write A Review” Leave an honest review. You're awesome!  

Dale, Brian and Fitzy talk you through their review of Manchester United's 1-1 draw with Chelsea. Ruud van Nistelrooy is currently interim manager, but how long will he last at Manchester United after Ruben Amorim's appointment as head coach? INEOS have destroyed European away days. Can United restore faith in Europe this week? That and more on episode 217 of the Strettycast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you skipping this VITAL step too? Dive Deeper at http://NevilleGoddardStore.com Don't be like lot's wife.... Do the COMPLETE Hokey Pokey!

Click here to Shop Affirmation Decks, Oracle Decks, and more! Use Promo code: RCPODCAST20 for 20% off your first order!   Today's Power Affirmation: I release my urge to force happenings. I surrender to my flow.   Today's Oracle of Motivation: If your world goes looney tunes and the path forward seems confusing, step back, chillax, and surrender to your flow (the stuff that feels exciting and easy). Slow down and enjoy something beautiful right in front of you. Perhaps that beautiful something in the mirror is a good place to start. When you become the Sun you bypass the clouds. When you flow like the ocean, you wash out the drought. Stop trying so fucking hard to figure things out, because what if the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about? :)   Designed to Motivate Your Creative Maniac Mind The 60-Second Power Affirmations Podcast is designed to help you focus, affirm your visions, and harness the power within your creative maniac mind! Join us every Monday and Thursday for a new 60-second power affirmation followed by a blast of oracle motivation from the Universe (+ a quick breathing meditation). It's time to take off your procrastination diaper and share your musings with the world!   For more musings, visit RageCreate.com     Leave a Review & Share! Apple Podcast reviews are one of THE most important factors for podcasts. If you enjoy the show please take a second to leave the show a review on Apple Podcasts! Click this link: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Hit “Listen on Apple Podcasts” on the left-hand side under the picture. Scroll down under “Ratings & Reviews” & click “Write A Review” Leave an honest review. You're awesome!  

This week, legendary LA food writer Bill Esparza made waves when he dropped a scathing review of Villa's Tacos on his Instagram stories. The review had been building for weeks, if not more than a year, and its Kendrick-style intensity left all of Los Angeles talking. Father Sal is with us today to dive deep into the situation, including what led to it, what the review got right and wrong, and how Victor Villa and others in the LA food community responded. We attempt to answer the essential questions - was Bill's criticism fair? Did he go too far, was he too mean? And what does it mean that Bill's opinions on these tacos, seems to be so far removed from that of other key voices in the food world including Bill Addison, LA Taco and even Michelin Bib Gourmand. One housekeeping note, Bill's review took place on Instagram stories and is no longer available. Fear not, we've got your back. We took screenshots and the entire review can be found at our substack, LA FOODSTACK, linked in the show notes. On a lighter note, we're also joined on the podcast today by Duncan Parsons and Joe Wedd, the duo behind Creamy Boys, a New Zealand-style real fruit ice cream concept down in Hermosa Beach. I had a blast talking to these two rambunctious fellas about how they turned their lifelong friendship and passion for their hometown delicacy into a business concept that is kind of taking Los Angeles by storm. If you haven't had New Zealand style ice cream yet, I'm not sure you can really say your summer has even begun. So give this a listen, and then go get your Hokey Pokey on. Helpful links: LA FOODSTACK, where you can find Bill Esparza's Villa's Tacos review in its entirety https://thelacountdown.substack.com/ Creamy Boys https://www.creamyboys.com/ -- Get 10% off at House of Macadamias with code "LAFOOD" https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/pages/la-foods -- Get 10% off on your first purchase of wagyu beef products at First Light Farms with code "LAFOOD10" https://www.firstlight.farm/us/ --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thelafoodpodcast/support

It's Episode 219 of The Cavalry! Johnny needs backup on not wanting to go to potlucks. Andrew needs backup that the people who "rep" their city the hardest never tend to live in that city. Enjoy! 

What does it mean for a baby to be “incompatible with life?” Even before a baby is born, doctors are doing tests, reviewing ultrasounds, and monitoring the mother closely for unexpected results or problems. If the unborn baby has too serious a condition, parents might be told by doctors that their baby is “incompatible with life.” That's to say, it's not expected to live long, if at all, and parents can face a choice of life or death for this person they've not yet met. After doctors identified Trisomy 13 in John Paul Hauser, his parents were coached to consider having an abortion. Despite having this major genetic corruption, and a life that might last for minutes if at all, John Paul's parents chose to give him that life. And live he did. /// Faith Full is a Catholic podcast hosted by Tony Ganzer. This episode features Tami and Tracy Hauser, and Barb Baxter, the parents and godmother of John Paul Hauser. Visit our website: https://www.faithfullpod.com/ Donate: https://www.faithfullpod.com/support/ Subscribe on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/faith-full-podcast/id1363835811 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/34sSHs8hHpOCi5csuTtiIv The reflection of John Paul Hauser's joy still radiates from cherished family videos. In one clip, he's sitting on his mom's lap as she claps his hands in tune with "The Hokey Pokey." "The Hokey Pokey" is one of those universal songs to get kids moving, and be silly and joyful. John Paul's condition meant he experienced the hokey pokey and so many things differently than most kids, but he still enjoyed them. He didn't speak, but he communicated in his own way. He played. He enjoyed music—Schubert's Ave Maria was a favorite. It's important we start with some details of John Paul Hauser the person, because there was a chance we would never have met him. Tami and her husband Tracy made the choice to give John Paul a chance to live, even though he would face great difficulty. "They noticed some some things looked abnormal on the ultrasound and then they sent us in for more testing," Tami says. "They told us that he had this condition called Trisomy 13, which is a corruption of all the chromosomes, and it's the most severe corruption, and that they considered it "incompatible with life." They told us that he wasn't probably going to make it to birth and if he did he would most likely only live like a few minutes or maybe at best a few hours after birth." Tami and Tracy faced this news with shock, devastation, and fear.  "The very next thing out of their mouth is that we should have an abortion. I just remember like thinking, I just I couldn't believe that they were telling us to have, they were coaching us to have an abortion. I was always like, I didn't realize it went like this. I just thought people left these appointments and then discerned and decided to have an abortion, but here were just being advised ... and more than once," Tami continues. "Finally we just said this baby is not going to die at our hands and you know for us it just wasn't even a decision, like it was just like no. This is…that we would never end our child's life."

Listen live as Steve Gill fills in for Todd Starnes! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Brent visits Seville, Spain to learn about buying cakes from nuns. Then, we're enjoying an ice cream from New Zealand called Hokey Pokey, the state cookie of New Mexico, and how to eat a cupcake in Seattle! [Ep 292] Show Notes: Support Destination Eat Drink Darley Newman's website Pilar Rubio's Instagram Frugal Travellers YouTube Channel Rated V YouTube Channel Cupcake Royale Hot Cakes Dough Joy

Welcome to the Instant Trivia podcast episode 1240, where we ask the best trivia on the Internet. Round 1. Category: I Read It On A Bumper Sticker 1: "Save water" do this "with a friend". shower. 2: "What if" this kids' dance song "is what it's all about?". "The Hokey Pokey". 3: Punning on a slogan of the United Negro College Fund, "A waist is a terrible thing to...". mind. 4: "Never play leap frog with" this mythical animal, if you get my point. the unicorn. 5: "Does the name" of this physiologist "ring a bell?". Pavlov. Round 2. Category: South Park 1: Everglades National Park in this Southern state is the USA's largest subtropical wilderness. Florida. 2: Atlanta's Freedom Park features a sculpture of this iconic Baptist minister, his arm outstretched. Martin Luther King Jr.. 3: National parks in the south of this state include Sitka and Glacier Bay. Alaska. 4: S. Montana's Electric Peak, named for the electrical charge experienced by climbers in 1872, is in this natl. park. Yellowstone. 5: Southeast of Mt. Rushmore lies Badlands National Park in this state. South Dakota. Round 3. Category: Round The World. With Round in quotation marks 1: Charing Cross and Covent Garden are stops on it. the Underground. 2: Winchester, England, claims to have this, 18 feet in diameter. Round Table. 3: September is when thousands of rodeo fans are driven into northeast Oregon for the annual Pendleton this. Roundup. 4: West of London, the Denham this connects traffic on the A40 and the M40. a roundabout. 5: Hotspots at the Battle of Gettysburg included Devil's Den, the Peach Orchard and Little this. Round Top. Round 4. Category: Your Mama! 1: Cain, Biblically speaking. Eve. 2: First kids Lynda Bird and Luci Baines. Lady Bird Johnson. 3: TV's Marcia, Jan and CIndy. Carol Brady. 4: Writer Mary Shelley. Mary Wollstonecraft. 5: Greek god Ares. Hera. Round 5. Category: An Attractive Preposition 1: When not in its usual time context, it can mean "in the presence of". before. 2: In old song titles, it precedes "The Sad Sea Waves" and "The Light Of The Silvery Moon". by. 3: To bet that the Rams and Colts will combine to score more than 42 points it to "take" this. the over. 4: It can precede "the curve", "the times", or in a Smithereens song, "The Wall of Sleep". behind. 5: Just once, this word wants to be used without its companion and synonym, the word "between". betwixt. Thanks for listening! Come back tomorrow for more exciting trivia!Special thanks to https://blog.feedspot.com/trivia_podcasts/ AI Voices used

You can now rent a professional bridesmaid for your wedding! Really, no really! Before you ask the inevitable and logical question…why anyone would need to rent somebody to be their bridesmaid, consider this: twenty two percent of Americans say that it has been at least five years since they've made a new friend and nearly one-third say they have three or fewer close friends. With friendship in decline no wonder one woman, today's guest has acted as a bridesmaid in hundreds of weddings for brides she didn't know. Jen Glantz is the world's first professional bridesmaid and founder of Bridesmaid for Hire, she's also a best-selling author, a blogger, she writes several newsletters, and she hosts the wildly popular podcast, You're Not Getting Any Younger. IN THIS EPISODE: How Jen stumbled into the professional bridesmaid business. Wedding disasters! Arguments, mistresses, fistfights, inappropriate speeches, and dog bites! Which couples won't last…can Jen tell the difference? The surprising origin of many of your wedding traditions Anybody interested in attending a vow renewal? They have a registry! Destination weddings & why we hate them. Has Jen ever been busted as a pseudo friend? If you're asked to be a bridesmaid…answer these questions BEFORE saying yes. The inherent sadness of needing a paid bridesmaid. The wedding Hokey Pokey incident Jason will never forget. Google-heim: Hokey Pokey controversies and producer Lorre's dubious wedding! *** FOLLOW JEN GLANTZ: Website: BridesmaidForHire.com Blog: The Things I Learned From Podcast: You're Not Getting Any Younger Instagram: @jenglantz TikTok: @BridesmaidForHire X: @jenglantz Facebook: Jen Glantz YouTube: @jenglantz *** FOLLOW REALLY NO REALLY: www.reallynoreally.com Instagram YouTube TikTok Facebook Threads XSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Today's Power Affirmation: I release my urge to force happenings. I surrender to my flow.   Today's Oracle of Motivation: If your world goes looney tunes and the path forward seems confusing, step back, chillax, and surrender to your flow (the stuff that feels exciting and easy). Slow down and enjoy something beautiful right in front of you. Perhaps that beautiful something in the mirror is a good place to start. When you become the Sun you bypass the clouds. When you flow like the ocean, you wash out the drought. Stop trying so fucking hard to figure things out, because what if the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about? :)   Click Here to Get Your Affirmation Card Deck Today    Download 10 Free Affirmation Wallpapers for Your Computer and Mobile Phone   Designed to Motivate Your Creative Maniac Mind The 60-Second Power Affirmations Podcast is designed to help you focus, affirm your visions, and harness the power within your creative maniac mind! Join us every Monday and Thursday for a new 60-second power affirmation followed by a blast of oracle motivation from the Universe (+ a quick breathing meditation). It's time to take off your procrastination diaper and share your musings with the world!   For more musings, visit RageCreate.com     Leave a Review & Share! Apple Podcast reviews are one of THE most important factors for podcasts. If you enjoy the show please take a second to leave the show a review on Apple Podcasts! Click this link: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Hit “Listen on Apple Podcasts” on the left-hand side under the picture. Scroll down under “Ratings & Reviews” & click “Write A Review” Leave an honest review. You're awesome!  

The Fellowship is pleased to present our discussion of the Batman classic story A Lonely Place of Dying (1989). This is the introduction of Tim Drake, and yet another shift in the Batman mystique. Plus our usual crazy talk, geek news, and tangents

It's okay to admit Nebraska has the quarterback situation figured out.

In this episode, Vanessa talks about things you can do for your body to physically recover form the mentally draining state testing days, a hack to save your money and grief, and describes exactly how to get from teaching to the job of your dreams.  A link to a short 5 minute video demonstrating shaking to release stress – it's not the Hokey Pokey, it's betterHappier in Hollywood podcast episode 80: Get to Steppin.' The pertinent part starts at 3:25.  A link to our Facebook Page! Join us!And remember to send your comments, stories, and random thoughts to me at TeachersinTransitionCoaching@gmail.com!  I look forward to reading them.  Would you like to hear a specific topic on the pod?  Send those questions to me and I'll answer them. Feel free to connect with Vanessa on LinkedIn!The transcript of this podcast can be found on the podcasts' homepage at Buzzsprout. 

Keity's spiraling out of control with a mini age crisis; A question Moe thought he would NEVER ask; Moe questions Beyoncé's intentions; Getting lost in the art leads to Moe dropping an exclusive track. The struggles of being black in corporate settings; Living your life to the fullest; and Blind Dates gone wrong! All this an more in the FULL episode 199! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

March Maaaaadnesss - we love to be all in. We love you!

Word wars episode

The majority of the MMA fanbase is looking for answers to two questions — what will headline UFC 300, and when is Conor McGregor making his UFC return? On Wednesday, UFC CEO Dana White says he hopes it happens in the fall, which doesn't line up to what McGregor and potential opponent Michael Chandler have said recently.  On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel will discuss White's update on McGregor, why it's taking so long, and if Chandler should consider moving on since he's approaching nearly two years out of the octagon. Additionally, topics may include Dustin Poirier's Hokey Pokey move a week ago ahead of his UFC 299 bout with Benoit Saint Denis, this past weekend's UFC Vegas 85 fight card, this Saturday's UFC Vegas 86 event headlined by Jack Hermansson vs. Joe Pyfer and much more. Host Mike Heck will be joined by MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew to discuss these topics and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The majority of the MMA fanbase is looking for answers to two questions — what will headline UFC 300, and when is Conor McGregor making his UFC return? On Wednesday, UFC CEO Dana White says he hopes it happens in the fall, which doesn't line up to what McGregor and potential opponent Michael Chandler have said recently.  On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel will discuss White's update on McGregor, why it's taking so long, and if Chandler should consider moving on since he's approaching nearly two years out of the octagon. Additionally, topics may include Dustin Poirier's Hokey Pokey move a week ago ahead of his UFC 299 bout with Benoit Saint Denis, this past weekend's UFC Vegas 85 fight card, this Saturday's UFC Vegas 86 event headlined by Jack Hermansson vs. Joe Pyfer and much more. Host Mike Heck will be joined by MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew to discuss these topics and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The majority of the MMA fanbase is looking for answers to two questions — what will headline UFC 300, and when is Conor McGregor making his UFC return? On Wednesday, UFC CEO Dana White says he hopes it happens in the fall, which doesn't line up to what McGregor and potential opponent Michael Chandler have said recently.  On an all-new edition of Between the Links, the panel will discuss White's update on McGregor, why it's taking so long, and if Chandler should consider moving on since he's approaching nearly two years out of the octagon. Additionally, topics may include Dustin Poirier's Hokey Pokey move a week ago ahead of his UFC 299 bout with Benoit Saint Denis, this past weekend's UFC Vegas 85 fight card, this Saturday's UFC Vegas 86 event headlined by Jack Hermansson vs. Joe Pyfer and much more. Host Mike Heck will be joined by MMA Fighting's Jed Meshew to discuss these topics and more. Follow Mike Heck: @MikeHeck_JR Follow Jed Meshew: @JedKMeshew Subscribe to MMA Fighting Check out our full video catalog Like MMA Fighting on Facebook Follow on Twitter Read More: http://www.mmafighting.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Megan is going to lock Katie in a room until she watches Barbie.

Today's Power Affirmation: I release my urge to force happenings. I surrender to my flow.   Today's Oracle of Motivation: If your world goes looney tunes and the path forward seems confusing, step back, chillax, and surrender to your flow (the stuff that feels exciting and easy). Slow down and enjoy something beautiful right in front of you. Perhaps that beautiful something in the mirror is a good place to start. When you become the Sun you bypass the clouds. When you flow like the ocean, you wash out the drought. Stop trying so fucking hard to figure things out, because what if the Hokey Pokey really IS what it's all about? :)   Click Here to Get Your Affirmation Card Deck Today    Download 10 Free Affirmation Wallpapers for Your Computer and Mobile Phone   Designed to Motivate Your Creative Maniac Mind The 60-Second Power Affirmations Podcast is designed to help you focus, affirm your visions, and harness the power within your creative maniac mind! Join us every Monday and Thursday for a new 60-second power affirmation followed by a blast of oracle motivation from the Universe (+ a quick breathing meditation). It's time to take off your procrastination diaper and share your musings with the world!   For more musings, visit RageCreate.com     Leave a Review & Share! Apple Podcast reviews are one of THE most important factors for podcasts. If you enjoy the show please take a second to leave the show a review on Apple Podcasts! Click this link: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts Hit “Listen on Apple Podcasts” on the left-hand side under the picture. Scroll down under “Ratings & Reviews” & click “Write A Review” Leave an honest review. You're awesome!  

It's the first episode of the new year and if you thought Android news was light due to the holiday break, think again!Featured in this episode:NEWSGoogle and Samsung might merge Quick Share and Nearby ShareBeeper says it's done dealing with Apple over iMessage for Android app issuesGlobal premium smartphone market sees record sales in 2023Android may soon estimate phone battery life expectancyPatron News Story Pick: Google Maps Driving Mode on Android might disappear in 2024HARDWARESamsung hosting Galaxy S24 Unpacked event in San JoseMore Galaxy S24 series renders leakedGalaxy S24 series AI and camera features leakedNothing Phone (2a) specs and pricing leaksCarl Pei tweets teasing a “New Year, New Phone"OnePlus 12R specs aplentyAPPSAndroid Auto now syncs phone wallpaper to displayGoogle Clock gets Pixel-inspired weather forecast redesignMicrosoft brings Copilot AI assistant to AndroidCOMMUNITYcontacts sync issues from Google Contacts to MacGoogle's Find My Device tracker launch is still in progressGreen bubble complaints signify the need for new friends Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hokey Pokey car seats, pinch the bum law, guest accommodations, first aid-im, on introverts hosting, cholent liner fail, new word, tips from the mail person, cannabis and anti-semetism, someone making a podcast, key to happiness, divide and conquer, movie review (Anyone But You), Dolphins grief, cat news, wine show, winter heartache, fuzzy movie rental & camping?!

Terrible fashion trends we luckily missed out on, or didn't get into; Doing the Hokey Pokey in the shower is no fun; The unfair aspect of a duel; Tony Robbins and midget giants or giant midgets; Feeney comes to the show prepared with lists, 10 obscure 90s bands and the 20 biggest box office flops; The Ted McGinley TV curse; Latest global rankings, and of course, all the usual perversions. Follow the guys on X!Raven - @theRavenEffectRich - @RichBocchiniFeeney - @jffeeney3rdRaven has some action figures available for purchase at http://majorpodmerch.com so go buy them.Buy some of Raven's old comics and other goods. Check out the store by Ask Danna at https://www.ebay.com/str/askdannaHave Raven say things that you want him to say, either for yourself or for someone you want to talk big-game shit to by going to http://www.cameo.com/ravenprime1If you want all the uncensored goodness AND watch The Raven Effect, sign up for Patreon by going to http://www.patreon.com/TheRavenEffect it's only $5 a month!This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5166640/advertisement

Our second episode dealing with the non-album work of Tom Waits (and our second from the 1970s) brings a variety of covers, live performances, outtakes and re-uses from studio sessions... including the Hokey Pokey. Check the show notes for versions of everything we're discussing, and hopefully you'll find some new favourites. website: songbysongpodcast.com twitter: @songbysongpod e-mail: songbysongpodcast@gmail.com Music extracts used for illustrative/review purposes include: Martin Goes And Does Where It's At / Bombed Anyway, I'm Everyone I've Ever Loved, Martin Mull feat. Tom Waits (1977) Just Another Dime Store Novel, unreleased recording - possibly from the Foreign Affairs sessions / Filmways Heider Recording, Tom Waits (1977) (Meet Me In) Paradise Alley, Paradise Alley Soundtrack, Tom Waits (1978) With a Suitcase (Street Band Version), unreleased recording - from the Paradise Alley sessions, Tom Waits (1978) Tijuana, Jack Tempchin, Jack Tempchin, w. Tom Waits (1978) Summertime, live recording, The Royal Horse, Osaka, Japan, w. George Gershwin (March 1978) Summertime / Putnam County, live recording, Park Motor Inn, Madison, Wisconsin (31 October 1977) Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo', live recording, Zilker Park, Austin TX (5 December 1978) OR Warner Theatre, Washington DC (21 November 1978) Ain't Gonna Rain No Mo' / I Wish I Was In New Orleans, live recording, Austin City Limits, Texas (December 1978) Waitin' For Waits, Hollywood Madness, Richie Cole / Eddie Jefferson feat. Tom Waits (1979) Gee Baby Ain't I Good To You, live recording, Uptown Theatre, Kansas City, w. Andy Razaf and Don Redman (8 October 1979) OR Beacon Theatre, New York w. Andy Razaf and Don Redman (5 November 1979) Whose Sports Coat Is That, live recording, Uptown Theatre, Kansas City (8 October 1979) OR Beacon Theatre, New York (5 November 1979) Trash day, live recording, Uptown Theatre, Kansas City (8 October 1979) OR Beacon Theatre, New York (5 November 1979) Since I Fell For You, live recording, Capitol Theatre, Sydney Australia, w. Buddy Johnson (2 May 1979) Do The Hokey Pokey / Pasties & A G-String, live recording, Capitol Theatre, Sydney Australia (2 May 1979) I Feel Good, live recording, Paramount Theatre, Seattle WA, w. James Brown (7 October 1979) In Shades, Heartattack & Vine, Tom Waits (1980) When The Saints Go Marching In, live recording (197?/198?) We think your Song by Song experience will be enhanced by hearing, in full, the songs featured in the show, which you can get hold of from your favourite record shop or online platform. Please support artists by buying their music, or using services which guarantee artists a revenue - listen responsibly.

Become a Chronicles Tifosi Patreon member for priority access to ALL episodes as soon as they drop with no delay, 100% AD-FREE, individual "postcard" mini-sodes, Patreon-exclusive content and plenty of video episodes with Mina Rzouki & Nicky Bandini, PLUS a 7 DAY FREE TRIAL by subscribing at serieachronicles.com/patreon. ****** Milan falls back in love with Stefano Pioli after bouncing back from its Serie A struggles to defeat PSG, with excellent goals from Giroud and Leao. And the Milanisti had a show in store for former Milan goalkeeper Donnarumma. Inter keep on winning in their style. Napoli couldn't get over the line against Bonucci's Union Berlin, managing only a draw. And Lazio defeated Feyenoord despite having 35% possession and one shot on goal. Back in Serie A last weekend Roma left it late to take the points over Lecce with two injury time goals, including a Lukaku strike to win it after he had earlier missed a penalty. Juventus keep on "Juventusing". Maurizio Sarri: the endearing grumpy old bloke at the bar. And we preview the coming weekend's Rome Derby. Who do we think will win? ****** Sponsor the show: serieachronicles.com/sponsor. ****** Follow us: YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Please give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts. Serie A Chronicles is a Media Chronicles production. Digital content and social media by Calido Media. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Constitution Study with Host Paul Engel – Due Process is a term many use, yet its true meaning often eludes. The Free Legal Dictionary defines it as the established course for safeguarding individual legal rights through judicial proceedings. But is our judicial system truly delivering justice? Nowadays, it feels more procedural than just. Imagine putting your case into this system, only to see it treated like a child's dance, the hokey pokey!