British rock critic and musician
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54 episodes with Nick Kent
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6 episodes with Nick Kent
6 episodes with Nick Kent
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2 episodes with Nick Kent
2 episodes with Nick Kent
6 episodes with Nick Kent
As the great Warren Zevon said, ‘Enjoy every sandwich'. The two-man canoe navigates this week's rock and roll rivulet which sadly entails reflections on a pair of towering musical giants ‘whose legend occupied the space where activity should have been'. Things considered include … …are you born with genius or does a set of circumstances allow it to flourish? … the impossible task of living up to people's expectations and the calamitous ways it led Sly and Brian Wilson to behave. … like Sly's plane landing at the moment he was meant to be onstage at Madison Square Garden. … the massive cultural contrast between Woodstock and ‘the Black Woodstock' a month earlier and how Sly & the Family Stone looked like they'd ‘come from Mars'. … how Derek Taylor, Tom Nolan and Nick Kent helped fashion the Beach Boys' myth. … Sly's impact on Miles Davis, Prince, Massive Attack and hip-hop and how a record as radical as There's A Riot Goin' On was a No 1 Christmas album. … In My Room, a completely new kind of teenage song. … David's five Beach Boys teenage moments … … and Mark's three examples of Brian Wilson's Greatest Bits – eg the overture to California Girls. … and 'Arise, Sir Roger Daltrey!'Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
As the great Warren Zevon said, ‘Enjoy every sandwich'. The two-man canoe navigates this week's rock and roll rivulet which sadly entails reflections on a pair of towering musical giants ‘whose legend occupied the space where activity should have been'. Things considered include … …are you born with genius or does a set of circumstances allow it to flourish? … the impossible task of living up to people's expectations and the calamitous ways it led Sly and Brian Wilson to behave. … like Sly's plane landing at the moment he was meant to be onstage at Madison Square Garden. … the massive cultural contrast between Woodstock and ‘the Black Woodstock' a month earlier and how Sly & the Family Stone looked like they'd ‘come from Mars'. … how Derek Taylor, Tom Nolan and Nick Kent helped fashion the Beach Boys' myth. … Sly's impact on Miles Davis, Prince, Massive Attack and hip-hop and how a record as radical as There's A Riot Goin' On was a No 1 Christmas album. … In My Room, a completely new kind of teenage song. … David's five Beach Boys teenage moments … … and Mark's three examples of Brian Wilson's Greatest Bits – eg the overture to California Girls. … and 'Arise, Sir Roger Daltrey!'Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
As the great Warren Zevon said, ‘Enjoy every sandwich'. The two-man canoe navigates this week's rock and roll rivulet which sadly entails reflections on a pair of towering musical giants ‘whose legend occupied the space where activity should have been'. Things considered include … …are you born with genius or does a set of circumstances allow it to flourish? … the impossible task of living up to people's expectations and the calamitous ways it led Sly and Brian Wilson to behave. … like Sly's plane landing at the moment he was meant to be onstage at Madison Square Garden. … the massive cultural contrast between Woodstock and ‘the Black Woodstock' a month earlier and how Sly & the Family Stone looked like they'd ‘come from Mars'. … how Derek Taylor, Tom Nolan and Nick Kent helped fashion the Beach Boys' myth. … Sly's impact on Miles Davis, Prince, Massive Attack and hip-hop and how a record as radical as There's A Riot Goin' On was a No 1 Christmas album. … In My Room, a completely new kind of teenage song. … David's five Beach Boys teenage moments … … and Mark's three examples of Brian Wilson's Greatest Bits – eg the overture to California Girls. … and 'Arise, Sir Roger Daltrey!'Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Season 4, Episode 6; “Ranch Queen”On-site with Restaurant 1796 Executive Chef, Nick Kent. Listen. Subscribe. Share.The Eat the Boot Podcast is sponsored by Cheba Hut Toasted Subs in Baton Rouge and features music from Louisiana based singer/songwriter, Adam Dale, from the album “Shadowtown”. www.eattheboot.com
Nick Kent is the chief executive and creative director of Oxford Films, which made this week's BBC Two documentary "Simon Schama: The Road to Auschwitz". We discuss the challenges making an impactful 60 minute documentary which explores the Holocaust's broader historical context, the role of language and visual imagery, ethical considerations in portraying the Holocaust and the importance of public service broadcasting.“We're living in a time when the BBC is in jeopardy, and what's at stake now is higher, I think, than it's ever been, in terms of what the BBC can provide.”Listen to all our episodes here: https://podfollow.com/beebwatchTo support our journalism and receive a weekly blog sign up now for £1.99 per month (NB we only charge for one creation per month): www.patreon.com/BeebWatch/membership Or if you'd rather make a one-off payment (which doesn't entitle you to the blog) please use our crowdfunding page:https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/roger-boltons-beeb-watch-podcast @BeebRogerInstagram: rogerboltonsbeebwatchLinkedIn: Roger Bolton's Beeb Watchemail: roger@rogerboltonsbeebwatch.comwww.goodeggproductions.uk Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nick Kent came on the show excited to share some stories, and he did NOT disappoint. We obviously talk about his involvement in the rink. When it started, where that was, and how it progressed. As always, it was a balancing act between storytelling, and exploring who Nick is as a person. This was a fun one with plenty of dramatic shifts inside of his tales. Enjoy! https://www.beautyunis.com/ https://www.thegardensicehouse.com/ https://summitcustomsticks.com/
After many years of invisibility, Peter Perrett of the Only Ones is out, about and on tour again and talks to us here about the first gigs he ever saw and played, which involves … … what time he goes to bed. … “he writes better lyrics than Elvis Costello and is prettier than Billy Idol”: why Nick Kent's review was an insult. … seeing the Small Faces in 1966, the Floyd with Syd at Middle Earth, Dylan at the Isle of Wight, Fairport Convention, Geno Washington, Lou Reed in 1972 (“a hero”), Sex Pistols in 1975. … the Ally Pally Love-In in 1967 with Pink Floyd, the Animals, Julie Driscoll and Arthur Brown (“doing Alice Cooper five years before Alice Cooper”). … supporting Global Village Trucking Company at the Marquee in 1975 with Glenn Tilbrook and Jools Holland. … memories of Vivienne Westwood, the Bromley Contingent and leopardskin vinyl trousers. … the first gig he ever played, doing the Velvet Underground's What Goes On with a four-string guitar at a college dance. … the tangled tale of Another Girl Another Planet. … “I never thought I'd retire at 28 and come back as a septuagenarian'. … the role reversal of being produced by your own son. … and how the Snow Station Vadsø festival in Norway – with Peter Buck, Lenny Kaye, Fritz Catlin and Mark Bedford – gave him the courage to go back on tour. Peter Perrett tour dates here:https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/peter-perrett-tickets/artist/5238432 Order his new album The Cleansing here:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cleansing-Peter-Perrett/dp/B0DB8VMBDLFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
After many years of invisibility, Peter Perrett of the Only Ones is out, about and on tour again and talks to us here about the first gigs he ever saw and played, which involves … … what time he goes to bed. … “he writes better lyrics than Elvis Costello and is prettier than Billy Idol”: why Nick Kent's review was an insult. … seeing the Small Faces in 1966, the Floyd with Syd at Middle Earth, Dylan at the Isle of Wight, Fairport Convention, Geno Washington, Lou Reed in 1972 (“a hero”), Sex Pistols in 1975. … the Ally Pally Love-In in 1967 with Pink Floyd, the Animals, Julie Driscoll and Arthur Brown (“doing Alice Cooper five years before Alice Cooper”). … supporting Global Village Trucking Company at the Marquee in 1975 with Glenn Tilbrook and Jools Holland. … memories of Vivienne Westwood, the Bromley Contingent and leopardskin vinyl trousers. … the first gig he ever played, doing the Velvet Underground's What Goes On with a four-string guitar at a college dance. … the tangled tale of Another Girl Another Planet. … “I never thought I'd retire at 28 and come back as a septuagenarian'. … the role reversal of being produced by your own son. … and how the Snow Station Vadsø festival in Norway – with Peter Buck, Lenny Kaye, Fritz Catlin and Mark Bedford – gave him the courage to go back on tour. Peter Perrett tour dates here:https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/peter-perrett-tickets/artist/5238432 Order his new album The Cleansing here:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cleansing-Peter-Perrett/dp/B0DB8VMBDLFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
After many years of invisibility, Peter Perrett of the Only Ones is out, about and on tour again and talks to us here about the first gigs he ever saw and played, which involves … … what time he goes to bed. … “he writes better lyrics than Elvis Costello and is prettier than Billy Idol”: why Nick Kent's review was an insult. … seeing the Small Faces in 1966, the Floyd with Syd at Middle Earth, Dylan at the Isle of Wight, Fairport Convention, Geno Washington, Lou Reed in 1972 (“a hero”), Sex Pistols in 1975. … the Ally Pally Love-In in 1967 with Pink Floyd, the Animals, Julie Driscoll and Arthur Brown (“doing Alice Cooper five years before Alice Cooper”). … supporting Global Village Trucking Company at the Marquee in 1975 with Glenn Tilbrook and Jools Holland. … memories of Vivienne Westwood, the Bromley Contingent and leopardskin vinyl trousers. … the first gig he ever played, doing the Velvet Underground's What Goes On with a four-string guitar at a college dance. … the tangled tale of Another Girl Another Planet. … “I never thought I'd retire at 28 and come back as a septuagenarian'. … the role reversal of being produced by your own son. … and how the Snow Station Vadsø festival in Norway – with Peter Buck, Lenny Kaye, Fritz Catlin and Mark Bedford – gave him the courage to go back on tour. Peter Perrett tour dates here:https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/peter-perrett-tickets/artist/5238432 Order his new album The Cleansing here:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Cleansing-Peter-Perrett/dp/B0DB8VMBDLFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Tooties and PiesOn this episode, we're at Proud Mary's; not so secretly hidden in the back of Big River Pizza in St. Francisville. And we chopped it up and ate about it with owner Morgan Moss and Chef Nick Kent. Hear all about the journey to slinging Tooties and Pies at this still fairly new pizza parlor and speakeasy combo out in St. Francisville. And find our friends at www.bigriverpizzacompany.comListen. Subscribe. Share.The Eat the Boot Podcast features music from Louisiana based singer/songwriter, Adam Dale, from the album “Shadowtown”. www.eattheboot.com
durée : 00:27:40 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Albane Penaranda - En 2000, Marc-Alexandre Millanvoye propose une série consacrée au rock critic Lester Bangs pour "Les chemins de la musique" sur France Culture. Dans ce dernier volet, il est question de sa reconnaissance à travers l'épopée d'une musique, le rock, indissociable des mythes bâtis autour de lui. - invités : Nick Kent; Michel Houellebecq Écrivain français
durée : 00:29:18 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Albane Penaranda - En 2000, Marc-Alexandre Millanvoye consacre une série de cinq émissions sur le critique rock Lester Bangs pour "Les chemins de la musique" sur France Culture. Dans ce troisième volet, le critique n'hésite pas à brûler les idoles du rock, à commencer par Lou Reed puis David Bowie. - invités : Nick Kent
durée : 00:31:03 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Albane Penaranda - En 2000, Marc-Alexandre Millanvoye propose pour "Les chemins de la musique" sur France Culture une série de cinq émissions sur le critique rock Lester Bangs. Dans ce premier numéro, retour sur les débuts de sa carrière, avec les témoignages de deux autres rock critics Nick Kent et Jim DeRogatis. - invités : Nick Kent
Glen Matlock came to our live podcast recording at London's 21Soho at the end of November and lit up the audience with tales from his new memoir ‘Triggers', stories of his early life in the late ‘50s and ‘60s, his brief and riotous shift in the Sex Pistols and his colourful adventures since. The full cast list includes Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, the DJ Mike Raven, Gary Glitter, John Peel, Kenneth Horne, Malcolm McLaren, Nick Kent, Ian McLagan, Ronnie Lane, Midge Ure, Wally Nightingale, Blondie and Bill Grundy. You get a real sense of the fabric of London around Ted Carroll's record stall in Ladbroke Grove and around Denmark Street when the Pistols lived and rehearsed there. And look out for the night they played a Conservative Club to a crowd of six, the time McLaren begged him to return as “it wasn't working out with Sid”, the Filthy Lucre reunion and his luminous account of Johnny Rotten's audition backed by a jukebox playing Alice Cooper. Glen Matlock came to our live podcast recording at London's 21Soho at the end of November and lit up the audience with tales from his new memoir ‘Triggers', stories of his early life in the late ‘50s and ‘60s, his brief and riotous shift in the Sex Pistols and his colourful adventures since. The full cast list includes Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, the DJ Mike Raven, Gary Glitter, John Peel, Kenneth Horne, Malcolm McLaren, Nick Kent, Ian McLagan, Ronnie Lane, Midge Ure, Wally Nightingale, Blondie and Bill Grundy. You get a real sense of the fabric of London around Ted Carroll's record stall in Ladbroke Grove and around Denmark Street when the Pistols lived and rehearsed there. And look out for the night they played a Conservative Club to a crowd of six, the time McLaren begged him to return as “it wasn't working out with Sid”, the Filthy Lucre reunion and his luminous account of Johnny Rotten's audition backed by a jukebox playing Alice Cooper. Glen's tour dates are here: http://www.glenmatlock.co.uk/ And you can order ‘Triggers' here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/triggers/glen-matlock/9781788709446Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Glen Matlock came to our live podcast recording at London's 21Soho at the end of November and lit up the audience with tales from his new memoir ‘Triggers', stories of his early life in the late ‘50s and ‘60s, his brief and riotous shift in the Sex Pistols and his colourful adventures since. The full cast list includes Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, the DJ Mike Raven, Gary Glitter, John Peel, Kenneth Horne, Malcolm McLaren, Nick Kent, Ian McLagan, Ronnie Lane, Midge Ure, Wally Nightingale, Blondie and Bill Grundy. You get a real sense of the fabric of London around Ted Carroll's record stall in Ladbroke Grove and around Denmark Street when the Pistols lived and rehearsed there. And look out for the night they played a Conservative Club to a crowd of six, the time McLaren begged him to return as “it wasn't working out with Sid”, the Filthy Lucre reunion and his luminous account of Johnny Rotten's audition backed by a jukebox playing Alice Cooper. Glen Matlock came to our live podcast recording at London's 21Soho at the end of November and lit up the audience with tales from his new memoir ‘Triggers', stories of his early life in the late ‘50s and ‘60s, his brief and riotous shift in the Sex Pistols and his colourful adventures since. The full cast list includes Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, the DJ Mike Raven, Gary Glitter, John Peel, Kenneth Horne, Malcolm McLaren, Nick Kent, Ian McLagan, Ronnie Lane, Midge Ure, Wally Nightingale, Blondie and Bill Grundy. You get a real sense of the fabric of London around Ted Carroll's record stall in Ladbroke Grove and around Denmark Street when the Pistols lived and rehearsed there. And look out for the night they played a Conservative Club to a crowd of six, the time McLaren begged him to return as “it wasn't working out with Sid”, the Filthy Lucre reunion and his luminous account of Johnny Rotten's audition backed by a jukebox playing Alice Cooper.Recorded in front of a live audience at 21Soho, London, on November 27th 2023. Glen's tour dates are here: http://www.glenmatlock.co.uk/ And you can order ‘Triggers' here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/triggers/glen-matlock/9781788709446Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Glen Matlock came to our live podcast recording at London's 21Soho at the end of November and lit up the audience with tales from his new memoir ‘Triggers', stories of his early life in the late ‘50s and ‘60s, his brief and riotous shift in the Sex Pistols and his colourful adventures since. The full cast list includes Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, the DJ Mike Raven, Gary Glitter, John Peel, Kenneth Horne, Malcolm McLaren, Nick Kent, Ian McLagan, Ronnie Lane, Midge Ure, Wally Nightingale, Blondie and Bill Grundy. You get a real sense of the fabric of London around Ted Carroll's record stall in Ladbroke Grove and around Denmark Street when the Pistols lived and rehearsed there. And look out for the night they played a Conservative Club to a crowd of six, the time McLaren begged him to return as “it wasn't working out with Sid”, the Filthy Lucre reunion and his luminous account of Johnny Rotten's audition backed by a jukebox playing Alice Cooper. Glen Matlock came to our live podcast recording at London's 21Soho at the end of November and lit up the audience with tales from his new memoir ‘Triggers', stories of his early life in the late ‘50s and ‘60s, his brief and riotous shift in the Sex Pistols and his colourful adventures since. The full cast list includes Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, the DJ Mike Raven, Gary Glitter, John Peel, Kenneth Horne, Malcolm McLaren, Nick Kent, Ian McLagan, Ronnie Lane, Midge Ure, Wally Nightingale, Blondie and Bill Grundy. You get a real sense of the fabric of London around Ted Carroll's record stall in Ladbroke Grove and around Denmark Street when the Pistols lived and rehearsed there. And look out for the night they played a Conservative Club to a crowd of six, the time McLaren begged him to return as “it wasn't working out with Sid”, the Filthy Lucre reunion and his luminous account of Johnny Rotten's audition backed by a jukebox playing Alice Cooper.Recorded in front of a live audience at 21Soho, London, on November 27th 2023. Glen's tour dates are here: http://www.glenmatlock.co.uk/ And you can order ‘Triggers' here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/triggers/glen-matlock/9781788709446Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Carl Magnus och Pontus pratar bland annat om en gammal singel med The Beatles, den snåriga stigen kring låten "Indian Reservation", den lite oväntat mörka historien om The Pretenders, musikjournalisten Nick Kent och det spanska Sex Pistols -projektet Los Punk Rockers.
In today's episode of Climb in Consulting Nick is joined by Nick Kent, Founder of Alpha FMC, the global financial services consultancy with over 900 consultants supporting clients across 16 offices spanning the UK, Europe, North America and APAC. While Nick's story with Alpha ended very successfully, that's not how it started. And it was actually a shock redundancy from Accenture that led him to launch the business. Something Nick shares in detail in today's conversation. As the saying goes, when one door closes another opens, and in Nick's case this was the catalyst that led to him launching Alpha. Fast forward and the firm's grown massively, been through not one, but two PE investment rounds, and in 2017 it IPO'd on London's aim market. With so much experience in the industry and a phenomenal journey building Alpha, there was so much to unpack in this conversation, including: - Nick's shock redundancy and how this difficult time led him to launch Alpha FMC - The fundamental principles that Alpha was built on and how these led Nick and the team to have the success that they have as a business - And the journey from a private business, to private equity to IPO, the ups, the downs and everything in between. Whether you're thinking of launching your own consultancy, or you're running a firm or practice area right now and want to learn from one of the best in the industry, you're going to get so much from this conversation. We hope you enjoy the show! Get to know Nick: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-kent-518512/ Find out more about Alpha FMC: https://alphafmc.com/ Books mentioned in the show: The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson: https://www.amazon.co.uk/New-One-Minute-Manager/dp/0008128049
Things featured this week in hot pursuit of entertainment and enlightenment … … seeing Television in 1975 for £1.50 - support act, Blondie. … Kaleidoscope, Country Joe & the Fish, Fairport Convention and other origins of the Tom Verlaine guitar sound. … the mystery voices on The Dark Side Of The Moon, the Clare Torry story and how Pink Floyd used Abbey Road as an instrument. … “It's Not You It's Me”: more classic records that leave us cold – eg Pet Sounds and Humble Pie's Performance: Rockin' the Fillmore. … “If Loving You Is Wrong I Don't Wanna Be Right”: rotten records we're devoted to – paging Jobriath, Oasis, Hello …… how the Ashers became Paul McCartney's adopted family. … that Nick Kent review of Marque Moon – “Cut the crap, junior, he sez, and put the hyperbole on ice. I concur thus. Sometimes it takes but one record – one cocksure magical statement – to cold-cock all the crapola and all-purpose wheatchaff mix ‘n' match, to set the whole schmear straight and get the current state of play down down down to stand or fall in one, dignified granite-hard focus!” … songs with great intros. … and birthday patron Kevin Rose flies the flag for ‘Simple Songs' by Jim O'Rourke.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early access to every future Word Podcast, ad-free!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Things featured this week in hot pursuit of entertainment and enlightenment … … seeing Television in 1975 for £1.50 - support act, Blondie. … Kaleidoscope, Country Joe & the Fish, Fairport Convention and other origins of the Tom Verlaine guitar sound. … the mystery voices on The Dark Side Of The Moon, the Clare Torry story and how Pink Floyd used Abbey Road as an instrument. … “It's Not You It's Me”: more classic records that leave us cold – eg Pet Sounds and Humble Pie's Performance: Rockin' the Fillmore. … “If Loving You Is Wrong I Don't Wanna Be Right”: rotten records we're devoted to – paging Jobriath, Oasis, Hello …… how the Ashers became Paul McCartney's adopted family. … that Nick Kent review of Marque Moon – “Cut the crap, junior, he sez, and put the hyperbole on ice. I concur thus. Sometimes it takes but one record – one cocksure magical statement – to cold-cock all the crapola and all-purpose wheatchaff mix ‘n' match, to set the whole schmear straight and get the current state of play down down down to stand or fall in one, dignified granite-hard focus!” … songs with great intros. … and birthday patron Kevin Rose flies the flag for ‘Simple Songs' by Jim O'Rourke.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early access to every future Word Podcast, ad-free!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Things featured this week in hot pursuit of entertainment and enlightenment … … seeing Television in 1975 for £1.50 - support act, Blondie. … Kaleidoscope, Country Joe & the Fish, Fairport Convention and other origins of the Tom Verlaine guitar sound. … the mystery voices on The Dark Side Of The Moon, the Clare Torry story and how Pink Floyd used Abbey Road as an instrument. … “It's Not You It's Me”: more classic records that leave us cold – eg Pet Sounds and Humble Pie's Performance: Rockin' the Fillmore. … “If Loving You Is Wrong I Don't Wanna Be Right”: rotten records we're devoted to – paging Jobriath, Oasis, Hello …… how the Ashers became Paul McCartney's adopted family. … that Nick Kent review of Marque Moon – “Cut the crap, junior, he sez, and put the hyperbole on ice. I concur thus. Sometimes it takes but one record – one cocksure magical statement – to cold-cock all the crapola and all-purpose wheatchaff mix ‘n' match, to set the whole schmear straight and get the current state of play down down down to stand or fall in one, dignified granite-hard focus!” … songs with great intros. … and birthday patron Kevin Rose flies the flag for ‘Simple Songs' by Jim O'Rourke.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early access to every future Word Podcast, ad-free!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In the first Saturday Edition of 2023, Charlotte Greenway recaps on the news this week that revisions have been made to the impending whip rules changes as Lee Mottershead explains, while David Jones, BHA, gives his views. Action this weekend from Sandown features the Grade 1 Tolworth Novice Hurdle and Pat Gallagher who owns the favourite, Authorised Speed, shares his hopes for this weekend while Jamie Snowden hopes his runner might be able to outrun his odds. Also at Sandown on Saturday is the Veterans Chase final where trainer Nick Kent runs 13 year old Crosspark and provides an upbeat bulletin on his wellbeing. Finally, with Grade 1 action from Naas in Ireland on Sunday, Lydia Hislop runs through the runners and considers whether anything can upset the Willie Mullins hotpot.
Episode one hundred and fifty-seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “See Emily Play", the birth of the UK underground, and the career of Roger Barrett, known as Syd. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-five-minute bonus episode available, on "First Girl I Loved" by the Incredible String Band. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources No Mixcloud this time, due to the number of Pink Floyd songs. I referred to two biographies of Barrett in this episode -- A Very Irregular Head by Rob Chapman is the one I would recommend, and the one whose narrative I have largely followed. Some of the information has been superseded by newer discoveries, but Chapman is almost unique in people writing about Barrett in that he actually seems to care about the facts and try to get things right rather than make up something more interesting. Crazy Diamond by Mike Watkinson and Pete Anderson is much less reliable, but does have quite a few interview quotes that aren't duplicated by Chapman. Information about Joe Boyd comes from Boyd's book White Bicycles. In this and future episodes on Pink Floyd I'm also relying on Nick Mason's Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd and Pink Floyd: All the Songs by Jean-Michel Guesdon and Philippe Margotin. The compilation Relics contains many of the most important tracks from Barrett's time with Pink Floyd, while Piper at the Gates of Dawn is his one full album with them. Those who want a fuller history of his time with the group will want to get Piper and also the box set Cambridge St/ation 1965-1967. Barrett only released two solo albums during his career. They're available as a bundle here. Completists will also want the rarities and outtakes collection Opel. ERRATA: I talk about “Interstellar Overdrive” as if Barrett wrote it solo. The song is credited to all four members, but it was Barrett who came up with the riff I talk about. And annoyingly, given the lengths I went to to deal correctly with Barrett's name, I repeatedly refer to "Dave" Gilmour, when Gilmour prefers David. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript A note before I begin -- this episode deals with drug use and mental illness, so anyone who might be upset by those subjects might want to skip this one. But also, there's a rather unique problem in how I deal with the name of the main artist in the story today. The man everyone knows as Syd Barrett was born Roger Barrett, used that name with his family for his whole life, and in later years very strongly disliked being called "Syd", yet everyone other than his family called him that at all times until he left the music industry, and that's the name that appears on record labels, including his solo albums. I don't believe it's right to refer to people by names they choose not to go by themselves, but the name Barrett went by throughout his brief period in the public eye was different from the one he went by later, and by all accounts he was actually distressed by its use in later years. So what I'm going to do in this episode is refer to him as "Roger Barrett" when a full name is necessary for disambiguation or just "Barrett" otherwise, but I'll leave any quotes from other people referring to "Syd" as they were originally phrased. In future episodes on Pink Floyd, I'll refer to him just as Barrett, but in episodes where I discuss his influence on other artists, I will probably have to use "Syd Barrett" because otherwise people who haven't listened to this episode won't know what on Earth I'm talking about. Anyway, on with the show. “It's gone!” sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. “So beautiful and strange and new. Since it was to end so soon, I almost wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is pain, and nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound once more and go on listening to it for ever. No! There it is again!” he cried, alert once more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spellbound. “Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,” he said presently. “O Mole! the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the call must be for us.” That's a quote from a chapter titled "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" from the classic children's book The Wind in the Willows -- a book which for most of its length is a fairly straightforward story about anthropomorphic animals having jovial adventures, but which in that one chapter has Rat and Mole suddenly encounter the Great God Pan and have a hallucinatory, transcendental experience caused by his music, one so extreme it's wiped from their minds, as they simply cannot process it. The book, and the chapter, was a favourite of Roger Barrett, a young child born in Cambridge in 1946. Barrett came from an intellectual but not especially bookish family. His father, Dr. Arthur Barrett, was a pathologist -- there's a room in Addenbrooke's Hospital named after him -- but he was also an avid watercolour painter, a world-leading authority on fungi, and a member of the Cambridge Philharmonic Society who was apparently an extraordinarily good singer; while his mother Winifred was a stay-at-home mother who was nonetheless very active in the community, organising a local Girl Guide troupe. They never particularly encouraged their family to read, but young Roger did particularly enjoy the more pastoral end of the children's literature of the time. As well as the Wind in the Willows he also loved Alice in Wonderland, and the Little Grey Men books -- a series of stories about tiny gnomes and their adventures in the countryside. But his two big passions were music and painting. He got his first ukulele at age eleven, and by the time his father died, just before Roger's sixteenth birthday, he had graduated to playing a full-sized guitar. At the time his musical tastes were largely the same as those of any other British teenager -- he liked Chubby Checker, for example -- though he did have a tendency to prefer the quirkier end of things, and some of the first songs he tried to play on the guitar were those of Joe Brown: [Excerpt: Joe Brown, "I'm Henry VIII I Am"] Barrett grew up in Cambridge, and for those who don't know it, Cambridge is an incubator of a very particular kind of eccentricity. The university tends to attract rather unworldly intellectual overachievers to the city -- people who might not be able to survive in many other situations but who can thrive in that one -- and every description of Barrett's father suggests he was such a person -- Barrett's sister Rosemary has said that she believes that most of the family were autistic, though whether this is a belief based on popular media portrayals or a deeper understanding I don't know. But certainly Cambridge is full of eccentric people with remarkable achievements, and such people tend to have children with a certain type of personality, who try simultaneously to live up to and rebel against expectations of greatness that come from having parents who are regarded as great, and to do so with rather less awareness of social norms than the typical rebel has. In the case of Roger Barrett, he, like so many others of his generation, was encouraged to go into the sciences -- as indeed his father had, both in his career as a pathologist and in his avocation as a mycologist. The fifties and sixties were a time, much like today, when what we now refer to as the STEM subjects were regarded as new and exciting and modern. But rather than following in his father's professional footsteps, Roger Barrett instead followed his hobbies. Dr. Barrett was a painter and musician in his spare time, and Roger was to turn to those things to earn his living. For much of his teens, it seemed that art would be the direction he would go in. He was, everyone agrees, a hugely talented painter, and he was particularly noted for his mastery of colours. But he was also becoming more and more interested in R&B music, especially the music of Bo Diddley, who became his new biggest influence: [Excerpt: Bo Diddley, "Who Do You Love?"] He would often spend hours with his friend Dave Gilmour, a much more advanced guitarist, trying to learn blues riffs. By this point Barrett had already received the nickname "Syd". Depending on which story you believe, he either got it when he started attending a jazz club where an elderly jazzer named Sid Barrett played, and the people were amused that their youngest attendee, like one of the oldest, was called Barrett; or, more plausibly, he turned up to a Scout meeting once wearing a flat cap rather than the normal scout beret, and he got nicknamed "Sid" because it made him look working-class and "Sid" was a working-class sort of name. In 1962, by the time he was sixteen, Barrett joined a short-lived group called Geoff Mott and the Mottoes, on rhythm guitar. The group's lead singer, Geoff Mottlow, would go on to join a band called the Boston Crabs who would have a minor hit in 1965 with a version of the Coasters song "Down in Mexico": [Excerpt: The Boston Crabs, "Down in Mexico"] The bass player from the Mottoes, Tony Sainty, and the drummer Clive Welham, would go on to form another band, The Jokers Wild, with Barrett's friend Dave Gilmour. Barrett also briefly joined another band, Those Without, but his time with them was similarly brief. Some sources -- though ones I consider generally less reliable -- say that the Mottoes' bass player wasn't Tony Sainty, but was Roger Waters, the son of one of Barrett's teachers, and that one of the reasons the band split up was that Waters had moved down to London to study architecture. I don't think that's the case, but it's definitely true that Barrett knew Waters, and when he moved to London himself the next year to go to Camberwell Art College, he moved into a house where Waters was already living. Two previous tenants at the same house, Nick Mason and Richard Wright, had formed a loose band with Waters and various other amateur musicians like Keith Noble, Shelagh Noble, and Clive Metcalfe. That band was sometimes known as the Screaming Abdabs, The Megadeaths, or The Tea Set -- the latter as a sly reference to slang terms for cannabis -- but was mostly known at first as Sigma 6, named after a manifesto by the novelist Alexander Trocchi for a kind of spontaneous university. They were also sometimes known as Leonard's Lodgers, after the landlord of the home that Barrett was moving into, Mike Leonard, who would occasionally sit in on organ and would later, as the band became more of a coherent unit, act as a roadie and put on light shows behind them -- Leonard was himself very interested in avant-garde and experimental art, and it was his idea to play around with the group's lighting. By the time Barrett moved in with Waters in 1964, the group had settled on the Tea Set name, and consisted of Waters on bass, Mason on drums, Wright on keyboards, singer Chris Dennis, and guitarist Rado Klose. Of the group, Klose was the only one who was a skilled musician -- he was a very good jazz guitarist, while the other members were barely adequate. By this time Barrett's musical interests were expanding to include folk music -- his girlfriend at the time talked later about him taking her to see Bob Dylan on his first UK tour and thinking "My first reaction was seeing all these people like Syd. It was almost as if every town had sent one Syd Barrett there. It was my first time seeing people like him." But the music he was most into was the blues. And as the Tea Set were turning into a blues band, he joined them. He even had a name for the new band that would make them more bluesy. He'd read the back of a record cover which had named two extremely obscure blues musicians -- musicians he may never even have heard. Pink Anderson: [Excerpt: Pink Anderson, "Boll Weevil"] And Floyd Council: [Excerpt: Floyd Council, "Runaway Man Blues"] Barrett suggested that they put together the names of the two bluesmen, and presumably because "Anderson Council" didn't have quite the right ring, they went for The Pink Floyd -- though for a while yet they would sometimes still perform as The Tea Set, and they were sometimes also called The Pink Floyd Sound. Dennis left soon after Barrett joined, and the new five-piece Pink Floyd Sound started trying to get more gigs. They auditioned for Ready Steady Go! and were turned down, but did get some decent support slots, including for a band called the Tridents: [Excerpt: The Tridents, "Tiger in Your Tank"] The members of the group were particularly impressed by the Tridents' guitarist and the way he altered his sound using feedback -- Barrett even sent a letter to his girlfriend with a drawing of the guitarist, one Jeff Beck, raving about how good he was. At this point, the group were mostly performing cover versions, but they did have a handful of originals, and it was these they recorded in their first demo sessions in late 1964 and early 1965. They included "Walk With Me Sydney", a song written by Roger Waters as a parody of "Work With Me Annie" and "Dance With Me Henry" -- and, given the lyrics, possibly also Hank Ballard's follow-up "Henry's Got Flat Feet (Can't Dance No More) and featuring Rick Wright's then-wife Juliette Gale as Etta James to Barrett's Richard Berry: [Excerpt: The Tea Set, "Walk With Me Sydney"] And four songs by Barrett, including one called "Double-O Bo" which was a Bo Diddley rip-off, and "Butterfly", the most interesting of these early recordings: [Excerpt: The Tea Set, "Butterfly"] At this point, Barrett was very unsure of his own vocal abilities, and wrote a letter to his girlfriend saying "Emo says why don't I give up 'cos it sounds horrible, and I would but I can't get Fred to join because he's got a group (p'raps you knew!) so I still have to sing." "Fred" was a nickname for his old friend Dave Gilmour, who was playing in his own band, Joker's Wild, at this point. Summer 1965 saw two important events in the life of the group. The first was that Barrett took LSD for the first time. The rest of the group weren't interested in trying it, and would indeed generally be one of the more sober bands in the rock business, despite the reputation their music got. The other members would for the most part try acid once or twice, around late 1966, but generally steer clear of it. Barrett, by contrast, took it on a very regular basis, and it would influence all the work he did from that point on. The other event was that Rado Klose left the group. Klose was the only really proficient musician in the group, but he had very different tastes to the other members, preferring to play jazz to R&B and pop, and he was also falling behind in his university studies, and decided to put that ahead of remaining in the band. This meant that the group members had to radically rethink the way they were making music. They couldn't rely on instrumental proficiency, so they had to rely on ideas. One of the things they started to do was use echo. They got primitive echo devices and put both Barrett's guitar and Wright's keyboard through them, allowing them to create new sounds that hadn't been heard on stage before. But they were still mostly doing the same Slim Harpo and Bo Diddley numbers everyone else was doing, and weren't able to be particularly interesting while playing them. But for a while they carried on doing the normal gigs, like a birthday party they played in late 1965, where on the same bill was a young American folk singer named Paul Simon, and Joker's Wild, the band Dave Gilmour was in, who backed Simon on a version of "Johnny B. Goode". A couple of weeks after that party, Joker's Wild went into the studio to record their only privately-pressed five-song record, of them performing recent hits: [Excerpt: Joker's Wild, "Walk Like a Man"] But The Pink Floyd Sound weren't as musically tight as Joker's Wild, and they couldn't make a living as a cover band even if they wanted to. They had to do something different. Inspiration then came from a very unexpected source. I mentioned earlier that one of the names the group had been performing under had been inspired by a manifesto for a spontaneous university by the writer Alexander Trocchi. Trocchi's ideas had actually been put into practice by an organisation calling itself the London Free School, based in Notting Hill. The London Free School was an interesting mixture of people from what was then known as the New Left, but who were already rapidly aging, the people who had been the cornerstone of radical campaigning in the late fifties and early sixties, who had run the Aldermaston marches against nuclear weapons and so on, and a new breed of countercultural people who in a year or two would be defined as hippies but at the time were not so easy to pigeonhole. These people were mostly politically radical but very privileged people -- one of the founder members of the London Free School was Peter Jenner, who was the son of a vicar and the grandson of a Labour MP -- and they were trying to put their radical ideas into practice. The London Free School was meant to be a collective of people who would help each other and themselves, and who would educate each other. You'd go to the collective wanting to learn how to do something, whether that's how to improve the housing in your area or navigate some particularly difficult piece of bureaucracy, or how to play a musical instrument, and someone who had that skill would teach you how to do it, while you hopefully taught them something else of value. The London Free School, like all such utopian schemes, ended up falling apart, but it had a wider cultural impact than most such schemes. Britain's first underground newspaper, the International Times, was put together by people involved in the Free School, and the annual Notting Hill Carnival, which is now one of the biggest outdoor events in Britain every year with a million attendees, came from the merger of outdoor events organised by the Free School with older community events. A group of musicians called AMM was associated with many of the people involved in the Free School. AMM performed totally improvised music, with no structure and no normal sense of melody and harmony: [Excerpt: AMM, "What Is There In Uselesness To Cause You Distress?"] Keith Rowe, the guitarist in AMM, wanted to find his own technique uninfluenced by American jazz guitarists, and thought of that in terms that appealed very strongly to the painterly Barrett, saying "For the Americans to develop an American school of painting, they somehow had to ditch or lose European easel painting techniques. They had to make a break with the past. What did that possibly mean if you were a jazz guitar player? For me, symbolically, it was Pollock laying the canvas on the floor, which immediately abandons European easel technique. I could see that by laying the canvas down, it became inappropriate to apply easel techniques. I thought if I did that with a guitar, I would just lose all those techniques, because they would be physically impossible to do." Rowe's technique-free technique inspired Barrett to make similar noises with his guitar, and to think less in terms of melody and harmony than pure sound. AMM's first record came out in 1966. Four of the Free School people decided to put together their own record label, DNA, and they got an agreement with Elektra Records to distribute its first release -- Joe Boyd, the head of Elektra in the UK, was another London Free School member, and someone who had plenty of experience with disruptive art already, having been on the sound engineering team at the Newport Folk Festival when Dylan went electric. AMM went into the studio and recorded AMMMusic: [Excerpt: AMM, "What Is There In Uselesness To Cause You Distress?"] After that came out, though, Peter Jenner, one of the people who'd started the label, came to a realisation. He said later "We'd made this one record with AMM. Great record, very seminal, seriously avant-garde, but I'd started adding up and I'd worked out that the deal we had, we got two percent of retail, out of which we, the label, had to pay for recording costs and pay ourselves. I came to the conclusion that we were going to have to sell a hell of a lot of records just to pay the recording costs, let alone pay ourselves any money and build a label, so I realised we had to have a pop band because pop bands sold a lot of records. It was as simple as that and I was as naive as that." Jenner abandoned DNA records for the moment, and he and his friend Andrew King decided they were going to become pop managers. and they found The Pink Floyd Sound playing at an event at the Marquee, one of a series of events that were variously known as Spontaneous Underground and The Trip. Other participants in those events included Soft Machine; Mose Allison; Donovan, performing improvised songs backed by sitar players; Graham Bond; a performer who played Bach pieces while backed by African drummers; and The Poison Bellows, a poetry duo consisting of Spike Hawkins and Johnny Byrne, who may of all of these performers be the one who other than Pink Floyd themselves has had the most cultural impact in the UK -- after writing the exploitation novel Groupie and co-writing a film adaptation of Spike Milligan's war memoirs, Byrne became a TV screenwriter, writing many episodes of Space: 1999 and Doctor Who before creating the long-running TV series Heartbeat. Jenner and King decided they wanted to sign The Pink Floyd Sound and make records with them, and the group agreed -- but only after their summer holidays. They were all still students, and so they dispersed during the summer. Waters and Wright went on holiday to Greece, where they tried acid for the first of only a small number of occasions and were unimpressed, while Mason went on a trip round America by Greyhound bus. Barrett, meanwhile, stayed behind, and started writing more songs, encouraged by Jenner, who insisted that the band needed to stop relying on blues covers and come up with their own material, and who saw Barrett as the focus of the group. Jenner later described them as "Four not terribly competent musicians who managed between them to create something that was extraordinary. Syd was the main creative drive behind the band - he was the singer and lead guitarist. Roger couldn't tune his bass because he was tone deaf, it had to be tuned by Rick. Rick could write a bit of a tune and Roger could knock out a couple of words if necessary. 'Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun' was the first song Roger ever wrote, and he only did it because Syd encouraged everyone to write. Syd was very hesitant about his writing, but when he produced these great songs everyone else thought 'Well, it must be easy'" Of course, we know this isn't quite true -- Waters had written "Walk with me Sydney" -- but it is definitely the case that everyone involved thought of Barrett as the main creative force in the group, and that he was the one that Jenner was encouraging to write new material. After the summer holidays, the group reconvened, and one of their first actions was to play a benefit for the London Free School. Jenner said later "Andrew King and myself were both vicars' sons, and we knew that when you want to raise money for the parish you have to have a social. So in a very old-fashioned way we said 'let's put on a social'. Like in the Just William books, like a whist drive. We thought 'You can't have a whist drive. That's not cool. Let's have a band. That would be cool.' And the only band we knew was the band I was starting to get involved with." After a couple of these events went well, Joe Boyd suggested that they make those events a regular club night, and the UFO Club was born. Jenner and King started working on the light shows for the group, and then bringing in other people, and the light show became an integral part of the group's mystique -- rather than standing in a spotlight as other groups would, they worked in shadows, with distorted kaleidoscopic lights playing on them, distancing themselves from the audience. The highlight of their sets was a long piece called "Interstellar Overdrive", and this became one of the group's first professional recordings, when they went into the studio with Joe Boyd to record it for the soundtrack of a film titled Tonite Let's All Make Love in London. There are conflicting stories about the inspiration for the main riff for "Interstellar Overdrive". One apparent source is the riff from Love's version of the Bacharach and David song "My Little Red Book". Depending on who you ask, either Barrett was obsessed with Love's first album and copied the riff, or Peter Jenner tried to hum him the riff and Barrett copied what Jenner was humming: [Excerpt: Love, "My Little Red Book"] More prosaically, Roger Waters has always claimed that the main inspiration was from "Old Ned", Ron Grainer's theme tune for the sitcom Steptoe and Son (which for American listeners was remade over there as Sanford and Son): [Excerpt: Ron Grainer, "Old Ned"] Of course it's entirely possible, and even likely, that Barrett was inspired by both, and if so that would neatly sum up the whole range of Pink Floyd's influences at this point. "My Little Red Book" was a cover by an American garage-psych/folk-rock band of a hit by Manfred Mann, a group who were best known for pop singles but were also serious blues and jazz musicians, while Steptoe and Son was a whimsical but dark and very English sitcom about a way of life that was slowly disappearing. And you can definitely hear both influences in the main riff of the track they recorded with Boyd: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "Interstellar Overdrive"] "Interstellar Overdrive" was one of two types of song that The Pink Floyd were performing at this time -- a long, extended, instrumental psychedelic excuse for freaky sounds, inspired by things like the second disc of Freak Out! by the Mothers of Invention. When they went into the studio again with Boyd later in January 1967, to record what they hoped would be their first single, they recorded two of the other kind of songs -- whimsical story songs inspired equally by the incidents of everyday life and by children's literature. What became the B-side, "Candy and a Currant Bun", was based around the riff from "Smokestack Lightnin'" by Howlin' Wolf: [Excerpt: Howlin' Wolf, "Smokestack Lightnin'"] That song had become a favourite on the British blues scene, and was thus the inspiration for many songs of the type that get called "quintessentially English". Ray Davies, who was in many ways the major songwriter at this time who was closest to Barrett stylistically, would a year later use the riff for the Kinks song "Last of the Steam-Powered Trains", but in this case Barrett had originally written a song titled "Let's Roll Another One", about sexual longing and cannabis. The lyrics were hastily rewritten in the studio to remove the controversial drug references-- and supposedly this caused some conflict between Barrett and Waters, with Waters pushing for the change, while Barrett argued against it, though like many of the stories from this period this sounds like the kind of thing that gets said by people wanting to push particular images of both men. Either way, the lyric was changed to be about sweet treats rather than drugs, though the lascivious elements remained in. And some people even argue that there was another lyric change -- where Barrett sings "walk with me", there's a slight "f" sound in his vocal. As someone who does a lot of microphone work myself, it sounds to me like just one of those things that happens while recording, but a lot of people are very insistent that Barrett is deliberately singing a different word altogether: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "Candy and a Currant Bun"] The A-side, meanwhile, was inspired by real life. Both Barrett and Waters had mothers who used to take in female lodgers, and both had regularly had their lodgers' underwear stolen from washing lines. While they didn't know anything else about the thief, he became in Barrett's imagination a man who liked to dress up in the clothing after he stole it: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "Arnold Layne"] After recording the two tracks with Joe Boyd, the natural assumption was that the record would be put out on Elektra, the label which Boyd worked for in the UK, but Jac Holzman, the head of Elektra records, wasn't interested, and so a bidding war began for the single, as by this point the group were the hottest thing in London. For a while it looked like they were going to sign to Track Records, the label owned by the Who's management, but in the end EMI won out. Right as they signed, the News of the World was doing a whole series of articles about pop stars and their drug use, and the last of the articles talked about The Pink Floyd and their association with LSD, even though they hadn't released a record yet. EMI had to put out a press release saying that the group were not psychedelic, insisting"The Pink Floyd are not trying to create hallucinatory effects in their audience." It was only after getting signed that the group became full-time professionals. Waters had by this point graduated from university and was working as a trainee architect, and quit his job to become a pop star. Wright dropped out of university, but Mason and Barrett took sabbaticals. Barrett in particular seems to have seen this very much as a temporary thing, talking about how he was making so much money it would be foolish not to take the opportunity while it lasted, but how he was going to resume his studies in a year. "Arnold Layne" made the top twenty, and it would have gone higher had the pirate radio station Radio London, at the time the single most popular radio station when it came to pop music, not banned the track because of its sexual content. However, it would be the only single Joe Boyd would work on with the group. EMI insisted on only using in-house producers, and so while Joe Boyd would go on to a great career as a producer, and we'll see him again, he was replaced with Norman Smith. Smith had been the chief engineer on the Beatles records up to Rubber Soul, after which he'd been promoted to being a producer in his own right, and Geoff Emerick had taken over. He also had aspirations to pop stardom himself, and a few years later would have a transatlantic hit with "Oh Babe, What Would You Say?" under the name Hurricane Smith: [Excerpt: Hurricane Smith, "Oh Babe, What Would You Say?"] Smith's production of the group would prove controversial among some of the group's longtime fans, who thought that he did too much to curtail their more experimental side, as he would try to get the group to record songs that were more structured and more commercial, and would cut down their improvisations into a more manageable form. Others, notably Peter Jenner, thought that Smith was the perfect producer for the group. They started work on their first album, which was mostly recorded in studio three of Abbey Road, while the Beatles were just finishing off work on Sgt Pepper in studio two. The album was titled The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, after the chapter from The Wind in the Willows, and other than a few extended instrumental showcases, most of the album was made up of short, whimsical, songs by Barrett that were strongly infused with imagery from late-Victorian and Edwardian children's books. This is one of the big differences between the British and American psychedelic scenes. Both the British and American undergrounds were made up of the same type of people -- a mixture of older radical activists, often Communists, who had come up in Britain in the Ban the Bomb campaigns and in America in the Civil Rights movement; and younger people, usually middle-class students with radical politics from a privileged background, who were into experimenting with drugs and alternative lifestyles. But the social situations were different. In America, the younger members of the underground were angry and scared, as their principal interest was in stopping the war in Vietnam in which so many of them were being killed. And the music of the older generation of the underground, the Civil Rights activists, was shot through with influence from the blues, gospel, and American folk music, with a strong Black influence. So that's what the American psychedelic groups played, for the most part, very bluesy, very angry, music, By contrast, the British younger generation of hippies were not being drafted to go to war, and mostly had little to complain about, other than a feeling of being stifled by their parents' generation's expectations. And while most of them were influenced by the blues, that wasn't the music that had been popular among the older underground people, who had either been listening to experimental European art music or had been influenced by Ewan MacColl and his associates into listening instead to traditional old English ballads, things like the story of Tam Lin or Thomas the Rhymer, where someone is spirited away to the land of the fairies: [Excerpt: Ewan MacColl, "Thomas the Rhymer"] As a result, most British musicians, when exposed to the culture of the underground over here, created music that looked back to an idealised childhood of their grandparents' generation, songs that were nostalgic for a past just before the one they could remember (as opposed to their own childhoods, which had taken place in war or the immediate aftermath of it, dominated by poverty, rationing, and bomb sites (though of course Barrett's childhood in Cambridge had been far closer to this mythic idyll than those of his contemporaries from Liverpool, Birmingham, Newcastle, or London). So almost every British musician who was making music that might be called psychedelic was writing songs that were influenced both by experimental art music and by pre-War popular song, and which conjured up images from older children's books. Most notably of course at this point the Beatles were recording songs like "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" about places from their childhood, and taking lyrical inspiration from Victorian circus posters and the works of Lewis Carroll, but Barrett was similarly inspired. One of the books he loved most as a child was "The Little Grey Men" by BB, a penname for Denys Watkins-Pitchford. The book told the story of three gnomes, Baldmoney, Sneezewort, and Dodder, and their adventures on a boat when the fourth member of their little group, Cloudberry, who's a bit of a rebellious loner and more adventurous than the other three, goes exploring on his own and they have to go off and find him. Barrett's song "The Gnome" doesn't use any precise details from the book, but its combination of whimsy about a gnome named Grimble-gromble and a reverence for nature is very much in the mould of BB's work: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "The Gnome"] Another huge influence on Barrett was Hillaire Belloc. Belloc is someone who is not read much any more, as sadly he is mostly known for the intense antisemitism in some of his writing, which stains it just as so much of early twentieth-century literature is stained, but he was one of the most influential writers of the early part of the twentieth century. Like his friend GK Chesterton he was simultaneously an author of Catholic apologia and a political campaigner -- he was a Liberal MP for a few years, and a strong advocate of an economic system known as Distributism, and had a peculiar mixture of very progressive and extremely reactionary ideas which resonated with a lot of the atmosphere in the British underground of the time, even though he would likely have profoundly disapproved of them. But Belloc wrote in a variety of styles, including poems for children, which are the works of his that have aged the best, and were a huge influence on later children's writers like Roald Dahl with their gleeful comic cruelty. Barrett's "Matilda Mother" had lyrics that were, other than the chorus where Barrett begs his mother to read him more of the story, taken verbatim from three poems from Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children -- "Jim, Who Ran away from his Nurse, and was Eaten by a Lion", "Henry King (Who chewed bits of String, and was cut off in Dreadful Agonies)", and "Matilda (Who Told Lies and Was Burned to Death)" -- the titles of those give some idea of the kind of thing Belloc would write: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "Matilda Mother (early version)"] Sadly for Barrett, Belloc's estate refused to allow permission for his poems to be used, and so he had to rework the lyrics, writing new fairy-tale lyrics for the finished version. Other sources of inspiration for lyrics came from books like the I Ching, which Barrett used for "Chapter 24", having bought a copy from the Indica Bookshop, the same place that John Lennon had bought The Psychedelic Experience, and there's been some suggestion that he was deliberately trying to copy Lennon in taking lyrical ideas from a book of ancient mystic wisdom. During the recording of Piper at the Gates of Dawn, the group continued playing live. As they'd now had a hit single, most of their performances were at Top Rank Ballrooms and other such venues around the country, on bills with other top chart groups, playing to audiences who seemed unimpressed or actively hostile. They also, though made two important appearances. The more well-known of these was at the 14-Hour Technicolor Dream, a benefit for International Times magazine with people including Yoko Ono, their future collaborator Ron Geesin, John's Children, Soft Machine, and The Move also performing. The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream is now largely regarded as *the* pivotal moment in the development of the UK counterculture, though even at the time some participants noted that there seemed to be a rift developing between the performers, who were often fairly straightforward beer-drinking ambitious young men who had latched on to kaftans and talk about enlightenment as the latest gimmick they could use to get ahead in the industry, and the audience who seemed to be true believers. Their other major performance was at an event called "Games for May -- Space Age Relaxation for the Climax of Spring", where they were able to do a full long set in a concert space with a quadrophonic sound system, rather than performing in the utterly sub-par environments most pop bands had to at this point. They came up with a new song written for the event, which became their second single, "See Emily Play". [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "See Emily Play"] Emily was apparently always a favourite name of Barrett's, and he even talked with one girlfriend about the possibility of naming their first child Emily, but the Emily of the song seems to have had a specific inspiration. One of the youngest attendees at the London Free School was an actual schoolgirl, Emily Young, who would go along to their events with her schoolfriend Anjelica Huston (who later became a well-known film star). Young is now a world-renowned artist, regarded as arguably Britain's greatest living stone sculptor, but at the time she was very like the other people at the London Free School -- she was from a very privileged background, her father was Wayland Young, 2nd Baron Kennet, a Labour Peer and minister who later joined the SDP. But being younger than the rest of the attendees, and still a little naive, she was still trying to find her own personality, and would take on attributes and attitudes of other people without fully understanding them, hence the song's opening lines, "Emily tries, but misunderstands/She's often inclined to borrow somebody's dream til tomorrow". The song gets a little darker towards the end though, and the image in the last verse, where she puts on a gown and floats down a river forever *could* be a gentle, pastoral, image of someone going on a boat ride, but it also could be a reference to two rather darker sources. Barrett was known to pick up imagery both from classic literature and from Arthurian legend, and so the lines inevitably conjure up both the idea of Ophelia drowning herself and of the Lady of Shallot in Tennyson's Arthurian poem, who is trapped in a tower but finds a boat, and floats down the river to Camelot but dies before the boat reaches the castle: [Excerpt: The Pink Floyd, "See Emily Play"] The song also evokes very specific memories of Barrett's childhood -- according to Roger Waters, the woods mentioned in the lyrics are meant to be woods in which they had played as children, on the road out of Cambridge towards the Gog and Magog Hills. The song was apparently seven minutes long in its earliest versions, and required a great deal of editing to get down to single length, but it was worth it, as the track made the top ten. And that was where the problems started. There are two different stories told about what happened to Roger Barrett over the next forty years, and both stories are told by people with particular agendas, who want particular versions of him to become the accepted truth. Both stories are, in the extreme versions that have been popularised, utterly incompatible with each other, but both are fairly compatible with the scanty evidence we have. Possibly the truth lies somewhere between them. In one version of the story, around this time Barrett had a total mental breakdown, brought on or exacerbated by his overuse of LSD and Mandrax (a prescription drug consisting of a mixture of the antihistamine diphenhydramine and the sedative methaqualone, which was marketed in the US under the brand-name Quaalude), and that from late summer 1967 on he was unable to lead a normal life, and spent the rest of his life as a burned-out shell. The other version of the story is that Barrett was a little fragile, and did have periods of mental illness, but for the most part was able to function fairly well. In this version of the story, he was neurodivergent, and found celebrity distressing, but more than that he found the whole process of working within commercial restrictions upsetting -- having to appear on TV pop shows and go on package tours was just not something he found himself able to do, but he was responsible for a whole apparatus of people who relied on him and his group for their living. In this telling, he was surrounded by parasites who looked on him as their combination meal-ticket-cum-guru, and was simply not suited for the role and wanted to sabotage it so he could have a private life instead. Either way, *something* seems to have changed in Barrett in a profound way in the early summer of 1967. Joe Boyd talks about meeting him after not having seen him for a few weeks, and all the light being gone from his eyes. The group appeared on Top of the Pops, Britain's top pop TV show, three times to promote "See Emily Play", but by the third time Barrett didn't even pretend to mime along with the single. Towards the end of July, they were meant to record a session for the BBC's Saturday Club radio show, but Barrett walked out of the studio before completing the first song. It's notable that Barrett's non-cooperation or inability to function was very much dependent on circumstance. He was not able to perform for Saturday Club, a mainstream pop show aimed at a mass audience, but gave perfectly good performances on several sessions for John Peel's radio show The Perfumed Garden, a show firmly aimed at Pink Floyd's own underground niche. On the thirty-first of July, three days after the Saturday Club walkout, all the group's performances for the next month were cancelled, due to "nervous exhaustion". But on the eighth of August, they went back into the studio, to record "Scream Thy Last Scream", a song Barrett wrote and which Nick Mason sang: [Excerpt: Pink Floyd, "Scream Thy Last Scream"] That was scheduled as the group's next single, but the record company vetoed it, and it wouldn't see an official release for forty-nine years. Instead they recorded another single, "Apples and Oranges": [Excerpt: Pink Floyd, "Apples and Oranges"] That was the last thing the group released while Barrett was a member. In November 1967 they went on a tour of the US, making appearances on American Bandstand and the Pat Boone Show, as well as playing several gigs. According to legend, Barrett was almost catatonic on the Pat Boone show, though no footage of that appears to be available anywhere -- and the same things were said about their performance on Bandstand, and when that turned up, it turned out Barrett seemed no more uncomfortable miming to their new single than any of the rest of the band, and was no less polite when Dick Clark asked them questions about hamburgers. But on shows on the US tour, Barrett would do things like detune his guitar so it just made clanging sounds, or just play a single note throughout the show. These are, again, things that could be taken in two different ways, and I have no way to judge which is the more correct. On one level, they could be a sign of a chaotic, disordered, mind, someone dealing with severe mental health difficulties. On the other, they're the kind of thing that Barrett was applauded and praised for in the confines of the kind of avant-garde underground audience that would pay to hear AMM or Yoko Ono, the kind of people they'd been performing for less than a year earlier, but which were absolutely not appropriate for a pop group trying to promote their latest hit single. It could be that Barrett was severely unwell, or it could just be that he wanted to be an experimental artist and his bandmates wanted to be pop stars -- and one thing absolutely everyone agrees is that the rest of the group were more ambitious than Barrett was. Whichever was the case, though, something had to give. They cut the US tour short, but immediately started another British package tour, with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Move, Amen Corner and the Nice. After that tour they started work on their next album, A Saucerful of Secrets. Where Barrett was the lead singer and principal songwriter on Piper at the Gates of Dawn, he only sings and writes one song on A Saucerful of Secrets, which is otherwise written by Waters and Wright, and only appears at all on two more of the tracks -- by the time it was released he was out of the group. The last song he tried to get the group to record was called "Have You Got it Yet?" and it was only after spending some time rehearsing it that the rest of the band realised that the song was a practical joke on them -- every time they played it, he would change the song around so they would mess up, and pretend they just hadn't learned the song yet. They brought in Barrett's old friend Dave Gilmour, initially to be a fifth member on stage to give the band some stability in their performances, but after five shows with the five-man lineup they decided just not to bother picking Barrett up, but didn't mention he was out of the group, to avoid awkwardness. At the time, Barrett and Rick Wright were flatmates, and Wright would actually lie to Barrett and say he was just going out to buy a packet of cigarettes, and then go and play gigs without him. After a couple of months of this, it was officially announced that Barrett was leaving the group. Jenner and King went with him, convinced that he was the real talent in the group and would have a solo career, and the group carried on with new management. We'll be looking at them more in future episodes. Barrett made a start at recording a solo album in mid-1968, but didn't get very far. Jenner produced those sessions, and later said "It seemed a good idea to go into the studio because I knew he had the songs. And he would sometimes play bits and pieces and you would think 'Oh that's great.' It was a 'he's got a bit of a cold today and it might get better' approach. It wasn't a cold -- and you knew it wasn't a cold -- but I kept thinking if he did the right things he'd come back to join us. He'd gone out and maybe he'd come back. That was always the analogy in my head. I wanted to make it feel friendly for him, and that where we were was a comfortable place and that he could come back and find himself again. I obviously didn't succeed." A handful of tracks from those sessions have since been released, including a version of “Golden Hair”, a setting by Barrett of a poem by James Joyce that he would later revisit: [Excerpt: Syd Barrett, “Golden Hair (first version)”] Eleven months later, he went back into the studio again, this time with producer Malcolm Jones, to record an album that later became The Madcap Laughs, his first solo album. The recording process for the album has been the source of some controversy, as initially Jones was producing the whole album, and they were working in a way that Barrett never worked before. Where previously he had cut backing tracks first and only later overdubbed his vocals, this time he started by recording acoustic guitar and vocals, and then overdubbed on top of that. But after several sessions, Jones was pulled off the album, and Gilmour and Waters were asked to produce the rest of the sessions. This may seem a bit of a callous decision, since Gilmour was the person who had replaced Barrett in his group, but apparently the two of them had remained friends, and indeed Gilmour thought that Barrett had only got better as a songwriter since leaving the band. Where Malcolm Jones had been trying, by his account, to put out something that sounded like a serious, professional, record, Gilmour and Waters seemed to regard what they were doing more as producing a piece of audio verite documentary, including false starts and studio chatter. Jones believed that this put Barrett in a bad light, saying the outtakes "show Syd, at best as out of tune, which he rarely was, and at worst as out of control (which, again, he never was)." Gilmour and Waters, on the other hand, thought that material was necessary to provide some context for why the album wasn't as slick and professional as some might have hoped. The eventual record was a hodge-podge of different styles from different sessions, with bits from the Jenner sessions, the Jones sessions, and the Waters and Gilmour sessions all mixed together, with some tracks just Barrett badly double-tracking himself with an acoustic guitar, while other tracks feature full backing by Soft Machine. However, despite Jones' accusations that the album was more-or-less sabotaged by Gilmour and Waters, the fact remains that the best tracks on the album are the ones Barrett's former bandmates produced, and there are some magnificent moments on there. But it's a disturbing album to listen to, in the same way other albums by people with clear talent but clear mental illness are, like Skip Spence's Oar, Roky Erickson's later work, or the Beach Boys Love You. In each case, the pleasure one gets is a real pleasure from real aesthetic appreciation of the work, but entangled with an awareness that the work would not exist in that form were the creator not suffering. The pleasure doesn't come from the suffering -- these are real artists creating real art, not the kind of outsider art that is really just a modern-day freak-show -- but it's still inextricable from it: [Excerpt: Syd Barrett, "Dark Globe"] The Madcap Laughs did well enough that Barrett got to record a follow-up, titled simply Barrett. This one was recorded over a period of only a handful of months, with Gilmour and Rick Wright producing, and a band consisting of Gilmour, Wright, and drummer Jerry Shirley. The album is generally considered both more consistent and less interesting than The Madcap Laughs, with less really interesting material, though there are some enjoyable moments on it: [Excerpt: Syd Barrett, "Effervescing Elephant"] But the album is a little aimless, and people who knew him at the time seem agreed that that was a reflection of his life. He had nothing he *needed* to be doing -- no tour dates, no deadlines, no pressure at all, and he had a bit of money from record royalties -- so he just did nothing at all. The one solo gig he ever played, with the band who backed him on Barrett, lasted four songs, and he walked off half-way through the fourth. He moved back to Cambridge for a while in the early seventies, and he tried putting together a new band with Twink, the drummer of the Pink Fairies and Pretty Things, Fred Frith, and Jack Monck, but Frith left after one gig. The other three performed a handful of shows either as "Stars" or as "Barrett, Adler, and Monck", just in the Cambridge area, but soon Barrett got bored again. He moved back to London, and in 1974 he made one final attempt to make a record, going into the studio with Peter Jenner, where he recorded a handful of tracks that were never released. But given that the titles of those tracks were things like "Boogie #1", "Boogie #2", "Slow Boogie", "Fast Boogie", "Chooka-Chooka Chug Chug" and "John Lee Hooker", I suspect we're not missing out on a lost masterpiece. Around this time there was a general resurgence in interest in Barrett, prompted by David Bowie having recorded a version of "See Emily Play" on his covers album Pin-Ups, which came out in late 1973: [Excerpt: David Bowie, "See Emily Play"] At the same time, the journalist Nick Kent wrote a long profile of Barrett, The Cracked Ballad of Syd Barrett, which like Kent's piece on Brian Wilson a year later, managed to be a remarkable piece of writing with a sense of sympathy for its subject and understanding of his music, but also a less-than-accurate piece of journalism which led to a lot of myths and disinformation being propagated. Barrett briefly visited his old bandmates in the studio in 1975 while they were recording the album Wish You Were Here -- some say even during the recording of the song "Shine On, You Crazy Diamond", which was written specifically about Barrett, though Nick Mason claims otherwise -- and they didn't recognise him at first, because by this point he had a shaved head and had put on a great deal of weight. He seemed rather sad, and that was the last time any of them saw him, apart from Roger Waters, who saw him in Harrod's a few years later. That time, as soon as Barrett recognised Waters, he dropped his bag and ran out of the shop. For the next thirty-one years, Barrett made no public appearances. The last time he ever voluntarily spoke to a journalist, other than telling them to go away, was in 1982, just after he'd moved back to Cambridge, when someone doorstopped him and he answered a few questions and posed for a photo before saying "OK! That's enough, this is distressing for me, thank you." He had the reputation for the rest of his life of being a shut-in, a recluse, an acid casualty. His family, on the other hand, have always claimed that while he was never particularly mentally or physically healthy, he wasn't a shut-in, and would go to the pub, meet up with his mother a couple of times a week to go shopping, and chat to the women behind the counter at Sainsbury's and at the pharmacy. He was also apparently very good with children who lived in the neighbourhood. Whatever the truth of his final decades, though, however mentally well or unwell he actually was, one thing is very clear, which is that he was an extremely private man, who did not want attention, and who was greatly distressed by the constant stream of people coming and looking through his letterbox, trying to take photos of him, trying to interview him, and so on. Everyone on his street knew that when people came asking which was Syd Barrett's house, they were meant to say that no-one of that name lived there -- and they were telling the truth. By the time he moved back, he had stopped answering to "Syd" altogether, and according to his sister "He came to hate the name latterly, and what it meant." He did, in 2001, go round to his sister's house to watch a documentary about himself on the TV -- he didn't own a TV himself -- but he didn't enjoy it and his only comment was that the music was too noisy. By this point he never listened to rock music, just to jazz and classical music, usually on the radio. He was financially secure -- Dave Gilmour made sure that when compilations came out they always included some music from Barrett's period in the group so he would receive royalties, even though Gilmour had no contact with him after 1975 -- and he spent most of his time painting -- he would take photos of the paintings when they were completed, and then burn the originals. There are many stories about those last few decades, but given how much he valued his privacy, it wouldn't be right to share them. This is a history of rock music, and 1975 was the last time Roger Keith Barrett ever had anything to do with rock music voluntarily. He died of cancer in 2006, and at his funeral there was a reading from The Little Grey Men, which was also quoted in the Order of Service -- "The wonder of the world, the beauty and the power, the shapes of things, their colours lights and shades; these I saw. Look ye also while life lasts.” There was no rock music played at Barrett's funeral -- instead there were a selection of pieces by Handel, Haydn, and Bach, ending with Bach's Allemande from the Partita No. IV in D major, one of his favourite pieces: [Excerpt: Glenn Gould, "Allemande from the Partita No. IV in D major"] As they stared blankly in dumb misery deepening as they slowly realised all they had seen and all they had lost, a capricious little breeze, dancing up from the surface of the water, tossed the aspens, shook the dewy roses and blew lightly and caressingly in their faces; and with its soft touch came instant oblivion. For this is the last best gift that the kindly demi-god is careful to bestow on those to whom he has revealed himself in their helping: the gift of forgetfulness. Lest the awful remembrance should remain and grow, and overshadow mirth and pleasure, and the great haunting memory should spoil all the after-lives of little animals helped out of difficulties, in order that they should be happy and lighthearted as before. Mole rubbed his eyes and stared at Rat, who was looking about him in a puzzled sort of way. “I beg your pardon; what did you say, Rat?” he asked. “I think I was only remarking,” said Rat slowly, “that this was the right sort of place, and that here, if anywhere, we should find him. And look! Why, there he is, the little fellow!” And with a cry of delight he ran towards the slumbering Portly. But Mole stood still a moment, held in thought. As one wakened suddenly from a beautiful dream, who struggles to recall it, and can re-capture nothing but a dim sense of the beauty of it, the beauty! Till that, too, fades away in its turn, and the dreamer bitterly accepts the hard, cold waking and all its penalties; so Mole, after struggling with his memory for a brief space, shook his head sadly and followed the Rat.
durée : 00:54:18 - Popopop - par : Antoine de Caunes, Charline ROUX, Aurélien Ezvan - Passer au roman quand on est critique musical : un exercice pas évident, mais réussi haut la main par Nick Kent, invité aujourd'hui de Popopop. Et quoi de mieux pour célébrer le rock qu'un live acoustique de Kele Okereke, leader de Bloc Party, de retour cette année ? - réalisé par : Ghislain Fontana
durée : 00:29:59 - Les Nuits de France Culture - Par Marc-Alexandre Millanvoye - Avec Philippe Erhet, Lenny Kaye (guitariste de Patti Smith), Alain Dister (journaliste, critique de rock) Nick Kent (journaliste, écrivain) et Iggy Pop (chanteur) - Réalisation Jean-Philippe Navarre
durée : 00:29:59 - Les Nuits de France Culture - Par Marc-Alexandre Millanvoye - Avec Philippe Erhet, Lenny Kaye (guitariste de Patti Smith), Alain Dister (journaliste, critique de rock) Nick Kent (journaliste, écrivain) et Jean-Michel Brunet - Réalisation Jean-Philippe Navarre
Here it is, the big number two-zero-zero. We welcome original coach Jeremy Iwaszkowiec, original players Andy Lorei and Abdallah Bah, Futures defender Nick Kent, plus we're treated to some special messages from some special people. Love you guys! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the-peoples-pitch/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/the-peoples-pitch/support
In this episode, Michael Zilkha joins us all the way from Houston, Texas, to reminisce about his iconic ZE label — and the extraordinary artists he signed to it, from James Chance & Lydia Lunch to his late ex-wife Cristina and August "Kid Creole" Darnell... not forgetting John Cale, whom we hear in two audio clips talking about Lou Reed, Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground. Discussion of Todd Haynes' new documentary on the band — Michael's all-time favourite group — follows.Mark & Jasper round things off by talking us through their highlights among the 100+ new articles added to the RBP library, including a 1966 piece on Mama Cass meeting the Beatles, Nick Kent's 1987 Face op-ed on the Smiths, and a 2018 celebration of Moroccan gnawa by John Lewis.Many thanks to special guest Michael Zilkha. Visit the ZE Books website at zebooks.com.Pieces discussed: Mary Harron on Michael Zilkha, Paul Rambali on Michael Zilkha, ZE Records night at Hurrah, John Cale audio, The Cure, Stevie Wonder, Kirsty MacColl, Mama Cass, Mitch Mitchell, Donald Fagen, The Smiths, Wynton Marsalis, Chris Blackwell, Slick Rick, Junkie XL/Elvis, New Orleans Funk and Moroccan gnawa.
In this episode, Michael Zilkha joins us all the way from Houston, Texas, to reminisce about his iconic ZE label — and the extraordinary artists he signed to it, from James Chance & Lydia Lunch to his late ex-wife Cristina and August "Kid Creole" Darnell... not forgetting John Cale, whom we hear in two audio clips talking about Lou Reed, Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground. Discussion of Todd Haynes' new documentary on the band — Michael's all-time favourite group — follows. Mark & Jasper round things off by talking us through their highlights among the 100+ new articles added to the RBP library, including a 1966 piece on Mama Cass meeting the Beatles, Nick Kent's 1987 Face op-ed on the Smiths, and a 2018 celebration of Moroccan gnawa by John Lewis. Many thanks to special guest Michael Zilkha. Visit the ZE Books website at zebooks.com. Pieces discussed: Mary Harron on Michael Zilkha, Paul Rambali on Michael Zilkha, ZE Records night at Hurrah, John Cale audio, The Cure, Stevie Wonder, Kirsty MacColl, Mama Cass, Mitch Mitchell, Donald Fagen, The Smiths, Wynton Marsalis, Chris Blackwell, Slick Rick, Junkie XL/Elvis, New Orleans Funk and Moroccan gnawa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
In this episode, Michael Zilkha joins us all the way from Houston, Texas, to reminisce about his iconic ZE label — and the extraordinary artists he signed to it, from James Chance & Lydia Lunch to his late ex-wife Cristina and August "Kid Creole" Darnell... not forgetting John Cale, whom we hear in two audio clips talking about Lou Reed, Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground. Discussion of Todd Haynes' new documentary on the band — Michael's all-time favourite group — follows.Mark & Jasper round things off by talking us through their highlights among the 100+ new articles added to the RBP library, including a 1966 piece on Mama Cass meeting the Beatles, Nick Kent's 1987 Face op-ed on the Smiths, and a 2018 celebration of Moroccan gnawa by John Lewis.Many thanks to special guest Michael Zilkha. Visit the ZE Books website at zebooks.com.Pieces discussed: Mary Harron on Michael Zilkha, Paul Rambali on Michael Zilkha, ZE Records night at Hurrah, John Cale audio, The Cure, Stevie Wonder, Kirsty MacColl, Mama Cass, Mitch Mitchell, Donald Fagen, The Smiths, Wynton Marsalis, Chris Blackwell, Slick Rick, Junkie XL/Elvis, New Orleans Funk and Moroccan gnawa.
In this episode, Michael Zilkha joins us all the way from Houston, Texas, to reminisce about his iconic ZE label — and the extraordinary artists he signed to it, from James Chance & Lydia Lunch to his late ex-wife Cristina and August "Kid Creole" Darnell... not forgetting John Cale, whom we hear in two audio clips talking about Lou Reed, Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground. Discussion of Todd Haynes' new documentary on the band — Michael's all-time favourite group — follows. Mark & Jasper round things off by talking us through their highlights among the 100+ new articles added to the RBP library, including a 1966 piece on Mama Cass meeting the Beatles, Nick Kent's 1987 Face op-ed on the Smiths, and a 2018 celebration of Moroccan gnawa by John Lewis. Many thanks to special guest Michael Zilkha. Visit the ZE Books website at zebooks.com. Pieces discussed: Mary Harron on Michael Zilkha, Paul Rambali on Michael Zilkha, ZE Records night at Hurrah, John Cale audio, The Cure, Stevie Wonder, Kirsty MacColl, Mama Cass, Mitch Mitchell, Donald Fagen, The Smiths, Wynton Marsalis, Chris Blackwell, Slick Rick, Junkie XL/Elvis, New Orleans Funk and Moroccan gnawa.
This week we recap our visit to the Whisky Show 2021 at Old Billingsgate in London this past Sunday… our first public whisky event. Yes, we have a little debrief about we learnt, who we met and what were our highlights were… including our Dram of the show. It was a truly wonderful day finally meeting ‘virtual' friends we've talked to over the last 18 months and we can't wait to share with you out thoughts on the day. Find out more about The Whisky Show athttps://whiskyshow.comHere are links to the Whisky Show social media accounts:https://www.facebook.com/whiskyshow https://twitter.com/WhiskyShow https://www.instagram.com/whiskyshow/ Matt McKay's blog Dave mentioned… The Dramblehttps://www.thedramble.com/tastings/midleton/redbreast-pedro-ximenez-edition/ Here are the links to distilleries we've talked about in this weeks show.https://waterfordwhisky.com https://elixirdistillers.com https://lindoresabbeydistillery.com https://jamesepepper.com https://westwardwhiskey.com https://www.westlanddistillery.com https://www.compassboxwhisky.com https://pauljohnwhisky.com/en https://www.bruichladdich.com https://www.secret-speyside.com/en/ https://www.balblair.com https://www.theoxfordartisandistillery.com https://www.bimberdistillery.co.uk https://www.thatboutiqueywhiskycompany.com Here are some links to purchase a few Whiskies from The Whisky Exchange. If you purchase anything at all using these affiliate links you'll be helping out the podcast in the process. Thank you. Lindores Abbeyhttps://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/60239/lindores-abbey-mcdxciv Braes of Glenlivet 30 Year Oldhttps://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/54409/braes-of-glenlivet-30-year-old-secret-speyside James E Pepper Ryehttps://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/48815/james-e-pepper-1776-rye Westland Garryana 5https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/57188/westland-garryana-2020-release Bruichladdich Classic Laddiehttps://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/21593/bruichladdich-classic-laddie-scottish-barley Whisky and Things:Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsMerch and info: http://www.whiskyandthings.comBe sure to find our playlist on Spotify: Whisky and Things - The PlaylistListen to old episodes in our archive: https://www.whiskyandthings.com/archive More merch available here: https://www.zazzle.co.uk/store/whiskyandthings Social media:https://www.facebook.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.twitter.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.instagram.com/whiskyandthingspodcast For business enquiries: info@whiskyandthings.com Nick Kent:https://www.facebook.com/nickkentmusichttps://www.twitter.com/nickkenthttps://www.instagram.com/mrnickkent Dave Giles:https://www.facebook.com/davejgilesmusichttps://www.twitter.com/davejgileshttps://www.instagram.com/davejgiles Whisky and Things Playlist - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5CK9Fvo2ECvcvn6L4VL7Dt?si=7uC2ijz6QXmTZYCdYCg41A Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/whiskyandthings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
For Episode 80, we head to the Cotswolds Distillery… actually in person! Yes for our first distillery visit of 2021 we were lucky enough to receive a guided tour as well as taste their entire range along side two members of their team, who also answered a ton of questions we had. Yes, a conversation recorded within the distillery's tasting room itself, we'll be talking to our hosts, Rob Patchett and Connor Teague of the Cotswolds Distillery… as well as Vin PF of No Nonsense Whisky who also came along. This is the first of two special episodes recorded at Cotswolds Distillery, the second coming in a few weeks time... We had that much fun!You can watch the full uncut video of our conversation within the tasting room over on our patreon page. www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsFind out more about The Cotswolds Distillery and maybe book yourself a tour athttps://www.cotswoldsdistillery.comHere are links to their social media accounts:https://www.facebook.com/cotswoldsdistilleryhttps://twitter.com/Cotswoldistillhttps://www.instagram.com/cotswoldsdistillery/ Here are some links to purchase a few Cotswolds Whiskies from The Whisky Exchange. If you purchase anything at all using these affiliate links you'll be helping out the podcast in the process. Thank you. Cotswolds Founders Choicehttps://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/52102/cotswolds-founders-choice-605 Cotswolds Peated Caskhttps://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/53225/cotswolds-peated-cask-602 Cotswolds Single Malt 2017 Odyssey Barleyhttps://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/60929/cotswolds-single-malt-2017-odyssey-barley If you want to find out more about Vin PF and No Nonsense Whisky then head to https://www.nononsensewhisky.com And you can view his great You Tube channel and social media pages by following these links:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjYHDKONtK2YfrSEIGJ6qdAhttps://www.instagram.com/nononsensewhisky/https://twitter.com/nnwhisky We'll be heading to the Whisky Show this Sunday, Oct 3rd.. so if you're gonna be there, then come say Hi! and if you don't have a ticket yet, then here's a link that might help you out: https://whiskyshow.com Whisky and Things:Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsMerch and info: http://www.whiskyandthings.comBe sure to find our playlist on Spotify: Whisky and Things - The PlaylistListen to old episodes in our archive: https://www.whiskyandthings.com/archiveMore merch available here: https://www.zazzle.co.uk/store/whiskyandthings Social media:https://www.facebook.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.twitter.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.instagram.com/whiskyandthingspodcast For business enquiries: info@whiskyandthings.com Nick Kent:https://www.facebook.com/nickkentmusichttps://www.twitter.com/nickkenthttps://www.instagram.com/mrnickkent Dave Giles:https://www.facebook.com/davejgilesmusichttps://www.twitter.com/davejgileshttps://www.instagram.com/davejgilesSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/whiskyandthings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
In this adventurous episode we set sail with the Shackleton Blended Malt Scotch Whisky… A release inspired by one of the most exciting whisky discoveries of the 21st century which spans the globe all the way from the UK to Antarctica, and the pioneering spirit of one of the worlds most intrepid explorers, Sir Ernest Shackleton. Oh, and Nick invents a word with hilarious consequences at our recent Certified Originals Q&A gathering… so lots to learn in this episode. Find out more about Shackleton Blended Malt Whisky here -https://www.theshackletonwhisky.com Here is the New York Times Article by Charles McGrath that Nick used for his research in today's show.https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/magazine/drinking-ernest-shackletons-whisky.html A contribution from sales of this whisky will be made to the Antarctic Heritage Trust which you can find here -www.nzaht.org If you purchase a bottle of Shackleton, or anything at all from the Whisky Exchange using this affiliate link, then you'll be helping the podcast in the process, thank you.https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/38592/shackleton-blended-maltFind out more about joining the Certified Originals discord over athttps://newdramdrinker.weebly.com … You never know what fun you might have.To find out more info on the Whisky Show in London from October 1st-3rd and have a chance of getting an exclusive challenge coin then visit this link.https://whiskyshow.comWhisky and Things:Become a Patron and receive one of our new challenge coin as well as other benefits: https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsMerch and info: http://www.whiskyandthings.comOur fun Zazzle merch, T-Shirts, shot glasses etc is available here: https://www.zazzle.co.uk/store/whiskyandthingsBe sure to find our playlist on Spotify: Whisky and Things - The PlaylistListen to old episodes in our archive - https://www.whiskyandthings.com/archive Social media:https://www.facebook.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.twitter.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.instagram.com/whiskyandthingspodcast For business enquiries: info@whiskyandthings.com Nick Kent:https://www.facebook.com/nickkentmusichttps://www.twitter.com/nickkenthttps://www.instagram.com/mrnickkent Dave Giles:https://www.facebook.com/davejgilesmusichttps://www.twitter.com/davejgileshttps://www.instagram.com/davejgilesSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/whiskyandthings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
In this week's special show, no whisky will touch our lips, oh no… because in this episode we welcome Dr Nicholas Morgan to talk about his new book which he has released in partnership with The Whisky Exchange, “Everything You Need To Know About Whisky (But Are Too Afraid To Ask)”. Together with Nicholas we discuss this informative and entertaining book, his career, some of his views on the current state of the whisky industry and much much more. Nicholas Morgan is a whisky specialist and historian with more than thirty years of experience working in the drinks industry. Working at United Distillers from 1990 to 2020 (which became Diageo in 1997) building their archive, as well as going on to market their huge range of Single Malt Whiskies.Nicholas has also gathered a collection of awards and honours over the years, including the IWSC Award for Outstanding Achievement in Scotch Whisky in 2017, and being inducted into the Whisky Magazine Hall of Fame in 2018. You can purchase the Nicholas Morgan's new book “Everything You Need to Know About Whisky (but are too afraid to ask) now exclusively at The Whisky Exchange for £20, and if you purchase it, or anything else at all by clicking the link below you'll be helping out the podcast in the process. Thank you.https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/61498/everything-you-need-to-know-about-whisky You'll be able to purchase it from all other respectable book retailers from September 16th. Here's a link to the Johnnie Walker documentary “The Man Who Walked Around The World” - Available on a streaming platform in your area.https://themanwho.film/en And you can follow Nicholas Morgan on these social media accounts - …https://www.facebook.com/nicholas.morgan.372https://www.instagram.com/nicholasjmorgan/https://twitter.com/nicholasjmorganYou can watch the full uncut video of our conversation with Nicholas over on our patreon page. www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsOur sweet sweet Zazzle merch we mentioned is available here -https://www.zazzle.co.uk/store/whiskyandthings Whisky and Things:Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsMerch and info: http://www.whiskyandthings.comBe sure to find our playlist on Spotify: Whisky and Things - The PlaylistListen to old episodes in our archive - https://www.whiskyandthings.com/archive Social media:https://www.facebook.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.twitter.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.instagram.com/whiskyandthingspodcast For business enquiries: info@whiskyandthings.com Nick Kent:https://www.facebook.com/nickkentmusichttps://www.twitter.com/nickkenthttps://www.instagram.com/mrnickkent Dave Giles:https://www.facebook.com/davejgilesmusichttps://www.twitter.com/davejgileshttps://www.instagram.com/davejgilesSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/whiskyandthings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
We love an Independent Bottler on this show and this week we welcome Jake Sharpe, founder of The Whisky Baron. Jake guides us through two of their recent releases, a tasty Glentauchers, a punchy Port Charlotte... both cask strength, Lovely. He also shares his opinions and concerns on the current state of the cask investment world. You can watch the full uncut video of our conversation with Jake over on our patreon page. www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsWe also tasted a third whisky with Jake, a Fettercairn 10 year and the tasting video for that will be up exclusively for patrons very soon.Find out more about The Whisky Baron over on https://www.thewhiskybaron.co.uk And you can follow The Whisky Baron on these social media accounts - …https://www.facebook.com/thewhiskybaronuk/ @thewhiskybaronukhttps://www.instagram.com/the.whisky.baron/ the.whisky.baronhttps://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlaxu6YDbZ7Go4-ZJIswlw The Whisky Baron Here are links to the articles about Cask Investment concerns mentioned in the show.Cask & Still Magazine - Blair Bowman - “Fools Gold”https://issuu.com/caskstillmagazine/docs/cask_and_still_issue_12/12Forbes - Felipe Schrieberg - “4 Top Scotch Whisky Investment Tips to Avid Scammers”https://www.forbes.com/sites/felipeschrieberg/2021/07/22/4-top-scotch-whisky-investment-tips-to-avoid-cask-scammers/?ss=spirits&sh=2467668e7adcWhisky Magazines - Jason Thompson & Christoper Coates - “Whisky investments: When history repeats.”https://whiskymag.com/story/whisky-investments:-when-history-repeats?fbclid=IwAR2ZjDuGbGsJ2NE8lihhnZTSSqITYHTfDeDQIzEMPIK5MNkTlx8j--iPVcAOur sweet sweet Zazzle merch we mentioned is available here -https://www.zazzle.co.uk/store/whiskyandthings Whisky and Things:Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsMerch and info: http://www.whiskyandthings.comBe sure to find our playlist on Spotify: Whisky and Things - The PlaylistListen to old episodes in our archive - https://www.whiskyandthings.com/archive Social media:https://www.facebook.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.twitter.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.instagram.com/whiskyandthingspodcast For business enquiries: info@whiskyandthings.com Nick Kent:https://www.facebook.com/nickkentmusichttps://www.twitter.com/nickkenthttps://www.instagram.com/mrnickkent Dave Giles:https://www.facebook.com/davejgilesmusichttps://www.twitter.com/davejgileshttps://www.instagram.com/davejgilesSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/whiskyandthings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
To celebrate Episode 75 we welcome back an audience of our Patreon subscribers, joining us from around the world via the magic of the internet. Together with our guests we're heading to Kentucky to sip on the Woodford Reserve, Distiller's Select Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey, maybe in a cheeky Old Fashioned, maybe neat. Also, while we all enjoy our Bourbon we'll be presenting an exciting new segment you'll be quoting facts (hopefully) from down the pub in no time.… What more do you want from a 75th episode?If you're Patron a you can watch the full show on video over on our patreon page this week at https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsFind out more about Woodford Reserve here -https://www.woodfordreserve.com/en-uk/If you purchase a Woodford Reserve, or anything else at all from The Whisky Exchange using the affiliate link below, you'll be helping out the show and we appreciate it a lot, thank you.https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/1251/woodford-reserve-distillers-selectHere are some more fun Whisky Facts from the source of today's fun.https://www.worldwhiskyday.com/100-whisky-facts/Our sweet sweet Zazzle merch we mentioned is available here -https://www.zazzle.co.uk/store/whiskyandthings Whisky and Things:Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsMerch and info: http://www.whiskyandthings.comBe sure to find our playlist on Spotify: Whisky and Things - The Playlist Social media:https://www.facebook.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.twitter.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.instagram.com/whiskyandthingspodcast For business enquiries: info@whiskyandthings.com Nick Kent:https://www.facebook.com/nickkentmusichttps://www.twitter.com/nickkenthttps://www.instagram.com/mrnickkent Dave Giles:https://www.facebook.com/davejgilesmusichttps://www.twitter.com/davejgileshttps://www.instagram.com/davejgilesSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/whiskyandthings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
After Dave's rant last week about the marketing of a Whyte and Mackay release that he spotted all over the London Underground, we thought it was only fair to grab a bottle and give it a proper try. So in this week's show we're tasting The Woodsman, Blended Scotch Whisky as a long drink, as well as neat. We also talk nightcaps, Piña coladas and we dispense some more news stories from the wider world of Whisky in Boozeround! Find out more about The Woodsman over on their websitehttps://www.woodsmanwhisky.com You can listen or watch the episode of the Uncorked Whisky Session's from Boutique-y Whisky here where they talk about the crisis in Craft Beer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwk-hVULMdU You can purchase The Woodsman we drank in this episode and help the podcast in the process by using this affiliate link.https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/44893/the-woodsman-blended-whiskyor the Monkey Shoulder which we like more and is cheaper.https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/5016/monkey-shoulder And here's that 3 litre bottle of WhistlePig 10 I nearly mentioned last week… 300cl!https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/53165/whistlepig-10-year-old-rye-whiskey-jeroboam Here's the Forbes article about Glenfiddich converting their fleet of delivery trucks to be able to run on low-emission biogas - https://www.forbes.com/sites/felipeschrieberg/2021/07/27/glenfiddich-is-now-using-whisky-waste-to-power-its-trucks/?sh=4925445f38cf Find out more about the Johnnie Walker Princes Street Experience that opens on Sept 6th 2021 here - https://www.johnniewalker.com/en-gb/visit-us-princes-street/plan-your-visit/ https://www.whisky.com/information/news/newsdetail/johnnie-walker-princes-street-to-open-september-6-2021.html Our sweet sweet Zazzle merch we mentioned is available here - https://www.zazzle.co.uk/store/whiskyandthings Whisky and Things:Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsMerch and info: http://www.whiskyandthings.comBe sure to find our playlist on Spotify: Whisky and Things - The PlaylistListen to old episodes in our archive - https://www.whiskyandthings.com/archive Social media:https://www.facebook.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.twitter.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.instagram.com/whiskyandthingspodcast For business enquiries: info@whiskyandthings.com Nick Kent:https://www.facebook.com/nickkentmusichttps://www.twitter.com/nickkenthttps://www.instagram.com/mrnickkent Dave Giles:https://www.facebook.com/davejgilesmusichttps://www.twitter.com/davejgileshttps://www.instagram.com/davejgiles Whisky and Things Playlist - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5CK9Fvo2ECvcvn6L4VL7Dt?si=7uC2ijz6QXmTZYCdYCg41A Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/whiskyandthings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Can you unlearn whisky and start again? What does that even mean? Well whatever we may or may not unlearn in episode 73, we for sure learn a lot about WhistlePig and their Farmstock Rye Crop Number 2. Only the second rye we've tasted on the show and one we've been looking forward to opening for a long time… listen to find out why. Oh yeah, and Dave has a rant over a new Blended Scotch and Jeff Whisky pops into the edit once again for your entertainment.Find out more about WhistlePig over at https://whistlepigwhiskey.com You can purchase the WhistlePig we drank in that episode, or another whiskies we mentioned by using our The Whisky Exchange affiliate links listed below and help the podcast in the process... Thank you.https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/45087/whistlepig-farmstock-crop-002 WhistlePig Farmstock Rye Crop Number 1https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/39032/whistlepig-farmstock-crop-001 WhistlePig Rye 10 Year Old https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/53165/whistlepig-10-year-old-rye-whiskey-jeroboam WhistlePig Boss Hog - https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/57883/whistlepig-boss-hog-vii-magellans-atlantic Listen to Episodes 60 and 63 which we mention in this episode here - https://www.whiskyandthings.com/podcast/ep60-tasmanian-whisky-worth-the-wait-with-dave-worthington-and-sam-simmons https://www.whiskyandthings.com/podcast/ep63-are-band-and-music-artist-collab-whiskies-a-good-mix-with-richard-mckeand-of-mackmyra or any other old episodes in our archive - https://www.whiskyandthings.com/archive Our sweet sweet Zazzle merch we mentioned is available here -https://www.zazzle.co.uk/store/whiskyandthings Whisky and Things:Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsMerch and info: http://www.whiskyandthings.comBe sure to find our playlist on Spotify: Whisky and Things - The PlaylistListen to old episodes in our archive - https://www.whiskyandthings.com/archive Social media:https://www.facebook.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.twitter.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.instagram.com/whiskyandthingspodcast For business enquiries: info@whiskyandthings.com Nick Kent:https://www.facebook.com/nickkentmusichttps://www.twitter.com/nickkenthttps://www.instagram.com/mrnickkent Dave Giles:https://www.facebook.com/davejgilesmusichttps://www.twitter.com/davejgileshttps://www.instagram.com/davejgilesSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/whiskyandthings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
It's always fun to welcome back Jeff Whisky on to the show and this time he's shared with us the results of his own home experiment… Yes, this week we try something a little different, as we sampling Jeff's 3 Year Old Sherry Blend. What was his starting whisky? How did he alter the nose and palate? Was it worth the effort? We find out! We also talk infinity bottles and other options for having fun at home creating interesting concoctions and "House Blends". You can watch the full uncut video of our conversation with Jeff over on our patreon page. www.patreon.com/whiskyandthings Find out more about Jeff Whisky over on https://jeffwhisky.com He also of course has a YouTube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChSPQQ4v5h89je_B0Mvus2gAnd you can follow Jeff on these social media accounts - …https://www.facebook.com/jeffwhiskyreviews @jeffwhiskyreviewshttps://www.instagram.com/jeffwhisky/ @jeffwhiskyhttps://twitter.com/jeffwhisky24 @jeffwhisky24 Listen to our last chat with Jeff Whisky in Episode 66 here -https://www.whiskyandthings.com/podcast/ep66-seriously-will-we-ever-like-a-johnnie-walker-with-jeff-whisky and you can purchase the Johnnie Walker Green Label we drank in that episode and help the podcast in the process by using our affiliate link.https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/32602/johnnie-walker-green-label-15-year-old Our sweet sweet Zazzle merch we mentioned is available here -https://www.zazzle.co.uk/store/whiskyandthings Whisky and Things:Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsMerch and info: http://www.whiskyandthings.comBe sure to find our playlist on Spotify: Whisky and Things - The PlaylistListen to old episodes in our archive - https://www.whiskyandthings.com/archive Social media:https://www.facebook.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.twitter.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.instagram.com/whiskyandthingspodcast For business enquiries: info@whiskyandthings.com Nick Kent:https://www.facebook.com/nickkentmusichttps://www.twitter.com/nickkenthttps://www.instagram.com/mrnickkent Dave Giles:https://www.facebook.com/davejgilesmusichttps://www.twitter.com/davejgileshttps://www.instagram.com/davejgilesSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/whiskyandthings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
As it's Summer time, we thought it was only right to dive into the exciting world of refreshing Whiskey Cocktails… so we chose one of the easiest to make (because life's too short to mess around with hard stuff) in the form of a Kentucky Derby classic, the Mint Julep. Of course we needed a great American Whiskey to assist in our mixology experiment so what a great opportunity to drink some Maker's Mark 46 and learn what goes into making this one of our favourite Bourbons. Find out more about Maker's Mark here -https://www.makersmark.com The Maker's Mark Private Selection which looks like a lot of fun..https://www.makersmark.com/makers-mark-private-selection You can find the recipe for the Mint Julep we used as well as many other fun Cocktails here - https://www.liquor.com/recipes/mint-julep/https://www.makersmark.com/uk/cocktailsIf you liked the sound of any of the whiskies or accessories we've featured in this week's show and would like to purchase one (or Three) you can do so using these links to the Whisky Exchange and by doing so you'll be helping out the podcast in the process. Thank you.Maker's Mark 46 Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskeyhttps://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/34453/makers-46-bourbon Maker's Mark Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey - Cask Strengthhttps://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/55811/makers-mark-cask-strength-5505 Maker's Mark Originalhttps://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/1168/makers-mark This is the 46 with the gift box which was unavailable at the time of recording… but keep checking back.. you never know, you might get lucky.https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/57520/makers-46-gift-box Stainless Steel Julep Cuphttps://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/30969/stainless-steel-julep-cup-41cl-14-ozMuddler… for all your muddling need...https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/1930/muddler-wooden-8Whisky and Things:Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsMerch and info: http://www.whiskyandthings.comOur sweet sweet Zazzle merch we mentioned is available here -https://www.zazzle.co.uk/store/whiskyandthings Be sure to find our playlist on Spotify: Whisky and Things - The PlaylistFind past episodes easily in out archive - https://www.whiskyandthings.com/archive Social media:https://www.facebook.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.twitter.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.instagram.com/whiskyandthingspodcast For business enquiries: info@whiskyandthings.com Nick Kent:https://www.facebook.com/nickkentmusichttps://www.twitter.com/nickkenthttps://www.instagram.com/mrnickkent Dave Giles:https://www.facebook.com/davejgilesmusichttps://www.twitter.com/davejgileshttps://www.instagram.com/davejgilesSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/whiskyandthings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
In this week's podcast Dave and Nick return to the England to try their second bottling from the Cotswolds Distillery, this time their Single Malt Peated Cask… a flavoursome dram at a whopping 60.2% ABV. They also fill you in on a couple of fun stories from the wider world of whisky in everyone's favourite news segment… Boozeround! As if the whisky was exciting enough right??!! Find out more about Cotswolds Distillery here -https://www.cotswoldsdistillery.comFind out more about NcNean and their Net Zero Emissions herehttps://ncnean.com/blogs/bloghttps://www.instagram.com/ncnean/You can hear our interview with NcNean Distillery Founder Annabel Thomas in Episode 57https://www.whiskyandthings.com/podcast/ep57-ncnean-organic-single-malt-scotch-with-annabel-thomas-distillery-founderAnd here's the article about the distillery being shipped to China!https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-57825081If you liked the sound of any of the whiskies we've featured in this week's show and would like to purchase one (or Three) you can do so using these links to the Whisky Exchange and by doing so you'll be helping out the podcast in the process. Thank you.Cotswold Single Malt English Whisky Peated Caskhttps://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/53225/cotswolds-peated-cask-602 Cotswold Single Malt English Whisky Founders Choice (not the Distillers Select) https://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/52102/cotswolds-founders-choice-605 Nc'Nean Organic Single Malt Scotchhttps://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/aff/4431902/p/55981/ncnean-organic-single-maltWhisky and Things:Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsMerch and info: http://www.whiskyandthings.comOur sweet sweet Zazzle merch we mentioned is available here - https://www.zazzle.co.uk/store/whiskyandthings Be sure to find our playlist on Spotify: Whisky and Things - The PlaylistFind past episodes easily in our archive - https://www.whiskyandthings.com/archive Social media:https://www.facebook.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.twitter.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.instagram.com/whiskyandthingspodcast For business enquiries: info@whiskyandthings.com Nick Kent:https://www.facebook.com/nickkentmusichttps://www.twitter.com/nickkenthttps://www.instagram.com/mrnickkent Dave Giles:https://www.facebook.com/davejgilesmusichttps://www.twitter.com/davejgileshttps://www.instagram.com/davejgilesSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/whiskyandthings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
By a complete coincidence, for Episode 69 we've managed to bag 6 and 9 year old whiskies to taste.. result! And what a couple of drams we have… Cask strength examples from Dalmore and Aberfeldy released by the brand new independent bottler… Vin PF of No Nonsense Whisky… that's right, the You Tuber, Blogger and now Indie Bottler will be joining us to guide you through these special whiskies as well as chat about his whisky origin story, the joys of challenge coins and much, much more. You can watch the full interview with Vin over on our patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthings If you become a patron by this Sunday July 18th, you can be in our virtual audience for our 75th show recording! If you want to find out more about No Nonsense whisky then head tohttps://www.nononsensewhisky.com And you can view his great You Tube channel and social media pages by following these links… https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjYHDKONtK2YfrSEIGJ6qdAhttps://www.instagram.com/nononsensewhisky/ https://twitter.com/nnwhisky As you hopefully heard in the podcast, you can purchase the No Nonsense bottlings we tasted from this website - https://ooshkie.com/No-Nonsense/ We also mentioned these guys...Scotch Test Dummies - https://www.scotchtestdummies.com Our sweet sweet Zazzle merch we mentioned is available here - https://www.zazzle.co.uk/store/whiskyandthings Whisky and Things:Become a Patron: https://www.patreon.com/whiskyandthingsMerch and info: http://www.whiskyandthings.comBe sure to find our playlist on Spotify: Whisky and Things - The Playlist Social media:https://www.facebook.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.twitter.com/whiskyandthingshttps://www.instagram.com/whiskyandthingspodcast For business enquiries: info@whiskyandthings.com Nick Kent:https://www.facebook.com/nickkentmusichttps://www.twitter.com/nickkenthttps://www.instagram.com/mrnickkent Dave Giles:https://www.facebook.com/davejgilesmusichttps://www.twitter.com/davejgileshttps://www.instagram.com/davejgilesSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/whiskyandthings. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
In one of the most interesting podcast episodes so far, I interview Nick Kent about his life as a pro hockey player, how he got to his position as a coach today, and his decision not to do the typical college route. We also discuss our sobriety/ attitudes toward drinking and drugs, some crazy experiences he's had living in Canada and Sweden, as well as an overview of hockey slang. Along with producing this podcast episode, our other victories for the day included Nick not getting a parking ticket on my street and the Martha's Vineyard hockey team absolutely *crushing* Nantucket. Enjoy! Be sure to check out my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCubaJqsyuRTlFEaj22gudSg) and my Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/wendyrosefillman/). For business inquiries, email wendyrosebud@outlook.com Podcast Music – Contact JP Heston Instagram: @jphestonmusic Website: www.jpheston.com Podcast Cover Art – Contact Sara Marie Bottaro Email: smlbottaro@gmail.com Website: www.saramariebottaro.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app
In this episode we welcome the legendary Nick Kent as our very special guest. Unarguably the most famous British rock writer from the golden era of '70s rock journalism, Nick tells Barney, Mark & Jasper how he began writing for the underground Frendz and then for Nick Logan's super-hip New Musical Express. Recollections of Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson and the Rolling Stones lead inevitably to tales of self-indulgence and self-destruction — and eventually to Nick's sometime drug buddy Iggy Pop, who is heard speaking in March 1977 about his beloved proto-punk band the Stooges and about his new Bowie-produced solo album The Idiot.The conversation turns briefly to Nirvana and Kurt Cobain before we pay our respects to departed Animals guitarist Hilton Valentine and then — led by a very eloquent Jasper — to the extraordinary electronic producer and trans icon SOPHIE. Among the new library articles Mark highlights are pieces about Cream's Eric Clapton, Charlie Gillett's Sound Of The City, Fun Boy Three and 12" disco master-mixer Tom Moulton. For reasons that will be obvious to many of you, Nick pitches in after Mark quotes from Barry Cain's 1978 Record Mirror interview with PiL's John Lydon and Jah Wobble. Jasper wraps up the episode with passing remarks on Simon Reynolds' 2017 retrospective on Donna Summer's epic 'I Feel Love'...Many thanks to special guest Nick Kent; his novel The Unstable Boys is published by Constable and out now.Pieces discussed: Nick Kent on David Bowie, Nick Kent on Brian Wilson, Nick Kent on Iggy Pop, Nick Kent on Kurt Cobain, Chris Salewicz on Nick Kent, Iggy Pop audio, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl, The Animals, SOPHIE, Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix, New York Dolls, Eric Clapton, Graham Nash, Sound of the City, Public Image Limited, Fun Boy Three, Tom Moulton, Donna Summer & Giorgio Moroder and Jon Bon Jovi.
In this episode we welcome the legendary Nick Kent as our very special guest. Unarguably the most famous British rock writer from the golden era of '70s rock journalism, Nick tells Barney, Mark & Jasper how he began writing for the underground Frendz and then for Nick Logan's super-hip New Musical Express. Recollections of Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson and the Rolling Stones lead inevitably to tales of self-indulgence and self-destruction — and eventually to Nick's sometime drug buddy Iggy Pop, who is heard speaking in March 1977 about his beloved proto-punk band the Stooges and about his new Bowie-produced solo album The Idiot.The conversation turns briefly to Nirvana and Kurt Cobain before we pay our respects to departed Animals guitarist Hilton Valentine and then — led by a very eloquent Jasper — to the extraordinary electronic producer and trans icon SOPHIE. Among the new library articles Mark highlights are pieces about Cream's Eric Clapton, Charlie Gillett's Sound Of The City, Fun Boy Three and 12" disco master-mixer Tom Moulton. For reasons that will be obvious to many of you, Nick pitches in after Mark quotes from Barry Cain's 1978 Record Mirror interview with PiL's John Lydon and Jah Wobble. Jasper wraps up the episode with passing remarks on Simon Reynolds' 2017 retrospective on Donna Summer's epic 'I Feel Love'...Many thanks to special guest Nick Kent; his novel The Unstable Boys is published by Constable and out now.Pieces discussed: Nick Kent on David Bowie, Nick Kent on Brian Wilson, Nick Kent on Iggy Pop, Nick Kent on Kurt Cobain, Chris Salewicz on Nick Kent, Iggy Pop audio, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl, The Animals, SOPHIE, Sly Stone, Jimi Hendrix, New York Dolls, Eric Clapton, Graham Nash, Sound of the City, Public Image Limited, Fun Boy Three, Tom Moulton, Donna Summer & Giorgio Moroder and Jon Bon Jovi.
In this week's episode, Mark and Barney are joined by the delightful Colleen "Cosmo" Murphy to mark the 50th anniversary of David Mancuso's legendary first Loft party in New York City. Colleen talks about her friendship with Mancuso and about her own musical journey as a revered DJ (not to mention host of Classic Album Sundays).Barney notes the week's featured writer Daryl Easlea — and specifically his pieces on Elvis Presley the movie star and (tying in with this week's reissue of his excellent book Everybody Dance) Chic protegée Norma Jean Wright. Colleen concurs that the latter's 'Saturday' (1978) is a stone disco classic.The New York theme continues with discussion of the week's new audio interview, featuring No Wave queen and fearless transgressor Lydia Lunch talking to Martin Aston in 1989. We hear a clip of Lydia holding forth on her staunch refusal to be part of any cultural mainstream — and conversation ensues about her huge influence and complicated relationship with radical feminism.Finally, Mark talks us through such new additions to the RBP library as a 1969 Jimi Hendrix interview from the L.A. Times, Nick Kent's 1978 encounter with Elvis Costello, and Sean O'Hagan's account of his 1998 trip to Belfast with U2. A second clip from the Lydia Lunch audio takes us out of the episode…Many thanks to special guest Colleen Murphy; like her Facebook page at Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy and visit classicalbumsundays.com.Pieces discussed: David Mancuso, The Art of Deejaying without Deejaying, DJ Cosmo, Norma Jean Wright, Elvis in Hollywood, 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong, Lydia Lunch audio, Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix, Disco Demand, Elvis Costello, Was (Not Was), U2, Viv Stanshall, Primal Scream, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Them Crooked Vultures and Sister Rosetta Tharpe
In this week's episode, Mark and Barney are joined by the delightful Colleen "Cosmo" Murphy to mark the 50th anniversary of David Mancuso's legendary first Loft party in New York City. Colleen talks about her friendship with Mancuso and about her own musical journey as a revered DJ (not to mention host of Classic Album Sundays).Barney notes the week's featured writer Daryl Easlea — and specifically his pieces on Elvis Presley the movie star and (tying in with this week's reissue of his excellent book Everybody Dance) Chic protegée Norma Jean Wright. Colleen concurs that the latter's 'Saturday' (1978) is a stone disco classic.The New York theme continues with discussion of the week's new audio interview, featuring No Wave queen and fearless transgressor Lydia Lunch talking to Martin Aston in 1989. We hear a clip of Lydia holding forth on her staunch refusal to be part of any cultural mainstream — and conversation ensues about her huge influence and complicated relationship with radical feminism.Finally, Mark talks us through such new additions to the RBP library as a 1969 Jimi Hendrix interview from the L.A. Times, Nick Kent's 1978 encounter with Elvis Costello, and Sean O'Hagan's account of his 1998 trip to Belfast with U2. A second clip from the Lydia Lunch audio takes us out of the episode…Many thanks to special guest Colleen Murphy; like her Facebook page at Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy and visit classicalbumsundays.com.Pieces discussed: David Mancuso, The Art of Deejaying without Deejaying, DJ Cosmo, Norma Jean Wright, Elvis in Hollywood, 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong, Lydia Lunch audio, Mick Jagger, Jimi Hendrix, Disco Demand, Elvis Costello, Was (Not Was), U2, Viv Stanshall, Primal Scream, Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Them Crooked Vultures and Sister Rosetta TharpeThe RBP podcast is part of the Pantheon Podcasts network.
Hear stories about Killing Joke including their manifesto and connection with Kurt Cobain. K is also for Nick Kent and Kevin Rowland, who formed The Killjoys and later, Dexy's
Elvis Costello joins us to talk about his blockbusting memoir "Unfaithful Music And Disappearing Ink". The conversation takes in such vital issues as: growing up in a house full of acetates and publishers demos, the reason The Attractions ran on to the stage in 1977, Nick Kent's tackle on display in the garden of the pub opposite Island Records, playing support to the Natural Acoustic Band in 1971, listening to the radio in the 60s, what he learned from Burt Bacharach and why the White House is the ideal place to play “Penny Lane”. Cheers, Elvis. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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