Podcasts - The Strange Brew

Gerry McAvoy thought Rory Gallagher and his brother Donal were just supporting a couple of fellow Irishmen when they came to see Deep Joy play in London. He realised eventually that Rory may have been sizing up him and the drummer as a rhythm section. Gerry was 19 when he joined, and he played with Rory until 1991. He tells Jason Barnard about being called back to the studio at half past one in the morning after a gig, Roger Glover objecting to the band’s beer before sessions on Calling Card, and, in his telling, Rory going back to a three-piece after seeing the Sex Pistols in San Francisco. He also explains why nobody in Band of Friends tries to play Rory’s solos note for note.

This is a new edit of a 2022 interview reinstated under the Second Brew series.

Band of Friends

Gerry McAvoy podcast tracks

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Podcasts also available: Dónal Gallagher, Jimmy Webb, Martin Barre – Jethro Tull – live in conversation, John Steel on 60 years of The Animals

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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Dónal Gallagher knew Rory better than anyone, as his brother and a close companion throughout his career. In Edged in Blue: A Rock ’n’ Roll Odyssey with Rory Gallagher, he draws on a lifetime of memories, from their childhood in Ireland and Rory’s years with Taste to his solo career, the night he went to Rotterdam to audition for the Rolling Stones, and the punishing schedule that took its toll on his health. Dónal talks to Jason Barnard about the man behind the guitar, Rory’s career highlights and his place in Irish music and rock history.

Edged in Blue: A Rock ‘N’ Roll Odyssey with Rory Gallagher

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Podcasts also available: Michael Schenker, Pete Briquette – The Boomtown Rats, Steve Howe on Dylan, Hendrix & YES, Marquee: The Story of the World’s Greatest Music Venue

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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Colin Blunstone and Rod Argent of The Zombies join Jason Barnard ahead of the Begin Here Festival in St. Albans, which starts on Friday 30 October. It will be Rod’s first time playing live in over two years.

They also look back at meeting at 15, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame night, how She’s Not There came together, and George Harrison’s verdict on Juke Box Jury. Colin gives details of Continue Here, out on 31 October on Beechwood Park Records, and a fourth archive collection planned to capture the end of The Zombies and beginning of Colin Blunstone and Argent’s music.

Begin Here Festival

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Podcasts also available: Chris White – The Zombies – Inside The Vaults, Hugh Grundy – The Zombies, Rod Argent, Colin Blunstone, Russ Ballard

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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Doctor and the Medics had one of the unlikeliest number ones of the 1980s thanks in part to an ambulance their record company sent to Radio 1 and then it spent the next forty years refusing to disappear. Jason Barnard talks to frontman Doctor, Reverend Dr. Clive Jackson, about new album The Optimal Mystic and about pretty much everything else: the A&R man who wrecked Andy Partridge’s snare sound on Miracle of the Age, writing lyrics for The Damned, the failed Welsh snail farm, and getting left off Liverpool’s number one list and putting that right.

This episode features early mixes of ‘Forever and Ever’ and ‘Dancing In My Hand’ from new album The Optimal Mystic. It is free to mailing-list subscribers via doctorandthemedics.com

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Podcasts also available: John Leckie on XTC and The Dukes of Stratosphear, Matt Piucci – Rain Parade, The Vapors, Paul Cook – Sex Pistols

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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The Residents don’t give interviews, so when they have something to say, Homer Flynn says it for them. He is their art director, their spokesperson and part of the Cryptic Corporation that has looked after them since 1976. Eskimo is currently on the road. The 1979 album, with its invented vocals and wind treated as seriously as music, reaches the stage this autumn with inflatable icebergs, projections and five new songs.

Homer tells me how a 20-minute slot at a San Francisco event grew into a full production. He explains why the first costume idea, a giant silver Christmas ornament with a top hat, was talked out of existence by costume makers, and how the eyeball that replaced it became The Residents’ symbol. We also get into the Mole Show and the Emulator sampler, the Freak Show comic and CD-ROM, the 100 archive boxes Hardy Fox kept, and The Lonely Wound, the new Residents album Homer says is in its final stages.

The Residents website, Eskimo Live

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Podcasts also available: Wolfgang Flür – Kraftwerk, Robin Scott – M, Rat Scabies (The Damned) and Chris Constantinou (Adam Ant), Tim Arnold and Kevin Godley

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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Fairport Convention made a £5 profit from their first gig, at St Michael’s Church Hall in Golders Green on 27 May 1967. About 30 or 40 people turned up, and the band had printed the tickets and hired the hall themselves. Simon Nicol, whose house gave the group its name, was a professional musician at the age of 16.

Here Simon talks as Fairport embark on their autumn 2026 UK tour, a seated acoustic run that includes village halls and social clubs, and for the 60th anniversary shows in May 2027.

Nicol grew up in North London, where Ashley Hutchings lived just down the road and his father was Pete Quaife’s doctor. He saw the Kinks play their last gig as the Ravens and their first as the Kinks two weeks later. Fairport’s own break came when Joe Boyd watched them support Pink Floyd at UFO and signed them, though their debut single, “If I Had a Ribbon Bow”, sank without trace. Judy Dyble then left and Sandy Denny arrived, and Nicol says she “made a huge impression musically and personally”. The band made What We Did on Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking and Liege & Lief within 11 months, a stretch that also included the May 1969 motorway crash that killed Martin Lamble. Reflecting on those 60 years, Nicol explains why Fairport have remained active while “not a tribute band to ourselves”.

Tour dates and tickets from fairportconvention.com

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Podcasts also available: Simon Nicol (2023), Ric Sanders, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Chris Leslie, Iain Matthews 

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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Geoff Downes and Chris Braide talk about Trauma, the new Downes Braide Association album, and how the project has evolved since the first DBA record in 2012. They discuss the difficult circumstances behind the record and the hope that runs through it.

They also trace how DBA began, and how bringing in Dave Bainbridge (guitars), Andy Hodge (bass) and Ash Soan (drums) has expanded their sound. They explain why making the records they wanted, with no A&R department steering them, has been essential, and how Roger Dean’s artwork has shaped their identity.

Along the way, they cover the David Longdon recordings drawn from the archive for Trauma and other collaborators, including Marc Almond and Andy Partridge. They also discuss how DBA sits alongside Geoff’s work with Yes and Asia and Chris’s songwriting and production career.

Downes Braide Association – Trauma

Downes Braide Association website

A dinner for David Longdon with Geoff Downes in London, 6 November 2026

DBA podcast tracks

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Podcasts also available: Annie Haslam & Jim McCarty: The Story of Renaissance, Inside Kate Bush’s Never For Ever, Alan Parsons on Pyramid, The Beatles and Pink Floyd

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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Deep Purple play their last show of this run on 19 December in Mexico City. After two weeks at home for Christmas, Gillan goes straight back into work with the band, before leaving their Nashville sessions three days early to rehearse for a twenty five date speaking tour built around the practice that gives it its name: filling gaps with nonsense words until the real lyrics catch up.

Gillan covers The Javelins, Episode Six’s German club circuit, joining Deep Purple, the new album SPLAT!, Jesus Christ Superstar, the Ian Gillan Band and a year with Black Sabbath he still calls the longest party he ever went to. He also describes Ritchie Blackmore rejoining the band on stage for Smoke on the Water, and how a broken guitar string at the Lyceum turned into a stage habit he still uses today.

Talking Gib’rish tour
Deep Purple official site
Ian Gillan online

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Podcasts also available: Nick Simper – Deep Purple, Chris Slade – AC/DC, John Coghlan – Status Quo, Michael Schenker

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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When Jimmy Webb first saw Joni Mitchell at the Troubadour, he sent roses to her dressing room with a letter asking her to tea. It went unanswered. The following decade, after they had become friends, she told him she had moved the couch while clearing out her Laurel Canyon house and found the letter, and asked if he would still like to go. Webb wrote ‘Simile’ for her.

He tells that story in a conversation I recorded in February 2022, ahead of live dates in the UK. Elsewhere he describes the organ sound in the fade of ‘Wichita Lineman’, which he calls “a stroke of pure luck”, sessions with Richard Harris on ‘MacArthur Park’ that ran until the Pimm’s was gone, and a paper aeroplane contest with George Martin.

This episode was one of those that did not transfer when my website failed. I have re-edited it and put it back online under the Second Brew series.

jimmywebb.com

Jimmy Webb – Second Brew – Podcast tracks

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Podcasts also available: Dan Penn, Michelle Phillips, Melanie (Safka), Judy Collins

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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Randy Edelman is probably best known to British listeners for the records he made in the 1970s and early 1980s, including Uptown Uptempo Woman and Concrete and Clay. The Carpenters recorded his songs and took him on tour, and his records found an audience in the UK that he hadn’t found in America.

Then his career took a different turn. After working his way into film scoring, Twins led to a long run of Hollywood films including Ghostbusters II, Kindergarten Cop, Gettysburg and The Last of the Mohicans. Randy spent two decades concentrating on film music and didn’t write a song during that time. He’s now making records and performing again, with a new album, Green Park. We talked about his early records, his connection with London, The Carpenters, the move into film, and why he returned to songwriting.

randyedelman.com

Randy Edelman – Green Park

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Podcasts also available: Dean Friedman, Rick Wakeman, Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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