In this episode, roots music returns via the altar: Gillian Welch & David Rawlings live at Melbourne’s Forum, with guest Andy White joining the chat. 

They describe the duo as deities in Australia, playing with disarming minimalism (mics on guitars, SM58s, no fancy DI wizardry), and drawing an audience so quiet it feels like church.

Brian’s only complaint is the kind you’re only allowed after 20-plus gigs: he wanted setlist variations — the tour’s Neil Young (“Cortez the Killer”), Springsteen (“Racing in the Street”, “Atlantic City”), maybe a Garcia nod — and didn’t get them. 

Michael diagnoses him as “gluttonous”, which is fair, though “devout” might be kinder.

The conversation widens into stagecraft: tuning mishaps, the art of filling dead air, and the delicate question of whether you should tell stories between songs or let the song do the work. 

That segues beautifully into a bigger theme: the thrill (and terror) of the no-setlist life.

Bill Frisell becomes the exemplar: dazzling, improvisational, apparently operating without a set list, with Brian recounting a classic partner-at-gig moment — Karen asking if Frisell’s strange effects are just him tuning up. 

Frisell, told the story, laughs and admits people say that a lot. (This is the highest compliment: “your art is so unfamiliar I assumed it was maintenance.”)

From Frisell they leap to Elvis — specifically Baz Luhrmann’s concert-footage film EPiC (Elvis Presley in Concert), made from newly uncovered Vegas-era material. 

Michael’s key point is unexpectedly roots-adjacent: underneath the jumpsuits and spectacle, Elvis is vulnerable. 

He’s also a kind of bodily conductor, cueing the band with movement rather than baton, with the musicians watching him like hawks for the next dynamic turn. It’s showbiz as improvised gospel.

And in case you worried the episode might end without another collector’s item, Brian flags a song that did land perfectly at the Forum: Gillian & Dave covering Guy Clark’s “Desperados Waiting for a Train”, from Old No. 1 (1975), notable also as Steve Earle’s first recorded appearance — and now reissued in a special edition. 

They wrap by teasing more about the new McCartney documentary, sponsor fantasies (“someone with really deep pockets”), and the ongoing podcast mission statement: tell your friends — and also tell people you don’t like.

Which, frankly, is the most honest marketing plan in music media.

You can catch Andy White live on stage in May at the Merri Creek Tavern.

Important Links

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings: Tiny Desk Concert

Andy White - James Joyce's Grave (live at Abbey Road)

The Rolling Stones - Can't You Hear Me Knocking (Live At The Wiltern)

Billy Bragg - A New England (Later... with Jools Holland) 

EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert | Official Main Trailer 

Paradise Season 2 | Official Trailer | Hulu

An t-Eilean | BBC ALBA trailer

RTÉ | These Sacred Vows trailer

Blue Lights | Trailer - BBC

BILL FRISELL TRIO - "You Only Live Twice" @ XJAZZ Festival | LIVE FROM BERLIN

Bill Frisell's New Album In My Dreams

Bill Frisell - In My Dreams (Live / Visualizer)

Bill Frisell - A Change Is Gonna Come

Guy Clark - Desperados Waiting For A Train

Episode 10 opens in the long-running genre they’ve accidentally perfected — two grown men versus consumer electronics — as Michael explains how he revived his ageing Samsung “smart TV” (now “a bit of a nuff-nuff”) with a cheap HDMI streaming box bought from an Australian online retailer that “rhymes with Hogan”. 

The thrill here isn’t just 4K; it’s the moral victory of upgrading the brain while keeping the body. 

The upgraded TV then becomes a portal to two YouTube documentaries that send the pair (and us) into a warmly nostalgic British lane. One is an ARTE doc on Madness — “Princes of Ska” — which prompts Michael to re-fall in love with a band he rates as not just a ska novelty act, but an elite singles machine whose later pop craftsmanship deserves more credit than the pigeonhole allows.

The other find is the real rabbit hole: John Peel’s Record Box — an hour built around the late BBC DJ’s stash of 142 singles kept separate from his famously vast collection (more than 100,000 records). The documentary hauls the box around to fellow travellers and famous fans — Jack White, Elton John, others — letting them rummage, remember and speculate on why those particular records were kept close. 

Peel, it turns out, could contain multitudes: Sheena Easton’s “9 to 5”, some Status Quo, a heavy White Stripes presence… and a special extra shrine for The Fall, who were apparently too important even for the box. 

Then Brian takes the wheel for the episode’s marquee music moment: Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde turns 60, marked with a concert at Tulsa’s legendary Cain’s Ballroom, presented by the Bob Dylan Center (sitting right next to the Woody Guthrie Center, because Tulsa is quietly running a curriculum). 

Brian’s spoken with the Center’s director, Steve Jenkins, who teases an event titled Sooner or Later with a lineup that reads like an alternate-universe festival poster: 

Naturally, they can’t leave the album itself alone. They circle around what makes Blonde on Blonde such a gravitational object: the New York-to-Nashville recording shift, Al Kooper and Robbie Robertson in tow, and the snap-in brilliance of Nashville players like Charlie McCoy and Joe South. 

Michael calls it the culmination of Dylan’s ridiculous 18-month streak from Bringing It All Back Home through Highway 61 Revisited to Blonde on Blonde — productivity that makes modern “content schedules” look like a wellness day. 

Song picks follow: Michael is unwavering on “Visions of Johanna”; Brian leans toward “Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine)”, while also marvelling that Dylan had “Positively 4th Street” sitting on the bench, unused, like a spare masterpiece.

There are lighter detours too: a surprisingly vivid discussion of a film built around stand-up comedy as therapy (Will Arnett, Laura Dern, John Bishop’s life story, Bradley Cooper popping up in a minor role because he can), and then Brian’s recommendation of Mackenzie Crook’s Small Prophets — a title that briefly defeats Michael because he searches the wrong spelling and finds financial advice instead. 

Once located, it lands hard: whimsy, sadness, small acts, and a specific episode-four moment that gets Brian teary without him wanting to spoil why.

Michael flags the return of Gillian Welch & David Rawlings, apparently digging deep into the back catalogue (with a Guardian five-star review from Toowoomba), plus the pair’s Grateful Dead-adjacent moves and upcoming US tribute tour.

They also talk up Robert Finley, the 71-year-old, legally blind Louisiana singer with the late-blooming career arc (carpenter most of his life, first records in his 60s, produced by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys), heading to Australia in May for intimate shows. 

Finley’s story lands like a parable for anyone who’s ever thought they missed their chance. (Michael, who’s finishing his own record — under the gloriously self-aware pseudonym Imposter Syndrome, album titled Oversharing with Strangers — certainly hears it that way.)

Episode 10, then, is classic On The Record: a podcast held together by cable management, cultural memory, and the belief that the best stories are found when you stop pretending you have a plan.

Important Links:

Madness - Princes Of Ska (2025 Documentary)

John Peels Record Box {Full show}

The Fall Bremen Nacht (Vinyl Version)

BOB DYLAN CENTER PRESENTS “SOONER OR LATER,” ALL-STAR CONCERT CELEBRATING SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF DYLAN’S CLASSIC ALBUM “BLONDE ON BLONDE” 

Emma Swift - "Visions of Johanna" (Live at Layman Drug Company)

Bob Dylan - Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine) (Official Audio)

IS THIS THING ON? | Teaser Trailer | Searchlight Pictures

Small Prophets | Official Trailer - BBC

Gillian Welch & David Rawlings - Brokedown Palace (Grateful Dead) Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY

Robert Finley - Helping Hand (Later... with Jools Holland)

Robert Finley First Australian Tour Details and Tix 

Episode 9 is the one where Brian Wise and Michael Mackenzie briefly mistake themselves for an IT helpdesk, a sports panel, and a moral philosophy seminar—before landing, somewhat dazed, back in music.

It opens with Wise declaring he “can’t stand” the sound of his own voice (a bold confession for a career built on talking), while Mackenzie offers the sort of praise that feels both affectionate and faintly menacing: “the voice of a generation.” 

Before the audio collapses entirely, the conversation sprints through Wise’s great sporting exertion: the exhausting labour of watching sport. 

There’s genuine distress at skier Lindsey Vonn crashing out in 13 seconds, complete with a description of pain you could feel through the screen. 

From there, the mood whiplashes into the Super Bowl halftime show—Wise calls Bad Bunny’s performance the best he’s ever seen, even while admitting he couldn’t understand a word of it. Mackenzie, meanwhile, is stuck on the visuals of sugar cane cutting and its historical echoes closer to home. 

Their consensus: if Donald Trump calls it the worst halftime show ever, that’s basically a five-star review.

Then comes one of Wise’s purest modern urges: gadget-lust triggered by sport. Spotting tennis champion Elena Rybakina wearing a watch post-match, he consults “our friend AI” and discovers it’s a Vanguard Orb worth a mere $200,000. 

At which point the show finally pivots to the Grammys—specifically the stuff that doesn’t make the glossy broadcast. 

Wise notes that Fela Kuti received a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award, nearly 30 years after his death at 58, making him the first African musician to be honoured that way. 

They sketch Kuti as both musical revolutionary and political force, the Afrobeat originator whose trance-like repetition and complex grooves seeped into Remain in Light and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. The point: the Grammys have 85 categories, and the good parts are buried where only the determined will look.

The episode’s left turn into pop comes via Mackenzie’s discovery of Charli XCX through the comedy-chat juggernaut Smartless. Wise’s response—“Who’s he?”—is treated as both generational commentary and perfectly on-brand. 

The subtext is clear: don’t confuse “not my cup of tea” with “not worth paying attention to”.

Politics drifts in, as it tends to now, through the question of who’s writing protest songs. Wise notes Nils Lofgren’s “No Kings, No Hate, No Fear”, nods to Lucinda Williams and Mavis Staples, and longs—audibly—for Bob Dylan to re-enter the ring with something era-defining.

 Mackenzie is unconvinced, offering the counterpoint that Dylan’s signature move in moments like this is often silence.

Screen culture gets its usual run: Mackenzie’s recommendation of the British robbery thriller Steel mostly lands—until Wise objects to the final 15 minutes for explaining too much, revealing his mother’s literary habit of reading the last chapter first. 

The music talk returns in force with Buddy Guy. Wise has interviewed him (Buddy turns 90 this year and is flagged as possibly touring Australia for the last time), and the hosts linger on the question Wise once had about Buddy’s live habit of paying tribute to other blues greats. 

Finally, Al Green turns up as both salvation and complication. Wise recommends Green’s EP To Love Somebody (Bee Gees cover included, plus “Perfect Day” featuring RAYE and a take on R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts”), while Mackenzie raises the perennial problem: applauding the artistry while not airbrushing the artist. 

Episode 9’s through-line, then, isn’t sport or even the Grammys. It’s the way culture arrives in the room: messy, overlapping, sometimes off-mic, and always demanding you listen harder than the algorithm wants you to.

Essential Links

Lindsey Vonn's heroic return ends in heartbreak | Wide World of Sports

Bad Bunny's Apple Music Super Bowl Halftime Show

Vanguart Orb Flying Tourbillon Review: The Futuristic Titanium Timepiece of 2025

FELA Anikulapo Kuti - All songs

The Rolling Stones and Steve Riley - Zydeco Sont Pas Salés [Official Audio]

Smartless on YouTube

Charli xcx - I might say something stupid (official lyric video)

Charli xcx - House (Lyrics) ft. John Cale

Nils Lofgren - No Kings No Hate No Fear

STEAL - Official Trailer | Prime Video

A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE | Official Trailer | Netflix

Sinners (2025) - Post Credit Scene (1/2)

Sinners Soundtrack This Little Light of Mine

Buddy Guy Aint Done With The Blues 

Buddy Guy Where You At Where U At

Al Green - Everybody Hurts (Official Lyric Video)

Episode 8 of On The Record opens with Brian Wise and Michael Mackenzie doing what many seasoned music listeners now do instinctively when the Grammys roll around: stare at the screen and wonder which planet they’ve accidentally landed on.

Brian reminds us that the Grammys permanently lost their way the moment they abolished the polka category. 

This wasn’t a niche concern, either. For years, Brian faithfully rang Jimmy Sturr, the undisputed Muhammad Ali of polka, who won his Grammy almost every time. A system so reliable has no place in modern music awards culture, clearly.

The tone shifts sharply—and respectfully—with news of the death of Sly Dunbar, one half of the mighty Sly & Robbie. What follows is a proper reckoning with just how vast Dunbar’s influence was: reggae, dub, dancehall, pop, rock, Dylan (Infidels), Grace Jones (Nightclubbing, Warm Leatherette, Living My Life), even a dub version of the Rolling Stones’ “Undercover of the Night.” Sly and Robbie weren’t just players, they were architects.

See the list of some of their important work below, along with links to every other turning point in the conversation.

From there, Episode 8 pivots to the curious durability of certain artists who simply refuse to age in the expected way. David Byrne is a rare example of someone who keeps recalibrating his work, with his latest tour behind Who Is The Sky garnering rave reviews in every state.

That thought feeds neatly into a wider cultural question: why the Australian Open continues to thrive while music festivals across the country are quietly collapsing?

The answer, the hosts suggest, has less to do with sport versus music and more to do with clarity of purpose. Tennis delivers a fixed narrative, star power, and infrastructure, while festivals increasingly ask audiences to tolerate inconvenience, rising costs and vague promises of “vibes.” It’s a sobering comparison given the state of live music in Australia right now.

The episode closes with genuine surprise at the quality of Van Morrison’s latest release, an album that sidesteps the curmudgeonly baggage of recent years and reconnects with the musical instinct that made him essential in the first place. It’s not framed as a comeback so much as a reminder: when Morrison stops arguing with the world and channels his Celtic soul, something powerful still happens.

Important Links

Grammys 2026 list of nominees and winners 

Jimmy Sturr website 

Jimmy Sturr youtube channel 

BAD BUNNY Wins BEST MÚSICA URBANA ALBUM | 2026 GRAMMYs 

Bad Bunny Tiny Desk Concert 

BAD BUNNY - NUEVAYoL (Video Oficial) | DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS 

The Goodies Pirate Radio (A Walk In the Black Forest) 

 Chat GPT’s Top 20 Albums Featuring / Produced by Sly & Robbie

Uncut: interview with Sly Dunbar on music 

Undercover (Of The Night) (Dub) with Sly on percussion

Black Uhuru Sistren 

Grace Jones - Pull Up To The Bumper 

David Byrne Tiny Desk Concert

David's Reasons To Be Cheerful newsletter 

FRANKENSTEIN Trailer (2025) Guillermo del Toro 

Michael's fave food movie Chef is on Iview 

STEAL - Official Trailer | Prime Video 

Van Morrison Somebody Tried To Sell Me A Bridge (full album) 

Gillian Welch talks to Brian about Her Forthcoming Tour of Australia with Dave Rawlings 

Lucinda Williams On her new album World's Gone Wrong 

Lucinda Williams talks to Rhythms Editor Brian Wise about her new album World's Gone Wrong, a scathing commentary on current political events in the USA. 

Gillian Welch spoke to Rhythms Editor Brian Wise about her forthcoming Australian tour with her musical and life partner David Rawlings. David was set to join us but was held up in the studio mastering the vinyl version of the Time (The Revelator) album.

Details of the latest tour which begins on February 13 in Brisbane can be found at lovepolice.com.au/tours

On the latest episode of On The Record, Brian Wise and Michael Mackenzie ease into their weekly cultural ramble with the sombre news of Bob Weir’s death—remembering an artist whose band (The Grateful Dead) they half‑followed but wholly respected.

Weir, who died on January 10 at 78 (the same date as David Bowie’s passing—coincidence or cosmic scheduling?), becomes the launchpad for a surprisingly affectionate exploration of Deadhead culture. Michael recalls the excellent Long Strange Trip documentary—long enough, Brian notes, to break a Melbourne Film Festival projector—and the pair marvel at the Grateful Dead’s unique talent for turning concerts into economic ecosystems. 

From there, the conversation pivots to David Bowie's The Final Act documentary (streaming on ABC), Crowded House opening the Australian Open (a first for tennis, apparently), and the AFL's ongoing failure to book local acts for the Grand Final. Why Snoop Dogg over Emma Donovan? Why not Troy Cassar-Daley? The hosts are baffled.

Then there's Bluesfest's controversial booking of heavy metal act Parkway Drive, which has purists clutching their harmonicas. Festival director Peter Noble defends the choice, arguing you can't limit festivals by genre. 

The episode meanders through Lucinda Williams' new album, Russell Crowe's Oscar-worthy turn in Nuremberg, and the existential challenges of songwriting.

On The Record with Brian Wise and Michael Mackenzie is available on all major podcast platforms. Rhythms Magazine subscribers can access exclusive bonus content, including Loretta Miller's debut CD.

Episode Links

Grateful Dead Doco Long Strange Trip – Official Trailer | Prime Video 

David Bowie/Mick Jagger Dancing In the Street 

Bowie: The Final Act on Iview (2025) 

David Bowie - Changes (Live performance Glastonbury 1971) 

Split Enz reuniting for first time in 17 years | 7.30

Lucinda Williams - World's Gone Wrong 

NUREMBERG | Official Trailer #1 (2025) 

The Nazi and the Psychiatrist: Hermann Goring, Dr. Douglas M. Kelley, and a Fatal Meeting of Minds at the End of WWII 

Jeff Tweedy: How to Write One Song 

Loretta Miller on Bandcamp 

Subscribe to Rhythms to get Loretta's album on cd 

If On The Record were a boxing match, Episode 5 would open with the bell ringing and Brian Wise and Michael Mackenzie already mid-ring.. The topic? The Golden Globes. The real issue? Whether a film can be called a “musical or comedy” when it is clearly neither, and whether Paul Thomas Anderson should be declared a genius by popular vote or sent to the cinematic sin bin. 

Two overly seasoned cultural obsessives staring at the same screen and seeing entirely different movies.

From there, the episode sprawls—happily and unapologetically—into a wide-ranging conversation about awards hype, viewing expectations, and the strange disconnect between critical acclaim and lived experience. One host praises audacity and subversion, the other demands coherence and restraint. Nobody backs down. Nobody changes their mind. Which, frankly, is exactly how these debates should be conducted.

Luckily, special guest Liz Stringer moves the conversation into other areas that are slightly more important - touring her latest album and raising money to address housing insecurity along with the uncomfortable truth that this is no longer a fringe issue confined to capital cities or stereotypes. 

The show rolls on, touching on music-making, self-management, creative independence, reality TV guilt, Russian books that are abandoned for the sake of mental health, and the eternal question of why we all say we won’t watch that show again… and then absolutely do.

By the end of Episode 5, On The Record has done what it does best: entertained, provoked, and digressed wildly. It’s messy, funny, opinionated, and oddly comforting—like a long conversation you didn’t plan to have, but are very glad you did.

Episode Links

Liz Stringer website 

Episode 5 of On The Record, and the conversation has hit its sweet spot: loose, curious, opinionated—and occasionally interrupted by reality.

There’s a healthy scepticism about hype, a refusal to confuse longevity with importance, and a shared belief that some things still genuinely matter—even if the algorithm disagrees.

Brian Wise brings context and deep musical memory; Michael Mackenzie brings reflection, curiosity, and the occasional philosophical swerve. Together, they interrogate nostalgia without fully surrendering to it, defend enthusiasm when it’s earned, and question why so much modern culture feels like it’s passing time rather than saying something.

There are laughs, strong opinions, thoughtful pauses, and moments where the conversation snaps into focus just long enough to land a point before wandering off again. It’s not a panel show, not a lecture, and definitely not a hot take factory.

Episode 5 doesn’t shout. It knows what it’s doing. Sort of.

Important links

Norma Tanega - Walkin' My Cat Named Dog 

Stray Cats - Runaway Boys 

Ram Jam - Black Betty 

The Rolling Stones - Not Fade Away (Mono) 

The Uncool - the new memoir from award-winning filmmaker and journalist Cameron Crowe 

Grover Lewis article - Hitting The Note With The Allman Brothers Band

Kid Creole & The Coconuts website 

Kid Creole & The Coconuts - Stool Pigeon  

Du Fermier Restaurant website

Florry - First It Was A Movie, The It Was A Book 

Florry website 

David Bowie - Lazarus 

David Bowie website

Brian Wise talks to Paul Kelly in depth about Paul's latest album Seventy.