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For this episode we're joined online from northwest Massachusetts by the legendary Byron Coley, champion of all things weird and non-mainstream.

After describing his somewhat peripatetic childhood, our guest explains – very amusingly – why as a teenager he hated the Beatles and what led him eventually to the more subversive sounds of the Mothers of Invention and their ilk. A digression on the Grateful Dead – whose Jerry Garcia we lost 30 years ago this month – is followed by Byron's memories of first reading R. Meltzer and Nick Tosches in Crawdaddy! and Creem... and how a teaching assistant grad student inspired him to "write like you talk".

After Barney reads from Byron's 1980 New York Rocker piece on Lydia Lunch's 8-Eyed Spy – prompting our guest's recall of first seeing her No Wave trailblazers Teenage Jesus & the Jerks live – we hear about his 1978 Rocker interview with the incomparable Captain Beefheart. This in turn leads to clips from Gary Lucas' audio interview with the artist born Don Van Vliet, recorded in January 1972.

After a quick late '70s/early '80s detour via his temporarily adopted California, Byron talks about his return to the East Coast and his writing for Boston's Forced Exposure – not to mention his rather more lucrative "Underground" columns for Spin. In passing he explains how his friendship with Sonic Youth led to a declaration of war on Bob ("Dean of American Rock Critics") Christgau. We finish up by paying tribute to blue-eyed-soul man Terry Reid and beloved Salsa star Eddie Palmieri.

Finally, Mark and Jasper talk us out with remarks on newly-added library pieces about the Legendary Stardust Cowboy (1968), Ronnie Wood and cronies (1974) and Lana Del Rey (2019).

Many thanks to special guest Byron Coley. Find his book C'est La Guerre in all good bookshops and follow him on BlueSky @byroncoley.bsky.social.

Pieces discussed: Way Out West With 8-Eyed Spy, Sonic Youth, Captain Beefheart: Grow Fins, Jason Gross interviews Byron Coley, Jerome John Garcia 1942-1995, The Grateful Dead: Burnout Sets In, The Exhumation of The Dead, Captain Beefheart audio, Terry Reid, Terry’s Funky Steamer, Eddie Palmieri: The Man Who Stirred Up Salsa, Top Tunes: the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, The Night Ron, Keith, Mac and Rod played a gig without falling over and Lana Del Rey Lives In America's Messy Subconscious.

For this episode we're joined by the excellent Val Mabbs, who talks to us about writing for Record Mirror in the late '60s and early '70s.

We start with our guest's early life as a mod in Hertfordshire – and her memories of seeing the Who/the High Numbers in 1964/5. Val then explains how she got her foot in the door at the Mirror and recalls colleagues such as Norman Jopling, Charlie Gillett and Lon Goddard, not forgetting Peter Jones, the editor who first spotted her potential as an interviewer. 

Val talks us through her encounters with such legends as Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and Marc Bolan (not to mention Status Quo, for whose double-denim "outfits" she can take indirect credit). En passant we hear clips from Chris Welch's 2005 audio interview with John Walker, surely the handsomest of the three Walker "Brothers" he first met in 1965.

After Barney gives a nod to the week's free feature about Bob Dylan "going electric" at 1965's Newport Folk Festival, Val resumes her story and brings us up to the present day. We also pay tribute to the late Ozzy Osbourne and discuss the real origins of heavy metal.

Finally, Mark and Jasper talk us out with remarks on newly-added library pieces about Graham Nash (1967), Lady Gaga (2012) and Billie Eilish (2019).

Many thanks to special guest Val Mabbs.

Pieces discussed: Jimi Hendrix: "Western Movie For Jimi" Says The Man Himself, T. Rex: Marc's science fiction film, John and Yoko: The Apple and the Grapefruit, The Walker Brothers' John Walker audio, Al Kooper: The On the Tracks Interview, How Bob Dylan And The Holy Trinity Changed Music Forever, Scene of the Crime: Bob Dylan at Newport, Elijah Wald: Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the '60s, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne: How Black Was My Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne: Lord of the Wings, The Hollies: The change in Graham, Lady Gaga: The most extraordinary popstar Mark Ellen has ever met and Billie Eilish at Reading Festival.

In this episode we welcome novelist and screenwriter John Niven to "RBP Towers" to ask him about his career and his acclaimed novels.

We start with the Wishing Stones, the post-C86 combo for whom John played guitar in the late '80s, and progress swiftly to the subject of his caustic 2008 classic Kill Your Friends — the UK's drug-riddled music industry, in which he toiled through the '90s.

After John talks about his uncanny 2005 novella Music from Big Pink – inspired by the Band album of the same name — we switch to the week's featured artist (and vocal inspiration to The Band's Richard Manuel) Bobby "Blue" Bland. We then pivot to the sublime writing of Deep Blues author and New York Times pop critic Robert Palmer, who would have turned 80 this summer.

We mark the 50th anniversary of the deeply unloved Metal Machine Music by listening to — and discussing clips from — a 1996 audio interview with the inimitably supercilious Lou Reed. Finally, we return to our guest's fiction and ask him about his brand-new novel The Fathers.

Many thanks to special guest John Niven. His new novel The Fathers is published by Canongate and available now from all good bookshops.

John Niven's Music from Big Pink: A Foreword, Bobby Blue Bland: Arrival!, Bobby Bland: This Time He's Here for Good, A Tribute To Bobby "Blue" Bland, Articles, interviews and reviews from Robert Palmer, Etta James: The Comeback of a Fifties R&B Star, The Sun King: Sam Phillips, Robert Palmer: Recording the Blues in North Mississippi, Steely Dan: Disaster and triumph in the Custerdome, Lou Reed audio, "Jellybean" Benitez and Arthur Baker: The Producers and George Shearing, 1919–2011.

In this episode we welcome the great soul scribe Tony Cummings to Hammersmith to discuss the subject of his classic 1975 book The Sound of Philadelphia.

Tony travelled all the way down from his adopted Stoke-on-Trent to answer our questions about his earliest musical passions in his native Plymouth and the launch of his pioneering '60s fanzines Soul, Soul Music and Shout. He goes on to talk about his contributions to (and editorship of) Black Music magazine – and his deep immersion in the "Philly Soul" sound patented by Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Thom Bell. We hear about the extraordinary stable of musicians who performed on timeless hits by acts such as the O'Jays, the Three Degrees and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes.

Clips from audio interviews with Kenny Gamble and – from 1976 – the Stylistics' Herb Murrell prompt reflections on the lavish sound and sophistication of R&B classics by everyone from the Delfonics and Jerry Butler to Teddy Pendergrass and McFadden & Whitehead.

Many thanks to special guest Tony Cummings.

Pieces discussed: Inside the Philly Sound, MFSB, TCB, The Stylistics, Gamble-Huff, Thom Bell and the Philly Groove, Hit Producer Thom Bell: Philly Soul & the R&B Flugelhorn, "Philadelphia was the party with a tormented soul", Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff audio, The Stylistics' Herb Murrell audio, Why are we so hard on our music press? and Linkin Park.

For this episode we're joined in our Hammersmith lair by the highly respected Chris Bohn, known better these days by his alias Biba Kopf (cue a nod to Berlin Alexanderplatz author Alfred Döblin...) The veteran NME contributor and sometime editor-in-chief of The Wire talks about his long career as a Europhile connoisseur of extreme and out-there music.

We start by asking our guest about his mother's experience as a teenage refugee fleeing her native Silesia after the advance of the Red Army in 1945 – and her subsequent settling in the English Midlands. We learn about Chris' journalistic training on the Sutton Coldfield News and his subsequent travels around Europe, where he reconnected with relatives in West (and East) Germany.

Chris reminisces about his first London job as a press officer for Polydor Records, for whom he chaperoned Siouxsie & the Banshees to tapings of Top of the Pops. He then talks us through his writing career from Melody Maker and NME to decades-long association with The Wire. Among the articles mentioned are his 1979 live review of Joy Division, his groundbreaking 1981 on-the-road piece "Trans-Europe Express", and his interviews with Nina Hagen (1979) and Einstürzende Neubauten (1983). Discussion of The Wire leads us into clips from an audio interview with Wire icon Ornette Coleman … by Wire mainstay David Toop.

We conclude the episode by paying heartfelt tribute to two Californian geniuses who left us this week: Family Stone funk pioneer Sly Stone and the Beach Boys' "pocket symphonist" Brian Wilson. We shall not see – or hear – their like again.

Many thanks to special guest Chris Bohn a.k.a. Biba Kopf. Visit the Wire's website at thewire.co.uk to subscribe digitally and in print. 

Pieces discussed: Nina Hagen: West Is Best, Einstürzende Neubauten: Let's Hear It For The Untergang Show, Ornette Coleman (1995), Sly & The Family Stone: Sly Buries Underground And Has Fun!, Not Only Sly, But Sometimes Just Plain Damn Evasive, Sly Stone's Higher Power, Some Producers' Hints From Beach Boy Brian, Brian Wilson, Brian Wilson: Beach Boy, Pop Visionary, Wounded Soul, The Devil and Jerry Lee Lewis and  Group Home: Supa Group.

For this episode we're joined – all the way from Brooklyn – by acclaimed author and sometime drummer Jonathan Gould.

The native New Yorker recalls his early musical epiphanies, his introduction to the drums and his studying under famed jazz drummer Alan Dawson in mid-'70s Boston. He also reminisces about his years in Woodstock, N.Y., and his association with The Band's Richard Manuel.

Our very personable guest explains his conversion to writing about music and the long gestation of his epic Beatles book Can't Buy Me Love (2007). From there we jump to 2017's equally praised Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life, an excuse not just to talk about The Big O but to hear clips from audio interviews with Stax Records/Booker T. & the M.G.'s legends Duck Dunn and Steve Cropper.

Finally, we get to the subjects of his latest enormo-tome Burning Down the House: Talking Heads. Jonathan talks about his experience of writing the book, the band's unique brilliance and internal frictions, and their complicated relationship with producer/"collaborator" Brian Eno.

After we've paid our respects to beloved EMAP Metro writer-publisher Barry McIlheney and to fomrer McCoy/Johnny and Edgar Winter sideman/All-American Boy Rick(y) Derringer, Jasper talks us out with his thoughts on pop's most misunderstood songs.

In this episode we welcome the great Paul Gambaccini into RBP's world and ask him about his 50+ years as one of Britain's best-loved broadcasters.

"The Great Gambo" tells us about his early radio days at Dartmouth College's WDCR station and explains how he slipped his foot in the door at Rolling Stone in 1970. He then recounts his first meeting with "underground deejay" John Peel (plus his BBC producer John Walters) while still an Oxford postgraduate fleeing Richard Nixon's America,

We ask our guest about his famous Stone interviews with Elton John (and Bernie Taupin) and Paul McCartney, then hear about his Radio 1 debut in 1974. Paul discusses his sexuality, his winding up on the Beeb's "Christmas tree" list, and his nightmare year of being witch-hunted without evidence by the sleuths of Operation Yewtree.

After offering his thoughts on the constitutional crisis in his homeland, our guest expresses his approval of Beyoncé ahead of her "Cowboy Carter" tour's London leg in June. We listen to clips from a 2003 audio interview with "Queen Bey" by The Observer Music Monthly's Simon Garfield.

After Mark quotes from newly-added interviews with Elvis Presley (1969) and Roxy Music's (Brian) Eno (1973), Jasper talks us out with his thoughts on pieces about the Roots (2005) and Beyoncé's sister Solange (2007).

Many thanks to special guest Paul Gambaccini. Hear his radio shows on the air, including the Paul Gambaccini Collection on BBC Radio 2.

Pieces discussed: Paul Gambaccini's writer's page on RBP, The Rolling Stone Interview: Elton John, Paul McCartney, Beyoncé audio, Elvis the Husband talks about Elvis the Pelvis, The Strange World of Roxy Music, The Roots: Growing Underground, Romanthony: A Prince Among Men and Why Solange Matters.

For this episode we're joined – all the way from L.A. – by special guest Bob Merlis. The former head of publicity at Warner-Reprise Records in Burbank talks us through his musical odyssey from his Brooklyn childhood to his continuing PR work for the likes of ZZ Top and Carlene Carter.

We hear about Bob's start at Record World in late '60s New York and the early '70s pieces he wrote for that trade publication and for Warners' short-lived Words & Music. Our guest then talks about his brief stints at RCA and Albert Grossman's Bearsville Records before touching on key acts and moments in the nearly three decades he spent in Burbank: Little Feat's Lowell George, Jerry Wexler producing Etta James and Warners president Joe Smith roasting the infamous Morris Levy. Clips from Dave Zimmer's 1988 audio interview with Neil Young prompt discussion of that quintessential Reprise artist (and his comrades in CSNY).

After Mark quotes from pieces about Elektra Records dropping the MC5 and free-improv guitarist Derek Bailey, Jasper talks us out with reflections on the musical passions of footballer Rio Ferdinand and Houston rapper Chamillionaire.

Many thanks to special guest Bob Merlis. For info on Bob's PR work, visit https://mfhpr.com/m-f-h-at-20.

Pieces discussed: R&B is B(l)ack and Involved, Jerry Wexler Crosses Tracks for Tony Joe, Todd Rundgren Warps Time, Lowell George Talks About Little Feat, Little Feat Keeps On Truckin', Little Feat: How To Construct a "Critics' Band", Neil Young audio, Elektra Records Kicks Out MC5, Derek Bailey: Themes on Improvisation, The Record Doctor: Rio Ferdinand and Chamillionaire: Change.

In this special episode we celebrate the last four years with clips from twelve of the best 100 shows we've recorded in that time. 

Following an intro from Spandau Ballet mainmain Gary Kemp speaking in January 2023, we reflect on what we have (or haven't) learned over those four years, then play and discuss clips from these episodes:

After our navel-gazing saunter down memory lane, Mark tells us about the week's new audio interview, in which Amy Linden asks Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Pras Michel about [the] Fugees' classic 1996 album The Score.

Mark then quotes from newly-added RBP library pieces about David Bowie's Diamond Dogs (1974), Tears for Fears (1982) and Jeffrey Lee Pierce (1985) and Jasper wraps things up with thoughts on pieces about System of a Down (2003) and ex-Black Midi man Geordie Greep (2024).

Finally, a big shout-out to the many great guests who've joined us over the past four years: thank you all for your time and reminiscences!

Pieces discussed: Norman Jopling on Record Mirror + Rhythm & Blues + Rolling Stones, Val Wilmer on free jazz + photography + Lesley Gore audio, Richard Goldstein on '60s pop writing + the Shangri-Las + Shadow Morton, Robert Duncan & Jaan Uhelzski on Lester Bangs + Creem + Suicide, Nelson George on the Death of R&B + Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis audio, Havelock Nelson on Hip Hop + Missy Elliott + Atlantic Records, Ann Powers on Joni Mitchell + Tori Amos + Women in Pop, Vashti Bunyan on Wayward + Nick Drake + Joe Boyd audio, Joe Boyd on global music + Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Chris Blackwell on Island from Millie to U2 + Bunny Wailer, The Fugees (1996), David Bowie: Diamond Dogs (RCA Victor), Tears For Fears: Ready Teddy Go!, Jeffrey Lee Pierce: On The Trail Of The Wild Weed, System of a Down: "We're in World War III!"

For this episode we're joined by veteran music scribe Phil Sutcliffe to discuss his years on Sounds, Q and MOJO.

We start by hearing about our guest's Beatles-obsessed adolescence in the North London suburb of Barnet, then follow him up to Manchester University and his subsequent apprenticeship on the Newcastle Evening Chronicle.

Phil explains how he got his foot in the door at Sounds in 1974, initially reviewing gigs on Tyneside before moving back to London to become one of the weekly magazine's key '70s writers. We discuss the paper's transition from Gentle Giant and Back Street Crawler to the Damned and the Sex Pistols — and to the interviews Phil did with County Durham punks Penetration and beloved Salford bard John Cooper Clarke. 

From JCC's visit to the Oxford Poetry Festival in 1980, we turn our attention to the week's featured act — politicised post-punks Gang of Four — and thence to the more controversially reactionary Eric Clapton. Clips from John Hutchinson's 1981 audio interview with the guitar "God" prompt conversation about his musical evolution and the infamous 1976 outburst that inspired the launch of Rock Against Racism.

After Mark quotes from newly-added library pieces about Joe Harriott (1964), Miles Davis (1969) and Al Green (1973), Jasper takes us out with his thoughts on articles about Courtney Love (1991), Snoop Dogg (2003) and Cardi B (2019).

Please note that this episode was recorded before we learned of the very sad passings of former Gang Of Four bassist Dave Allen and Malian superstar Amadou Bagayoko — along with Phil Sutcliffe's fellow Sounds contributor Sandy Robertson.

Many thanks to special guest Phil Sutcliffe.

Pieces discussed: The Beatles: I Was A Beatlemaniac, Penetration: Anarchy In County Durham, The Bard Of Beasley Street At The Seat Of Learning, Gang of Four: Dialectics Meet Disco, Gang Of Four: The Revolution Lightens Up, Andy Gill meets Andy Gill, Eric Clapton audio, Eric Clapton: Out of the Darkness, Joe Harriott: Jazz Abstractionist, Miles Davis: In a Silent Way, Hole: Calling the Tune, Snoop Dogg and Welcome to the Cardi Party.