Today’s guest is Jon Spira - a film-maker, ex-video shop owner and an all-round digger of things that only exist in your peripheral vision.

His most recent documentary is called Hollywood Bulldogs. If you’re in the U.K. you can watch it on BritBox (I believe there’s a 7 day free trial available for that and you too can complain to nobody who cares that they have renamed The Avengers as Steed & Peel on there). It documents the rise and many falls of the unsung heroes of the movie industry - the humble stuntman. 

Dig around on his site - https://www.jonspira.co.uk - and you’ll also find some great samples of his other work including BFI (British Film Institute) interviews with the mighty Roger Corman, Dario Argento, Neil Gaiman, trailer docs and all sorts of goodies.

Across the hour we discuss (my first career choice in life) being a stuntman, being well paid to fall down a flight of stairs in a wheelchair as an 80 year old woman (true story), Radiohead, the Oxford music scene, video shops, how - despite there apparently being everything available all the time - you can no longer watch Mr. Holland's Opus nor Three Men And A Baby anywhere, pre-code cinema, crying at movies and much more.

This one was great fun… hope you get as much of a kick out of it as I did.

•••

Here’s the official stuff:

Starfish and Coffee is available on all podcast hosting platforms. It would help me out a lot if you were a subscriber wherever that may be and even more so by nudging a friend and their ears in that direction.

My website is here: sionsmith.co.uk 

Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith

Follow me on twitter.com/mrsionsmith 

And if you’re into what I’m doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at:

www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith

As always, be cool to each other…

S

Today’s guest on Starfish & Coffee is Ross Allison.

Based in Seattle, Ross is a ghost hunter - one of the best in the world. Aside from his interest in a subject (surely) everybody on the planet has been curious about at some point in their life, he’s also one of the most scientific and takes his quest seriously.

For once, we managed to stick closely to the subject in hand. This is a small miracle from beyond the grave in itself, but what you’ll find is exactly what you need in a ghost hunter interview. For all his passion, Ross is well aware of the pitfalls of gathering enough scientific evidence (aka: data) to give 100% proof to what he has witnessed many times first hand. 

Across this hour we touch on ghosts (natch), shadow people, demons, exorcism, scientific equipment, spirituality vs religion and I also win a £10 bet because I sneaked in mention of Scooby Doo. I should have gone for the £20 option because I also mention Sam & Dean Winchester. You can't win 'em all.

In a world that will accept nothing short of an event straight out of The Conjuring as proof of the paranormal, being a serious ghost hunter is a Herculean task of the highest order… listen, see for yourself and make your own mind up.

You can find Ross online right here, where his website speaks for itself: https://www.aghost.org

•••

Extra Notes: The house I mention part way through - Plas Teg - conveniently has its own website here: https://plasteg.com

•••

I think that’s everything. Here’s the official stuff:

Starfish and Coffee is available on all podcast hosting platforms. It would help me out a lot if you were a subscriber wherever that may be and even more so by nudging a friend and their ears in that direction.

If you’re into what I’m doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at:

www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith

Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith

Follow me on twitter.com/StarfishPodcast

As always, be cool to each other… 

S

My guest this week is the mighty Jim DeRogatis.

He is the biographer of Lester Bangs, a long-time music critic, journalist and podcast host over at Sound Opinions.

Jim has strong opinions on almost everything we touch upon. I must confess to not even having considered some of the topics he comments upon, so if I sound vague now and again, it’s because I am. I hardly follow any political stories in the U.K. never mind anywhere else. His Sound Opinions podcast (co-hosted with Greg Kot) is a treasure trove of findings - if you've never listened before, you've got months of listening ahead of you.

His latest book - Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly - is available now in both hardback and as an audiobook.

Not content with talking solely about Lester, we also wander into territories such as Woodward and Bernstein (the Watergate journalists/please go watch All The President's Men if you never have), investigative journalism, rock criticism, fanzines vs blogs, the death of magazines, R. Kelly, Marilyn Manson, Generation X vs Baby Boomers, ABBA, Kiss vs The Beatles... you get the picture. 

All references made to 'Sam' are to Sam Weller previous podcast guest on #006 who has an office across the hall from Jim - small world!)

•••

I think that’s everything. Here’s the official stuff:

Starfish and Coffee is available on all podcast hosting platforms. It would help me out a lot if you were a subscriber wherever that may be and even more so by nudging a friend and their ears in that direction. 

If you’re into what I’m doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at:

www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith

Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith

Follow me on twitter.com/StarfishPodcast

Finally, I have built a new online home here: sionsmith.co.uk where things happen with pens and paper and there are links to 'everything'.

Be cool to each other….

S

Episode 6 Show Notes:

My guest this week is Sam Weller. He is the biographer of the mighty Ray Bradbury, an author in his own right and a serious Kiss fan (which we try very hard not to dwell on but temptation is always there, so please forgive us). He’s also as knee deep in pop culture as I am, making this week an easy ride, which is always a bonus. Talking of bonus features, check out the occasional Chicago PD sirens in the background. Got to love it when that happens.

Sam currently has a book of short stories in the world called Dark Black which I can’t rain praise on enough without it becoming embarrassing - if you’re in the market to support him, you can buy a copy directly from the publisher, Hat and Beard, right here:

https://hatandbeard.com/products/dark-black

Alongside of Ray Bradbury, across the Starfish table, somehow we also managed to cram in (in no particular order)

Stephen King, Hugh Hefner, magazine publishing, Jim Henson and The Muppets, ABBA, Marvel Comics, David Bowie, Peter Benchley, The Wildhearts, pulp fiction, freelancing, Ed McBain, The Hardy Boys, The Twilight Zone, Neil Gaiman, Alice Cooper, Twisted Sister, Lester Bangs, Kiss (natch) and Hoover (yep, the vacuum cleaner company).

You can find Sam at: http://www.samweller.net

You can also find him on twitter: https://twitter.com/Sam__Weller

For those of you with time on your hands, the episode of Alice Cooper on The Muppet Show I refer to (all of which can now be found on Disney Plus) is Season Three, Episode Seven - which is a good point at which to correct myself - the songs he actually performs are Welcome to my Nightmare, You and Me (not, I Never Cry) and School's Out. I can’t find any reference whatsoever to Kiss being on Sesame Street but that’s how I recall it… maybe it was edited into the show before broadcast.

The article Sam wrote about Kiss for PopMatters can be found here:

https://www.popmatters.com/kiss-should-end-it-all

I think that’s everything. Here’s the official stuff:

Starfish and Coffee is available on all podcast hosting platforms. It would help me out a lot if you were a subscriber wherever that may be and even more so by nudging a friend and their ears in that direction. Please subscribe wherever you listen for notifications of new episodes.

If you’re into what I’m doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at:

www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith

Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith

Follow me on twitter.com/mrsionsmith or twitter.com/StarfishPodcast - I should probably kill one of those off but it stands for now.

Finally, I have built a new online home here: sionsmith.co.uk where things happen with pens and paper.

Be cool to each other….

S

Episode 5 Show Notes: 

Back in the late 80s/early 90s, my buddy JJ and myself used to spend a crazy amount of time together at club gigs, in the record store and most importantly, in each other’s kitchen throwing rock n roll philosophy at each other. It’s something we’ve kept up for over thirty years and so it continues except now, we're recording them. In episode five, we lovingly present part two on our thoughts of what it takes to move up the ladder as an emerging artist or band by throwing around some of the things we’ve learned, some of the things we’ve seen and more importantly perhaps, some things that we haven’t seen and should have. As always, it’s more food for thought than concrete answers but you know what… I think that’s OK. That’s the way it should be because you’re all smart enough to figure it out. 

If you’re into what we’re doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith 

The show is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor, Google Podcasts and just about every other podcast host you care to use, so you can help us out by subscribing and even more so by nudging a friend in that direction. It would mean a lot.

Episode 4 Show Notes: Back in the late 80s/early 90s, my buddy JJ and myself used to spend a crazy amount of time together at club gigs, in the record store and most importantly, in each other’s kitchen throwing rock n roll philosophy at each other. It’s something we’ve kept up for over thirty years and so it continues except now, we're recording them. In episode four, we dig into what it takes to move up the ladder as an emerging artist or band by throwing around some of the things we’ve learned, some of the things we’ve seen and more importantly perhaps, some things that we haven’t seen and should have. As always, it’s more food for thought than concrete answers but you know what… I think that’s OK. That’s the way it should be. If you’re into what we’re doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith  Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith  Follow me on twitter.com/mrsionsmith  You can find JJ at twitter.com/jjkrazy The show is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor, Google Podcasts and just about every other podcast host you care to use, so you can help us out by subscribing and even more so by nudging a friend in that direction. It would mean a lot. And if you’re looking for that YouTube video link I mentioned at the end of the show, you can find that right here: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhitq-pqlNA&t=250s