My guest this week is Bryan Thomas aka Buggy Jive

A 'somewhat reclusive soul rock singer-songwriter', Bryan has been producing music under the Buggy Jive name since 2018. He has released seven albums, the latest of which is 2025's Icarus Ascending.

I was introduced to Bryan's music by my good friend (and previous guest) Eric Smith, and so it seemed fitting that he should provide the intro to this show...

My guest this week is Mat Riches

Mat is another one of those people that I’ve known forever on music forums, etc. but have only met in person once (possibly twice) and that was a long time ago… so it’s a real pleasure to reconnect with him.

He currently works in market research and as ITV’s (unofficial) poet-in-residence, blogs about poetry at Wear The Fox Hat and has published a collection of poetry called Collecting the Data.

My guest this week is Joe Rolls

Joe - who I was put in touch with by previous guest mixer Paul Howarth - is a drummer who currently plays in a pub rock covers band called Southside Five.

My guest mixer this week is Rachael Wood.

A guitarist and composer with 20 years of live and recording experience. She has played with Sinead O’Connor and Skunk Anansie as well as being the musical director for Cirque du Soleil for 8 years.

Most importantly - for me anyway, and I suspect most of my listeners - she is currently the guitarist in The Wedding Present.

My guest this week is Iain Key

Iain is a music writer who’s written extensively for the website Louder Than War and has published a book about The Clash called All The Young Punks which Record Collector called ‘the perfect almanac for any Clash fan’. He also used to present the Saturday morning show Indie Brunch.

A compilation of ten different guest mixers this week...

Something a bit different this week.  Once or twice every year, some of the members of the Fall Online Forum take part in 'Mix It Up',  where they swap anonymised playlists. One person hosts, distributing the mixes to the others; basically, you receive a mix for review where you don't know who the songs are by, what they're called, or who selected them.

A couple of months ago, I was the host, and set the participants the challenge of adhering to the SMT criteria. I asked each reviewer to nominate a favourite track, and concocted a playlist out of their choices. This episode features each of them telling me about their selections.

Deb has played with Primal Scream, Tim Burgess and Thurston Moore, but is of course best known for playing bass in the legendary My Bloody Valentine.

My guest mixer this week is James Evans

James is a music blogger from Twickenham, London. He is also a very patient man, as he sent me this some considerable time ago and has waited, uncomplainingly, while I got around to recording it. You can find his blog here: Embrace The Margin

This is one of those where he sent the notes and I did the recording, so it's just my voice this week I'm afraid. I think it's a great mix: I hope you all enjoy it.

My guest mixer this week is Derek Peplau

Derek, who hails from Connecticut but currently lives in Boston, is another one of those people that I've known online for many years, but this was the first time we'd met (albeit via Zoom).  We first got to know each other via the Wedding Present online forum, and have always had a decent Venn diagram intersection, musically.

It was a pleasure to finally meet him, and he certainly didn't let me down with an interestingly varied mix...

My guest mixer this week is Chris Rand

Chris is the man behind the definitive Half Man Half Biscuit website: The Half Man Half Biscuit Lyrics Project. He is also a lover of  ‘event’ stadium rock, Ipswich Town, cinema and travel. He's pictured on the stevesmixtapes.com page with Nigel Blackwell, who he did try to get on the show; alas, to no avail, as you will hear...