The Green Man Podcast

We Were Here is a reclamation of rock’n’roll for the Black artists who tore up and re-wrote its rules, by Big Joanie guitarist Stephanie Phillips. It promises to rip up our received history of rock’n’roll and alternative music and repopulate it with the extraordinary Black artists and influential figures who truly steered its course from the 1930s to the present day, including vital figures like Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Little Richard, Poly Styrene and beyond. Stephanie is joined in conversation with musician Jessica Kempson. 

Recorded live at the Talking Shop.

Way Dynamic’s Dylan Young drops in after a secret set at Round The Twist. The Melbourne singer-songwriter’s classic style feels like an homage to a golden age of pop, and brought euphoric bliss to a sun-soaked Walled Garden on Sunday. 

Dylan chats to Marisa Dabice of Mannequin Pussy. The Philadelphia punks brought their synth-laden rock to Far Out on Saturday. Marisa and Dylan talk about life on the road, menopause rock, and finding a new hobby when music becomes your job.

In these tough times, “trying to make something beautiful feels like a radical act,” says Marisa Dabice of Mannequin Pussy. The Philadelphia punk rock band released their fourth album I Got Heaven in 2024, a fast-paced synth-laden hardcore romp, all soft and sharp, longing and rage, melody and noise, and as earthly as it is celestial.

Way Dynamic’s Dylan Young has been described as a time traveller, thanks to his abilities to conjure classic pop, whether it’s Brian Wilson, Randy Newman, Burt Bacharach, Nick Drake, or Talking Heads. The Melbourne-based singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has toured with MJ Lenderman and Waxahatchee, and released his third album Massive Shoe last year, a cheerful homage to the golden age of pop.

Flo Dill is a London-based broadcaster and otherworldly music savant. Flo meets Ata Kak, the Ghanaian artist who earned much-deserved acclaim after his 1994 self-released tape Obaa Sima was rediscovered. Ata and Flo talk after his Mountain Stage set, going deep on Ata’s incredible origin story, and bonding over a shared love of old skool.

Over a decade ago, Ghanaian artist Ata Kak was living off-grid in his Kumasi hometown, his 1994 self-released album Obaa Sima but a distant memory. That was until Awesome Tapes From Africa founder Brian Shimkovitz tracked him down and re-released Obaa Sima, to belated and deserved acclaim. Now Ata Kak is a cult icon, his DIY blend of Ghanaian highlife, 90s dance beats, hip-hop, and swift Twi rap sending stages worldwide into an irresistible frenzy.

Flo is a London born & based DJ and broadcaster who has worked in and around music all her life. Listeners know her for a boundless musical knowledge and an open, enthusiastic approach to sharing music, which is at the heart of everything Flo does on the radio. She brings that approach to a dance floor too: whether she’s playing obscure post punk, driving disco or wonky 80s new wave, a sense of unpretentiousness and fun underpins her selections.

Buckle up for music and mischief aplenty as trailblazing comedian Josie Long and slime-loving folk ogre Johnny Lynch give us a flavour of their eighteen-year-solid friendship.

These two need no introduction. Beloved authors Caitlin Moran and Pete Paphides treat us to a sneak peek of Caitlin’s new book, How To Be Hopeful. Content warning: litter picking, armageddon anxiety.  

Recorded live at the Talking Shop.

South London vocal harmony group Woom may have a new member. Straight from captivating the crowd at Chai Wallahs, they sat down with indie-folk singer-songwriter Haley Heynderickx ahead of her mesmerising Walled Garden set. We await the collab with bated breath!

Take me out to the Green Man. Eddie Green from post-punk rockers Shame joins American crooner Tyler Ballgame to swap stories about Rough Trade records, and the strangely joyful feeling found in touring the smaller towns in the USA and Europe apiece.

Comedy legend and "world's greatest living stand-up" Stewart Lee chats to national treasure and Pop Dungeon ringleader Charlotte Church. They natter about Stewart's involvement in the origin of the dungeon, and it's latest End Times incarnation, which took Far Out by storm on Thursday night.

We’ve never been more back.

For a few days, we came together in the mountains to listen, dance, wander, discover and reconnect. The curiosity and good spirit you brought to Bannau Brycheiniog helped to create our own little world.

And it doesn't have to end there - not entirely. Over the next few weeks, eavesdrop on some backstage chats with the artists and performers who replenished your spirits on the field.

First up is Westside Cowboy. Fresh off an electric set on the Mountain Stage, on the day they released their debut album, they sit down with Dublin's Madra Salach to talk sober festivals, and sitting down on stage.

Iona Zajac and Simon from The Itch share some of their most memorable Green Man experiences and discuss what they’re most excited to see at this years’ festival.

Scotland’s Iona Zajac plays harp and sings with the Pogues, but she also finds time to make music as an artist in her own right, releasing her debut album, Bang, at the end of last year. She describes her sound as “dark indie folk with grumbles of pop, a dark gravelly tunnel with bright warm light at the end”: sadness cut through with humour, in the vein of Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten, Florence and the Machine, and The Last Dinner Party.

Scientists still don’t really know what an itch is, but for alt-pop duo The Itch, aka Simon Tyrie and Georgia Hardy, it’s how they describe making music: a compulsion, something akin to addiction. The pair met as teenagers a decade ago in Luton and have been collaborating musically ever since, but it was only after playing at a Talking Heads tribute night in 2023 that they decided to form The Itch. On their imminent debut album It’s The Hope That Kills You they apply an electroclash sweat and basement throb to the alienation and pessimism of the modern world, and describe themselves as “somewhere between pain and pleasure”.

Last year Jessica Winter released her solo debut My First Album, a title that raises an eyebrow to the fact she’s been grafting away in the music industry for well over a decade: first in punk bands in her hometown of Portsmouth, and then as Pregoblin with Fat White Family’s Alex Sebley. As a solo artist, though, she wears a coat of many colours — sunrise piano beats, alt-90s rock, 2000s pop — never making the same song twice. 

Jessica chats to Tony Njoku. 

London-based composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Tony Njoku makes modern classical and experimental music, yet he didn’t start out at a fancy conservatoire or music school — just hunched over a laptop in his bedroom, or teaching himself piano. Last year the Nigerian-British artist released All Our Knives Are Always Sharp, in part a homage to the musicians and communities who shaped him — including Tricky, Ghostpoet, Young Fathers, and Blood Orange — as well as a continuation of his avant-garde marriage of electronic and classical music with personal storytelling. 

Tony Njoku goes Round The Twist at 10pm on Friday night. Jessica Winter will be at the Wishbone at 11.10pm Friday, and goes Round The Twist at 21.45pm Saturday.