Audrey Golden has written one of the first great music books of the year, a new tome, on the always interesting White Rabbit Books, called I Thought I Heard You Speak: Women at Factory Records.

Available to buy now, it shines a light into the crevices of the legendary indie label and reveals new stories and new perspectives concerning the women who played significant roles in making the Manchester based operation function. Audrey was an unbelievably fun guest, and while I can’t share the after-hours contents with you, our conversation went on for a good 45 minutes after we’d stopped recording. What I can share with you is the mini-breakdown I had at the end of the episode. 

Hey, it was a late one. Ps. I'm fine now. 

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You know the deal by now; if you see a bonus episode of this podcast, it means it doesn’t quite meet the audio standards that would mean I’d allocate an episode a number. The first ten minutes or so of this conversation, with Elizabeth Stokes, singer in New Zealand indie pop champs The Beths, are especially ropey. And then we turn the camera off. What follows after that is an enjoyable conversation, with the author of probably my favourite album from last year, Expert In A Dying Field, a week or so before the four-piece arrive in the UK for an extensive run of headline dates. 

I was pretty nervous doing this interview. I love The Beths more than maybe any contemporary group. The wonky audio didn’t help. But I’m pleased I did it. And I do hope you’re pleased I did it too. Hooray.

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Lola Lennox has a very famous mum and a very talented dad, but the reason I’m speaking to her on this episode is because her new EP, Dreamer, contains some of the best pop songs I’ve heard in ages. If it doesn’t break her as a star in her own right, there really is no justice in the world. Which there isn’t, obviously. We are all feral creatures tearing each other to bits on a massive piece of rock floating in the sky.

But you’ve got to hope, eh?

I really enjoyed the time I got to speak with Lola. She’s wise and funny... and she wears a fair bit of jewellery, so if you hear a metallic rattle throughout this episode, then do know that’s what’s going on there. 

Watch this episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DKd-PrnrvM

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I’ve spoken to tonnes of my favourite songwriters since this podcast came to life almost two years ago. There was Bob Mould on episode 32. Jon Spencer on episode 49. Lee Ranaldo on episode 20. But there’s really very few songwriters whose music has mattered to me during the course of my life quite like the many songs written by David Gedge, the sole constant in The Wedding Present for almost forty years now. 

This is an episode I’m really grateful I got to add to the ever growing podography and while the majority of the following conversation concerns the group’s coming 24 Songs album - a collection of all the tracks from 2022’s 7” single a month series due on May 19th - we squeeze a lot more into our thirty minutes or so together; the recruitment of Sleeper guitarist Jon Stewart into the Wedding Present ranks, the confirmation that David does indeed request a dog on the Wedding Present rider, comic books, the brilliance of Brighton... All sorts of stuff. Enjoy!

Watch this episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZjMj6iBQAs&t=836s

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Well, I don't get to say this very often. This episode of the podcast features the band with the number one album in the UK!

That band are The Lottery Winners, that record is called Anxiety Replacement Therapy, and this episode was recorded in the run up to the band receiving such momentous news. It’s hard not to see the Leigh band’s chart coronation as a victory for the underdog, and my conversation with singer and guitarist Thom Rylance is simultaneously illuminating, funny and, towards the end, really quite emotional.

You join us in a van parked outside of a music venue in Middlesborough. It takes a few minutes for us to get the audio right, but stick with us, because we get there...

Watch this episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5ujmGQ0jzY&t=284s

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So for the last month or so, I’ve been utterly obsessed with the new record by the Irish group Lankum. Their fourth full length, their second under the name Lankum, it’s out now on Rough Trade. And it’s called False Lankum, after the folk ballad of the same name, as sung by the Irish traveller and folk singer John Reilly.

If you haven’t heard the record yet, you should know that it’s a strange and sinister, and yet often disarmingly beautiful voyage into folk and traditional Irish music, via the way of drone and experimental rock. If you have, you will know of the magic that exists within its grooves. And you will want to know more. Which is why I sat down with Ian Lynch and Cormac MacDiarmada on this new episode...

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So the most exciting thing happened the other day.

The Research, from Wakefield, a band I loved with every atom in my body for the four years they existed in the noughties, announced that they were reforming for a one off show at the last ever Long Division Festival on June 10th! There’s a new song too – fittingly called 'Time To Get Back'. And so it was a no brainer to get the band – that’d be Russell ‘The Disaster' Searle, Georgia Lashbrook and Sarah Williams – on the podcast to talk about all of the above. How long is this reunion going to last? Is there going to be a new album?

I’m not ashamed to say that I might have begged a bit.

Watch this episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmInpboeTyo&t=28s

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I published the video that accompanies this episode of the podcast, wherein I speak to Dan Searle, drummer, and co-founder, in British metalcore titans Architects, on the Spoook YouTube feed, earlier this week. It had an excellent response, and, if you allow me a moment of tooting my own trumpet, not without reason, I don’t think.

It’s rare in 2023, to hear a musician – especially one as significant as Dan – to speak so frankly about… well, anything really. Not that what Dan is saying is especially controversial, but the ever present threat of cancellation, for the most innocuous of gestures and statements, looms large over the music scene. And it’s made your favourite band frightened. And it’s made much of the discourse about music boring and repetitive. And that’s made an awful lot of people who care deeply about music and its potential as a space for ideas and excitement to be shared, deeply unhappy.

I applaud the Brighton based musician’s bravery for having this conversation with me. About cancel culture, his late and much missed twin brother Tom, mental health, the pressures of touring… we go deep. And so I do so hope you enjoy what is unquestionably one of my favourite episodes of the podcast to date. 

Watch this episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8VTskHDPL0&t=1142s

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Michael Cragg, one of the best writers around on all things pop, releases his book, Reach for the Stars: Fame, Fallout and Pop's Final Party, on Thursday, March 30th.

A celebration of British pop between 1996 and 2006, it takes in Steps, S Club 7, Blue, 5ive, Mis-Teeq, Hear'Say, Busted, Girls Aloud, McFly, Craig David and Atomic Kitten, among countless others, and gives that scene – that moment – the contextualisation it so sincerely deserves. It's a truly great book, and I think, what follows, is a great conversation about it... and a fair bit more besides.

Watch this episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4OqyIC0FR8&t=8s

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Author, journalist, and NME legend Lucy O’Brien has written some of the best music books I’ve ever read, principally about women in music. She’s perhaps best known for She Bop, her evolving history of women in rock, pop and soul, but her books on Dusty Springfield, Annie Lennox, Madonna and Skin from Skunk Anansie, are very worthy of your time too. And now there’s a new name to add to her bibliography, the late, extremely great Karen Carpenter, who Lucy has just written a book about for the ever awesome Nine Eight Books. Titled Lead Sister: The Story of Karen Carpenter, the book is out now, and sets out to explore exactly who the New Haven born singer and drummer was. Much more than a tragedy, is her conclusion. Much, much more than an easy listening icon too. I loved this episode, I hope you do too. 

Watch this episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHd2bcijRAk

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