Michelle Grace Hunder, who hails from Melbourne, Australia, takes some of my favourite music photos. Her 2018 photo project (in tandem with her project partner Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore), Her Sound, Her Story, celebrated 80 women from across the Australian music scene visually and in print. It was hugely inspiring to me, and I have ample respect for the time and patience MGH takes to campaign for better conditions for freelance photographers working within the music industry. 

And she’s got another story to tell. An unpopular one, but one that deserves to be heard. Make sure you listen to all of this episode, kids. It’s one of my favourites.

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

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Did you know there’s a new Hundred Reasons album on the way? On February 24th? Called Glorious Sunset? You didn’t? Well there is, which is exciting, and on this episode I talk to guitarist Larry Hibbitt about just that. Also the group’s forthcoming dates with Hell is for Heroes and My Vitriol. And Larry’s career as a producer. And why the group shut down in 2012 and have  returned as an active concern now. And football. There’s quite a bit of football in this episode, so feel free to skip the last five minutes or so if that isn’t your thing. 

You’ll miss a fun story about parakeets if you do, mind…

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Dividing her time between Nashville and London, and originally from Sydney, Australia, the music of Emma Swift has been a balm for me in recent years.

Emma's debut album, 2020’s Blonde on the Tracks, saw her articulating her depression via the music of Bob Dylan, and I guess extracted a similar sort of comfort from it when I discovered the record last year. I wanted to get her onto the podcast to talk about that record, about mental health, about the crush I have on her husband, Robyn Hitchcock from the Soft Boys. What transpired was a conversation as lovely as her music. I do hope you enjoy this nourishing, enriching conversation with one of my favourite voices in music today.

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Mom Jeans, from Berkeley, California, are one of my favourite bands from recent years. Now three albums in, last year’s third offering, Sweet Tooth, marked a radical departure in sound. That’s good. Bands should evolve. Unless you’re the Ramones. I’m fine with the Ramones writing the same perfect song over and over and over again. 

But before Mom Jeans hit the UK next month, I wanted to know what led to that shift in sonic vocabulary. And so I hooked up with vocalist and guitarist Eric Butler for a chat about that, mental health on the road, gender dysmorphia, the failings of the DIY scene, Avril Lavigne, but to be honest, mostly his views on British food. 

Nom nom nom.

Watch this episode here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1VILT1a6U8&t=6s

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On this episode I speak to Alex Melton, who in recent years has lit up YouTube with his smart, soulful, innovative punk pop covers of songs raging from those penned by Harry Styles, Third Eye Blind, Oasis, Foo Fighters, Taylor Swift and – my personal favourite, this – Hanson. I love a bit of ‘MmmBop’, me.

If you’re thinking this sounds terrible, I can sympathise, but either via his YouTube channel - 370k subscribers, yo – or on his forthcoming debut album, Southern Charm, out on January 27th on Pure Noise, what Alex does so brilliantly is dig deep to find the magic buried at the very core of songs. And songs are great, right? We’re all agreed on that. It’s literally why you’re here. 

I really enjoyed talking to Alex about process on this episode.

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

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So yesterday, the Winchester born musician Rozi Plain – not singer songwriter, not folk singer FYI – released her new album, her seventh, the really very brilliant, Prize. Now out on the ever-excellent Memphis Industries, it is a thing of wonder. The night before it's release I had a chat with the record’s creator about whether she reads reviews of her music, the impracticalities of pyro, elves, her work in This Is The Kit, her forthcoming tour, the mysteries of Wikipedia, how not to choose a stage name… all sorts of stupid shit. 

It was a hoot, it really, really was. 

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I love catching up with old friends via this podcast, and my guest on this episode is someone I’ve wanted to catch up with for a loooooong time now. I’ve only spoken to Jon McClure, aka The Reverend, the singer in Sheffield’s Reverend and the Makers, a handful of times since leaving the New Musical Express, a decade or so ago. Then a staple of the magazine I worked for, in that time, much has changed – for Jon, his band, for me, for the music scene at large; there is much to discuss. And that’s before we get to the forthcoming release of Reverend and the Makers seventh album, Heatwave in the Cold North, due for arrival on April 28th. Before that there’s a UK tour, and right now there’s perhaps more interest in Jon and his group since the heady days of 2007 and the band’s cocksure debut, The State of Things. 

We get into all of this, and more, on this excellent episode of the podcast. 

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Regular listeners will be aware that I have a lot of time for Sunderland, the city in north east England that I attended university in, and for a time, made my home. I used to be in a band up there. I put on shows. Did a radio show. A fanzine. And I thought I had a good handle on what was going on up there. But then my old friends in the city started telling me about this kid called Tom A. Smith, a musician. Only 18 and he’s played Glastonbury already, supported Sam Fender, and impressed the likes of Tim Burgess and Billy Bragg. I checked him out. I think he’s smashing.

And so on this episode - recorded just before Christmas 2022 - I check in with the most exciting thing going on in the old country. No, not Ross Stewart, Tom!

Oh, if you'd like to donate to the Fight for Faye fund mentioned in the episode - and do dig deep if you can - you can do that here. 

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Hello, and happy new year to all of you. This is an episode of the podcast I recorded a week or so before Christmas, but since Dub Pistols’ new record is out on March 10th – their ninth, it’s called Frontline – I don’t think it matters too much, though do excuse the bit of Christmas chat towards the end. Actually, maybe you'd might like to save listening to this episode until this coming December. Although then you’ll have missed the release of Frontline. Oh, I’ve got myself in a right mess here haven’t I.

But truth be told, when I set this interview up, with Dub Pistols main man Barry Ashworth, I planned on talking almost exclusively about the group’s appearance on 2000’s Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2, a videogame that I was truly, pathetically obsessed with during my days at university. And yet what transpired was a lucid conversation about mental illness in the music industry, and how we can keep things fun, exciting, dangerous even, while also looking after each other. I like Barry. He’s class.

There's also much more chat about the Royston Cave on this episode than I expected.

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Okay, one last episode before 2022 is done and out the door.

This is a conversation I had with Jessica Viscius a few weeks back. She plays in the Chicago based indie rock band Bnny. That band’s 2021 debut, Everything, is one of my favourite records in years. Largely about Jess’ late boyfriend Trey Gruber, it’s collection of fragile, introverted rock has become akin to my grief soundtrack. My dad has been gone five months now. Sometimes it feels so unbelievably raw.

I’ve stuck this out as a bonus episode because in places the audio is a bit sketchy, but I think it’s a nice chat that some of you will really enjoy. More than anything I just want you to go immerse yourself in Everything. It is music, truly, to calm the soul. 

Happy New Year pals.

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