In this episode we welcome the splendid Steffan Chirazi to RBP Towers and ask him about his career as a metal/hard rock specialist and his long association with the mighty Metallica. We hear about our guest's lucky break as a 15-year-old Motörhead maniac when the band's frontman Lemmy gave up three hours to Steffan during the sessions for 1983's Another Perfect Day – and became a dear friend for life. Steffan then recounts how he got his foot in the door at Sounds and its enduring HM spinoff Ker...
Apr 15, 2024•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 175
In this episode we welcome revered High Llamas leader (and arranger to the hip and the mighty) Sean O'Hagan to Hammersmith and ask him about his life and times from Microdisney to new album Hey Panda. We hear about Sean's Luton childhood, his family's move back to Ireland, and his 1980 encounter with the late Cathal Coughlan — the Corkonian with whom he formed the brave and brilliant Microdisney. Their path through '80s pop via Rough Trade and Virgin, and their eventual unravelling at the end of...
Apr 02, 2024•1 hr 34 min•Ep. 174
In this episode we welcome long-time RBP contributor Ira Robbins as he celebrates the 50th anniversary of the launch of his beloved Trouser Press. Ira tells us about the musical Anglophilia that began for him with the Beatles but surged with the 1968 release of The Who Sell Out. He then recounts the beginning of his friendship with schoolmate Dave Schulps and explains how it led to a shared obsession with the British music press. The story of the 1974 launch of Anglophile fanzine Trans-Oceanic T...
Mar 18, 2024•57 min•Ep. 173
In this episode we welcome esteemed writer and editor Alan Light and ask him about the years he spent at Rolling Stone, Vibe and Spin — plus his close encounters with Prince, Taylor Swift and Townes Van Zandt. Vibe is the particular focus of interest for Alan's hosts, hence we hear about the magazine's inception, its co-founder Quincy Jones, our guest's long interview(s) with The Artist No Longer Known As Prince... and the problem with being a white editor of an essentially Black publication. No...
Mar 04, 2024•1 hr 31 min•Ep. 172
In this episode the writer and academic Kimberly Mack joins us from Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame to discuss the subject of "Black rock" in the context of her 33 1/3 study of Living Colour's Time's Up. We start by asking our guest about her childhood as the daughter of a rock-obsessed Black mother – and her experience of seeing Cheap Trick when theirs were the only Black faces in the Radio City Music Hall audience. She then discusses the "fictional categories (with real-world consequenc...
Feb 19, 2024•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 171
In this extra-special episode we welcome into the RBP lair not one but two legends of music journalism. Former Smash Hits/Q/MOJO supremo Mark Ellen and Sylvia (I'm Not With The Band) Patterson join us to pay tribute to their late friend and colleague upon the publication of our book Phew, Eh Readers? The Life and Writing of Tom Hibbert – the single funniest music journalist who ever lived. Both guests recount their initial and unforgettable encounters with "Hibbs" – Mark's at New Music News in 1...
Feb 01, 2024•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 170
In this episode we welcome the legendary Penelope Spheeris and invite her to talk us through her extraordinary life and brilliant career. Barney wastes little time in asking the Louisiana-born filmmaker about the shocking traumas of her childhood and teenage years. We hear about her alcoholic mother's multiple marriages and the family's move to Southern California that led to Penelope putting herself through film school before graduating from UCLA. Along with the Saturday Night Live shorts she m...
Jan 22, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 169
In the new episode of the Rock's Backpages podcast we welcome the admirable Andy Schwartz, who Zooms in from upstate New York to reminisce about New York Rocker, the much-missed monthly magazine he edited from 1977 to 1982. We hear about Andy's early years in suburban Westchester County and his first experiences of live music in Manhattan, which included historic gigs by the Doors, the Dead and Jimi Hendrix. We also learn about Oar Folkjokeopus, the Minneapolis record store where he worked as a ...
Jan 08, 2024•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 168
Content warning: This episode contains discussion of sexual violence (22:45–24:55). In this episode we welcome the excellent Barbara Ellen, who joins us on Zoom all the way from... well, the other side of London, actually. (It's a long story.) Barbara talks us through her illustrious writing career from zines such as her own Wax Lyrical and Ooh Gary, Gary (a footie zine dedicated entirely to one G. Lineker, Esq.) via ZigZag (in its Goth phase) to the golden decade she spent in the pages and offi...
Dec 18, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 167
In this episode we welcome the delightful Daryl Easlea to Hammersmith for a pre-Xmas special on Slade and the sadly-departed Shane MacGowan. Daryl talks about his Essex childhood: the psychogeography of Canvey Island; his memories of seeing Dr. Feelgood at Southend's legendary Kursaal Ballroom; and how working at Our Price Records led to an eclectic taste palette that stretched from prog-rock to Chic, the subject of his first book in 2004. We jump to Slade, the subject of his latest book, and di...
Dec 04, 2023•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 166
In this episode we welcome acclaimed novelist Michel Faber to RBP's Hammersmith HQ and ask him about his new book ... as well as about a 1979 interview he did with the young Nick Cave. Barney gets the ball rolling by asking the author of Under the Skin and The Crimson Petal and the White what he set out to do with Listen: On Music, Sound and Us. Viewing music through a variety of prisms — from nostalgia and snobbery to racial bias and auditory biology — was the book at least partly an exercise i...
Nov 20, 2023•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 165
In this episode we welcome the great Kate Simon, who Zooms in from New York City to answer our questions about her stellar career and the new edition of Rebel Music, her book of classic reggae portraits. Kate talks about the formative moments that made her a music photographer, plus the 1972 move to London that brought her into the pages of Disc & Music Echo and Sounds. Her hosts quiz her about her timeless shots of David Bowie, Rod Stewart and the Clash before we hear of her first trip to J...
Nov 06, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 164
In this episode we welcome acclaimed critic, author and professor Evelyn McDonnell and invite her to discuss her new Joan Didion book, along with the Motels, Britney Spears and California's pop history in general. Evelyn talks about her early L.A. memories and childhood move to Wisconsin before we hear how she progressed from her college paper in Providence, RI, to becoming the pop critic for the Miami Herald. We also note books such as her Runaways biography Queens of Noise, a suitable jumping-...
Oct 23, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 163
In this episode we welcome the left's very own "national treasure" Billy Bragg – beamed in from his adopted Dorset – and ask him about the long and remarkable career that's enshrined in forthcoming box set The Roaring Forty. Billy revisits his Barking boyhood and early pop and folk influences, culminating in the 1977 formation of Clash-inspired punks Riff Raff. After a brief 1981 detour via the British Army, he explains how he settled on his unique solo style and delivery – and how he wound up o...
Oct 09, 2023•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 162
In this episode we welcome music writer/photographer turned award-winning TV director Mick Gold and ask him to return to the mid-'70s to discuss pub rock, Bruce Springsteen and the wonderful Let It Rock magazine. Mick explains how he fell in with Let It Rock's "hard-up left-wing intellectuals" after penning a 5,000-word Beatles thesis at Sussex University. We then hear about the magazine and its eclectic agenda, along with our guest's parallel career as a photographer and his 1976 photo-essay bo...
Sep 25, 2023•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 161
In this episode we invite Richard Grabel to reminisce about his long career as a journalist and music-biz lawyer. We hear how Richard had his mind blown by an early CBGB double-bill of Television and the three-piece Talking Heads — and about his first reviewing efforts as a student at the University of Pennsylvania. He describes how he got his foot in the door at New York Rocker – reviewing one of Lowell George's last shows for editor Andy Schwartz — and then at the NME on a 1978 visit to London...
Sep 11, 2023•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 160
In this episode we're delighted to invite Vernon Gibbs to look back on his career as a pioneering soul scribe and A&R man. Vernon begins by describing his early years as a scholarship student who took the G train from Brooklyn to school on Manhattan's Upper East Side — and his formative years at NYC's Columbia University. He describes how he fell in with the counterculture and began writing about music for the Columbia Daily Spectator. A discussion follows of pieces he wrote about the death ...
Aug 29, 2023•1 hr 16 min
In this episode we welcome NME legend Charles Shaar Murray, beamed in from his adopted Ipswich to reminisce about his career from Oz magazine to his John Lee Hooker biography Boogie Man. We start by discussing Charles' 1970 interview with the mighty Muddy Waters, his "favourite singer since I was 12 years old". Our guest talks about the Oz "School Kids" issue and the other underground publications for which he wrote before he was recruited by New Musical Express in the summer of 1972. We hear ho...
Aug 14, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 158
In this episode, we invite acclaimed New York writer Jim Farber to tell us about his 50-year career and his experiences of "growing up gay to a Glam Rock soundtrack", to cite the title of a superb 2016 piece he wrote for The New York Times. We start by asking the former Chief Music Critic of the New York Daily News about his Scarsdale childhood and his formative musical memories. He explains how Alice Cooper's 'I'm Eighteen' became a portal to both obsessive fandom and the urgent need to write a...
Jul 31, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 157
In this episode, Richard Boon joins us to talk about his life in music, taking in the birth of Buzzcocks, the Smiths on Rough Trade and his time as "the world's coolest librarian" in Stoke Newington. The punk instigator takes us back to 1976, when he went to see the Sex Pistols live in High Wycombe together with a certain Howard Trafford and Peter McNeish. This shock to the system led to Richard inviting them to play his art studio in Reading, plus the near-mythological Lesser Free Trade Hall sh...
Jul 17, 2023•55 min•Ep. 156
In this episode we invite the inimitable Robyn Hitchcock to reminisce about his heroically nonconformist career from the Soft Boys to 2022's Shufflemania! After Robyn explains his recent return to London from his adopted Nashville, Barney, Mark and Martin hear about his hippiefied but not entirely psychedelic '60s youth – plus his early immersion in the far-out folk of the Incredible String Band and the songs of his greatest influence Syd Barrett. He talks about how the Soft Boys did – and didn'...
Jul 10, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 155
In this episode we welcome the very personable Richard Morton Jack to "RBP Towers" and ask him to talk about his monumental new biography of Nick Drake – along with his marvellous Flashback magazine and an audio interview with Small Faces/Humble Pie frontman Steve Marriott. We commence by hearing how Richard was initiated into pop music (and its freakier offshoots) — and how this led him to the arcane cult figures covered in Flashback, not to mention released on his Sunbeam label. From the under...
Jun 19, 2023•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 154
In this episode we welcome Lloyd Bradley into our Hammersmith lair and ask him about his career as a journalist and as the acclaimed author of Bass Culture and Sounds Like London — the latter book celebrating its 10th birthday at the time of recording. We learn what London sounded like to Lloyd as a boy growing up in '60s Hornsey, and how his love for music led to writing for Blues & Soul and then NME and Q. He talks us through some of the key themes of Sounds Like London — his history of "1...
Jun 05, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 153
In this episode we welcome pop poacher-turned-gamekeeper (turned rockademic) Cliff Jones to RBP's Hammersmith HQ and invite him to talk about his shape-shifting career in music — as well as about Paul Simon and doomed Rolling Stone Brian Jones (no relation). Barney starts things off with his memories of Cliff coming into the MOJO office circa 1994-5, plus we hear about long-form pieces our guest wrote about Peter Green and (for The Face) the Fugees. We also discuss Johnny Cigarettes' 1999 NME in...
May 22, 2023•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 152
In this episode, we welcome the excellent Sylvia Patterson to RBP’s Hammersmith HQ and ask her all about her life as a music journalist from Smash Hits to the NME and beyond, referencing her excellent memoirs I’m Not With the Band and Same Old Girl. We begin with her start in writing at Dundee publisher D.C. Thomson, including as music editor for the short-lived Etcetera, which led to her applying for a staff job at irreverent pop paper Smash Hits. Sylvia reminisces about what it was like workin...
May 08, 2023•56 min•Ep. 151
In this episode we welcome Sounds legends Sandy Robertson and Edwin (Savage Pencil) Pouncey into our Hammersmith lair and ask them about their careers and shared fascination with the occult. After describing their routes into writing and their days at Sounds, Sandy and Edwin reflect on the dark history of occult rock from Black Widow to Norway's Black Metal scene, via Jimmy Page, Kenneth Anger and Aleister "the Beast" Crowley. Clips from the late Andy Gill's 1990 audio interview with Liberty/Uni...
Apr 24, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 150
In this episode we welcome author and Guardian journalist Andy Beckett to RBP's Hammersmith HQ and ask him to discuss politics and pop from the late '70s to the present day. Andy talks about his first musical passions as a teenager in the early '80s, as well as about Rock Against Racism, Red Wedge and the politicised postpunk era in general. He recalls his first pieces for The Independent in the early '90s and explains how his broader interest in popular culture informs his perspective as an op-...
Apr 11, 2023•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 149
In this episode we welcome music-industry legend Rob Dickins and ask him to tell us about his "pop life" in the 27 years he worked with Prince, Madonna and other Warner Brothers superstars. Rob takes us back to his music-infused youth when his dad Percy worked for Melody Maker and New Musical Express and his brother Barry managed the High Numbers/Who. We hear about his days booking bands as a Social Sec at Loughborough University, and then about his start at Warner Publishing in 1971. Tremendous...
Mar 13, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Ep. 148
In this episode we welcome pioneering '60s rock writer Ellen Sander and invite her to discuss her classic 1973 book Trips: Rock Life in the Sixties, reissued in an "augmented" edition in 2019. Ellen recalls her New York upbringing and initiation into the folk scene in Greenwich Village, then explains how Danny Fields (episode 28) steered her towards writing for Sing Out! and Hullabaloo. With references to David Crosby, David Geffen, Abbie Hoffman and the Monterey Pop festival, she talks about th...
Feb 27, 2023•57 min•Ep. 147
In this episode we welcome the exemplary Fred Goodman and ask him about his journalistic career and highly acclaimed books. Fred talks about his early years as a jazz columnist for Cash Box, as well as his interest in the business side of popular music. He describes how a stint as a Senior Editor at Rolling Stone led to the idea of a book about "the head-on collision of rock and commerce", subsequently published as 1997's The Mansion on the Hill. Avid fans of that classic tome, Mark and Barney a...
Feb 13, 2023•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 146
