Fascinated with Gearóid Farrelly

Shampoo were a breath of fresh Ari that ran simultaneous through pop and brit pop in the mid-nineties. The band that actually took Girl Power mainstream were catapulted to fame when their song "Trouble" became a monster hit. In this episode we chart their journey from indie darlings to "Top Of The Pops". Throughout it all they were never swayed from what they wanted to do. They wrote all of the so...

Jasper Rees is the author of "Let's Do It" the authorised biography of Victoria Wood. The book was written with the consent of Victoria's children following her death in 2016. Jasper wrote the book by listening to audio recordings mad by Wood herself in preparation to write a memoir.  "Let's Do It" has just been published in paperback and is a must read for any Victoria Wood fan. The book was desc...

Bright Light Bright Light is welsh musician, artist and songwriter Rod Thomas. Originally from a small town in Wales, Rod has become one of our most respected independent queer artists with approval in the form of collaborations and touring opportunities from some of the world's biggest stars. He began learning piano, guitar and saxophone as a child and began performing acoustically under his own...

Ireland has always had a great reputation for rock music. In the 90s Sinead O'Connor, U2 and The Cranberries led the pack. It took a while for the explosion of bubblegum pop which was happening in the UK and Europe to hit Ireland. Una was one of the first Irish female pop vocalists to be launched around the time the success of Boyzone was starting to attract international attention.  Already a ses...

Una Healy was a gigging singer/songwriter when she answered an ad looking for a female singer for a girlband. What followed was a phenomenal seven years in The Saturdays one of the new millennium's biggest girlbands. A string of massive hits in the UK led to them getting signed by Island Def Jam in America and making their own reality series "Chasing the Saturdays" for the E Network.  Since then U...

This is just a teaser for the Bonus Episode that is now available to subscribers of Headstuff+. You can subscribe for €5 per month and get bonus material for each episode as well as a bonus episode each month. For this month's Bonus episode I chat to Sean Smith about his new album "Swing For The 90s" and we dive in track by track. You can listen to Sean Smith  here You can order CD and Vinyl copie...

What a guest and what a story. These are the episodes that I love to make! Luciana Caporaso has been an undercover popstar hiding in plain sight since the 90s. Fate conspired against her for no less than five albums. This episode charts her journey from fresh faced teenager writing music for a detective series in the UK to becoming the Queen of Electro based in Los Angeles. She has found herself i...

I’m delighted to kick off season 7 of "Fascinated" with the fabulous Samantha Mumba. Samantha is pop royalty and after an almost unforgivable hiatus she returned to music last December with a double whammy of releases. She dropped two new tracks “Cool” and “Process” within weeks of each other.  Samantha shot to fame in 2000 with the worldwide smash hit “Gotta Tell You”. She followed it with a stri...

In The first of a special two-part episode I chat to 90s pop star Kavana. For as long as he can remember Kavana was determined to become a pop-star and he made it happen. At the time Take That were disbanding and a chance meeting with their manager led to him recording a song written by Howard Donald. He became a household name and mega-stardom followed. While he was very well known he didn't have...

In The first of a special two-part episode I chat to 90s pop star Kavana. For as long as he can remember Kavana was determined to become a pop-star and he made it happen. At the time Take That were disbanding and a chance meeting with their manager led to him recording a song written by Howard Donald. He became a household name and mega-stardom followed. While he was very well known he didn't have...

In July of 2013 Chicago singer-songwriter Steve Grand uploaded a video for his song "All American Boy". It was a video for a country song with a bare bum and a gay twist and a within days it had a million hit and Steve was the face of new gay country. Except that he wasn't and he wasn't even a country singer but he was in demand. To date steve has had two successful albums and recently launched a...

In this episode, Gearóid meets singer/songwriter and choreographer Doris Pearson who shot to fame with her brothers and sisters as Five Star.  Doris is currently in lockdown in the UK and is working on solo material. We had a chat about her time in her family supergroup. We chatted about the humble beginnings, fame, money and family. Truly a family business Five Star were managed by their father B...

In this episode I chat to singer songwriter Lesley Roy. As teenager Lesley would busk on the streets of Dublin and instead of dreaming of superstardom she actively chased it. She signed a record contract with and American Label and spent two years in Sweden learning to write pop songs under the direction of Max Martin who produced her 2008 debut album "Unbeautiful". The album was released and expe...

This is the live “Fascinated” show from the Dublin Podcast Festival to YouTube. My guests on the night were the fabulous singer-songwriter Naimee Coleman and the wonderful Niamh Kavanagh. Hits were sung and we even recreated the moment Niamh won the Eurovision Song Contest. The full show can be watched on YouTube. If you really enjoy this podcast you can buy me a coffee on Kofi https://ko-fi.com/g...

In this episode I catch up with the wonderful Jann Arden in the midst of the worldwide Corona Virus epidemic. Last week she was supposed to be  inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at the Juno Awards but the ceremony was cancelled amid fears around the outbreak. Last week she streamed a mini-concert from her living room as part of a movement by artists to entertain those in isolation and to...

The first album I ever got was a cassette copy of Bananarama’s “Greatest Hits Collection”. When I discovered pop music with their anthem “I Want You Back” I listened to it over and over. At the time I was too young to be allowed read pop magazines so i didn’t know what they looked like until I finally saw them in my friends copy of smash hits.  But when I go the greatest hits that christmas I was...

In this episode Gearóid chats to actress and comedian Jessica Chaffin.  In podcasting circles Jessica is well-known for her genius comedy creation Ronna Glickman formerly of the “Ronna and Beverly” podcast. She has just launched her advise show “Ask Ronna” with Bryan Safi.   Jessica has also appeared in a whole pile of sitcoms and movies. Most recently she can be seen on “Abbys’ on NBC. She is als...

In 2007 Sean and his Sarah caught the eye of a production runner while queuing to audition for the X Factor. Within a couple of months they were both performing live together every saturday night to millions of viewers. Each week to Same Difference astonished producers by clocking up millions of votes. Their cheesy but note-perfect performances had won the hearts of the viewing public and there wa...

Ep 41: Beyonce That’s Who with Matthew Marsden In this episode Gearóid chats to former soap-star, former pop-star and proper Hollywood star Matthew Marsden. After a stint as a male model Matthew began his acting career in the UK soaps Emmerdale and Coronation Street. A brief but productive music career followed. He recorded the album “Say Who” for Sony. Notable because his backing singers on his s...

In this episode Gearóid talks to his favourite actress of all time: Tyne Daly. Tyne Daly is a celebrated star of stage and screen. She once dreamed of becoming a nun to the theatre, but a stint as Dirty Harry's sidekick in "The Enforcer" led to her starring opposite Loretta Switt in a tv movie of the week called "Cagney & Lacey" which was a buddy film about two women working as New York police off...

This is another side to a story we've already told but what a story this is. In this episode comedian Gearoid Farrelly chats to singer and actress Celena Cherry about her time as the front woman of 90's R&B band the Honeyz along with band members Heavenli Denton and Naima Belkhiati. The band debuted in 1998 and had a massive hit with the self-penned "Finally Found". They followed it closely with o...

Ep 38: The Song With Wings with Chesney Hawkes In this episode comedian Gearoid Farrelly chats to nineties heart-throb Chesney Hawkes about the song that catapulted him to the top of the charts in 1991 and went on to become the 20th biggest selling song of the nineties. As well as reflecting on the dark days after the success had gone away Chesney also tells about his life before stardom came alon...

Bianca Kinane is the big voiced Irish superstar that we almost had back in 1996. Bianca is from Clonmel and in 1994 took part in "Stars In Their Eyes" as Mariah Carey. A big recording contract with Pete Waterman followed. A huge media campaign promising an Irish Mariah Carey from 'County Clonmel' (sic) accompanied the release of some singles but the album never materialised. Though it was finished...

In 1999 Daphne and Celeste burned pop music to the ground. They arrived from New York and released their debut single “ooh Stick you” and almost instantly had a hit. But there was more to Daphne and Celeste then the kitch pop tracks. They couldn’t take their newfound pop career seriously. They were astonished by straight faced interviewers asking their favourite vegetable. They would turn cheery k...

In 2003 Michelle McManus shot to fame as the winner of the second series of Pop Idol. Throughout the series she stood out for her powerhouse soul voice. But she also got huge amounts of press coverage for her weight.   Today plus-size is celebrated, body positivity is embraced and everyone is encouraged to be who they are. In 2003 this was not the case. She was pilloried, debated, vilified and cri...