Gas Giants

Gav & Tom look back at Iain Banks "Millennium Novel" Dead Air in which the hero is a highly political left-wing Scots shock jock on a London daytime radio station (?) who clumsily gets himself into all kinds of trouble with spelunking gangsters, buffoonish kidnappers, and civil and criminal law. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bon...

Gav and Tom bring you another double feature film episode: two films that at first sight don't go together and show how they contributed to where we are now. 1. Liquid Sky (1982) directed by Slava Tsukerman with Anne Carlisle, Paula E. Sheppard, Susan Doukas, Otto von Wernherr. 2. After Hours (1985) directed by Martin Scorsese with Griffin Dunne , Rosanna Arquette , Verna Bloom , Linda Fiorentino...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS Random stuff mentioned…. As I think I say at the start of the episode, the problem here is not finding stuff to put up, but the fact that there is SO MUCH stuff to choose from. This must mean that people coming to Zappa for the first time, perhaps through this podcast, even, is not going to know where to start. I have d...

Tom and Gav try Anthropomorphism on for size in this discussion of Jonathan Lethem's breakthrough debut novel. It’s difficult to separate Jonathan Lethem from this exhaustive podcast series about Bennington College and it’s influence on American literature of the 80’s/90’s, but this is the episode that deals specifically with the publication of Gun, with occasional music and Motherless Brookl...

Show notes in Substack: https://gasgiants.substack.com/p/praxis-transmutation-mutatis-mutandis Listen now | Discovering a distress signal from one of the Mother Ship's escape pods, Tom and Gav beam down, having first set their phasers for "Funky". This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gasgiants.subst...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS Satie’s Vexations… was Meredith Monk there at the 1963 complete performance? Did she stay there long enough to get the show for free? You never really need an excuse for introducing the Ursonate of Kurt Schwitters into the conversation, but could Monk’s vocalising style have anything to do with this? DJ Shadow’s 1996 tr...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS * A very detailed article about the book, including some of the locations * A Guardian article about the book from 2016 which gives a brief overview * There is a film of Hangover Square, which has nothing to do with the book whatsoever. The best thing about it is the Bernard Hermann score… Patrick Hamilton was an expert...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS Just Another Elephant Boy's Saturday Graveyard Game. Chewin’ the Fat’s brilliant take on gritty 1970’s TV Drama… ...and I managed to find the entire Play on Youtube! Look’s like the drink order wasn’t burned on my brain like I thought, it’s a triple Pernod and Southern Comfort. There's always space for this wonderful pe...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS Some of the cells from Alasdair Gray’s storyboard for the still unrealised film version of Lanark. Gray reads perhaps the most famous passage from Lanark, concerning Glasgow's unrealised magnificence . The Gray Day broadcast, which celebrated 40 years since the publishing of Lanark. I really can’t get enough of these st...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS Rekursiv chip (pretty long) , by James Lothian (1993) . A beautifully-written story about Linn’s 1980s venture in computing. Paul Buchannan visits the old rehearsal space and talks about Tinseltown in the Rain This 1990 Documentary about the band's tour of America was somehow regarded as "lost", perhaps because it's com...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS * There's a lot of stuff about John Byrne on Youtube, but this funny, gentle interview catches the man at his best... * Think the episode where the band go to Buckie is far-fetched? Check out this story... * An interesting interview with the cast of the stage adaptation * Before doing Tutti Frutti, Thompson and Coltrane...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS Here's a taste of what's coming up... Subscribe to Gas Giants This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit gasgiants.substack.com

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS * Node recordings on Discogs * 2020 interview with Dave Bessell * 1995 interview with Ed Buller & Gary Stout about the making of the EP * 2014 Interview about the making of Node 2 * David Bessell's Youtube Channel has a few videos of Node in the studio * Terminus * Olivine * Here’s a TV feature about the whole event * *...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS Billy Berg’s The Club as it might have appeared at the end of 1945… ….it was no party running a Jazz club back then. All that remains of the Finale Club, where Parker organised a steady engagement after Dizzy and the rest of the band went back to New York. The club closed soon after as a result of LAPD corruption, then...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS Is “Gulpful” a word?…I suppose it is now. Not everybody loves you… not even Orson… Spike Lee Likes you, though! Andy Griffith explains the fascination with Lonesome Rhodes… Some Vitajex, anyone? Watkins explains how they mess with your head… The Elder Paul Jones on the UK Sunday night TV show “Songs of Praise” If you, l...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS A slow afternoon in the Interzone… We talked about A LOT of music on this episode…all of it is worth further investigation, but if you just need a place to start, here’s a playlist. Ornette Coleman talks about sound as language. The Other’s Language: Jacques Derrida interviews Ornette Coleman, 23 June 1997 . In this fas...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS Oskar Kokoschka - The Power of Music (1918/20) Thomas Bernhard A Scrupulous Fidelity, On Thomas Bernhard’s The Loser – The Brooklyn Rail A short extract from a staged version of the novel. Thomas Bernhard as a patient, described by his half-brother. Losers, f**k-ups and vampires You know the types… The Glenn Gould less...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS PANIC - The Dithyramb Dissected Where it all started… The Concert used on the CD, (thanks to Casa da Musica), complete with the score, (thanks to Tom) Poetry and Influences ( Some Dubious) The Poem the H.B. used as the initial inspiration for the work. At the beginning of the 20th century, many composers turned to the f...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS Spotify Playlist Unfortunately, neither the Scientist Record, or Felix Kubin’s release were available on Spotify, so I chose other tracks by these artists to make sure they were represented. List of Purchases Oxfam - Byers Road, Glasgow * Archie Shepp - Fire Music. Impulse IMP 158 * Art Tatum - The V Discs. Black Lion B...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS Direction, camera work, even actors…where had we seen that before? Well, maybe the strongest contender… A few years before Dogme 95 too. The cast and crew chat about the film in 2018…. …and Jennifer Beals checks that Mom got her money back. …so is Seymour Cassel really The Great God Pan dressed as Santa Claus? So, Do Yo...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS Nikel Pallat of Ton, Steine, Scherben explains the dangers of expecting the media to act as an instrument of change…. The complete documentary under discussion… This is what Curtis is really famous for… …and we felt that this was a kind of afterthought to HyperNormalisation, but it can’t be denied that for a certain kin...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS SPOILERS coming… If you want to watch the movie without prejudice, watch for the spoiler warnings below. Photography examples Tom especially admires these of examples of photography in Strozek… Music Sonny Terry, Old Lost John featured two of Herzog’s movies. One with a dancing truck in flames, the other with the breakd...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS Further reading * Yanis Varoufakis, And the Weak Suffer What They Must?: Europe's Crisis and America's Economic Future (2017). Puts the 21c economic and financial crises in the context of the history of the USA’s global financial and military hegemony. In particular it explains how the US economy shifted from productive...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS “I’ve Known A Few Performers In My Time…” Documentaries & Interviews A very thorough BBC documentary on Donald Cammell From the restored DVD of the movie. From the BBC Series Hollywood UK, this has some interviews that don’t appear elsewhere. Sandy Lieberson with some insights into the relationship between Cammell and R...

Subscribe on Spotify ∙ Stitcher ∙ Apple ∙ Pocket Casts ∙ Google ∙ TuneIn ∙ RSS * We faced an unprecedented crisis, but tens of thousands of second wave Covid deaths were avoidable – and unforgivable | Keir Starmer | The Guardian Sat 29 May 2021 * BBC Radio 4 - The Corbyn Story - Available now * “ With enterprises struggling, the Conservatives have lost their trust. Labour can now be the party of b...