I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee

As the devoted fans of this small but perfectly formed podcast will know, I’m a big believer that emotional intelligence is one of THE super powers for navigating the world, especially nowadays with all its complexity, volatility, uncertainty and division. It often feels like the critical components of emotional intelligence – like self-management, self awareness, empathy and social skills – are o...

A few years ago, after I quit my job and decided to go self employed or freelance or whatever, I fell into the trap of trying to start a bit of a hustle which - I still think was a great idea – but was still with a mindset of doing things in “work” mode - how to start something and grow it. It was a bit of a fun concept but I was way too serious about it. It wasn’t where my head was at or where it...

Nostalgia. Such a layered, gamut-running emotion. That experience of having what you lost or never had, of a band that split up before you could see them, of seeing a band in a venue that’s now a bunch of this-could-be-anywhere apartments, of lovers long lost, of finding yourself. Then there’s the nostalgia for the present, knowing that it won’t last forever and then there’s future nostalgia where...

I’m really intrigued by instinct and the circumstances in which it can really flourish. For example, I’ve been classically trained – admittedly many more years ago than I’d care to mention – and that training can stay with you, or at least the modality or mindset of it can, if not the skills! I also have a tendency to analyse things, which is like watching a political debate – mind numbingly tedio...

For me, emotional intelligence is one of the most important attributes we need today  – things like empathy, self awareness, self regulation, and the ability to interact socially - well, I just feel that they should be taught from the day we are born and, if we don’t, then  generation after generation is going to be born into a world where, in the context of our social and political climate, we’re...

I’m finding it harder and harder to know where to even start talking about the world’s malaise, but I just want to touch on one area of our lives that has got markedly worse over the years and that’s accountability. It’s the one thing that has actually trickled down – and not in a good way - from the elite into our everyday lives so much so that I often feel that the basic covenants or foundations...

A few years ago I was going through some stuff with my mum and dad - they were getting towards the end of their lives – and as the only child I was finding it really tough to make the choices I had to make. And having to make these choices didn’t stop.   I wrote a piece about friendships and family relationships, ostensibly about my uncle – my dad’s brother – and how I felt his presence before I’d...

There have been plenty of times when my shyness and tenuous self belief has turned up like the proverbial bad smell. Like the naughty people in my ear telling me why I shouldn’t do something. They almost stopped me from taking the plunge and doing this podcast – but I did need more than a push. I’m managing it far better than I used to, but still there a few situations that I get into that I’d rat...

Naël is an artist who has made me realise that I need to up my game as far as awareness of new music is concerned. He has the most incredible voice that brings in influences from soul, gospel, RnB, hip hop, jazz. He has been on tour with the amazing Jeanne Added. A couple of weeks ago, he released a really beautiful track called Roses and is going to release his debut solo EP called Last Words on...

I’m gonna start with a quote that I remember coming across about 7 years ago now when I started thinking about what we needed as human beings to navigate through what is best described as a 100 year life – and credit to Dr Lynda Gratton for that term – or multi stage life - which is one that breaks away from that model of my parents generation – education-work-retirement - to something much more m...

You know when you’re listening to a song and, y’know, there’s an unexpected chord or tempo change, or something that throws you a bit off kilter.  And then there are LP’s that throw up another, perhaps unexpected, direction for the artist – even for an artist known for their eclectism -  maybe some influences that you hadn’t heard before. Then there are LP’s where the LP as a whole is whacko eclec...

DRAGG has been releasing music for around 12/13 years now; a brand of sparse, West Coast-y hip hop, tinged with RnB and soul, all the time showing a progressive approach and high degree of emotional intelligence in the subject matter and how to connect with his audience.  His story is remarkable, not least because he lost his sight early in his life…but he has navigated the many obstacles he has f...

I met up with my old friend John Robb over the UK May bank holiday weekend. He was in London talking about his birthday, sorry life and career (!). For those who don’t know John, he formed The Membranes in the early 80’s and he’s an author whose writing about music and the future I admire hugely – and his talk was called “Do You Believe In The Power of Rock N Roll?”. So, do I?  Well, in a lot of w...

My first experience of censorship in music came with the battle between the Dead Kennedys and Tipper Gore’s PMRC (remember the “Parental Advisory Explicit Content” stickers?) which culminated in the obscenity trial in 1985/6 over the artwork for DK’s record Frankenchrist. I don’t know if anyone remembers but the board members of the PMRC were a bunch of white power brokers funded by Coors Beer, wh...

If I were to create a mixtape (it’d have to be an old school cassette cos that’s probably the last time I made one!) for Amanda and her music life, it’d probably open with The Undertones’ Family Entertainment with the classic line “Got To…Keep it In the Family”.   I mention family not so much to talk endlessly about the quite rare band structure of her band, Bad Mary – in her words “a band family...

You know when you hear a song or a collection of songs that literally make you shiver? Songs that could make you cry at how effortlessly beautiful they are.  Another thing that interests me is the neuroscience of how some pieces of music can transport me to a time, a place, an older version of me, a perhaps as yet unseen version of me, how they can seem like my constant companion that’s seen my li...

What’s been intriguing me today?  Reality.  What is it?  Is there “a” reality or is it all subjective and determined by our own perception, prediction and interpretation. I think it's a word - like so many others - that has been hijacked – you see it used in order to dogmatically defend belief systems or stances and this plays into our susceptibility to certain narratives – we hear that phras...

As regular listeners will be painfully aware, I’m no fan of genres. I can hear the groans already….here he goes again getting on his soapbox…yes, well, you know you gotta reinforce the message, right! I do believe that genres are obsolete to the point of being dangerous, created by an industry to keep people in their lanes, to reinforce “rules” and stereotypes of who should be playing what music -...

We live in a culture of immediacy and entitlement, brought upon us, in part at least, by the emergence of new technologies of the last 20 years that were supposed to democratise society, to disrupt the big corporates, but have laid themselves bare as the same old monolithic structures where the power bases and wealth are maintained and society is left with long lasting effects which are not always...

Listening to the music of Belle Chen brings me some mixed emotions – firstly, incredible love and admiration for the creativity and innovation of her thinking and the beauty and talent in executing this thinking through her composition and playing, yet still leaving room for the listener’s own interpretation. The second, and I fight hard against this one, is some regret that my own musical educati...

As a habitual loafer, I spend a fair bit of time thinking about how some songwriters can create music that can feel familiar yet unfamiliar and why I’m attracted to music that gives me both of those feelings. I also love finding music that feels very unfamiliar to me and I’m interested in why.  As you might expect I’ve failed to come up with anything concrete, but I did read something which made m...

When we’re kids, before we get to school and start to get hemmed in by society’s expectations, we don’t have the inhibitions that start to follow us around and start to influence our words, our actions, the clothes we wear, the way we cut our hair (although that’s not really been an issue for me for decades). I think this is also relevant in music –artists wrestling with breaking new ground or out...

As with most stuff, I was late to the Skinny Pelembe party and the way I got into his music was as random as it gets: I came across an Instagram post (see, Instagram does have its uses) of his about buying an Austin Allegro with his streaming royalties ( I think that was the gist of it). Now my old man - rest his soul - was an Austin aficionado back in the days of my formative years when he got ho...

Nayana AB is an outstanding songwriter, musician and producer, who, for me, is taking influences from great songwriters of the past but making the music in very much her own vision. She’s using that history and those legacies positively to shape her own future and the future of others. I think this is exactly what legacy is about and how it’s intended to be used. She recently won the Dr Martens Ma...

In the bands my guest has played with over the past, what 30 years maybe – like Minority, Brick, One Against Many and presently Black Mercy – I’m getting influences from some outstanding bands and I’m thinking Negative Approach, Whipping Boy, Poison Idea, Artificial Peace definitely a bit of Napalm Death thrown in there to grind things up a bit. Fuck, just saying those band names makes me want to...