I Wanna Jump Like Dee Dee

Situations and elements of duality, dualisms and paradoxes have started to become more evident in my life. I think I started to become more aware of this maybe 6/7 years ago when I started thinking and writing about the importance of mindset for surviving and functioning in this very complex and volatile world which, with a bit of gentle and not so gentle encouragement, led me to starting this lit...

I think more and more these days about how we’ve sleep walked into allowing our world to become one that doesn’t serve us, one that does its best to prevent our ever-evolving identity to find its path, to do things on our own terms and away from being defined in a certain way by preconceptions or however our brains uses predictions of who others are and who we are. Maybe that’s just me getting old...

I interviewed Andrew Butler from Hercules and Love Affair last year and he made a really great point about how the most exciting music is produced when one “scene” starts to fade but the next “big thing” hasn’t yet arrived – l think of it like when a new star is being born from all this gas and dust coming together -  before the “rules” of that genre are established (cos that’s what happens, right...

If this podcast were a musician, it's highly likely it would be called Trevor Dunn.  Trevor is a hugely respected and valued composer, bassist, double bassist, collaborator, ultra-improviser and fantastic conversationalist, coming to prominence with the ever fluid and experimental Mr Bungle. He has also played with John Zorn, The Melvins, Fantômas, Tomahawk, his own Trio-Convulsant, plus many...

There’s so much about the work of J. Willgoose, Esq. of Public Service Broadcasting that really is everything that this podcast is about – resilience, curiosity, the importance of your physical environment, reinvention, collaborations, adaptability, trying things out, learning from the past – from successes or mistakes to what should have been or could still be – how to repurpose the past, how we...

Since I started this podcast malarkey (maybe before actually, maybe the podcast just encouraged me to be more open about it - gawd, this sounds like a confessional!), I’ve developed a fascination with how music can whisk you off into a distant world, a kind of musical Narnia, not just through the lyrics, but the song structures, the atmosphere, the relationship of current music with past decades (...

I first met Alaura when we did an online workshop for the South London Arts Lab in October 2020. It was a practical exploration of Stream of Consciousness writing. It was called “Telling The Stories We Were Always Told To Keep Secret”, where we were encouraged to delve into our memory to write about things that have a hold over us, maybe things we are ashamed of, afraid of, whatever that hold may...

Our mindset is super important to how we handle life and what the future might hold for us.  The importance of maintaining and regenerating our friendships and relationships shouldn't be overlooked but they often are. Of course, how we view them can be wrapped up in things that happened to us going way back. I’m also interested in how friendships evolve over our life – do they come and go, is...

Tony Njoku  is a multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, musician, producer and visual artist whose music is impossible to categorise. It has so many influences that its identity is unique – just like it should be.  He's assembling his art in ways that tell a story that helps him and helps others by bringing us  together over shared experiences. Asking those big questions about our own identity an...

Curiosity is one of the most endearing things that we have as children – the never ending barrage of “why?”.  It’s also one of the things, along with playfulness and adaptability, that can get kicked out of us as we get older.  Stephen Mallinder is one of the most prolific, influential and pioneering DIY sound, art and writing radicals, from opening up new sound terrains with Cabaret Voltaire to m...

We're signing off Season 9 with a pioneering legend.  Here's what the incomparable Vivien Goldman wrote about Lora Logic back in the nascent days of punk:  “The remarkable Lora Logic, several phases ahead as usual, proves yet again that she’s the best thing that ever played in the Roxy…The woman defines herself, un-pompously fills a cultural vacuum. If there is a modern dance, she’s our...

Alianna Kalaba is a multi-instrumentalist, most renowned, I guess, for playing drums for the past 10/11 years with Cat Power and this beautifully distorted, snake-like bass with FACS , signing off from them with their latest album Still Life In Decay which is just a masterpiece - I’m totally in love with that record.  Alianna is also the first person that I’ve ever heard talk about a euphonium sin...

When I started thinking about experimental mindsets, I started looking for examples of that mindset at use in real life. I wrote something about Detroit. Detroit has always fascinated me, just like Moscow (weird how we get drawn to certain places or scenes isn’t it?). It went something like this - Detroit is THE example of how a city was blindsided by technology transforming an industry to which i...

One of the wonderful things about an experimental mindset is that it gives you the willingness and desire to be not just open to other ways of living and approaching your life – whether that be your work, your hobbies, your relationships - but to actively going to find those other ways. In terms of music, this could be being bringing in different musical styles, influences, instrumentation and col...

Elisabeth Elektra has lived with and through change, uncertainty, improvisation and transformation – the sort of things that today’s world throws at us. She gained her degree in experimental music and visual art, so she has got used to throwing herself into strange creative situations. She’s always pushed herself outside of her comfort zones and this gives her creativity this constant flux and flu...

Marissa Paternoster is doing too many amazing things to be defined by any one of them – she’s best known for her music in the Screaming Females , a band whose whole ethos of self sufficiency, open mindedness, strong integrity and ability to evolve without ever not being the Screaming Females I just love, she writes phenomenal melodies, harmonies and lyrics both with the band and on her own – do ch...

Dedicated to the memory of Matt Evans. "Brixton is God" Brix Smith is a rock legend. Her life story is as inspirational as it is turbulent. It’s inspirational because of that turbulence and how she’s navigated it all. From growing up in LA and starting her first college band Banda Dratsing, to moving to Chicago and joining The Fall in 1983, branching out with The Adult Net,  becoming a T...

Matt Black is half of the magnificently innovative and renegade DJ + multimedia pop group Coldcut, co-founder of Ninja Tune, one of the world’s leading electronic music labels and a beacon for the independent music spirit and creator of the brilliant sample instrument Jamm, and Pixi a visual synth instrument. Amongst other things! “Sound is living data, like DNA. Just as information wants to be fr...

It's a great privilege to have conversations like I do with so many talented and amazing humans, each of whom is making their mark through their music and other creative projects. Today's conversation is one of those. Gena Rose Bruce is a phenomenally talented Melbourne-based artist who has just released her sophomore album Deep Is The Way. The title track written and performed with Bill...

Three things struck me about Billy Nomates when I first heard her work - vulnerability, humanity and what a bloody exciting talent. I first saw Tor perform live when she supported the Sleaford Mods at the 100 Club in September 2020. She played with such charisma - perfectly DIY, raw and defiant intensity with gallows humour vulnerability, it was a perfectly razor sharp crossover that gave me a fee...

“There’s a world outside if you want it” …. …. this lyric from Jesse's 2015 song Oh Sheena kinda sums up his desire to find the positive in life, to make the best out of the good times and the tough times. Jesse Malin is someone who embraces all sorts of influences to produce a music that is full of honest emotion, humility, positivity and that slice of life storytelling – and I think that’s...

It's the early '80's and I'm going through one of many identity searches. I was always drawn to the non-conformers, even though I conformed in many ways. Therein lies a struggle. Music was obviously a massive part of that identity search and the early 80s kinda gave me the chance to experiment with clothes (usually atrocious) and music (stuff that is still with me today and stu...

Thank fuck for Starcrawler   When I first heard their debut album around 5 years ago and I was like, well, this is what the world’s been waiting for. A good dose of Hollywood underbelly, a bit of glam, a bit of punk rock horror, a bit of No Place for Old Men and a huge dose of heart.  Starcrawler were just feeding me all of this charisma, swagger, aggression, melody, pretty much like a parent feed...

Today's special guest is Kelly Ogden! Kelly, together with her husband Luis, started The Dollyrots for a bit of fun whilst college students in Florida. They then decided to take the leap of faith and make the band a full time gig, moved to LA and have been on an epic journey playing their brand of music that is chockablock full of melodies, riffs and pure joy that Ramones, The Muffs and Joan...

Sam Quartin is the guitarist and vocalist for THE BOBBY LEES . They're one of my favourite bands, rooted in punk, the blues, the garage and a big old dose of weird. Live, they are a tight, ball of wild, nihilistic claustrophobia that comes and finds you and detonates in your face. They're free of inhibitions and straitjackets and this just feeds into the crowd. It's proper rock n ro...