Mick and the PhatMan Talking Music

Everyone has heard of Leonard Cohen, but not so many know much about him.  With this episode, we look to give you a taste of Mr Cohen – his views on life, women and songwriting; his extraordinary influence on modern songwriting; his legacy, and, of course, “Hallelujah”!  A world that never had Leonard Cohen in it would be a much lesser place indeed.  Jeff gives us his holiday report on a visit to...

Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” – one of the biggest hit albums of all time - also marks a quantum change in how rock music was marketed and sold.    Brought up as part of The Jackson 5, Michael saw himself as an entertainer crossing musical genres and categories. He almost single-handedly made music videos into a serious art form. In those days, with typical video budgets around $50k, the video for...

Marianne Faithfull's journey from 60's elfin-voiced beauty to grande-dame of rock music has given us some wonderful music, including Broken English, inspired by the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang.   We look at her career, focusing on what this album meant for her. Many may know the title-track single, but the album brings a bunch of stunning tracks we know you’re going to really enjoy dis...

In 1975, “Pampered Menial” was released to 5-star critical ratings. It was not a commercial success. However, in the years since, it has become a gem, possibly one of the greatest albums of the 70’s!  David Surkamp’s surreal 4-octave voice has been compared to Robert Plant.  Matched with Siegfried Carver's violin and Steve Scorfina's guitar, it creates a stunning work of art – intricate...

 As a special treat, this episode features four tasty albums from the golden age of Rock.    Rick Wakeman’s “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”, accused of hastening the arrival of punk, and of justifying the need for it, ultimately sold over 14 million copies.  Go figure!  “Not Fragile” by Bachman Turner Overdrive, topped the charts in USA and Australia proclaiming that “you ain’t seen nothin’ y...

 Nico – one-time member of The Velvet Underground - is an enigma in modern rock music.   Despite her wide-ranging influence, her music is not for the faint-hearted.  Mick saw Nico at the Sydney Trade Union Club in 1986 and it was a concert unlike any other. She's not for everybody, or even most people, but have a listen, you’ll hear something new and might just broaden your view on the rest o...

In 1989, Lou Reed released his tour de force, “New York”.    Many see this album as part of Reed’s holy trinity of spectacular albums - “Velvet Underground & Nico”, “Berlin” and “New York”. Commercially & artistically successful, this album took everything back to basics, and Reed himself was quoted as saying, “This is as good as it gets – two guitars, bass and drums”. Mick and Jeff both l...

Vanilla Ice was the first artist to lose all his earnings from a hit through lawyers suing for copyright infringement.  In a story with more twists than an Agatha Christie novel, all the profit from the first “rap” single to top the charts was gobbled up by lawyers, after Vanilla Ice sampled "Under Pressure" without clearance from Bowie or Queen.  This story's found in an excellent...

This episode, we look at Ed Kuepper, whose fame sadly does not match in any way his contribution to rock’n’roll!  Bursting out of Brisbane in the mid-70's, Ed helped found The Saints, one of the key influences on punk.  Tiring of The Saints, he created The Laughing Clowns, before launching into a solo career interspersed with stints in The Aints and The Bad Seeds.  The “Album You Must Hear be...

Do you remember the best show you’ve ever seen?  How about the worst?  Mick and Jeff talk about what makes a great show and relive some of the best (and worst) they’ve seen.   Our Album You Must Hear Before You Die is “The B-52s” self-titled first album from 1979.  This high-energy album smashed the B-52s onto the world stage while looking like escapees from the Rocky Horror Show!  To top it all o...

More than any band we’ve covered in over 50 episodes, this band has delivered us the most blank looks! “Never heard of them!”, people say! So, we thought we’d remedy this serious hole in people’s musical appreciation by looking at one of the most exciting but overlooked musical occurrences of the 70’s.  The Sensational Alex Harvey Band (SAHB) could only have existed during the 70’s, and possibly o...

We sometimes forget just how talented The Police - Sting, Stewart Copeland, Andy Summers - actually were. They arrived in the late-70's, merging elements of Reggae, New Wave & Punk.  Their sound -  simple, lean (bass, drums, guitar), well-produced - still sounds fresh, with songs like “Roxanne”, “Message in a Bottle”, and “Walking on the Moon”.   We saw them live at the Hordern Pavilion b...

The Smiths are, unarguably, one of the finest bands produced by Britain (or anywhere).  Mick rates their third album,  "The Queen is Dead", as one of the most exceptional albums ever made.  We talk about where they came from, their influences, and why they are still popular today, over thirty years after they split.    Jeff brings you up to speed on recent rock deaths, talking about Jeff...

 How often have you heard of an artist being labelled “over-rated”? Did it strike you as fair, or just a subjective, lazy way to insult artists you don’t like? Mick & Jeff look at the concept of ‘over-rated’ as a way of describing artists, and consider whether certain artists ARE, in fact, over-rated, and, if so, why or why not?   Our album you MUST Listen to Before You Die is “Bossanova” by t...

It’s St Valentine’s Day, and a chance for Jeff to show his sensitive side!  Other than cars and protest songs, rock’n’roll is ALL ABOUT love songs! We talk about love songs, songs about sex, songs mourning lost love, break-up songs, songs that aren't really about love at all, and look at a couple of massive hits that are best considered rubbish.  Our Album You Must Hear Before You Die is one...

 Mick and Jeff are back for a new season! The music world is focussed on the hit, the chart-topper, the NUMBER ONE! But simply getting onto the charts signifies a certain amount of commercial success, doesn’t it?  We kick off with a look at some of the many songs that didn’t make it to the top of the charts, and see if they got different results in either the UK, US or Australia. Jeff brings us up...

A recap of the highlights of 2 years & 45 episodes of this podcast!  Talked about more than 300 artists, shows, and albums - who could ask for more?  They’ve recorded in some of Australia's most remote parts of Australia, regularly bad-mouthed Jeff Buckley, and decided that Alice Cooper was a pretty good guy despite his music after “Welcome to my Nightmare” being pretty terrible!  The Rol...

Midnight Oil ("The Oils") are one of Australia's most-loved bands.  Their solid political streak – Indigenous rights, the environment and nuclear disarmament, to name a few – sits well with a hard-earned reputation for red-hot live shows. Mick and Jeff look back at all the times they’ve seen Midnight Oil live, and the impact their music has had on Australian culture.    Jeff’s Rant...

Joe Cocker was a staple of the rock world for around 50 years. His career took off with two songs gifted him by The Beatles (“She Came in Through the Bathroom Window”, “With A Little Help from My Friends”) and a brilliant cover of The Box Tops’ “The Letter”, and was almost destroyed by the "Mad Dogs and Englishmen" tour, album and film.      This week’s “Album You Must Listen to Before Y...

T he Go-Betweens were a great Aussie band of the 80’s - they wrote erudite world-weary songs about life and their loves with zilch success for their efforts.  Their style, a mix of Velvet Underground's 3rd album’s gritty simplicity, Bob Dylan’s narrative skills and Television’s clear production highlighting guitar never brought them the success that their talent deserved. We did, though, find...

As John  Lennon said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans".  With so much going on, it’s easy to miss some fabulous music for one reason or another.  This episode, the boys talk about some great stuff that never quite bothered the charts.  Groups like Ultravox!, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Godfathers, Magazine, Death in Vegas and The Sisters of Mercy offer you...

Something a little different for you this episode, as we return from our mid-season break.  How many times have you had the discussion “Who’s the best guitarist/ singer/ drummer/etc”?  We’ve taken that discussion one step further and taken all our favourites and put them together into one HUGE supergroup. Only one rule:  Anybody selected must be alive – that rules out Hendrix as lead guitarist!  A...

Genesis Redone   The 2021 COVID lockdowns meant we couldn’t get together to record.  This really impacted the sound quality on a couple of episodes, particularly the one about Genesis (Season 1 Ep 15) So, we’ve re-recorded that episode.  The key facts are the same, but because our podcasts are a conversation and we don’t work from a tight script, it’s basically a new episode.  If you've liste...

Peter Gabriel, one-time member of Genesis, is an English musician who is renowned for powerful, innovative, "intelligent" music.  When Gabriel left Genesis in 1975, after the album The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway , he stunned fans and critics alike by teaming up with Bob Ezrin (Lou Reed, Pink Floyd, Kiss, Alice Cooper) to produce the album known as “Car”, a disparate collection of songs –...

We look at Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” (1973) one of the most important and influential albums of the modern rock period.  An album with serious lyrics, tight ensemble playing from the band, and cover art as good as it gets, this album marks a high point for Elton John.  In his career of over 50 years, he may have matched, but never bettered, this album.  We also look at the 80’s, whi...