Only Three Lads - Classic Alternative Music Podcast

It's the most wonderful time of the year...Record Store Day! Record Store Day is on Saturday, April 22, 2023. It's a day to celebrate the cultural importance of independent record stores around the world. Since 2007, RSD has been a tradition for thousands of music nerds...err, collectors...with an ever-growing list of exclusive releases. This year is a particularly epic year, with a bevy of albums...

On April 2, 2023, the music world lost a pivotal figure in Seymour Stein. As a teenager, Stein worked for Billboard Magazine and was instrumental in the development of the standard bearer for measuring pop music success in the United States, the Billboard Hot 100 chart. In 1966, Stein co-founded Sire Records with Richard Gottherer. In the earliest days of the label, much of their focus was on brin...

Ahh, the sweet sounds of jangle pop... This week, we cover the subgenre near and dear to Brett's heart. It's also the subgenre that brings back fond memories of drinking and debauchery for Uncle Gregg (to be fair, what doesn't?). Drawing from the well of The Beatles, The Byrds, The Searchers, The Hollies, and other '60s predecessors, jangle pop continued to thrive throughout the O3L era (1974-1999...

We make sure everything is in its right place this week, because we're talking about the albums with the best track sequencing. Like a great book or movie, a great record has an artistically satisfying beginning, middle and ending.  We go waaaaaaaay back with the music of this week's Third Lad...like two, maybe three weeks? During our recent Animal Songs episode, Graham Kemp from Urusei Yatsura ch...

This week, we take a look back at the incredible albums of 1978. In a year when Uncle Gregg was just playing with his squeezebox and Brett was gettin' down to Sesame Street Fever, our Third Lad Jim Basnight was right in the thick of the Seattle music scene. 1978 was the year Basnight's power pop combo The Moberlys formed, straddling the line between melodic Beatlesque songcraft and tightly wound,...

When it comes to Vince Clarke, we just can't get enough (was that too obvious?).  So "don't go" anywhere (how 'bout that one?)! Born Vincent John Martin on July 3, 1960 in South Woodford, Essex, England, Vince Clarke is a classically trained musician who got the bug to make electronic music after hearing Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark in the late ‘70s, which led to the formation of a band with...

  This week, we unleash the beasts and spotlight songs that reference animals in the title...for example, the 1997 UK Top 40 hit "Hello Tiger" by Scottish lo-fi indie rock band band Urusei Yatsura. It's a happy coincidence, then, that our Third Lad this week is none other than singer/songwriter/guitarist GRAHAM KEMP from URUSEI YATSURA!   Urusei Yatsura was formed in Glasgow 30 years ago this week...

Oh my stars!  This week, we get totally far out as we discuss some of our top songs of the era with a space theme.  It's totally out of this world. We cover a lot of ground...or space, as the case may be, since we determined that we've traveled hundreds of thousands of miles just during the course of the episode.  Yes, that's just one of several space facts that you will learn.  Also: We celebrate...

#$@% yeah, it's another ^#%* episode of Only Three Lads!  And it's Uncle Gregg's $#!@-tastic birthday, and he'll ^@$& if he wants to! This week, we use a lot of four letter words...but it's not nearly as tawdry as you think.  We're covering songs with four letters in the title.   Plus: Uncle Gregg is unemployed!  Fee Waybill's #*@%!  Vampelephants! Our O3L Spotlight Artist of the Week is Nottingha...

For our landmark 150th episode, we bring you an episode that made Brett so giddy that he nearly piddled.  That's right, folks, our Third Lad this week is none other than Phil Wilson from seminal UK indie pop band The June Brides.   During their initial run from 1983 - 1986, The June Brides released some of the most beloved singles of the era and the chart-topping album There Are Eight Million Stor...

Three is a magic number, yes it is...and good thing it is, because this week we take a look at our top musical trios of the O3L era. Appropriately enough, our Third Lads are The Monkey Power Trio (who are actually five guys, but we only got three of them...so that counts as a trio, right?!?).  The MPT have a fascinating slant, as band member Dan Richardson told us: "We are the Monkey Power Trio, a...

A-HA!  We go "back to the future" to 1985 to discuss our Top 5 Songs from that incredible year.  In many ways, 1985 was the heart of the BIG 80s...big hair, big, loud day-glo imagery, big booming snare drums, big synth sounds, big hits.  On the other hand, 1985 was also a year filled with a lot of incredible indie pop, garage rock, neo-pysch and post-punk music. One of those bands was The Dentists...

Hey, all you young (and not-so-young) dudes. electric warriors, starmen, and foxes on the run!  If UK glam rock is your bag, then you'll definitely want to feel this noize and get it on with these 20th century boys.  Put on your electric boots and mohair suits because it's, it's a podcast blitz! Translation for the squares out there: we're talking about our Top 5 UK Glam & Glitter songs this week....

What's the first thing you think of when you hear the phrase "guitar riff"? Big, stadium filling, wall-rattling riffs like "Smoke On The Water", "Whole Lotta Love", "Iron Man" or "Brown Sugar"? Well, even if they're not as instantly recognizable as their classic rock brethren, we've got plenty of amazing displays of riffery (yeah, we realize that's not a real word, Webster's) going on in the class...

Hurrah!  It's a brand new O3L, where we discuss our Top 5 EPs & Mini-Albums with singer/songwriter Paul Handyside.  We love the EP, or Extended Play, perched somewhere in between a traditional single and a full length album.  Sometimes they compile album tracks or previous singles, and other times they are conceived as complete works designed to stand up on their own.  Either way, they're short, t...

It's time to kick off our 4th Golden Year in Fashion!  For our Season Premiere, the two not-so-Young Americans (uhhhhh, Dusty Satellites & Dani Turquoise) are joined by singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer Julian Shah-Tayler.  If it wasn't already apparent, the focus of this week's show is one of the most pivotal and influential figures in music history, David Bowie.  We take on the ne...

As we get ready for Season 4's launch, take a journey back to some of our earliest episodes during O3L Flashback Week!  We conclude our flashback series by bringing our most popular episode yet back into circulation, the "main" episode of our three part extravaganza with Love Tractor.  Not only are Love Tractor art rock pioneers and founding members of the legendary Athens, GA alternative scene, b...

As we get ready for Season 4's launch, take a journey back to some of our earliest episodes during O3L Flashback Week!  We had to do something cool for our 50th episode, and we can't think of anything cooler than having the Queen of Cool, Vanessa Briscoe Hay from Pylon, on O3L.  This highly influential band was called "the greatest arty party band" and "eons ahead of their time" by Rolling Stone,...

As we get ready for Season 4's launch, take a journey back to some of our earliest episodes during O3L Flashback Week!  We head to our super special Season 2 premiere, where we welcomed one of the most recognizable and legendary voices in alternative music, SiriusXM, radio and TV personality, author, screenwriter, game show contestant (and did we mention legend?) RICHARD BLADE.  The stories are in...

As we get ready for Season 4's launch, take a journey back to some of our earliest episodes during O3L Flashback Week!  Today, it's Season 1, Episode 37, where we had a lot of fun saluting the ladies of the classic alternative era - the trailblazers and the legends.  Along the way, we cover Bueno's celebrity crushes, Jepheads and Blinks, and debut our hot new country jam "Gotta Truck, Gotta Dog." ...

As we get ready for Season 4's launch, take a journey back to some of our earliest episodes during O3L Flashback Week!  Today, it's Season 1, Episode 29, where we discuss our Top 5 Various Artist Compilation Albums, and we've come up with (to quote an old K-Tel album) pure gold.  But wait...there's more!     You get these smashes and more: "Be Bueno" (12" Remix) "You'll Come Around, Gregg" "I'd Li...

As we get ready for Season 4's launch, take a journey back to some of our earliest episodes during O3L Flashback Week!  Season 1, Episode 24 was originally released on July 28, 2020, and it's one of those "off the rails" episodes.  Aside from discussing some of the greatest alternative music ever created, Uncle Gregg gives us a taste of movie cheese, Brett reveals his obvious mastery of a Dutch ac...

As we get ready for Season 4's launch, take a journey back to some of our earliest episodes during O3L Flashback Week!  Today we bring you Season 1, Episode 15, originally released on May 26, 2020.  The episode contains excerpts from our interview with the very first guest on O3L - Robert Vickers from The Go-Betweens.  What an incredible thrill that was too!  Whatever we have is yours, and it's ri...

As we get ready for Season 4's launch, take a journey back to some of our earliest episodes during O3L Flashback Week!  First up is the very beginning - Season 1, Episode 1, originally released on February 12, 2020.  Ah, the world was so innocent back then...and we were so awkward.  It's like looking back at an old yearbook.  So take this trip back down memory lane with us.  We recognize that you...

In our Season 3 finale, we spend another week outside of the normal O3L era to discuss our Top 5 Songs of 2022.  Not only that, but we have something really special for you, as our Third Lads this week are Sarah Cogan and Dylan Frankland from Toronto dream pop band Tallies.  Yes, that's right...the band behind the 2022 record Patina that Brett picked as his #1 album of the year last week. We cover...