The Corona Diaries

And we're back... It seems like an age since we were chatting festive b*llocks with Chris Neil, and yet TCD has only actually been away for a week. Did you have a nice break? We are looking back a little this week as we focus on the Oxford Show from the 18th December. If you watched the livestream (or indeed were there in person) you will know that Ant took to the stage for a bit of TCD bants just...

OK, lets gets the bad news out of the way first, this is the last Corona Diaries chapter of 2021. Ant & I have decided to have a week off over the festive period, but we will be back ready to pick up the baton in the new year. And so to the good news: As promised we bring you a full-on Christmas Special to close out the year. The legend that is Chris Neil (d.o.b Dec24) joins us for an extended...

Tuesday 7th December, Chez Hogarth (cont'd). Half way through recording what would eventually become Chapter 85, Ant had the idea that we should keep riffing on the subject of .Com and see if it would offer enough 'gold' to stretch over two episodes. So we did. And at the end of the session we felt confident that we had easily achieved that in terms of quantity, working on the assumption that the...

Tuesday 7th December, Chez Hogarth. Ant happened to be in the vicinity and so we hatched a plan to record Chapter 85 with both of us in the same room. Face to face, either side of the kitchen table. What could possibly go wrong... The answers (for there are a few) in no particular order are Cardboard, Roof Bars, Muted Trumpeteers and a Christmas Moose. But we are dogged in our determination to bri...

This one's for you Jackie Blear from Leigh, Lancashire. You have probably forgotten, but you posted a question on the guest book page at stevehogarth.com and Ant was quite taken with it. Consequently we took it, ran with it and mangled it into a whole TCD sized chat. I won't say any more because it will give the game away, but congrats Jackie on bringing about a fair amount of head-scratching, bea...

The plan for TCD 83 was that we were going to chat about mixtapes, because Ant had the idea that back in the day I would probably have put together a new mix for a two week road-trip. And to be fair he is quite right. Back in the day it would probably have been a TDK C90, purchased in a three pack from Woolworths, and it would have been one of the Chrome ones. I went with the better quality ones a...

Greetings from the road! Well we just about managed it. From a hotel room in Cardiff, via a bit of piano onstage and a fair amount of knob tweaking in my tour bunk comes this weeks instalment of The Corona Diaries (sadly this work-flow took it's toll on the audio quality a bit as we were fighting with unhelpful recording spaces so please bear with us). Of course, to complicate matters further, we...

Chapter 81 is a bit of an exercise in tying up the loose ends. There has been a fair bit of information coming your way over the last couple of episodes and Ant wanted to follow up on a few bits. So (and in no particular order) we had a crack at...; A little bit about John Helmer's band The Piranhas and their claim to fame. A bit of an update from Thomas Olsson regarding Isildurs Bane Some trivia...

You are of course aware that we try and pull out the stops a bit when we get to a chapter with a nought in it, and for this landmark episode I think we have totally nailed it. I know Ant was a little nervous, and I have to admit a few flutters myself as we tried to keep up with our guest John Helmer, lyricist, musician, author, podcaster and all round impressive human being. Of course we needn't h...

It's a proper go at edu-tainment this week, by which I mean that this weeks chapter of TCD aims to inform as it entertains, or even entertains whilst trying to inform. To be honest I am not sure which way around it should be, the point is we were shooting for both. So how does it inform I hear you cry. Well. How many times can you work a reasonable gag, before you have to let it go. And if you can...

After numerous false starts we finally got back on message for chapter 78, and picked up the threads of the Radiation story. To help with this Ant thought it might be useful to have some cerebral stimulation, so we used the Wikipedia page for the album as a starting point for our chat. This actually proved to be moderately successful and we were able to pretty much confirm the contents of the page...

Almost a tale of two tours this week, if you don't mind the ol' nod in the direction of Charlie D. After the opening salvo of infected teens, and DIY insurance we moved on to talking about the current state I find myself in, namely taking the week to do some pre-reheasal prep. Now you might be thinking that the phrase pre-rehearsal seems like an oxymoron, but in my world it means listening to MP3...

It's all about the diary this week, because that also makes it all about the h Band. February 1997 saw the first incarnation of the h Band take to stages around Europe for a short but near-legendary tour. We touched on it a little bit last week, but it seemed only right that it got a bit more attention - bearing in mind it would be such a fleeting reference. But we packed a lot into those few days...

**you will have to insert the sound of klaxons in your head** Would you believe it we have only gone and got to seventy five...?!! Initially we kept the celebrations on the down-low, preferring to cancel the ticker tape parade in favour of dog-whispering, junior football training & band-based-beard-stroking. But as the evening shadows stretched themselves I donned some suitable knitwear, Ant o...

Not only was I in the room at the time, but I have also listened back to Chapter 74 and I am still not entirely sure how it happened. 74 was supposed to be about Radiation, Ant had flagged that as being the plan and we had gone as far as stating for the record we were going to stop waffling and get to the good stuff. I am still at a loss therefore to understand how we spent the next 29 minutes tal...

It wasn't supposed to be an Epic this week. It was supposed to be the first chapter focussing in on the album Radiation. If you are a regular listener (and if you aren't then where have you been?) you will know that we are kind of working through the albums at our own pace. Ant asks me a bit about the whole writing/recording/mixing process and I add a smattering of colour to the best of my recolle...

We've all done it, haven't we. Made a real effort and gone to town with your outfit because you are convinced you are going to be greeted off a train by an international TV crew, only to find yourself in the custody of the authorities in sub-zero temperatures with nothing more than a wooden bench and a pocket sequencer. Of course if you are in the (small) minority that hasn't experienced that sort...

This is one of those chapters of TCD that actually moves the whole kit and caboodle on a few notches, whilst also setting up what comes next. It's that bit in the movie that normally happens about 30 minutes in, when you have found out a bit about the main characters and one of them neatly explains what has really happened so far and what the hero is going to do to fix it. Or the bit in the play w...

So it turns out my new favourite thing is that, whenever we get to an episode of TCD that ends in a zero Dave Meegan turns up! And that of course is both a real treat and very, very cool… And of course it allowed Ant to go to town, honing in on the mixing process of This Strange Engine before turning to Dave’s memories of writing & recording Anoraknaphobia. It’s a bit of an epic, and it’s rich...

A little bit of a departure this week, as it's a bit of a themed episode. For those that support the show on Patreon (or 'purples' as they have become known) Ant & I produce an extra couple of pieces of content every month. The Odds n'Sodcast , which contains excerpts of unpublished diary as well as other peeks behind the curtain and the Guest Book Q&A which is where I answer those questio...

Pete’s Easy Soda Bread   Ingredients 375g bread flour. (I use half Wholemeal, half White)  1 Dessert Spoon of Caster Sugar 1 Teaspoon of Bicarbonate of Soda 1/2 Teaspoon of Salt 284ml Carton of Buttermilk 1 Egg Method Heat oven to 180 Degrees Centigrade.  Cover baking tray with baking parchment.  Whisk egg.  Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix well.  Turn out on...

"Well he is nothing if not persistent...?!" Ant has one final go at trying to tie up all the loose ends in the story of 1996, choosing to focus this time on Album Artwork, how song publishing works & the decision to use email as a comms tool. And true to form I wanted to talk about my new two bruises, swiping at people with a velvet gauntlet on the village green and the strange north/south div...

And we're back and having another go at making some sense of what happened in 1996... So after a little bit of feedback on matters outstanding from Chapter 65 (thanks to Sarah, Darren, Rich, Adam & Julie) Ant was determined to get me organised. To be fair he had a pretty good go at eliciting some background on Made Again, and when we had (soon) exhausted that particular topic he came back swin...

It would be fair to say it took us a little while to find our collective oeuvre this week. What with the heat, and the excitement of ‘freedom day’ getting down to the business of recording a public service podcast was a little protracted. But like the pair of old pros that we are, we settled into a discussion about 1996. That particular year turned out to be quite a full-on period for the band, bo...

So we finally got around to talking about Books. "Why books?" I hear you cry.... Well, Ant has had it in his head that he wanted to chat about books ever since Leo Tolstoy kept coming up in the diary sections. I had been working my way through War & Peace on the tour bus and it took him back to a conversation we had had about the first few pages of Peter Pan. So for 64 we have tried to uncover...