The Great Divide - The Big Country Podcast

Tom and Svein continue their dissection of The Buffalo Skinners. This episode takes them from "Long Way Home" through "Ships." Listener SpeakPipes are also played.

Tom and Svein jump into another one of their notorious album deep-dives. This time they delve into The Buffalo Skinners from 1993, and after nearly two hours they have managed to cover four of the songs on the album. Yes - the guys are back in usual style!

It's the return of the roundtable! Tom and Svein sit down with three new guests - Cara Cuiule, Jason Allen and Tim Eldred - to talk about the band's landmark Buffalo Skinners album. This will lead up to a series of deep dive episodes from Tom and Svein. We talk about the musical climate of the time, what we were hoping for from the album, memories of first listening experiences, the tour and much...

It's that time of year again. Svein and Tom sit down in their respective palatial estates to ruminate on the meaning of the holiday season, to discuss the year that was, the year that may yet be and the years that may not be what was once again. Or something like that. Tom and Svein also select five bands each they discovered through their love of Big Country. Sometimes the connections are obvious...

Kirsten Adamson joins us for an in-depth discussion about her debut self-titled album. For the synaptically challenged among you, that means it's called "Kirsten Adamson." We go through the album track by track to glean Kirsten's insights on the songs from both a writing and production standpoint. We also ask her to rate the weirdness factor of fans of her dad's band who've been aware of her since...

Tom returns to the show after a five month absence just in time to celebrate the fiftieth episode of the podcast. Svein and Tom discuss current happenings in Big Country land and receive a congratulatory message from a special guest. Well, special to Tom and Svein, anyway. After 30 years, thanks to a Polish listener, Tom learns how to pronounce Mark's last name. Well, maybe. Then the hosts tackle...

Svein and special guesting co-host CJ Wade take a look at Big Country cover versions and do a top 10 countdown of their favourites. They discover significant discrepancies in their lists. They also look at the recent line-up changes in the band.

Svein and Arlin are back with the second and final part of their track-by-track discussion on Tony Butler's 1997 solo album The Great Unknown.

Svein and guest co-host Arlin Bartels take a look at Tony Butler's activities during Big Country's hiatus in 1997, including the launch of Great Western Records and his first solo album The Great Unknown. The episode contains the first part of a track-by-track discussion of the album.

Tom and Svein, with JfnG occasionally contributing from Tom's hallway, take a closer look at the band's recent, current and possible near future activities. What's been going on, what is going on, and what are we hoping to see in the future? The guys also take a closer look at the crowdsourcing model and discuss if/how this would fit for Big Country.

This is NOT an episode of The Great Divide podcast. Episode 46 will be coming soon. Although Tom and Svein are present and doing their usual thing here, the discussion centers around Tom's new CD, "We Were Here." This is a one-off tangent to the plot that we (especially Tom) hope you won't begrudge us for. We'll be back with regular programming very soon. In the meantime, perhaps some of you will...

As promised, we play the fan-created, fan-driven audiobook of "A Certain Chemistry" in its entirety. Thanks to Tim Eldred for spearheading this great project, and to all those who lent their wonderful voices.

Tom and Svein are back, with special guest Tim Eldred. The three discuss the classic Big Country book "A Certain Chemistry," leading into a discussion about Tim's idea to create a DIY audiobook of the publication using fellow BC fans from around the globe. The audiobook will be played in its entirety in Episode 45.

Tom and Svein look back on the year, answer listener questions, and reveal the moments listeners ranked as their favorites in 2014. Also, a BC cover song is performed by Svein! Happy Holidays to all!

Part 3 of our ongoing Steeltown discussion. Once again ... we only make it through two songs on this one. Looks like we're gonna need a bigger podcast. However, this episode DOES feature a musical exclusive for the show.

The fourth and FINAL part of the Steeltown Deep Dive. Once again, only two songs are covered, but they are covered .... deeply. Stay tuned at the end for some great selections from a 1984 concert from early in the Steeltown tour. Phew! Time for a break.

In this super-sized, extra large episode, Tom and Svein continue their meticulous analysis of Steeltown, track by track. And after two hours, they're STILL not done.

Tom and Svein begin their meticulous analysis of Steeltown, track by track.

Tom and Svein play your SpeakPipe submissions on what Steeltown means to you. We also read some of the bad reviews that coincided with the albums release and let you know what we think of them.

In a first for the show, Tom and Svein welcome three fellow fans - Arlin Bartels, CJ Wade and Kenny Henderson - to discuss what Steeltown meant to us when it was first released and what it continues to mean to us today.

Tom and Svein discuss what's new in BC-land, including their reviews of the new Big Country remasters of "The Seer," "Peace in Our Time" and "No Place Like Home."

Tom and Svein continue their Top Ten countdown of their favorite Big Country videos of all time.

This is a special PSA from The Great Divide, alerting our listeners to the petition designed to convince Universal Music to release the fabled Robin Millar mix of The Seer, which has recently been discovered to still be in Universal's hands. To convince them to release it, we ALL must act.

Tom and Svein begin their Top Ten countdown of their favorite Big Country videos of all time.

In part 2 of our exclusive interview with Mark Brzezicki, Mark discusses a wide variety of topics, from the DTD era to his use of an ash tray on the recording of "Steeltown" to fighting with Bruce to get the drums back in the mix on "The Journey." Great stuff from the world's greatest drummer.