The James McMahon Music Podcast

Despite long being positioned on the frontline of some of British rock’s most eccentric excursions – first with the much missed Reuben , then in his increasingly valued solo guise – I’ve never actually interviewed Jamie Lenman , whose new album The Atheist is released this Friday (25/11) on the consistently ace Big Scary Monsters records. Until now that is. I was nervous about speaking to him. I’l...

I’m talking to one of my heroes on this episode. And one of the voices that introduced me to indie music, and in turn someone who set me up for the life I’ve lived since my early teenage years. If you’re of an age – my age – broadcaster, TV presenter and DJ, and a whole lot more besides, Gary Crowley , was the UK’s voice of indie for a time, and since he’s put his name to an excellent new compilat...

First things first, have you joined the Substack yet? It’s Monday. I won’t hang about. The new Gogol Bordello album – their eighth – is an absolute rager. It’s called Solidaritine and it sees the gypsy punks connect with their roots like never before. It was produced by hardcore legend Walter Schreifels , it features HR from Bad Brains, it has a Fugazi cover on it for Christsake! But there’s also...

When George Michael released his debut solo work, 1987’s Faith , he embarked on a musical career that was always interesting, often very exciting, and testimony to the pop brilliance the most attuned had always heard in him from the moment his prior group, Wham! , had come roaring out of Bushey, Hertfordshire, in 1981. It’s a very good record. A very sexy one too, with secrets and treasures contai...

The Northern Lights, Nokia, The Moomins . Finland has a lot going for it. And yet perhaps the shiniest jewel in its crown is that of one Ville Valo , until 2017 the singer in the goth pop phenomenon HIM , thereafter – and under the initials VV – the sleek solo artist he had always threatened to be. Ville releases his debut solo album Neon Noir on January 13th, 2023, via Spinefarm and on this episo...

Some of the most fun concerts I’ve seen – and I imagine I ever will see – were some of the first on British soil by The Hidden Cameras twenty odd years ago. Lush instrumentation; communal, pseudo religious sing-a-longs; go-go dancers; and men in balaclavas dancing in their underpants. At the peak of their powers, as they were right out of the gate, The Hidden Cameras were some band. Now there’s a...

Giant Drag were one of the most exciting bands of the mid-00s indie rock scene, and their singer, the cherubic Annie Hardy , was one of the most interesting rockstars around. Their debut album, 2005’s Hearts And Unicorns , is as good as debut records get, really, all neo grunge sass and indie pop pout – with an awesome, heart swelling cover of Chris Isaak’s ‘ Wicked Game ’ tagged on to it to boot....

Join the Substack ! Asylums , from Essex, are one of the most relentlessly creative bands around. Now on their fourth record, the recently released Signs of Life , available now on the group’s own Cool Thing Records , their take on being in a band is uniquely modern, progressive and unlike anyone else doing anything else that I am aware of.  Singer/guitarist Luke Branch is some songwriter too – al...

If, like me, you’re of the opinion that the only things that really matter in life are pop music and football , you may well be aware of the writing of one Nige Tassell , who has written brilliantly over the course of a number of acclaimed tomes, about both. His newest book, out now on Nine Eight books – who really should be paying us for the number of times they get namedropped on this podcast –...

Michael Price is an Emmy Award winning composer and pianist. You’ve undoubtably heard his work on the BBC’s Sherlock , ITV’s Unforgotten , and the 2020 Dracula series written by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat that I’ve been obsessed with – no seriously, I must have watched it ten times now - since the moment it aired. In and amongst that he’s worked on the Paul W.S. Anderson cult space horror Event...

Tom Doyle has been one of my favourite British rock critics for as long as I remember. A regular contributor to Mojo and the forever missed Q , his book, The Glamour Chase , about the late Associates singer Billy Mackenzie, remains one of the finest bits of writing about music that I’ve ever read. And now he's got a new book out, Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush , recently releas...

Firstly, have you joined the Substack yet? If you’re of an age, and you came to that age sometime during the mid-to-late 90s, and you’re a fan of punky indie rock, and you read the music press – NME , Melody Maker and Kerrang! – each and every Wednesday, maybe you listened to the Evening Session on BBC Radio One , perhaps you were a barfly at your local toilet venue, maybe nothing mattered more to...

I heard the new Anti-Flag record the other day. The 13th full length from the legendary Pittsburgh punks isn’t actually due until January 6th, 2023, and yet because podcasters get special privileges – loads of cash, global fame, diminished eyesight from editing in Audacity for a several hours of the day – I got a copy early, and I’m happy to report that it’s a rager. Entitled Lies They Tell Our Ch...

Eagle-eyed fans of this podcast will have noticed that I published an episode that saw me in conversation with Soul Asylum the other day. Well, with fellow 90s alt.heroes Everclear touring in the UK next month, alongside that band, what now follows is a conversation with the latter group's singer, guitarist and sole constant, Art Alexakis . This is an excellent episode, largely due to Art bei...

Before January 6th, 2021, and the Capitol attack , insurrection, riots, or whatever you want to call it, Ariel Pink was a critically adored indie rock musician, who, in my humble opinion, made some of the most interesting records of the modern era. Afterwards? Not so much. He wasn’t actually part of the riots, but that doesn’t matter in a world where truth is at a premium, and in the year and then...

Slightly different episode for you today pop fans. Will Hodgkinson , if you’re not already aware, is the Chief rock and pop critic for The Times newspaper. He’s written about music for The Guardian , Mojo and Vogue , and he has been, for as long as I’ve known, one of the smartest voices on rock ‘n’ roll around. And he’s just written a new book, called In Perfect Harmony: Singalong Pop In 70s Brita...

Have you joined the Substack yet? This episode is a conversation with Dave Pirner, from Soul Asylum , about hanging out with Bill Clinton , the Minneapolis music scene and punk beginnings, mental illness, the tragic death of bassist and founding member Karl Mueller , unlikely collaborations with histrionic Dutch metallers Within Temptation , and, how the video for the band’s breakthrough hit, 1993...

I cannot even begin tell you just how obsessed I was with the pop band Blur when I was a teenager. And so it was extremely exciting to get the opportunity to speak to that band’s guitarist, Graham Coxon – who was always my favourite – for this edition of the podcast (and for a bigger newspaper article coming soon). I’ve interviewed Graham before, years ago, in my NME days, in a coffee shop in Camd...

Hello! So, you might have noticed that I talk about OCD quite a lot on the show. It’s a condition that I’ve lived with all my adult life, and sadly, it’s been as pertinent to my career as a music journalist as music has been. In fact, it’s something I’m writing a lot about right now, so stay tuned for that - though you should really join my Substack ! But it occurs to me that some of you might not...

Have you joined the Spoookstak ? It’s October. It’s spooky season. It is, as they say, the most wonderful time of the year. And so, what better time to repopulate this interview I did a few years back, for my old Spoook podcast, with Spencer Charnas from Ice Nine Kills ! If you don’t know the Boston band, they fuse horror and hard rock and are one of the most fun live experiences to be found withi...

I thought I’d repopulate this interview I did with Jeff Wayne for the old Spoook podcast that I used to do way back when. Conducted during the misery of lockdown, the audio isn’t great – I really didn’t know what I was doing when it came to making podcasts back then – and yet it really is one of the most enjoyable conversations I’ve had with a musician ever. I’ve been a fan of Jeff Wayne’s Musical...

For almost twenty years now, The Sheepdogs , from Saskatchewan, Canada, have made some of the best classic, seventies fried rock ‘n' roll known to man, woman or beast – and their new album, their seventh, released in June and entitled Outta Sight , is as good a collection of songs as they’ve released to date. This is another interview I conducted a few months back, when the weather was ridicu...

Do you think a rock band can be cursed? Sounds unfeasible to the rational mind, but how else do you explain No Devotion , the group containing ex-members of Lostprophets and sometime Thursday singer Geoff Rickly ? Their band was literally born from unspeakable horror, their singer has navigated drug addiction and an extraordinary union with the notorious pharma bro Martin Shkreli – and I’d like to...

Parkway Drive played London last night. I couldn’t make it, but I did manage to grab frontman Winston McCall for a pre-soundcheck chat about the worrying statement that led to his group's cancelation of their north American tour earlier this year. “The relentless nature of being in this band has given us very little time to reflect on who we are as individuals, who we want to be and the toll...

Join the Spoookstak ! So, you know that Embrace interview I uploaded the other day? The one I’d done a month or so back, in the stifling heat of a vicious, ice cap melting UK summer? The one I’d left the window at Spoook Towers open during – not something I normally do, but I was genuinely fearful that I would melt and become more puddle than man if I didn’t.  Well, this episode – with Badly Drawn...