Underdog Musik Podcast - Between the Hits: Pop Music Stories 1960-1990

Take a peek into the sources I used for the Mick Taylor podcast 'Why Talent Alone Fails' through a fascinating look at the life and work of Nick Kent. This podcast highlights Nick's writing and the impact it had on me while sourcing material for the review of British rock music through the 70s. The cast of characters Nick Kent came into contact with was inexhaustible, but non more mind-boggling th...

Joan Jett like Philip Marlowe shouldn’t exist in her time. Both are out of sorts in their era. They are outside of their time, timeless heroes. “ She brought menace and I bought a lot of pop sensibility,” producer Kenny Laguna said about her album debut. Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna’s take on Joan and Kenny’s unlikely musical partnership is, “ You mix that together and you've got a Molotov cocktai...

Members have recently enjoyed exclusive access to part 2 of my Mick Taylor album review, here is a taste. For anyone who is interested in free or full membership check out our channel on Patreon. In Part 2 we look at how Mick Taylor could have produced a very good debut album to launch his solo career. I've done as much coulda, shoulda, woulda as anyone else when I wanted a favourite artist to kno...

The band's unique ability to blend intellectual depth with compelling musical innovation was central to their enduring appeal and mystique. Letter Never Sent is the eighth song on REM’s second album Reckoning. It's a typical REM song with its faint air of melancholy. While it has a brash post-punk riff driving it in the verses, it goes into a wistful and mysterious chorus. Loose © 2026 RolloGuitar...

When Mick Taylor joined the Stones in 1969 he unwittingly entered into a psychodrama that would define his time in the band. He was the anti Brian Jones. Taylor is not a casualty of the sinister allure of the Rolling Stones. He got out just in time, but had to come terms with his own musical journey. The next episode, Mick Taylor: Why Talent Alone Fails, Pt.2 will be available to free and paying m...

Whatever rock n roll had been up to that point in 1966, Cream’s approach was different. Cream formed because band leaders no longer had the power they once had, the players were the stars. Loose © 2026 RolloGuitar/RJ Tosha

A causal conversation backstage followed by the ramshackle organisation of recording sessions in May of 1970. A blues concept album. A legendary Delta bluesman playing with rock stars in London. If 300lbs, 6ft 3inch, cranky blues singers make you nervous, please take note; anything could happen when Eric Clapton cuts a record with Howlin' Wolf.

Nick Drake is a musician who inspires devotion. True believers like Joe Boyd, his producer, sold his production company to Island Records on the condition that Drake’s albums never be deleted from the Island catalog. The Making of Five Leaves Left, documenting the creation of Drake’s debut, is for super fans. Some of these recordings have had an extraordinary history themselves, kept by friends wh...

The improbably titled Between The Buttons , was the Stones’ crack at expanding their musical palette. It’s an album they felt they had to make for fear of being left behind. Personally, Brian was in a combustible relationship with Italian-German actress Anita Pallenberg and in a spiralling crisis that would claim his life within 30 months. Loose © 2026 RolloGuitar/RJ Tosha