E163: Evelyn McDonnell on Joan Didion + The Motels + Carla Bley R.I.P.

For this episode we're joined online from northwest Massachusetts by the legendary Byron Coley, champion of all things weird and non-mainstream. After describing his somewhat peripatetic childhood, our guest explains – very amusingly – why as a teenager he hated the Beatles and what led him eventually to the more subversive sounds of the Mothers of Invention and their ilk. A digression on the Grateful Dead – whose Jerry Garcia we lost 30 years ago this month – is followed by Byron's memories of first reading R. Meltzer and Nick Tosches in Crawdaddy! and Creem... and how a teaching assistant grad student inspired him to "write like you talk". After Barney reads from Byron's 1980 New York Rocker piece on Lydia Lunch's 8-Eyed Spy – prompting our guest's recall of first seeing her No Wave trailblazers Teenage Jesus & the Jerks live – we hear about his 1978 Rocker interview with the incomparable Captain Beefheart. This in turn leads to clips from Gary Lucas' audio interview with the artist born Don Van Vliet, recorded in January 1972. After a quick late '70s/early '80s detour via his temporarily adopted California, Byron talks about his return to the East Coast and his writing for Boston's Forced Exposure – not to mention his rather more lucrative "Underground" columns for Spin. In passing he explains how his friendship with Sonic Youth led to a declaration of war on Bob ("Dean of American Rock Critics") Christgau. We finish up by paying tribute to blue-eyed-soul man Terry Reid and beloved Salsa star Eddie Palmieri. Finally, Mark and Jasper talk us out with remarks on newly-added library pieces about the Legendary Stardust Cowboy (1968), Ronnie Wood and cronies (1974) and Lana Del Rey (2019). Many thanks to special guest Byron Coley. Find his book C'est La Guerre in all good bookshops and follow him on BlueSky @byroncoley.bsky.social. Pieces discussed: Way Out West With 8-Eyed Spy, Sonic Youth, Captain Beefheart: Grow Fins, Jason Gross interviews Byron Coley, Jerome John Garcia 1942-1995, The Grateful Dead: Burnout Sets In, The Exhumation of The Dead, Captain Beefheart audio, Terry Reid, Terry’s Funky Steamer, Eddie Palmieri: The Man Who Stirred Up Salsa, Top Tunes: the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, The Night Ron, Keith, Mac and Rod played a gig without falling over and Lana Del Rey Lives In America's Messy Subconscious.

For this episode we're joined by the excellent Val Mabbs, who talks to us about writing for Record Mirror in the late '60s and early '70s. We start with our guest's early life as a mod in Hertfordshire – and her memories of seeing the Who/the High Numbers in 1964/5. Val then explains how she got her foot in the door at the Mirror and recalls colleagues such as Norman Jopling, Charlie Gillett and Lon Goddard, not forgetting Peter Jones, the editor who first spotted her potential as an interviewer.  Val talks us through her encounters with such legends as Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and Marc Bolan (not to mention Status Quo, for whose double-denim "outfits" she can take indirect credit). En passant we hear clips from Chris Welch's 2005 audio interview with John Walker, surely the handsomest of the three Walker "Brothers" he first met in 1965. After Barney gives a nod to the week's free feature about Bob Dylan "going electric" at 1965's Newport Folk Festival, Val resumes her story and brings us up to the present day. We also pay tribute to the late Ozzy Osbourne and discuss the real origins of heavy metal. Finally, Mark and Jasper talk us out with remarks on newly-added library pieces about Graham Nash (1967), Lady Gaga (2012) and Billie Eilish (2019). Many thanks to special guest Val Mabbs. Pieces discussed: Jimi Hendrix: "Western Movie For Jimi" Says The Man Himself, T. Rex: Marc's science fiction film, John and Yoko: The Apple and the Grapefruit, The Walker Brothers' John Walker audio, Al Kooper: The On the Tracks Interview, How Bob Dylan And The Holy Trinity Changed Music Forever, Scene of the Crime: Bob Dylan at Newport, Elijah Wald: Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the '60s, Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne: How Black Was My Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne: Lord of the Wings, The Hollies: The change in Graham, Lady Gaga: The most extraordinary popstar Mark Ellen has ever met and Billie Eilish at Reading Festival.

In this episode we welcome novelist and screenwriter John Niven to "RBP Towers" to ask him about his career and his acclaimed novels. We start with the Wishing Stones, the post-C86 combo for whom John played guitar in the late '80s, and progress swiftly to the subject of his caustic 2008 classic Kill Your Friends — the UK's drug-riddled music industry, in which he toiled through the '90s. After John talks about his uncanny 2005 novella Music from Big Pink – inspired by the Band album of the same name — we switch to the week's featured artist (and vocal inspiration to The Band's Richard Manuel) Bobby "Blue" Bland. We then pivot to the sublime writing of Deep Blues author and New York Times pop critic Robert Palmer, who would have turned 80 this summer. We mark the 50th anniversary of the deeply unloved Metal Machine Music by listening to — and discussing clips from — a 1996 audio interview with the inimitably supercilious Lou Reed. Finally, we return to our guest's fiction and ask him about his brand-new novel The Fathers. Many thanks to special guest John Niven. His new novel The Fathers is published by Canongate and available now from all good bookshops. John Niven's Music from Big Pink: A Foreword, Bobby Blue Bland: Arrival!, Bobby Bland: This Time He's Here for Good, A Tribute To Bobby "Blue" Bland, Articles, interviews and reviews from Robert Palmer, Etta James: The Comeback of a Fifties R&B Star, The Sun King: Sam Phillips, Robert Palmer: Recording the Blues in North Mississippi, Steely Dan: Disaster and triumph in the Custerdome, Lou Reed audio, "Jellybean" Benitez and Arthur Baker: The Producers and George Shearing, 1919–2011.

In this episode we welcome the great soul scribe Tony Cummings to Hammersmith to discuss the subject of his classic 1975 book The Sound of Philadelphia. Tony travelled all the way down from his adopted Stoke-on-Trent to answer our questions about his earliest musical passions in his native Plymouth and the launch of his pioneering '60s fanzines Soul, Soul Music and Shout. He goes on to talk about his contributions to (and editorship of) Black Music magazine – and his deep immersion in the "Philly Soul" sound patented by Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff and Thom Bell. We hear about the extraordinary stable of musicians who performed on timeless hits by acts such as the O'Jays, the Three Degrees and Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes. Clips from audio interviews with Kenny Gamble and – from 1976 – the Stylistics' Herb Murrell prompt reflections on the lavish sound and sophistication of R&B classics by everyone from the Delfonics and Jerry Butler to Teddy Pendergrass and McFadden & Whitehead. Many thanks to special guest Tony Cummings. Pieces discussed: Inside the Philly Sound, MFSB, TCB, The Stylistics, Gamble-Huff, Thom Bell and the Philly Groove, Hit Producer Thom Bell: Philly Soul & the R&B Flugelhorn, "Philadelphia was the party with a tormented soul", Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff audio, The Stylistics' Herb Murrell audio, Why are we so hard on our music press? and Linkin Park.

For this episode we're joined in our Hammersmith lair by the highly respected Chris Bohn, known better these days by his alias Biba Kopf (cue a nod to Berlin Alexanderplatz author Alfred Döblin...) The veteran NME contributor and sometime editor-in-chief of The Wire talks about his long career as a Europhile connoisseur of extreme and out-there music. We start by asking our guest about his mother's experience as a teenage refugee fleeing her native Silesia after the advance of the Red Army in 1945 – and her subsequent settling in the English Midlands. We learn about Chris' journalistic training on the Sutton Coldfield News and his subsequent travels around Europe, where he reconnected with relatives in West (and East) Germany. Chris reminisces about his first London job as a press officer for Polydor Records, for whom he chaperoned Siouxsie & the Banshees to tapings of Top of the Pops. He then talks us through his writing career from Melody Maker and NME to decades-long association with The Wire. Among the articles mentioned are his 1979 live review of Joy Division, his groundbreaking 1981 on-the-road piece "Trans-Europe Express", and his interviews with Nina Hagen (1979) and Einstürzende Neubauten (1983). Discussion of The Wire leads us into clips from an audio interview with Wire icon Ornette Coleman … by Wire mainstay David Toop. We conclude the episode by paying heartfelt tribute to two Californian geniuses who left us this week: Family Stone funk pioneer Sly Stone and the Beach Boys' "pocket symphonist" Brian Wilson. We shall not see – or hear – their like again. Many thanks to special guest Chris Bohn a.k.a. Biba Kopf. Visit the Wire's website at thewire.co.uk to subscribe digitally and in print.  Pieces discussed: Nina Hagen: West Is Best, Einstürzende Neubauten: Let's Hear It For The Untergang Show, Ornette Coleman (1995), Sly & The Family Stone: Sly Buries Underground And Has Fun!, Not Only Sly, But Sometimes Just Plain Damn Evasive, Sly Stone's Higher Power, Some Producers' Hints From Beach Boy Brian, Brian Wilson, Brian Wilson: Beach Boy, Pop Visionary, Wounded Soul, The Devil and Jerry Lee Lewis and  Group Home: Supa Group.