Rock's Backpages

For this episode we're joined — all the way from Laurel Canyon — by the husband-and-wife tag team that is Jeff Walker and Kim Gottlieb(-Walker). Married for 53 years, Jeff and Kim have worked in diverse capacities in the music business and talk about their experiences over those five-plus decades.

We start with the couple's work together on monthly freesheet Music World, focusing on their 1973 encounters with Tom Waits and Gram Parsons (plus a 15-year-old Cameron Crowe tagging along). After audio clips of both Waits and Parsons, we hear a 1987 clip of Gram's great singing partner Emmylou Harris talking to Adam Sweeting about... Gram Parsons.

Interweaving tales of Jeff's life as a publicity director and Kim's career as a photographer, we hear about Island Records, Jamaica and the couple's close relationship with Bob Marley, concluding with Jeff's account of being with Bob after the chief Wailer was shot by gunmen in 1976.

After Jasper offers his thoughts on Bad Bunny's ICE-breaking half-time show at the Super Bowl, Kim channels her late '60s protesting self and eloquently summarises her feelings about staying sane in Trump's dystopian America.

Finally, Mark quotes from newly-added library interviews with Captain Beefheart (1979) and David Thomas (1985), while Jasper hails Joe Muggs' 2021 piece about Joel Culpepper.

Many thanks to special guests Kim Gottlieb-Walker and Jeff Walker. Visit Kim's website at lenswoman.com and read Jeff's writing on Rock's Backpages.

Pieces discussed: Tom Waits: Thursday Afternoon, Sober as a Judge, Jackson Browne, Techno-Rock: Six Teutons And What Do You Get — A Programmed Sequencer And The Doppler Effect, Emmylou Harris audio, Captain Beefheart Pulls A Hat Out of His Rabbit, David Thomas: Unscrambling the egg man and Joel Culpepper: Almost Famous.

In this episode, we talk to Fred Patterson, aka Phast Phreddie, about his work at the ARChive of Contemporary Music, plus his own magazine Back Door Man and his band Thee Precisions.

Beginning with his early musical life teaching classes with Don Waller at UCLA's Experimental College, we hear about how he named Back Door Man after a Howlin Wolf song and wanted to cover "hard core rock n roll". Phreddie remembers how different it was working with R. Meltzer compared to Lester Bangs, who both contributed to the mag.

Next, we hear about where Thee Precisions got their name and how they were intended as a garage rhythm 'n' blues combo that might fit into south central L.A.'s rockabilly scene without doing rockabilly. 

After telling us about moving across the country to help set up a record shop in Albany, Phreddie then takes us back to the ARChive of Contemporary Music's original mission statement to collect two of every record and explains how they operate.

Three clips from a 1977 Mary Wilson audio interview prompt Barney to wonder whether the Supremes are the greatest girl group of all time. To wrap things up, we pay tribute to Sly Dunbar of Sly & Robbie before Mark and Jasper talk us out with highlights from pieces including interviews with Isaac Hayes and De La Soul.  

Many thanks to special guest Phast Phreddie Patterson. Find out more about the ARC at arcmusic.org.

Pieces discussed: Articles, interviews and reviews from Phast Phreddie Patterson, The L.A. Rock Explosion, Gun Club: You Can't Go Home Again, Phast Phreddie Finds His Calling, Building the ARC, Not Fade Away: The ARChive of Contemporary Music, Collecting Gone Mad: The ARChive of Contemporary Music, Mary Wilson audio, Sly & Robbie: The Reggae Heartbeat – Freedom Into Form, Sly and Robbie: Laying Reggae's Bottom Line, Alan Price, Cat Stevens, Isaac Hayes, Ronnie & Clyde and De La Soul.

Content warning: This episode contains discussion of rape (40:37–42:20).

In this episode we ask Bob Stanley about his career as a writer and member of the beloved Saint Etienne, whose swansong year this is.

We start with Caff, the '80s fanzine which set out the eclectic pop aesthetic that underpinned Saint Etienne, proceeding from there to Bob's memories of life on Melody Maker in the late '80s and early '90s.

A clip of our guest's erstwhile MM colleague Simon Reynolds talking about Saint Etienne in 2021 is the cue for a general discussion of the trio's evolution over the last 35 years – and for an explanation of their (very amicable) decision to call it a day after a tour this September.

Revisiting the epic "story of pop" that was Bob's 2013 tome Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! leads to clips from Hank Bordowitz's 1997 audio interview with the late Connie Francis, the Jersey girl who in the late '50s and early '60s was arguably the biggest female pop artist in America.

After Mark pays a lifelong Deadhead's tribute to the late Bob Weir, he quotes from newly-added library pieces about the Nice (1967), Tom Wolfe (1969) and Paul McCartney (1979). Finally, Jasper sees us out with his thoughts on interviews with Ini Kamoze (1995) and D'Angelo (1998).

Many thanks to special guest Bob Stanley. Visit his website at bobstanley.co.uk and find Yeah Yeah Yeah in all good bookshops.

Pieces discussed: Saint Etienne, St. Etienne: Holier Than Thou, Saint Etienne: Cats Eyes and Legless, Bill Haley, Bob Stanley: Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! – The Story of Pop Music from Bill Haley to Beyoncé, Connie Francis was a trailblazing pop star haunted by tragedy, Connie Francis audio, The World According to Cliff, Alone again gratefully: Bob Weir proves he's more than Dead, The Nice, Tom Wolfe, Paul McCartney, Ini Kamoze, Voodoo Chile: D'Angelo and Yungblud.

For this episode we're joined by Sonic Youth legend Thurston Moore to discuss his new book Now Jazz Now: 100 Essential Free Jazz and Improvisation Recordings, 1960-80.

We start by recapping on the story our guest told in his acclaimed 2023 memoir Sonic Life. In the course of the conversation about his early musical life in Florida and Connecticut we hear a clip from Steve Roeser's 1994 audio interview with him. Discussion of early influences such as the Stooges takes us back to Thurston's stint in the late J.D. King's New York band the Coachmen – and then on to Sonic Youth itself.

Our guest's friendship with neo-gonzoid scribe Byron Coley – a brilliant guest on our podcast last summer – takes us up to the present and the publication of Now Jazz Now. A general conversation on the subjects of "free jazz" and "improv" ensues, taking in clips from Thurston's pal David Toop's 1995 audio interview with the late Derek Bailey.

After Mark has quoted from newly-added library pieces about Bill Evans (1972) and OMD (1984), Jasper talks us out with his thoughts on James Brown's 1994 loaded encounter with the Beastie Boys.

Many thanks to special guest Thurston Moore. Now Jazz Now is published by Ecstatic Peace Library and available from ecstaticpeace.net/now-jazz-now.

Pieces discussed: Sonic Youth, Sonic Youth And the Blast First Axis, Derek Bailey audio, Cecil Taylor: Ladies and gentlemen, please adjust your re-entry goggles, David Toop: Gorilla Noises & Mains Hum, Bill Evans: Living Time With Evans, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark: OMD and The Beastie Boys: Still Ill.

For this episode we're joined in our Hammersmith HQ by James ("The Hardest Working Man In Show Business") Brown.

The former NME star and founder of "lads' mag" progenitor loaded takes us back to his Yorkshire boyhood in Headingley. He recalls his parents' record collection, the first gigs he attended as the class "smart-arse" at Lawnswood School... and his acclaimed '80s fanzine Attack On Bzag!

Our guest's account of how he came to contribute to Sounds leads to clips from the late Andy Gill's 1991 audio interview with the KLF, the maverick duo of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty whom James championed in the paper's pages in 1987.

After waxing nostalgic about his days at the NME, James gives us the origin story of the hugely successful loaded ("for men who should know better") and talks us through the publishing phenomenon it triggered. A discussion follows of '90s sexism and its connection to the misogyny of today's "Manosphere".

Many thanks to special guest James Brown. Animal House: Music, Magazines, Mayhem is published by Quercus and available now from all good bookshops. Zine Age Kicks is available through James' Instagram, @jamesjamesbrown.

Pieces discussed: The Beastie Boys: Keep Taking The Tabloids, Mark E Smith, Nick Cave & Shane MacGowan: The Three Horsemen Of The Apocalypse, The KLF audio⁠ and The decline of lads' mags: Unloaded, and now the party is over.