The Strange Brew - artist stories behind the greatest music ever recorded

Arthur Brown joins Jason Barnard, alongside his partner and collaborator Claire Waller, to talk through his new album Nature and a life spent chasing fire, water, air and earth through sound and theatre.

Arthur and Claire describe the return to North Yorkshire, eight miles from Arthur’s birthplace in Whitby, after a decade of travelling together. They walk through how Nature took shape: around 100 fires tested to find a usable rhythm, a river thirty yards from the front door recorded for its rush over rock, and small creatures of the earth captured and worked into the mix. The conversation moves through Arthur’s history: his friendship with Alice Cooper, evenings spent jamming with Jimi Hendrix, a chance encounter with David Bowie, and the six years of work behind Arthur’s current live show.

Further information

Nature is released on 4 September

Arthur Brown website

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Podcasts also available: Arthur Brown on The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Dennis Dunaway – Alice Cooper Group, Carl Palmer, Chris Slade – AC/DC, British Psychedelic Sounds of 1967

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Robin Scott’s career spans from acoustic songs on the 1960s folk circuit to the sequenced synth-pop of ‘Pop Muzik’ – the 1979 hit single that took him to number one under the moniker M.

On this episode, he traces that journey: studying at Croydon Art College, releasing his 1969 debut album Woman from the Warm Grass, managing pub-rock group Roogalator, co-founding Do It Records, and living and working with Malcolm McLaren and Vivienne Westwood.

Robin also reflects on his pioneering records including New York · London · Paris · Munich, The Official Secrets Act and Jive Shikisha. Finally, the conversation brings us to the common thread through all these projects, the restless curiosity that continues to drive his work.

Further information

robinscott.uk

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Podcasts also available:  The Action’s Rolled Gold, Al Stewart – Part 1, Bowie and Hutch, Glen Matlock, Glenn Gregory – Heaven 17

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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Over fifty years ago, a teenager from Cleveland got talked into playing “Maggot Brain” at an after party, and soon after he was on stage with Parliament-Funkadelic. Michael Hampton, known as Kidd Funkadelic, joins us to tell that story properly, and to go through everything that’s followed it: five decades inside one of the wildest bands in American music, a run of guitar solos that hip-hop built entire records on, and his new solo project, the King Kong mini album.

We start with King Kong itself: how a nearly hundred year old story about a giant ape ended up as an instrumental record moving between rock, jazz and spoken narration, and how loosely the whole thing came together. From there we go right back to the beginning: the guitarists who shaped him growing up in Cleveland, the after party where he first played for the band, and the call from drummer Tiki Fulwood that got him on a plane to Landover, Maryland, a fortnight later. Michael talks me through what recording with Parliament-Funkadelic was like, how songs like “Adolescent Funk” and “Who Says a Funk Band Can’t Play Rock?” earned him a writing credit, what he thinks George Clinton’s real gift was, and how he feels about hip-hop having sampled his solos for the past forty years.

Further information

King Kong is out now. Get it direct from Michael’s Bandcamp

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Podcasts also available: Eddy Grant, Lynval Golding – The Specials, John Mayall, Sananda Maitreya

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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Eric Barrett spent two years, from 1968 to 1970, as Jimi Hendrix’s road manager and one of the few people the guitarist trusted. In this conversation with Jason Barnard, Barrett talks in a rare interview about his new memoir Experienced: On the Road with Jimi Hendrix and Beyond.

Barrett explains how a job roadying for The Koobas led him from the Beatles’ final UK tour to Keith Emerson’s stage antics with The Nice, and eventually to a chaotic gig in Rome that almost saw him walk away from Hendrix. He describes the two sides of the man he worked for: the guitarist who tore up stages, and the quiet, almost shy man backstage who didn’t see himself as a genius.

There’s a lot here that hasn’t been told before. The racism Hendrix faced touring the American South. The night in Denver when tear gas broke up the show and ended the Experience. The split trousers at the Isle of Wight Festival, patched with a safety pin while Barrett vamped on guitar to cover the gap. And the grim job, after Hendrix’s death, of boxing up his belongings in two countries.

Barrett went on to work with James Taylor, David Bowie and Madonna and many other artists. He also describes the moment he told Bowie the sound at a Diamond Dogs rehearsal wasn’t good enough, and ended up later collaborating with Bowie on his all white stage lighting.

Further information

Experienced: On the Road with Jimi Hendrix and Beyond by Eric Barrett with Lawrence Robinson is out now

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Watch the video version

Podcasts also available: Peter Asher, Carlos Alomar, Fresh Cream Revisited with Malcolm Bruce, Melanie, Leo Lyons – Ten Years After

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Graham Parker didn’t get a record deal until he was 24, having worked in a rubber glove factory and picked tomatoes in Guernsey before that. Fifty years on, he’s still telling those stories the way he always has, with honesty – straight and funny. Recorded live at The Cat Club on 26 March 2026, Jason Barnard talks with Parker about Nick Lowe producing Howlin’ Wind, the ruined tape that forced a week-long rework of Stick to Me, and Bob Dylan telling him after a set that he loved ‘Don’t Ask Me Questions.’ In this extensive interview, Parker also talks about breaking up the Rumour, the accidental reunion decades later, and being getting cast in Judd Apatow’s This Is 40.

Further information

grahamparker.net

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Podcasts also available: Graham Parker on Howlin’ Wind, Brinsley Schwarz, Billy Bragg, Glen Matlock – in conversation, Bruce Thomas

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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