Joe Strummer- London Calling Radio Shows (1998-2001)

And so now I’d like to say – people can change anything they want to. And that means everything in the world. People are running about following their little tracks – I am one of them. But we’ve all got to stop just following our own little mouse trail. People can do anything ...

Between 1998 and 2001 The Punk Rock Warlord hosted his London Calling radio show for the BBC. I'm afraid the version I have here is only in 128kbps (I found them on an old disk), but a good listen anyhow. 

Folk, Reggae, Cumbia, African music, Ska, Soul- a real mixture. You can get the playlists here...

 http://d01.megashares.com/dl/iWmWA5U/Joe Strummer Radio.part1.rar
 http://d01.megashares.com/dl/tgnGGKw/Joe Strummer Radio.part2.rar

W G Sebald (1944-2001)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2001/dec/17/guardianobituaries.books1

Morrissey - Janice Long Session, BBC Radio 2- December 17th , 2004

A rare excursion (incursion?) in to the 21st century for Burning Aquarium.
This is Morrissey, appearing in session for Janice Long on BBC Radio 2. The set was recorded on December 9th and first broadcast on December 17th 2004.
01 - Intro
02 - Play Easy To Get
03 - Redondo Beach
04 - Interview
05 - Noise Is The Best Revenge
06 - It's Hard To Walk Tall When You're Small
07 - Outro

Redondo Beach is of course a cover of a Patti Smith song, taken from her classic LP Horses.

Paul Weller- Desert Island Discs (2007)

Love him or hate him? Erm...
Am I alone in my feelings about Paul Weller, namely ambivalence? Opinion usually seems to be divided over the man and his work - is he insufferably smug and pretentious, a genuine genius? In fact Weller is picking up this year's NME Godlike Genius Award For Services To Music*...
The Jam were okay- in our school there was an unbridgeable Jam/ punk divide amongst the boys (although I'm sure that we all bought the incomparable Eton Rifles) so I didn't really appreciate the qualities of The Jam until later. That said I viewed Weller as a decent songwriter (his work was and remains highly derivative)rather than as some sort of poet of the dole age. I never really got The Style Council. And the whole 'Modfather' thing of the Britpop era wasn't really Paul's fault. He just happened to influence a generation of formulaic, soulless rock bands (Oasis spring readily to mind). On the other hand I have vague memories of hearing him play an acoustic version of Eton Rifles on some radio show in the mid nineties and it was immense, and Wildwood was , to me , one of the albums of the 1990s.

Tin Soldier-The Small Faces
September in the Rain-Dinah Washington
Better Get Hit in Yo’ Soul-Charles Mingus
Don’t Be a Drop Out -James Brown
Arabesque No 1- Branford Marsalis with the English Chamber Orchestra
Galileo (Someone Like You) -Declan O’Rourke
River Man -Nick Drake
That’s Enough -Roscoe


Tin Soldier- was Paul's overall record choice. He chose Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes as his book, and his luxury was a settee to sit on.

Here's the programme:





*Hence the timing of this post. This year's NME awards take place at the Brixton Academy on February 24th.
Take a look at this list of previous winners of the Godlike Genius and decide for yourselves how worthy it is...
1999 Massive Attack
2000 Shaun Ryder
2001 U2
2002 Pennie Smith
2003 The Clash
2004 Ozzy Osbourne
2005 New Order & Joy Division
2006 Ian Brown
2007 Primal Scream
2008 Manic Street Preachers
2009 The Cure
2010 Paul Weller

John Peel- Desert Island Discs (1990)

On last week's Morrissey Desert Island Discs post we acknowledged the difficulty of selecting just eight records after a lifetime of following pop music. If it is hard enough for us mere mortals imagine the difficulty faced by John Peel when he was castaway in January 1990 (20 years ago? ridiculous).
I was going to write a bit here about how the teenaged Lonnie Donnegan fan's fetish for records led to him becoming the most revered figure in British popular music, but it would be superfluous.

Handel: Zadok the Priest
Roy Orbison: It's Over
Jimmy Reed: Too Much
Misty in Roots: Mankind
The Undertones: Teenage Kicks (overall choice)
Rachmaninoff: 2nd piano concerto
The Fall: Eat Y'self Fitter
The Four Brothers: Pasi Pano Pane Zviedzo


Here's the programme, first broadcast on January 14th 1990.

Morrissey- Desert Island Discs (2009)

Sorry for the delay in bringing you this -

Okay nostalgia lovers, who remembers the heady days of November 2009 when the world was a better, safer place? We used to leave our door unlocked in them days...

For those of you who don’t know (i.e.- those who are not from Britain) Desert Island Discs is a long-running radio programme. It was first broadcast on 29 January 1942 .
Imagine that you are obsessed with pop music from a young age- it is your all consuming passion- you become an aficionado.You enjoy a successful 26 year music career in which your work is rich in pop culture references, all influences reverentially eulogised. Then at the age of fifty, after 45 years of obsessive pop fandom you are invited onto Desert Island Discs and have to choose eight records.
Eight.
Practically impossible.
When he appeared in November last year I thought that Morrissey might include: Sandie Shaw, Jobriath, some Rockabilly, Ludus, Patti Smith, Joni Mitchell.
Here’s what he did choose:
• New York Dolls - (There’s Gonna Be a) Showdown (overall choice)
• Marianne Faithfull - Come and Stay With Me
• Ramones - Loudmouth
• The Velvet Underground - The Black Angel’s Death Song
• Klaus Nomi - Der Nussbaum - The Walnut Tree
• Nico - I’m Not Saying
• Iggy & The Stooges - Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell
• Mott the Hoople - Sea Diver

Included here are the eight records in their entirity and the complete programme.
For a more comprehensive insight into Morrissey’s tastes and formative influences see the LP Under the Influence .