Show Notes
For this episode we're joined – all the way from Brooklyn – by acclaimed author and sometime drummer Jonathan Gould.
The native New Yorker recalls his early musical epiphanies, his introduction to the drums and his studying under famed jazz drummer Alan Dawson in mid-'70s Boston. He also reminisces about his years in Woodstock, N.Y., and his association with The Band's Richard Manuel.
Our very personable guest explains his conversion to writing about music and the long gestation of his epic Beatles book Can't Buy Me Love (2007). From there we jump to 2017's equally praised Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life, an excuse not just to talk about The Big O but to hear clips from audio interviews with Stax Records/Booker T. & the M.G.'s legends Duck Dunn and Steve Cropper.
Finally, we get to the subjects of his latest enormo-tome Burning Down the House: Talking Heads. Jonathan talks about his experience of writing the book, the band's unique brilliance and internal frictions, and their complicated relationship with producer/"collaborator" Brian Eno.
After we've paid our respects to beloved EMAP Metro writer-publisher Barry McIlheney and to fomrer McCoy/Johnny and Edgar Winter sideman/All-American Boy Rick(y) Derringer, Jasper talks us out with his thoughts on pop's most misunderstood songs.
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In this new episode we invite the splendid Tonya Pendleton to join us online from her adopted Philadelphia – in her own words "the City of Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection".
For this episode we invite the legendary Nik Cohn to join us from upstate New York to discuss his extraordinary career and his brilliant new book Corner Boy. Also joining us — from New York City — is the book's editor Ben Ratliff, himself the author of an acclaimed 2007 biography of John Coltrane.
For this episode we're joined in Hammersmith by the much-travelled Tony Fletcher as he returns to his homeland to promote his new book POW! When UK Punk Went Pop, 1980–84.
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In this episode, we invite the marvellous Brian Cullman to join us onscreen from a French farmhouse in the Dordogne.