Oh, FYI!

Since I know I talk about them loads and also many, many people that follow me here are also big fans of the Astros but have never had a chance to experience them live, a live set of theirs is on radio today, and I think you'll all really want to hear it, especially as those of us who have seen them live keep talking about how there's nothing quite like seeing this band live, and like 99% of the people out here won't be able to. Not yet, anyway (unless by some stroke of luck they blow up)

Starting at 1.5 minutes here (after ads and such), you can hear an interview with them and a few of their live tracks. It's the latest file (Nov 14).

HEY UH WE ALREADY HAVE THIS AND IT IS CALLED YOUR MUTUALS’ ASK INBOXES

sometimes I need to take a step back and remember just how many tracks layered it takes to get a studio song to sound how it does. We take it for granted that things don't sound like they would if everyone played stuff straight to you in a room, even just to be able to hear a guitar clearly n all. Mad work, studio work.

In this hell world of syncs and scrums, this is why I do it. This is why we come together as a community and do radio stuff. Music is genuinely everything, isn’t it?

Sitting and reading up on how the NPR system works so that when the 76th American goes whining to me about how shit radio is and asking for suggestions, I am able to suggest them something from their own country

“The masterplan was, there was no masterplan. Except to write good songs. Oh yeah, and to be the biggest band in the world. A modest ambition, but it put Oasis on the road to greatness.”

OASIS - THE MASTERPLAN (1998)

Plus some more pics of Oasis albums we have at our stations, sent to us promotionally by Sony Canada on behalf of Creation Records.

Liner notes below the cut:

Budget cuts were real. Looked through the schedules out of curiosity, BBC have really only planned to televise the Saturday and Sunday headliners at Reading. It looks like they've had to make a choice between Reading and Glastonbury, and with factors like the time of year (mid-summer vs. last long weekend of summer), interest and viewership, they chose their flagship Glastonbury coverage while axing a lot of Reading. Sad, but I think they made the right choice on that.

Also, they have had to spell it out in words. Written all over it is one word: budget

Fontaines lovers, 6 Music has put out 4 hours of Fontaines content including a selection of favourite tracks from kneecap!

this journalist from iHeart Radio is backstage with a press pass making Hozier review local honey brands, and you WONDER why press has such a bad name amongst musicians. They want to talk about their music! And now because SOME of us have neither the name nor the reach to convince these stars to sit down with us for interviews, they all just assume we’re fucking airheads… I’ve never had an interview with a musician where they’ve felt they’ve wasted their time, is all I’m saying. I leave like 70% of the interviews I’ve conducted with people walking out at the end saying, ‘thanks, you ask some really good questions’. The bar is on the fucking FLOOR and it’s not my fault it is there.

[temporary post]

In case any of you are bored tonight and want to join me, I’m on radio playing some brand new bangers on air for an hour and a half! I don’t usually post radio stuff on here because I don’t want to make it too easy for people to draw connections between me IRL and me shitposting on tumblr, so I will probably delete it later, but this week’s show is a lot more guitar and rock heavy than it has been in recent weeks, and I feel I’ve got a good mix of folks you know and stuff that will be completely new to you but you’ll still enjoy.

Besides, one of my favourite things in the world is people listening along and messaging me live as the show goes on, it really makes me feel that’s the way radio is meant to be!

So if you need some energetic tunes on in the background/want to hear some of my favourite picks for this week, I’m live in approx 2.5 hours from now (8 PM EST) on cfrc.ca, so hop along!

playlist preview:

I am fucking loving the new Berwyn album, it is true. also, I dove a little into the scenes on the Channel Islands, Gurnsey and Jersey so that’ll be fun too.

goodness me, what on earth did Elis say in his intro last week? I know they mentioned it got cut, they usually touch-and-go on this kind of stuff, but the fact that they mentioned it to next week has just Streisand'ed me curious: what was Elis' big intro following the general election and Wales kicking out all Tories, that Dave found "too balanced for broadcast"? Does anyone know? Because I bet it was asked in the PCD groups.

Man, it’s gonna be good to be back. ❤️

edit: HOW CAN I POST THIS AND THEN NOT SHARE THE TUNE

Flight of the Oryx, a band from Montreal that really explore different genres, and make bangers in them all. Check them out!

(While you’re at it, check out The Astros)

For any Taskmaster-heads that want to hear John's take on the series, he and Elis discussed it in one of the latest episodes of the Elis and John show, Sophie Willan also joins them.

There are spoilers, obviously.

It's interesting to me that John brings up how the producers make people come across in the show: he says, the producers of the show have a narrative to follow and a story to tell, which is fair enough. He mentioned that even though he was laughing and joking throughout his time on Taskmaster, because he was in some ways filling the role of 'the Taskmaster nerd' who really wanted to win, he says there were a lot of shots of him looking serious spliced into places where he wasn't actually looking so serious behind the scenes.

It's a tiny detail, and truly they do have a show to run and people to typecast into a cohesive narrative to present, where the contestants are slightly exaggerated versions of themselves, and that's showbiz baybee, as an effervescent local band I quite like says often.

I guess I have a bit of a soft spot for John, from having followed his work on radio for what, half a decade now? And because I've heard people say that they didn't quite like John because he appeared quite serious and focused on Taskmaster, I guess I want people to give him a chance as a comedian! He is very funny, don't take Taskmaster at complete face value. Yes, I'm only saying this because I like him already. Whatever.

Here's the episode, which I think anyone who enjoyed the series and wants to know a bit more of what was going on in the contestants' heads (well, John and Sophie's at least), and also their take on carrying the results with you for 8 months, and thoughts on the next series' contestants.

Been a little 'in the public eye' if you can call it that, in a musical context in the last few days, and as a result of that and being young, a lot of people have been asking me how I discover new music, and that's an excellent question that just becomes trickier as the age range of my questioners changes. I do have multiple sources, some of which are more analogue than others, while some are purely digital. And I do recognise that it's tricky to even keep up with some of these methods: I don't know if I can feasibly tell a 60 year old that five of the artists I played on my last show were bands I found through Instagram and gave a chance to. I can't tell a busy person to read through DIY or Dork Magazine. Bandcamp deep diving also takes its time. I know people that would scoff at the idea of taking an algorithmically recommended band from Spotify or YouTube. Picking up names from the lineups of showcase festivals (which are specifically for emerging artists) is a Task, especially since when artists are smaller, there's less available out there on them. I can't just tell them to listen to BBC 6 Music. I love 6 Music, but they're not going to tell me about the new Canadian artists who literally are touring our country and stopping by our venues. The CBC doesn't serve its mandate in that regards at all.

All this tells me if that there is certainly still a hunger for new music, and a need for someone to present it to people in a way that helps them make sense of all the noise. The over 40s are not going to comb through Tiktok's latest shoegaze revival. Radio should still play a massive, massive role in the music industry, and it's a shame that most people won't know it's out there when they really want it. Commercial radio serves advertiser interests, not that of music fans. Unfortunately that's what most people think radio is at all.

People have got to rediscover their local independent stations, whose curators are only driven by a love for exciting new sounds and acts they've found. Obviously because they don't rely on sponsors like that, they're basically always in need of donations and on the precipice, but we have ways of helping that out. The biggest perhaps is just actually listening to them, and letting people know that they're important. To you, to your friends, to the music community. When campus stations and other independent art initiatives apply for grants and funding from art councils, the work that we're doing and its impact on, and our involvement in the community is a big factor in whether we get funding or not.

I don't quite know what the 'call to action' on this post is, I'm genuinely just thinking out loud since I've been talking to people who showed up at these festival gigs drawn by a headliner but impressed by the openers and wanting to know more new bands! All I can say is show up for openers, stay tuned to the avenues bringing up new music, and spread the word about them! Music isn't dead, not yet ;)

Listening to early XFM era Elis and John podcasts, and what I'm finding is, while it's true that people have been talking about how some of the edge has been taking off the Robins' style of tortured humour over the years and especially since he stopped drinking for good, some of those early podcasts also saw the most unbearable sides of Robins: petty, with no patience at all for Elis, especially where his (Welsh) interests were concerned, whereas all of John's own interests were to be honoured at the highest level, and Elis would always give them time of day. The times when John would get extremely petty on Winner Plays On and throw the game by making Elis' questions impossibly hard or not let him answer, or times when he'd have no patience for some of Elis' topics/general rants on Elis' Welsh interests were sometimes unbearable. To that 2015 Robins, I certainly, certainly prefer the John of 2024.

I suppose he really hit the peak of his craft between 2017 and 2022, the balance between razor-wit, compassion, dark humour and astute comedy was the absolute peak of Robins' powers. Some of the 5 Live shows just after both lockdowns were lifted were some of the funniest I've heard from them.

I love that John's happier and more at peace since he's given up drinking, it does seem to me that John's the sort of person that needs to devote his life to something or other in order to not have his own mind simply consume him. I am surprisingly sympathetic to this notion, even though I don't think personally I've ever felt that the space in my own head was so unbearable that I needed to silence it for extended periods. But then again, I am on Tumblr and listening to a podcast while I'm trying to work through some code. I could've just sat with my thoughts, but no. Nonetheless. I can sort of see how he's ended up a big coffee and gym connoisseur, if it was a choice between those two and more serious vices (that John has dealt with in the past, must point out), it's an easy choice.

Gym chat isn't even really my thing, but the rapport between Elis, John and Dave does still make it pretty interesting chat. It's certainly more 5 Live on-air conversation than scripted comedy chat in the style of standup. But you have to give them that, it's not Radio 4's Comedy Of The Week podcast.

I have faith in the new format, from other non-BBC stuff I've seen John on recently, he and Elis have both certainly still got a very funny streak. I feel like they're in the stages of working out how to make the show retain the urgency (/'seat-of-the-pants' broadcasting) of the live show. Figuring out how not to let it just slip back into a sort of guileless chat you'd get from some broadcasters that have no self-awareness and are too far up their own arses. Once the training wheels come off, I'm sure it'll be great. The current episodes aren't bad, just that you can feel a bit of that patting on the ground, trying to find a footing. Certainly happier to be listening to 2024 Robins than 2015 Robins, he's got some cool stuff to say.