Category: Music

Episode Eight Show Notes – Tim Booth

Published September 20, 2018

Video for ‘Coming Home (Pt. 2)’

“A certain romanticness prevails throughout the album, all the mightier for being born of a mature yearning for peace and love rather than escapist fantasy. Gorgeous and passionate, the “bruised love” of album highlight “Leviathan” shows this in spades. “Coming Home (Pt. 2),” thematic follow-up to the 1989 single, comes at you from many different directions, chaos blasting off with its heartfelt lyric. The song’s expansiveness is reminiscent of the huge space of the Seven album. On the opposite end of the spectrum, in the middle of “How Hard the Day,” they bravely drop down to a single note guitar and voice, paying off by the strength of the melody.” Read my full review of Living In Extraordinary Times for Under The Radar here.

Tim Booth interview by Emma Cook in The Guardian referenced in podcast.

‘Top Of The World’ from Gold Mother, orchestral workshop version 2011

‘I Believe’ from the Booth & The Bad Angel album. Tim’s 1996 collaboration with composer Angelo Badalamenti, Bernard Butler on guitar.

James – ‘Ring The Bells’, from the Seven album.

James – ‘Hymn From A Village’. Early song that has remained a favourite over the years.

James – ‘Tomorrow’. A classic.

James – ‘Say Something’

Patti Smith’s Horses.

Patti Smith’s ‘Birdland’. Tim’s choice for what to listen to while flying into the Sun. Take Tim’s advice and find the appropriate time to listen to this, put on headphones and block everything else out.

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Episode Eight – Tim Booth

Published September 20, 2018

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“We are psychically connected to each other whether we like it or not, but we are also globally connected.”

Aug Stone talks to James singer Tim Booth about Patti Smith, the transformative power of dance, global warming, Russia and our current political climate, Love being the answer to our problems, being a dad who has to go away on tour, the unconscious revealing itself through creativity, and much more. NOTE: Strong language is used. NSFW.

Show Notes Here…

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Episode Seven Show Notes – Sarah Cracknell

Published August 30, 2018

Saint Etienne‘s ‘Good Humor’ is my favourite album of theirs and they are coming to North America to play the 20th anniversary shows in September. Dates on their Facebook page.

‘Sylvie’ on Top Of The Pops 1998:

‘The Bad Photographer’ on the Jack Docherty Show 1998:

‘4:35 In The Morning’:

If you like this episode or The Counterforce Podcast in general and have a couple bucks to spare, I’ve been trying to raise money for this project on DonorsChoose.org all summer. Donors Choose is a great site to help classrooms in need across the country, which, sad to say, America really needs right now. I would LOVE to get this project – MAKE MINE A GREEN THUMB! – funded for these four-year olds in Michigan. Their teacher is raising money to buy them a greenhouse and gardening materials so they can learn about growing healthy food and have food to eat throughout the day. Please help out if you can. I’d really appreciate it. The project needs to be funded by September 11th. Thanks for listening.

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Episode Seven – Sarah Cracknell

Published August 30, 2018

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“Good Humor is our fantasy America from when we were kids. It’s our vision of what the States was like, probably wholly inaccurate, but it’s our fantasy America.”

Aug Stone talks to Saint Etienne’s Sarah Cracknell about the 20th anniversary of ‘Good Humor’, America, the band’s perceived “quintessential Englishness”, Swedish Pop, the use of the telephone in pop songs, and more.

Show Notes Here…

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Episode Six Show Notes – Simon Indelicate

Published August 2, 2018

Showreel for Paradise Rocks!

The Indelicates – Songs For Swinging Lovers . One of the best albums ever made.

‘Beyond The Radio Horizon’ from Elevator Music.

‘Not Alone’ from Diseases Of England.

Corporate Records. Sign your band a la Bandcamp and listen to some other rad albums.

Simon mentions the Principia Discordia when we were talking about Robert Anton Wilson (I can’t recommend reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy enough) and Discordianism.

And Bad Wisdom, Bill Drummond & Zodiac Mindwarp’s account of bringing an icon of Elvis, wrapped in a Bon Scott t-shirt, to the Arctic where they’d place it on the North Pole to send good vibes down through the latitude lines and save the world. Essential reading.

Simon also says Cool As Ice, the Vanilla Ice movie, is very similar to Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’.

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Episode Six – Simon Indelicate

Published August 2, 2018

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Aug Stone talks to Simon Indelicate about his new musical, Paradise Rocks! A reimagining of Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ as if it were one of Elvis’ Hawaii movies. We get a brief history of The Indelicates, Corporate Records, and Simon’s other musicals, as well as an account of Simon and friends’ attempt to recreate Bill Drummond & Mark Manning’s ‘Bad Wisdom’ journey to place an icon of Elvis on the North Pole to spread good vibes down the latitudes and save the world. Also synchronicities, Robert Anton Wilson, performance poetry, and the Vanilla Ice movie…

“There is a sense that Elvis embodies this figure of pure rebellion, the James Dean ‘what are you rebelling against?’ ‘what have you got?’ thing, where you just rebel against whatever it is, subvert the dominant paradigm, that’s the first moral obligation, that Luciferian idea which reaches its apotheosis in Elvis. He’s the archetypal figure who represents that, and everyone since Elvis is like a version of Elvis, even Bowie and glam is a version of that, slightly androgynous, slightly weird, but just pure rebellion through the form of rock n roll.”

Show Notes here…

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Episode Five – Jah Wobble

Published July 6, 2018

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Jah Wobble talks to Aug Stone about his new album Dream World, the 2018 World Cup, his 2011 collaboration with Julie Campbell on Psychic Life, his first musical loves, post-punk, the creative process, film scoring, and more.

“I think that post-punk was such a fascinating area of music and yet the idea of it was generally better than the music that was produced. There were so many variations, so many kind of records you could have made back then – you could have made Metal Box and put radio collages over the top of it – you could’ve done spoken word, you could’ve done so many different kinds of records, there were so many possibilities, you could use disco, it was very post-modern…it was a great anti-bourgeois kind of thing, but there weren’t enough good albums…not enough brave records at that time.”

Show Notes Here…

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Episode Four – Ian Button

Published June 25, 2018

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Ian Button discusses the history of Papernut Cambridge from dreaming the band name to their fifth album, Outstairs Instairs, out June 29th on Gare Du Nord Records. We talk about the label as a collective as well as his time with Death In Vegas,working with Lawrence and Terry Miles on the latest Go-Kart Mozart album, almost joining The Sisters Of Mercy twice, and falling in love with psychedelic pop as a child. WARNING: During the re-telling of a story, the ‘c’ word gets dropped at 40:22, so NSFW or sensitive ears.

Show Notes Here…

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Episode Four Show Notes – Ian Button

Published June 25, 2018

In 2013 my friend the poet Kevin Reinhardt made me a mix cd that started out with P.P. Arnold’s amazing ‘Everything’s Gonna Be Alright’ followed by this killer tune that reminded me of classic Mary Chain. It turned out to be ‘Aphrodisiac’ by Papernut Cambridge who had just released their debut album, Cambridge Nutflake, on Gare Du Nord Records, a label collective run by Ian Button, Robert Rotifer, and Ralegh Long.

My interest was piqued and when Papernut released their second record, There’s No Underground, I was psyched to review it for The Quietus and it is one of my favourite albums of 2014:

This is a great rock & roll record. Ian Button may be “haunted by the insects in his dark imaginings”, as he intones on opener ‘The Ghost Of Something Small’, but outside that buzzing hook-laden head of his, it’s a leisurely ride through glittering neon, the fluorescence that illuminates rock’s shadowy nighttime world. The lights that feel like they’re never gonna end whilst terminating all too quickly – there’s 12 songs in 30 minutes here. But no matter, press play again and we’re back amidst the exiled warriors on Electric Main Street. Just as one would never fault T. Rex for being derivative, so here the nods to rock’s past – The Stones, Bolan himself, The Replacements, Kinks, and Mary Chain – are simply the lineage continuing itself. All sung in that sweet sinister voice a la Jim Reid, with just as sharp an ear for melody.

Nutlets 1967-1980, a covers record, followed in 2015, and introduced me to the wonderful ‘Jesamine’, originally by The Casuals.

Love The Things Your Lover Loves followed in 2016 and Outstairs Instairs is released June 29, 2018.

Ian has worked with a lot of great artists as a musician and producer. Notably, he was in Death In Vegas and produced the latest Go-Kart Mozart album, Mozart’s Mini-Mart. During the course of our conversation he introduced me to the Vaughan Thomas record from 1972.

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