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PODCAST

Rock"s Backpages

Barney Hoskyns, Mark Pringle, Jasper Murison-Bowie

Tales from the world"s largest archive of music journalism: entertaining interviews with luminaries such as Neil Tennant, Billy Bragg, Pamela Des Barres, Gary Kemp, Vashti Bunyan, Midge Ure, Nick Hornby and Robyn Hitchcock. Thoughtful and informative conversations about all aspects of popular music history, interspersed with clips from exclusive audio interviews that date back to the mid-"60s. The RBP podcast is hosted by Barney Hoskyns and Mark Pringle and co-hosted & produced by Jasper

music music history

All Episodes

91:28

E215: Simon Price on Melody Maker + Manics +...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/11/03

For this episode — the first to feature RBP's editorial co-ordinator William Pike — we're joined by Melody Maker legend Simon Price for a discussion of his career, his championing of Manic Street Preachers, and Radiohead's first tour since 2018.Beginning in the South Wales town of Barry, we hear about Simon's boyhood, his formative pop passions and the first of his distinctive sartorial metamorphoses. He recalls his late '80s move to London and the years at Melody Maker that took in his first

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79:46

E214: Lisa Verrico on Vox + Oasis + Billie Eilish +...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/10/20

In this episode we invite the highly entertaining Lisa Verrico to join us from her native Glasgow and talk us through her career from IPC's Vox magazine to The Times.Commencing with her memory of first hearing Prince's 'Little Red Corvette' as a kid on holiday in Spain, our guest recalls her days of raving (and working in radio) before describing how she got her foot in the door at Vox. Hair-raising Mancunian encounters with Happy Mondays and Mark E. Smith serve as preludes to Lisa's hilarious

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75:36

E213: Michael A. Gonzales on TLC + The Source + DJ...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/10/06

In this episode, the great R&B/hip hop writer Michael A. Gonzales joins us online from Baltimore to look back on his long career.We start with our guest's formative musical memories, from hearing Isaac Hayes' 'Theme from Shaft' and meeting Little Anthony & the Imperials to seeing the Jackson Five live at Radio City Music Hall in February 1975. His earliest inklings of New York's rap scene take us back to his 2008 piece about the trailblazing DJ Kool Herc playing block parties in the Bronx of the

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69:59

E212: Greil Marcus on Mystery Train + Sex Pistols +...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/09/22

In this episode, we ask one of the greatest music writers of the rock and roll era to talk about Mystery Train as he celebrates its 50th anniversary with a brand-new edition of his classic book.Talking to us from Oakland, 6,000 miles away in his native Northern California, Greil Marcus looks back on the pivotal moments that led to his starting work on Mystery Train in the fall of 1972: his experiences as a student at Berkeley, his discovery of film critic Pauline Kael and his early writing

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33:56

This Episode Goes 2 11: A Spinal Tap special with...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/09/12

For this special "bonus" episode of the Rock's Backpages podcast — fittingly number 211 (geddit?) — we're joined once again by The Guardian's Alexis Petridis for a discussion of timeless rock mockumentary This is Spinal Tap and its breathlessly-awaited sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues...With reference to A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever, the newly-published "story of Spinal Tap" told by Rob "Marty DiBergi" Reiner — with help from our good friend David Kamp (an excellent podcast guest

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73:51

E210: Alexis Petridis on Acid House + The Guardian +...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/09/08

For this episode we're joined by the immensely respected Alexis Petridis, The Guardian's principal pop critic since September 2001. Our guest tells us about his childhood in Yorkshire, his teenage years in Buckinghamshire and his initiation into the Acid House scene while at Cambridge University. Work experience at MixMag in the mid-'90s led to his becoming that dance/clubbing monthly's Features Editor – and then to a slightly less felicitous eight months as editor of Select. A short digression

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79:27

E209: David Nathan on Dionne Warwick + the Bee Gees +...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/08/26

In this episode we invite David Nathan to look back on his illustrious 60 years as "the British Ambassador of Soul".Our guest commences by recalling his gateway into Black American music: the covers of Shirelles and Miracles classics included on the first two Beatles albums. He furthermore describes the thrill of seeing Motown star Mary Wells supporting the Fab Four at Kilburn's State Cinema in October 1964, followed by his founding of the Nina Simone Appreciation Society. We hear about the Soul

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83:36

E208: Byron Coley on Beefheart + Lydia Lunch + Terry...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/08/11

For this episode we're joined online from northwest Massachusetts by the legendary Byron Coley, champion of all things weird and non-mainstream.After describing his somewhat peripatetic childhood, our guest explains – very amusingly – why as a teenager he hated the Beatles and what led him eventually to the more subversive sounds of the Mothers of Invention and their ilk. A digression on the Grateful Dead – whose Jerry Garcia we lost 30 years ago this month – is followed by Byron's memories of

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84:32

E207: Val Mabbs on Record Mirror + Jimi Hendrix +...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/07/29

For this episode we're joined by the excellent Val Mabbs, who talks to us about writing for Record Mirror in the late '60s and early '70s. We start with our guest's early life as a mod in Hertfordshire – and her memories of seeing the Who/the High Numbers in 1964/5. Val then explains how she got her foot in the door at the Mirror and recalls colleagues such as Norman Jopling, Charlie Gillett and Lon Goddard, not forgetting Peter Jones, the editor who first spotted her potential as an

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73:27

E206: John Niven on rock fiction + Bobby "Blue" Bland...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/07/14

In this episode we welcome novelist and screenwriter John Niven to "RBP Towers" to ask him about his career and his acclaimed novels.We start with the Wishing Stones, the post-C86 combo for whom John played guitar in the late '80s, and progress swiftly to the subject of his caustic 2008 classic Kill Your Friends — the UK's drug-riddled music industry, in which he toiled through the '90s. After John talks about his uncanny 2005 novella Music from Big Pink – inspired by the Band album of the same

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82:54

E205: Tony Cummings on soul music + The Sound of...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/06/27

In this episode we welcome the great soul scribe Tony Cummings to Hammersmith to discuss the subject of his classic 1975 book The Sound of Philadelphia.Tony travelled all the way down from his adopted Stoke-on-Trent to answer our questions about his earliest musical passions in his native Plymouth and the launch of his pioneering '60s fanzines Soul, Soul Music and Shout. He goes on to talk about his contributions to (and editorship of) Black Music magazine – and his deep immersion in the "Philly

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97:40

E204: Chris Bohn in Europe + Sly Stone & Brian Wilson...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/06/16

For this episode we're joined in our Hammersmith lair by the highly respected Chris Bohn, known better these days by his alias Biba Kopf (cue a nod to Berlin Alexanderplatz author Alfred Döblin...) The veteran NME contributor and sometime editor-in-chief of The Wire talks about his long career as a Europhile connoisseur of extreme and out-there music.We start by asking our guest about his mother's experience as a teenage refugee fleeing her native Silesia after the advance of the Red Army in 1945

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94:40

E203: Jonathan Gould on Talking Heads + Otis Redding...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/06/02

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

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65:08

E202: Paul Gambaccini on the radio + Rolling Stone +...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/05/19

In this episode we welcome the great Paul Gambaccini into RBP's world and ask him about his 50+ years as one of Britain's best-loved broadcasters."The Great Gambo" tells us about his early radio days at Dartmouth College's WDCR station and explains how he slipped his foot in the door at Rolling Stone in 1970. He then recounts his first meeting with "underground deejay" John Peel (plus his BBC producer John Walters) while still an Oxford postgraduate fleeing Richard Nixon's America, We ask our

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79:52

E201: Bob Merlis on Warner Bros. + Little Feat + Neil...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/05/05

For this episode we're joined – all the way from L.A. – by special guest Bob Merlis. The former head of publicity at Warner-Reprise Records in Burbank talks us through his musical odyssey from his Brooklyn childhood to his continuing PR work for the likes of ZZ Top and Carlene Carter.We hear about Bob's start at Record World in late '60s New York and the early '70s pieces he wrote for that trade publication and for Warners' short-lived Words & Music. Our guest then talks about his brief stints

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81:27

E200: Celebrating 200 episodes of the Rock's...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/04/22

In this special episode we celebrate the last four years with clips from twelve of the best 100 shows we've recorded in that time. Following an intro from Spandau Ballet mainmain Gary Kemp speaking in January 2023, we reflect on what we have (or haven't) learned over those four years, then play and discuss clips from these episodes: Record Mirror legend Norman Jopling on first seeing the "Rollin' Stones" in 1963 (December 2021) Writer-photographer Val Wilmer on interviewing Jimi Hendrix in

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76:11

E199: Phil Sutcliffe on Sounds + Gang of Four + Eric...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/04/07

For this episode we're joined by veteran music scribe Phil Sutcliffe to discuss his years on Sounds, Q and MOJO.We start by hearing about our guest's Beatles-obsessed adolescence in the North London suburb of Barnet, then follow him up to Manchester University and his subsequent apprenticeship on the Newcastle Evening Chronicle. Phil explains how he got his foot in the door at Sounds in 1974, initially reviewing gigs on Tyneside before moving back to London to become one of the weekly magazine's

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69:39

E198: Havelock Nelson on Hip Hop + Missy Elliott +...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/03/24

For this episode we're joined all the way from Harlem in New York City by venerable hip hop writer Havelock Nelson.The first rap editor at industry bible Billboard talks about his early years in his birthplace Guyana and his love of marching bands in the country's capital Georgetown. From there we hear about his family's move to Brooklyn in 1973 and his early exposure to rap and breakbeat tapes in high school. Havelock recalls the pioneering hip hop fanzines Word Up! and Black Beat – plus the

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77:11

E197: Siân Pattenden on Select + the Bangles + David...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/03/10

For this episode we're joined in person by the delightful Siân Pattenden, author of the Agatha Bilke and Magical Peppers children's book series.We start by asking our guest about her early years as a child actor and teenage playwright before she describes the fanzines she published with her pal Nicky Fijalkowska. We hear how these helped to get her foot in the door at Smash Hits, the million-selling pop bi-weekly she joined in 1989. Quotes from classic Hits pieces she wrote are interspersed with

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75:44

E196: Daniel Wolff & Danny Alexander on Dave Marsh +...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/02/24

In this episode we welcome not one but two guests and ask them to talk about their long-time friend and mentor Dave Marsh.Daniel Wolff and Danny Alexander co-edited 2023's Marsh anthology Kick Out the Jams: on the eve of his 75th birthday they reflect on his powerful writing, his impassioned politics and his career from Creem and Rolling Stone to the Rock & Roll (subsequently Rock & Rap) Confidential newsletter he launched in 1983. An audio clip of Dave being interviewed by Daniel for the Rock &

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