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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

74:04

E226: A Liverpool special with Penny Kiley and Paul...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2026/04/13

For this episode we're joined by not one but two very special guests to talk about one of the great music cities.Penny Kiley is the former pop columnist for the Liverpool Echo, contributed regularly to Melody Maker and has just published the superb memoir Atypical Girl. Paul Du Noyer, meanwhile, wrote beautifully for the NME in its glory years and edited both Q and MOJO; he is also the author of 2002's exceptional Liverpool: Wondrous Place. We ask our guests about everything from the

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66:32

E225: Adele Bertei on New York's No Wave scene

Rock"s Backpages ·

2026/03/30

In this episode we welcome back the marvellous Adele Bertei — five years after she first guested on our show — to talk about her amazing new book No New York.Beginning with a definition of the postpunk sub-genre "No Wave", the former Contortion recalls her experience of living in Manhattan's perilous East Village in the late '70s and playing organ behind the unhinged James Chance. She also pays tribute to the many fearless women who "shaped the scene", first and foremost the formidable Lydia

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65:15

E224: Jimmy McDonough on Neil Young + Gary Stewart +...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2026/03/16

For this episode we invite the very entertaining Jimmy McDonough to join us — all the way from Portland, Oregon — and discuss his career as "the king of the crazy biographers".Our guest explains how he moved (back) to New York from Indiana in the '80s and how he got his foot in the door at the Village Voice with a 1988 profile of country singer Gary Stewart, the subject of his new book. We then hear about the long and painful saga of his extraordinary Neil Young biography Shakey (2002) — and his

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63:53

E223: AOR Special with Paul Rees + Boston audio...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2026/03/02

For this episode we welcome former Q/Kerrang! editor-in-chief Paul Rees to RBP Towers to discuss his riveting new book Raised on Radio: Power Ballads, Cocaine & Payola.An oral history of AOR (or Album-Oriented Rock), Raised on Radio gives us an eagerly-awaited chance to enthuse about an oft-maligned genre we all happen to adore. The conversation takes in most of AOR's major practitioners, from Kansas and Toto to Journey and Survivor, and incorporates clips from John Tobler's 1979 audio interview

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77:43

E222: Jeff Walker & Kim Gottlieb on Tom Waits + Gram...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2026/02/16

For this episode we're joined — all the way from Laurel Canyon — by the husband-and-wife tag team that is Jeff Walker and Kim Gottlieb(-Walker). Married for 53 years, Jeff and Kim have worked in diverse capacities in the music business and talk about their experiences over those five-plus decades.We start with the couple's work together on monthly freesheet Music World, focusing on their 1973 encounters with Tom Waits and Gram Parsons (plus a 15-year-old Cameron Crowe tagging along). After audio

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62:48

E221: Phast Phreddie Patterson on the world's biggest...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2026/02/02

In this episode, we talk to Fred Patterson, aka Phast Phreddie, about his work at the ARChive of Contemporary Music, plus his own magazine Back Door Man and his band Thee Precisions.Beginning with his early musical life teaching classes with Don Waller at UCLA's Experimental College, we hear about how he named Back Door Man after a Howlin Wolf song and wanted to cover "hard core rock n roll". Phreddie remembers how different it was working with R. Meltzer compared to Lester Bangs, who both

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68:02

E220: Bob Stanley on Saint Etienne + Connie Francis +...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2026/01/19

Content warning: This episode contains discussion of rape (40:37–42:20). In this episode we ask Bob Stanley about his career as a writer and member of the beloved Saint Etienne, whose swansong year this is. We start with Caff, the '80s fanzine which set out the eclectic pop aesthetic that underpinned Saint Etienne, proceeding from there to Bob's memories of life on Melody Maker in the late '80s and early '90s. A clip of our guest's erstwhile MM colleague Simon Reynolds talking about Saint

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86:46

E219: Thurston Moore on free jazz + Sonic Youth +...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2026/01/02

For this episode we're joined by Sonic Youth legend Thurston Moore to discuss his new book Now Jazz Now: 100 Essential Free Jazz and Improvisation Recordings, 1960-80.We start by recapping on the story our guest told in his acclaimed 2023 memoir Sonic Life. In the course of the conversation about his early musical life in Florida and Connecticut we hear a clip from Steve Roeser's 1994 audio interview with him. Discussion of early influences such as the Stooges takes us back to Thurston's stint in

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98:57

E218: James Brown on Sounds + NME + Loaded + the KLF

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/12/15

For this episode we're joined in our Hammersmith HQ by James ("The Hardest Working Man In Show Business") Brown.The former NME star and founder of "lads' mag" progenitor loaded takes us back to his Yorkshire boyhood in Headingley. He recalls his parents' record collection, the first gigs he attended as the class "smart-arse" at Lawnswood School... and his acclaimed '80s fanzine Attack On Bzag! Our guest's account of how he came to contribute to Sounds leads to clips from the late Andy Gill's 1991

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79:06

E217: Susan Compo & Derek Ridgers on punks, goths and...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/12/02

In this episode we welcome not one but two wonderful guests to RBP Towers. Susan Compo and Derek Ridgers have been trans-Atlantic pals for decades and first met on a FourFourTwo assignment to interview and photograph the L.A.-expats "soccer" team Hollywood United.Starting with Susan's punk years in Southern California, we hear about her memories of seeing the Sex Pistols live in Dallas and Tulsa in January 1978. She also talks about her trip to London the year before, prompting Derek's recall of

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91:03

E216: Pete Paphides on ABBA + Stevie Wonder + Broken...

Rock"s Backpages ·

2025/11/17

In this episode we're joined by Pete Paphides, former rock critic for the London Times and author of 2020's acclaimed memoir Broken Greek.We start with our guest's unique "'Starman' moment" – seeing the Brotherhood of Man lip-sync to the ghastly 'Save Your Kisses for Me' on Top of the Pops in 1976 – and then plunge straight into a celebration of his favourite pop group ABBA. We hear about his love of the Swedes' countless classic songs; his interviews with Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson; and

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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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