Can it really be 100 episodes?
Apparently so.
Times change.
I’ve become a freelancer, written a novel and become a cricket commentator. Two of my kids have been through university, while one’s left home and moved in with his girlfriend. My football team has risen like a phoenix from the ashes and stands on the brink of the playoffs leading to the beautiful, ghastly metaverse of the Premier League. Talking of the Ashes, not much has changed there for England. Our pub trivia team finally won again last month after several years off the podium. I’m now in a Book Club, a Music Club, and as of next month a Movie Club. There’s been travel back to England, to Ireland, Kenya, Norway, Sweden and Denmark. There’s been bushfires, there’s been Covid.
5 years ago when we started there were 100,000 podcasts. Now there are two million and 40 million episodes. So you’ve got other options. But it’s great that quite a few of you stick around and before you know it, we had a community.
You tend to find your own demographic after a while, whatever your original intention might have been. I think, to start with, I vaguely had in mind a younger listener who might also be interested in the music of the last 60 years. How it’s worked out, I think, is that the typical listener is someone a bit older, but with a genuine curiosity for and love of the byways of popular music. Typically, lovely people too.
I asked people on the FB site to write in with suggestions of bands that have not been on the pod before, and this is the result. There are plenty of other loyal listeners, and I’d like to extend my thanks to every one of you. There are also, no doubt, people listening, often in far flung places, whose identity I’ll never know. This makes me a bit sad, but also a bit happy at the same time.
Our 100th Playlist:
Moral Fibre, LIFE (Mick Street)
Toe Cutter, The Oh Sees (Gerry Frizelle)
Moving Targets, The Hole (Sean Tracey)
Summerstock, Imaginary People (Paul Howarth)
The Perfume Garden, The Chameleons (Richy Hetherington)
I only drink when I’m drunk, BC Camplight (Graeme Myles)
Road Head, Japanese Breakfast (Doug Evans)
The Raven, Destroyer (Tim Dennis-Jones)
The Highest Flood, Forest Swords (Luke Finley)
Press Gang, TV Priest (Gerry McKiernan)
Serious, Damien Dempsey (Karen McHugh)
Love like blood, Killing Joke (Ian Brann)
The Feast, Katie Kim (Lewis Lyons)
Alone Omen 3, King Krule (David Hughes)
The Strangle of Anna, Moonlandingz (Steve Amphlett)
Roll it, Nap Eyes (Guy Haslam)
She past away, Rituel (Eric Gagnon Poulin)
She Is Mine, Psychedelic Furs (Pinko Fowler)
Fairy Tales, Stockholm Monsters (Michael Moss)
Don’t touch me there, The Tubes (Helen Cooper)
I didn’t know, Skinshape (Alex Forth)
Cliff has left the building, Insecure Men (Scott Forth)
Cover my eyes, The Little Quirks (Tamsin Forth)
I lost you but I found country music, Ballboy (Ian Moore)