C86 Show - Indie Pop

Steve Hill in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.route-online.com/all-books/friday-night-fever

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/friday-night-fever-inside-the-cult-of-half-man-half-biscuit-steve-hill-tickets-1999016058844

Half Man Half Biscuit occupy a unique place in British culture. Existing largely outside the music business, this idiosyncratic Birkenhead band has flown under the radar for over four decades. Without embarking on anything that could realistically be described as a tour, they have nevertheless garnered an army of adoring followers. This is one fan’s story.

Biscuit concerts are supremely joyous occasions, with disparate devotees often travelling huge distances to far-flung locations. United by their love of the band, some of the hardcore never miss a show. Following the enforced pandemic hiatus, author Steve Hill made the life changing decision to join these Ultras and go full-time.

Round Britain in a Dukla Prague away kit – from Somerset to Scotland and all points in between – Friday Night Fever is a raucous road trip: one man, one band, 25 gigs. But beyond the jocularity and Joy Division oven gloves, there is a poignant exploration of the lives touched by this most beloved national treasure.

David Holzer in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lou-Reed-Metal-Machine-Mystic/dp/1916829368

One of rock music’s most enigmatic and confounding artists is here revealed as never before through the murky prism of his most extreme and polarising work: Metal Machine Music, a double album of vocal-free, unrelentingly shocking noise. Initially dismissed on its release in 1975 as an avant-garde prank or an act of career suicide (or both), the album has acquired a growing number of admirers over the subsequent half-century, along the way to becoming a kind of secret handshake of hipness.

Through his work both in The Velvet Underground and as a solo artist, Reed is one of the most acclaimed and influential musicians of the rock era, yet he remains a defiantly inscrutable figure. Drawing on extensive research and exclusive interviews with more than sixty friends, collaborators, and admirers, David Holzer reveals him anew as a spiritual seeker with a deep interest in the esoteric practices of Alice Bailey and others, and a man with a profound belief in the power of one’s inner spirit. In so doing, he positions Metal Machine Music as a deeply serious, talismanic work that is unique in rock’n’roll.

Legs McNeil in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Resident-Punk/Legs-McNeil/9781637749470

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Resident-Punk-Smoked-Stumbled-Through/dp/1637749465

Time-travel to the punk scene of 1970s New York and beyond, as seen through the eyes of its chief reporter known as “the original punk” who gave the movement its name.

Part memoir and part cultural history, Resident Punk offers a no-holds-barred expose chronicling the iconic and unforgettable music scene that would become defined by bands like the Ramones, Blondie, Television, the Heartbreakers, and Talking Heads.

In 1975 at just 19 years old, Legs McNeil—alongside John Holmstrom and Ged Dunn—cofounded PUNK magazine. In doing so, they inadvertently chronicled the start of a movement. McNeil’s role in the whole thing? To be their resident punk, embodying the zeitgeist the magazine was looking to capture, often by getting f*cked up with musicians, artists, writers, and hangers-on . . . and sleeping with a different girl every day of the week.

Now, just in time for the 50th anniversary of PUNK magazine, Legs tells the stories behind the stories in a sleazy, star-studded adventure. The coauthor of Please Kill Me, Legs invites readers along for the ride as he tussles with musicians and artists, groupies and writers, Golden Age Hollywood film stars and legendary figures of ‘70s New York. Featuring untold stories about Joey Ramone, William S. Burroughs, Patti Smith, Alan Vega, Martin Rev, the Dictators, the Dead Boys, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and Poly Styrene, this book is an immersive look at the punk music scene as only a true insider can tell it.

Tony Fletcher in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/POW-When-Punk-Went-1980-84/dp/B0GGGXLZPH

POW! is the fascinating memoir of a precocious English teen in the early 1980s who published a music magazine, interviewed many of the era's top artists, befriended rock stars, ran a record label, appeared on television, played in a band and found first love -- all at the same time!

In this sequel to his Boy About Town (2013), Tony Fletcher's incredible adventures in the world of British post-punk make for a compelling adventure of highs (an exclusive interview with Paul McCartney, friendship with Paul Weller of the hugely successful Jam, playing to huge audiences, discovering love and sex) and lows (heartbreak, learning the financial challenges of running a label the hard way, the collapse of his band).

Despite the passage of time, he summons up all the enthusiasm he felt for the music and women he loved and marvels at the incredible experiences he had as a hard-working young striver.

The generation raised on MTV, the New Musical Express and bands like Madness, Wham!, the Smiths, Echo and the Bunnymen, Dexy's Midnight Runners and Killing Joke will love reading this inside view of a knowledgeable fan who got to know them all.

Marco Pirroni in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/authors/Marco-Pirroni/266126980

Marco Pirroni is a songwriter, guitarist and producer. A lynchpin of the UK punk scene, Marco’s first appearance on stage was with Siouxsie and the Banshees at the 100 Club in 1976. He went on to join bands the Models and then Rema-Rema before teaming up with a little-known punk outfit – Adam and the Ants – in 1979 and within a year the band was on the brink of worldwide acclaim.

An integral part of the band, Marco acted as lead guitarist and co-songwriter with Adam. Marco’s work with Adam left an indelible commercial and creative stamp across the 1980s and pop music in general. Marco went on to work with other artists including Sinéad O'Connor and had become regarded as an authority on the punk movement.

Gregor Gall in conversation with David Eastaugh 

Jerome Soligny in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.accartbooks.com/uk/book/david-bowie-music-lover/

David Bowie: Music Lover is a compelling mix of personal insight and expert commentary, jointly written by Bowie’s lifelong friend, collaborator and listening companion, Geoff MacCormack, and Jérôme Soligny, author of the seminal Rainbowman, who knew Bowie for 25 years.

From Classical to Britpop, Electronica to Delta Blues, the book explores Bowie’s eclectic playlist, redolent of the decades he lived through but also of his deep interest in all genres and eras of music. It’s a story that begins with Little Richard on Bowie’s childhood Dansette record player, and ends with Kendrick Lamar, a go-to listen during the recording of Blackstar, released just two days before he died.

An indispensable guide for Bowie fans and all Music Lovers.

Molly Tie in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://omnibuspress.com/products/rebel-grrrls?srsltid=AfmBOopJhSAnhQq9LIB3NO8T9zN9PSlNCL7axjGdFHoXKjLVSHFm7RNP

From the gritty streets of 1970s London to the sun-soaked beaches of 2000s California, Rebel Grrrls: The Real Story of Women and Punk is a raw and exhilarating exploration of rebellion and identity, seen through the eyes of its fans. This book goes beyond the musicians, spotlighting the women who defied small-town limitations, challenged family expectations and shaped the scene from the inside out.

Molly Tie examines what the movement has meant to millions of fans, setting their experiences within a wider cultural and political landscape. What is it like to be a woman at a gig? Which bands and songs truly reflect the female experience in a male-dominated space? And how does our connection to alternative music change when powerful figures face allegations of abuse?

Spanning every era from the British explosion and American hardcore to riot grrrl, pop-punk, emo, ska and today's activist revival, Tie reveals how women in the movement have fought to be heard, proving that, at its best, punk is about refusing to stay silent.

John L Williams in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Heatwave-Summer-Britain-Boiling-Point/dp/1800961715

With temperatures soaring to 35ºC, severe water shortages and a sunburned population queuing at the standpipes, the summer of 1976 was always remembered as Britain's hottest.

But the wave that hit the UK that year was also cultural and political, with upheaval on the streets, in parliament, on the cricket pitch and on the radios and TV sets of a nation at a crossroads.

Before this blistering summer, Britain seemed stuck in the post-war era, a country where people were all in it together - as long as you were white, male and straight. In July, Tom Robinson writes a song called Glad to be Gay, and by August bank holiday, Black youth are making the police run for their lives in the almighty riot at the Notting Hill Carnival. But with the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson suddenly quitting, the pound sinking and the economy tanking, a restless immigrant population and increasing dissatisfaction in the old world order, the weather seemed to boil up the country to the point where the lid blows off.

Weaving a rich tapestry of the news stories of the year, with social commentary and dozens of first-person interviews with those that were there at the time, Williams's reappraisal of the summer of '76 is an evocative, sometimes nostalgic but always an unflinching read. Heatwave takes us back to relive the events of that summer and asks - have we really moved on as much as we would have liked?

Jesse Rifkin in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://walkonthewildsidenyc.com/about

https://www.amazon.co.uk/This-Must-Be-Place-Community/dp/1335449329

Take a walk through almost any neighborhood in Manhattan and you'll likely pass some of the most significant clubs in American music history. But you won't know it--almost all of these venues have been demolished or repurposed, leaving no record of what they were, how they shaped music scenes or their impact on the neighborhoods around them.

Traditional music history tells us that famous scenes are created by brilliant, singular artists. But dig deeper and you'll find that they're actually created by cheap rent, empty space and other unglamorous factors that allow artistic communities to flourish. The 1960s folk scene would have never existed without access to Greenwich Village's Washington Square Park. If the city hadn't gone bankrupt in 1975, there would have been no punk rock. Brooklyn indie rock of the 2000s was only able to come together because of the borough's many empty warehouse spaces. But these scenes are more than just moments of artistic genius--they're also part of the urban gentrification cycle, one that often displaces other communities and, eventually, the musicians themselves.

Drawing from over a hundred exclusive interviews with a wide range of musicians, deejays and scenesters (including members of Peter, Paul and Mary; White Zombie; Moldy Peaches; Sonic Youth; Treacherous Three; Cro-Mags; Sun Ra Arkestra; and Suicide), writer, historian and tour guide Jesse Rifkin painstakingly reconstructs the physical history of numerous classic New York music scenes. This Must Be the Place examines how these scenes came together and fell apart--and shows how these communal artistic experiences are not just for rarefied geniuses but available to us all.

Simon Reynolds in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://store.whiterabbitbooks.co.uk/products/still-in-a-dream

Twenty years after his acclaimed postpunk best-seller, Rip It Up and Start Again, Simon Reynolds tells the tale of what happened next: the underground explosion of noisepop, shoegaze, slacker rock and grunge that reverberated through the mid-Eighties into the early Nineties.

Capturing the musical exhilaration of the era along with the alienation of youth during a period of ascendant conservative politics and glitzy mainstream pop, Still in a Dream celebrates a golden age of guitar reinvention, a second psychedelia of mind-blowing sounds pioneered by bands like My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth. In Britain, groups like Cocteau Twins and Slowdive escaped into shimmering dreamworlds while American underground rockers like Dinosaur Jr. and Pavement blended apathy and urgency into thrilling noise.

A propulsive and personal account from a journalist who covered this music in real time from the frontlines, Still in a Dream vividly recreates a period that was the last blast for the analogue culture of vinyl records and music papers, before the Internet changed everything.

Peter Guralnick in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://store.whiterabbitbooks.co.uk/products/the-colonel-and-the-king

In early 1955, Colonel Tom Parker discovered a teenage Elvis Presley and declared him destined for greatness. What followed was one of the most extraordinary partnerships in music history and the creation of a bond built on loyalty, ambition and an unshakeable belief in each other.

From the meteoric rise that reshaped popular culture to the struggles that shadowed their final years, this concluding volume of Peter Guralnick's acclaimed trilogy reveals the full complexity of their relationship.

Drawing on previously unpublished letters and telegrams from Parker's own archives, it offers an intimate, unflinching portrait of two American originals: the visionary manager who invented the modern superstar and the artist who became one. Brilliant, flawed and inseparable, Elvis and the Colonel changed the music world forever.

Julia Round in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.juliaround.com/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gothic-Girls-Misty-British-Comics/dp/1496824466

Award-winning writer and independent scholar. She is one of the founders and editors of the academic journal Studies in Comics (Intellect Books) and of the book series Encapsulations: Critical Comics Studies (University of Nebraska Press).

Today fans still remember and love the British girls’ comic Misty for its bold visuals and narrative complexities. Yet its unique history has drawn little critical attention. Bridging this scholarly gap, Julia Round presents a comprehensive cultural history and detailed discussion of the comic, preserving both the inception and development of this important publication as well as its stories.

Misty ran for 101 issues as a stand-alone publication between 1978 and 1980 and then four more years as part of Tammy. It was a hugely successful anthology comic containing one-shot and serialized stories of supernatural horror and fantasy aimed at girls and young women and featuring work by writers and artists who dominated British comics such as Pat Mills, Malcolm Shaw, and John Armstrong, as well as celebrated European artists. To this day, Misty remains notable for its daring and sophisticated stories, strong female characters, innovative page layouts, and big visuals.

Richard Langston in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://feralhouse.com/the-clean/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Clean-Dreamlife-Need-Rubber-Soul/

In 1978 in Dunedin , New Zealand, the Kilgour brothers, Hamish and David, and their schoolfriend Peter Gutteridge, got together to form a band called The Clean. When Robert Scott joined in 1980, the band found a combination that endured for nearly forty years.

The Clean profoundly changed alternative music: hitting the New Zealand charts for months with a single made for 50 dollars, 'Tally Ho!'; helping establish Flying Nun and a music scene independent of the big labels; pioneering a low-fi, do-it-yourself approach to rock music; and touring internationally to influence bands like Pavement and Yo La Tengo.

Raw and immediate, this is the story as told by members of The Clean and their inner circle - fellow musicians such as Chris Knox, Martin Phillipps, Graeme Downes and Ira Kaplan, friends and family, pub promoters and sound engineers, and their good friend, Richard Langston. From teenagers in a Dunedin practice room to New York City on 9/11 - this is the band's history as it unfolds.

Gary Lachman in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Touched-Presence-Blondies-Bowery-Occult/dp/B0DSV388DQ

https://www.gary-lachman.com/

https://garylachman.co.uk/

In this memoir, Lachman recounts how he went from being a successful rock and roller to a writer on consciousness and the Western inner tradition. He shares encounters with rockers such as the Ramones, New York Dolls, Patti Smith, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, and Iggy Pop and also his time with Timothy Leary, William Burroughs, and Allen Ginsberg. Living with Blondie’s Debbie Harry and Chris Stein on New York’s Bowery, a block from CBGB, the birthplace of punk rock, Lachman discovered occultism via a follower of Aleister Crowley.

Post rock and roll, Lachman’s occult studies brought him to the Golden Dawn, Manly P. Hall, Gnosticism, and a stint in Crowley’s O.T.O. He details his time in the Fourth Way, including a visit to the site of Gurdjieff ’s Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man in France, and his years studying philosophy and literature and working as a science writer while managing a famous metaphysical bookshop at the height of the New Age movement. Excursions to Stonehenge, Avebury, and Glastonbury in search of ley lines and pilgrimages to Colin Wilson’s home in Cornwall are a few of the highlights of this introspective, often humorous account of a nascent writer’s struggle from rock and roll to individuation.

Roddy Bottum in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Royal-We-Memoir-Roddy-Bottum/dp/1636142699

THE ROYAL WE is a poetic survey of a time set in a magical city that once was and is no more. It is a memoir written by Roddy Bottum, a musician and artist, that documents through prose his coming of age and out of the closet in 1980s San Francisco, a charged era of bicycle messengers, punk rock, street witches, wheatgrass, and rebellion. The book follows his travels from Los Angeles, growing up gay with no role models, to San Francisco, where he formed Faith No More and went on to tour the world relentlessly, surviving heroin addiction and the plight of AIDS, to become a queer icon.

The book is an elevated wallop of tongue and insight, much more than a tell-all. There are personal tales of historical pinnacles like Kurt and Courtney, Guns N' Roses, and recaps of gold records and arena rock - but it's the testimonies of tragedy and addiction and preposterous life-spins that make this work so unique and intriguing.

Bottum writes about his dark and harrowing past in a clear-eyed voice that is utterly devoid of self-pity, and his emboldened and confident pronouncements of achievement and unorthodox heroism flow in an unstoppable train that's both captivating and inspirational. A remarkable portrayal of a creative individual in emergence, a gay man figuring out how to be a gay man, and a detailed look at the nuance of 1980s pre-tech boom San Francisco, The Royal We will be greatly appreciated by people who loved Kathleen Hanna's Rebel Girl, Patti Smith's Just Kids, Hua Hsu's Stay True, and other memoirs about the artist's life.

Adele Bertei in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.roughtrade.com/product/adele-bertei/no-new-york-a-memoir-of-no-wave-and-the-women-who-shaped-the-scene

In 1975 a young queer singer from Cleveland meets photographer Nan Goldin - an encounter that will lead them to New York's bombed-out downtown, where something unprecedented is brewing. At Max's Kansas City and CBGBs, in derelict lofts and underground clubs, a generation of visionary women artists is rewriting the rules of creativity, sexuality, and power.

Adele Bertei didn't just witness the No Wave explosion-she ignited it. As acetone organist for the Contortions and Brian Eno's assistant, she was at the epicenter when punk collided with post-punk, birthing a counterculture that fused music, art, cinema, fashion and outlaw literature into an uncompromising explosion of creativity. While mainstream culture wallowed in sexism and homophobia, these artists and more created something fluid, fierce, and transgressive.

Raw, gripping, and illustrated with rare photographs from personal collections, No New York is the definitive insider's account of the women who obliterated every barrier in their path, taking you deep into the artistic and sexual experimentation of an era when true expression mattered more than money or fame.

Kevin Cann in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.kevincann.com/

https://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2011/mar/09/david-bowie-in-pictures

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Any-Day-Now-London-1947-1974/dp/0955201780

Ben Cardew in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Space-Age-Batchelor-Pad-Music/dp/1916829325

http://jawbonepress.com/space-age-batchelor-pad-music/

Stereolab are one of the most fascinating guitar groups of the past fifty years, a source of constant reinvention and illuminating contrasts, where political ideology meets the sweetest pop melodies and driving guitars rub along with space-age jazz. They are perhaps the greatest Anglo-French collaboration since Concorde—a hugely respected, highly influential group whose fan base grows larger by the year, stretching from chart-topping hip hop artists to underground indie stars. And yet their appeal remains elusive. What kind of music do Stereolab make? What’s their best album? Their greatest song? There are no easy answers.

In writing this book, Ben Cardew spoke to more than fifty people from the Stereolab universe to trace the history of the band from the depths of 90s indie London to their all-conquering reunion tour of 2025. Using twenty of their songs as jumping-off points, he examines in loving detail what makes this most fascinating band work, unpicking the cultural references, stylistic contradictions, and brilliant ideas at the heart of the group.

Alexander Larman in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Lazarus-The-Second-Coming-of-David-Bowie/Alexander-Larman/9781917923446

Lazarus: The Second Coming of David Bowie is the first biography of Bowie that tells the full and candid story of what happened in between those two apparently unbridgeable points. With new and exclusive interviews with the musicians, filmmakers and cultural figures who worked with and befriended Bowie throughout this period, Lazarus is the definitive account of the previously overlooked and fascinating latter half of a great and distinguished career. A career that climaxed with his final masterpiece, Blackstar, and the unprecedented theatrical flourish of his departure from the stage as he passed into legend.