C86 Show - Indie Pop

Laurence Myers - talking David Bowie, music & his new book Hunky Dory with David Eastaugh 

Laurence Myers is a Theatre and Film Producer. He was formerly a Music Executive, owning and running record and artist management companies.

First coming to prominence as a Financial Advisor/ Accountant to The Rolling Stones and other leading artists in the 1960s, Laurence entered the music business full-time in 1970, signing then unproven David Bowie to his record label ‘Gem’.

In an impressive career in the music world spanning decades, Laurence’s companies represented artists including The Animals, Herman’s Hermits, The Kinks, Led Zeppelin, Donovan, Lionel Bart, Heatwave, The New Seekers, Alan Price, The Tremeloes, The Sweet, Donna Summer, Scott Walker and Billy Ocean, as well as advising The Beatles on their Apple Corp venture.

Dana Gillespie in conversation  with David Eastaugh

Dana Gillespie recorded initially in the folk genre in the mid-1960s. Some of her recordings as a teenager fell into the teen pop category, such as her 1965 single "Thank You Boy", written by John Carter and Ken Lewis and produced by Jimmy Page. Her acting career got under way shortly afterwards, and it overshadowed her musical career in the late 1960s and 1970s.

The song "Andy Warhol" was originally written by David Bowie for Gillespie, who recorded it in 1971, but her version of the song was not released until 1973 on her album Weren't Born a Man. Her version also featured Mick Ronson on guitar. After performing backing vocals on the track "It Ain't Easy" from Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, she recorded an album produced by Bowie and Mick Ronson in 1973, Weren't Born a Man. Subsequent recordings have been in the blues genre, appearing with the London Blues Band. She is also notable for being the original Mary Magdalene in the first London production of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Jesus Christ Superstar, which opened at the Palace Theatre in 1972. She also appeared on the Original London Cast album. During the 1980s Gillespie was a member of the Austrian Mojo Blues Band.

Marloes Bontje - co-author of Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace: The Worldwide Compendium of Postpunk and Goth in the 1980s - in conversation with David Eastaugh 

It was a scene that had many names: some original members referred to themselves as punks, others new romantics, new wavers, the bats, or the morbids. "Goth" did not gain lexical currency until the late 1980s. But no matter what term was used, "postpunk" encompasses all the incarnations of the 1980s alternative movement. Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace is a visual and oral history of the first decade of the scene. Featuring interviews with both the performers and the audience to capture the community on and off stage, the book places personal snapshots alongside professional photography to reveal a unique range of fashions, bands, and scenes. A book about the music, the individual, and the creativity of a worldwide community rather than theoretical definitions of a subculture, Some Wear Leather, Some Wear Lace considers a subject not often covered by academic books. Whether you were part of the scene or are just fascinated by different modes of expression, this book will transport you to another time and place.

“Vinca Petersen is a photographer, installation, multimedia, and performance artist who works in the area of social practice. All of her works, including her photography, emerge from her deep social and political engagement with underrepresented communities in order to give them a voice and recognition”.

– Dr Mark Bartlett

Bob Mazzer in conversation with David Eastaugh

Barry Miles in conversation with David Eastaugh

Pete Loved in conversation with David Eastaugh.

Pete Loveday is a British underground cartoonist. He drew many comics charting the adventures of hippie character Russell including Big Bang Comics, Big Trip Travel Agency, Plain Rapper Comix printed by AK Press.

He draws like Robert Crumb or Gilbert Shelton with lots of cross-hatching. Big Bang Comics is Britain's most successful underground comics. Recurring themes in the comics are drugs, Rock festivals, environmentalism etc. Plain Rapper Comix #2 is Loveday's pamphlet in comic book form on a history of hemp and why it would be beneficial for the environment to replace tree paper with hemp paper and he practices what he preaches by being the first publication in modern times to be printed on such paper. The Russell comics were reprinted in book form Russell, The Saga of a peaceful man published by John Brown Publishing.

Russell reappeared in the Big Trip Travel Agency series published by AK Press (6 volumes); which are a series of short stand alone cartoons and also a serialised longer story. Issue 2 featured The Levellers. After Big Trip 5 (1999) Russell's story was to be continued in Volume 6, which it seemed would never appear. Then in 2012, to many fan's delight, AKPress made Big Trip 6 available through their website and through a mainstream Internet retailer where some reviews of Loveday's classic comics can also be read.

As a champion of British small press comics he drew lots of multi-artist jam strips in B. Patston's Psychopia. He drew a Russell comic in Danny King's Blah, Blah, Blah!

He used to have a stall at Glastonbury Festival, selling his comics and other items and now, after a gap of more than a decade, has a stall at the Secret Garden Party and Beautiful Days, both festivals for which he produces artwork.

Although he has had some problems with his eyesight these are finally being resolved, and have never really prevented him from producing a wide range of artwork, ranging from advertising posters (including some unlikely billboard art for Nike) through greetings cards, postcards, CD and record sleeve designs, book illustrations to flyers and T-shirt designs.

In July 2018 Freedom Seeds, a UK based seed bank, named a cannabis strain ‘Big Trip’ in tribute to Loveday. Pete created a logo for the product.

Loveday attributes his black sense of humour to having spent the 1969 Summer of Love disembowelling chickens in a poultry processing factory, a traumatic experience which left him with a morbid fear of death.

He lives in Devon with his wife Kate.

Ray Foulk discussing his two new books on the Isle of Wight Festival - Stealing Dylan from Woodstock and The Last Great Event with Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison with David Eastaugh

The 1969 Isle of Wight Festival was Bob Dylan's one and only full concert appearance in seven-and-a-half years and played its part in a highly transformative period of the artist's life. Stealing Dylan from Woodstock tells, from a unique perspective, of an extraordinary event which seismically altered the lives of the author, his family, all those involved with it and many of those who attended.

For a time, the Isle of Wight Festivals transformed a sleepy English island into the rock'n'roll capital of the world. What started in 1968 as a parochial one-nighter in a stubble field to raise funds for a local swimming pool, a year later ballooned into a massive outdoor gathering. Numbers sky-rocketed as devotees flocked to the Island from mainland Britain, Europe, the Americas and as far away as Australia, to pay homage to rock's poet laureate, Bob Dylan.

The reclusive star had been holed up in the artist-town of Woodstock for more than three years, following a serious motorcycle accident. He toyed with playing the Woodstock festival brought to his own front door but it was the Foulk brothers who succeeded where all others failed, luring Dylan 3,000 miles away from home to their Island, to create a Woodstock of his own.

Landing the music biz coup of the decade, the three Foulk brothers, a printer, an estate agent and an art student became pioneers in pop promotion by signing for the world exclusive appearance of the reluctant 'voice of his generation'.

For the organisers, short on experience, resources and time, the ensuing public response was almost overwhelming, and the challenge of delivering the most eagerly-awaited musical event of the era daunting. The world's media covered the phenomena, gave the event global coverage and marked it as a suitable climax as the swinging sixties drew to a close.

Nicholas Pegg discussing his latest book The Complete David Bowie - with David Eastaugh

Critically acclaimed in its previous editions, The Complete David Bowie is recognized as the foremost source of analysis and information on every facet of Bowie’s work. The A-Z of songs and the day-by-day dateline are the most complete ever published. From his boyhood skiffle performance at the 18th Bromley Scouts’ Summer Camp, to the majesty of his final masterpiece Blackstar, every aspect of David Bowie’s extraordinary career is explored and dissected by Nicholas Pegg’s unrivalled combination of in-depth knowledge and penetrating insight.

Paul Hanley was the drummer in Manchester legends The Fall from 1980-85 and now plays with Brix & The Extricated. He's studying for an English degree with the Open University and occasionally writes for Louder Than War. He's married with three children and once got 21 on Ken Bruce's 'PopMaster'.

When British bands took the world by storm in the mid-sixties, the world turned and looked at London. Despite the fact that the most successful of these bands hailed from the North West corner of England, for the USA, London was the source of these thrilling new sounds. And in many ways it was - The Beatles, The Hollies and Herman's Hermits recorded all their hits with London-based producers, for London-based companies in London studios. And that's how it remained, until four Mancunian musicians became alive to the possibility of recording away from the capital.

Against the prevailing wisdom, they opted to plough their hard-earned cash back into the city they loved in the form of proper recording facilities. Eric Stewart of The Mindbenders and songwriter extraordinaire Graham Gouldman created Strawberry Studios; Keith Hopwood and Derek Leckenby of Herman's Hermits crafted Pluto. Between them they gave Manchester a voice, and facilitated a musical revolution that would be defined by its rejection of the capital.

This book tells the story of Manchester music through the prism of the two studio's key recordings. Of course that story inevitably takes in The Smiths, Joy Division, The Fall and The Stone Roses. But it's equally the story of 'Bus Stop' and 'East West' and 'I'm Not in Love'. It's the story of the Manchester attitude of L.S. Lowry, by way of Brian and Michael, and how that attitude rubbed off on The Clash and Neil Sedaka. Above all, it's the story of music that couldn't have been made anywhere else but Manchester.

Author Richard King special - discussing his book How Soon Is Now?

'If you look at all the people involved - Ivo, Tony Wilson, McGee, Geoff Travis, myself - nobody had a clue about running a record company, and that was the best thing about it.' Daniel Miller, Mute Records

One of the most tangible aftershocks of punk was its prompt to individuals: do it yourself. A generation was inspired, and often with no planning or business sense, in bedrooms, record-shop back offices and sheds, labels such as Factory, Rough Trade, Mute, Beggars Banquet, 4AD, Creation, Warp and Domino began. From humble beginnings, some of the most influential artists were allowed to thrive: Orange Juice, New Order, Depeche Mode, Happy Mondays, The Smiths, Primal Scream, My Bloody Valentine, Aphex Twin, Teenage Fanclub, The Arctic Monkeys. How Soon Is Now? is a landmark survey of the artists, the labels, and the mavericks behind them who had the vision and bloody-mindedness to turn the music world on its head.

Author Simon Reynolds discussing Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy, from the Seventies to the Twenty-First Century with David Eastaugh

A Guardian, Sunday Times, Mojo, Daily Telegraph and Observer Book of the Year
Longlisted for the Penderyn Music Book Prize 2017

As the sixties dream faded, a new flamboyant movement electrified the world: GLAM! In Shock and Awe, Simon Reynolds explores this most decadent of genres on both sides of the Atlantic. Bolan, Bowie, Suzi Quatro, Alice Cooper, New York Dolls, Slade, Roxy Music, Iggy, Lou Reed, Be Bop Deluxe, David Essex -- all are represented here. Reynolds charts the retro future sounds, outrageous styles and gender-fluid sexual politics that came to define the first half of the seventies and brings it right up to date with a final chapter on glam in hip hop, Lady Gaga, and the aftershocks of David Bowie's death.

Shock and Awe is a defining work and another classic in the Faber Social rock n roll canon to stand alongside Rip it Up, Electric Eden and Yeah Yeah Yeah.