C86 Show - Indie Pop

Guy Mankowski in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://iknowhowtolive.substack.com/p/welcome-to-i-know-how-to-live-the

Dorothy Max Prior in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.roughtrade.com/product/dorothy-max-prior/sex-is-no-emergency-adventures-in-a-post-punk-wonderland

Further adventures in psychedelic rock, ballroom dancing, performance art, and parenting in 1980s Britain. Further adventures in a post-punk wonderland from the author of the acclaimed 69 Exhibition Road.

In this new volume, focusing on the 1980s, Dorothy Max Prior recalls her days as a ballroom dancing tutor in South Kensington, drumming and touring with infamous experimental pan-sexual psychedelic rock group Psychic TV, exploring London and New York City's queer clubbing undergrounds, the tangled worlds of the UK’s indie music scene at the height of its influence, performance art, and parenting.

Noel Burke in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1001217991862133/user/61555741167271/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1001217991862133

Irish singer, who is best known for replacing Ian McCulloch as the lead singer with Echo & the Bunnymen from 1989 to 1993.

Burke's first band was St. Vitus Dance, who released the album Love Me, Love My Dogma in 1987. The band split and Burke was contacted by Will Sergeant, who invited him to join Echo & the Bunnymen as lead vocalist. The band released Reverberation (1990) 

In 2005, Burke reformed St. Vitus Dance for some live shows. An album of new material, Glyphotheque, was released in 2008.

Richard James Burgess in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://landscape.band/

https://landscapeband.bandcamp.com/

English musician, singer, songwriter, record producer, composer, author, manager, marketer and inventor.

Burgess's music career spans more than 50 years. He came to prominence in the early 1980s as co-founder and co-lead singer of the synthpop band Landscape, which released a top-5 hit in 1981 with the single "Einstein a Go-Go". Burgess is one of the main composers of Landscape's music, and made major musical and lyrical contributions to the band's songs. After the band's break-up he pursued a brief solo career releasing one mini-album, Richard James Burgess in 1984.

He launched his career as a producer with Spandau Ballet's debut UK hit "To Cut a Long Story Short", the first commercial success for the hitherto underground New Romantic movement.

Burgess currently serves as the President and CEO of A2IM: American Association of Independent Music.

Chris D in conversation with David Eastaugh 

Chris D. (born Chris Desjardins) is an American punk poet, singer, writer, rock critic, producer, and filmmaker. He is best known as the lead singer and founder of the early and long-running Los Angeles punk/death rock band the Flesh Eaters.

The Flesh Eaters were a staple of the L.A. punk scene in the 1980s.^[7] The band played alongside seminal bands like The Misfits and The Meat Puppets.^[3] A number of original Flesh Eaters releases, like River of Fever, were recorded through Shakeytown Music/BMI.^[4] Others were produced by Upsetter, Invasion/Bomp, Zippo/Demon or SST.

From 1989 to 1993 and from 1997 to 2000, Desjardins performed live with varying line-ups of The Flesh Eaters. During the first of these periods, three more albums came out on SST Records: Dragstrip Riot (1991), Sex Diary of Mr. Vampire (1992), and Crucified Lovers in Woman Hell (EP - 1993).Two additional albums, Ashes of Time (1999) and Miss Muerte (2004), were released.

Reinhold Heil in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://reinholdheil.com/

German musician, producer, and film and television composer. He initially achieved success in Germany as a member of the post-punk and Neue Deutsche Welle groups Nina Hagen Band, Spliff and Nena, and later as a music producer.

As a film composer, he is known for his collaborations with director Tom Tykwer, on films such as Run Lola Run (1998), Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006), The International (2009), and Cloud Atlas (2012). 

Paul Marko in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://punk77.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/punk77UK/?locale=en_GB

A history of UK Punk Rock from 1976-79: Featuring bands, fashion, Club & Pubs, history, fanzines & features 

Rob Janicke in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.robjanicke.com/

HAVE I GOT A LITTLE STORY FOR YOU...

The year was 1984. I was eleven years old and popular music was in a state of confusion. Along with songs by artists I liked such as Van Halen, Prince, Quiet Riot, Duran Duran, Billy Idol, and The Police, Top 40 radio constantly played songs from bands or artists that didn't quite do it for me. Apologies to Kenny Loggins, Phil Collins, Bananarama, Wang Chung, and Ray Parker Jr.

Due to the divorce of my parents and telling my mom that I was so unhappy that I no longer wanted to live, I was now a couple of years into therapy. It was around this time that I really began to find solace in music. The mid to late '80s gave me hope. Rap, punk rock, and alternative music befriended me at a time when I needed them the most.

A mixtape from 1989, courtesy of a high school friend, opened my soul to the music that would change my life forever- the gritty sound of grunge.

I know that this experience is not unique to me or my life. History has shown that millions of Gen X kids who were going through some heavy times in the late '80s and early '90s, found comfort in the grunge and alternative music and culture that came first from Seattle, then the world.

Music can save lives; we are proof of that. This book and that sentiment is for the SLACKER in all of us.

- Rob Janicke, author of Slacker

Jon Klein in conversation with David Eastaugh

In 1980, he formed Bristol band Specimen with Ollie Wisdom and Kev Mills. In 1982, after moving in London and renting a place in Soho, Klein co-founded with Wisdom the club the Batcave, which was a party on Wednesday nights at The Gargoyle. Klein and Wisdom then opened a Batcave club night in New-York.

In 1987, he became a full-time member of Siouxsie and the Banshees. He recorded three albums with the band, Peepshow in 1988, Superstition in 1991 and the Rapture in 1995.

Howard Wuelfing in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.diwulf.com/products/available-for-presale-descenes-and-discords-an-anthology

On August 19, 2025, Descenes and Discords: An Anthology will be released, offering a powerful time capsule of the birth and early evolution of punk music through the pages of two influential fanzines: Descenesand Discords. These publications, originally printed and distributed in Washington, D.C. during the late 1970s and early 1980s, captured the raw energy, irreverent spirit, and revolutionary ethos of the underground music scene — the first locally, the second nationally.

Published by writer and musician Howard Wuelfing, Descenes was a hyperlocal chronicle of D.C.'s burgeoning punk, hardcore and new wave communities. It featured scene reports, interviews, and passionate live and record reviews of now-legendary acts like Bad Brains, Slickee Boys, and Half Japanese and dozens of others that never gained national recognition. As vital local music scenes sprung up around the country, Discords picked up the baton with a wider lens — covering bands like Black Flag, Pylon, Circle Jerks, Mission of Burma and many more, all with the same DIY authenticity and zero-corporate gloss.

Descenes and Discords: An Anthology presents full facsimiles of every issue of both zines, preserving the original cut-and-paste layouts, typewritten rants, and Xeroxed charm that defined a generation of independent media. The anthology is enriched with new commentary by Howard Wuelfing, reflecting on the zines’ creation and impact. It also includes a transcribed conversation between Wuelfing and Ian MacKaye — the iconic frontman of Minor Threat and Fugazi — where they discuss the fanzine era’s role in shaping punk’s identity and legacy. A Foreword by esteemed D.C. cultural critic, and contributor to both ‘zines, Mark Jenkins sets the historical stage for readers.

John Ellerby in conversation with David Eastaugh 

http://www.waveneyclarion.co.uk/

The Waveney Clarion was a unique publication, born of the Barsham Fairs. A monthly magazine, it hammered away for eleven years at social injustice, music, ecology, beer, art and the best type of potato to grow on your allotment.

“The beginning of the Waveney Clarion resulted from the kind of unexpected, fortuitous coincidences that don't come knocking every day, making a venture feel like it is meant to happen and cultivating a sense of inevitability.” Sandra Bell, first editor and founder of the Clarion.

Published over a tumultuous decade, the Clarion chronicled an extraordinary period from a perfectly particularperspective – the outlands of rural East Anglia, where coypu were hunted and music, fairs and the fate of our earth seemed to be the only concerns.

Mark Brend in conversation with David Eastaugh

http://jawbonepress.com/down-river/

Down River: In Search Of David Ackles is an illuminating study of mythmaking, the popular music industry, and a forgotten enigma of the 1970s.

In 1972, David Ackles’s third album, American Gothic, was released to a flurry of press plaudits declaring it to be ‘the Sgt Pepper of folk’ and one of the greatest records ever made. Yet the album, like its two predecessors, failed to sell, and after one more record, its creator simply vanished. He found work, raised a family, and died a couple of decades later, having never made another record.

Today, Ackles’s music is largely consigned to the streaming netherworld. It is yet to be properly repackaged and reappraised, and he remains largely unknown. But there is no middle ground. You either love him or you’ve never heard of him. His admirers range from Black Flag’s Greg Ginn to indie polymath Jim O’Rourke to Genesis drummer turned platinum-selling solo artist Phil Collins.

In 2003, when Elvis Costello interviewed Elton John for the first episode of his television show Spectacle, the two spoke at some length, and with palpable respect, about Ackles’s great talent, before performing a duet of his ‘Down River’—the same song Collins had selected for Desert Island Discs a decade earlier.

Paul Da Vinci in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://pauldavinci.com/home

https://www.pauldavinci.net/

Paul Da Vinci is best known as the "incredible" voice on the Rubettes' number one selling single "Sugar Baby Love", which sold over 8 million copies world-wide featuring his three and a half octave voice.  Paul sang all the lead vocals on the record, including the high falsetto, and was also lead vocalist on  the B side of the record "You could have told me".  Recorded at 1.30am Lansdowne Studios, Holland Park, London in 1973.

He had several other chart successes over the 70's and 80's as a solo artist with his own compositions "Your Baby Ain't Your Baby Anymore" and "If You Get Hurt" which he also produced, and as featured lead vocalist on the  Tight Fit single "Back to the Sixties part II" . 

Joe Boyd in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.joeboyd.co.uk/

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Roots-Rhythm-Remain-Journey-Through

Chris Stamey in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.chrisstamey.com/

https://chrisstamey.bandcamp.com/

Anything Is Possible, the latest collection of original material (and one affectionate cover) from North Carolina songwriter / vocalist / guitarist / producer Chris Stamey, an indie rock icon with a long and illustrious history that’s encompassed co-founding seminal avant-pop band the dBs, playing with Alex Chilton in the 70s and more recently with Jody Stephens's Big Star Quintet, and recording with the all-star smart-pop outfit the Salt Collective. The new album features special guests such as the Lemon Twigs, Pat Sansone (Wilco), Probyn Gregory (Brian Wilson band), and Marshall Crenshaw among others. The album was produced by Stamey at Modern Recording in Chapel Hill, NC. Anything Is Possible is being released by Label 51 Recordings on 1digital download and streaming platforms today and 12” LP vinyl, CD, August 8.

Brixton Key

https://brixtonkey.com/

Brixton Key was born in 1950’s London to a party-loving mum and an errant scallywag dad.  As a small boy, he fell in love with the sound of his elder brother’s Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf’s Chess records, Charles Dickens novels, Edith Sitwell poems. causing continual mischief and on the bombsites surrounding his parents central London pub.  

Now longhaired and Kings Road dressed, Brixton copped a gig at the British music weekly Melody Maker.  Writing under the name of Mark Plummer, Brixton wrote features about the likes of Rod Stewart, Paul McCartney, Hawkwind, Rory Gallagher and The Who.  Tossing away his raincoat and California dreaming, he jetted to San Francisco where he discovered Chris Isaak, managing the pop idol to his hit record, Wicked Game.

Martin Porter & David Goggin in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Buzz-Me-Inside-Record-studios/dp/0500028699

Strap yourself in and take a helter-skelter ride through more than a decade’s worth of high drama, hedonism, high tech and musical genius as told by the insiders at the heart of Record Plant studios, one of the most prolific recording factories of all time, founded in 1968 by charismatic audio engineer Gary Kellgren and ace businessman Chris Stone.

In the 1970s, Record Plant was everywhere there was music. In 1976 alone, the studios produced three No. 1 albums: Stevie Wonder’s Songs In The Key Of Life, The Eagles’ Hotel California and Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours. Based on the memoirs and archives of Chris Stone, as well as interviews with over 100 studio employees, music producers and recording artists, Buzz Me In tells the incredible story of Record Plant’s evolution and the making of more than a decade’s worth of Gold and Platinum albums, tape by tape.

Illustrated throughout with behind-the-scenes images, archive photos of artists recording and performing live and album cover art, this revelatory and extensively researched book explores and celebrates the way the studios were designed to cater to every rock’n’roller’s fancy. From the living-room-style studio in New York, where Jimi Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland was recorded and where John Lennon later encamped, to the VIP clubhouse studio in Los Angeles where Stevie Wonder produced his classic hits, and the destination recording venue in Sausalito where Sly Stone, Bob Marley and Fleetwood Mac holed up, each studio location had its own inherent character – but all showcased the founders’ proven formula of combining state-of-the-art audio, fantasy bedrooms and group Jacuzzis with sex, drugs and celebrity jams.

Was Record Plant ‘the real Hotel California’?

Rolf Brendel in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://rolfbrendel.de/

The band was formed in 1981 when vocalist Gabriele Kerner (Nena) came to West Berlin with drummer Rolf Brendel, her boyfriend at the time. 

The band wrote all of their songs themselves, typically working in pairs. They became overnight sensations in Germany when they performed their debut single "Nur geträumt" on German TV in August 1982

The single reached number 2 in the German charts, a position it occupied for 6 weeks, and also climbed high in the Austrian, Belgian, Dutch and Swiss charts.^[ In early 1983 the follow-up single "99 Luftballons" spent a further 7 weeks at number 2 before finally reaching the top slot, a position the debut album matched.

Philip Sanderson in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://snatchtapes.bandcamp.com/

Storm Bugs are a post-punk band formed in 1978 in Deptford, London, by Philip Sanderson and Steven Ball who had met in the Medway Towns, England. The band have been linked to a number of genres including: cassette culture, industrial music and DIY. Storm Bugs were initially active between 1978–82 and defying gravity reformed in 2001.

After moving to London in late 1978 Sanderson wangled out of hours access to the electronic music studio at Goldsmiths College and also purchased a valve Revox reel to reel tape recorder setting up a DIY home studio to annoy the neighbours. Using both these faculties Sanderson recorded much of the Storm Bugs output from 1878 to 1980 with Ball designing the artwork for the releases.

The first Storm Bugs release was as part of Snatch 1 - on the Snatch Tapes cassette label. Snatch Tapes was part of the cassette culture scene and also released tapes by David Jackman (later of Organum), and Claire Thomas & Susan Vezey as well as tracks by the Lemon Kittens, Alien Brains, Cultural Amnesia and the Beach Surgeons (led by a young Graham Massey, later of 808 State).

Storm Bugs went on to release three cassettes albums on Snatch Tapes: A Safe Substitute (1980), Storm Bugs (1980) and Gift (1981). In 1980 the band released their first vinyl record the Table Matters EP on Loop Records (UK) featuring Cash Wash and Eat Good Beans. In 1981 Storm Bugs released their second single an industrial rockabilly 7-inch called "Metamorphose", on the French L'invitation au Suicide label with this time Ball providing lead vocals. Further recordings were made in 1981/1982 but not released with the band effectively going into hibernation for 20 years. Sanderson and Ball however continued to collaborate on other projects including a short-lived pop experimental band called Swoon Baboon and in 1988 the film Green on the Horizon.

Storm Bugs were rediscovered in 2000 when they were included on the bootleg LP I Hate the Pop Group, on Vertical Slum Records. In an attempt to cash in a year later Snatch Tapes reactivated and released a compilation of some of the bands finer moments from the past, entitled Let's Go Outside And Get It Over, this was the start of a re-issue programme that saw much of Storm Bugs original material being rereleased on vinyl.

The following year, 2002 rare and previously unreleased recordings were collected by the Fusetron label, and released on an LP called Up The Middle Down The Sides. In the same year the band also released a 4-track EP of new material called The Bugs Are Back on the Austrian label Klanggalerie. In 2006 the German label Vinyl On Demand issued a Snatch Tapes compilation called Snatch Paste and this was followed in 2007 by a Storm Bugs LP entitled Supplementary benefit featuring the two 7 inch singles as well as tracks from the early cassette releases. 2008 saw Car Situations (Nasal Passage) included on the Messthetics Greatest Hiss compilation whilst in 2011 the A Safe Substitute cassette on Snatch Tapes was reissued on red vinyl by Harbinger records. In 2013 the track Cash Wash/Eat Good Beans was included on the 7th and final Anthology of Noise and Electronic Music compilation on Sub Rosa.

In 2013 Storm Bugs made their back catalogue available digitally on Bandcamp and released their first new material in ten years the digital single No Nothingness/Triangulation with an accompanying video.

Storm Bugs live appearances have been rare. An unadvertised performance was given at Maidstone Art college in 1979 and a further performance in the summer of 1980 in Brenchley Gardens Maidstone, Kent. On that occasion the band included David Jackman on esraj. In 2012 Storm Bugs performed live for the first time in 30 years at the Rammel Weekender in Nottingham alongside other acts such as the New Blockaders and Cheapmachines. Reviewing the Weekender in the Wire Magazine, Storm Bugs's contribution was judged by Derek Walmsley to be "everything that's right about the weekend"

Mark Flunder in conversation with David Eastaugh 

The McTells - Formed in 1985 in Hertford, UK. Initially a 4 piece comprising Paul Rixon on guitar and vocal, Bill on guitar, Stuart on bass, Mark Flunder from the Television Personalities on stand up drums. Bill later left to form The Big Paintings but the rest of the band continued as a three piece releasing records on Pauls own Bi-Joopiter label and on Frank, K, Little Teddy Recordings and Vinyl Japan.