C86 Show - Indie Pop

Jon Poole in conversation with David Eastaugh

A multi-instrumentalist, he is best known for his work as guitarist for Cardiacs and as bass player for the Wildhearts and Lifesigns.

Poole is the frontman and main performer of God Damn Whores, co-fronts the Dowling Poole with Willie Dowling, and has released two solo albums. He has also been a member of Ad Nauseam and Dr Brighton, and worked with the bands Ablemesh, La Momo, Crayola Lectern, Two Worlds Collide and Celebricide (as well as various projects founded by Ginger Wildheart),

Peter Bruntnell in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://peterbruntnell.co.uk/

In the early 1990s, Bruntnell returned to the UK and formed the band Milkwood, although he soon reverted to solo work and recordings with Matt Backer and Felix Harper as the Peter Bruntnell Combination. He was signed by Almo Sounds, who issued his debut album, Cannibal, in 1995. He recorded a second album for Almo, Camelot in Smithereens (1997), before moving to the Slow River label for his 1999 album Normal for Bridgwater.

Jesse Hartman in conversation with David Eastaugh

www.facebook.com/laptoptheband

http://laptoptheband.bandcamp.com

www.laptoptheband.com

Laptop is the pioneering electro-pop project from Jesse Hartman — the sharp-witted New York songwriter who first made waves as a teenage guitarist/keyboardist on Richard Hell’s
1990 legendary tour of Japan, then again in the ’90s as the front man of indie rock duo Sammy (with guitarist Luke Wood, Geffen/Fire Records).

After Sammy’s brief but buzzy run (two albums: Debut Album on Sonic Youth’s Smells Like Records/Fire Records in the UK and Tales of Great Neck Glory on Geffen/Fire), Hartman shifted gears, re-emerging in 1997 under the name Laptop with a sound that was years ahead of its time: sarcastic synth-funk, deadpan vocals, and emotionally raw themes filtered through cold drum machines and warm analog nostalgia.

Ken Sweeney in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.facebook.com/needlemythology

Brian formed in 1989 comprising Ken Sweeney (ex Instant Party) and Niall Austin. Often said to be named in honour of suave Blades' bassist Brian Foley.

They released a single on their own label and then relocated to London where a second single was recorded. Response to both singles was good and the band was signed to London Irish label Setanta Records. Niall Austin decided to leave around this time and Brian became essentially a solo vehicle for Ken Sweeney.

Keith Cullen liked the demos for the debut LP so much Setanta released them unadorned as "Understand" in 1992. A follow up EP "Planes" came out the same year but there was then a lengthy silence, during which Ken Sweeney returned to Ireland, in 1995. The second album "Bring Trouble" finally emerged in 1999, recorded by a four man lineup of Ken Sweeney (guitars), Marcus Holdaway (keyboards), Mitsuo Tate (bass) and Vinnie Lammi (drums). Response to this more upbeat version of Brian was less immediate and Brian haven't recorded since. 

Richie Stotts in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.richiestotts.com/

New York City born musician who began writing and performing in a fledgling 1970s NYC band named “The Numbers”. Richie’s songwriting skills and lead guitar playing experience ultimately lead to him becoming one of the founding members of the groundbreaking and inimitable punk/metal group, Plasmatics.

In 1978, Richie was among the earliest musicians to sport a Mohawk, taking inspiration from the Travis Bickle character in the movie Taxi Driver. 

Sananda Maitreya in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://sanandamaitreya.com/

https://www.youtube.com/SanandaMaitreya

Artist, composer, arranger, producer, multi-instrumentalist, entrepreneur and Post Millennium Rocker, SANANDA MAITREYA was born in New York U.S.A. on March 15th 1962.

n 1987 his debut album “Introducing the Hardline”, gives him International success. Sananda wins a Grammy Award in 1988 as Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male.In June 1988 he is on the cover of Rolling Stone Magazine and he is nominated “Top International Newcomer” at the British Awards. In the following years 3 studio albums are published: “Neither Fish Nor Flesh” in 1989, “Symphony or Damn” in 1993 and “Vibrator” in 1995.The albums have many famous songs including the soundtracks of various legendary Hollywood movies such as: ‘Beverly Hills Cop III’, ‘Prêt-à-Porter’, ‘The Promised Land’, ‘The Fan’, ‘Shake Rattle & Roll’, ‘Frankie & Johnny’. 

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