Christian Hayes or Bic Hayes special - Dark Star, Levitation & Ring - in conversation with David Eastaugh

Bic Hayes, is an English rock guitarist, singer and songwriter. Best known as the frontman of Dark Star and guitarist with Levitation, he has also released solo material as Mikrokosmos, which was produced by Tim Smith.

Hayes first appeared on the south London psychedelic rock scene in the mid-1980s: by 1988 he was playing guitar with Ring, moving on to become bass player with The Dave Howard Singers in 1989. In the same year he joined Cardiacs as second guitarist, replacing departing saxophonist Sarah Smith. Hayes would appear as part of the band on their All That Glitters is a Mare's Nest live album and video: he would also make writing and recording contributions to their studio album Heaven Born and Ever Bright. During this period, he also worked on an intermittent thrash rock project called Panixphere.

Here & Now with Keith da Missile Bass  or Keith Bailey in conversation with David Eastaugh 

The first version of the group was co-founded in London by drummer/vocalist Keith Dobson later known as "Kif Kif Le Batteur", guitarist/keyboardist José Gross, bassist Franco and others in March 1974.

In 1977, Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth recruited the band to tour with them under the name Planet Gong, and this combination released a live album Live Floating Anarchy 1977 and a single "Opium for the People".

Slinky Vagabond with Keanan Duffty in conversation with David Eastaugh

Slinky Vagabond is a concept band that originally formed in 2007 and became an integral part of the New York club scene and performed at celebrations for Joey Ramone’s Birthday Bash alongside the New York Dolls, Fashion Week’s Gen Art and Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp and Marc Bolan’s 30th Anniversary Show alongside Patti Smith, Tom Morello, Joan Jett and Ronnie Spector. They release their album ‘King Boy Vandals’ on December 6 that can be pre ordered at: slinkyvagabond@slinkyvagabond.net 

Chris Tofu MBE - Tofu Love Frogs & Vibe Engineer - in conversation with David Eastaugh 

stablished in 1995 DJ Chris Tofu has become a pioneer of Vintage Remix and the UK Festival scene, sharing his obsession with all things remixed and raucous with jumping crowds across the globe! From Glastonbury to Istanbul this musical maverick is constantly exploring, discovering and creating new sounds and new experiences, mixing up the formula for good vibe pie!

He’s a true believer that DJ’ing is as much about “vibe” and communicating with an audience as endless technical skill. I just love music that remixes the ancient and the new. Sometimes that makes me really obscure, sometimes pioneering but whatever happens, the audience generally gets it.”

Tofu has two lives; as a world renowned DJ and as the programmer and director of thousands of events and artists in some of the most legendary clubs and festival stages and even whole festivals, providing him with the canvas to try all these crazy new remixed discoveries. Enticing the crowds to jump over barriers (both physical and metaphorical) and get down to new and unusual sounds is the main Tofu goal.

Lenny Kaye - Patti Smith, Suzanne Vega & author of Lightning Striking in conversation with David Eastaugh

As musician, writer, and record producer, Kaye was intimately involved with an array of artists and bands. He was a guitarist for poet/rocker Patti Smith from her band's inception in 1974, and co-authored Waylon, The Life Story of Waylon Jennings. He worked in the studio with such artists as R.E.M., James, Suzanne Vega, Jim Carroll, Soul Asylum, Kristin Hersh, and Allen Ginsberg. His seminal anthology of sixties' garage-rock, Nuggets, is widely regarded as defining the genre.You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon, an impressionistic study of the romantic singers of the 1930s, was published by Villard/Random House in 2014

Mark Stewart in conversation with David Eastaugh

The Pop Group are an English band formed in Bristol in 1977 by vocalist Mark Stewart, guitarist John Waddington, bassist Simon Underwood, guitarist/saxophonist Gareth Sager, and drummer Bruce Smith. Their work in the late 1970s crossed diverse musical influences including dub, funk, and free jazz with radical politics, helping to pioneer post-punk music.

The group released two albums, Y (1979) and For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder?(1980), and the singles "She Is Beyond Good and Evil" (1979) and "We Are All Prostitutes" (1979), then split in 1981. Its members worked on a variety of subsequent projects, including New Age Steppers and Rip Rig + Panic. In 2010, the band reunited, touring and releasing new material.

Twisted Sister special with Jay French in conversation with David Eastaugh - talking about his new book Twisted Business

Twisted Sister was an American heavy metal band originally from Ho-Ho-Kus, New Jersey, and later based on Long Island, New York. Their best-known songs include "We're Not Gonna Take It" and "I Wanna Rock".

Twisted Sister evolved from a band named Silver Star, and experienced several membership changes before settling on a classic lineup consisting of Jay Jay French (guitars), Eddie "Fingers" Ojeda (guitars), Dee Snider (lead vocals), Mark "The Animal" Mendoza (bass), and A. J. Pero (drums) in 1982 which recorded four of the band's first five albums. Twisted Sister's first two albums, Under the Blade (1982) and You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll (1983), were critically well received and earned the band underground popularity. The band achieved mainstream success with their third album, Stay Hungry (1984), and its single "We're Not Gonna Take It", which was their only Top 40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100. Their next two albums, Come Out and Play (1985) and Love Is for Suckers (1987), did not match the success of Stay Hungry, and Twisted Sister disbanded in 1988.

The Pop Group are an English band formed in Bristol in 1977 by vocalist Mark Stewart, guitarist John Waddington, bassist Simon Underwood, guitarist/saxophonist Gareth Sager, and drummer Bruce Smith.^[5] Their work in the late 1970s crossed diverse musical influences including dub, funk, and free jazz with radical politics, helping to pioneer post-punk music.

The Pop Group and dub maestro Dennis ‘Blackbeard’ Bovell MBE have shared a new track from their forthcoming dub version of The Pop Group’s debut album, Y, one of the era-defining releases of the post-punk period. This new track gives another taste of what to expect from this clash of the titan’s forthcoming release, Y in Dub, out on 29 October 2021 on Mute.

Duncan Hannah in conversation with David Eastaugh

Celebrated painter Duncan Hannah arrived in New York City from Minneapolis in the early 1970s as an art student hungry for experience, game for almost anything, and with a prodigious taste for drugs, girls, alcohol, movies, rock and roll, books, parties, and everything else the city had to offer.

Taken directly from the notebooks Hannah kept throughout the decade, Twentieth-Century Boy is a fascinating, sometimes lurid, and incredibly entertaining report from a now almost mythical time and place. Full of outrageously bad behavior, naked ambition, fantastically good music, and evaporating barriers of taste and decorum, and featuring cameos from David Bowie, Andy Warhol, Patti Smith, and many more, it is a rollicking account of an artist's coming of age.

Blue Orchids & The Fall with Martin Bramah 

Blue Orchids are an English post-punk band formed in Manchester in 1979, when Martin Bramah decided to quit The Fall after playing on the band's debut album Live at the Witch Trials. Christened by Salford-based punk poet John Cooper Clarke the band recorded for Rough Trade and acted as backing band for the Velvet Underground's Nico before a 25-year period of intermittent activity and alternative identities.

The Erasers with David Ebony  in conversation with David Eastaugh

The Erasers were part of the ‘70s CBGB art-punk scene that included Television and Richard Hell, and though they made a brief appearance on a (long out-of-print) 1982 ROIR compilation, their music and history were lost for decades to everyone outside of a very small circle of critics, collectors, and old punks. But their one excellent, off-kilter single (“Funny/I Won’t Give Up”) is one of the standouts on Numero Group’s comprehensive, painstakingly curated Ork Records: New York, New York box set, which was released to well-deserved acclaim late last year.

The Erasers began around 1974, the brainchild of artists Susan Springfield (guitar, vocals) and Jane Fire (drums), who both saw the fine art world they were embedded in as too economically exclusive. “I wanted to do something in a more populist way,” Springfield says. “Fine art as I was doing it – you know, making paintings – you spend so much time on them that you can’t just sell them cheaply, and so at the end of the day I felt like if I continued to pursue [an] art career, I would only be able to sell it to rich people, because I would have to get enough money to support myself. Music, on the other hand – you can make that available – it was more immediate, and at that time the shows were, like, two bucks.” Fire calls their philosophy as a band “the dematerialization of art in the extreme.”

Becky Wreck - Lunachicks - in conversation with David Eastaugh 

Drummer for the New York punk band, the Lunachicks. Becky was with the band from 1987 to 1992 and was featured on two of the band's full length releases, as well as many 7" singles and compilation tracks. She also appeared on drums with La Muerte, Dog Ass, Uncle Becky, Bellylove, Blare Bitch Project, Sick Kidz. 

The Cannibals with Mike Spenser in conversation with David Eastaugh

The Cannibals are a British rock band formed in 1976 by Mike Spenser, formerly of The Count Bishops, after his new band, the Flying Tigers, had split up. They have released seven full-length albums, numerous singles, EP's, split LP's, and appeared on several compilations. The band perform Trash rock and garage punk.

The Seers with Steve Croom in conversation with David Eastaugh

The Roots of the Seers lie in two places; Bristol (obviously) and Billericay (not so obviously). Leigh Wildman grew up in Billericay and it was there he met Jason Collins, a guitarist from nearby Brentwood. They had spent some time in bands around the Essex region and they, along with a few friends, had decided to up sticks and try somewhere else. At the suggestion of one of their number, Bristol was decided upon, and a mini Essex invasion took place in the summer of 1984.

The Bristol punk scene in 1984 was a more cider fuelled version of what Crass was peddling, with a very much Do it yourself vibe. Bands squatted venues like the old Beetle Centre on Stokes Croft and encouraged the squatting of disused houses, which many lived in. It was in one of these squatted houses, Turdy Way, named for the amount of dog shit in the house when it was first squatted, that the Essex invasion landed.

Miles Copeland in conversation with David Eastaugh - talking about his new book, Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back tells the extraordinary story of a maverick manager, promoter, label owner, and all-round legend of the music industry. It opens in the Middle East, where Miles grew up with his father, a CIA agent who was stationed in Syria, Egypt, and Lebanon. It then shifts to London in the late 60s and the beginnings of a career managing bands like Wishbone Ash and Curved Air - only for Miles's life and work to be turned upside down by a pioneering yet disastrous European tour.

Thatcher on Acid with Andy Tuck in conversation with David Eastaugh

Thatcher on Acid were an English anarcho-punk band. They formed in Somersetduring 1983. Their name is a satirical reference to former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher.^[3] Ben Corrigan, Bob Butler and Andy Tuck also played in Schwartzeneggar with ex-Crass member, Steve Ignorant. The band opened the anarcho-punk band Conflict's "Gathering of the 5000" show at Brixton Academy,^[2] an event which resulted in many arrests and achieved a degree of infamy.

Medium Medium with Andy Ryder in conversation with David Eastaugh

Emerging in 1978 out of the Nottingham punk/rhythm & blues band The Press, Medium Medium's first single was "Them or Me", which was released in late 1978 and was still selling well enough in 1980 to appear in the UK Independent Chart.^[2][3] The second single, "Hungry, So Angry", was released in February 1981 on Cherry Red Records. One of the first records to introduce slap bass - a technique borrowed from black funk music - to a generally white audience, "Hungry, So Angry" reached #48 in the Billboard Disco chart - the single and the album were released in 1981 on the New York-based indie label Cachalot Records - and has appeared on over a dozen compilations over the years.

The band released one studio album, The Glitterhouse, in late 1981. Its stark, stripped-down dub and dance rhythms and chiming, funk guitar with occasional saxophone and other sounds, failed to attract a large following.

Suicide with Martin Rev in conversation with David Eastaugh

Suicide was an American musical duo composed of vocalist Alan Vega and instrumentalist Martin Rev, intermittently active between 1970 and 2016. The group's pioneering music utilized minimalist electronic instrumentation, including synthesizersand primitive drum machines, and their early performances were confrontational and often ended in violence. They were among the first acts to use the phrase "punk music" in an advertisement for a concert in 1970.

Friends Again with Chris Thomson & Paul McGeechan in conversation with David Eastaugh -  Part 2

They were formed by members Chris Thomson and Paul McGeechan, together with Neil Cunningham, James Grant and Stuart Kerr. The group was famous for their singles "State of Art", "Sunkissed" and "Honey at the Core". They released a self-titled EP in 1984, which peaked at No. 59 on the UK Singles Chart. They then recorded their debut album, Trapped & Unwrapped (1984).

Wall of Voodoo with Bruce "Ravens" Moreland in conversation with David Eastaugh

Wall of Voodoo had its roots in Acme Soundtracks, a film score business started by Stan Ridgway, later the vocalist and harmonica player for Wall of Voodoo. Acme Soundtracks' office was across the street from the Hollywood punk club The Masqueand Ridgway was soon drawn into the emerging punk/new wave scene. Marc Moreland, guitarist for the Skulls, began jamming with Ridgway at the Acme Soundtracks office and the soundtrack company morphed into a new wave band. In 1977, with the addition of Skulls members Bruce Moreland (Marc Moreland's brother) as bassist and Chas T. Gray as keyboardist, along with Joe Nanini, who had been the drummer for the Bags, the Eyes, and Black Randy and the Metrosquad, the first lineup of Wall of Voodoo was born.