Starfish and Coffee
By Sion Smith
Starfish and CoffeeAug 20, 2023
#22 • Keith A. Pearson • Author of The '86 Fix
Hello again people of earth.
This week, my guest on Starfish and Coffee is the writer Keith A. Pearson.
As you’ll come to see - I randomly came across Keith’s first book by chance and perhaps ten days later, found I had read six on the bounce. That’s good innings by any standard - this man’s words are like cracked cocaine for people who just can’t help themselves.
For want of a better description, I would suggest his work is something like: “Richard Curtis writes Doctor Who” (and now that’s written in stone, he can steal it for public consumption).
Having found them hyper-enjoyable in every way imaginable (and is that not, after all, the entire point of reading fiction), I figured let’s get this man on the show and see what makes him tick.
Thus… here lies episode twenty-two of the podcast - it’s a good one. Aside from being fun, if you’re in the writing game yourself, you’ll find some useful business conversation going on too.
You can find Keith’s website here.
And from there you can figure it out yourself. There are plenty of links to his books on amazon/audible - read them in order (as I am) or just dive in as you see fit.
Thanks for tuning in again - be cool to each other.
#21 • Mark Hodkinson • Author of No One Round Her Reads Tolstoy
This week, I’ve hooked up with Mark Hodkinson - author of one of my favourite books of the year, titled No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy (there’s an amazon link right there) - to be honest it was hard to resist. There are so many talking points, we probably could have gone on holiday together for a week and still not covered everything I wanted to dig around in.
As you’ll come to see, the main drag of the book is that of a working class man who somewhat unwittingly collected thousands of books throughout the course of his life, but more than that, it’s the story of how he got there when nobody in his family read - which for want of a better mirror to hold up, is a marked difference from my life.
Digging into some highlights, we mostly talk books and music (natch), growing up in the north across the 70s and 80s, name-checking many of the greats along the way: Salinger, Bukowski, Henry Rollins, Sillitoe and er… Catherine Cookson for some reason (hey, it might be good for the algorithms - I don’t recall ever seeing a podcast that mentions her) before diving a little into what it takes to publish a book and some of the differences between going it alone and having a publisher drive the car. We even get to touch on lofty subjects such as whether there even is a class system anymore.
You can find Mark’s homepage here where you can find his books and links to other projects. He also does this (which we never talked about) and is responsible for this (which is the best thing Charlie Chaplin has done in decades).
Thanks for tuning in.
Be cool to each other.
#20 • Alex Smith • Author of the Bestselling DCI Kett Crime Series
This week, my guest is Alex Smith - author of the much loved (by me and many others) DCI Robbie Kett series of crime novels. Alex is an indie author, so much of our talk revolves around that and when we really get into it, you’ll see why so many authors prefer that route to the traditional one (though I did forget to mention that perhaps not everybody who can string 80,000 words together should publish - much like the long forgotten phrase “just because you can get into it doesn’t mean you should wear it”.
The new Kett novel - Lucky Number Seven - is released this coming Friday (August 4th if you’re late to the party), so that’s my weekend sorted, but as I aways say, if you’re intrigued, you’ve got to start at the beginning.
Footnote: We did this interview a few weeks ago but I figured it would be smart to hold it back until the new book was within striking distance, thus any mentions of said item ‘coming down the line’ are now null and void because it’s here.
Here’s Alex’s page on Amazon
And here’s his website:
…the rest you can pick up from there.
Thanks for tuning in.
#019 • Gef The Talking Mongoose with Christopher Josiffe
I’ve looked forward to doing this one for a long time! The story of Gef The Talking Mongoose (late of the Isle of Man) sadly gets less notorious every year. I’ve tried my best to spread the word but this episode features Christopher Josiffe who is an actual expert on Gef - maybe between us, we can spread this incredible tale further afield in all the right ways… though as you’ll hear in the episode, a movie is coming down the line any time now featuring Neil Gaiman as Gef. I can’t beat that, but I can certainly back it up.
In this episode, we dig into Gef and his brilliant story but if you want to know more, Mr Josiffe has written the book on Gef and you can find that right here. Between that and this, there’s not much more to know… Gef will always be a complete enigma.
One thing I do know for sure though: Mr Josiffe will return - there’s far too much good stuff in his head to let him go that easily.
You can find him on twitter: https://twitter.com/ChrisJosiffe
and if you’re still confused, he has a website right here which will explain everything.
Be cool to each other out there!
#018 • Paul Manzi • Vocalist • Sweet
Sometimes you can dream a dream that’s so dumb, it just might come true.
Paul Manzi is one such person. One day you’re belting out rousing renditions of Hellraiser and Fox On The Run on the top deck of the school bus… next thing you know, you find yourself standing next to Andy Scott and belting out those very same Sweet songs in front of thousands.
I’m a huge fan of Sweet (or The Sweet if you prefer). As we discuss, they’re a strange band. Most often, they’re labelled as a glam rock band (which they were) with throwaway singles (which they very much weren’t) but dig into their albums and you’ll find a powerhouse rock band who drift in and out of prog rock, hard rock - damn, you name it and they pulled it in. The fact of the matter is, Sweet were a complex band both musically and internally - but then, what band isn’t, but even their glam rock hits have layers of magic pounded into them.
So, I figured what better way to dig about in the modern day incarnation of the band than to quiz their singer… the rest you can find out by listening.
For tour dates (and they’re quite extensive for 2023), head over the band website here, where you can also pick up all of the social media feeds.
#017 • C.J. Tudor • Author
Caroline Tudor - better known as CJ Tudor to her readers - is killing it.
From The Chalk Man across to her fifth novel, The Drift, she’s publishing quality work every time. Not just quality, but also different. I like the way she pushes herself to be a different version of herself each time a book comes out - it might not sound like much - maybe you’d expect it to be the case all the time with writers - but it’s not. I rate her highly and if you like thrillers that are dipped in er… something other-worldly, I think you will too.
In this feisty episode - which includes dogs barking from both sides of the mic (which is thoroughly encouraged) - we go from Enid Blyton to Stephen King in 60 seconds, talk about publishing, foreign book covers, getting your book picked up for TV… and then it actually happening, hard work, Star Trek, agents, Yellowjackets, what your parents think of you, what your kids think of you and well… it’s basically just a great, fun hour talking about books and writing.
You can find her on twitter here and her official site is here.
#016 • Jason Bieler • Songwriter • Jason Bieler And The Baron Von Bielski Orchestra/Saigon Kick
It’s always a good day when you get to speak to Jason Bieler. Jason is probably most well known from that period in the early nineties when his band Saigon Kick where making waves in the world. This, of course, is a good place to start but since those halcyon days, Jason has gone on to work up quite a collection of songs for his Owl Stretching project and more recently under his own name - Jason Bieler And The Baron Von Bielski Orchestra - which has delivered two superb albums (available at all the usual places blah, blah but you should probably go buy them at his bandcamp page linked down below).
Across this far too short hour, we talk about Saigon Kick (natch), how Owl Stretching came into being and how he played it for creativity rather than cash, how he gets along with bandcamp as an online home, his home studio set-up and of course, his new album and hitting the road with his buddy Jeff Scott Soto.
Let’s get it on…
You can find his homepage here (and links to his social feeds):
His bandcamp page is here (and holy of holies, if it ain’t stuffed full of magic):
#015: • The Ouija Board • Robert Murch and John Kozik
Today, I got to chat to a couple of the world’s biggest Ouija Board nerds on the planet: Robert Murch (known throughout the episode as ‘Murch’) who is Chairman of the Board for the Talking Board Historical Society (Colorado) and John Kozik from the Salem Witch Board Museum (in Salem, funnily enough).
The Ouija Board is a staple of modern horror movies, but it has a varied past that goes right back to the late 1800s - a past these two gentlemen have spent their entire lives unravelling, researching, hunting, arranging and making available to the public. This is where we begin our conversation. I’ve assumed a lot of prior knowledge on behalf of the listeners here - there’s no in depth discussion about the dead/demons/spirits/whether it’s fake or real. Sit yourself down in front of one with some friends and figure it out or yourself. We did.
I’ve always loved the Board and the mystery behind it. How such a simple thing - sold as a mass production game - could single handedly (well, maybe with a little help from That Movie) kick-start the Satanic-Panic movement (can we call it a movement?) is absolutely worth buying somebody a beer over.
If you want to go digging your own rabbit hole on the subject of the Ouija, here’s the related links for you - if you wish, you can find the socials on each of the individual sites:
Talking Board Historical Society:
The Salem Witch Board Museum:
https://www.salemwitchboardmuseum.com
Robert Murch:
And if you want to fall down the rabbit hole and stay there, there’s some damn nice custom boards available on Etsy:
https://www.etsy.com/uk/market/ouija_board
If you’re more of a cheapskate, amazon can probably fulfil your needs.
#014: Shannon Wheeler - Cartoonist • Creator of Too Much Coffee Man
And so it came to pass that Episode 14 is an episode with a man from the very heart of my own pop-culture existence: Mr Shannon Wheeler - cartoonist extraordinaire and creator of the most anti-hero of all anti-heroes in the shape of Too Much Coffee Man.
It’s entirely possible that you’ve never heard of Too Much Coffee Man - and I'm here to tell you, you really missed out - it was after all the underground of the underground but for a brief period in the mid nineties - which is when music started to suck but all of the things that satellite around it where better than ever - TMCM was a real find. Damn these comics were hard to find in the UK but somehow, much like all those banned movies we weren’t supposed to see and the Japanese album releases with different tracks on board, there was always a way.
Anyway, in this episode we discuss - amongst other things - shooting comics with guns, the Black Panthers, the cult leader Jim Jones, indie publishing, photocopiers and the harrowing story of the kid with a micro-penis. Yep - you read that correctly.
You can find Shannon's website here, his substack here and his Etsy store here where you can grab yourself a pdf version of the first nine issues of Too Much Coffee Man for less than £10. If you want to find him on social media, you'll have to find those yourself.
Oh... and Starfish got itself a new theme tune. Things are looking up!
#013: Revd Dr Jason Bray - Anglican Deliverance Minister
...or as I like to call him - The Exorcist, though as you'll discover as you listen to the interview, the instances of genuine demonic possession that I've been searching for are a little thin on the ground. Still, I found it quite fascinating that some of the topics Jason talks about are actually stranger than an actual 'haunting'. I guess if you say "that's definitely a ghost", there's nowhere else to go because a ghost is a ghost, but to ascribe bizarre happenings to humans is another thing entirely.
We covered a lot of bases here, though I totally forgot to ask about the work he did for the TV adaptation of Phil Rickman's Merrily Watkins (far too short lived) ITV series which I thoroughly recommend you go and read along with the rest of Rickman's catalogue.
You can find Jason's book - Deliverance - on amazon here in various formats.
#012: Phil Lewis - Frontman/Vocalist/Songwriter; L.A. Guns, Tormé and Girl.
Hanging on the other side of the Z-Phone this week, is the inimitable Mr Phil Lewis. To most, he is the frontman of L.A. Guns but to me, he will always be the face of one of my favourite bands: Girl.
Across this fine, fine hour we spent together, we discuss both of these bands and do our best to mention all of those that came between as well - side projects and mis-steps included. (Worth noting here if Girl passed you by, the ‘guitarist’ called Phil who joins the band is Phil Collen of Def Leppard).
Anyway: Tormé, New Torpedos, London Cowboys, Filthy Lucre, the music business, the highs and lows of having a record deal, touring, London vs L.A. - it’s all here along with a truckload of extras - or as much as either of us could remember anyway.
As luck and good timing would have it, L.A. Guns also have a new album out in a few weeks (12 November). It’s called Checkered Past and it sounds fantastic - I’d say out loud if it didn’t but it truly does. The single Cannonball is up on YouTube already and it will give you a good idea of what’s coming down the line:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17yeOHG4TZ4
For those of you interested in a deeper dive, here’s some added glitter:
That first Girl promo video for My Number:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR8lvRqCatM
If you were into Girl back then (or are interested now) and failed to notice, apparently there was a third album in the can (though it may be simply a collection of demos) which was never released (which I forgot to ask about - maybe I’ll fix that one day) but subsequent re-releases of the Girl catalogue now have it included. It’s apparently called Killing Time and features as the second disc of the six (six!) CD set re-release of Wasted Youth. You can find it on amazon, but if you want to do an ex-member curator a favour - Gerry Laffy - he’d probably appreciate it more if you picked it up direct from Cherry Red Records here:
https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/girl-wasted-youth-6cd-expanded-box-set/
Sheer Greed is currently unavailable on streaming services but there is an anthology out there called My Number which covers all the bases and has a whole bunch of other goodies on board too - or again, you can pick it up at Cherry Red.
You can find the mentioned broadcast of Tormé performing on ECT here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDgXhZJMg1w
I also found this great clip of Bernie Tormé joining L.A. Guns to perform Rip and Tear at the Camden Underworld back in 2017:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNWaZqhGpUw
Finally - just a repeat mention of that Filthy Lucre album, PopSmear. In my opinion, it’s absolutely worth the effort to track it down.
That’s all folks. Huge tip of the hat to Phil for giving up his time for me - I hope we did the past (and the future) justice. I can’t help any of you relive All Those Wasted Years but I hope you get as much of a kick out of all this as I did.
You can find my review of Checkered Past right here:
https://spark.adobe.com/page/6FqbHNWMRmllq/
••
Be Cool To Each Other. S.
#011: Jodie Rummer - Shark Expert, Associate Professor at PhysioShark/James Cook University.
Episode 11 Show Notes:
This week, I’m taking a detour to talk about one of my passions: sharks! We’re going to file this one under ‘pseudo pop culture’ because if talking about our oceans, the planet and climate change isn’t the biggest part of the new pop culture, I don’t now what is.
Enter Jodie Rummer. Jodie is an Associate Professor at PhysioShark from James Cook University in Australia, who was game enough to take some time at the beginning of her day (as I got to the end of mine) to indulge my curiosity about these Kings of the Oceans. It didn’t take long for us to also get into the guts of what life is like for our oceanic friends right now - but we also got into: the responsibility of humans in the bigger picture of ocean life, climate change, global warming, fish habitats, adapting human technology for the ocean and extensively about Women in Ocean Science and how things are changing on that front.
Jodie’s list of achievements is long. If you’re interested in digging deeper… knock yourself out:
Theres’s a PhysioShark documentary right here.
You can watch a partial of a Discovery Channel doc with her here on twitter.
There’s a hyper-detailed (or at least it is for me) article UNESCO article here.
You can find the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies here.
Other than that, Jodie has her own web page here.
And you can follow her on twitter here.
•••• •••• ••••
I think that’s everything. Here’s the official stuff:
Starfish and Coffee is available on all podcast hosting platforms. It would help me out a lot if you were a subscriber/leave a review wherever that may be and even more so by nudging a friend and their ears in that direction. Subscribe wherever you listen for notifications of new episodes.
Follow me on twitter.com/mrsionsmith
Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith
If you’re into what I’m doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at: www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith
Finally, my site is here: sionsmith.co.uk where things happen with pens and paper.
Be cool to each other….
S
#010: Andrew Kaufman - Author, Radio Producer.
Episode 10 Show Notes:
My guest today is Andrew Kaufman. He's the (magical realism) author of The Tiny Wife (one of the greatest novels ever written in my opinion), Born Weird, All My Friends Are Superheroes, Small Claims, The Waterproof Bible and, most recently, The Ticking Heart.
This is our second time of meeting. The first was just after publication of The Tiny Wife - you can read that here if you're of such a mind. In those short ten years (because it really does seem like yesterday) a lot of water has disappeared under the bridge. I think we cover most of it in this episode.
Alongside of touching the important bases and talking about The Ticking Heart (available from all good amazon stores wherever you may be), we also manage to stuff the hour with chat about: magical realism, print culture, fanzines, analogue subculture, literary awards (and why they suck when as readers, we just want to be entertained), Richard Brautigan and why he loves Watermelon Sugar and I don't, divorce, the concept of hope and a whole lot of other jazz as it crawls across the table in front of us.
You can find Mr Kaufman on twitter at: https://twitter.com/severalmoments
•••
Here’s the official stuff:
Starfish and Coffee is available on all podcast hosting platforms. It would help me out a lot if you were a subscriber wherever that may be and even more so by nudging even just one friend and their ears in that direction.
My website is here: sionsmith.co.uk
Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith
Follow me on twitter.com/mrsionsmith
And if you’re into what I’m doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at:
www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith
As always, be cool to each other. Thanks for listening.
S
#009: Jon Spira - Documentary FilmMaker, Video Store Owner and Author
Today’s guest is Jon Spira - a film-maker, ex-video shop owner and an all-round digger of things that only exist in your peripheral vision.
His most recent documentary is called Hollywood Bulldogs. If you’re in the U.K. you can watch it on BritBox (I believe there’s a 7 day free trial available for that and you too can complain to nobody who cares that they have renamed The Avengers as Steed & Peel on there). It documents the rise and many falls of the unsung heroes of the movie industry - the humble stuntman.
Dig around on his site - https://www.jonspira.co.uk - and you’ll also find some great samples of his other work including BFI (British Film Institute) interviews with the mighty Roger Corman, Dario Argento, Neil Gaiman, trailer docs and all sorts of goodies.
Across the hour we discuss (my first career choice in life) being a stuntman, being well paid to fall down a flight of stairs in a wheelchair as an 80 year old woman (true story), Radiohead, the Oxford music scene, video shops, how - despite there apparently being everything available all the time - you can no longer watch Mr. Holland's Opus nor Three Men And A Baby anywhere, pre-code cinema, crying at movies and much more.
This one was great fun… hope you get as much of a kick out of it as I did.
•••
Here’s the official stuff:
Starfish and Coffee is available on all podcast hosting platforms. It would help me out a lot if you were a subscriber wherever that may be and even more so by nudging a friend and their ears in that direction.
My website is here: sionsmith.co.uk
Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith
Follow me on twitter.com/mrsionsmith
And if you’re into what I’m doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at:
www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith
As always, be cool to each other…
S
#008: Ross Allison: Ghost Hunter Extraordinaire
Today’s guest on Starfish & Coffee is Ross Allison.
Based in Seattle, Ross is a ghost hunter - one of the best in the world. Aside from his interest in a subject (surely) everybody on the planet has been curious about at some point in their life, he’s also one of the most scientific and takes his quest seriously.
For once, we managed to stick closely to the subject in hand. This is a small miracle from beyond the grave in itself, but what you’ll find is exactly what you need in a ghost hunter interview. For all his passion, Ross is well aware of the pitfalls of gathering enough scientific evidence (aka: data) to give 100% proof to what he has witnessed many times first hand.
Across this hour we touch on ghosts (natch), shadow people, demons, exorcism, scientific equipment, spirituality vs religion and I also win a £10 bet because I sneaked in mention of Scooby Doo. I should have gone for the £20 option because I also mention Sam & Dean Winchester. You can't win 'em all.
In a world that will accept nothing short of an event straight out of The Conjuring as proof of the paranormal, being a serious ghost hunter is a Herculean task of the highest order… listen, see for yourself and make your own mind up.
You can find Ross online right here, where his website speaks for itself: https://www.aghost.org
•••
Extra Notes: The house I mention part way through - Plas Teg - conveniently has its own website here: https://plasteg.com
•••
I think that’s everything. Here’s the official stuff:
Starfish and Coffee is available on all podcast hosting platforms. It would help me out a lot if you were a subscriber wherever that may be and even more so by nudging a friend and their ears in that direction.
If you’re into what I’m doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at:
www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith
Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith
Follow me on twitter.com/StarfishPodcast
As always, be cool to each other…
S
#007: Jim DeRogatis: Biographer of Lester Bangs and music critic
My guest this week is the mighty Jim DeRogatis.
He is the biographer of Lester Bangs, a long-time music critic, journalist and podcast host over at Sound Opinions.
Jim has strong opinions on almost everything we touch upon. I must confess to not even having considered some of the topics he comments upon, so if I sound vague now and again, it’s because I am. I hardly follow any political stories in the U.K. never mind anywhere else. His Sound Opinions podcast (co-hosted with Greg Kot) is a treasure trove of findings - if you've never listened before, you've got months of listening ahead of you.
His latest book - Soulless: The Case Against R. Kelly - is available now in both hardback and as an audiobook.
Not content with talking solely about Lester, we also wander into territories such as Woodward and Bernstein (the Watergate journalists/please go watch All The President's Men if you never have), investigative journalism, rock criticism, fanzines vs blogs, the death of magazines, R. Kelly, Marilyn Manson, Generation X vs Baby Boomers, ABBA, Kiss vs The Beatles... you get the picture.
All references made to 'Sam' are to Sam Weller previous podcast guest on #006 who has an office across the hall from Jim - small world!)
•••
I think that’s everything. Here’s the official stuff:
Starfish and Coffee is available on all podcast hosting platforms. It would help me out a lot if you were a subscriber wherever that may be and even more so by nudging a friend and their ears in that direction.
If you’re into what I’m doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at:
www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith
Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith
Follow me on twitter.com/StarfishPodcast
Finally, I have built a new online home here: sionsmith.co.uk where things happen with pens and paper and there are links to 'everything'.
Be cool to each other….
S
#006: Sam Weller: Ray Bradbury biographer and author.
Episode 6 Show Notes:
My guest this week is Sam Weller. He is the biographer of the mighty Ray Bradbury, an author in his own right and a serious Kiss fan (which we try very hard not to dwell on but temptation is always there, so please forgive us). He’s also as knee deep in pop culture as I am, making this week an easy ride, which is always a bonus. Talking of bonus features, check out the occasional Chicago PD sirens in the background. Got to love it when that happens.
Sam currently has a book of short stories in the world called Dark Black which I can’t rain praise on enough without it becoming embarrassing - if you’re in the market to support him, you can buy a copy directly from the publisher, Hat and Beard, right here:
https://hatandbeard.com/products/dark-black
Alongside of Ray Bradbury, across the Starfish table, somehow we also managed to cram in (in no particular order)
Stephen King, Hugh Hefner, magazine publishing, Jim Henson and The Muppets, ABBA, Marvel Comics, David Bowie, Peter Benchley, The Wildhearts, pulp fiction, freelancing, Ed McBain, The Hardy Boys, The Twilight Zone, Neil Gaiman, Alice Cooper, Twisted Sister, Lester Bangs, Kiss (natch) and Hoover (yep, the vacuum cleaner company).
You can find Sam at: http://www.samweller.net
You can also find him on twitter: https://twitter.com/Sam__Weller
For those of you with time on your hands, the episode of Alice Cooper on The Muppet Show I refer to (all of which can now be found on Disney Plus) is Season Three, Episode Seven - which is a good point at which to correct myself - the songs he actually performs are Welcome to my Nightmare, You and Me (not, I Never Cry) and School's Out. I can’t find any reference whatsoever to Kiss being on Sesame Street but that’s how I recall it… maybe it was edited into the show before broadcast.
The article Sam wrote about Kiss for PopMatters can be found here:
https://www.popmatters.com/kiss-should-end-it-all
I think that’s everything. Here’s the official stuff:
Starfish and Coffee is available on all podcast hosting platforms. It would help me out a lot if you were a subscriber wherever that may be and even more so by nudging a friend and their ears in that direction. Please subscribe wherever you listen for notifications of new episodes.
If you’re into what I’m doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at:
www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith
Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith
Follow me on twitter.com/mrsionsmith or twitter.com/StarfishPodcast - I should probably kill one of those off but it stands for now.
Finally, I have built a new online home here: sionsmith.co.uk where things happen with pens and paper.
Be cool to each other….
S
It’s A Long Way To The Top... (Part 2)
Episode 5 Show Notes:
Back in the late 80s/early 90s, my buddy JJ and myself used to spend a crazy amount of time together at club gigs, in the record store and most importantly, in each other’s kitchen throwing rock n roll philosophy at each other. It’s something we’ve kept up for over thirty years and so it continues except now, we're recording them. In episode five, we lovingly present part two on our thoughts of what it takes to move up the ladder as an emerging artist or band by throwing around some of the things we’ve learned, some of the things we’ve seen and more importantly perhaps, some things that we haven’t seen and should have. As always, it’s more food for thought than concrete answers but you know what… I think that’s OK. That’s the way it should be because you’re all smart enough to figure it out.
If you’re into what we’re doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith
Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith
Follow me on twitter.com/mrsionsmith
You can find JJ at twitter.com/jjkrazy
The show is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor, Google Podcasts and just about every other podcast host you care to use, so you can help us out by subscribing and even more so by nudging a friend in that direction. It would mean a lot.
It’s A Long Way To The Top If You Wanna Rock n Roll (Part 1)
Episode 4 Show Notes: Back in the late 80s/early 90s, my buddy JJ and myself used to spend a crazy amount of time together at club gigs, in the record store and most importantly, in each other’s kitchen throwing rock n roll philosophy at each other. It’s something we’ve kept up for over thirty years and so it continues except now, we're recording them. In episode four, we dig into what it takes to move up the ladder as an emerging artist or band by throwing around some of the things we’ve learned, some of the things we’ve seen and more importantly perhaps, some things that we haven’t seen and should have. As always, it’s more food for thought than concrete answers but you know what… I think that’s OK. That’s the way it should be. If you’re into what we’re doing, you can support the podcast by ‘buying me a coffee’ at www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith Follow me on twitter.com/mrsionsmith You can find JJ at twitter.com/jjkrazy The show is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor, Google Podcasts and just about every other podcast host you care to use, so you can help us out by subscribing and even more so by nudging a friend in that direction. It would mean a lot. And if you’re looking for that YouTube video link I mentioned at the end of the show, you can find that right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhitq-pqlNA&t=250s
Radio Killed The Video Star
Back in the late 80s/early 90s, my buddy JJ and myself used to spend a crazy amount of time together at club gigs, in the record store and most importantly, in each other’s kitchen throwing rock n roll philosophy at each other. It’s something we’ve kept up for over thirty years and so it continues except now, we're recording them.
In episode three, we lock and load on a subject close to both our hearts and that’s radio. Back in the day, MTV had a good stab at killing it off and inevitably perhaps, just killed itself instead, whilst radio adapted and surged forwards with DAB and digital channels... an adaptation which is still taking place today. Where to from here? Is YouTube the new MTV? The answer as ever, is multi- faceted as we discovered when we started twiddling the dial.
If you’re into what we’re doing, you can support the podcast by buying me a coffee and keeping it ad/sponsor free: www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith
Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith/
Follow me on twitter.com/mrsionsmith
Website: sionsmith.co.uk
You can find JJ at twitter.com/jjkrazy
Don’t forget to subscribe. We're officially available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Anchor and just about every other podcast host you care to use.
A Relevant Magazine Should Be A Sound, Not An Echo
Did You Have A Good Life? Enough To Base A Movie On When You Die?
In episode one of Starfish and Coffee, the intention was to chew over why we listen to rock musicians more after they’ve died. As usual, we went off-road but if you enjoy what we have to throw on the table, give the podcast a like, share it with your friends and don’t forget to subscribe... we’re just getting started.
If you Really Dig It, you can support the podcast by buying me a coffee and keeping it ad/ sponsor free:
www.buymeacoffee.com/sionsmith
Follow me on instagram.com/mrsionsmith/
Follow me on twitter.com/mrsionsmith
Website: sionsmith.co.uk
And you can find JJ at twitter.com/jjkrazy