The Strange Brew - artist stories behind the greatest music ever recorded

Jason Barnard
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Rock music from the mid 60s onwards - podcasts, features and much more

  1. 2D AGO

    Mark Webber – Pulp

    Mark Webber has been with Pulp for so long that his story and the group’s are almost the same thing. He started out as a teenager in Chesterfield with a fanzine called Cosmic Pig, booked Pulp at the local Conservative Club in 1986, became their tour manager with his dad’s old briefcase, and eventually found himself on stage with a Stylophone. Jason Barnard takes him through it all: the years of playing to twenty people outside Sheffield, the last minute Glastonbury headline, the Brit Awards controversy, recording Different Class,This Is Hardcore, Scott Walker producing We Love Life, and the chilly end in Rotherham in December 2002. Then there’s the return. The 2023 shows that were supposed to be just fourteen nights, More recorded in three weeks on a tight budget, and Mark’s daughter finally getting to see him play. Recorded live at The CAT Club on 23 October 2025. The audio is recovered and a bit muddy, but worth the effort. Further information I’m With Pulp, Are You? – Soft Cover welovepulp.info Support The Strange Brew Podcasts also available: Nick Banks – Pulp, Bee Gees’ Main Course with Bob Stanley, The Making of The Human League’s Dare, Stephen Street – producer, Artmagic: Richard Oakes of Suede and Sean McGhee This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms If you like what I do please support me on Ko-fi The post Mark Webber – Pulp appeared first on The Strange Brew .

    1h 19m

  2. 4D AGO

    Michael Weston King

    Singer-songwriter Michael Weston King picks tracks from across his career, a conversation bookended by his new solo album Nothing Can Hurt Me Anymore, shaped by the Southport attacks of summer 2024 and the loss of his granddaughter, Bebe. King recalls Fragile Friends, who put out singles through Probe Records in early 80s Liverpool. After their split he found country music and formed The Good Sons, touring and recording with Townes Van Zandt. Solo albums followed, including collaborations with Jackie Leven, and with Chris Hillman and Herb Pederson. With his wife Lou Dalgleish he formed My Darling Clementine, enjoying critical success, their most recent project recording Elvis Costello songs with Steve Nieve.

    1h 37m

  3. MAY 9

    Dan Penn

    He wrote some of the greatest songs in American music, Dark End of the Street, Do Right Woman, I’m Your Puppet, and now, at 84, Dan Penn is back with an excellent new album, Smoke Filled Room. Penn got his first chart record while still a junior in high school, went on to produce The Box Tops, was in the room when Otis Redding recorded You Left the Water Running, and co-wrote Do Right Woman over a guitar in Chips Moman’s front room, only to watch Aretha Franklin walk out of the Muscle Shoals session, before Jerry Wexler finished it in New York. And that falsetto at the end of the James Carr recording of Dark End of the Street? That was him too. He still performs, occasionally writes, and picks up the phone to Jason Barnard. Further information Dan Penn – Smoke Filled Room Support The Strange Brew Dan Penn podcast tracks Podcasts also available: Steve Cropper, John Paul White, Bettye LaVette, John Mayall, Rita Coolidge This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Google apps and all usual platforms The post Dan Penn appeared first on The Strange Brew .

    59 min

  4. MAY 8

    Gary Talley – The Box Tops

    Gary Talley was 19 when The Box Tops scored a number one hit with ‘The Letter.’ Alex Chilton was 16, had been up all night before the session, and came from the kind of household where that sort of thing wasn’t questioned. What followed was two and a half years of relentless touring, five albums, and a management which took advantage of them. Talley talks about growing up in Memphis during the birth of rock and roll, the story behind some of pop’s most enduring records, and what it’s like keeping The Box Tops on the road more than six decades on. Further information boxtops.com garytalley.com Support The Strange Brew Podcasts also available: Al Jardine – The Beach Boys, Daryl Hooper – The Seeds, Richard Orange – Zuider Zee, Richie Furay – Buffalo Springfield, Larry Tamblyn – The Standells This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms If you like what I do please support me on Ko-fi The post Gary Talley – The Box Tops appeared first on The Strange Brew .

    35 min

  5. MAY 2

    Strawberry Studios Forever

    In a market town seven miles south-east of Manchester, a recording studio opened above a shop in 1968 that became one of the most significant facilities in British music history. Strawberry Recording Studios in Stockport was where 10cc built their sound, where Paul McCartney brought Wings to record his brother Mike’s album, where Neil Sedaka revived his career, and where Joy Division and The Smiths made their early recordings. For a long time, much of this went unremarked. Peter Tattersall, the studio’s co-founder, and Peter Wadsworth, a music historian at the University of Manchester, discuss the history of Strawberry Studios. The soundproofing, Tattersall mentions, was worked out from books borrowed from Stockport Library. That detail tells you all you need to know. Further information strawberrynorth.co.uk Strawberry Studios Forever: Strawberry Studios, 10cc and the Birth of Manchester Music by Peter Tattersall with Peter Wadsworth is available in all good book shops Strawberry Studios Forever podcast tracks Support The Strange Brew Podcasts also available: Eric Stewart – Part 1, Eric Stewart – Part 2, Graham Gouldman, Kevin Godley, Harvey Lisberg, Mike McGear McCartney, Keith Hopwood – Herman’s Hermits This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms If you like what I do please support me on Ko-fi The post Strawberry Studios Forever appeared first on The Strange Brew .

    1h 10m

  6. APR 27

    The Kibbo Kift: The Lost Rock Musical

    Few works of musical theatre receive the recognition they deserve, and The Kibbo Kift is a prime example. Written by Judge Smith, co-founder of Van der Graaf Generator, and composer Maxwell Hutchinson, this ambitious rock musical told the stranger-than-fiction story of a breakaway anti-war scouting movement in 1920 that transformed, over two turbulent decades, from idealistic woodland campers into uniformed street-fighters for an alternative economic theory. It played Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre and reached Sheffield’s Crucible in 1977 under director Mel Smith, then slipped into the margins of rock history. The recordings had a precarious existence. Union rules blocked a proper studio cast album, leaving only a patchwork of demo tapes and studio cuts. For decades these circulated in rough form, hardly doing justice to the material. Now, thanks to Think Like a Key, who tracked down, restored and remastered all surviving recordings,The Kibbo Kift can finally be heard as it deserves. In this interview, Judge Smith talks about the history of this remarkable lost musical, and why its strange subject matter resonates today. Further information The Kibbo Kift: The 1976 Rock Musical Judge Smith website Support The Strange Brew The Kibbo Kift podcast tracks Podcasts also available: Peter Hammill, The Genesis That Time Forgot, Tony Banks, Hawkwind’s Days of the Underground This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Spotify, Google apps and all usual platforms The post The Kibbo Kift: The Lost Rock Musical appeared first on The Strange Brew .

    45 min

  7. APR 20

    Duncan Mackay – Cockney Rebel, Alan Parsons Project, Kate Bush, 10cc

    Duncan Mackay spent the 1970s at the keyboard of British popular and progressive music, often invisibly, yet seldom far from its most defining moments. MacKay first built a reputation in South Africa which brought him back to England where he joined Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel, just as ‘Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)’ reached number one, and it was at Abbey Road during those sessions that he first encountered producer Alan Parsons. That relationship drew him into the Alan Parsons Project and, through the same circle, into the studio with Kate Bush, on whose first three albums he played. He later joined 10cc after an impromptu jam with Rick Fenn led to an invitation to Strawberry Studios South, arriving in time for ‘Dreadlock Holiday’ and another number one. He also recorded with Camel and served as musical director for Elkie Brooks while maintaining a solo career. Now based in South Africa and working in his home studio he is free to undertake the most enjoyable recording project of his career, his new album with Mauritz Lotz, A Beautiful Madness. Further information Duncan Mackay & Mauritz Lotz – A Beautiful Madness Duncan Mackay podcast tracks Support The Strange Brew Podcasts also available: Alan Parsons, Steve Harley, Jim Cregan – Cockney Rebel, David Paton – Part 1, Eric Stewart – 10cc – Part 2, Graham Gouldman This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms If you like what I do please support me on Ko-fi The post Duncan Mackay – Cockney Rebel, Alan Parsons Project, Kate Bush, 10cc appeared first on The Strange Brew .

    1h 17m

  8. APR 10

    Rat Scabies and Chris Constantinou

    Rat Scabies needs little introduction as the thunderous drummer of The Damned. His collaborator in One Thousand Motels, Chris Constantinou, has had a career that has taken him from the studio with Chas Chandler, to the Live Aid stage at Wembley with Adam Ant, and into the recording booth with Sinéad O’Connor. Rat and Chris describe how they first met through The Mutants, a collaborative project that assembled an unlikely roll-call of rock veterans including Wilco Johnson, Wayne Kramer and Norman Watt-Roy. That project proved too unwieldy to tour so they stripped it back, formed a two-man core, and called it One Thousand Motels. The result was 2% Out of Sync, an album that has taken almost six years to find its way onto vinyl, and into listeners’ hands. Further information One Thousand Motels – 2% Out of Sync – vinyl Rat Scabies and Chris Constantinou podcast tracks Support The Strange Brew Podcasts also available: Rat Scabies, Paul Cook – Sex Pistols, Don Powell – Slade, Jim Lea – Slade Part 1, Jim Lea – Slade Part 2 This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms If you like what I do please support me on Ko-fi The post Rat Scabies and Chris Constantinou appeared first on The Strange Brew .

    51 min
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Rock music from the mid 60s onwards - podcasts, features and much more

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