Music Maps - The Rock n Roll Book Club Podcast

Stuart Maconie is well known as the host of The Freak Zone on BBC Radio, he has written for NME, The Times, The Guardian & many more.His books have been widely published & include Long Road From Jarrow, The Nanny State Made Me, Cider With Roadies & Pies & Prejudice. His new book is published by HarperNorth - With a Little Help From Their Friends - The Beatles Changed the World. but Who Changed Theirs?We discuss a number of people who have an impact on the Beatles lives & career, from the more obvious such as Brian Epstein or George Martin to the obscure including John Mustard (of Mean Mr. Mustard fame) & Harry Graves (Ringo Starr’s stepdad who bought him his first drum kit). We touch on the many former members of the Beatles - some more well known such as Pete Best & Stuart Sutcliffe, and some less familiar such as early bassist Chas Newby & Tommy Moore who skipped a Beatles gig to fulfil a shift at Garston Bottle Works. Others such as temporary drummer Jimmie Nicol were unable to move on from their brief tenure with the band while others such as photographer Astrid Kircherr were forever linked with the Beatles. There are those who let the band slip through their fingers such as Allan Williams & Dick Rowe as well as those that stayed loyal to the Fab Four such as fan club founder Freda Kelly. Find out about the £5 flat fee Ivor Arbiter received for designing the iconic Beatles logo still used today or the £200 received by Sgt. Pepper cover designer Peter Blake. Another curio is George Harrison’s 1963 visit to the US to visit his sister Louise - the only time a Beatle would visit the country without being treated like a superstar. A handful of people have received a credit on a Beatles track including Billy Preston who the band had met back in Hamburg & who joined them for the Get Back sessions as seen in the documentary. It takes anything from 5 to 40 hours to prepare each episode of Music Maps - if you’d like to make a contribution to help us cover the costs & time of producing these episodes for you, you can do so at this link: ko-fi.com/musicmapsIt is hugely important for us to get positive reviews & star ratings - if you have enjoyed Music Maps & can spare the time to do either we would hugely appreciate it. You can see our upcoming live events here: https://rocknrollbookclub.co.uk/live/Instagram: @rocknrollbookclube17Blue Sky: @musicmaps.bsky.socialX: @simonmusicmapsFacebook: E17rockbookclubHosted, Written, Edited & Produced by Simon Cardwell 

Part 2 of our deep dive into the New York music scene of the 2000's with Lizzy Goodman - we pick the story back up with the Anti-Folk scene with gives us the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol & Regina Spektor. We find out how the Yeah Yeah Yeahs came to be & the connections between Detroit & New York around this time. The Strokes were the first band to break big & they helped through others that came in their wake including Regina Spektor, Kings of Leon & The Killers. Was the perceived privilege of The Strokes more in the media than in real life? And was it overblown compared to reality? Also coming out of New York around this time but in reality a completely different world was DFA Records, James Murphy & what becomes LCD Soundsystem. We find out how it unfolded & more. It takes anything from 5 to 40 hours to prepare each episode of Music Maps - if you’d like to make a contribution to help us cover the costs & time of producing these episodes for you, you can do so at this link: ko-fi.com/musicmapsIt is hugely important for us to get positive reviews & star ratings - if you have enjoyed Music Maps & can spare the time to do either we would hugely appreciate it. You can see our upcoming live events here: https://rocknrollbookclub.co.uk/live/Instagram: @rocknrollbookclube17Blue Sky: @musicmaps.bsky.socialX: @simonmusicmapsFacebook: E17rockbookclubHosted by Mark Hart & Simon CardwellWritten, Edited & Produced by Simon Cardwell 

We welcome Lizzy Goodman as we travel to New York City to discuss her seminal oral history of the NY scene Meet Me In The Bathroom - the Rebirth and Rock in Roll in New York City 2011 - 2011. Lizzy met Strokes guitarist Nick Valensi a couple of years before the band broke but it’s actually Jonathan Fire*Eater who are the first band to break, signing to DreamWorks. Their success is short lived & the subsequent album flops. 9/11 becomes a catalyst for what follows as Is This It is released a couple of weeks after & the Strokes play a key show at the Hammerstein Ballroom. In a pre-social media world Lizzy keeps track of the Strokes burgeoning success largely via email. Yet it’s the coverage in the UK media via The Face & the NME which breaks many of these bands. Ryan Adams is also in New York around the same time & shared a manager with the Strokes but Interpol are the next band to break & they sign with Matador. This & more in Part 1 of our 2 part discussion with Lizzy. It takes anything from 5 to 40 hours to prepare each episode of Music Maps - if you’d like to make a contribution to help us cover the costs & time of producing these episodes for you, you can do so at this link: ko-fi.com/musicmapsIt is hugely important for us to get positive reviews & star ratings - if you have enjoyed Music Maps & can spare the time to do either we would hugely appreciate it. You can see our upcoming live events here: https://rocknrollbookclub.co.uk/live/Instagram: @rocknrollbookclube17Blue Sky: @musicmaps.bsky.socialX: @simonmusicmapsFacebook: E17rockbookclubHosted by Mark Hart & Simon CardwellWritten, Edited & Produced by Simon Cardwell 

Join us & legendary photographer Glen E. Friedman to talk through his beginnings photographing skateboarding before transitioning into the world of punk rock & hardcore photographing Black Flag, Minor Threat & Bad Brains. Glen also talks us through the creation of his influential fanzine 'My Rules' & his eventual transition more into hip hop photography with the likes of Run DMC, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J & Public Enemy. A few iconic photos from Glen’s archive include the cover of Check Your Head by the Beastie Boys, another iconic cover - It Takes a Nation of Millions by Public Enemy & some of the earliest pictures of Run DMC. You can see more of Glen’s work here & his books are available to order directly from Akashic Books.  It takes anything from 5 to 40 hours to prepare each episode of Music Maps - if you’d like to make a contribution to help us cover the costs & time of producing these episodes for you, you can do so at this link: ko-fi.com/musicmapsIt is hugely important for us to get positive reviews & star ratings - if you have enjoyed Music Maps & can spare the time to do either we would hugely appreciate it. You can see our upcoming live events here: https://rocknrollbookclub.co.uk/live/Instagram: @rocknrollbookclube17Blue Sky: @musicmaps.bsky.socialX: @simonmusicmapsFacebook: E17rockbookclubHosted, Written, Edited & Produced by Simon Cardwell. 

Join us & legendary promoter and agent John Giddings to discuss the Isle of Wight Festival, its history, and the challenges of managing such a significant event and the evolving dynamics between the festival and the local community. We hear about some of John's most memorable experiences at the festival over the years from biblical rain in 2012 to David Bowie's final UK performance in 2004. From the festival's inception in 1968 to its revival in 2002, we cover some of the iconic performances from Bob Dylan & Jimi Hendrix in the 60s to David Bowie & the Paul McCartney in more recent times. Prior to taking over the Isle of Wight festival in 2002 John had worked with a who's who of the music world & we hear about seeing the Sex Pistols at the Nashville in Kensington in 1976, his early days promoting at Exeter University, and touring with the likes of the Rolling Stones, Genesis & more. John tells us about some of the relationships with legendary artists he has maintained over the years including Iggy Pop, Celine Dion & The Corrs.The Isle of Wight Festival takes place on June 19th to 22nd 2025 & is headlined by Sting, Stereophonics & Justin Timberlake. It takes anything from 5 to 40 hours to prepare each episode of Music Maps - if you’d like to make a contribution to help us cover the costs & time of producing these episodes for you, you can do so at this link: ko-fi.com/musicmapsIt is hugely important for us to get positive reviews & star ratings - if you have enjoyed Music Maps & can spare the time to do either we would hugely appreciate it. You can see our upcoming live events here: https://rocknrollbookclub.co.uk/live/Instagram: @rocknrollbookclube17Blue Sky: @musicmaps.bsky.socialX: @simonmusicmapsFacebook: E17rockbookclubHosted by Mark Hart & Simon CardwellWritten & Produced by Simon CardwellEdited, mixed & spruced up by Andy Maxwell 

This week we welcome David Browne, a senior writer at Rolling Stone, to talk about his book Talkin' Greenwich Village & to explore the musical history of Greenwich Village from its heyday in the 50s & early 1960s through to it's decline in the 80s. Many of the areas venues were originally jazz venues hosting the likes of Billie Holiday, John Coltrane & Charles Mingus & many legendary venues appear in Greenwich Village at the dawn of the 60s including the Village Vanguard, Gerde's Folk City, The Folklore Centre, We touch on the likes of Peter, Paul & Mary, Woody Guthrie, Fred Neil, Phil Ochs & Dave Van Ronk all of whom passed through the area. Joan Baez arrived in Greenwich Village already signed to Vanguard having built a following in Cambridge, MA. Not long after Bob Dylan also appears in the area & is signed to Columbia within a year, in early 1962. Bob achieves a quantum leap on his second album Freewheelin' which follows in May of 1963 & we discuss how this material is received in the coffeehouses & clubs of the village when Dylan first starts bringing it in. At this point Dylan's songs are more well known than he is, Peter, Paul & Mary having scored a huge hit with 'Blowin' In The Wind' selling over 300,000 copies in the first week. A little later Simon & Garfunkel are briefly in the area playing the coffeehouses but they soon move on once signed to Columbia. The arrival of the The Beatles in the US in early 1964 changed things & many left the folk scene as the it started to dissipate - although the village had several brief periods of renaissance - one when the New York Dolls breakthrough while playing regularly in the area & Bruce Springsteen also played a series of legendary shows at The Bottom Line in the 1970s. In the early 80s Gerde's Folk City hosts the likes of Sonic Youth, The Minutemen, The Replacements, Violent Femmes & Husker Du for a brief but fondly remembered period. It takes anything from 5 to 40 hours to prepare each episode of Music Maps - if you’d like to make a contribution to help us cover the costs & time of producing these episodes for you, you can do so at this link: ko-fi.com/musicmapsIt is hugely important for us to get positive reviews & star ratings - if you have enjoyed Music Maps & can spare the time to do either we would hugely appreciate it. You can see our upcoming live events here: https://rocknrollbookclub.co.uk/live/Instagram: @rocknrollbookclube17Blue Sky: @musicmaps.bsky.socialX: @simonmusicmapsFacebook: E17rockbookclubHosted by Mark Hart & Simon CardwellWritten & Produced by Simon CardwellEdited, mixed & spruced up by Andy Maxwell 

In this episode of Music Maps we finally talk about The Beatles as we welcome writer Ian Leslie to discuss his new book on Faber: 'John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs'. We focus on their early years from meeting at Woolton Village Fete in July 1957, with Paul McCartney joining the Quarrymen shortly after. The dynamic in the Quarrymen changed after Paul joined with John Lennon no longer the total leader as before - the pair bonded over their shared love of imported rock & roll from America. Before long they were writing songs as a duo. John & Paul both lost their mothers as teenagers & became an unspoken bond between the two & their friendship deepens as their songwriting blossoms. George Harrison joins the band but rather than coming between John & Paul, his presence actually reinforces their bond. Stuart Sutcliffe & Pete Best also join before The Beatles head to Hamburg for the first time in August 1960. They come of age in Hamburg both in terms of stagecraft and musicianship - playing 6 hours a night on the Reeperbahn. Upon returning to Liverpool, the Beatles soon turn from unknowns into the leaders of the beat scene in the city & they make their debut at The Cavern in February of 1961. Paul McCartney moves to bass following the departure of Stuart Sutcliffe & Brian Epstein comes in to manage the band at the end of 1961. Following a failed audition at Decca Records, the band come to the attention of George Martin at EMI & their debut release Love Me Do follows in October 1962. It takes anything from 5 to 40 hours to prepare each episode of Music Maps - if you’d like to make a contribution to help us cover the costs & time of producing these episodes for you, you can do so at this link: ko-fi.com/musicmapsIt is hugely important for us to get positive reviews & star ratings - if you have enjoyed Music Maps & can spare the time to do either we would hugely appreciate it. You can see our upcoming live events here: https://rocknrollbookclub.co.uk/live/Instagram: @rocknrollbookclube17Blue Sky: @musicmaps.bsky.socialX: @simonmusicmapsFacebook: E17rockbookclubHosted by Mark Hart & Simon CardwellWritten & Produced by Simon CardwellEdited, mixed & spruced up by Andy Maxwell 

In this episode we welcome back Mudhoney guitarist Steve Turner & pick things up with the formation of Mudhoney - first Mark Arm joins Steve’s band The Thrown Ups & they meet drummer Dan Peters soon after. Matt Lukin joins soon after to complete the lineup & Mudhoney come into being on New Years Day of 1988. Their first gig follows in April 1988 & SubPop Records forms soon after. Touch Me I’m Sick comes out in August of 1988 & a split single with Sonic Youth follows & then the now iconic Superfuzz Bigmuff EP follows on SubPop in October. Various tours follow - first on the West Coast of the US & a show in January of 1989 at the Satyricon Nightclub in Portland (notable for the appearance of Nirvana as the opening act). We discuss the bands interactions with Nirvana & Kurt Cobain. Mudhoney become the first Seattle band to come to the UK, opening the tour in Newcastle & also the first Seattle band to record a John Peel session. Another notable gig takes place in May of 1989 at the School For Oriental & African Studies in London with Soundgarden as opening act - the show ends in a stage invasion with part of the stage collapsing. Back in Seattle, Mudhoney join Nirvana & Tad at the Sub Pop Showcase at the Moore Theatre in Seattle on June 9th 1989, the coming out party for the whole Seattle scene in the US. It takes anything from 5 to 40 hours to prepare each episode of Music Maps - if you’d like to make a contribution to help us cover the costs & time of producing these episodes for you, you can do so at this link: ko-fi.com/musicmapsIt is hugely important for us to get positive reviews & star ratings - if you have enjoyed Music Maps & can spare the time to do either we would hugely appreciate it. You can see our upcoming live events here: https://rocknrollbookclub.co.uk/live/Instagram: @rocknrollbookclube17Blue Sky: @musicmaps.bsky.socialX: @simonmusicmapsFacebook: E17rockbookclubHosted by Mark Hart & Simon CardwellWritten & Produced by Simon CardwellEdited, mixed & spruced up by Andy Maxwell 

This week we welcome Ali Smith, a New York photographer, musician, and writer of the memoir 'The Ballad of Speedball Baby.' The conversation explores Ali's formative musical influences growing up in New York, her experiences in the punk scene, particularly at the iconic CBGBs, and the evolution of her band Speedball Baby. We discuss the challenges of being a woman in a male-dominated music industry, the impact of signing with a major label (the band end up on MCA) & what happens when that doesn’t necessarily go to plan. Punk has often been portrayed through a very male-dominated lens, especially in music - we discuss the importance of female voices in music, back then & today, and how the experience of being in a band differed for a woman. Ali tells us how the Lower East Side of New York has changed from back then - in the 80s & 90s it was a cheap place to live which created art & culture, today it is a very different place. Ali is also an accomplished photographer, we touch upon her photographic career from her early photos at CBGBs & other New York venues to more recent book projects & newspaper assignments. It takes anything from 5 to 40 hours to prepare each episode of Music Maps - if you’d like to make a contribution to help us cover the costs & time of producing these episodes for you, you can do so at this link: ko-fi.com/musicmapsIt is hugely important for us to get positive reviews & star ratings - if you have enjoyed Music Maps & can spare the time to do either we would hugely appreciate it. You can see our upcoming live events here: https://rocknrollbookclub.co.uk/live/Instagram: @rocknrollbookclube17Blue Sky: @musicmaps.bsky.socialX: @simonmusicmapsFacebook: E17rockbookclubHosted by Mark Hart & Simon CardwellWritten & Produced by Simon CardwellEdited, mixed & spruced up by Andy Maxwell