The Album Club

In the second part of our double episode on The Clash's masterpiece, we take you through the back half of the album where things get kinda weird. We discuss the rest of The Clash's catalogue and their acrimonious breakup. Then we look at what the members did in the remaining years and why The Clash never reformed.

We finally cover our first double album and our most requested album meaning the favourite album of Album Club listeners. So we decided to give it the treatment it deserved and do a double episode. London Calling is a monumental album in the way it broadened the idea of what punk was and could be and gave a template to other bands wanted to branch out. And it's full of banging tunes. We discuss the birth of the Clash, the recording of the album, the iconic album artwork and listen to the first half of tracks on the album. 

They came from LA with a sound like no other, scraping up remnants of roots music, blues, country and mixing it up and thrashing it out with a punk sound, everyone scratched their heads for over 30 years until generations of musicians discovered them. Jack White says their songs should be taught in Schools. Led by the insufferable but irrepressible wildest of frontmen and Elvis from hell, Jeffrey Lee Pierce, they carved out a niche in underground rock music and started a whole genre. On this episode, former Gun Club drummer Terry Graham joins us to talk about the making of the album, his memories of the time, his favourite songs and what he thinks of the legacy of The Gun Club and Jeffrey Lee Pierce as well as reunions. Preach the Blues!

One of the most enduring, puzzling, mythical, personal and unique albums of recent times, In the Aeroplane over Sea continues to find new listeners and increase in stature as a modern classic with each passing year. We take an in depth look at the legacy of this album and the fascinating history of its making and the motley Elephant 6 crew that inspired and created it. We go track by track and cover the way this album was the starting point and ending point of the album and why and how they broke up. So get ready for 2 headed boys, carrot flowers, pianos filled with flames, faces filled with flies, semen-stained mountaintops, Anne Frank, tomatoes and radio wires. It's all in here.

1234! This episode explores Forest Hills' finest punk underdogs' 3rd album and who, why and what TF were the Ramones. We examine how they started and if they were really a punk band at all, why they never got the recognition they deserved until they broke up, the revolving Ramone lineup and the personalities that created one of the most toxic band feuds ever. And we talk about the songs. Count it in...

The seering debut from the chanteuse of Dorset is the subject of today's dicussion. P.J. Harvey arrived fully formed with album, although she reformed and repackaged herself numerous times in future albums, to bring us a dark, haunting, angry and despondent album about sex, love, death and Sheela Na Gigs. We discuss the themes and sounds of the albums and talk about how it came to be and the impact it had. 

They came from L.A. with a message to the world and a huge sound that has never been replicated. Like its cover, Rage's first album was an explosion that set alight numerous bands, movements and genres. Their politics, spat out with the incomparable Zach De La Rocha to the hitherto unheard guitar bleeps of Tom Morello worried the CIA, politicians and parents everywhere. This week The Album Club reunites to celebrate one of the 90s' most important albums. Wake up!

In 1968, Skip Spence tried to murder his Moby Grape bandmates with an axe under the influence of acid and black magic. He was put in an insane asylum for 6 months. When he was released he had pages and pages of songs so he bought a Harley, drove to Nashville and recorded an album in 2 weeks. Then he rode away at the age of 22 and never released another song. His album was the lowest selling in Columbia's history but soon became a massive influence on artists from the 90s. That album was Oar.

Listen my friends! It's the story of Moby Grape, the band most likely to succeed, that failed, horrendously, though through no fault of their own. Bad management, bad tours, bad drugs, bad production, bad promotion all conspired against this remarkable supergroup. Listen to how they came together and created a classic debut before they succumbed tot hat age old pitfall of novelty songs, black magic and hallucinogens. Part one of two.