October 22, 2024 • 40 mins
We've all been there: investing our time and energy into worshiping our favourite artist only for them to call us "creepy as fuck". Ok, maybe we've not ALL been there, but thousands of Doja Cat stans were last year, whilst just a few days ago The Pretenders upset a bunch of their most hardcore fans in an Instagram post that has since been deleted. It offered us the chance to get into the fan/artist relationship on this week's podcast, as well as Greg reporting back from Sexyland World, a club in Amsterdam, and Stu from the perhaps less sexy Barbican Centre in London.
We won't pretend that we planned this, but every element of this week's show, from Joni Mitchell at the Hollywood Bowl to Greg's Top 3 challenge, happens to based around live music.
Oh. And we're calling our listeners Werewolves now. Cheers.
Further reading/listening/viewing
Heartworms Loud And Quiet interview
boygenius Loud And Quiet interview
Robbie Williams' art exhibition
Listen to our new Beat the Algorithm Spotify playlist
Credits:
Editing by Stuart Stubbs
Mixing and mastering by Flo Lines
Artwork by Kate Prior
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Good evening, I'm Greg Cochran, Good evening, I'm Stuart Stubbs.
We are a couple of journalists who've been working in
independent music since the days of my Space.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
One night a week, we become your guides through the
week in music, because, let's face it, the algorithms have
stopped working for most of us.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
So we're here to share the best new underground music
and the news that you might have missed, as well
as discussing the week's biggest headlines and bringing you interviews
with some of our favorite alternative artists.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
The show is called Midnight Chats.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Tonight. Everything we're talking about on this podcast is related
to live music. Had you noticed this? I hadn't clocked that,
stud No, but that's exciting it is. Do you want
to talk about you going to a sexy club in
Amsterdam now? Or shall we build up to it?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
No, let's just go straight there, shall we?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Okay? What was the name of the club? Again?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I'll give you a little bit and everybody listening, little
bit of context.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I think in these contexts you went to let's call
it a sex club in Holland. That's all where anyone
needs to know.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Okay, Fine, I'm feeling very sleepy tonight as we as
we record this year, because I've just come back from
Amsterdam from AD which is the Amsterdam Dance Event, which
is just absolutely massive, incredible, something like five hundred thousand visitors,
(01:29):
two hundred venues, I think a thousand events across like
four nights as the festival. It is a big deal.
But yes, what you're referring to is that on Friday
night I did go to a club called sexy land World,
which is doesn't it turns out it's not just a
brilliant name for a club, but is a brilliant club.
(01:51):
Like some people might have been there, it's a bit
of it's pretty legendary I think in the city and
on the scene, like a three floor club on the
north of the river in Amsterdam, and a friend of
ours was DJing and it was brilliant. Had a great time.
But yes, it was as much fun to tell everybody
(02:11):
that you've been to sexy land World and to look
at your banking app the next morning and go, oh,
I spent some money in sexy land World, and.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
A lot of money at sexy land World. I mean,
it's an incredible name for a club. It's always been
called sexy Land World, has it?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I don't. I don't know if it's always been called
sexy Land World, but it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
That they added the world on. I didn't just call
it sexy Land. They've gone sexy Land and they've gone
that's not quite enough. We need something else there. World.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, and I think the world is making it, to
be honest, it's a sexy Land World, is it? What?
What type of music are were they playing in sexy
Land World?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
A lot of e funk on that night, which was
a bit of a new discovery for me because basically
ade is I mean, not only is it every form
of dance music that you can possibly think of, but
in recent years obviously you know, you've got everything from
like hip hop to you know, to the grime to
whatever as well. It's it's a lot of stuff. But
(03:08):
on that particularly night, yeah, they're playing efunk. One of
the j's was soul Claps, so yeah, it was just
it was like good vibes, like up up vibes in there.
It wasn't like there was other stuff that I saw
over the weekend, which was you know, like Eastern European psych,
trance and like some really hard techno. But yeah, it
(03:30):
turns out I do like stuff with a melody, particularly
particularly at like five o'clock in the afternoon. It was
brilliant and it's a bit different. Normally I'd be watching
Gladiators on a Saturday tea time, eating of twigs.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
So heavy weekends for you, heavy weekend.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Quite well, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a bit. That's
probably explains what my voice sounds a little bit fractured.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
If I can use the term that everybody says these days,
I love that for.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
You, Greg, Thanks ju big recommend for a d if
anybody ever gets a chance to go. By the way,
Just before we started record, I sent you some some pictures,
some some artworks that I visited Wels was in Amsterdam.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yes, what did you what did you think of it?
What is this an artist? Who is this person?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So like a couple of hours before I basically, of course,
you know you've got we've got two hours in Amsterdam
before we got go and get a train home. What
what do you do to what? What I mean, what
what would you do?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I'd rather not say.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
It's not illegal in amsterdamn Well, I obviously went to
go and see Robbie Williams's debut R exhibition at the.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah, my god.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
But the thing is, I thought i'd send it to you,
and I thought you were going to say, what did
you think of it?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
You quite?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
You're going to say you quite liked it, didn't you.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I thought it was My opinion has been has changed
now now that I know who made it. Yeah, I
thought it was Okay, I surprised that I was telling
me it's Robbie Williams. Robbie Williams actually made that art. Okay,
we need to put a link in. Yeah, we can
see some of this stuff as well. Yeah, Robby Williams
has got two exhibitions going at the moment. One is
in Amsterdam, I think the other one is somewhere in Spain.
(05:14):
But it turns out that he's quite a prolific contemporary
artist and is like they were all from last year.
So you're in Amsterdam, Yeah, where there is the Van
Koff Museum, a world famous museum.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I see all of the Dutch masters. If I wanted to,
it was right there, but no, I chose Williams.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Robbie, what made you? What made you? What made you
do this? What did you take away? From the artwork.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Well, it was. It was a happy accident because I
went to the Museum of Contemporary Art and it just
happened that there was a visiting exhibition by Robbie Williams.
I didn't deliberately go there just to see. I wasn't like,
I mean, Amsterdam, I've got to go and see Robbie's work,
but the actual arts it so we'll, like you say,
we'll put a link in the show notes. But it's
like kind of really darkly funny because it's all about
(06:06):
his mental health. And yeah, it's possibly not what people
who expect. Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Did you enjoy it? Did you think it was?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Was it good? Yeah? I didn't enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah. And did you did you read all the blurbs
like about the pieces to find out what they were about?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
The blurbs were quite short. Yeah, yeah. And then I
went upstairs and saw some Banksy So it was like
Robbie Williams was hanging next to you know, Kusamo and
Banksy and Basque. Wow. And you've been out and about
as well.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I have. I went to a few shows. I've been
at the Barbercane. This weekend, I went to see two shows.
Just by coincidence, they both happen to be at the
Barbercane here in London. Two crackers, though. I went to
see Nala Sinofro on Friday night, who, for those who
don't know, is a sort of cosmic jazz musician, plays
the harp but also has electronics going on. Has a
(06:58):
great band playing a lot of electronic instruments, also saxophonist, drummer.
That was a beautiful sort of Lets all sit in
the dark and just drift away. Then I was back
there the following afternoon for a matinee show.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Oh everyone loves a matinee show, right mate. Love a
very west end of each stud.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
When you see Caroline Rose, they were playing with a
eight piece orchestra. Incredible. They cried multiple times during the
during it. Have you ever been to a show where
somebody is just the performer has broken down. It's been
a bit too much for them.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Hmmm, all right, not that I can recall. I've definitely
cried plenty of times at gigs and I know you
have you you it's a rarity for you not to cry.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I'm always crying at shows, especially outdoor shows. This was indoors.
Caroline Rose was amazing. Yeah, got got quite emotional. Great
you know, great crowd support, everybody on her side. Great shows.
So we've both had a lovely time in the last
few days with some live music. But whilst we've been
doing that, there has been other stuff going on in
the world of music. Obviously, my Chemical Romance played the
(08:09):
Black Parade for the first time in seventeen years. Stu,
I know that you were desperate to be there. Jeff Lynn,
obviously of Yellow, has announced the final Yellow Show because
he's basically brought that whole thing back like ten years ago, hasn't.
He has played loads of shows this past decade, but
(08:30):
it's going to be there's one more. It's going to
happen in London next summer at Hyde Park. There's only
one more chance. If you do want to go and
see those Elo classics being played live by jeff Lyn,
you've got to go to that. Did you see this
Joni Mitchell stuff like that happened over the weekend in
Los Angeles? So Joni Mitchell is eighty now right, and
I kind of, like, I think, like everybody else, assumed
(08:51):
that Joni Mitchell probably would never play any more shows again.
But she has done like a sort of sprinkling of
stuff the last couple of years. But the week she
played two shows at Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, seventeen
thousand people a night along with this sort of all
star cast band ranging from everyone from like Brandy to
(09:13):
Carlisle through to Marcus Mumford and Robin Packnell from Fleet
Foxes to play some Joni Mitchell songs that some of
the songs she's not played live for like thirty years.
Do you know how this came about? Joni Jams? Backstory
to this. In twenty fifteen, Jenni Mitchell suffered from an
anneurism that was very nearly fatal, and while she was
(09:36):
been recovering from that, she started having people round to
her house in bel Air as part of her recovery
to play music. And they were called Joni Jams. And
she'd have these friends and some of them very you know,
famous musicians in LA and from around the LA area
or when they were in town, had come to Jonie's
house and they'd play songs and it was part of
(09:57):
her rehabilitation from having this aneurysm. And then in twenty
twenty two, she unannounced played at the Newport Fouestival. Yeah,
and took some of these musicians. I actually was in
LA earlier this year when the Grammys were on, and
she performed at the Grammys with this same band that,
as you say, involves Jacob Collier and John Vastis is
(10:21):
in the band.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I thought you were going to say, when you were
in LA earlier this year, you went and jammed with
Jenny Mitchell.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
I did. I don't think I would be getting into
the Joni jam. But it is incredible that she survived this,
you know, very severe aneurysm, and now she's back playing
at the Hollywood Bowl. She played for three hours. As
you say, she played loads and loads of deep cuts,
which I imagine sort of pissed off a lot of people.
Very Joni Mitchell moved, That, isn't it. Yeah, But yeah,
(10:49):
the people she had on was amazing. Jacob Collier's an
interesting one, I think because he's like, I don't know
what your feelings are on Jacob Collier, but he's a
lot of people might not know who this guy is.
He's a British guy. He's won six Grammys. I think
he could walk into most rooms and nobody would necessarily
(11:10):
recognize him, but he's he's a huge talent. He wears
a lot of very primary colors. He's the guy who's
going to be He's the guy who's going to be
wearing yellow crocs until he's dead. You know, like lots
of just primary colors. It's quite wacky. He looks a
bit like Jamie Cullen, but he does everything. He like produces,
he plays every instrument or all of these things. And
(11:33):
now he's in Joni Mitchell's band with all these other musicians.
Marcus Munford up there as you say, he performed California
with her. Yeah, what an amazing thing. If you're if
you're if you get welcomed into that world of a
Joni jam and now you're playing it live. I don't know,
maybe there'd be more shows, maybe there won't. Just one
thing I wanted to say about the Black Parade in
(11:54):
full that you mentioned that was played at a festival
called When We Were Young in Vegas. And that's a
bizarre festival, isn't it, Because that's a music festival where
every single act on the bill this year at least
played an old album in four So Mike chemic Romance,
(12:17):
Mike im rom they played the whole of Black Parade,
but I thought, oh, okay, yeah, but then the rest
of the stuff on there will just be bands playing
what songs they want. But the whole thing is so
shamelessly about nostalgia, which is why it's called When We
Were Young, which I love about it. They're just leaning
into it. Every artist on that bill just played a
(12:39):
classic album. So Nada serv played, They just played the
whole of Let's Go, Jimmy World played, and they played
Bleed American and on and on. It weren't like to
have seen that. I think it's just a it's just
a brilliantly very open way of saying, look, people want
the hits. Everyone's old. The only people that can have
(13:00):
to come to these shows and pay for festival gigs
are now late thirties, forties, fifties. They just want to
come on, let's just get the get the old stuff.
And it's great. I think that these bands turn up
and they just they lean into it, they go for it,
and they say, no, listen, I'm we're still a relevant band.
We want to play what we want to play. They
(13:21):
all just go, okay, fine, we'll just play something. There's
one in La as well as in there called Just
Like Heaven, which is also a big nostalgia trip that's
more of an indie indie vibe. But I quite like it.
Would you like to go to a festival where it's
just all all the oldies or would it make you
feel a bit sad?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I I as last week on the podcast as I
completely shame myself when we were talking about like that.
I don't know the lyrics to any famous songs, even
my favorite ones.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I rarely put on old music, so I don't mind. Yeah,
if I was gonna be a group of friends or something,
I'm sure it'd have like an absolutely brilliant time. But yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
You're there for the new stuff.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I'm there for the new stuff, man. Yeah. Yeah, But
there was something that happened this week that really piqued
your interest. Wasn't it a story about the Pretenders?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yes? So this is a story that came and went
over the weekend very quickly due to the band posting
something on their socials. It got quite a lot of
stick in a very short amount of time from that fans,
and it seems like they've removed that post from that
Instagram account where it's originally posts. This was something that
Chrissy Hein put online and we'll have a few ads now,
(14:34):
but and we'll come back and talk about this. But
the long and short of it was that she posted
online to say to her fans who are die hard
fans who travel around and follow the band around and
are at every gig, we love you coming to the gigs,
thank you, thank you for the support, but can you
(14:54):
please stop standing right at the front. Can you give
local people who have not been able to tour around
the world of us or follow us as much have
their moment at their local show and stand in front
of the gig. It did not go down well. It
didn't split the crowd, Greg, it went down badly.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Let's go to some adverts and what some people have
to say about this. Welcome back to midnight Chats. As
ste was just saying there before the break, there was
this very interesting story unfolding over the past few days.
The Pretender's legendary British rock band posted something on their
(15:34):
social media saying basically, we're grateful to you, those diehard
fans that follow us around the world, around the country
to these different shows and show up and support us,
but can we let the locals come to the front
of the gig so that they can have their opportunity
to come to the front. And also, what I thought
was really interesting is the sort of reasoning of this
thing was basically, when we go on tour, the whole
(15:56):
point of it for a band is that we're playing
to a different audience every night and so. And they
also went on to say, don't be offended if we
request that you move out of the front row. This
is what keeps it new for us. There's th STU.
What did What was the response like, if you got
didn't like it went down?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Well? It did not go down. Well. This story has
introduced me to a new term that I don't know about.
Do you know that. Have you come across the term
rail riders?
Speaker 2 (16:25):
No?
Speaker 1 (16:26):
See, I hadn't come across this either. And I was
talking to somebody that the weekend about this story and
they use the term rail rider, and I thought that meant, oh, right,
because people are catching trains to the gigs. Is it about?
Is it a train thing? A rail rider is somebody
who's on the barrier at the gig, that's that stood
on the rail. I would always call out the barrier,
(16:49):
you know, the crash barrier. But yeah, the stage and
the stage and the fans. If you're someone that stands
on the rail, you're called a rail rider if you
do it repeatedly. Right, So that's a new term to me.
I'm glad it's new to you, because I felt foolish
for thinking it was about trains. People didn't like this
at all. The fans underneath that post went into it.
(17:14):
I mean that they were typically all around this. I'll
read one, I'll read a couple, but this is the
tone of all of them. Essentially, this is so disrespectful
to faithful fans, as you're basically telling them they bore
you seeing them so often, even though you wouldn't have
a crowd to perform in front of if it wasn't
for them. This is horrendous. That's what somebody said. Somebody
(17:39):
who's maybe not a fan but have sympathized with the
fans have said, quote, please don't be offended if we
request you moved out of the front row. Imagine security
coming up to you and being like your favorite artist
doesn't want you to look at your face and please
fuck off to the back.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Oh man, Okay, so if we're try and look at
this from like the bandview and the fanview and just
sort of have a think about that, the band is saying, like,
the whole reason we go on tour is so that
because every night is different, we get to play to
different people, Like, that's the reason. They they say, that's
the reason we do it. So you can't argue that's
(18:23):
that's that's the way they feel, So you can't really
argue with that. They say that's their motivation for getting
out on the road and still playing shows forty five
years into their career is because they get to see
different faces, different vibe in the venue every night, different
people singing the words back to them, etc. So there's that.
So is that that's valid? Do you think?
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Like?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
I think that's I mean, I think it probably would
be quite strange to be a band. At every stage
you walk on too in a different town, they are
the same faces looking back at you. Hmmm. I think
that would just be quite strange. Like, in some ways,
I'm sure it would be lovely because there would be
you'd be like, oh, there's John and there's Sally, Hi, guys.
(19:05):
But at the same time, it'd be like, oh, there's
John and Sally again. Yeah, like I understand it from
that point of view, but I do understand the fans
a lot of the people. Was another thing that people
said in the comments was if the local fans, if
you're fans, it's it's it's basically first come, first serve.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
If they can queue up just as early and come
and run to the front, they can camp overnight if
they want to, like I have. Obviously it is different
for different people. Some people can't necessarily do that, but essentially,
in terms of fairness, if you've bought a standing ticket,
the earlier EUQ, the furthest forward you can get and
that's the that's the game, isn't it. And I also
(19:47):
understand them being like, fuck you man, I've flown from
Turkey to London say to see you because I love
you so much, and now you're saying I can't stand
at the front, Like it's a bit of a kick
in the face, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Okay? So is there any way So if we're saying
like the pretender's feelings on this are valid, we're saying
like we get it, when the fans might be like,
hang on, that doesn't seem right. Is there is it?
Was it? Just? Is it a simple case that like
the way that they said this was wrong? Is there
a way of doing it? Because I'm I'm not sure
(20:25):
because that the way they did it was quite softly,
softly of saying please please don't like we really appreciate you,
Please don't be offended if we do, ask like if
other people can come to the front of the show
to you know, so that we can see them. I don't.
I can't think of a way putting that across. Oh,
you can't communicating that that doesn't somehow offend somebody.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
And I think that's probably why they've taken it down.
I think they thought, Okay.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
We tried and it was snowballing, wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah, And they just thought we, you know, we tried,
We've put a point across. It's not gone down. Well,
we're not going to change their minds. Let's not upset
people over it. We should just sort of backtrack a
little bit and just bury it and hope it goes away.
Have you ever been a rail rider. I've never been
a rail rider.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I've never like sure, i've seen artists play like I've
been to see certain artists play multiple times, but I've
never followed an artist around on tour, Like, I've never
gone from one show to another to another anything like that,
have you no?
Speaker 1 (21:26):
And when I saw this story, like my gut reaction
was to defend the band, right, And that's only because
I'm not someone that has followed a band around. To me,
that doesn't appeal to me because I actually go the
other way. And when I see a band that I
really love, and especially if I see them be brilliant,
(21:48):
I don't really want to see them that much again
because I just think, let's just leave that as perfect.
But I do understand the appeal of it from fans
who have a real community group. I'm too miserable to
be a rail rider because you have to be friends
with the other fans. But that's whole part. That's part
of it. You go to the show and you're and
(22:10):
you see the next person on the next stop and
you say, oh, did you did you catch last year?
What do you think of last week's show? And it's
all part of extreme fandom, And so I can see
why they feel hurt by it by it, because you know,
it's a huge, huge part of their lives. But I've
never done it myself. I've been at the front. I
have been on the rail. As I now know it's
called the barrier, I would call it for shows, you know.
(22:34):
But I do also imagine that it's quite you know,
when you're at the front a gig, it does get
there is a good community spirit down the front of
a show, but it is also quite competitive, and I
wonder if that's what the band are getting at as well.
It's like we you know, we love you all, but
to them, there's no such thing as somebody liking the
(22:57):
band more than anybody else, you know, just because you've
seen the band of th times on every stop of
the tour. If there's one person that's only just been
able to see the band for the first time, then
they are just as much a fan, you know, or
they can be just as much a fan as you are.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Yeah, And this sort of seems to have come this year.
The conversation around like boundaries for artists and fans and
like toxic fandom and all these things that we've heard
lots about seems to have risen right to the top.
Hasn't it, like you've had chapel rowan sort of pulling
out of gigs, saying that, like, she needs to protect
her mental health because things have just been on total overload,
and she's you know, been really quite vocal about how
(23:35):
she wants to be able to sort of preserve her
mental health and her sanity by just having certain boundaries
with her fans. You know. Understandably, you have people saying like, oh, well,
they're ungrateful or they're not kind of like responding to
us in a respectful manner, and you've got other supporters
saying like, well, you know, it's totally fine, Like you
(23:57):
might be a pop star and you might make a
living out of affectively talking about your life, writing, you know,
making art about your most kind of personal elements of
who you are. But it's still it's still neat. People
still need boundaries still. People are still human beings, right,
and so this conversation just seems to keep growing and growing.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I think yeah, and I think, you know, obviously this
is a very obvious thing to say. Clackson Alert. Social
media is obviously just accelerated, or wasn't it, because people
feel that they are they know the band, they're connected
to the band. We did a cover feature for the
magazine last year with Boy Genius, and they have some
extremely hardcore fans, and they spoke in that interview that
(24:40):
we did with them about how sort of dicey it
can get and that it's not always lovely to get
back to your hotel and there's a group of people
there who know you, who have tracked you down, who
know where you're staying, have found out that information, and
suddenly they're like, I'm not sure I feel safe. And
they were saying, you know that fans will be, oh,
(25:00):
it's okay, you're safe because we protect you, and they're like, well,
but are we safe from you? You know, we don't
know who you are. You are strangers, we don't know
each other. And in was it last year when Doja
Cat really upset her audience because she's extremely outspoken, And
when I saw this thing from the Pretenders, I started
(25:21):
to think of other musicians that have really upset their
fans and Doja Cat did, I think last year when
she sort of slagged off very openly her fans who
started calling themselves as a group the kittens. Right, she's
Doja Cat, We're going to be the kittens. And sometimes
it was spelt with zed and sometimes it was not
with his ZA, and she put on threads at the time,
(25:44):
if you call yourself a kitten or fucking kittens with
a ZED, that means you need to get off your
phone and get a job and help your parents with
the house. She then went on to say when a
fan and came back and said, yeah, but you do
love us, so don't you. We're your fans, you do
love us, And she said I don't because I don't
(26:08):
even know y'all. Then she called them all creepy as fuck.
Now it's one way to go. She lost nearly two
hundred thousand fans on followers on Instagram doing that. The
pretenders haven't gone that far. They've just put up this thing,
(26:28):
and they've noticed key, they've noticed when, okay, this could
go badly for us, and let's take it down. Talking
of those hardcore kittens with Z or without a Z.
Can I test you on some of the other groups then,
like the fan groups what they call groups? Yeah, what
(26:48):
they're called? And then so for example, Taylor Swift has
the Swifties. Yes, okay, so I'll give you the artist's
name and you give me the group name. I think
I think you're going to be good at this. Go on,
you can redeem yourself from last week. What are Harry
Styles fans called? Oh the harassers, that would be brilliant. No,
(27:15):
it's not the harassers. It's just the Harries. It's really really,
really really rubbish, isn't it. What about Charlie XX think
logically she's the Brats. No, No, that's too new, isn't it.
This is like from years ago, Charlie. It could be
the brats now the angels Charlie's angels of course. Yeah,
(27:36):
you get it.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
No, I get it. I'm just not very good at it.
Lady Gaga, Oh little monsters. Yeah, you're a little monster,
a little monster from the start. I have you've got
the tattoo?
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (27:50):
What about Lizzo?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Oh I do know?
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Is brilliant? The Lisbians?
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Well they're called Lisbians. Yeah it's so good. That's good,
isn't it. That's really good.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Ed Sheerans is the cherios Cheerios? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Noah, not having that super nav.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
And there's another one that you will definitely know that
if you were a fan of the Twilight soccer as
I know you were, you were a twy hard.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Oh yeah, they were twenty highs, weren't they so, given
that you were about to launch your pop career. Let's
just fast forward to the end of twenty twenty five
and you are playing stadiums. What are your what's your
fan base called your Stuart Stubbs international pop star the.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
Stubbers, the Stubbers, the Stubbers, Stubbers, the Stubbers, the Stubbers.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
There was there was a boy I went to school
with called Tarrent Hodson real name, and the bus going
to and from school, on the back of some of
the seats would be a cigarette stubber because it was
the nineties and it said Stubbor on it, and when
he saw it said that he would just shower. Stop
a stop. Its triggering, It's quite triggering talking about.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
This, okay, talking about barriers. Yeah, listen, stew I've got
a hell of a I've got a hell of a
top three for you this week. Really excited to spring
this and.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
It's going to be some revenge coming down.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I think so. I think so. And we also before
we go tonight, we're going to leave you with some
recommendations with our Beat the Algorithm regular and we're going
to give you our hot tips of what you should
be listening to. But first let's get these adverts.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Welcome back to all of Midnight Chats. Were Wolves.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
All are were wolves out there?
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Like that? That's that's our name, that's our fans names
the were wolves. Well you like it? I do like it?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah? Whatever kind of do you want to.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Give us a quick quick were wolf cry?
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Oh yeah, we are at Midnight Chats Pod on Instagram
if you want to film yourself and send us you
do an impression of a were wolves and we'll.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Play them on next week's podcast. Oh thanks for all
of our were wolves tell you what? Yeah? Though, can
we just say from the outset, like Stuart and I
have very respectful boundaries, So whilst we appreciate all of
your you don't have any boundaries.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Now. I would love to go back to a hotel
and have a group of fans there telling me that
I'm safe.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Nothing would give me more anxiety. Now, listen, last week
we did our top three. We do it every week
on Midnight Chats and quite frankly, I had an absolute shocker.
You can go and see the clip on Midnight Chats
Pod at Midnight Chats Pod on social media if you
want to relive that complete disaster, which means that it's
(31:07):
your turn this week, Stu. I've got a top three
for you. Given that we've been talking about live music,
everything's been sort of live music orientated. Tonight on the podcast,
I've got a real I've got a live music classic
for you. So Stu, your top three tonight. I would
like to know the top three legendary stroke classic gigs
(31:30):
that you wish that you were at across the course
of music history. So maybe that was Woodstock in nineteen
sixty nine, could have been led Zeppelin at the O
two when they reformed, could have been Limp Biscuit at
the Leeds Cockpit. It's up to you. I want to
know the top three classic legendary gigs that you wish
that you were at.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Okay, i think I've got them.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Boom go On, hit Me number one.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Bowie at the Amaswift, Apollo retiring, Ziggy star Dust when
everybody thought that when he said this is it, we're done,
and everyone thought he was retiring, but he was just retiring.
The character to have been there would have just been good.
When that's a great dinner anecdote. Yeah, I'm not sure
how good to show was I imagine it was great,
(32:18):
but like it's more about the historic moment. I would
also love to have been at the Monterey Jazz and
Pop Festival in sixty seven. Was it when Hendrix sets
fire to the guitar? Yeah, with the light of fluid,
Because also to have seen Jimmy Hendrix's life would have
just been incredible. And well, I did get to see
(32:41):
the Rakes, so I won't say that. And one more,
I had it in my head and I've got lost
making a Rakes joke. Foolish. I would have loved I
(33:04):
would have really loved I've seen him, and it's not
necessarily legend. I would have loved to have been at
Glastonbury when Jay Z headlined it because I feel it
was a turning point for the festival. And I watched
it on TV and I thought it was incredible and
the fact that everyone was talking about him having loads
of guests out and he didn't have anyone out, like
(33:25):
you know, it was just him and all the samples
he did, you know, like sampling Sunday, Bloody Sunday by
you two. All of that stuff I just thought was
so expertly done. And I was on a huge jay
Z tip back then at that point, So it would
be that I was going to go with Nirvana at
(33:47):
reading because I liked it when I've seen I watched
that footage of Kirk had been running into the jump
drum kit all the time, and I would love to
have seen that. But the other two are so guitari
I feel like need to like, yeah, I'm going for that.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
That is a hell of a top three. I met
somebody the other day who was at that reading and
didn't and chose actively chose not to go and watch
the banner, and I think went to go and watch
somebody like the Charlatan's headline.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Like the.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Wow did they regret it? Did they think? So?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Did they? How foolish is this?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Yeah? This maybe this is maybe this is for another time,
but like our near maybe we should do our like
near missus. Like when Blur got back together the first
time and when they headlined Glastermy that was very emotional.
You remember Damon was like kind of he was pretty
much crying on stage. I was working at that point
and I drew quite literally drew the short straw because
we did sort of was reporting was amongst a group
(34:44):
of people reporting on that year's festival, and we said,
somebody's got to go and watch Black Eyed Ps headline
the Jazz World stage. And guess who. Guess who went
to watch that instead of watching Blur and I watched
Will I Am come out and go hey London, every boo.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
I'm surprised there were people there to go boo. I'm
surprised there were.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
There were people there going boo. Yeah. I mean that's
just the size of Glaston Berson and I think that
everybody just gets so lost and high that they're not
even necessarily shut. They're just like, hey, I'm watching Black
Eyed Peace but yeah, never mind, but yeah, good good.
Top three, there's shall we beat the algorithm?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Let's beat the algorithm.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Beat the algorithm, beat the algorm. So this is the
point in the podcast where we want to be useful.
Stu and I were thinking, let's just stop, let's give
some let's give the people something to take away with them.
And so we've got a recommendation, something that we're listening
to at the moment that we think that you might enjoy.
My choice this week is a song called Warplane, and
(35:47):
it's by an artist called Heartworms, and if you don't
know Heartworms. She is from South London. Her real name
is jojo Ormey, but she performs under the name Heartworms
and has been around for a couple of years and
been talked about it for a couple of years. But
quite a lot of people getting excited about Heartworms because
she releases music via Speedy WonderGround, which is the label
run by the producer Dan Kerrey and has previously given
(36:11):
birth or introduced us to artists including Ka Tempest, Black Midi,
Fontan's DC loads and loads of really exciting stuff. So
the fact that like Heartworms is working with them says
a lot. And this song is called Warplane.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
She loves war memorabilia.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yes, she's a volunteer at the Hendon Royal Air Museum
when she's not making music.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Fantastic. We did a feature with her in the meg
I'll put a link in the bio because she talks
about that a little bit and I thought that was
just quite fascinating to be a young person into the war,
you know, into the Second World War and the planes
and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
I mean, yeah, she serves a spitfire. Warplane is all
about her love for spitfires and it's about spitfire Pilot.
If you're looking for the meaning behind the song.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Who doesn't love a spitfire.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Me?
Speaker 1 (37:26):
So I'm going to pick something brand new. It's by
a band called Lobby, which is made up of Lotty
from Goat Girl, the South London band Goat Girl, and
a guy called Toby who's in a band called Leatherhead.
And this is a track that's coming on their WEP.
The EP is called night Driving. It's going to be
out next month, but this is the first track off
(37:49):
of it, called Folding Out, and it's like melodic slow core.
The bit I'm about to play is where Toby's voice
joins Lotty's voice, and I think they just work very
well together. Toby's voice actually reminds me a little bit
of a of a very raw Julian Casablancas. It's over
(38:25):
spial on every way, believing a bit of saxophone on
(38:54):
there as well, and those pinched harmonics that remind me
of Slint. It's great. I love this track. That's Lobby.
The song is called Folding Out and the EP is
actually out on the first of November. We will put
both of those songs on our beat. The Algorithm playlist.
It's on Spotify. You can find it by just searching Spotify.
It will also be linked in our show notes of
(39:17):
this week's episode.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Stu, I've got to go for the night because I
have realized that I left my tablet in sexy Land
World in Amsterdam. And this is not a joke. It
is still there. It's in a locker in sexy Land,
so I'm going to have to send a groveling email
to sexy Land to see if I can get it back.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
I'm pretty sure that is gone.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I think it probably is too. And on that note,
thanks very much for joining us tonight. We've loved chatting
all things live music. Do let us know if there
was a legendary gig that you didn't get to that
you'd have loved to have been out like we always
want to hear your thoughts on that. We're at Midnight
Chat's pod on the social media. But until next week,
I'm going to go for a lie down, a very
(40:02):
well needed, desperately needed lie down. And it's good night
from me.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
And it's good night ware Wolfs wherever you are, howl
On baby how al on.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Midnight Chats is a joint production between Loud and Quiet
and Atomized Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Stuart Stubbs
and Greg Cochrane, mixed and mastered by Flow Lines, and
edited by Stuart Stubbs.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Find us on Instagram and TikTok to watch clips from
our recordings and much much more. We are Midnight Chats Pod.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
For more information, visit Loud and Quiet dot com
Good evening, I'm Greg Cochran, Good evening, I'm Stuart Stubbs.
We are a couple of journalists who've been working in
independent music since the days of my Space.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
One night a week, we become your guides through the
week in music, because, let's face it, the algorithms have
stopped working for most of us.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
So we're here to share the best new underground music
and the news that you might have missed, as well
as discussing the week's biggest headlines and bringing you interviews
with some of our favorite alternative artists.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
The show is called Midnight Chats.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Tonight. Everything we're talking about on this podcast is related
to live music. Had you noticed this? I hadn't clocked that,
stud No, but that's exciting it is. Do you want
to talk about you going to a sexy club in
Amsterdam now? Or shall we build up to it?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
No, let's just go straight there, shall we?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Okay? What was the name of the club? Again?
Speaker 2 (00:57):
I'll give you a little bit and everybody listening, little
bit of context.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I think in these contexts you went to let's call
it a sex club in Holland. That's all where anyone
needs to know.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Okay, Fine, I'm feeling very sleepy tonight as we as
we record this year, because I've just come back from
Amsterdam from AD which is the Amsterdam Dance Event, which
is just absolutely massive, incredible, something like five hundred thousand visitors,
(01:29):
two hundred venues, I think a thousand events across like
four nights as the festival. It is a big deal.
But yes, what you're referring to is that on Friday
night I did go to a club called sexy land World,
which is doesn't it turns out it's not just a
brilliant name for a club, but is a brilliant club.
(01:51):
Like some people might have been there, it's a bit
of it's pretty legendary I think in the city and
on the scene, like a three floor club on the
north of the river in Amsterdam, and a friend of
ours was DJing and it was brilliant. Had a great time.
But yes, it was as much fun to tell everybody
(02:11):
that you've been to sexy land World and to look
at your banking app the next morning and go, oh,
I spent some money in sexy land World, and.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
A lot of money at sexy land World. I mean,
it's an incredible name for a club. It's always been
called sexy Land World, has it?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
I don't. I don't know if it's always been called
sexy Land World, but it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
That they added the world on. I didn't just call
it sexy Land. They've gone sexy Land and they've gone
that's not quite enough. We need something else there. World.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Yeah, and I think the world is making it, to
be honest, it's a sexy Land World, is it? What?
What type of music are were they playing in sexy
Land World?
Speaker 2 (02:48):
A lot of e funk on that night, which was
a bit of a new discovery for me because basically
ade is I mean, not only is it every form
of dance music that you can possibly think of, but
in recent years obviously you know, you've got everything from
like hip hop to you know, to the grime to
whatever as well. It's it's a lot of stuff. But
(03:08):
on that particularly night, yeah, they're playing efunk. One of
the j's was soul Claps, so yeah, it was just
it was like good vibes, like up up vibes in there.
It wasn't like there was other stuff that I saw
over the weekend, which was you know, like Eastern European psych,
trance and like some really hard techno. But yeah, it
(03:30):
turns out I do like stuff with a melody, particularly
particularly at like five o'clock in the afternoon. It was
brilliant and it's a bit different. Normally I'd be watching
Gladiators on a Saturday tea time, eating of twigs.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
So heavy weekends for you, heavy weekend.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Quite well, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was a bit. That's
probably explains what my voice sounds a little bit fractured.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
If I can use the term that everybody says these days,
I love that for.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
You, Greg, Thanks ju big recommend for a d if
anybody ever gets a chance to go. By the way,
Just before we started record, I sent you some some pictures,
some some artworks that I visited Wels was in Amsterdam.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yes, what did you what did you think of it?
What is this an artist? Who is this person?
Speaker 2 (04:17):
So like a couple of hours before I basically, of course,
you know you've got we've got two hours in Amsterdam
before we got go and get a train home. What
what do you do to what? What I mean, what
what would you do?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I'd rather not say.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
It's not illegal in amsterdamn Well, I obviously went to
go and see Robbie Williams's debut R exhibition at the.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah, my god.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
But the thing is, I thought i'd send it to you,
and I thought you were going to say, what did
you think of it?
Speaker 1 (04:49):
You quite?
Speaker 2 (04:50):
You're going to say you quite liked it, didn't you.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
I thought it was My opinion has been has changed
now now that I know who made it. Yeah, I
thought it was Okay, I surprised that I was telling
me it's Robbie Williams. Robbie Williams actually made that art. Okay,
we need to put a link in. Yeah, we can
see some of this stuff as well. Yeah, Robby Williams
has got two exhibitions going at the moment. One is
in Amsterdam, I think the other one is somewhere in Spain.
(05:14):
But it turns out that he's quite a prolific contemporary
artist and is like they were all from last year.
So you're in Amsterdam, Yeah, where there is the Van
Koff Museum, a world famous museum.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I see all of the Dutch masters. If I wanted to,
it was right there, but no, I chose Williams.
Speaker 1 (05:38):
Robbie, what made you? What made you? What made you
do this? What did you take away? From the artwork.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Well, it was. It was a happy accident because I
went to the Museum of Contemporary Art and it just
happened that there was a visiting exhibition by Robbie Williams.
I didn't deliberately go there just to see. I wasn't like,
I mean, Amsterdam, I've got to go and see Robbie's work,
but the actual arts it so we'll, like you say,
we'll put a link in the show notes. But it's
like kind of really darkly funny because it's all about
(06:06):
his mental health. And yeah, it's possibly not what people
who expect. Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
Did you enjoy it? Did you think it was?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Was it good? Yeah? I didn't enjoy it.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah. And did you did you read all the blurbs
like about the pieces to find out what they were about?
Speaker 2 (06:22):
The blurbs were quite short. Yeah, yeah. And then I
went upstairs and saw some Banksy So it was like
Robbie Williams was hanging next to you know, Kusamo and
Banksy and Basque. Wow. And you've been out and about
as well.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
I have. I went to a few shows. I've been
at the Barbercane. This weekend, I went to see two shows.
Just by coincidence, they both happen to be at the
Barbercane here in London. Two crackers, though. I went to
see Nala Sinofro on Friday night, who, for those who
don't know, is a sort of cosmic jazz musician, plays
the harp but also has electronics going on. Has a
(06:58):
great band playing a lot of electronic instruments, also saxophonist, drummer.
That was a beautiful sort of Lets all sit in
the dark and just drift away. Then I was back
there the following afternoon for a matinee show.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Oh everyone loves a matinee show, right mate. Love a
very west end of each stud.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
When you see Caroline Rose, they were playing with a
eight piece orchestra. Incredible. They cried multiple times during the
during it. Have you ever been to a show where
somebody is just the performer has broken down. It's been
a bit too much for them.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Hmmm, all right, not that I can recall. I've definitely
cried plenty of times at gigs and I know you
have you you it's a rarity for you not to cry.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
I'm always crying at shows, especially outdoor shows. This was indoors.
Caroline Rose was amazing. Yeah, got got quite emotional. Great
you know, great crowd support, everybody on her side. Great shows.
So we've both had a lovely time in the last
few days with some live music. But whilst we've been
doing that, there has been other stuff going on in
the world of music. Obviously, my Chemical Romance played the
(08:09):
Black Parade for the first time in seventeen years. Stu,
I know that you were desperate to be there. Jeff Lynn,
obviously of Yellow, has announced the final Yellow Show because
he's basically brought that whole thing back like ten years ago, hasn't.
He has played loads of shows this past decade, but
(08:30):
it's going to be there's one more. It's going to
happen in London next summer at Hyde Park. There's only
one more chance. If you do want to go and
see those Elo classics being played live by jeff Lyn,
you've got to go to that. Did you see this
Joni Mitchell stuff like that happened over the weekend in
Los Angeles? So Joni Mitchell is eighty now right, and
I kind of, like, I think, like everybody else, assumed
(08:51):
that Joni Mitchell probably would never play any more shows again.
But she has done like a sort of sprinkling of
stuff the last couple of years. But the week she
played two shows at Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, seventeen
thousand people a night along with this sort of all
star cast band ranging from everyone from like Brandy to
(09:13):
Carlisle through to Marcus Mumford and Robin Packnell from Fleet
Foxes to play some Joni Mitchell songs that some of
the songs she's not played live for like thirty years.
Do you know how this came about? Joni Jams? Backstory
to this. In twenty fifteen, Jenni Mitchell suffered from an
anneurism that was very nearly fatal, and while she was
(09:36):
been recovering from that, she started having people round to
her house in bel Air as part of her recovery
to play music. And they were called Joni Jams. And
she'd have these friends and some of them very you know,
famous musicians in LA and from around the LA area
or when they were in town, had come to Jonie's
house and they'd play songs and it was part of
(09:57):
her rehabilitation from having this aneurysm. And then in twenty
twenty two, she unannounced played at the Newport Fouestival. Yeah,
and took some of these musicians. I actually was in
LA earlier this year when the Grammys were on, and
she performed at the Grammys with this same band that,
as you say, involves Jacob Collier and John Vastis is
(10:21):
in the band.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
I thought you were going to say, when you were
in LA earlier this year, you went and jammed with
Jenny Mitchell.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
I did. I don't think I would be getting into
the Joni jam. But it is incredible that she survived this,
you know, very severe aneurysm, and now she's back playing
at the Hollywood Bowl. She played for three hours. As
you say, she played loads and loads of deep cuts,
which I imagine sort of pissed off a lot of people.
Very Joni Mitchell moved, That, isn't it. Yeah, But yeah,
(10:49):
the people she had on was amazing. Jacob Collier's an
interesting one, I think because he's like, I don't know
what your feelings are on Jacob Collier, but he's a
lot of people might not know who this guy is.
He's a British guy. He's won six Grammys. I think
he could walk into most rooms and nobody would necessarily
(11:10):
recognize him, but he's he's a huge talent. He wears
a lot of very primary colors. He's the guy who's
going to be He's the guy who's going to be
wearing yellow crocs until he's dead. You know, like lots
of just primary colors. It's quite wacky. He looks a
bit like Jamie Cullen, but he does everything. He like produces,
he plays every instrument or all of these things. And
(11:33):
now he's in Joni Mitchell's band with all these other musicians.
Marcus Munford up there as you say, he performed California
with her. Yeah, what an amazing thing. If you're if
you're if you get welcomed into that world of a
Joni jam and now you're playing it live. I don't know,
maybe there'd be more shows, maybe there won't. Just one
thing I wanted to say about the Black Parade in
(11:54):
full that you mentioned that was played at a festival
called When We Were Young in Vegas. And that's a
bizarre festival, isn't it, Because that's a music festival where
every single act on the bill this year at least
played an old album in four So Mike chemic Romance,
(12:17):
Mike im rom they played the whole of Black Parade,
but I thought, oh, okay, yeah, but then the rest
of the stuff on there will just be bands playing
what songs they want. But the whole thing is so
shamelessly about nostalgia, which is why it's called When We
Were Young, which I love about it. They're just leaning
into it. Every artist on that bill just played a
(12:39):
classic album. So Nada serv played, They just played the
whole of Let's Go, Jimmy World played, and they played
Bleed American and on and on. It weren't like to
have seen that. I think it's just a it's just
a brilliantly very open way of saying, look, people want
the hits. Everyone's old. The only people that can have
(13:00):
to come to these shows and pay for festival gigs
are now late thirties, forties, fifties. They just want to
come on, let's just get the get the old stuff.
And it's great. I think that these bands turn up
and they just they lean into it, they go for it,
and they say, no, listen, I'm we're still a relevant band.
We want to play what we want to play. They
(13:21):
all just go, okay, fine, we'll just play something. There's
one in La as well as in there called Just
Like Heaven, which is also a big nostalgia trip that's
more of an indie indie vibe. But I quite like it.
Would you like to go to a festival where it's
just all all the oldies or would it make you
feel a bit sad?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
I I as last week on the podcast as I
completely shame myself when we were talking about like that.
I don't know the lyrics to any famous songs, even
my favorite ones.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I rarely put on old music, so I don't mind. Yeah,
if I was gonna be a group of friends or something,
I'm sure it'd have like an absolutely brilliant time. But yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
You're there for the new stuff.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I'm there for the new stuff, man. Yeah. Yeah, But
there was something that happened this week that really piqued
your interest. Wasn't it a story about the Pretenders?
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Yes? So this is a story that came and went
over the weekend very quickly due to the band posting
something on their socials. It got quite a lot of
stick in a very short amount of time from that fans,
and it seems like they've removed that post from that
Instagram account where it's originally posts. This was something that
Chrissy Hein put online and we'll have a few ads now,
(14:34):
but and we'll come back and talk about this. But
the long and short of it was that she posted
online to say to her fans who are die hard
fans who travel around and follow the band around and
are at every gig, we love you coming to the gigs,
thank you, thank you for the support, but can you
(14:54):
please stop standing right at the front. Can you give
local people who have not been able to tour around
the world of us or follow us as much have
their moment at their local show and stand in front
of the gig. It did not go down well. It
didn't split the crowd, Greg, it went down badly.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Let's go to some adverts and what some people have
to say about this. Welcome back to midnight Chats. As
ste was just saying there before the break, there was
this very interesting story unfolding over the past few days.
The Pretender's legendary British rock band posted something on their
(15:34):
social media saying basically, we're grateful to you, those diehard
fans that follow us around the world, around the country
to these different shows and show up and support us,
but can we let the locals come to the front
of the gig so that they can have their opportunity
to come to the front. And also, what I thought
was really interesting is the sort of reasoning of this
thing was basically, when we go on tour, the whole
(15:56):
point of it for a band is that we're playing
to a different audience every night and so. And they
also went on to say, don't be offended if we
request that you move out of the front row. This
is what keeps it new for us. There's th STU.
What did What was the response like, if you got
didn't like it went down?
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Well? It did not go down. Well. This story has
introduced me to a new term that I don't know about.
Do you know that. Have you come across the term
rail riders?
Speaker 2 (16:25):
No?
Speaker 1 (16:26):
See, I hadn't come across this either. And I was
talking to somebody that the weekend about this story and
they use the term rail rider, and I thought that meant, oh, right,
because people are catching trains to the gigs. Is it about?
Is it a train thing? A rail rider is somebody
who's on the barrier at the gig, that's that stood
on the rail. I would always call out the barrier,
(16:49):
you know, the crash barrier. But yeah, the stage and
the stage and the fans. If you're someone that stands
on the rail, you're called a rail rider if you
do it repeatedly. Right, So that's a new term to me.
I'm glad it's new to you, because I felt foolish
for thinking it was about trains. People didn't like this
at all. The fans underneath that post went into it.
(17:14):
I mean that they were typically all around this. I'll
read one, I'll read a couple, but this is the
tone of all of them. Essentially, this is so disrespectful
to faithful fans, as you're basically telling them they bore
you seeing them so often, even though you wouldn't have
a crowd to perform in front of if it wasn't
for them. This is horrendous. That's what somebody said. Somebody
(17:39):
who's maybe not a fan but have sympathized with the
fans have said, quote, please don't be offended if we
request you moved out of the front row. Imagine security
coming up to you and being like your favorite artist
doesn't want you to look at your face and please
fuck off to the back.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Oh man, Okay, so if we're try and look at
this from like the bandview and the fanview and just
sort of have a think about that, the band is saying, like,
the whole reason we go on tour is so that
because every night is different, we get to play to
different people, Like, that's the reason. They they say, that's
the reason we do it. So you can't argue that's
(18:23):
that's that's the way they feel, So you can't really
argue with that. They say that's their motivation for getting
out on the road and still playing shows forty five
years into their career is because they get to see
different faces, different vibe in the venue every night, different
people singing the words back to them, etc. So there's that.
So is that that's valid? Do you think?
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Like?
Speaker 1 (18:42):
I think that's I mean, I think it probably would
be quite strange to be a band. At every stage
you walk on too in a different town, they are
the same faces looking back at you. Hmmm. I think
that would just be quite strange. Like, in some ways,
I'm sure it would be lovely because there would be
you'd be like, oh, there's John and there's Sally, Hi, guys.
(19:05):
But at the same time, it'd be like, oh, there's
John and Sally again. Yeah, like I understand it from
that point of view, but I do understand the fans
a lot of the people. Was another thing that people
said in the comments was if the local fans, if
you're fans, it's it's it's basically first come, first serve.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
If they can queue up just as early and come
and run to the front, they can camp overnight if
they want to, like I have. Obviously it is different
for different people. Some people can't necessarily do that, but essentially,
in terms of fairness, if you've bought a standing ticket,
the earlier EUQ, the furthest forward you can get and
that's the that's the game, isn't it. And I also
(19:47):
understand them being like, fuck you man, I've flown from
Turkey to London say to see you because I love
you so much, and now you're saying I can't stand
at the front, Like it's a bit of a kick
in the face, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (20:03):
Okay? So is there any way So if we're saying
like the pretender's feelings on this are valid, we're saying
like we get it, when the fans might be like,
hang on, that doesn't seem right. Is there is it?
Was it? Just? Is it a simple case that like
the way that they said this was wrong? Is there
a way of doing it? Because I'm I'm not sure
(20:25):
because that the way they did it was quite softly,
softly of saying please please don't like we really appreciate you,
Please don't be offended if we do, ask like if
other people can come to the front of the show
to you know, so that we can see them. I don't.
I can't think of a way putting that across. Oh,
you can't communicating that that doesn't somehow offend somebody.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
And I think that's probably why they've taken it down.
I think they thought, Okay.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
We tried and it was snowballing, wasn't it.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Yeah, And they just thought we, you know, we tried,
We've put a point across. It's not gone down. Well,
we're not going to change their minds. Let's not upset
people over it. We should just sort of backtrack a
little bit and just bury it and hope it goes away.
Have you ever been a rail rider. I've never been
a rail rider.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I've never like sure, i've seen artists play like I've
been to see certain artists play multiple times, but I've
never followed an artist around on tour, Like, I've never
gone from one show to another to another anything like that,
have you no?
Speaker 1 (21:26):
And when I saw this story, like my gut reaction
was to defend the band, right, And that's only because
I'm not someone that has followed a band around. To me,
that doesn't appeal to me because I actually go the
other way. And when I see a band that I
really love, and especially if I see them be brilliant,
(21:48):
I don't really want to see them that much again
because I just think, let's just leave that as perfect.
But I do understand the appeal of it from fans
who have a real community group. I'm too miserable to
be a rail rider because you have to be friends
with the other fans. But that's whole part. That's part
of it. You go to the show and you're and
(22:10):
you see the next person on the next stop and
you say, oh, did you did you catch last year?
What do you think of last week's show? And it's
all part of extreme fandom, And so I can see
why they feel hurt by it by it, because you know,
it's a huge, huge part of their lives. But I've
never done it myself. I've been at the front. I
have been on the rail. As I now know it's
called the barrier, I would call it for shows, you know.
(22:34):
But I do also imagine that it's quite you know,
when you're at the front a gig, it does get
there is a good community spirit down the front of
a show, but it is also quite competitive, and I
wonder if that's what the band are getting at as well.
It's like we you know, we love you all, but
to them, there's no such thing as somebody liking the
(22:57):
band more than anybody else, you know, just because you've
seen the band of th times on every stop of
the tour. If there's one person that's only just been
able to see the band for the first time, then
they are just as much a fan, you know, or
they can be just as much a fan as you are.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Yeah, And this sort of seems to have come this year.
The conversation around like boundaries for artists and fans and
like toxic fandom and all these things that we've heard
lots about seems to have risen right to the top.
Hasn't it, like you've had chapel rowan sort of pulling
out of gigs, saying that, like, she needs to protect
her mental health because things have just been on total overload,
and she's you know, been really quite vocal about how
(23:35):
she wants to be able to sort of preserve her
mental health and her sanity by just having certain boundaries
with her fans. You know. Understandably, you have people saying like, oh, well,
they're ungrateful or they're not kind of like responding to
us in a respectful manner, and you've got other supporters
saying like, well, you know, it's totally fine, Like you
(23:57):
might be a pop star and you might make a
living out of affectively talking about your life, writing, you know,
making art about your most kind of personal elements of
who you are. But it's still it's still neat. People
still need boundaries still. People are still human beings, right,
and so this conversation just seems to keep growing and growing.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
I think yeah, and I think, you know, obviously this
is a very obvious thing to say. Clackson Alert. Social
media is obviously just accelerated, or wasn't it, because people
feel that they are they know the band, they're connected
to the band. We did a cover feature for the
magazine last year with Boy Genius, and they have some
extremely hardcore fans, and they spoke in that interview that
(24:40):
we did with them about how sort of dicey it
can get and that it's not always lovely to get
back to your hotel and there's a group of people
there who know you, who have tracked you down, who
know where you're staying, have found out that information, and
suddenly they're like, I'm not sure I feel safe. And
they were saying, you know that fans will be, oh,
(25:00):
it's okay, you're safe because we protect you, and they're like, well,
but are we safe from you? You know, we don't
know who you are. You are strangers, we don't know
each other. And in was it last year when Doja
Cat really upset her audience because she's extremely outspoken, And
when I saw this thing from the Pretenders, I started
(25:21):
to think of other musicians that have really upset their
fans and Doja Cat did, I think last year when
she sort of slagged off very openly her fans who
started calling themselves as a group the kittens. Right, she's
Doja Cat, We're going to be the kittens. And sometimes
it was spelt with zed and sometimes it was not
with his ZA, and she put on threads at the time,
(25:44):
if you call yourself a kitten or fucking kittens with
a ZED, that means you need to get off your
phone and get a job and help your parents with
the house. She then went on to say when a
fan and came back and said, yeah, but you do
love us, so don't you. We're your fans, you do
love us, And she said I don't because I don't
(26:08):
even know y'all. Then she called them all creepy as fuck.
Now it's one way to go. She lost nearly two
hundred thousand fans on followers on Instagram doing that. The
pretenders haven't gone that far. They've just put up this thing,
(26:28):
and they've noticed key, they've noticed when, okay, this could
go badly for us, and let's take it down. Talking
of those hardcore kittens with Z or without a Z.
Can I test you on some of the other groups then,
like the fan groups what they call groups? Yeah, what
(26:48):
they're called? And then so for example, Taylor Swift has
the Swifties. Yes, okay, so I'll give you the artist's
name and you give me the group name. I think
I think you're going to be good at this. Go on,
you can redeem yourself from last week. What are Harry
Styles fans called? Oh the harassers, that would be brilliant. No,
(27:15):
it's not the harassers. It's just the Harries. It's really really,
really really rubbish, isn't it. What about Charlie XX think
logically she's the Brats. No, No, that's too new, isn't it.
This is like from years ago, Charlie. It could be
the brats now the angels Charlie's angels of course. Yeah,
(27:36):
you get it.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
No, I get it. I'm just not very good at it.
Lady Gaga, Oh little monsters. Yeah, you're a little monster,
a little monster from the start. I have you've got
the tattoo?
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (27:50):
What about Lizzo?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
Oh I do know?
Speaker 1 (27:54):
Is brilliant? The Lisbians?
Speaker 2 (27:57):
Well they're called Lisbians. Yeah it's so good. That's good,
isn't it. That's really good.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Ed Sheerans is the cherios Cheerios? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Noah, not having that super nav.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
And there's another one that you will definitely know that
if you were a fan of the Twilight soccer as
I know you were, you were a twy hard.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Oh yeah, they were twenty highs, weren't they so, given
that you were about to launch your pop career. Let's
just fast forward to the end of twenty twenty five
and you are playing stadiums. What are your what's your
fan base called your Stuart Stubbs international pop star the.
Speaker 4 (28:38):
Stubbers, the Stubbers, the Stubbers, Stubbers, the Stubbers, the Stubbers.
Speaker 1 (28:48):
There was there was a boy I went to school
with called Tarrent Hodson real name, and the bus going
to and from school, on the back of some of
the seats would be a cigarette stubber because it was
the nineties and it said Stubbor on it, and when
he saw it said that he would just shower. Stop
a stop. Its triggering, It's quite triggering talking about.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
This, okay, talking about barriers. Yeah, listen, stew I've got
a hell of a I've got a hell of a
top three for you this week. Really excited to spring
this and.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
It's going to be some revenge coming down.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
I think so. I think so. And we also before
we go tonight, we're going to leave you with some
recommendations with our Beat the Algorithm regular and we're going
to give you our hot tips of what you should
be listening to. But first let's get these adverts.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Welcome back to all of Midnight Chats. Were Wolves.
Speaker 2 (29:53):
All are were wolves out there?
Speaker 1 (29:56):
Like that? That's that's our name, that's our fans names
the were wolves. Well you like it? I do like it?
Speaker 2 (30:03):
Yeah? Whatever kind of do you want to.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Give us a quick quick were wolf cry?
Speaker 3 (30:08):
Oh yeah, we are at Midnight Chats Pod on Instagram
if you want to film yourself and send us you
do an impression of a were wolves and we'll.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Play them on next week's podcast. Oh thanks for all
of our were wolves tell you what? Yeah? Though, can
we just say from the outset, like Stuart and I
have very respectful boundaries, So whilst we appreciate all of
your you don't have any boundaries.
Speaker 1 (30:34):
Now. I would love to go back to a hotel
and have a group of fans there telling me that
I'm safe.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
Nothing would give me more anxiety. Now, listen, last week
we did our top three. We do it every week
on Midnight Chats and quite frankly, I had an absolute shocker.
You can go and see the clip on Midnight Chats
Pod at Midnight Chats Pod on social media if you
want to relive that complete disaster, which means that it's
(31:07):
your turn this week, Stu. I've got a top three
for you. Given that we've been talking about live music,
everything's been sort of live music orientated. Tonight on the podcast,
I've got a real I've got a live music classic
for you. So Stu, your top three tonight. I would
like to know the top three legendary stroke classic gigs
(31:30):
that you wish that you were at across the course
of music history. So maybe that was Woodstock in nineteen
sixty nine, could have been led Zeppelin at the O
two when they reformed, could have been Limp Biscuit at
the Leeds Cockpit. It's up to you. I want to
know the top three classic legendary gigs that you wish
that you were at.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
Okay, i think I've got them.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
Boom go On, hit Me number one.
Speaker 1 (31:56):
Bowie at the Amaswift, Apollo retiring, Ziggy star Dust when
everybody thought that when he said this is it, we're done,
and everyone thought he was retiring, but he was just retiring.
The character to have been there would have just been good.
When that's a great dinner anecdote. Yeah, I'm not sure
how good to show was I imagine it was great,
(32:18):
but like it's more about the historic moment. I would
also love to have been at the Monterey Jazz and
Pop Festival in sixty seven. Was it when Hendrix sets
fire to the guitar? Yeah, with the light of fluid,
Because also to have seen Jimmy Hendrix's life would have
just been incredible. And well, I did get to see
(32:41):
the Rakes, so I won't say that. And one more,
I had it in my head and I've got lost
making a Rakes joke. Foolish. I would have loved I
(33:04):
would have really loved I've seen him, and it's not
necessarily legend. I would have loved to have been at
Glastonbury when Jay Z headlined it because I feel it
was a turning point for the festival. And I watched
it on TV and I thought it was incredible and
the fact that everyone was talking about him having loads
of guests out and he didn't have anyone out, like
(33:25):
you know, it was just him and all the samples
he did, you know, like sampling Sunday, Bloody Sunday by
you two. All of that stuff I just thought was
so expertly done. And I was on a huge jay
Z tip back then at that point, So it would
be that I was going to go with Nirvana at
(33:47):
reading because I liked it when I've seen I watched
that footage of Kirk had been running into the jump
drum kit all the time, and I would love to
have seen that. But the other two are so guitari
I feel like need to like, yeah, I'm going for that.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
That is a hell of a top three. I met
somebody the other day who was at that reading and
didn't and chose actively chose not to go and watch
the banner, and I think went to go and watch
somebody like the Charlatan's headline.
Speaker 3 (34:13):
Like the.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Wow did they regret it? Did they think? So?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Did they? How foolish is this?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Yeah? This maybe this is maybe this is for another time,
but like our near maybe we should do our like
near missus. Like when Blur got back together the first
time and when they headlined Glastermy that was very emotional.
You remember Damon was like kind of he was pretty
much crying on stage. I was working at that point
and I drew quite literally drew the short straw because
we did sort of was reporting was amongst a group
(34:44):
of people reporting on that year's festival, and we said,
somebody's got to go and watch Black Eyed Ps headline
the Jazz World stage. And guess who. Guess who went
to watch that instead of watching Blur and I watched
Will I Am come out and go hey London, every boo.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
I'm surprised there were people there to go boo. I'm
surprised there were.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
There were people there going boo. Yeah. I mean that's
just the size of Glaston Berson and I think that
everybody just gets so lost and high that they're not
even necessarily shut. They're just like, hey, I'm watching Black
Eyed Peace but yeah, never mind, but yeah, good good.
Top three, there's shall we beat the algorithm?
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Let's beat the algorithm.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
Beat the algorithm, beat the algorm. So this is the
point in the podcast where we want to be useful.
Stu and I were thinking, let's just stop, let's give
some let's give the people something to take away with them.
And so we've got a recommendation, something that we're listening
to at the moment that we think that you might enjoy.
My choice this week is a song called Warplane, and
(35:47):
it's by an artist called Heartworms, and if you don't
know Heartworms. She is from South London. Her real name
is jojo Ormey, but she performs under the name Heartworms
and has been around for a couple of years and
been talked about it for a couple of years. But
quite a lot of people getting excited about Heartworms because
she releases music via Speedy WonderGround, which is the label
run by the producer Dan Kerrey and has previously given
(36:11):
birth or introduced us to artists including Ka Tempest, Black Midi,
Fontan's DC loads and loads of really exciting stuff. So
the fact that like Heartworms is working with them says
a lot. And this song is called Warplane.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
She loves war memorabilia.
Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yes, she's a volunteer at the Hendon Royal Air Museum
when she's not making music.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Fantastic. We did a feature with her in the meg
I'll put a link in the bio because she talks
about that a little bit and I thought that was
just quite fascinating to be a young person into the war,
you know, into the Second World War and the planes
and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
I mean, yeah, she serves a spitfire. Warplane is all
about her love for spitfires and it's about spitfire Pilot.
If you're looking for the meaning behind the song.
Speaker 1 (37:20):
Who doesn't love a spitfire.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Me?
Speaker 1 (37:26):
So I'm going to pick something brand new. It's by
a band called Lobby, which is made up of Lotty
from Goat Girl, the South London band Goat Girl, and
a guy called Toby who's in a band called Leatherhead.
And this is a track that's coming on their WEP.
The EP is called night Driving. It's going to be
out next month, but this is the first track off
(37:49):
of it, called Folding Out, and it's like melodic slow core.
The bit I'm about to play is where Toby's voice
joins Lotty's voice, and I think they just work very
well together. Toby's voice actually reminds me a little bit
of a of a very raw Julian Casablancas. It's over
(38:25):
spial on every way, believing a bit of saxophone on
(38:54):
there as well, and those pinched harmonics that remind me
of Slint. It's great. I love this track. That's Lobby.
The song is called Folding Out and the EP is
actually out on the first of November. We will put
both of those songs on our beat. The Algorithm playlist.
It's on Spotify. You can find it by just searching Spotify.
It will also be linked in our show notes of
(39:17):
this week's episode.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
Stu, I've got to go for the night because I
have realized that I left my tablet in sexy Land
World in Amsterdam. And this is not a joke. It
is still there. It's in a locker in sexy Land,
so I'm going to have to send a groveling email
to sexy Land to see if I can get it back.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
I'm pretty sure that is gone.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I think it probably is too. And on that note,
thanks very much for joining us tonight. We've loved chatting
all things live music. Do let us know if there
was a legendary gig that you didn't get to that
you'd have loved to have been out like we always
want to hear your thoughts on that. We're at Midnight
Chat's pod on the social media. But until next week,
I'm going to go for a lie down, a very
(40:02):
well needed, desperately needed lie down. And it's good night
from me.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
And it's good night ware Wolfs wherever you are, howl
On baby how al on.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
Midnight Chats is a joint production between Loud and Quiet
and Atomized Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Stuart Stubbs
and Greg Cochrane, mixed and mastered by Flow Lines, and
edited by Stuart Stubbs.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
Find us on Instagram and TikTok to watch clips from
our recordings and much much more. We are Midnight Chats Pod.
Speaker 1 (40:38):
For more information, visit Loud and Quiet dot com
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!