Two Big Egos in a Small Car
A passionately laid back overview of the arts and culture scene in York and Harrogate with observations on journalism. This podcast is hosted by Charles Hutchinson and Graham Chalmers and regular guests.
Two Big Egos in a Small Car
Episode 172: Interview Special with Music Journalist Dave Simpson
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Graham and Charles take the opportunity to interview music journalist Dave Simpson as a followup to the previous episode looking at the grassroots music venue crisis sweeping the country. it so happens that Dave had just the other week written about this very subject in an in-depth article for The Guardian.
Dave Simpson is one of the UK's leading music journalists and writes on music, popular culture and regional issues for the Guardian, from a north of England base, and regularly appears on local and national radio programmes. He has previously written for the music press, having contributed to such titles as Melody Maker, Uncut and i_D. He is the author of The Fallen: Life In and Outside of Britain’s Most Insane Group (Canongate), which was included in the best music book of the year round-ups and voted in the Top 10 best music books ever by Neon Filler website.
His second book, The Last Champions: Leeds United and the Year Football Changed Forever was published by Bantam Press in 2012.
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Good evening, Graham, and good evening, Dave.
SPEAKER_02How are you?
SPEAKER_00I'm very fine. It's good to see you, and I love to see as I was listening, and obviously, and it's always reassuring to see a room packed with with with items. I mean, absolutely sense. All those pretentious twats during COVID who found some kind of wallpaper that looked looked like it was bookcases. Yeah, but yours is for yours is for real. Well, that's one of those.
SPEAKER_02This is all a hologram. I I'm a hologram. I'm not actually here at all. I'm I'm you know in in in in the pub in um in the middle of the village.
SPEAKER_00But um, yes, indeed. So welcome, David, and um welcome Graham. Graham, before we do anything, you you want you want to uh you want to do an interruption, and I would welcome it to read about it.
SPEAKER_01I was planning to talk about how great Alexander Payne's film The Holdovers is, and it is brilliant. Or I was going to talk about John Ruskin, that 19th-century art critic and social reformer, and is he is he actually overrated? Or I was gonna talk about some gossip I picked up at 108 Fine Art Gallery in Harrogate, but no, we've got a brilliant guest, Dave Simpson. But in in sort of preparing for this interview, we've got with this fantastic Dave. I looked at a little bit of his bio from Canning Books, who published uh the The Fall in that brilliant book about the fall. And this is what it says briefly about Dave and Canigate Books website. It says Dave Simpson writes on music and the arts for The Guardian from an isolated base in the north of England. And I thought, is he a recluse? Is he like Harold Hughes? Or is he like a former SS man on the run who's like got post-traumatic stress disorder? What does it mean? An isolated base in the north of England? What on earth does that mean?
SPEAKER_02I I guess, I mean, I I I may have written that. I think all right, I'll certainly help with it. Um so if that if this is Cannon Gate, that's when the fall first came out, which is 2008, yeah, in the hardback. So I think that's when I would have been I'd I'd I'd have been living where I live now, which is Tockwith, a village called Toquith. I'd have been living here for about four years. And at that time it was a very, very tiny little village, and it was very it felt very isolated. You know, I grew up in the suburbs of Leeds, we had a train station nearby, you know, you could walk to the nearest supermarket. I never used to have to drive very far for food for things because when when I moved out here, uh there's two pubs, a hairdresser, uh a post office stroke little shop, and that is it. And there were a lot of cows, loads of cows, and uh it was such an absolute lifestyle change. Um it felt very isolated, but I actually really liked it. It was great for writing. You know, I'd get up in the morning, take the dog out, look at the cows, get some ideas, and come up, come back and just write. Let's stare in at absolutely nothing apart from the tree in front of the house. There's nothing really much happening in Tockworth, you know, which is what I liked about it. Yeah, although actually, weirdly enough, um, when I first moved here, somebody came to visit us, and I and I said exactly that. You know, we were still in the living room. I said, the thing is, nothing ever happens here, you know, it's really quiet, there's nothing out of the ordinary. And at that very precise moment, uh, about a hundred people walked in front of the house dressed in full kind of round dead and cavalier's regalia. Uh, not battle reenactment people who uh do they react reenact the Battle of Marston Moore every so often here. Um, and I thought I was seeing things, I thought, oh, you know, what would you see? Nothing ever happens.
SPEAKER_03And uh LSD flashback film.
SPEAKER_02It's great. It's not isolated now. We've got you know it's it's expanded, so it's much bigger than it was when I moved here. And also, I suppose, you know, it's all relative, you know. Now I don't feel that isolated at all. And I go to places sometimes on drive through the Yorkshire Dales and Nidderdale or wherever, and you think this is properly isolated, you know. I'm really lucky, I can get to the A1 in like or something. Um, but if you go up there, you're properly isolated miles away from Ellen Road, um, which all always puts me off moving that far into the Dales. But I do love that. I like this sort of country country kind of lifestyle, really.
SPEAKER_01You know, but you should be writing about pastoral music about Pink Floyd from 1969. Rather than write about the sex pistols.
SPEAKER_02I I do write about Pink Floyd a lot. Yeah, now every now and again, although it's getting harder and harder because it's uh obviously it's it seems to be more controversial whenever you're write anything about Pink Floyd these days. So hopefully, uh you know, I'm kind I kind of try away if I can, you know. Yeah, really? Well, they're all at that point when they're all you know, there's always there's always seems to be controversy involved in the world. Oh, yeah, Roger Waters. It's like you know, I I would just rather write about music, to be honest, you know.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, you don't want to get a Roger Waters' brain or his politics, dear oh dear.
SPEAKER_00So uh Dave, let me introduce you to our listeners. Um Dave Simpson, journalist, which obviously instantly shares common ground, therefore, with Graham Chalmers uh from Harriga Advertiser and myself, Charles Hutchinson, uh deposed arts editor of the uh York Press, uh now freelancing, but still writing plenty of the articles for the York Press and running the Charles Hutch Press website, and also doing uh contributions to various radio stations in uh when when they need when they would need quotes and expert. Um I think that's a very generous description. So that's that's us, but Dave Simpson. Uh I think it's fair to say, Graham, you you and I aren't uh when we have two big egos, but I think Dave would have a right to have a bigger ego than us already because of his achievements. Um, which just like you're trying to write a book at the moment, Graham. Um Dave's actually done that. Um Dave's actually Dave's actually done that. Um not not just one, not just two, but uh at least three. Um two, of course, it's not three and a half.
SPEAKER_02Three and a half.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but Charles, you Charles, you've you've missed the point why we invite Dave along. Apart from being a brilliant music reviewer and arts critic and great bookwriter, he wrote a fantastic article on The Guardian. He did last uh last Friday, I think it was.
SPEAKER_00I was going to come onto that, Graham. You'd be surprised to know.
SPEAKER_01We'll get get to that point and then get to that.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, I'm just gonna briefly say that uh Dave has uh written the books about on the fall and the Sex Pistols, The Fallen, which is the best book title ever. Uh I Wanna Be Me, Sex Pistols, and also, of course, written the I think definitive Lead United book. And there've been Legion United have had more books written about them than any other football club bizarrely. Uh, but The Last Champions, which are indeed the last proper champions, uh, is the best book on Leech United ever written. So, but we uh Dave wanted to speak to you tonight because the Guardian um uh a really detailed and long article about the state of live music. Um, if at the kind of coal face and at the uh the end where it all starts, really, but the end where it could all sadly come to a grinding halt. Um I wonder what first just tipped you into to writing this piece. What what actually has really set the alarm bells ringing for you?
SPEAKER_02Well, how this piece happened is is a piece that ran last uh two, it's it'll be two weeks ago tomorrow, actually. Yeah um on the collapsing ecosystem of live music at grassroots level. Um it's it I feel like in the last four years I've written a lot about this subject, you know, right right from the start of the pandemic. You know, I was writing articles then on how venues were coping with the pandemic and the lockdowns and everything. Then I wrote another spell of articles, you know, a year or two later about how they were emerging from the pandemic. And then what prompted this one? About three weeks ago, the The Guardian ran a piece on festivals and how I think it's something like 25 had closed or were due to close this year. Um, and it could be you know a lot more than that by the end of the year. Um, and this piece was it was really, really widely read. You know, they got an enormous amount of web traffic, reading you know, people reading it. Um and Ben, my music editor, Ben Beaumont Thomas, um basically sent me an email, you know, on that it was on the on the Friday afternoon saying, you know, we've we've had this tremendous response to this, and we feel like we should really sort of look at this a lot more in depth, you know. Um could you because they I'd written this piece just before the pandemic. I spent a week at the Broodnell in Leeds, Broodnell Social Club, kind of reporting on how a venue operated. And Ben thought it would be really good to go back to the Broodnell and use that as a kind of before and after and see how they were coping, and then speak to other venues in you know, within you know, an arm's length or the or better or a short drive's length, really, what that I could get to over the weekend. It all happened incredibly quickly. You know, I got the email on about dinner time on the Friday. Saturday evening, I was at a venue in Leeds called Boom, which is just outside the town centre, where where they put on a lot of hardcore bands and emo and metal core, that kind of thing. Um, and I spoke to the kids there and and the bands there. Um and then on Sunday I went to the Broodnell and I also went to the Old Wallen up at Farsley. Um, and between those visits, I spoke to uh Gavin Sharp at the Band on the Wall in Manchester, who I'd also spoken to about, I think about a couple of years ago, you know, because that when the when the pandemic was really hitting them. So it was a kind of touching base with people again, and it was really fascinating. And I also spoke to Oliver Jones at who runs Deershed Festival in First or near Firsk, which was you know, to get an impact on a local festival or a regional festival. And I spoke to the music venues trust who are really, really good on this issue. They have got all the statistics, they know which venues are under threat, how many have closed down, um, and what what can be or at least what's been proposed that could be done about it. So it was a really breakneck few days, you know. I mean, I you know, I started literally started the first interviews on the Saturday night, and I filed the piece on I can't know if it was either Tuesday morning or Wednesday morning. It's one of the fastest turnaround big pieces I think I've done for quite a while. You know, it's and it is quite terrifying pulling together that many people and the geography of it and all the rest of it that quickly, but it was very exciting, and you know, I I quite like that kind of pressure sometimes. Um and but also fascinating.
SPEAKER_01These are all great venues, Dave. These are all venues that myself and Charles go to. And they're proper old school, it could be from the 1990s, they're they keep the indie spirit going. But we talked to Oliver Jones a year ago, who runs Deer Shed Festival, which is a brilliant festival, as you know. And uh he was really pessimistic even a year ago about about the future, and we were quite shocked by how pessimistic he was. But clearly the cost of living crisis hasn't really gone away, and and all the venues are are feeling the pinch.
SPEAKER_02I think they are. I mean, it was it was a strange one because I think the broodnell actually is in a pretty decent position. The broodnell own the venue, you know, so they're not beholden to landlords who are likely to whack the rent up. Um and they I mean I went to Brudenell last night to see Bill Ryder Jones, and it was it was packed out, you know, it was packed. So there's I didn't see you there, Dave.
SPEAKER_00I was there, and I didn't see you. Charles was there.
SPEAKER_02It was a fantastic concert, it was a lovely, lovely night, and it it it really encapsulated everything I love about grassroots venues, really. You know, exactly.
SPEAKER_00And how happy he looked to be playing at a place like that, I thought, Dave. That was one of the that's why. I mean, you and you really caught that flavor in the article. Actually, that an artist like Bill Ryder Jones, quite a fragile um mental state that he has, of course. We know this the tragic loss of his brother Daniel, who he paid tribute to in the concert. Yeah, and yet you could see that actually playing in a place like that with a really informed audience who love his music, who didn't bloody chat during songs at all, who were with him the whole way, laughed, you know, uh along at times as well, appreciated what a brilliant band he was playing with. All things that made you cherish the Brudenelle and performers like Bill Ryder Jones playing in them.
SPEAKER_02I don't think I've ever seen him look that happy, you know. I mean, I've I've seen him three or four times in concert, and a few years ago I went to his home studio or well, studio, it's not really a home studio, it's a big decent studio, um, to do a piece on Seaside Towns and music that's coming out of Birkenhead and the Whirl and that kind of area because there's tons of amazing music being made there now. Um but I don't think I've ever seen him as happy as he looked last night on stage, and he's you know he's made a fantastic album. Um and he's you know it's great to see the crowd really with him. And like you say, the the the risk. I don't think it it's a long time since I've seen a crowd that quiet while very, very delicate songs are being played. You could hear a bit drop, you know, there was absolute respect, and then when between songs there was laughter and applause, you know, because he's very songs. It was a wonderful night, and you do think the these places are the sort of places people learn their trade, come up, you know. We've all heard stories about Oasis playing to four people in the Duchess of York, you know. Yeah, three of them were in the were working behind the bar at the time. Um, you know, all these sort of stories, and yeah, that's where people learn. You know, I first saw the co uh coplay when they played in Leeds, they played a venue called the Cockpit, which closed a few years ago. Yeah, gone in 2014, it went, didn't it? I vividly remember Chris Martin saying from the stage, in a year's time when you're ma when we're massive, you'll be able to six stores here. And oh gosh, you know, come on. It was full, but you think that and of course a year later they were playing probably arenas or something, you know.
SPEAKER_01I I never I never liked coldplay even at the beginning. So when I did my charm music magazine for four years in Leeds, York and Harrogate, one of my stringers, and I got loads of people who volunteered to write for for free for it, which is amazing. One of them interviewed Chris Martin, and I got the interview, and I thought, I hate freaking cold play. And this is like the very beginning. And so I chopped it down to a little about five paragraphs. Then of course they got huge, and I thought, you chump chammers, you absolute chumpers.
SPEAKER_02Rescue, rescue the other 37 paragraphs and yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Dave, when do when doing the piece Dave, when doing the piece, um, were there things that you learned in doing it that actually were even more alarming than you'd first realised? John Harris has gone on to write a another piece about it in in this opinion piece column with further details. Obviously, he's mentioned, as you did, the situation with one of the great great venues in in Bath, 45 years gone. Yeah, um, that's the kind of alarming statistic that you know that that's there. But were the things that even more alarmed you than you first realized?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think the thing which really hit home for me was the fact that Bath Moles Club, which is a legendary venue that's been going for decades. You know, I've got a James, a James Live album that was recorded at Bath Moles in about 1985 or something. Um, it's been going for years, and it's a classic legendary place where loads of stars have got have gone through. Um, they closed in December, and I think a lot of people were shocked when that venue went because it was worth you know, it's it's a real crown jewel of the grassroots scene that venue. So when that one closed, it shocked a lot of people. What really, really shocked me was the discovery from the music venues tusk that their last two nights there they were both sold out, yeah. You know, they packed the house out and they lost 1100 quid on those two gigs.
SPEAKER_01Dear idea.
SPEAKER_02That is insane, you know. The the venues are not closing because there's no demand, it's because the economics of it no longer add up because the cost of everything has gone so far through the roof, and they can't keep passing it on to the con to the customer because there is a limit to what people will pay to see well, anything really. Uh but although that the the other side of that, the flip side of that, and I and I noticed there's there's people today complaining on the on the uh there's a review of John Squire and Liam Gallagher on the Guardian website that's got a lot of people um up in arms about the fact that they're charged 50 uh no 65 pounds to see a 50 minute set. Um the Eagles when they do their farewell tour uh or farewell shows in Manchester this summer, the cheapest you can get into that now is 200 quid. And you do think, well, the these things are not unrelated, and I think if you if if at one end of the spectrum it's costing that much to get to see something, if someone's gonna spend 200 pounds or or whatever it is, or 400 pounds to see a huge arena show, then they'll think, well, I'll I'll save it by not going to that 15 pound vent show at the you know band on the wall next week, or the Fulford Arms in York or wherever, and yeah, it's that sense of the two extremes pulling away from each other I found really alarming.
SPEAKER_01There's also no middle ground, Dave. I mean, the trouble with streaming is that streaming doesn't provide an income for anybody except the ones who are absolutely huge. So bands now rely on live gigs. Before, if you sold like 50,000 copies of an album, that was looked on as really good, 100,000, great, 200,000, amazing. You could have a career based on that. But in the streaming world, like Paul Weller complained in 2020 that his own Sunset album had got three million plays on Spotify, and he got paid nine grand, nine grand for three million plays. So indie bands that we love and that play indie venues that we love, unless they get money from live gigs, it's very hard to make money out of your career anymore because streaming deliberately rewards the already really successfully, it's very poor at breaking any guitar bands.
SPEAKER_02I didn't I did a similar piece actually earlier on this year, or was it the end of last year? A few weeks ago, which I can't remember if it was before or after Christmas. I mean, it might have just been before Christmas, but I spoke to people in profile bands that were also working in second jobs. You know, I mean you know, the the the singer from uh there's a band called Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs Pigs times seven basically is an easy way to say it. You know, they headlined the the forum in London, which is a 2000 capacity venue. Um, 20 years ago, a band playing a venue that size would be doing very, very well. Um, but he he works at a new new uh music publishers in in Newcastle. Um you know he does uh work for the office in in the laptop on the way to the gig. I mean it's it's it's crazy, really, you know. Yeah, yeah. You know, when you we all grow up like looking in the mirror with a tennis racket and wanting to be a rock star, and you see the videos of I don't know, the Rolling Stones or whoever led Zeppelin in their prime getting off these private jets, and you and I suppose everybody dreams of that, but the reality of it for most musicians, and I really do mean most musicians now, is that they're on the breadline at best, and it's a very, very, very tiny minority, probably a little bit like football this, you know, the the real cream of the elite are live are probably living those kind of lifestyles, you know. But they're the equivalent of the premiership players who play for the England team, you know. That that that's what the the sort of edge shearing level of pop is. It's that's the absolute, the absolute one top one percent or whatever. But you know, even when once you get into the even mid-range venues, then you find artists that are sort of not doing so well, really struggling to make a living at it, or doing a second job, etc. etc.
SPEAKER_01You know, uh there's another thing I've noticed, Dave, partly because uh I listen to BBC Six music a lot, so I know the sort of bands that play the circuit, and a lot of them are favourites for BBC Six music. So I went to see English teacher Leeds band who are pretty good, sort of post-punk, but also quite a bit progrilly. And I went to see them the Crescent in York in February, and I thought they were great, and I expect and it was busy, you know, there's a lot of people there, but I expect the crowd to be much younger than me or to be just young, full stop. But the crowd was basically middle-aged with a smattering of young people and then a smashing of people in their 60s. So I thought I mean right now in Harrogate, there used to be loads of great little alternate rock bands. In there's hardly any young bands in Harrogate tall now. And I was beginning I'm beginning to think that is there a young audience for indie music anyway? Does it actually exist?
SPEAKER_02I find this quite a lot. I mean, I I've no I've really noticed this actually. I mean, it's funny. I remember conversely, a few years ago, I got sent to review The Offspring, and I remember sitting there with like one a 13-year-old to one side of me and a 13-year-old at the other side, and I felt like a dinosaur, you know, and I thought I'm getting too old to go to topics, you know, this is this is the way it's going. But then virtually straight away, it suddenly felt that I was one of the younger members of the crowd, and you start trying to turning round, and and it it was, you know, it's a little bit like that at the Broodnell last night. You know, there were there were some people younger than me, but there were a lot of uh sort of around my age or you know, similar, or not much younger than me. Um, I think the audiences tend to be slightly getting older for that, certainly for that kind of music. I suppose the indie guitar, etc. kind of music seems to be pulling in older audiences who can they've got probably more disposable income to go to the shows as well. Um, although I I went to see Noah Karan uh the other week at the at the May. uni and that was that was quite a young crowd and that was that was absolutely random then within a few weeks he was on at the arena so there's still there is still a young crowd for some stuff and he's very yeah yeah he's kind of Mumford and Sons type territory you know very kind of guitar led and all the rest of it but yeah it does it I I do I think it it has a bit of a knock on you know if you're not going to many many gigs and can't afford to gigs to go to gigs then you probably just lose you know a little bit of connection with the whole culture and it it's just starts to gradually dwindle a little bit you know I mean I remember Nathan at the broodnell at least 10 years ago saying that you know the sort of traditional the kind of Arctic monkeys type band that form amongst their schoolmates or college mates or mates um play some gigs in the area get you know do get a bit of a following and then just explode he he said that's kind of a thing of the past now and yeah I mean you know you you think of bands like the Libertines Oasis Arctic monkeys who they're all of whom did that there aren't really that many of those sort of bands coming through anymore there's one or two I mean the you know the Raytons in Sheffield did pretty well you know they they they can fill Sheffield arena but that's that's a very more regional phenomenon which is a different story to the other thing that's um the other thing that seems to be happening and John Harris alluded to this as well is there's vast arenas are being built and they're being built even in in not even in the biggest cities but what's happening is that it's rather like a a lot of the new football grounds that are completely anonymous and you could be you could be absolutely anywhere you wouldn't know what city you're in.
SPEAKER_00And that's the same with the new big multiplex type arenas that are happening and and uh so the the the actual connection between a place I mean well one of the things I loved with the gig last night were the jokes that Bill made about about Leeds or being in Leeds or being in Sheffield or someone picked up on hull well those kind of things just won't work soon as as jokes at a gig they just they just they just won't um if and all these and and of course it's a very neutral experience it's very programmed it's very streamed it's very organized everything happens on time everything has to finish on time and the band will play exactly this pretty much the same set wherever they go there will be a bit of interaction but it's like when I saw Eddie Izzard doing a um a comedy show at the Sheffield Arena and um the joke the joke was being heard at a different time by the people at the back than than at the front so what the hell's the point of that you know and so it ends up with these things you just could be watching absolutely anywhere and I don't I I find I find what disappoints me more than anything is that people seem to think that that's fine. They're quite happy with that for some reason having exactly the same experience as everyone else in the in the in other parts of the country I I don't understand that.
SPEAKER_01That's going out of of of uh yeah but it's just entertainment Charles like we we invest some value in guitar bands and indie music and alternative music of of some sort of artistic merit or some cultural significance which which once upon time it really had. And the the audiences for those arena gigs just don't invest with that sort of cultural value whatsoever. They're just going out for a good night and having a good time so they they didn't care less about the rest of the stuff whatsoever.
SPEAKER_02But then it is a very different experience I mean you know I I I I quite I do you know I'm off to see Simple Minds tomorrow and and I know that I know I love it. You know they're a band I've loved for years. Yeah I know it'll be a terrific show I do like an arena concert I'm a sucker for a flying dragon or you know motorcycles that that that levitates over the stage. I like all that stuff but equally the the one thing I really miss from gigs and I I don't see this very often now I it might sound weird but I miss really terrible bands or I miss I miss gigs that go disastrously wrong. I'm a massive fan of New Order you know New Order are probably the band I've seen most above anybody over the years. And in their early years you would go and see them and I saw that the second time I saw them in Leeds they played at a club called Tiffany's and there was a fit a whale of feedback throughout the whole show you know um but they were very unpredictable that they could be either an incredible live band or a or a bit of a shambles on any given night and the fall were the same you know the fall were worse and some shockers you know and I I quite like that live wire unpredictability and that's what's going a bit myself and Charles went an awful lot of gigs in the 80s and 90s and you wouldn't know in advance how good the band was going to be live and you certainly didn't know how good the sport band was going to be so there was a there was a lot of like excitement about is this going to be good or not you were never quite sure it's like going to fool match you're not sure if your team's going to win or not so it creates anticipation and some sort of thrill and you're right professionalism in in sort of like mass produced bands just don't give you that feeling whatsoever. And and like Charles said there's that thing about the timing you know so you know I'm sure simple minds will be like this you know that there'll be the everything will be programmed to a certain amount of time um it's not like they can suddenly you know think actually chaps let's forget what we're gonna do let's don't let's not play don't you forget about me let's play something from 1978 we haven't played for 10 years that'll be you're not gonna get any of that no you know you won't get that and you know yeah I guess if you're paying whatever it is a ticket for those arena shows you don't necessarily want that but there's always people like me and you to as a thing I'd rather you don't play empires I'd rather them play empires and dance than hear all their big hits but you well because I think so then they do dig into the they do dig into the vaults a little bit so I'm I'm I'm hoping but it will be the it'll be the same vault every night I believe it might you know I'm I could be wrong you know prove me wrong that I was playing this entire set from 1978 or something. David Green if we look at the books um I know the time's ticking on and we're gonna sort of push things a little bit now but um in terms of writing about the fall and writing about the Sex Epistles sort of two things come to mind first of all who would be another band that actually would sufficiently intrigue you let's say amongst this era of bands to have such a book about them or am I just romanticizing it thinking do you know what there just aren't the characters around uh and bands like this to write music books about blindly that's a that's that's a real I mean I I've always wanted to write a joy division or new order book but there's so many of them now it's like I feel like you know it's gonna be very hard to put anything new on that table. Gosh I mean I'm trying to think of the current I mean there's a lot of stuff I really like and people I really like. Someone like um Mick Head from Shaq who's a fantastic talent and has had a heck of a life story um that would I mean I I would I would read a book about Mick Head. I I read the um the there was a book that came out recently by Paul Paul Simpson who used to be in a band called the Wild Swans and that's fantastic um revolutionary spirit I think for a book to work about a band or or you know musician really they they've got to be fairly legendary or fairly culty shall we say that was one extreme and and they've got to have been around long enough to sustain a book and I know the Sex Pistols weren't around that long in in in a lot of ways but they packed a heck of a lot in to that you know couple of years really they had that um they had that Icarus quality about them as well didn't they I mean over a longer period you could say that the fall had an Icarus quality about them he just kept flying too close to the sun but the rise and fall yeah yeah the rise and the fall seems to me to be very much part of it that you know that makes a good story. Yeah I I'll also by the rise and the fall of both of both those those groups definitely the the the the recent era's bands for example I I quite like Falls and I quite like Bombe Bicycle Club but the idea of writing a book about them or reading a book about them I just I wouldn't really be interested because I can't see there's much of a story to tell I think that's true and I love both those bands as well you know but you do think well I mean Yanis from from Foles is an interesting guy and he's quite actually refreshingly live wire and you some they do have a bit of unpredictability about their shows. I was saw in Liverpool only about maybe about five or six years ago and he leapt off the balcony into the crowd you know and security and straight to the hospital I mean that was yeah it's apparently his mum was furious but uh it was you know it's it that was fun and so he's quite a live wire character but you're right I think to sustain a book I don't know is I think it takes a lot you know there's and there's loads of rock books out there about the Elvis Presley and the Beatles and Beach Boys and people that went on for a very long time and who had remarkable lives that now seem quite you know exotic to us you know I mean very few stars live like they did in those days now um and that's the other side of it I mean I you know I I wouldn't I don't think I particularly find a book about Ed Sheeran that interesting either I don't find his music that interesting so yeah I mean I on on one level it would be a picture book it would be a picture book now Graham you wanted to make a point about the books Graham it wouldn't interest me sorry well well I was gonna say a couple things first of all I I saw Razorlight before they got big and they were actually a great live band not not brilliant songs but they're really exciting live but the idea of also right now reading a book about razorlight I mean it's like a definition interior so there's something something something happened to bands about 2004 something desperate happened to them I don't know what it was but I was going to say that Last Champions which Charles is brand bringing up about later unite which is a which is a great book and also the fallen which is also a great book in both books you track down lots of people so the Ladies United book you track down all the players in the management staff and the fallen book you track down every single person who played in the fall and it's almost like part of you is like a detective Dave I love that aspect of it and I'm I mean I I'm a collector you know as you can probably see with all the flipping CDs around me now I I like to accumulate things when I was a kid I I was you know I collected stamps um in my 20s I collected new order live tapes I like collecting things and I've got that gene and so when the idea of trying to track down I think it was 50 odd in the end musicians of that that played in the fall for however long whether it was 18 years or literally one song and you think I'm gonna try and find all these people it was I it was like getting it was like the ultimate stamp collection you know um and a couple of got away there's a couple of penny blacks you know that I never got you know like the drummer I I um Dave I met one I met one member but I can't remember I I met one who now was um he was at one of those sort of um christmas gift fair type things and he was uh now he was now trading in um men's uh shaving uh items and things and uh and and I wish he was a he was an early bassist I think in the fall but and I looked him up and he was he was yes he wasn't lying when he said he was a member of the fall how it even came into the conversation when I was just buying something for you know for for a bit of brushing up on shaving but but but it would but yes he had his tale to tell um the lead united book um was it was it was it was it on the album this shaving grace this nation shaving grace oh dear oh dear Graham Dave um the last champions I mean you and I can romanticize about it because as as as as Leeds fans but the and maybe it's again you know where where that where where how modern football isn't how it was when Leeds actually won that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah um when putting it when putting a book like that together do you slightly have to be uh put to one side being a fan or actually does that help with the detective thing that you know it it's it just makes you more even more assiduous in the work that you do I think probably more the latter when I wrote it I didn't want it to be too drooly you know I didn't I wasn't gonna write it as all everything about Leeds United is fantastic and all of it.
SPEAKER_02I I kind of went went went in with a very open mind. Um what really fascinated me about that as I did it which I didn't really probably know before I started was that you know the the the ordinary people really were in that team and that was the league. You know that John McClellan who when I when I spoke to him he was working as a postman and you think Blime you know you're probably the only postman in England that's got the you know the the a league champion medal you know and I I found that aspect of it really fascinating that they were probably the last team that to win the very highest honour in English football that were really they really were ordinary people. I mean there were there were one or two superstars in that team I mean you know Gary McAllister and Gordon Strachan were were kind of you know probably earning more than most footballers even then you know and they've done very well for themselves but most for the most part that team was made out of very ordinary guys and uh you know you you Carl Schutz and Mel Sterlens and you know very ordinary people that were part of something incredible um put together fight by a a phenomenal manager Howard Wilkinson and uh yeah I I think that's probably that's my favourite of all the books I've done and I think I think it's the best one. I do think it's the best. I know it's not the most widely read the fallen seems to uh you know keep on chundering on every year. You know it's it sells more it sells it keeps on selling the fallen which is amazing really you know it's been out 16 years now and it it's still I still get little royalty checks like twice a year and you think this is quite quite turning into a quiet little phenomenon you know which is wonderful really um and I had a fantastic time a fantastic if bonkers time writing that as well but I do I'm very proud of the Leeds United book and uh I'd love to do another book I would love to do another tracking down book you know I'd I'd and I'd you know I every so often I thought could I what could I do next you know and but the I think the things where I'd be really keen to do it uh not necessarily the things that would find an audience beyond me so you know I'd read my own book I don't know we'll see I'd hopefully I can you know the an idea will come along and I think actually that's it that's it I've got it that's what I'm gonna do you know I can't track down the Titanic crew or anything you know you you should do a really good live venue one there Dave track down some skill live venues gosh yeah I mean I wonder if it there'll be yeah maybe a book of forgotten live venues yeah you've been listening to the podcast Two Big Egos in a small car your hosts were Gwen Charles and Charles after the world a Baltic sub production