Andrew Hickey presents a history of rock music from 1938 to 1999, looking at five hundred songs that shaped the genre.
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This episode follows on from the episode on the GTOs. These two make up two parts of a three-part story, and I’m hoping to have part three, on Captain Beefheart, up before the end of the month. This episode is on “Peaches En Regalia” by Frank Zappa. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a fifty-five-minute bonus episode available, on “Song to the Siren” by Tim Buckley. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by editing, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://w
Some of you will have seen me talk in the past about a site called The Daily Tism, a satirical news site by and for autistic people which is run by some friends of mine, and which I’ve written the odd piece for. (Perhaps you haven’t, in which case I’ll say again now, if you’re autistic yourself and/or you like really funny satirical news articles, you should head to http://thedailytism.com and read their stuff, and then go and back their Patreon at https://patreon.com/thedailytism ). Well, a little under a year ago I was chatting with my friend Sara Gibbs, one of the co-runners of that site, w
This episode took longer than normal to come up because, as you’ll see from the episode itself, I’m releasing it simultaneously with the next episode, on Frank Zappa. These two make up two parts of a three-part story, and I’m hoping to have part three, on Captain Beefheart, up before the end of the month. There will also be, between this and the next episode on the feed, a trailer for an exciting project I’m a minor part of. This episode is on “The Captain’s Fat Theresa Shoes” by the GTOs. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patr
Apologies for the delay in posting this episode — health issues have continued to affect me. They *seem* to be improving, but I should also mention here that some of the guitar demonstrations in this episode are not quite the same part as Pete Townshend is playing on the records, because my arthritis is affecting my hands. For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the second part of a two-episode look at the song “Pinball Wizard” by The Who. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more i
Apologies for the delay in posting this episode — I had a chronic illness flare-up and a frankly awful January. With luck, part two of this story will be up before the end of February. For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the first part of a multi-episode look at the song “Pinball Wizard” by The Who. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have an eighty-two-minute bonus episode available, on “Father and Son” by
This episode, we look at the song “Many Rivers to Cross”, the birth of reggae, and the career of the late Jimmy Cliff. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a sixty-seven-minute bonus episode available, on “Return of Django” by the Upsetters. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by editing, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/. (more…)
This episode, we look at the song “Proud Mary” and the brief but productive career of Creedence Clearwater Revival. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-four-minute bonus episode available, on “Mendocino” by the Sir Douglas Quintet. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by editing, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt’s irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/. ERRATUM: Three times early on I talk about a 1940s label called
For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the second part of a two-episode look at the song “Dazed and Confused” by Led Zeppelin, although this episode doesn’t get as far as Led Zeppelin’s formation, and is mostly about the intertwining session careers of John Paul Jones and (especially) Jimmy Page. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a thirty-eight minute bonus episode available, on “Jim’s Blues” by P.J. Pr
For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the first part of a two-episode look at the song “Dazed and Confused” by Led Zeppelin, although this episode doesn’t get as far as Led Zeppelin’s formation, and is mostly about the intertwining session careers of John Paul Jones and (especially) Jimmy Page. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a thirty-five minute bonus episode available, on “Boom-Bang-a-Bang” by Lulu
Erratum: At one point here I say “Cannonball Adderley” when I mean “Nat Adderley”. This episode is part of Pledge Week 2025. For five days this week, I will be posting old Patreon bonus episodes to the main feed to encourage people to subscribe to my Patreon. If you want more of these, and only if you can afford it, subscribe for $1 a month at patreon.com/andrewhickey . Whether you do or not, I hope you enjoy this one. (more…)
This episode is part of Pledge Week 2025. For five days this week, I will be posting old Patreon bonus episodes to the main feed to encourage people to subscribe to my Patreon. If you want more of these, and only if you can afford it, subscribe for $1 a month at patreon.com/andrewhickey . Whether you do or not, I hope you enjoy this one. (more…)
This episode is part of Pledge Week 2025. For five days this week, I will be posting old Patreon bonus episodes to the main feed to encourage people to subscribe to my Patreon. If you want more of these, and only if you can afford it, subscribe for $1 a month at patreon.com/andrewhickey . Whether you do or not, I hope you enjoy this one. (more…)
This episode is part of Pledge Week 2025. For five days this week, I will be posting old Patreon bonus episodes to the main feed to encourage people to subscribe to my Patreon. If you want more of these, and only if you can afford it, subscribe for $1 a month at patreon.com/andrewhickey . Whether you do or not, I hope you enjoy this one. (more…)
This episode is part of Pledge Week 2025. For five days this week, I will be posting old Patreon bonus episodes to the main feed to encourage people to subscribe to my Patreon. If you want more of these, and only if you can afford it, subscribe for $1 a month at patreon.com/andrewhickey . Whether you do or not, I hope you enjoy this one. (more…)
Transcript It’s that time of year again, the time that regular listeners have come to know as Pledge Week, where for five days (this time from Tuesday through Saturday, because I had a migraine yesterday when I should have been recording this intro) I post five old Patreon bonus episodes to the main feed as a way of persuading some of you to sign up to become Patreon backers. I say at the end of every episode that every week there’s a ten-minute bonus episode, and that’s no longer completely true (and I’ll be refreshing the outro on the podcast soon to acknowledge that). Instead there’s at lea
This episode, we look at the song “Kick Out the Jams” by the MC5, and the brief career of the most revolutionary guitar band of the sixties. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. As explained in the episode itself, it would be impossible to do this episode without using one particular Oedipal epithet, but use of that term would lose this podcast its clean rating. Therefore this is a censored version of the episode, with the many, many, many uses of that word replaced. Patreon backers have access to an uncensored version, if you wan
For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the second part of a two-episode look at the song “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” by Fairport Convention, and the intertwining careers of Joe Boyd, Sandy Denny, and Richard Thompson. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-one-minute bonus episode available, on Judy Collins’ version of this song. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by editing, and will hopefully
For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the first part of a two-episode look at the song “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?” by Fairport Convention, and the intertwining careers of Joe Boyd, Sandy Denny, and Richard Thompson. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-seven-minute bonus episode available, on “Baby It’s You” by Smith. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will h
For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the third and final (and very, very long) part of a multi-episode look at the song “Never Learn Not to Love” by the Beach Boys, and the links between Charles Manson and the LA music scene, as well as the life of Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ninety-minute bonus episode available, on “The Letter” by the Box Tops and the career of
For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the third part of a multi-episode look at the song “Never Learn Not to Love” by the Beach Boys, and the links between Charles Manson and the LA music scene, as well as the life of Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-eight-minute bonus episode available, on “Fruit Tree” by Nick Drake. I’ve also started up an email newsletter at h
For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted, songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the second part of a multi-episode look at the song “Never Learn Not to Love” by the Beach Boys, and the links between Charles Manson and the LA music scene. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. This one is later than normal, for reasons explained in the episode. The next one should be up much sooner. Patreon backers also have a twenty-five-minute bonus episode available, on “Israelites” by De
This is just to let people know that there is a better than usual reason for the longer than normal delay in the next episode. I was about to record it early last week, when checking a minor detail I discovered a book published this year, after I’d bought the books I used for the research, which showed that everything in the first half of the episode — everything that had been published in every book on Huddie Ledbetter, who is the focus of that first half — was badly mistaken. I had to totally scrap a completed script and redo the research from scratch. I start recording tomorrow and it shoul
For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted , songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the first part of a multi-episode look at the song “Never Learn Not to Love” by the Beach Boys, and the links between Charles Manson and the LA music scene. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a fifty-five-minute bonus episode available, on “Light Flight” by Pentangle Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from
For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted , songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the fourth and final part of a multi-episode look at the song “Sympathy for the Devil” and the career of the Rolling Stones. This episode covers January through December 1969, and may distress some listeners as it deals with murder, drowning, attempted suicide, and miscarriage. It’s not a happy episode. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-two-minute bonus e
For those who haven’t heard the announcement I posted , songs from this point on will sometimes be split among multiple episodes, so this is the third part of a multi-episode look at the song “Sympathy for the Devil” and the career of the Rolling Stones. This episode covers so much though , even though it only takes us from February 1967 through December 1968, that by itself it is one of the longer episodes of the podcast (hence the longer-than-usual delay between parts two and three). Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon
