Episode 74: Tom Doyle on the genius of Kate Bush

Explicit content warning

11/03/22 • 22 min

Tom Doyle has been one of my favourite British rock critics for as long as I remember. A regular contributor to Mojo and the forever missed Q, his book, The Glamour Chase, about the late Associates singer Billy Mackenzie, remains one of the finest bits of writing about music that I’ve ever read.
And now he's got a new book out, Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush, recently released via the great Nine Eight books. And because I like Kate Bush and I like Tom, I thought, “I’ll ask Tom to come on the podcast and have a little chat with me about Kate Bush”. He said “yes”. Which was very nice of him. And so I hope you enjoy listening to this short conversation that we had the other day as much as I enjoyed having it. And if you do, and you like what you hear, please do go buy Tom’s book!
(Pssst. Join the Substack).

Twitter - @jamesjammcmahon
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Twitter - @jamesjammcmahon
Substack - https://spoook.substack.com
YouTube - www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Vf_1E1Sza2GUyFNn2zFMA
Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/jamesmcmahonmusicpod/

Previous Episode

Episode 73: Symposium

Firstly, have you joined the Substack yet?
If you’re of an age, and you came to that age sometime during the mid-to-late 90s, and you’re a fan of punky indie rock, and you read the music press – NME, Melody Maker and Kerrang! – each and every Wednesday, maybe you listened to the Evening Session on BBC Radio One, perhaps you were a barfly at your local toilet venue, maybe nothing mattered more to you than Reading Festival and the pre-bourgeois Glastonbury... well, chances are your entry point to music was London five-piece Symposium, who burned brightly for a few years and then imploded, skewering into groups like Hell is for Heroes and Paper Cuts.
Well, quite amazingly, Symposium are back, with a Greatest Hits – Do You Remember How It Was? 1996 – 1999, available on streaming platforms now – and a one-off live show at London’s Islington Assembly Hall on November 17th, 2022. And I do remember how it was. And it was largely great. But messy. And chaotic. In way both brilliant and bruital. And so what better time than now to connect with singer Ross Cummins and bassist Wojtek Godzisz to ask what went wrong all those years ago... and what has appeared to go right now.
And where I can find an Animals That Swim t-shirt in an extra large.

Twitter - @jamesjammcmahon
Substack - https://spoook.substack.com
YouTube - www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Vf_1E1Sza2GUyFNn2zFMA
Reddit - https://www.reddit.com/r/jamesmcmahonmusicpod/

Next Episode

Episode 75: Michael Price

Michael Price is an Emmy Award winning composer and pianist. You’ve undoubtably heard his work on the BBC’s Sherlock, ITV’s Unforgotten, and the 2020 Dracula series written by Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat that I’ve been obsessed with – no seriously, I must have watched it ten times now - since the moment it aired.
In and amongst that he’s worked on the Paul W.S. Anderson cult space horror Event Horizon, The Iron Giant – another film I’m fairly obsessed with – Hot Fuzz, The Lord Of The Rings movies... and Goal!, which I watched on a plane once and thought was terrible, but I don’t think you can blame Michael for any of that. He’s worked with the great David Arnold and the late, great Michael Kamen, and recently I’ve become a big fan of his solo work, especially his most recent release, the haunting Whitsun.
You don’t have to bend my arm to speak to a fellow Yorkshireman and I think you’ll enjoy this inspiring and illuminating conversation just as much as I enjoyed having it.
Join the Substack!