Speaker 1: I don't listen to that many podcasts. I know they're
Speaker 1: the new thing, and I know this one is legendary.
Speaker 2: Now we're talking, right, That's how we want to be
Speaker 2: introducing this podcast every single week. It's taken us one
Speaker 2: hundred episodes to manage to get somebody to say something
Speaker 2: nice about the podcast, and then, in a way that's
Speaker 2: quite out of context, edit it and make it sound
Speaker 2: like they weren't being a little bit sarcastic. But we
Speaker 2: will take it. Thank you for downloading episode one hundred
Speaker 2: of Midnight Chats. It's hard to know whether Greg or
Speaker 2: I thought we'd get to one hundred episodes. In many ways,
Speaker 2: I think we probably did, because we're very stubborn people
Speaker 2: and we tend to carry on making things regardless of
Speaker 2: the demand for it. But I am happy to say
Speaker 2: that we have had lots of listeners and lots of
Speaker 2: incredible guests on this podcast, far more than we were
Speaker 2: ever planning on having our hope to have. So thank
Speaker 2: you to everyone that has ever been on Midnight Chat,
Speaker 2: and to you for listening, even if this is your
Speaker 2: very first time here. There are all these other episodes
Speaker 2: that you can go back and explore. But if you're
Speaker 2: only here for Javiskoka, that's completely understandable. A great guest
Speaker 2: for us to have to mark one hundred episodes. I
Speaker 2: spoke to Jarvis. When was it. It was two days
Speaker 2: after his birthday, I think, is what I say in
Speaker 2: the recording. So it was in September time, end of
Speaker 2: September time, and we had a great chat over Zoom.
Speaker 2: Thank you to Javis, not just for coming on, but
Speaker 2: for recording his voice in such an incredible quality. He
Speaker 2: had a great recorder. So this episode I think sounds
Speaker 2: particularly good, especially on Jarvis's side. We had a good chat.
Speaker 2: It's quite a long the one. This one. I just figured, hey,
Speaker 2: we've got Javiskocker, so let's just get it all in there. Also,
Speaker 2: he is extremely funny and dry and just a good conversationalist.
Speaker 2: You obviously know who Javis Cocker is best known for pulp,
Speaker 2: but also a broadcaster and a writer and lots of
Speaker 2: other things during Lockdown. Earlier on in the year, he
Speaker 2: released an album with his new band, jav Is. It's
Speaker 2: called Beyond the Pale, and I believe and I will
Speaker 2: stand by this, I'm sure in years to come. I
Speaker 2: think it features what is the best track released in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty called house Music All Night Long. We talk
Speaker 2: a little bit about that in the podcast and a
Speaker 2: load of other nonsense. Really, it's quite a rambling, loose conversation,
Speaker 2: so let's get into it. I hope you enjoy it.
Speaker 2: Thank you for letting us get to one hundred, and
Speaker 2: hopefully there will be many, many more. Here is Jarvis
Speaker 2: Cocker number one hundred of a legendary podcast, Bid Night
Speaker 2: Chats by a Loud and Quiet. So we're recording this
Speaker 2: on a Monday. On Saturday, it was your birthday. Happy birthday.
Speaker 1: Well thank you. Yeah, Now I had a very good birthday.
Speaker 2: What did you get out to?
Speaker 1: Cycled to Richmond Park and I I had a real
Speaker 1: desire to see some animals, but not in a zoo
Speaker 1: or something like that, you know, because I mean, we've
Speaker 1: been like animals in a zoo for the last couple
Speaker 1: of months. I wanted to see animals just wandering around
Speaker 1: doing their own business. And I remembered that there are
Speaker 1: deer in Richmond Park. So me and my girlfriend cycled
Speaker 1: down to Richmond Park and it was brilliant because as
Speaker 1: soon as we went through the gates, there was a
Speaker 1: big herd of deer, just like waiting, like a like
Speaker 1: a kind of reception committee.
Speaker 2: They knew you were coming, they knew that you wanted
Speaker 2: to see them.
Speaker 1: Kind of. Yeah, and so you're supposed to keep like
Speaker 1: twenty meters away, but I thought I've had enough of
Speaker 1: safe distance. I believe in it for humans, but with
Speaker 1: deer it's different. So I went and I didn't get
Speaker 1: super close, but I kind of laid down near them.
Speaker 2: There's a great photo on your Instagram of you with
Speaker 2: the deer in fact that I saw there.
Speaker 1: You go, that's that's that's the nearest I could get.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I did a similar I went on holiday a
Speaker 2: week before last to Cornwall and I did a similar
Speaker 2: photok a similar photo, but I was in front of
Speaker 2: some cow. It wasn't as it wasn't as glamorous. It
Speaker 2: was just some cows. But I was quite in there
Speaker 2: with them. It felt and it did feel nice to
Speaker 2: be surrounded by animals and being seeing some animals.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't know why. I think it must be
Speaker 1: an instinctive thing, because because we're having to think about
Speaker 1: every single human interaction, the idea of being an animal
Speaker 1: just wandering around in your herd, or flock or whatever
Speaker 1: seems appealing. I think it came from and something I'd
Speaker 1: seen on Instagram that a friend of mine was in
Speaker 1: crete and they were driving over a mountain and then
Speaker 1: they had to stop because there were goats blocking the road.
Speaker 1: And then the goats came and they were like putting
Speaker 1: the head inside the car and like looking, and for
Speaker 1: some reason I just thought, Oh, that seems really nice.
Speaker 1: I kind of an encounter with nature that doesn't seem dangerous.
Speaker 1: It seems just seems just pleasurable and pleasant. So I
Speaker 1: think that's what inspired it, really.
Speaker 2: And how are you generally with birthdays? Are you a
Speaker 2: fan of birthdays? Do you run a mile from them?
Speaker 2: What's your relationship with them?
Speaker 1: Mike? I, yeah, I have been bad well in the
Speaker 1: three weeks leading up to a birthday, I tend to
Speaker 1: get into some kind of dark mood. And I've always
Speaker 1: been like that. I mean, like, there was one birthday
Speaker 1: when I went to a graveyard that was a long
Speaker 1: time ago, honestly, that's true. Was I think that was
Speaker 1: something like my twenty first birthday or something like that.
Speaker 2: That's a big one. That's a big birthday to be
Speaker 2: spending in a graveyard. But I think in a weird way,
Speaker 2: those big, those milestone birthdays are sometimes the ones that
Speaker 2: kind of make you feel the darkest, if you know
Speaker 2: what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I generally get a mood. And that's why this
Speaker 1: year was better, because I know that I've got that
Speaker 1: kind of tendency to go towards the dark side and
Speaker 1: get it myde down in thoughts about mortality and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But I didn't go there this year, so
Speaker 1: I was kind of pleased.
Speaker 2: Are you an easy person to buy gifts for?
Speaker 1: I would say probably not.
Speaker 2: No, I mean what, Yeah, I'm just thinking what would
Speaker 2: I get you? What would I buy? I don't know what?
Speaker 2: Do you do a list? Do you do a list
Speaker 2: for people?
Speaker 1: It's not Christmas?
Speaker 2: I know, but I know, right, But my mum is
Speaker 2: like a real stick for a list. And it's actually
Speaker 2: got to a point where, which sounds quite nice, but
Speaker 2: it's not actually quite She's she's so organized about it.
Speaker 2: She's taken any of the fun out of it. Where
Speaker 2: you send her a list and we're one step away
Speaker 2: from her just putting some money into my bank account.
Speaker 2: You know, that's how bad it's got. But she won't
Speaker 2: buy something without like my absence, without me telling her
Speaker 2: exactly what I want.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, you know, I suppose I can see the
Speaker 1: logic in that, but I don't know. I like, I
Speaker 1: really like buying gifts for other people. I like that
Speaker 1: thing of thinking about someone and then trying to find
Speaker 1: something that really suits that person. Or I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I always get it right. Maybe sometimes
Speaker 1: I think I've come up with the perfect president and
Speaker 1: the person's thinking, what the focks he brought me here?
Speaker 1: But I I like that idea. But I think probably
Speaker 1: I am a bit difficult to buy for because some
Speaker 1: quite particular. So I guess that's a bit intimidating when
Speaker 1: you come to buying at present.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's nothing more disappointing then having bought someone a gift,
Speaker 2: thinking they're going to love it, and being really excited
Speaker 2: about giving it to them, and then you can just
Speaker 2: tell when they're pretending that they like it more than
Speaker 2: they like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but I didn't have to do that this year.
Speaker 1: It was a good birthday this year. I had at
Speaker 1: one point I had grandiose ideas for it because I
Speaker 1: was fifty seven. So I came up with this Heinz concept.
Speaker 1: I thought, well, Heines. Their trademark is fifty seven varieties.
Speaker 1: So I thought, well, I'll invite people. That's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why I'm down here in London. I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'll come to London because there's quite a few people
Speaker 1: that haven't seen for a long time because of the
Speaker 1: lockdown and everything, and restrictions seem to have been eased little.
Speaker 1: So maybe we could meet out in a garden and
Speaker 1: we could have a picnic, and all the food on
Speaker 1: the picnic would be Hinz products. But then when I
Speaker 1: actually looked at what Hinds made, once you get past
Speaker 1: tomato ketchup beans and tomato soup, it starts to get
Speaker 1: pretty rank really quickly, and you probably would have a
Speaker 1: lot of people being physically ill if they had to
Speaker 1: eat nothing that hind stuff for a whole meal. So
Speaker 1: I was quite lucky that they brought in the rule
Speaker 1: of six and kind of put paid to any idea
Speaker 1: of a social gathering.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they saved your blushes for that because and your guests.
Speaker 1: They saved your guests. Really. Yeah, Actually, no one would
Speaker 1: ever have come to a party that I gave. Ever again,
Speaker 1: I think I'm just trying to think what else?
Speaker 2: I mean, I know the beans catch up and the soup, well,
Speaker 2: I mean what else?
Speaker 1: I can't believe you got salad? Cream is okay? Sandwich
Speaker 1: spread divides people. Some people like it, some people say
Speaker 1: it looks like someone's being sick on a slice of bread.
Speaker 1: You used to have those things called toastoppers. They were
Speaker 1: really horrible. You're probably too young to remember.
Speaker 2: What's what's the toastopper?
Speaker 1: Toastopper was a small tin and you opened it and then,
Speaker 1: as the name suggests, you would put it on a
Speaker 1: slice of toast and then put it back under the grill,
Speaker 1: so it was making a kind of pizza like thing.
Speaker 1: But what used to happen was then you took it
Speaker 1: out from under the grill and it would it would
Speaker 1: develop like a kind of skin on top of it,
Speaker 1: like like you know, like you get a skin on
Speaker 1: top of a rice pudding. And then you would buy
Speaker 1: into it, and this kind of lava, molten lava hot
Speaker 1: stuff would ooze through the the the breech in the
Speaker 1: skin and burn your the roof of your mouth immediately,
Speaker 1: really horrible and really vile flavor as well, And that
Speaker 1: really did look like sick.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, well this is this is already an education
Speaker 2: for me. Do they still make that? They still make
Speaker 2: toast toppers?
Speaker 1: No, I don't think. I mean, there are probably websites
Speaker 1: devoted to it because you find that, don't you With
Speaker 1: discontinued foods, You'll find they're still made in some weird country,
Speaker 1: and then people will be important it. I think I
Speaker 1: think it's been discontinued, but maybe after this podcast is
Speaker 1: broadcast we'll find out differently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you were up in the Peak district for
Speaker 2: the majority of the last few months.
Speaker 1: Was that?
Speaker 2: I mean that sounds like was that a nice place
Speaker 2: to be during the you know, the the lock in?
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, because that's a place I've been visiting
Speaker 1: quite a lot. It's quite near to Sheffield. That's how
Speaker 1: I first got to know the Peak from going on
Speaker 1: family outings as a kid, which I hated at the time,
Speaker 1: but then in later life kind of came to appreciate it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean it's the countryside, so you couldn't
Speaker 1: really tell that anything different was happening. It was funny.
Speaker 1: I realized that for a good two months I saw
Speaker 1: more sheep than people, and that's definitely the first time
Speaker 1: ever in my life that has occurred. You know that
Speaker 1: I was hanging out with sheep more than other humans.
Speaker 2: Are you? How are you generally with your own company?
Speaker 1: I'm much better than I used to be. I used
Speaker 1: to hate it as a kid, and as a younger person,
Speaker 1: I couldn't stand to be on my own in a
Speaker 1: house who I would start to freak out and I
Speaker 1: would just have to go out on any kind of
Speaker 1: pretext just to be with other people. I didn't like
Speaker 1: to be left alone with my own thoughts. I don't know,
Speaker 1: it just wasn't comfortable with it. So I've come a
Speaker 1: long way. I'm okay now. I think it's a thing
Speaker 1: that you really have to grapple with, and I think
Speaker 1: it's because it's like that, it's basically like the foundations
Speaker 1: for all your other kind of social interactions. If you
Speaker 1: are okay with yourself, then it's going to make your
Speaker 1: social interactions better, because, like I say, when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I would just kind of go out just because I
Speaker 1: couldn't bear to be on my own. So you're starting
Speaker 1: off your interactions with other people and a kind of
Speaker 1: slightly desperate note there, like you would just want them
Speaker 1: to distract you from yourself, whereas if you can handle yourself, okay,
Speaker 1: you might actually go out and just have fun with people.
Speaker 2: Sure, did you have a lockdown routine? What would a
Speaker 2: typical day to day thing have been. It's kind of
Speaker 2: a bit different now, I guess because we're kind of
Speaker 2: out of it, a little bit, not fully out of it.
Speaker 2: But there was that period at the beginning where it
Speaker 2: felt like every day was exactly the same. Did you
Speaker 2: have a continual routine that you would just do every
Speaker 2: day and like just repeat.
Speaker 1: Well, it's funny you should say that. It does seem
Speaker 1: like a long time ago now, doesn't it, or it
Speaker 1: seems like another era. I did realize at the start
Speaker 1: that I needed some not particularly a total routine. But
Speaker 1: I think it was hard to kind of concentrate at first.
Speaker 1: I think because we're all used to just wandering around
Speaker 1: and you know, check something on your phone, then go
Speaker 1: somewhere else. Over the last few years, we've got used
Speaker 1: to kind of have this kind of pecking at things,
Speaker 1: attention span and always kind of moving around, and as
Speaker 1: you said, being stuck in the same place. Suddenly time,
Speaker 1: the shape and feel of time altered and at first
Speaker 1: I found that my mind it was still trying to peck,
Speaker 1: but there was nothing to peck out because it was
Speaker 1: just you were just there in one place. So that
Speaker 1: felt very It was slightly disturbing. So I did try
Speaker 1: and write a little bit of a timetable, even though
Speaker 1: I knew I wouldn't stick to it. I think if
Speaker 1: you've got a timetable, then at least if you got distressed,
Speaker 1: you could walk into the kitchen and look at the
Speaker 1: piece of paper that you'd celltate to the wall and think, oh, yes,
Speaker 1: it's two o'clock I should be going for a walk
Speaker 1: now or whatever. I guess I was looking that if
Speaker 1: you're a person who works in the creative arts, then
Speaker 1: you can do stuff like I started. I started reading
Speaker 1: some stories and posting them. I started doing discos on
Speaker 1: Saturday nights. Yeah, I just kind of And also there
Speaker 1: was a record that was about to be released, so
Speaker 1: I was doing like these. I was doing like two
Speaker 1: zoom calls a day, so that kind of meant that
Speaker 1: I was kind of socializing as well. So I was
Speaker 1: really lucky. Actually it didn't really I didn't have to
Speaker 1: do a lot of you know that zombie shopping where
Speaker 1: you have to stand outside waitros in a queue and
Speaker 1: all that stuff with everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was going to ask about the zoom thing.
Speaker 2: Are you feeling zoomed out at this point? I mean,
Speaker 2: we're talking on zoom, but I know it's one of
Speaker 2: those things that if you do too much of it,
Speaker 2: you get to a point where you need a break.
Speaker 2: You're like, I can't speak to another one for you
Speaker 2: zoom right now?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean I was going to ask you
Speaker 1: about that because I find it quite tiring. That's what
Speaker 1: I found, And I was trying to work out why
Speaker 1: I felt tired when all I'm doing is sitting on
Speaker 1: a settee talking at a computer.
Speaker 2: But a friend of mine tried to explain to me
Speaker 2: why he thinks it makes well his theory behind why
Speaker 2: it's so tiring, and it was about how you're interacting
Speaker 2: with someone where you're just focusing on their head and shoulders,
Speaker 2: and if you were to do that in real life,
Speaker 2: it would be very strange and bizarre to just be
Speaker 2: staring at someone like you and I are right now.
Speaker 2: It's actually quite it's actually quite intense, and it kind
Speaker 2: of takes its toll. And that that was what. I
Speaker 2: don't know if there's anything to that. It sounded sensible
Speaker 2: and clever when he told.
Speaker 1: Me, I suppose so, but you're not sure. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: do think it's something to do with that that it
Speaker 1: feels you can see someone so it feels like you
Speaker 1: are of a conversation. But for instance, if I want
Speaker 1: to have eye contact with you, now I'm looking at
Speaker 1: your eyes, but that means that I'm not looking in
Speaker 1: the camera. If I really wanted to have eye contact,
Speaker 1: i'd look in the camera like that. But that feels
Speaker 1: really weird. So there's all these things where it's just
Speaker 1: a bit off. So I think that's what makes it
Speaker 1: a bit disturbing, because your brain is trying to find
Speaker 1: out what's really going on. And I think also things
Speaker 1: to do with timing as well, because it's not so
Speaker 1: bad in this situation where it's just a conversation between
Speaker 1: two people, but like, for instance, towards the beginning of Lockdown,
Speaker 1: we had a zoom meeting for the people in the
Speaker 1: band and we were all talking and then we thought, oh,
Speaker 1: look we're all on the same zoom. Let's try and
Speaker 1: play a song. And then as soon as we tried
Speaker 1: to do that, we realized that everything was out of
Speaker 1: sync because everybody's Internet connections would be at different speeds
Speaker 1: and we were at different distances to each other. So
Speaker 1: that really pointed out the fact that it wasn't like
Speaker 1: being in a room with people where you can just
Speaker 1: play a song without thinking about it. There are all
Speaker 1: these weird latency and time like things, which you're probably
Speaker 1: not consciously aware of them, but they are making that
Speaker 1: interaction a little bit more strange and therefore a bit
Speaker 1: more tiring to engaging.
Speaker 2: Sure, you did you do any zoom quizzes with friends?
Speaker 2: That was a thing for a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's weird. I mean because I've thought about that,
Speaker 1: because I should have been all over that, because I
Speaker 1: historically have been a big lover of quizzers. I used
Speaker 1: to like again at parties. This is again maybe why
Speaker 1: people don't come to my parties, but I often would
Speaker 1: have a quiz as part of the party. I used
Speaker 1: to like doing my own version of who Wants to
Speaker 1: Be a Millionaire? One year we did Mister and Missus.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know that quiz. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we used to do Mister and Missus. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would have thought that I would have loved quizers,
Speaker 1: but I only I think I only took part in.
Speaker 2: One about you, you know, I'm I'm still in one now.
Speaker 2: I started doing on with my my brother. My brother
Speaker 2: set one up with his in laws and invited me
Speaker 2: and my wife and my mum, and we were doing
Speaker 2: it every Saturday night. That got a bit intense. We've
Speaker 2: gone down to every other week now, and I don't
Speaker 2: know if it's ever going to end, Like I feel
Speaker 2: like we're kind of stuck in this now. But I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm enjoying it. I don't know they might be listening
Speaker 2: to this. I am enjoying it everyone. But yeah, it's
Speaker 2: it that is very tiring. I find I find actually
Speaker 2: the quiz thing quite exhausting because we do it well.
Speaker 2: We all write a we all write around each and
Speaker 2: then you're the quiz master for your own round, and
Speaker 2: then you'll sit out of.
Speaker 1: That all right. Yeah, I was going to ask you
Speaker 1: about that. So it's not like you search online for
Speaker 1: a quizz or get it from a book. You actually
Speaker 1: have to devise it yourself.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. We make it ourselves. So that's quite fun.
Speaker 2: But then it turns out that's actually quite time consuming.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: When we did the feature for the mag a few
Speaker 2: years back, one of the things that we spoke about
Speaker 2: was TV. And I remember you saying that you watch
Speaker 2: so much TV when you were a kid, that these
Speaker 2: days you don't really watch that much TV. In fact,
Speaker 2: when you're in a hotel, if there's a TV in there,
Speaker 2: you'll cover it up or put it away so you
Speaker 2: don't have to see even the dead TV in the room. Yeah,
Speaker 2: have you have you? I was wondering if you've lapsed
Speaker 2: back into TV through this time.
Speaker 1: You're not working for the TV license? That is that?
Speaker 1: No comment, It's just I keep getting I keep getting
Speaker 1: letters through the mail saying they're going to come and
Speaker 1: check check me that I ain't going to tell it.
Speaker 1: I don't own a tell. I just want to go
Speaker 1: on record there. But occasionally, Well, the one thing that
Speaker 1: I've watched, I haven't really watched much TV. I have
Speaker 1: stuck to that. I do think that I've had enough
Speaker 1: TV to last me my whole life. But then my
Speaker 1: partner's daughter was talking about how she was watching the
Speaker 1: Sopranos during lockdown, and and we realized that I've never
Speaker 1: ever seen the Sopranos, and all the DVDs were in
Speaker 1: a cupboard somewhere. So we are watching in the Sopranos.
Speaker 1: We started and we're please don't tell me what happens.
Speaker 2: I've not seen it. Yeah, i've been. I've been meaning to.
Speaker 2: I'm like you, I'm really late to it, and I've
Speaker 2: got it and I've been meaning to watch it.
Speaker 1: All right, well i'll tell you it's worth it.
Speaker 2: Okay, how far in are you?
Speaker 1: We're approaching the end of season four, right, so we're
Speaker 1: over halfway. Yeah, it's it's really good. I have to say,
Speaker 1: I don't know why. Obviously it's quite old now, I
Speaker 1: mean that's one of the good things. It doesn't really
Speaker 1: seem very dated. I don't know they've really I suppose
Speaker 1: it were lucky. It was made just as mobile phones
Speaker 1: came in. In fact, they kind of come in during the series.
Speaker 1: And computers are there, but like really clunky computers, but
Speaker 1: they're there, so it's it's almost like it just managed
Speaker 1: to get those things in, so it doesn't seem hopelessly dated.
Speaker 1: It's good. It's it's really good. I mean, as for
Speaker 1: why I didn't watch it at the time, I can
Speaker 1: only think it's because the theme tune is a song by
Speaker 1: the Alabama Three. Yeah, we woke up this morn and
Speaker 1: of myself, I god, it goes like that. And there
Speaker 1: was a guy in the Alabama Three who just always
Speaker 1: used to bug me when I was out, like it
Speaker 1: was always kind of bent my ear drunk when I
Speaker 1: was out, and it really really irritated me. And so
Speaker 1: I think maybe when I knew that they'd done the
Speaker 1: theme tune, I thought, there's no way I'm watching that program.
Speaker 2: I was thinking yesterday when I was when I was
Speaker 2: thinking about the fact we're going to be talking today,
Speaker 2: it reminded me that the last live show that I
Speaker 2: have been to was your live show when you played
Speaker 2: on the second of March in a club in Canning
Speaker 2: on next to Canning Street Station. Basically, wasn't it. I
Speaker 2: can't remember the name of the place, but Steallyards, Steal
Speaker 2: Yards that was it was. It was just before the
Speaker 2: lockdown started, like there was murmurings of it. But that's
Speaker 2: the last time I've seen any live music other than
Speaker 2: on screen. Few live stuff on screen and stuff, But
Speaker 2: I think it was it the day that house Music
Speaker 2: All Night Long came out on that day or the
Speaker 2: video of it came out on that day.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was that was why we'd organize the concert
Speaker 1: because and actually the records arrived that day, and I
Speaker 1: was really excited. I spent most of my time backstage
Speaker 1: taking pictures of the records because they were there, you know.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think it was maybe a fortnight before
Speaker 1: the lockdown came into effect. So yeah, people were talking
Speaker 1: about it, and yeah, I mean, I don't know. You
Speaker 1: didn't catch it that night, did you. I didn't know.
Speaker 2: No, I'm touch would I've been, Okay, I've not yet.
Speaker 1: As far as I know, none of us in the
Speaker 1: band got it. I haven't heard of people getting it
Speaker 1: from there. So yeah, it was great. It was great
Speaker 1: to it seems like so long ago. It seems like
Speaker 1: forever ago, which is maybe why I forgot that. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the last gig I went to. I liked that
Speaker 1: you did it in that club as well. I've never
Speaker 1: been there, but I've certainly been to clubs like that
Speaker 1: when I grew up. It was the kind of nightclub
Speaker 1: that people go to after work in the city. It's
Speaker 1: like in the Arches for anyone that's not been to
Speaker 1: the steel Yard. But it was a great show. And
Speaker 1: it was nice that it was the last one. Did
Speaker 1: you ever go to clubs like that, that type of
Speaker 1: after work leaving do clubs? I mean, the reason we
Speaker 1: had it there was because the record that was coming
Speaker 1: out was House Musical all night long. I kind of
Speaker 1: wanted it to be like a place that you could
Speaker 1: imagine a rave to happen. At one time, we were
Speaker 1: looking at the arches underneath Waterloo Station, which are a
Speaker 1: bit more kind of scuzzy, so that place. Because it
Speaker 1: was a school night, you know, it was a Tuesday,
Speaker 1: I believe, so we could Because at first I was thinking, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we could do it like a back in the day
Speaker 1: where people have to kind of go and meet a
Speaker 1: guy at a chip shop with his mobile phone and
Speaker 1: he tells you the next place you have to go to,
Speaker 1: you know, because that's what used to be like back
Speaker 1: in the rave days. You would you would get coordinates
Speaker 1: to meet someone at a service station and then they
Speaker 1: would tell you the next part of the journey and
Speaker 1: finding the actual party was a big part of the
Speaker 1: night out. So I was thinking maybe it'd be nice
Speaker 1: to do something like that. But then, as I say,
Speaker 1: because it was a Tuesday and people probably wanted to
Speaker 1: get up for work the next day. We decided to
Speaker 1: do it in a place that had the look because
Speaker 1: it was in the old railway archers, but it did
Speaker 1: have a bar and plumbing and toilets and things like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well I think that stuff was appreciated by the people
Speaker 2: that were there. Yeah, to be honest, did you did
Speaker 2: you that well that you were just talking about where
Speaker 2: you kind of it was like a puzzle to find
Speaker 2: out where the rave was. Did you you obviously did
Speaker 2: some of that back in the day. Did you do
Speaker 2: much of the rave scene?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean, I think that's why it stayed with
Speaker 1: me so vividly because it was just after I'd moved
Speaker 1: down from Sheffield to London. So I moved down to
Speaker 1: go to Saint Martin's in September nineteen eighty eight, and
Speaker 1: the acid house scene was going their warehouse parties and stuff,
Speaker 1: and the first one I went to was in May
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. We got a ticket. Well, it's like
Speaker 1: it says in the pulp song sort of freeas and Wiz,
Speaker 1: that's basically a documentary representation of what happened. We bought
Speaker 1: You could buy tickets from this strange flat in Camden
Speaker 1: Town and there was a coach that went from Soho
Speaker 1: Square at ten o'clock and I had kind of left Sheffield.
Speaker 1: I used to go to There was like a really
Speaker 1: bad kind of indie nightclub in Sheffield that I'd been
Speaker 1: going to twice a week for five years since I
Speaker 1: left school. And when I left Sheffield, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's it. You know, I've done my time in the clubs.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get serious now I'm going to learn
Speaker 1: all this kind of thing. So I wasn't intending to
Speaker 1: have a nightclub experience once I got to London, but
Speaker 1: as luck would have it, this scene was in full
Speaker 1: swing and some friends said, oh, you've got to come
Speaker 1: and see it because it's really amazing, and so I
Speaker 1: kind of went, not with particularly high expectations. I'd been
Speaker 1: kind of badgered into it. But once I got there
Speaker 1: and you know, we were in this aircraft hanger with
Speaker 1: a with a big wheel outside and giant platforms and
Speaker 1: lasers and smoke and everything, I thought, oh shit, this
Speaker 1: is this is why, this is what I always wanted
Speaker 1: nightclubs to be, like, you know, some kind of really
Speaker 1: sci fi experience with people dancing all night and all
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, and so I kind of got
Speaker 1: hooked into it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, the track the track house music all Night Long,
Speaker 2: because it was released back then two weeks before Lockdown.
Speaker 2: As you say, it kind of sound that soundtracked a
Speaker 2: lot of my early Lockdown. That song. I even went
Speaker 2: roller skating to that song, and I don't know, I
Speaker 2: don't roller skate, but but I I have some roller
Speaker 2: skates and I went out on and that's how powerful
Speaker 2: your song is.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, thanks, that's as far as I know. You're
Speaker 1: the well is. You're certainly the first person I've heard
Speaker 1: of who's roller skated to that song. So I take
Speaker 1: my hat. I take my hat off to you.
Speaker 2: It's the perfect roller skating song. And because of the
Speaker 2: lyrics of that song, a lot of people, I think,
Speaker 2: thought that you must have written it. It was about Lockdown,
Speaker 2: and you wrote it in Lockdown. So friends of mine
Speaker 2: certainly said that when they first heard it was like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's just been written about the current situation. But it wasn't,
Speaker 2: was it. It was written?
Speaker 1: No? No, I mean that's the strange thing. Really. Emma,
Speaker 1: the woman who plays the violin in the band, a
Speaker 1: friend of hers got COVID quite early on and had
Speaker 1: to self isolate. And she was the first person who
Speaker 1: pointed out the fact that the lyrics seemed to be
Speaker 1: about that experience of just be stuck in a house
Speaker 1: not being able to go out. But yeah, the song
Speaker 1: had been written like a year and a half before.
Speaker 1: It was all about a weekend when I was stuck
Speaker 1: in London on my own and I was jealous of
Speaker 1: some people who'd gone to this there's a festival in
Speaker 1: Wales called Houghton. You know that, It's like a dance
Speaker 1: music festival. No, I don't know that, all right, it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be really good, and some people I knew
Speaker 1: had gone, and I was stuck in London and all
Speaker 1: my friends weren't around, and I was feeling a bit
Speaker 1: sorry for myself, and to kind of distract myself from that,
Speaker 1: I went and got a keyboard out of the basement
Speaker 1: and started playing. And then that's when I came up
Speaker 1: with the tune for it. And I guess because of
Speaker 1: the circumstances that the idea of me being stuck in
Speaker 1: a house on my own feeling jealous about people dancing
Speaker 1: the house out in Wales, there's those two connotations of
Speaker 1: the word house kind of gave me the lyrics. So
Speaker 1: that's where all that kind of stuff about claustrophobia and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff come from. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: just kind of weirdly came out seeming like it was
Speaker 1: written with Lockdown in specifically in mind.
Speaker 2: I mean. The other thing that is kind of strange
Speaker 2: timing I guess with like the new band and Lockdown
Speaker 2: happening is that although the album came out during Lockdown,
Speaker 2: the band is kind of a live band, isn't it
Speaker 2: more than it is an album studio band, Like you
Speaker 2: hadn't planned to make a record and then go and
Speaker 2: tour that record. You are like a live band first
Speaker 2: and foremost, and that's how people should kind of want
Speaker 2: to experience it. It must be really annoying that you've
Speaker 2: been able to play it. You're not being able to
Speaker 2: like do that side of it. In fact, the only
Speaker 2: thing people currently have is the album.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know whether it's annoying. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: annoying for everybody who's in the band. You know that
Speaker 1: concerts aren't allowed. It was I mean, if anything, in
Speaker 1: one way, I was kind of pleased that we'd made
Speaker 1: the record in the way that we'd made it, because,
Speaker 1: as you say that, the band was formed basically as
Speaker 1: a live thing, and at one point we thought we
Speaker 1: never would make records. We would just play these songs
Speaker 1: that we'd written, and the songs would change over time,
Speaker 1: and if people were interested, they would have to come
Speaker 1: to a concert to see what was happening. And then
Speaker 1: I don't know, I guess I can't help it. I
Speaker 1: was brought up in the age of records, so kind
Speaker 1: of do start thinking about that kind of thing. We
Speaker 1: ended up making a record, but the a lot of
Speaker 1: the versions of the songs that are on the record,
Speaker 1: that the basic takes were made during live concerts. So
Speaker 1: there are two that were recorded in a cave up
Speaker 1: in the Peak District in.
Speaker 2: What was that cave called the Devil's Ass.
Speaker 1: Well, I prefer to call it Peak Cavern. Some people
Speaker 1: do call it the Devil's Ass. They change the name
Speaker 1: to Peak Caven when Queen Victoria visited it in the
Speaker 1: late eighteen hundreds. And I'm not really into Victorian values
Speaker 1: generally speaking, but I am in that case because I
Speaker 1: don't like the idea of playing in an ass devils
Speaker 1: or not. But yeah, and then there was another song
Speaker 1: we recorded at the Primavera festival in Barcelona. So I'm
Speaker 1: glad that we did it that way because, as you
Speaker 1: point out, there's there's no way to do that now
Speaker 1: that there are no concerts happening, so we kind of
Speaker 1: took advantage of it while it was there, and you know,
Speaker 1: it must come back. I I think I've only seen
Speaker 1: one concert during lockdown. I went to there's a place
Speaker 1: in Peckham called Peckham Levels or something I think it's called,
Speaker 1: and there's like a bar on the top floor of there,
Speaker 1: and there's an arts place called Bold Tendencies, and Hannah,
Speaker 1: the woman who runs I was determined to start putting
Speaker 1: events on again, so I went along. I think it
Speaker 1: was around the beginning of July. There was a cello
Speaker 1: player and his sister who played the piano, and they've
Speaker 1: played some classical music and everybody has sat on chairs
Speaker 1: at safe distances, and it's in an old multi story
Speaker 1: car park, so it's got lot of ventilation, so it
Speaker 1: was a safe environment. But just to be sat there,
Speaker 1: even in that kind of slightly constrained situation, just the
Speaker 1: fact that you could see someone playing it right there
Speaker 1: before your eyes. You know, it wasn't coming down a
Speaker 1: live stream, it wasn't pre recorded. Was a really great thing.
Speaker 1: It was a really beautiful feeling to witness that and
Speaker 1: be part of it. So my hope is that people
Speaker 1: will this kind of hiatus will have made people realize
Speaker 1: how much they do like those live experiences, and I
Speaker 1: think that maybe we'll have a bit of a you know,
Speaker 1: a flourishing of live events when we're allowed to do
Speaker 1: them again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely. There's one track on the album well
Speaker 2: House Music is obviously the one that I love. As
Speaker 2: I say, it made me, it made.
Speaker 1: Me roll escape.
Speaker 2: But there's also a song on the record that I
Speaker 2: really like called Swanky Modes. And one of the reasons
Speaker 2: I like it so much is because it's about my
Speaker 2: neighborhood where I live now, I believe anyway, because I
Speaker 2: live just off the Camden Road, which is mentioned in
Speaker 2: the first line of the song, and you used to
Speaker 2: live around there, right, It is like a song about
Speaker 2: a time and a place that you lived in. When
Speaker 2: was it, When was that written? When was it that
Speaker 2: you were in that kind of area?
Speaker 1: Well, that's one of the mysteries of song writing actually,
Speaker 1: and I've wondered about this because the events I'm describing
Speaker 1: in that song happened basically thirty years ago. Towards the
Speaker 1: end of my time at Saint Martin's. I was living
Speaker 1: in a housing co op place on Dual Jianna Street.
Speaker 1: You know, if you know where Georgiana Streeter is, It's
Speaker 1: like it's just off the Camden Road, but it's it's
Speaker 1: it's there's a garden center at the end of the road.
Speaker 1: I do know it. Yeah, do you know where that is? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's name my house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So there was a housing co op there,
Speaker 1: and I'd been on the books for ages and then
Speaker 1: eventually got offered a room in a in a shared
Speaker 1: house there. It was. It was quite a random household.
Speaker 1: It The main guy who lived there was a was
Speaker 1: a drug dealer, but he was in prison at the time.
Speaker 1: But all his friends were there, and so they tried
Speaker 1: to put me off taking the room in the house.
Speaker 1: So when I went around for a viewing, they were
Speaker 1: all just kind of really wasted and doing like disgusting things,
Speaker 1: like a guy started trying to fuck the settee. So
Speaker 1: I guess they thought that I would be appalled and
Speaker 1: just so I can't live here, but you didn't. I
Speaker 1: just thought they're just trying to put me off for that.
Speaker 1: I've been waiting for the flat for ages and it
Speaker 1: had always been my dream to live in Camden. When
Speaker 1: I first moved down from Sheffield. Camden was one of
Speaker 1: the few places I'd been to in London and I
Speaker 1: just thought it was like the coolest place probably on
Speaker 1: the planet. You know. They had you know, they had
Speaker 1: shops that sold records and clothes and badges and things
Speaker 1: like that. You know, I just thought it was great.
Speaker 1: And I tried to get a flat though when I
Speaker 1: first came and that fell through and ended up squatting
Speaker 1: for quite a long time. But I eventually got my
Speaker 1: Camden flat and that would be around yeah, nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 2: Sure, So then were the housemates? Did they behave themselves?
Speaker 2: Once you did move in and once they realized we've
Speaker 2: not scared this guy off, he's moving in. How are they?
Speaker 2: After that? Did they calm down?
Speaker 1: Not much? And there wasn't much SETI fussing after that,
Speaker 1: but it was still well, it just wasn't very pleasant
Speaker 1: living in a house because the guy got out prison
Speaker 1: quite soon after that, and so whenever I came back home,
Speaker 1: there were just lots of random people waiting to score
Speaker 1: in the living room. So that's not the most convivial,
Speaker 1: you know, living circumstances. But I lived there for a while,
Speaker 1: and there was a shop just up the road called
Speaker 1: Swanky Modes, which was a woman's clothes shop. I've since
Speaker 1: found out it's kind of known in certain circles because
Speaker 1: it was completely run by women. The clothes were designed
Speaker 1: by women, the women ran the shop. I think one
Speaker 1: of the women who started the shop is now lecturing
Speaker 1: at Saint Martin's. But as I say, why suddenly these events,
Speaker 1: because I didn't live in that place for that long,
Speaker 1: maybe I lived there five or six months. So it's
Speaker 1: quite weird that suddenly all that story that's related in
Speaker 1: that song would just suddenly float to the surface of
Speaker 1: my consciousness thirty years later. But that's one of the
Speaker 1: things I like about being a songwriter really, that you
Speaker 1: end up kind of giving life a narrative in a way,
Speaker 1: because I mean, I do believe that really life is
Speaker 1: pretty random, but sometimes your mind will weed out stuff
Speaker 1: and remember certain things and forget other things, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of like it kind of writes you a life story,
Speaker 1: and I've got a memory now of that time. Maybe
Speaker 1: I would have ended up totally forgetting about Georgiana Street,
Speaker 1: but I never will now because I've written a song
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: Did you leave Camden before like the Heart before Camden
Speaker 2: became the britpop thing? Was were you out by the
Speaker 2: time that it became cool in that way? And were
Speaker 2: you still? Were you still there when things kind of
Speaker 2: kicked off?
Speaker 1: No? No, I was by that time, by the time
Speaker 1: of the Good Mixer and all that I was. I
Speaker 1: was South London by then, I was Peckham.
Speaker 2: You'd gone south of the river.
Speaker 1: I'd gone south of the river.
Speaker 2: That made me think of another thing that I've always
Speaker 2: wanted to ask you, And I'm sure you've been asked
Speaker 2: this before, so I apologize if this is a really
Speaker 2: boring question. But I think there are still a lot
Speaker 2: of people who don't necessarily realize that your first record
Speaker 2: came out in nineteen eighty three, because obviously britpop was
Speaker 2: so much later than that, you know, ten twelve years later.
Speaker 2: How did being in a band in the early eighties
Speaker 2: compared to being in a band in the mid nineties.
Speaker 1: Well, that's a difficult one because, like you say, there's
Speaker 1: ten for over ten years between them. And also when
Speaker 1: the band was there in the eighties, you know, I
Speaker 1: just left school. I started the band when I was
Speaker 1: at school and then carried on and I was just
Speaker 1: kind of learning how to do it then, you know,
Speaker 1: I really it was a thing that I'd wanted to
Speaker 1: do since I was a little, tiny kid. So it
Speaker 1: kind of ended up not working out. And that's that's
Speaker 1: why I eventually left Sheffield because I just it was
Speaker 1: like my dream had gone. It's very sad this part
Speaker 1: of the story. So it's like, you know, I could
Speaker 1: just see it wasn't going to work out. Sheffield was
Speaker 1: a pretty depressed place at that time in the mid eighties.
Speaker 1: You know, it was statues Britain. You know, people who
Speaker 1: didn't live through that can only guess at the horrors
Speaker 1: that happened during that time. And so when I moved
Speaker 1: to go to London, I kind of thought that was
Speaker 1: the end of that. It was a new chapter. But
Speaker 1: in a similar way to what I said earlier about
Speaker 1: how I thought that my disco days were behind me,
Speaker 1: and then I got involved in raves. When I moved
Speaker 1: down to London. I don't know. There was a friend
Speaker 1: who'd already moved down from Sheffield the year before and
Speaker 1: he joined the band, and even though the band wasn't
Speaker 1: really playing, it was kind of comforting to have it
Speaker 1: as an idea. And then with the going through the
Speaker 1: rave experience and stuff like that, and then towards the
Speaker 1: end of college, we just got asked to play a
Speaker 1: concert and played a concert and it felt different. It
Speaker 1: felt like people actually liked it, and maybe I was
Speaker 1: a bit more relaxed about it because I think probably
Speaker 1: the biggest difference, I suppose, thinking about it now, is
Speaker 1: that when I was in Sheffield at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the eighties, that was it was. It was like my
Speaker 1: whole life depended on it, and that's why I took
Speaker 1: it so badly when it didn't seem to work out.
Speaker 1: When I did it again in the nineties, it was
Speaker 1: like I'd done college. I wasn't really expecting so much
Speaker 1: of it, and then it just started to happen. So
Speaker 1: I think the lesson that I took from that was
Speaker 1: don't try too hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe you wanted it a bit too badly when
Speaker 2: you were at college and studying at college kind of
Speaker 2: before the band did then start to happen again. Was
Speaker 2: there something you were going to do when you left
Speaker 2: college that wasn't music that you had? Were you going
Speaker 2: to be an artist or what was the plan?
Speaker 1: Well, I've been really lucky in my life and I've
Speaker 1: never really made very serious plans. I've always tried to
Speaker 1: follow my instincts, really, and I was making I made
Speaker 1: some films at college. They weren't particularly good. I kind
Speaker 1: of thought maybe I would like to make a film eventually.
Speaker 1: I'd done a few videos, like whilst I was at college,
Speaker 1: some friends from Sheffield started the Warp label and some
Speaker 1: of the earlier, earliest tracks that they released, I made
Speaker 1: the videos for those, along with another guy, Martin Wallace
Speaker 1: I was at college with, and so I thought, well,
Speaker 1: maybe I could be a promo director. You've got to
Speaker 1: remember in those days, people spent like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: fifty grand on a video or stuff like that. You know.
Speaker 1: It was like there was that guy Tim Pope was
Speaker 1: always going off to the Amazon and shooting the cure
Speaker 1: floating down the Amazon in a canoe or something like that.
Speaker 1: You know, I thought, that's that would be all right.
Speaker 1: That wouldn't be so bad as a career. I'd still
Speaker 1: be involved in music, but i'd be in a different
Speaker 1: aspect of it. So but as to say, I hadn't
Speaker 1: really worked it out. And then around the time that
Speaker 1: I was leaving college, when I suppose I would have
Speaker 1: had to think a bit seriously about what I was
Speaker 1: going to do, we started playing concerts and people liked it,
Speaker 1: so I thought, Okay, fuck that, let's go back to music.
Speaker 2: Then I've really enjoyed your You mentioned it earlier, your
Speaker 2: disc goes from home? Have they been? Was that down
Speaker 2: here in London or was that when you were up
Speaker 2: in the Peak District?
Speaker 1: No, that was in the p District. That was from
Speaker 1: our living room. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Those were really good fun and you also did the
Speaker 2: stories which people can still listen to. I'd encourage people
Speaker 2: to go back and listen to on your Instagram account
Speaker 2: on like Instagram TV. You did It's a Sunday Night,
Speaker 2: I think, wasn't it when you did bedtime Stories?
Speaker 1: Yeah, at nine thirty every Sunday I would release a
Speaker 1: new story because I thought, I mean that was just
Speaker 1: because I again, at the beginning of Lockdown, I realized
Speaker 1: that I wasn't sleeping so well, I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people had that because we're in such a new situation,
Speaker 1: it was especially bad. I stopped watching the ten o'clock
Speaker 1: News because I realized that was a real no note
Speaker 1: because you would watch the ten o'clock News then try
Speaker 1: and go to bed and you'd have all the kind
Speaker 1: of apocalyptic images from it going through your head. So
Speaker 1: the series I used to do for the BBC the
Speaker 1: Sunday Service, I would occasionally read stories, so I had
Speaker 1: a bit of a stockpile of stories, so I just thought, well,
Speaker 1: why not put them out? Because once, if I ever
Speaker 1: read a story to my partner, she's asleep within three minutes,
Speaker 1: which can be really irritated sometimes when you're reading a story,
Speaker 1: because you know, you might not realize that the person's
Speaker 1: asleep until ten minutes later, and then you're just reading
Speaker 1: to yourself. You feel a bit of a burk. So
Speaker 1: I think that my voice has a certain boringness to
Speaker 1: it which can make people fall asleep, which I think
Speaker 1: is okay.
Speaker 2: It's hard to tell, isn't it. Is it a compliment
Speaker 2: or is it an insult that they fallen asleep? Does
Speaker 2: it mean you're boring? Does it mean you're soothing and calming.
Speaker 1: Well, I prefer to think the second one, and I
Speaker 1: have made a thing of that. I suppose, like the
Speaker 1: Sunday Service was all about trying to create this kind
Speaker 1: of quiet, low energy, mellow zone that people could kind
Speaker 1: of lose themselves in if they'd been out on a
Speaker 1: Saturday night and we're feel a bit fragile or something.
Speaker 1: And then the other series I did for the BBC
Speaker 1: Wireless Nights would was generally broadcast around eleven PM or
Speaker 1: eleven thirty, So again I tried to go for that
Speaker 1: kind of almost like a hypnotist, as you know, you
Speaker 1: talk in that voice like this, and you say you're
Speaker 1: viewing very sleepy, and because I like, you know, that's
Speaker 1: basically what I use the radio for a lot if
Speaker 1: I wake up in the middle of the night. I
Speaker 1: did it last night, so I woke up about four
Speaker 1: in the morning, and you know, I hate that thing
Speaker 1: of lying there and then you start thinking of one
Speaker 1: thing and then another, and then behind that you're thinking,
Speaker 1: go back to sleep, go back to sleep. But the
Speaker 1: more you think that to yourself, the harder it gets.
Speaker 1: So I generally will like go downstairs and put the
Speaker 1: world service on and lie there and just I'm not
Speaker 1: even really listening to what they're talking about, but it's
Speaker 1: just as a human voice they're talking, and somehow that
Speaker 1: helps with feelings of loneliness or whatever. And just kind
Speaker 1: of usually within kind of twenty minutes or so, I'm
Speaker 1: back asleep.
Speaker 2: You're done. What about podcast? Do you listen to many podcasts?
Speaker 1: I don't listen to that many podcasts. I know they're
Speaker 1: the new thing, and and I know this one is legendary.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, No, I.
Speaker 1: It is a really through choice. It's just I mean,
Speaker 1: occasionally I've listened to audio books or something. The thing is,
Speaker 1: I'm looking for something that doesn't really that I don't
Speaker 1: have to kind of stay awake to hear the end
Speaker 1: of Yeah, you know, I'm looking for something that just
Speaker 1: helps me drift off. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I really like Radio four did a series called slow Radio.
Speaker 2: Listen to that, and it is it's kind of sound recordings. Really,
Speaker 2: it's like of somebody walking for a forest or a
Speaker 2: trip down the Amazon in a canoe. Just the sound
Speaker 2: of that. And that's great for falling asleep too.
Speaker 1: Yeah that sounds good. Yeah, well I think you know
Speaker 1: that that's a that's a very kind of essential function
Speaker 1: that radio or podcasts and things can provide. So I'm
Speaker 1: I'm personally not insulted if people fall asleep whilst listening
Speaker 1: to me. I like it means I take it as
Speaker 1: a compliment. It means they feel safe and relaxed. Exactly. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you must have been people asked you
Speaker 2: to do to host your own podcast. You must have
Speaker 2: had people say that to you, because you do have
Speaker 2: you have a broadcaster's voice.
Speaker 1: Dare I say, that's very nice of you to say so,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm talking to them about the podcasts for
Speaker 1: as I bears, I haven't no, I mean I could do,
Speaker 1: I'm sure if I wanted to, and I'm still doing
Speaker 1: the I think there is going to be another series
Speaker 1: of Wireless Nights, and I do like that one because
Speaker 1: for people who might have heard it's it's really just
Speaker 1: a way of checking up on the things that people
Speaker 1: do at night times, and that can vary from Like
Speaker 1: we had a guy who went out night swimming, just
Speaker 1: like to go swimming off Dungeoness in the nighttime, and
Speaker 1: he wore like a waterproof microphone, so who could kind
Speaker 1: of talk about his experience and then one another time
Speaker 1: I was like a night watchman in an office building. Actually,
Speaker 1: office buildings wouldn't be much different to how I saw
Speaker 1: them in the in the night. All they're all deserted now.
Speaker 1: But it was quite weird to be in the center
Speaker 1: of London in this big building with no one else
Speaker 1: in it but me. So all things like that, things
Speaker 1: that take place during the night. We once were in
Speaker 1: a power station with the people who were looking after
Speaker 1: the national grid and stuff like that. So for me,
Speaker 1: that's great because I'm always curious to know what people
Speaker 1: are up to. It's a way of me eavesdropping without
Speaker 1: you know, getting arrested for it. So yeah, I like
Speaker 1: that show. And because it's broadcast at night, we try
Speaker 1: and weave the stories together, so it's kind of like
Speaker 1: something that you can drift off to. And I do
Speaker 1: believe that if you fall asleep with the radio on
Speaker 1: or with a podcast on, I think that information in
Speaker 1: some way does kind of go into your dreams as well.
Speaker 1: You're kind of absorbing it in some kind of way.
Speaker 2: Well, Jarvis, thank you so much for talking to me.
Speaker 2: You've been out. You have actually been our one hundredth.
Speaker 1: Guest really, so thank you. Well, you know what, I'm
Speaker 1: very honored by that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're you're a star guest.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you. Sorry, my alarm was going off there.
Speaker 1: That was like a celebratory alarm that was going on.
Speaker 1: Well no, well thank you. Yeah, I mean, and if
Speaker 1: if you're asleep now whilst you're listening to this podcast, congratulations. Anyway,
Speaker 1: good night,