Speechification

I wish The Specials had stayed with their previous name - The Coventry Automatics, that would really have solidified the West Midlandsness of the Two Tone time. This is a couple of pretty straight-forward documentaries about Two Tone, straight-forward but good. Some archive stuff, some ancient live performances, some reminiscence, good anecdotes. I liked the fact that a French hotel owner expected The Specials to pay for damage done by The Dammed the previous week, because both bands looked like punks. Style-tribe accountability; that’s what we want to see. MP3 for Part One here. Part Two here.

UPDATE: Hopefully the files work properly now.

It’s a little quiet here at Speechification towers isn’t it? Sorry about that. We all appear to be on holiday and /or watching the Olympics. Anyway. Here’s something splendid to keep you going - a documentary about B-sides, one of those documentaries that makes you realise there’s far more to a topic than meets the eye. I especially liked the bit about Phil Spector making awful jazz B-sides for records so DJs wouldn’t play the ‘wrong’ song. And here’s a lovely little bit by the programme maker about the tribulations of voice-overing. MP3 here.

David Quantick is the perfect chap to do this celebration of Mix Tape culture. I suspect the speechification audience doesn’t need to be told of the joy of mixtaping, this is right up our collective street, but it’s still a splendidly evocative listen. Of course, with the advent of Muxtape et al, there might be a programme soon about the Reappearing Art Of The Mix Tape. Though it won’t be quite the same without the biro scrawling. MP3 here.

I don’t think I’d had the nerve to post another Archive Hour, it seems we do it every week, but this one was a listener request so I couldn’t resist. And it is a complete audio joy. The words, the voices, the music are all great, a welcome departure from the Radio 4 norm in the use of music. But the sheer sound of it is delicious. Lots of crackly phones, under-powered tape recorders, badly tuned radios. It’s incredibly evocative. Hats off to Brook Lapping who made it, and in an absolutely unheard departure for a radio production company, mention it on their website! Genius. MP3 here.

Another of Ben Thompson’s interviews for Resonance. This time with national treasure Vic Reeves. He takes us on an excellent musical tour, including a childhood encounter with Jimi Hedrix in Darlington (perhaps a few hours before this photo was taken). There’s also some Dave and Ansel Collins, some splendidly odd British psychedelia from Piblokto, some Strauss, some Dick Gaughen, and Shoplifting by The Slits. Which, strangely, in researching this post I discovered you can get as a complimentary ringtone. That can’t be right. MP3 here.

More great behind the scenes stuff from Radio 4. This time looking at the world of Olympic judges and adjudicators. I love the contrasts between the passions and angsts of the athletes and the calm, necessary pernicketiness of the judges. Nicely presented by Allison Curbishley. MP3 here.

I caught the tail end of this while washing-up. Radio seems to do this behind the scenes in the workplace extremely well, I guess it’s less intrusive than telly. And this peep behind the curtain at ocean science is combined with interesting philosophical chat about the nature of doing science. Lots of Popper talk. Always the mark of a good radio programme. Stephen Webster does a lovely job with this, chatty when chatting, sharp when philosophising. Of course, it would be nice if I could also have pointed you at programme 1 in the series, but it’s gone. Ah well. For more science sounds from Speechification you can go here. MP3 here.

I’ve started this post about five times in the last week. And it’s no good, I can’t think of anything clever to say about this programme. It’s a series of UK soundscapes, each faded into the next, with a little puzzle buried in it. It’s very good and everything, it’s part of the always listenable Between The Ears series on Radio 3, but I can’t think of anything to add. You should just have a listen. MP3 here.

iPM is one of the great Radio 4 experiments with doing things more digitally. This weekend they’re broadcasting an interview with Sir Clive Sinclair, but they’ve stuck the original, largely unedited version on their blog already. It’s a fascinating chat about “the internet, the future of electric vehicles, flying cars, and the development of the computer.” And now thanks to the miracle of AudioHijack, there’s an MP3 here.

Next up in our mini-series of London Ear interviews from Resonance.fm is Mr Green Gartside of Scritti Politti. Interviewing courtesy of Mr Ben Thompson. Things we hear include a Scritti Politti song about getting a train to Wimbledon, how Mr Gartside is unencumbered by associative reminiscence, how Derrida tried to steal his girlfriend and Fixing A Hole by The Beatles. The sound quality isn’t brilliant. Not sure why. Sorry. MP3 here.