Show Notes
When Welsh Lads Got Big, Warm, and Ready for Arenas
Hosts: Neil & Chris
Duration: ~82 minutes
Release: 28 July 2025
Episode Description
Chris arrives early and prepared, an event so unprecedented that Neil suspects a parallel universe shift. The pair dive into Stereophonics' second album Performance and Cocktails, whose title came from a business card handed to Kelly Jones at Shine, a bizarre New York club featuring trapeze artists in pig heads. Chris calls this record his "comfort blanket," while Neil makes the bold claim it's "one of the greatest sounding records." Both recall it being a touchstone of their school friendship alongside Eels and NOFX, back when they made homemade radio shows on cassette decks with fictional bands like Powerhead.
The album sold 1.7 million copies in the Napster year of 1999, debuting at number one and spending 101 weeks in the UK top 100. Recorded across four studios (Courtyard, Parkgate, Real World, and Rockfield) and produced by Bird and Bush, it launched Stereophonics from club dates to arena headliners. The hosts marvel at how the record sounds both massive in the car and intimately detailed through headphones, a feat rarely achieved. Kelly Jones wrote most tracks on a 60 quid Tanglewood guitar and the band came straight off the road into the studio, capturing their live tightness across those sessions.
What You'll Hear:
- Why Chris's unprecedented organization triggers existential crisis in Neil about universal shifts and Ozzy on Radio 2
- The sonic miracle of a record that sounds huge yet reveals Kelly's vocal air and breath when you listen closely
- How Kelly learned Imagine on piano from producer Marshall Bird, then flipped it backwards to write I Stopped To Fill My Car Up
- Bartender and the Thief's apocalyptic Apocalypse Now video shot on the River Kwai with Thai army and pyro that genuinely scared Stuart Cable
- The touching interview where Kelly Jones reveals he and Stuart Cable reconciled within a year of the split and remained close friends until Stuart's death
- Just Looking as the perfect drunk moms singalong at pub gigs, Kelly's Roald Dahl storytelling twist, and model Lucy Joplin posing for the Scarlet Page cover after all night absinthe and opium
Featured Tracks & Analysis:
The Bartender and the Thief kicks things off with Richard Jones literally drunk and falling over his guitar to create that intro. Just Looking showcases Kelly's voice carrying the song with beautiful texture and detail. I Stopped To Fill My Car Up brings atmospheric Massive Attack drum loops and piano, told as a Twilight Zone twist tale that became Stuart Cable's favorite because he loved Kelly's lyrics. The album balances big stomp with nuance, recorded live in few takes to capture the band's road-tightened chemistry. Kelly wrote most of it on tour buses during FIFA 97 sessions, Marshall Bird added organ and Mellotron layers, and Astrid provided backing vocals including her Counting Crows connection on Sullivan Street.
Tangential Gold:
- Jorvik Viking Centre poo in a jar ("It's a poo!"), train museums full of trains ("It was just all trains"), and Porsche 911 obsession causing family eye-rolling
- James Blunt and Noel Gallagher refusing to share Jules Holland photo with each other because common enemy, Tim Minchin's click track existential questions about AI driving people back to authentic live music
- Spinal Tap 2 anticipation rivaling Top Gun Maverick excitement, social media comedy holy trinity (Spinal Tap, James Blunt, Ryanair), Elizabeth Line tube luxury vs Northern Line wee stench memories
- Reviews giving them 4 stars when clearly 5 deserved ("Give us five! Just change the stars!"), rising creator status on Meta causing confusion, homemade teenage radio shows foreshadowing current podcast 30 years later
Why This Matters:
Performance and Cocktails captured Welsh rock at its commercial peak, proving bands could craft records that worked everywhere from car speakers to audiophile headphones. The album's 1.7 million sales matched their next record despite Napster killing the industry, showing Stereophonics' staying power. Kelly Jones' storytelling evolved from Word Gets Around's village tales to broader observations while keeping emotional authenticity. Recording across multiple studios yet maintaining sonic coherence was extraordinary, and the live-tracked approach preserved the band chemistry that made 93 gigs in 1999 possible. This episode also honors Stuart Cable's legacy with Kelly's moving tribute, showing how band splits can heal and friendships endure beyond the music.
Perfect for: Welsh rock devotees, audiophiles who appreciate warm yet detailed production, Kelly Jones vocal worshippers, apocalyptic music video enthusiasts, people who make stuff in their childhood bedrooms that becomes their career decades later, anyone who needs reminding that even legendary musicians doubt themselves, and listeners who appreciate when hosts honor fallen friends with grace and honesty.
Transcript
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The intro with all the bass and stuff is Richard drunk falling over his guitar really, but we use it as a good intro. The album sounds a lot bigger than what it gets around and that was the obvious first track to come on there really. Influenced by a club that Huey from the Fun Living Criminals told us to go to called Shine in New York. Lots of strange people on trapeze naked with pig's heads on and all sorts of weird stuff going on. So it definitely left the mark and in the end somebody handed me a business card and it said Shine Performance and Cocktails. Hello! Hello, slightly different intro with a bit of a Kelly Jones quote there. Are you? Which introduces the album title, it introduces the first track on the album and it introduces our podcast which is called Riffology.co and I'm Chris. Are you going to tell everybody how organised you are today? You're on Neil. See what I mean? Yeah. Like, I know everything. You do, you've done all that. So for those of you that are used to the show, Chris normally does a lot of faffing. So we get in and normally I'm greeted with, what is it? And then we talk about that and then we go on to discuss it and then it takes about five hours normally to go from, what is it? To the podcast. To the joyful show that you hear. I came in today and I've done everything, all the interviews, everything's done, it's all great, I'm listening to it, it's brilliant. Yeah. It's a bit weird. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The whole world's weird this week though, isn't it? I feel like I've wandered into the wrong, you know, you're in the wrong universe. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's happened this week. There's definitely been a sort of universal shift into another realm. It's been a funny week, hasn't it? Yeah. In a positive way, I think, just everywhere is playing Aussie and Black Sabbath. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's good. Yeah. And it annoyed me at first because Radio 2, like people that are not allowed to. Do you know what I mean? Like rock and metal. Yeah. Like Radio 2 aren't allowed to do that. Yeah. Because that's mine. That's, you know what I mean? Yes. They're allowed to play Moby. Yeah. They're not allowed to, or I don't know what else they're allowed to play. Radio 2? Yeah. They're allowed to play. Florence and the Machine. Florence and the Machine, yeah. Very occasionally counting crows. Yeah, only the new stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They wouldn't play, or they'd play the new Goo Goo Dolls, but they wouldn't play anything like from the, yeah. Yeah. But they're not allowed to play Aussie. No. And they're not allowed to play Black Sabbath. No. But they are. They are. Right. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. I like this. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's quite, as I was popping out earlier, Lizzie had got the Radio 1, Radio 2 on, because she loves the Radio 2. And they were playing Crazy Train. There we go. Right. And I was like, I could get used to this. But it'll stop wearing it soon. Do you know what I mean? They're only pretending. Yeah. Yeah. But Crazy Train as well. Also, he's like both the meanest and happiest song at the same time. It's Aussie. Because it goes from that do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do- and you know flowery stuff and hear some squeals yes and then it was like that and it was so you had you had aussie singing about you know oh it's all really bad in it yeah and then you had like you know jakey lee or zach wilde going willy willy willy willy willy that's what they did incredible so i've learned i've enjoyed that this week that's good now because of time because i'm not you know about me and time time's complicated because we did black Sabbath didn't we was that last week no it wasn't last week no last week we did carcass heart work yeah and it was before that we did paranoid yes so we did that podcast yeah obviously before he passed away which is obviously a new thing yeah well we did that because we were encouraged after the back to the beginning show yeah which was like two weeks um absolutely extraordinary there um yeah i mean clearly he was a lot uh sicker than you know i think people thought but yeah yeah i mean imagine how metal is that though oh it is essentially to like play your own funeral yes like you know i mean it's a yeah like how like total control of that you know i mean it's like yeah new crack new what's going on yeah everyone showed up to party had a great time mega did a massive show yeah well i think on his own terms yeah do you know i mean it wasn't like it wasn't you don't get to do that normally no i mean you don't get to choose how you how you go out yeah bloody brilliant i think yeah so anyway yeah odd week um i have been mostly listening i've i've been listening to this record it's such a good record oh my god this do you know um it's like a comfort this record for me like a comfort blanket this so we're doing we're doing performance and cocktails and i i i went to see them live on oh they're 2015 i went on this tour oh did you saw them in birmingham yeah nec it was probably called at the time but yeah that's where that's where we went we went me and my friend martin book um which interestingly i was thinking about martin book today yeah he was my best friend at school yeah and we were like though we were inseparable he was one of those i've probably not seen him since you know what i mean he's like one of those yeah friendships where you sort of bump into each other after yeah school but we were literally like in each other's pockets pretty much for the whole of school and um there were three two or three albums yeah which were very defining of our friendship and this was one of them so there's this one there was um eels um which i'd love to do at some point yeah electro shot blues um and no effects oh yeah yeah probably probably heavy petting zoo but um but also um so long and thanks for all the shoes whatever it's called yeah yeah you know um but yeah the the the but this one in particular yeah was what we did now the reason i wanted to talk about martin book and i only remembered this today because you know like time and memory yeah stuff disappears we used to make little radio shows no way so we used to get a you've got it you've got to find a tape yeah yeah yeah so it was a tape yeah um like a obviously a standard cassette yeah and we'd have like a recorder you know the old ones that used to have a little mic on them yeah yeah we just used to record daft sketches and like like weird adverts and we had a if i remember rightly we had a little band that we made up called powerhead powerhead powerhead yeah um and what would what would we have been like 13 sounds like a cartoon powerhead doesn't it yeah something like that and it would sort of create this fictitious kind of thing to do that so it's just interesting you know when your life goes like you know 30 years later here we are sat doing a podcast doing pretty much the same thing just making stuff that we made same crap yeah i yeah i went to see them um on the 2015 tour keep the village alive right yeah and i didn't know i mean i knew the band i didn't know them particularly well uh but there was like um uh the photographer that would normally have covered like this kind of stuff was sick or whatever and so i said someone said i do you know do you want to go and do it and i thought yeah why not you know yeah yeah um and it was interesting there are there are a band that made a ton more sense when you watch them live yeah and it was um that you know often often in the studio and studio records there's there's a lot of layers of stuff right and it's to make them sound bigger and things like that whereas when they did it live obviously they can't do quite the same stuff yeah and kelly's voice seemed to be just let you know larger than life do you know what i mean and and especially he's got to be one of the best vocalists on the planet i can't you know yes it's incredible yeah some vocalists are not as good live as they are in the studio and i think him were well i yeah i don't think his vocals were suddenly better live but i think the fact that there's less like stuff fighting for your attention and there are tracks like just looking yeah and you you know his voice was just like you know it was a big arena show it was extraordinary and then i remember um dakota came on and i they're a band that like everyone knew every word yeah yeah yeah and it was extraordinary you know like uh for those that are like i know when when when you're shooting a band like that if you're in an arena you're told where you're where you are and aren't allowed to stand you can't just like wander around so you're kind of in that in that gaps if you push your way right to the front and you get to the metal bar like photographers live between there and the stage it's not a couple of years um and and we were allowed to be in certain places but they were recording a a dvd or blu-ray or whatever they were recording right they're recording something and we said we weren't allowed in certain spaces and there were only two of us as well there are only two photographers there so they'd kind of given one guy one side of the stage and one yeah um so i was standing like when and as dakota started i was standing against like they didn't have line arrays it was like you know the big kind of wall yeah like wall of speakers so i'm standing in front of that and dakota starts and my trousers are flapping a little bit from the speakers yeah and then the crowd start singing and then i'm suddenly aware that the the actual larger sound is coming from behind me wow wow wow wow wow and it's oh yeah you don't get that very often it's you know there are very few bands that um i guess get that and it was incredible they were kind of lots of bits in their set where they would uh you know properly tone things down yeah yeah just take them on a journey and yeah the other thing is he's such a good storyteller i think that came in the first record yeah that first record puts you in like a council flat in wales yeah and you know you know what it's like to live in a little village in wales and the stuff that happens and everybody was like i remember listening to that record thinking because i grew up in a little village yeah and you just kind of thought that do you mean that yeah it resonated yeah everyone talks about each other and yeah there's gossip and yeah exactly and then what i love though is that they it would have been so easy to repeat that yes for this album yeah um and it's it's still the storytelling still there yeah but they're telling different stories suddenly yeah something else yeah it's like yeah they suddenly had their eyes open to this bigger world it's you know outside of you know this little town in wales they've been on tour and they've done all this bigger stuff and so you know the subject matter changes a little bit but the storytelling is still really cool yeah yeah but i think he's always had that even even obviously this is a 1999 album isn't it and this is a few years ago now but he's always retained that ability to tell stories through songs a few years ago five years ago at least five years old but um for me and i'm gonna i'm gonna make a bold claim which i sometimes do oh yeah god i think this is one of the greatest ever standing records it does say the sound is is just it's big yeah but you can hear everything and it's warm and it's beautiful and it feels that for me like i said i'm not joking it feels like a comfort blanket it's like all of the best everything's right everything is i don't know how they achieved this because you you can listen to this in the car yeah and you can wind up to 11 and it sounds mega now normally albums like that yes they don't have nuance and detail to them right so you know you go and you go and grab uh i i don't know like a motley crew record you can wind it up to 11 and scream your heart out in the car to it but you put like a you know really expensive pair of headphones on and listen for the nuance and the details and they're just not there yeah it's it's compressed it's it was designed to you know do the the disco thing and get you moving this is bizarre this one you can wind up to 11 in the car it sounds great it's got a stomp to it put the headphones on and you pull out all of this air and breath and detail in in kelly's voice and then the some of the acoustic guitar some of the um uh you know uh instrumental stuff it's it's got lovely texture yes to it that it's bizarre you feel like it's so big and and and loud you think how how has it still got the detail but extraordinary um and recorded across like four different studios it's not recording in one place it's no it's all over the place no it's just what i don't know what they've done they've done something to make it utterly for me for me i'm gonna use with the word flawless i think it's a flawless record i think every performance is spot on um every nuance every details there but at the same time as you said it sounds absolutely humongous even the ballads even the ballads like kick in you know they do i was just looking where it was where it was recorded it was like it was recorded at the courtyard sutton courtney um park game catsfield real world and bath and rockfield in in monmouth of course the rock with the the rockfield connection is why we ended up yeah well we're here are we doing this in the first place yeah uh yes i think it's bonkers to get something that that sounds this big across all of the tracks like you know recorded in all these different places because normally you can tell normally yeah if it's something that's been recorded in a bunch of different places it's really obvious yes it's yeah it's not but this one doesn't know it's so coherent is it yeah yeah yeah yeah sounds um sounds really really cool to me i think it helped as well being um it had uh the backing of v2 which was richard branson yeah virgin richard branson say it had um uh they had a bit of funding i think to do it but um yeah and it was at the time where there was money around that's the thing yeah just at the end wasn't it i would say just at the end of um so this was napster year yeah okay 99 was napster year so the world fell apart after this so this was um like the year before you'd have had like lime wire and stuff yes a couple of years so if you wanted a virus in your in your music you'd have gone to lime wire um but yeah you know you then then napster came out and that took the world by by storm um and no one paid for music again no well i i remember you know having a uh a wallet full of cds which were line why downloads i've still got the cds that's in my house that's what of mine yeah have you got it yeah oh it's in my house i keep threatening how did that happen i can't i can't remember how it happened but i it's in my house i keep threatening to bring it in one of these days i'm going to bring it in yeah and then make you pick one from it and we'll do that album there's loads of albums i have weird taste as well you did you had is this some all kinds of weird stuff like new worlds yeah i loved all that there's loads of that stuff i got into bonkers absolutely bonkers it's like you know but um but yeah that's yeah it is it is where it is you know and um this 99 was a weird time this album saw 1.7 million copies in a time when no one bought albums yeah which is pretty impressive yeah the record afterwards just enough education to perform 2001 also sold 1.7 million yeah um bad mr writer on it though didn't it that was a big song it was a big record that sold the same number of copies so it tells you i think this that steady decline in you know their band's popularity so stereophonics got bigger and bigger yeah but the sales didn't go up and up and up no because people were downloading crap and and weren't doing it the other interesting thing i think about this one is that uh word gets around is a clubs tour so they were touring you know um thousand seater clubs yeah maybe a little bit smaller yeah and then performance and cocktails within within by the end of 99 they were doing arenas so that all of the all of that tour were upgraded yeah and again that's like unheard of like bands that were doing i mean this is i mean there's examples of that but like guns and roses did it uh where they booked them but they booked the guns and roses tour before they released the album yeah yeah so the ticket sales weren't high yeah and then the album came out and then that the album came out like mid-tour as i remember yeah yeah and then all of a sudden everything changed yeah yeah so there was there was a few really lucky people that saw guns and roses in these tiny little venues and yes and then all of a sudden you've got to go to wembley yeah yeah and the same was true with stereophonics you know you you got that they um supported i'm trying i i i should have uh i wrote an article for louder than war about yes it's coming back to me a little bit but um that first tour that they did they opened and supported for like tons of tons of bands um and then on the the tour that that i saw them on they had a bunch of those bands back out and support for them um and i just thought it was really nice yeah you know they they were kind of supporting bands that were you know probably on the downwards part of their downward spiral if you like of their career and um and they would just go up and up and up you were pulling them out on on on tour so yeah i went for a a a pee and uh and tyler was in the cubicle kind of leaning forward like that and he was doing a slash and i i thought i looked in i said hey steven i said thanks for us having on the bill uh today and he goes uh stereophonics i said yeah i said oh man it's pleasure it's a pleasure i said oh thanks very much and like i had a carried on with what i was doing and he went out and as i opened the door my girlfriend at the time her mother was going out with since i was like 14 she was standing against the wall with her head like this this is what's the matter with you like she said i asked him could i shake his hand and he pinned me against the wall and stuck his tongue in my mouth for everything you you read a lot of weird stuff about kelly about you know being a bit of a prima donna and stuff but i don't know just it felt like a nice thing to me yeah totally i yeah it's weird because i've never sensed that i know that he was very forthright in in opinions perhaps um and knew what he wanted and that kind of thing and maybe i don't know there's there's a few things where you listen we go maybe maybe he was misquoted a few times in interviews or they took a little bit that they knew like the early stage of clickbait yeah where they'd find something that he could say that he knew we knew would wind something up i remember i remember reading something about him saying something to do with like oh if it's if it's not got a guitar and it's not real music yeah and and it said everyone whappy yeah you know and because he was really into the guitar and and that but that but i think that's what he was trying to say is like for me the guitar is music because and and i think maybe that i think there's a bit of that going on like where words get twisted that was almost like in the media training that they the bands must have got back then right yeah i was reading uh an article this or no it wasn't it was on the performance pod was it the performance podcast wrote a success podcast it was on the podcast yeah one of the ones i quite like um and it was james blunt okay yeah talking about noel gallagher and oh the blur guy yeah he was he's the brain coxson no the the big blur guy oh damon damon alban yeah um now apparently they were all on jules holland so james blunt yeah uh no gallagher yeah and damon alban yeah with a bunch of others and there's a a um like a a thing right where they all have a photograph taken with jules um because then they were on the show yeah they were all on the show and there's a thing where at the end at the end of the show they all have their picture taken together yeah and damien alban and uh noel gallagher who famously hated each other racking them if you remember back in the yeah they were just constantly like fighting with each other both of them refused to have their photograph taken with james blunt really so like the common enemy yeah they forced him to wait and they both said we will not have our photograph taken with james blunt so so james blunt was made to stay in his um you know dressing room they had all the photographs taken and then damien alban and noel gallagher went off and did their damon did their thing damon alban yeah what did i call him damian damian damon i wanted a picture up but he did he said his wife so i don't and anyway so so they went off yeah and did the thing and then and then james blunt was allowed to come out that's incredible and they had gone so yeah that's wow isn't it yeah i i i don't know people are weird aren't they yeah um can we also take a moment a brief moment to to to remember the joy of the bartender and the thief video yes now yeah yeah was that the bridge over the river quiet one it was the apocalypse now yeah yeah yeah kind of oh but that's right sorry it was yeah um i i i'd forgotten the joy of that i i as i was doing the blog this morning yeah um the i watched the video and it's properly like there's bits in there that are epic so they're on this like like boat on a river somewhere in thailand or wherever yeah then this kind of you know this this um this this video this this video right and and um it's kind of daytime when they get on it and then and then it gets darker and darker right and you can see in the distance there's a stage and there's a bunch of people there and they're floating down the river towards it and then there's this as the song the bartender and the thief kicks in you know because bang bang yeah yeah these like pyrotechnics yes go off like proper like enormous things yeah and you can see the whole band like do you know what i mean yeah there's a there's a bit in there that's definitely not scripted i'm not sure they knew that was going to happen yeah they all look like oh and then you know then they kind of meander down and go on and play it's very apocalypse now the video commissioner in v2 was a guy called pinko and he used to get us all these directors and all these video treatments we never liked any of the video treatments we never liked any of the directors but we loved him and we loved our ideas so what we used to do is write as many ideas as we could which involved three people and they could rip off a film because then we would have a reference that it would look good so we did the italian job easy rider apocalypse now and we just put everything in here and um surprisingly whatever we went on tour we made a video so it was very cheap very filmic and it was the first time we got on mtv and it worked you know you have to remember as well the time that came out there was a lot of pop records on the radio like s club seven and steps and all stuff like that so we were on like sm tv and stuff amongst that and it was like motorhead ace of spades coming on the tail you know so it was it was a very different sound and um and we went down to the river quiet to shoot the video and all over with the thai army and it was uh the apocalypse now rip off so it was like three days and it was raining for most we had to wait for these little pockets of dry to do the shoots yeah i just remember us sending these little little thai boys off on scooters to buy bottles of vodka and then just them coming back like three hours later these drinks so it was it was a good time steward was moaning throughout the old thing because he couldn't stand it because it was too often too wet when you think about it he's watching every word he's saying day is and when he sussed you up he comes up and archie comes and hassles us yeah uh the bartender and the thief i love us steal what they need like sisters and brothers left in a chance tonight to remember robbing the graves of our business member he watched the last guitar to kiss the girl but mostly tough the last the last the last the last the last is the last the last the last the last the last the last is the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last the last strangely i record a lot of songs and i never listen back to the dictaphone um like i record a little snippet here a little snippet there and you've i'm very conscious to know it when the red light should be on and just record it but my main flaw is i never listen back to what we've done so i mean two days before we went in to make perform some cocktails i had even heard bartender and the thief and i was just checking the tapes the day before and i found bartender and the thief i found stopped to fill my car up um and i found pick a part that's new and i didn't even know that they were on the tape so there was this melody do-do-do-do-do-do and all that and and then on my film shelf there was that film the thief to cook the concubine or whatever it is the thief to cook or whatever that film is and i just thought something like that and then i remember this half story that happened in new zealand with this girl being in the bar and just completely where i got bodies dismembered and robbing graves and all that i do not know i'm enjoying the edit of this show you've been you've done some magic haven't you yeah i like editing what what our listeners might not it's it always sounds this show to me like we've done it in one go yeah because you like you like stitch bits together don't you just like imagine like a magic little like voodoo pixie yeah and just connect connect bits together but what is what is what i always feel a little bit unnerving about this is that um i have seen things that you've done where like we've been talking then something's gone wrong and then i've had to go back and start speaking again and you stitch it together and i can never hear you've done it and i'm thinking you could make me say anything do you know what i mean yeah yeah well i actually made you call damon damien i did say damien because that's his name um but do you know what someone else did this week as well which i thought was really scary it took 10 seconds of their voice speaking uploaded it to a website and then had the website transcribe them uh speaking a talky talk thing right and it sounded just like them really it's all ai oh it's getting clever now we just don't so you know we don't even need to be here we could say you know oh listen to the previous podcast we might this might not be us it's been scraped yeah so so someone's scraped i've always we're actually dead yeah um yeah yeah yeah by the bartender the thief this is the superhuman the super the supercomputer of the future yeah and it decides to go and do this yeah i do love the idea of an ai coming back in the future and like you know in a version of you no like like um you know like the ais go off and scrape everything yeah that's how they know it but obviously um the ais don't know what's true and what isn't true yeah yeah so they just take everything yeah and i love the idea that we would say some nonsense and it would be like 50 years in the future yeah that's the actual fact that's the fact it's a you know biblical but like bill and ted yes it's a bit like that yeah where they you know i just i i love that idea yeah yeah it's like you know somebody you know somebody you find like um when people either go and do metal detecting yes and they find like a like a metal object and like what is it and it's like oh it's what victorians used to pick turds out of their ass and they're like do you know what i mean but they're like do you know what i mean oh we found this lovely artifact is the most amazing thing i just i love all that it's even got a bit of turd in it yes i just i i we i did two things this this week yeah which you'll be amused by one of which i went to the jorvik viking center in york yeah which is excellent you should go there they've got a real human poo yes in a glass cabinet yeah and you like poo in a case is this in a jar they've got a poo in a jar it's just like run by five year olds it's just like you know of all the amazing things they've got sores i've got everything i'd put get the poo in there get it lit up properly and it is it's like it's like the top of a glass cabinet with like little led lights yeah and it's like this is a human so what was it like either the boneless is poo or something yeah and it was but do you you know i was like i was talking to my like my youngest is 10 over the poolers but inside just i was like i was like a biondy come on look at this what is it it's a poo and he went oh what do you mean that's the best thing ever it's a poo poo in a glass jar um so so there was there was that which was brilliant obviously uh then we went through the you do like a uh a time machine thing yeah you go in like a little railway car thing and you go through this old street which smells of poo yeah yeah so that was great my kids loved that obviously um and then we went to the railway museum okay uh which i loved it was properly nerdy and geeky and there's lots of you like trains no well not really i mean it's all right but i i liked the engineering of it okay right you know like like i i guess ostensibly my degree was engineering but i didn't do much i did mostly acoustics and maths but yes strictly speaking in engineering student um i like trains so there's a lot of that but they had like japanese they had the bullet train there yeah yeah i like that i like that one that does the tilt in yeah the tilt and train they had like maglev stuff there they had old stuff there they had we we live uh in uh in gresley church gresley in near swaddling coat and sir nigel gresley yeah designed the mallard which held the speed record for trains and got that in there oh really yeah which was great and they got a train that had been chopped in half and it showed you how the steam works and all that so there's loads of train stuff around there oh it was brilliant yeah but it was it was really really cool anyway they had like um this this area where the kids can go and do you know interaction with with things and it was brilliant um just spent the day there with lovely lovely cake uh lovely cup of tea yes nice got back in the car ask my youngest what what was it was it all right it's just full of trains so there was that as well which was great and i like you know when you're just thinking i'm doing i'm doing the best thing educating my children yeah yeah actual real real experiences seeing them in the flesh you know it's not on a textbook it's real trains what was like it was just all trains yeah so there you go kids that's like trying to take my my wife to a guitar shop it's just guitars guitars no no no but look at this special ones it's like my family really properly the minute will you stop looking at porsches like every every i've wanted a porsche 911 until i was five yeah yeah and i go through phases and i'm in i'm in a proper phase at the minute where every excuse like and then when i see one on the road yeah i'll be like oh that's yeah that's a 996 oh okay so you know that you know all of those things they don't like that at all that's like no no interesting shut up it's just purple one yeah shut up weirdo a lot of that yeah so yeah but no it was good i i did enjoy it it did it did make me feel um i don't know i quite like um i see that i like the humor in that you know that kind of stuff where you yeah you try something you try and do something really hard and then it just doesn't land don't care yeah i do i do love that i think it's brilliant reminds me a little bit of jack you know jack d yes you used to have that um uh tv show called lead balloon oh i don't remember that that um that's the same kind of humor yeah i think you know with that proper deadpan yeah just trains in it yeah yeah i like that a lot yeah but yes i if i had space and time and money yeah i'd definitely have one of our massive like railway sets you know oh yeah people have the controllers yeah would you go and no no no no i'd get a ready built one but could be a buzzer build it what's your favorite train um i think i like that that tilting one do you i also actually like through this is for a real life experience i like the underground uh elizabeth line that i like those those because they're nice elizabeth lines the new one isn't it yeah that's all they're all built around here they are that doesn't smell of wee at all no no does it like the northern line actual aircon on it yeah the northern line just smells of wee and then it does didn't it yeah i remember my first first week in london as a consultant and um i had to travel it was 30 degrees celsius above london yeah and i wasn't prepared for that i was like it's just you know i was hot toasty obviously that was back in the days when i owned a suit yeah i had to travel from like you know one bit of london to another they'll go down there i'm on the the northern line and you you go down like the five million flights of stairs and it was honestly it was like hades it was like and it just smelled like it honestly it was like someone just urinated on the floor and the stench was extraordinary um and it's not but no one mentioned no one goes like absolutely stinks of we in it no it's just totally just accepts it that's it yeah and then you get out the other side and it's like somebody's like you've been in a bath you know i mean it's so hot you're sweating and you just yeah i didn't like that very much no i do i went on the elizabeth line to paddington it's beautiful and i was like i could just stay here yeah we do our office is in paddington it's our office yeah so so i i could i go down to euston so tamworth to euston yes quite like that yeah i like that one and then i go from there on the tilting one yeah on the tilting one yeah i was on one of those i was on one of those that stuck tilted really yeah that was brilliant they made us get off right we weren't allowed on the tilted bit because apparently they said it might make us sick yeah but that's part of the fun isn't it surely i don't just can i not make that decision i don't need you with you stupid bloody did they have a clipboard yeah tabard there we go with it i don't know excuse me you can't stay here i think you find a car you know you've got to get off get off the train you've got to get off this carriage oh just just go away um but yeah that was quite cool um but it's nice i like that journey and then and then on the elizabeth you got on the elizabeth line from paddington um if i go down to battersea or whatever it's from there yeah it's nice nice part of the world yeah yeah yeah it's lovely yeah we're not very good at trains so i was reading that hs2 would cost 100 billion pounds oh and it wasn't we have not got it but it's fast ones i like the fast one like the faster like i don't china's they've got a fast one haven't they i don't know sure japan did all the fast ones yeah they did the bullet trains i i want i want trains like they've been designed in a thunderbirds yeah yeah that's what i want i want to have a big long nose that should definitely go under the sea as well rockets yeah i don't want i don't want something that's all electric and quiet yeah no i want something that's like maglev yeah and then somebody had a countdown and then rockets fire off the back and it yeah yeah yeah yeah or what's that telescope's a conductivity thing that's maglev isn't it is that maglev yeah yeah yeah yeah no that that or or that thing that musk was on about ages ago where it's about transporting people through the hyperloop yeah the hyperloop yeah yeah yeah yeah that's gone quiet hasn't it yeah yeah that might have been harder than it sounded yeah it's one of those things you know why why has no one done this before yeah yeah wasted holes under the ground before do you know oh that was the other thing at the transport museum this has gone off topic a little bit just a bit the other uh transport museum thing um was lots of videos and footage of the the england the channel tunnel to france yeah that was good and how they did all that and yeah yeah that was they had the things they had the the um i don't know enough about trains to tell you but the things yeah that were involved in making the tunnel so the cutie things out the the yeah but not the cut so like the labyrinth the houbliette that thing that comes down the track not the cutie head things but the things that took the things from the cutie head things out oh okay a bunch of other things that were there and apparently they those cutie head things are just left really they they um i sound like an expert in this now but i i only read it on the plaque they apparently you've enjoyed your plaques this week haven't you yeah the thing that was that they were so big and so heavy and knackered yeah what they do is they just turn them 90 degrees and drive them into the tunnel wow and then concrete them up really so there's like the ghosts of those those things in there in the thing yeah i wouldn't i i was going to try and bring the show back on track to music and then i was thinking what i wonder what they'd have listened to they would listen to acdc yeah of course they would back in black on which uh was that today or yesterday it was the um anniversary yeah but they would have had an they would have had uh back in black on one yeah yeah yeah i think um as far as tangents go yeah that's i think this is this is the best one yeah that was a really good tangent that good i've forgotten what we're doing to be honest should we do some facts yes let's do some facts let me switch my um i want to switch my ipad on but i've not got my ipad i've still got my samsung um which i'm still learning to love if i'm honest um i do miss my ipad so this album the making of performance and cocktails by stereophonics i'm going to read some crap off our blog from riffology.co so if you're interested in this kind of stuff uh that loads of people looking at that at the minute they do i'm gonna listen to this what is this for you have to be honest like loads of people are we at our uh we're uh i heart radio are playing they seem to be playing tons of our stuff but we but we can't listen to it no because we're uk yeah it's a us it's a us thing so if you listen to us on i heart radio in the united states of americaland thank you very much thank you very much you're very very cool people um and you know we're sorry about the um the the meandering we'll be able to talk about the tube yeah it's really important yeah yeah yeah if you live in you know yeah when they come over they'll know now they'll go they'll go for it we we were actually increasing tourism here there we go this is this rachel reeve's plan i know we'll get to we'll get two lads with the podcast to to encourage people on the tube by telling them that it's smelly it stinks of we and it's red hot but the the elizabeth yeah that's the one to go you can go there yeah as long as you want to go somewhere on it yes that's right this album uh performance of cocktails released on 8th of march in 1999 in the uk had a release in 27th february in japan uh which i think that's earlier yeah it's a bit weird i'm not sure i i was going on with that with that but maybe there's some special wales japan deal that they did rock british rock music's always done really well yeah it has yeah that's true actually yeah that was a big thing um actually at that time there was it was huge they're like like imports were a thing yeah we always used to i remember you you'd always be looking for the japanese imports because they'd always have an extra track on there that you wouldn't we wouldn't have got in the uk um genre um uh according to the mighty wikipedia it's post brit pop post brit pop i don't know what that means it's got synth in it it's alternative rock post brit pop pop rock yeah so there you go at runtime 50 minutes which is acceptable 13 tracks that's the right number of things that is that's a good good it's a lot of tracks for me but it's all i saw i i this is an album that i like as an album i'm a 13 14 track guy honestly yeah yeah i i do like this one this is one that is um yeah it's okay they did it's got it's full of remasters and stuff on the various streaming sites so it's quite hard to listen to the album that that came out it's all like seven cds worth of like demos and other bits and pieces which are great but no one ever listens to them so yeah um but yeah very cool um released on v2 records which is it was virgin it was richard branson's label um reasonably well funded um recorded over three studios courtyard parkgate and the mighty rockfield in monmouth um produced by um steve bush and marsh two people isn't it yeah bush and bird yeah bird and bush yeah i don't know bush and bird there's a saying about birds and bushes isn't there there i don't know what it is a bush is worth four birds or something oh it's gone wrong hasn't it i don't even know what the saying is it's something about bushes and birds yeah i let's just let's just go with that that's great um this album uh performance and cocktails was the one that launched the band so yeah they there was stuff on um their debut record which was great but um didn't sell mega uh this one on the other hand went like for a british band for you know for boys from uh you know a tiny town in in wales this this one went uh like absolutely off it um fairly quickly as well yeah yeah yeah um it was interesting i think at the time imagine 99 um like brit pop was kind of on the way in yeah you know like so you had oasis and uh and blur but um but there was definitely a welsh contingent yeah like you know there were bands there were bands there was definitely a wales thing going on wales has always been quite i think for this kind of music yeah it's always been good you have um uh oh what name of the festival they have a festival don't they in wales where there's like a hard rock festival steel thingy yeah yeah yeah and that was it's amazing yeah it's really really well i think and they get a ton of uh really really cool stuff in there um uh so um musicians on the records kelly jones for lead vocals uh he did most of the songwriting as well yeah richard jones was bass and harmonica um stuart cable uh drums and percussion um uh sadly no longer with us i remember listening to his uh kerrang radio show yeah he was really super cool guy really really passionate about rock music really knew his stuff very very cool um marshall bird uh was the organ and pianos and keys so the producer played on the record yeah malatron as well and then astrid did backing vocals on i stopped to fill my car up astrid's yeah yeah astrid did vocals on a ton of things actually astrid did vocals on counting crows um oh oh sullivan street oh no way yeah yeah i love that that tracks mega um uh oh uh yeah album title so there's a lovely interview bit that you've got about the album title um uh so it came from uh a business card essentially but then they used that business they used that line in their track roll up and shine and then take that for the album which they did on their debut as well yeah which is which was quite cool i think um the cover art showing the couple and the girls there um that was shot by scarlet page uh under the westaway in london um the image was inspired by an annie leibovitz photograph uh became pretty iconic um lucy joplin was the model in the full name um later as she said that she'd been paid 75 quid and had stayed up all night drinking absence and taking opium before the shoot somehow that comes through yeah yeah i mean she just looks like i couldn't care less yeah she's got that yeah she's definitely somewhere else yeah very very very very cool i think um um some of the mixing al clay did some of the mixing ian cooper mastered it um i don't know where the sound comes from whether it was bird and bush whether it was stuff that uh that ian did or whether it was our clay um it's incredible though isn't it it is not much sounds like it it doesn't sound american no no it doesn't sound british it's got this this is totally his own beast it is but it's big and brash and yeah and beautiful it is it's got this um it's got this texture i think which is just it's just pretty pretty epic um sessions a lot of it was done live uh in a few takes that's interesting you see i'm done there's a bit of this at the minute where i'm sort of exploring recording a lot and you know certainly from my most recent studio experiences everything's layered everything's overdosed yeah you know tracking one thing at a time yeah and there's a bit of me going i don't know he's missing something that's mot lang mot lang that's how he records yeah um and it is yeah and bob rock doesn't like that as well yeah but i think it depends on the type of music yeah yeah you know i think some bands that suits yeah you know like uh i'm trying to think of good examples of where that would work really well but yeah you know it's it's stuff where that that technicality is important yeah yeah yeah yeah but this is the band the band's a band and you need to the band need to play together to get the chemistry yeah if you've got a rock and roll band i think it should fish yeah i don't know it shouldn't feel i've got i've got a kind of a bit of a hot take on yeah where ai is going with this but i yeah i think i'm going to back up a tiny bit because i also saw on sunday i went to see tim minchin oh yes i'm a big fan of tim minchin yeah yeah yeah a big fan of tim minchin yeah very very clever very great very like cool musician as well um and he kind of started me off thinking about some just something he said but um that this this ability of ai to uh synthetically create stuff i think will drive people back to live yeah i think you're right experiences yeah yeah i think where where they'll go and do authentic yeah and where like you can't i mean you can play to click it was interesting because you could hear the like tim's band there was a bit in there where they made a mistake and the backing track you could hear the click yeah you know that kind of that like wooden donk donk yeah oh god i can't i couldn't do it i couldn't do this so that's quite normal right that's yeah you know the idea that there's a there's a schedule and a show and there's countings yeah like everything's been so meticulously planned yeah that you'll have someone saying like okay okay speak to the audience in two three four you know and then suddenly right okay hi how's it going and so the whole the whole show is scripted to click yeah and i couldn't do it mate and i'd put my guitar and go home i can't honestly i can't imagine anything worse it's more like a play yeah at that at that point yeah it's very scripted um but it was anyways interesting and it kind of had me thinking for for a couple of days after that you know like how bad is it going to get you know what what's the point in anything when you can just go to the ai you know create me a new i want a new i want a new heavy metal album a bit like you know i don't know massive reality and a bit like you know south of heaven can you merge them two together and create me a new band please yeah and it goes here you go and it's music you know when you're in that situation what what value does music have and it'll be totally brilliant yeah absolutely soulless yeah that's the thing isn't it is there's music's a soul thing it is it's a bit but then it kind of it was it hit me a little bit you know as i was thinking that uh you know uh watching tim and his band plays band are awesome really really cool it's because of the click but i think they were cool there was a lot of improvisation they were they were mucking about a little bit and and there was a lot of stuff where um you can see you know when you're going to know what a band's supposed to be like you could see where they were there's a lot of like oh and then there were a lot of turning around looking at each other kind of what are you doing kind of you know i mean there's a lot of that happening um but i think that's what's going to happen my gut feeling is people can be drawn to that human connection because people don't care about machines not very you know you can see it already yeah people go i don't want ai in my world i don't want this i don't want ai created music in my world i don't want ai created this in my world yeah um and i think it's going to drive people back to live music because and it's because i think it's for me it's because it's not uh perfect yeah it's you know what i mean there is this kind of uh oddity to authenticity to it um so i i wouldn't be surprised if we see a return to that for live for uh studio recording yeah where the ai is going to really struggle to simulate yeah vibe yeah like you playing you know what i mean so um anyway uh uh for this record a lot of it was like that um uh there's a lovely quote from kelly jones saying that they'd just come off the road so they were like uber tight yes they go straight in the studio there was no gap they went straight off the road straight into the studio um and everybody was like on it yeah just just bashed it out so um i think that that must feel incredible yeah you know what i mean when everything's good everyone's firing on all cylinders and you just you know smash it out so um it debuted at number one on the uk album chart sold 120 000 copies in its first week which is a big number british record 99 yeah that's like i don't know it's pretty mega the big single was the bartender and the thief yeah uh which we've talked about the video for it's worth going to watch the video if you've seen apocalypse now uh you'll recognize it look for the bit where the pyro goes off yeah i think it's stuart cable kind of literally just like it's the deck ducking it's very funny um well most of this record funnily enough was was written while stuart was trying to take uh wales to the world cup final on fifa 97 downstairs and i was upstairs writing just looking to pick apart this new on the bus so most of it was written on a tour bus um and a lot of we took wales to the world cup final three times yeah that single went bonkers i remember that being played like absolutely yeah i think i spoke maybe a couple of weeks ago about um a hard rock covers band that i had with justin and uh darren and called a hero to zero oh yeah you did yeah bartender was another song that was in that set it's such a good song to play it's never learned the words it's gonna it's like bombastic isn't it never learned the words properly um other singles uh just looking yeah which is one of my favorites and pick a part that's new um the album spent 101 weeks in the top 100 in the uk that's so so and that's the thing is that because there's so many different vibes of songs on it you've got your big bartender but then you've got like a a sort of ballad-y sound like hurry up and wait or something like that hurry up and wait you get kelly's voice just yeah it's beautiful incredible so it carries that song but it's it is yeah yeah yeah and then just just looking which which i think is just one one of the best all-time songs like i play that in if i go and sing in the pubs and all that sort of that that's ordinary in the set crew into the drunk moms yeah exactly yeah um so i would say chris is awesome at doing this i'm very happy making fun of them the things i want there's things i think i want there's things i've had there's things i wanna have do i want the dreams the ones we're forced to see do i want the perfect world but perfect ain't quite right shopping every day yeah took it back the next break you see the more you fly the more you risk a lie you see the more you have and i'm just looking and i'm just looking i'm not buying i'm just looking i'm just looking it keeps me smiling i'm just looking i'm just looking i'm just looking i'm just looking i'm just looking There could have been You drenched my head And said what I said Said that life is what to make of it Yet most of us just fade And I'm just looking I'm not buying I'm just looking It keeps me smiling I'm just looking I'm not buying I'm just looking It keeps me trying And I'm just looking I'm not buying I'm just looking It keeps me smiling The things I want The things I think I want The things I've had The things I want to have Is that life is what I want I'm not buying I'm not buying I'm just looking It keeps me smiling It keeps me smiling I've got a little Tanglewood in the house Which is, my old man brought me there For 60 quid in Merth of Music Before, you know, about 1994 I wrote all of WordPress around And performance copies on that And it's a bit of a dog to play But it's written a lot of songs Literally, you know This footage of me on tourbuses Writing, just looking And stuff like that With Agitar I didn't really think about it Until the other day But yeah, that is That is probably the one That's got the most stories I guess The album was in the top 100 As late as 2004 So it was in the charts Five years After it was released Which is, I mean Yeah Absolutely bonkers, I think It won Best Album At the 99 Karang Awards Yeah Which, it was interesting Again, it's one of those albums That kind of had a bit of crossover With kind of the metal community Yeah, but Karang at that time Was really, like It was a mess, wasn't it? It was metal It was new metal It was rap metal It had everything in it It was rock It was post-Britpop Yeah Yeah, that is Some of the stuff that happened In 1999 Right Napster was launched Yes He said Napster Yeah, yeah Which made everything I mean, essentially Made everything free for music No one paid for music After that You had Woodstock 99 I was a documentary about that Recently, wasn't there? Offsprings Why Don't You Get a Job Spent 11 weeks Wow The number one In the UK Metal and Singles chart Rage Against the Machine Had albums Def Leppard and Skunker Nancy All had big, big albums That time too Touring off the back of this They did all kinds of stuff So they went on a big tour One of the big things They played in the Swansea Stadium To 50,000 fans Yeah, I remember this Which was bonkers It was later released on DVD Yeah, yeah, yeah Which is You made fun of me for last week For saying that the Aussie concert Should be released on DVD Yeah, everyone knows what I mean Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah Bass and Max 1999 Guess how many concerts They played in the year Oh, loads When they were 93 Really? Two a week Give or take That's good going that That's mad Yeah, good going Yeah, yeah For a year That's bonkers But So they had support slots Support slots For the Charlatans They then Were Toured with UT As well Stereophonics Played with Ash The Black Crows The Crockett's Day at the Races Festival They supported U2 At Madison Square Gardens Just I mean Just mad They were Like They grafted Yeah, yeah, yeah Over that year Yeah, I think Just absolutely epic What did I get to down here Oh, it was shortlisted For a Mercury Prize Right Yeah Which was I think was interesting Media and television It's been in a bunch of stuff That I've never heard of It's been in a series Called Long Way Up I don't know much about that I don't know what that is No That wasn't that biking thing Was it? I don't know With With Ewan McGregor I don't know On like a bike tour I get it I get it from a website That tells me where stuff's been played I don't know this I did a movie in 2000 Called Whatever It Takes And then there was a few more episodes Used A few more tracks used In Long Way Up as well It could be Maybe it's documentary Yeah It could be Documentary Critical reviews Sorry Everyone just Like gushed over it And said it was Said it was really really cool Except for The NME Who gave it 6 out of 10 What do they know? What do they know? It's weird isn't it? Yeah Bit bizarre We got a 4 star review We did We got a review Yeah That's the end of the facts By the way I've finished with facts Oh good That was good timing Sorry That was me blurting Doing my blurting thing And my tablet's gone flat So We have had a review Yeah I'm gonna I'm gonna I sent you I'm gonna have to go And look on my phone now Because I've forgotten Where we got a review from It's really Thank you for reviewing us Yeah Podcaster Reviewer person Where did I I sent you a Yeah The podcastgeek.blog Yeah Gave us a lovely review And said Obviously Actually listened to it as well Oh yeah I mean quite clearly Somebody's listened Somebody's actually listened To the show All the way through A few episodes Commented that the show Should be even longer That's gotta be good Hasn't it? Yeah yeah yeah And Yeah which is great Which is really nice It was fantastic Did you write it? But do you know Do you know The bit So It was amazing Gushed it Said the podcast was amazing Which it is Yeah yeah yeah And gave us Four stars out of five Give us five Just change the stars Do one more star I know But what happens When you have five stars What's after that you see There's nowhere to go from Where do you go from there? Yeah where do you go from there? There's nowhere to go No no no no You've got to go Yeah I'm so excited Six stars I'm so excited about New Spinal Tap Yeah yeah yeah Are you excited for that? Yeah definitely I can't quite Yeah I hope they nail it There are some things I hope they get budget Yeah And I hope they get freedom Oh yeah To use that budget And nail it It's not the budget really for me It's about Just making sure The storytelling's not lazy Yeah Do you know what I mean? And it's got to be Because there is the same people Yeah So it'll feel Yeah Right I think And it's just got to be I don't know You've got to imagine Where those people would be And the things that would have happened Yeah In their lives And I just I don't know It's got the potential That's got the potential To be Just glorious Yeah yeah yeah Just to be Do you know what I mean? Just this Uplifting Funny I don't know yeah Don't screw it up Because that will I'll be crushed If you Just can't go on Can't go on Can't do work today Because Spinal Tap Wasn't very good But yeah I'm dead excited So excited It reminds me How excited I was For Top Gun Yes I was very excited For Top Gun And the F1 movie Yeah And you were like Both of those Didn't you? Yeah I do Yeah The thing is I'm quite easily I'm quite easily Pleased You know I'm a bit miserable Yeah But I quite like them So I've got high hopes Yeah And I've loved Their social media stuff They did the Coldplay thing Yeah You know the Coldplay Kiss Cam thing Yeah yeah yeah And they said Yeah everyone's seen So the Spinal Tap Social media thing Said You know If you're worried About going to gigs Because you're cheating On your partner Come to a Spinal Tap gig You know We'll burst your eardrums But we won't send We won't take pictures of you So they've been quite funny I think lately Which I quite like But yeah Hopefully that's Hopefully they nail it Yeah I didn't know I didn't know They're doing social stuff either Yeah They're funny as well Very funny Yeah My favourite My favourite tweeters Is Spinal Tap James Blunt Yep And Ryanair Right That's all you need That's like the Holy Trinity Just yeah If you're new to X Let's assume That you went away From it When Twitter You know When Elon Musk Went bonkers And bought everything It's like an Eight year old billionaire Isn't it Yeah It's just like Having a tantrum And oh I'm buying this I'm going to smash my guitar Whatever So we So we only bought that If you left at that point And you think Oh do you know what I might come back And have a look They're the three To follow Spinal Tap James Blunt James Blunt Rhino There we go That's all you need Or Aldi Aldi are quite funny as well But yeah No politicians Get rid of all of them Block Elon Musk immediately Because he's a bit bonkers I'm sure it means well But it's just not very funny Do you know what I mean Yeah It's very serious I remember the days Where he used to be quite funny Yeah He would say things And do things That you thought That's quite funny Yeah You know what I mean But now he's a bit I don't know No There's too much ketamine Probably Yeah Whatever But yeah But Ryanair are really funny Right Because people complain People genuinely complain Yeah And say like You know So-called air Line Blah blah blah You know I went on here And they'll They'll just Absolutely Rip them to pieces Yeah And it's just What do you expect For 20p They're very very funny Yeah And then There was somebody Complained About They were sitting On a plane So I booked a window seat And I've not got a window And they just Ripped him apart Good We'll get on that Right What we're doing next Should we put a song on And then Do that You've not thought about this Have we No Were we going over The back of the pond yet Yeah Yeah We were going to Come back over The Atlantic Were we Yeah I don't know Are we finished Here Are we done I think so We've got the Stereophonics Is there anything We could do a Queen one We've done Queen Haven't we Yeah we've done Queen We don't need to do Queen We'll do some more Queen I quite like the idea Of going back And doing a bunch of stuff From like the 60s Classic stuff Yeah that I Like I know I know the albums But I love the Rolling Stones But I don't know The Beatles Catalog very well Like I know David Bowie But I only know like One or two albums I don't know Well enough So it would be good An excuse to kind of Dive into that But yeah I think we said We were going to go And do something Like big and thick And American And kind of Yeah Do we do something Let's put a song on And then we'll discuss Yeah Stop to fill my car up Being the last song Was a song Like I wrote on a piano And I can't play the piano But I could write a few songs In it And Marshall Who's one half a bird And bush Who produced the record with us He taught me how to play Imagine by John Lennon On the piano And then I Turned it back to front And stopped it for my car But I had a little piano Off a woman in an air dress As I swapped for a t-shirt And it was like a Roald Dahl Twilight Zone episode In my head And the song came out Very fast And it became Like a massive fan favourite We used to close the show With it He was like a bit of a Massive attack Kind of drum loop Sort of sounds And stuff like that But it didn't sound like Anything else on the record But I do remember Playing that to Stuart For the first time I was in Real World Studios And we were down there And when you're in Real World There's lots of bands In other studios around you So like Robert Plant Might be in one Johnny Marr Might be in the other one And Ethan Johns Might be in the other one And you all meet at dinner So you're having dinner With all these massive stars And you're quiet in the corner And I said I've written a song on the piano And he said Come and play it to me And they made me go upstairs To like Peter Gabriel's Like grand piano upstairs And play this song And I just went Stop to fill my car And Stuart just started laughing And he said Come on Play it then Go on I said No that's it That's just how it starts And then he goes No no go on Go on Go on Start again Start again I'm sorry Because he was tanked up And then And then it became One of his favorites Because he loves lyrics Stuart Stop to fill my car up The car felt good That day I didn't know where I was going But it felt good for a change A file in a pocket full of silver I paid the lady not change And then it started to pass down I started driving again And then I looked up And looked in the mirror Behind me And then I looked up And looked in the mirror Behind me I'm on round forty In the backseat Must have stepped in When I was empty So was he sat there Just waiting Like clean and smash my face He had a bike full of money He said just drive me away I didn't know where I was going I didn't know where I was going I didn't know where I was going Yet it felt good to be strange I didn't know where I was going I didn't know where I was going I didn't know where I was going I didn't know where I was going I didn't know where I was going I didn't know where I was going I didn't know where I was going I didn't know where I was going He stepped down from the car He pulled a gun from his jacket He said I was going to die Said I was going to die I didn't know where I was going to die It gives me so much satisfaction I didn't know where I was going to die I didn't know where I was going to die To get your attention makes me smile I never looked up But looked in the mirror Behind me I never looked up But looked in the mirror Behind me Well I remember I went to a cinema In Cardiff I think And I was driving back On this A road It's quite a dark road And as I was driving through I'm not sure if this is a Roald Dahl story But I remember reading a story Where a car was driving And he sees a pram In the middle of the road And the guy stops And he gets out To move the pram Because he thinks there's a baby And as he does that Somebody jumps in the back of his car Now I did that story But also my mate in college Told me He came to college one day He said I was driving along I stopped at an apparel station This guy jumped in the back of my car And he had a gun And he had a bag And he told me to keep on driving And he told me this story And I'm like Are you serious? And he's like Yeah yeah And he's telling me He's trying to tell the story And then something else happened And he went And I never ever got to hear The end of the story I only heard the end of the story About two months About six months ago When he came to Cardiff Which wasn't as good As the end of the song Because at the end of the song It just says I made the story up But I think that is Definitely influenced By that kind of Roald Dahl Kind of twist and turn Kind of thing And atmospheric kind of track And that was a very different track For us to do At that point There's not even any guitars On that song I think So we've chosen We've chosen what's next But before I just wanted to When I was doing the interviews And it's been quite hard To figure out Where to put this in the show So I wanted to sort of Put it in now But I know that Obviously Kelly referred to Stuart Cable in that last interview And that You know This ended up being His favourite song Yeah And one of the interviews That I found was You know Of the day where Where Kelly found out That Stuart had passed Yeah And I think there was always This thing about them Having this huge falling out And Yeah You know It being quite a A nasty kind of Break up When Stuart was kicked out Of the band And there was like A lot of Heartache As a result of that But it transpires And I think it's important To put this interview in Because Kelly was like Yeah We sorted that out Within a year Yeah And we've been really Great friends ever since And I just I think it's just good To have that context You know About the relationship You got that from His radio show too Where I remember him Talking about the band Yes And he still loved it He still loved the band He was still The friends And Absolutely The fan And you know They went to Birthday parties And that sort of thing So Yeah I think Yeah I don't know The media love A story don't they Yeah It doesn't take a great deal And you know Yeah And even in this interview You can sit there Trying to lead him down Certain paths And he pulls them back So Yeah Stuart's brother Foned me Half past day this morning And I'm already Getting ready to go To my uncle's funeral And I spoke to Stuart on Saturday He was asking me What time Reece's funeral was today So I was going to see him Today for a pint Wish him happy birthday Last week He was 40 Told him I couldn't Get down to the party So I think me and Richard Are just a bit in shock Really We've been speaking For the last five years I mean we played together In our sound engineers Wedding Together again Now the split was done We all held our hands up And who was responsible For the split I mean Stuart probably would be The first one to admit What happened in the split I mean So we've all spoke since then There's no There's no regrets Or anything like that I mean we're all friends I mean we're all friends Like I said I was speaking to him on Saturday Wished me good luck For the gig in Cardiff And His girlfriend Asked me to go down To his 40th birthday A couple of weeks ago And I couldn't make it We had commitments in London So I texted him on his birthday And said Happy 40th And he said I never thought I would make it To 40 And I I said Well you'd live to London So that was one of the last things We said to each other Which is quite Strange really But Just character All I've been with Stuart all my life Did our first show together When I was 12 So I've been with him More than I have been away from him And You know Obviously when people Break up in bands People Think it's all this and that But You know Between me and him All our differences were settled Within a year of all that So I mean I still can't quite believe it To be honest I'm a bit in shock There's been a lot going on today So I want to go and see Mabel And His mother And Paul And I'm going to go from there really I mean Me and Stuart Used to go to that club Every Christmas day We never bought each other Christmas presents I would buy me a bottle Of Newcastle Brown He'd buy me a bottle of lager And we used to walk down the club And that was it I mean I can't even begin to tell you What we've been through together As friends And as Bandmates And ups and downs And all You know But And Just going to the crematorium From Ankle's funeral I'd like to pass his house So It's pretty surreal To be honest Yeah Sorry to end that one On a samba No But I just I don't know I couldn't think of where else To put that interview And I think I'd wanted to put it in Might put it there That's it It's done And we figure out What we're doing next Foo Fighters Foo Fighters It's the 30th anniversary Of the debut album July the 4th 5th So a few weeks ago Yeah But I kind of felt That's quite a nice thing to do We've not covered Anything We've not really talked about Foo Fighters No So we talked about Nirvana We've covered Never mind We did In Utero In Utero And In Utero In Utero was the first It was our first In this In the Riffology Yeah We did Nevermind as well And so I think That'd be quite nice To do To do that And it's the 30th anniversary Which is good And we used to do A lot of anniversary stuff Yeah So we'll do that And then I think I'd like to go And do something From the 80s Like Master of Puppets Yeah Or Ride the Lightning Yeah Or Just one of those big Steps us back over That way doesn't it Yeah Something a bit big And meaty And angry And we've not really Covered much of I don't know Then we'll figure out What happens from there Yeah Yeah Sounds good Sounds good It'd be sweet Got a plan We've actually got a plan Didn't need to do any Tricking the keys in the air Or anything No Yeah It's not easy It's great It's fantastic Great Well we'll see We'll see where the Foo Fighters leads us Foo Fighters are an Interesting band I think I like the history Behind it I like The I like the The change in style Yeah Of them As Dave Grohl finds his feet Yeah But I do love I love the secrecy Of it That he did it And was scared of Sharing it to anybody Yes Yeah And then And then eventually Shared it And everyone was like No you should release it And Dave was like No I don't I don't People will laugh at me Yeah And I love We've talked about this before Where Really talented people Have had this Like Total lack of confidence In their own ability I don't know I'm not sure if it's reassuring Or whether it's the kind Of human condition Or whatever But there's something I There's something I find Really Empowering about it Yes Do you know what I mean Everyone has those flaws Everyone It's not just me Everybody Even Dave Grohl Feels like it Yeah Do you know what I mean Yeah I don't know There's just something Super cool about it So You're looking forward to it It's a great record as well Wonderful record It's a really really cool record It's very It's poppy isn't it Yeah But then it's poppy And grungy And alt-rocky Great songs on it Great riffs All the things Yeah yeah yeah All the things it's got on it So Yeah looking forward to it Yep But thank you for listening Thank you for sharing Your time with us If you want to give us a review As long as it's not a four star review For only five star reviews only Yeah Yeah yeah Who gives a four star Thank you for your reviews Thank you for your time And I hope you enjoyed the show And if you want to talk to us We're on X mostly But we're on threads now as well Can you ask me what We're like At Riffology At Riffology At Riffology pod Something like that Yeah yeah Just Riffology.co is the main website Go on there then Yeah we're on there You'll find your way We're on We're on there We're on Yeah find us Well I mean Obviously you don't need to find us Because you're listening to us But if you want to talk to us On social media Yeah Because we do If you're new to us On the socials We do like You know Little games and that Yeah Like albums that are released every day And we do like Scrambled album covers And we ask you We go and look at Like each Like artists that we like And what Like the most popular Stream tracks on Spotify And ask you to To say whether it's Good or bad Yeah yeah yeah Do lots of that kind of stuff So if you like This era of music So the kind of 80s and 90s Alt and metal And all of that stuff Then Join us on the social medias And Yeah talk to us We'll actually We'll genuinely talk to you Because we've got nothing else to do And then we'll see you next week Cheers bye