“The concept of this podcast is hidden gems,” Idles’ Joe Talbot tells Andrew Male in the latest instalment of The MOJO Record Club podcast. “But for me, these albums are like lifelines… Since I was a very young boy, since I was given headphones by my dad, music’s been my safe place … There are certain albums that reinvigorate my imagination, my lust for everything.”
For the past year and a half, we’ve been inviting some of our favourite musicians to join us on The MOJO Record Club podcast. In the company of our host, MOJO’s Senior Associate Editor Andrew Male, they’ve been encouraged to tell us about a record they love – a “lifeline”, as Joe Talbot would have it. The resulting interviews have been wide-ranging, thought-provoking and often revelatory – who knew, for instance, that guitar virtuoso Robert Fripp would turn out to be a passionate fan of the ultra-primitive outsider jams of The Shaggs?
The new episode with Joe Talbot kicks off Season Two of the podcast, and his chosen record is the “doom-like bluesy pitter-patter music” of Timber Timbre’s self-titled album from 2009, featuring what Talbot refers to tantalisingly as “a sinister raconteur with a dagger”. But there’s also plenty of time for him to discuss the new Idles album, TANGK, and touch on Lee Moses, Bill Callahan, The Pharcyde, Van Morrison, Traams, The Smiths and much more. Then, as usual, Andrew is joined by other members of the MOJO team to review a couple of significant new albums.
There’ll be new episodes of The MOJO Record Club dropping regularly through 2024, but in the meantime all 30+ episodes of Season One are now available to hear for free at your usual podcast places. As you can see, it’s an impressive and eclectic list of guests and musical selections:
Alabaster De Plume on Cowboy Bebop by Yoko Kano & The Seatbelts
Thurston Moore on Sistahs by Big Joanie
Miki Berenyi on Thirty Thousand Feet Over China by The Passions
Robyn Hitchcock on Electric Music For The Mind And Body by Country Joe And The Fish
Warren Ellis on World Galaxy by Alice Coltrane
Barry Adamson on Vertigo by Bernard Herrmann
Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite on Dopesmoker by Sleep
REM’s Peter Buck on Eli And The Thirteenth Confession by Laura Nyro
The Charlatans’ Tim Burgess on I Came To Visit But Decided To Stay by Armand Schaubroeck
The Raincoats’ Gina Birch on Chotto Matte A Moment by IQU
Michael Head on Forever Changes by Love
Ian Rankin on Creatures Of Light And Darkness by Jackie Leven
Yo La Tengo’s Georgia Hubley and Ira Kaplan on Catch A Fire by Bob Marley and Mister Pop by The Clean
Robert Forster on First Take by Roberta Flack
Big Star’s Jody Stephens on Willis Alan Ramsey by Willis Alan Ramsey
Natalie Merchant on Chelsea Girl by Nico
The Selecter’s Pauline Black on Basket Of Light by Pentangle
Lloyd Cole on Real Life by Joan As Police Woman
Rickie Lee Jones on Veedon Fleece by Van Morrison
Dexys’ Kevin Rowland on It’s Too Late To Stop Now by Van Morrison
Toyah Willcox and Robert Fripp on The Man Who Sold The World by David Bowie and Philosophy Of The World by The Shaggs
The Drive-By Truckers’ Mike Cooley and Patterson Hood on War Babies by Hall & Oates and The Glands by The Glands
Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson on Come Out Fighting Genghis Smith by Roy Harper
Jim O’Rourke on Word Of Mouth by Jaco Pastorius
Throwing Muses’ Kristin Hersh on Experimental Jelly by Tomorrow’s Tulips
Pulp’s Nick Banks on Cut by The Slits
Teenage Fanclub’s Norman Blake on Quebec by Ween
The Coral’s James Skelly on Elusive Butterfly by Bob Lind
“You cannot grow bored as an artist,” Joe Talbot says in that new episode. “If you grow bored, you are boring. If you’re interested, you’re interesting... And what comes with that is progress and conversation.”
Progress. Conversation. That’s The MOJO Record Club – and, as Andrew always says, you can all join in.
The MOJO Record Club is available to hear on Apple, Spotify and all your usual podcast places.