Favourite moments from this much-missed series?
Nil Fun singing Distant Sun would take some beating.
Nil might be the perfect live performer – equally adept at the between song banter as the actual performance. At the risk of coming over all mindfulness on yo’ ass, he’s as ‘in the moment’ during the jocularity of the banter between songs as he is during the often quite dark songs themselves. Great hair too 🙂
Other suggestions from this mostly fantastic programme welcome.
This is rather good – Ryan Adams ‘Oh My Sweet Carolina’
I tuned in to see the great Roddy Frame but loved this and subsequently learnt to play it. Lovely chords…
Yep, brilliant. On the subject of oor Roddy, here’s a lesser known but fantastic choon:
Roddy played a stunning guitar solo on a Nick Lowe song IIRC.
just gotta say though – I’m Not in Love is just wonderful.
also – who would you like to see on any future programme?
Can be a genuine suggestion or a fantastical one, such as, oh I don’t know, Morrissey, Gracie Fields and George Formby…
On one of the above recordings, love how Nil Fun good-naturedly* called out The Verve for the similarity of The Drugs Don’t Work to Crowded House’s You’d Better be Home Soon.
*I say good-naturedly but for all I know he may have gone all Allen Klein on Ashcroft’s skinny ass 😉
Nil played in Dublin in 2014 and brought Nick Seymour out on stage for a few tunes. Nick had just got his Irish citizenship letter that day from our Minister at the time, a Mr Shatter.
Of course, yer Kiwi pronunciation of Shatter led to much hilarity; I think if there hadn’t been a curfew in the venue, they’d *still* be there on stage, riffing, skitting and goofing about.
And we in the audience would’ve probably stayed.
Best ever was John Cale, Nick Cave & Chrissie Hynde in 1999.
I’ve seen a few others but this one really stands out.
@Mike_H – funnily enough was just watching that. Agreed it is brilliant. My highlight is Chrissie singing Kid (one of my top ten songs anyway) and further enriching it by (spoiler alert) telling the story of the Cardiff waitress who correctly identified what the song was about. I always thought of it as being written from the point of view of someone like Julia Lennon rather than a prostitute specifically but no matter, it’s a wonderful pop nugget whatever, and this is a really affecting performance.
Just watched it all again for the first time in a few years.
I particularly like the fact that they all get engaged with each other’s songs.
On some of them in this series, there is definitely a little distance between the three featured performers, good as some individual performances are.
Standouts for me are Cale’s Fear and Ship Of Fools, all of Chrissie’s songs and Nick’s Henry Lee and Into My Arms.
Then there was Chris Difford being moved to tears by Justin Currie’s If I Ever Loved You…
That was my favourite episode.
Oooh good thread. Many highlights and the whole show with Louden, Suzanne and RT was terrific. This one is great – such a simple song, basically a three chord trick, but LW adds some odd chords for fun and the melody is a wonderful thing, twisting and turning like his unique thought processes must do to come up with his lyrics. Surely after all this time still a cult figure, bizzarely.
T.S.M.N.W.A.
Anyway, autobiography out next month!
RT and LWIII were as magnificent as always. Suzanne Vega – meh… not sure why such a mediocrity was invited to perform alongside two bone fine geniuses.
My favourite episode was probably the one with Paul Heaton and Dave Rotheray, Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, and John Martyn.
Mine would be Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt and Joe Ely.
Not from that show (Cale, Cave n Hynde is the best) but from EC’s Spectacle – Costello, Lowe, Thompson, Toussaint & Helm
@DogFacedBoy just watched that in full and it is indeed wonderful. Thanks for posting.