Bill, Carl and Tim are three middle-aged men brought together amidst a chaotic and uncaring universe by the shared desire to make, distribute and discuss mixtapes.
Each week, your hosts produce playlists according to a theme picked at random and discuss them for an hour or so of your valuable time. To maximise your entertainment for this brief window of opportunity, they are guided by three simple rules:
Rule One: All playlists should be of album length (no more than 20 songs or 80 minutes).
Rule Two: No artist can be repeated in a playlist.
Rule Three: There is no Stairway to Heaven.
No Stairway 32 (Season 2, Episode 9) - Onomatapoeia
Poets and lyricists had long desired to use words that phonetically imitate the sound they describe. Philosophers from antiquity to the modern era, linguists of all schools and several noted East Coast beatboxers have all attempted to capture the majesty of sound in words. However, it wasn’t until three brothers from Tulsa, Oklahoma under the band name Hanson had the breakout genre redefining hit “MMMBop” in 1997 that the concept of onomatopoeia was fully realised in song form. Hanson’s song was, of course, wildly successful, being voted number 20 in now long defunct television channel VH-1’s poll of the “100 greatest songs of the 1990’s” - it also notably caused world famous poet Pierre Autin-Grenier to controversially rewrite sections of his celebrated collection “L'éternité est inutile” in order to reflect the now completely transformed literary landscape.
Hanson’s keyboard player Taylor Hanson had a particularly strong reaction to his unintended effect on contemporary French poetry and subsequently spent several years in semi-retirement writing knitting patterns for the local parish magazine. He returned to music when convinced by former Cheap Trick drummer Bun E. Carlos to form the super group “Tinted Windows” although the eponymous album that followed failed to include any onomatopoeia at all. The band broke up shortly thereafter.
In this week’s episode, Carl defends the Bare Naked Ladies, Tim is rendered speechless by the hatred Bill has for Nicki Minaj whilst Bill repeatedly denies that he is clearly suffering from the effects of sleep deprivation.
This week’s Playlists:
Bill: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0Anm7nKHJB7zSsbu49bPSg?si=1c58448b0ab14cf9
Carl: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7jpkMnK63aozAYu12XlR5r?si=0e5e93814ff54d14
Tim: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2nrwm4oI5R91wMfdj8BVOO?si=5b08e04a2d584e76
The Golden Shuffle: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/41uQWC10T9PaKi7YPjMlVB?si=acf1ca427b7e4999
27 Nov 2022
No Stairway 31 (Season 2, episode 8) - All About the Bass
Learned folk have often disagreed on the origins of the bass line. Today, the daemonic bastard child of the drums and the guitar is the undisputed driving force beneath all of our favourite modern popular songs, but there was a time in the recent past when records were tinny and bland and completely devoid of funk. Some blokes down the pub would have you believe that the bass line was invented by noted Italian guitar manufacturer Oliviero Pigini, who, having had the misfortune of losing both his thumbs in a kneading machine accident as a child, miscounted the number of strings on his new range of guitars in 1946.
The new 4 string guitar was an instant hit amongst less able players all around the world and thus the bass guitar was born. However, that is an old wives tale. The truth is that the bass line was invented in 1879 by Nebraskan fisherman Valentine McConaughy. Valentine had specialised in catfish and trout fishing until a working holiday in the Caribbean caused him to fall in love with bass fishing – so much so that he developed his own range of extra thick fishing line for this purpose. Alas, back home in his landlocked home state there was little call for bass fishing, however, his “bass lines” proved an instant hit amongst local thick thumbed banjo players, and the modern banging donk was just around the corner. Many Thanks, Mr McConaughy and your fat thumbed friends!
In this week’s episode, Bill accuses Carl of being disingenuous about Soft Cell, Tim accuses Bill of being “sublime” and Carl accuses OutKast of being a “bourgeois disgrace”. It’s the usual stuff, on a different day.
This weeks playlists:
Bill's playlist (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4CRbfksPum3FJGqvlLHz86?go=1&utm_source=embed_player_m&utm_medium=desktop)
Carl's playlist (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1qaQvLNW3HvOiDrC0JbZrH?go=1&utm_source=embed_player_m&utm_medium=desktop)
Tim's playlist (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4xVxD4WZxShTm926mvGmEX?go=1&utm_source=embed_player_m&utm_medium=desktop)
14 Oct 2022
No Stairway 30 (season 2, episode 7) - The Beatles
It would be facetious for a music podcast to go for any length of time without acknowledging the Beatles - as has been observed many times, the undisputed greatest album of all time is The Best of The Beatles; anyone who tells you different is selling something. With the acerbic lyrical wit of John Lennon, the edgy, genre-defining lead guitar work of George Harrison and the rhythmic dependability of everyone’s favourite Beatle, Ringo Starr, the Beatles reshaped the cultural landscape of the twentieth century. Also, the bass player’s wife made some superb textured vegetable protein sausages. You may think that there is nothing left to be said about the Beatles, but we’re the guys that did an entire podcast on the best way to soundtrack a hangover, so we’re pretty sure we can find something new to offer.
In this week’s episode, Tim doubles down on his controversial opinions about Paul McCartney, Bill blames a childhood of playing in brass bands for his hatred of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and Carl’s hot take for the week is that Ravi Shankar’s tracks are quite good but just a little bit too long. It’s classic stuff.
This week’s Playlists:
Bill (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4hiF732Hz0vMrZ3KSnYUQt?si=99bd326265444d7f)
Carl (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4IYfu8MBJt2nkdndWMopPW?si=e8cdcb44bb0e47c7)
Tim (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6dw4csWQlEuaTNtE2mWnfU?si=a073606ac4c34904)
The Golden Shuffle (https://open.spotify.com/playlist/41uQWC10T9PaKi7YPjMlVB?si=c83c2e2a21e54782)
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