‘Inside stories from your favourite bands…‘
The indie boom of the early to mid ’00s is having a bit of a moment right now. Enough time has passed so that people are starting to feel nostalgic for the days of Pete Doherty hogging the tabloids, Alex Turner winning hearts and minds and Preston from the Ordinary Boys storming off Never Mind the Buzzcocks. The signs are everywhere. The Strokes have just released their best album in years. Doves likewise. The inimitable Maximo Park have a new song out. A recent Vice article claiming to crown the top 50 ‘landfill indie’ anthems was shared far and wide and sparked passionate debate about who belongs on such a list. And now, there is not just one podcast interviewing some big names from that era, but two. Welcome to The Boys in the Band Podcast.
Joint presenters Peter Smith and Richard Gallagher talk to guests such as Joe Carnall of Milburn and Frank Turner across 23 (to date) wonderful episodes. It was the Carnall episode that first turned me on to the pod, and sure enough, it’s a beauty. Elsewhere, the Rebecca Lucy Taylor ep (of Slow Club and Self Esteem) is also an absolute treat, and it is genuinely exciting to hear some behind the scenes stories about what was an incredible time for guitar music. Despite sharing some of the same guests, The Boys in the Band Podcast feels different enough from 22 Grand Pod for both of them to coexist in harmony, despite the fact that some musicians have done both podcasts. Where 22 Grand Pod is more rough and ready, The Boys in the Band is a little more professional, and there is something to be said for both styles.
Over the next decade, the era of The View and The Futureheads et al will be analysed and picked apart to death, that’s how nostalgia works. My advice would be to get on The Boys in the Band podcast while the concept is still fresh. It evoked great memories for me of a formative time in my life. As Hemingway said, ‘we can’t ever go back to old things or try and get the “old kick” out of something or find things the way we remembered them. We have them as we remember them and they are fine and wonderful and we have to go on and have other things because the old things are nowhere except in our minds now’. But then he’d never listened to a podcast…