Spooky doings in old Leigh on Sea...

Hold fast for horror, spooks and spine-tingling tales from 9 tonight when we're joined by local author and  the High Priestess of Supernatural Fiction - Syd Moore, reading from her debut publication The Drowning Pool.. a ghost story that invokes a Leigh on Sea legend reworking it into a contemporay context. Also in is Paul from Pouch of Douglas who'll be giving us details of an upcoming zombie art expo..

And - if we can track him down, former keyboarder, guitarist and song writer for The Damned - Roman Jugg will be summoning up some live music! Musically expect requests for Eno and Byrne's Jezebel Spirit, Drac's Back..This House is Haunted and a special dedication for the Lee Perry track below..

All live on Radio Podrophenia between 9 and 10:30(ish)

Natterwise we want to know what horror films haven't you seen, local urban myths and irrationally scary items..

Lee Perry - Disco Devil



If you haven't seen it -  tuck into the Possession episode of Thriller, one of the greatest pieces of TV fright-night fiction ever written...


Roman Jugg's video nasty

A Re-up Harry

Photo by Markus Reeves who's down with us this weekend and will be in session between 1 and 2 on Saturday here...

I'm on my hol's this week - at home. Well, half term innit? so not much time for the usual bloggings and banterings.

Being in lazy blogger mode, I'm going to play the occasional Re-up card and pitch in a couple o' home-made comps you may have missed. Two acoustic autumnal mixes of slow burning smokey smoulderers..

It's back to all the regulation rattling and rambling next week

Autumn Tales



Autumn Falls



And this swamp based seasonal was the perfect soundtrack to our ride out to Canewdon Church on Tuesday

Keeping It Peel - live from 9 tonight...

Pitching in with the celebrations and tributes to John Peel's life, legacy and love of music as part of the Keeping it Peel activities around the web and beyond - tonight's Radio Podrophenia is a Keeping it Peel special. On the playlist are tracks (and occasional appearances) from JP in his Perfumed Garden era, fave album tracks, radio session rarities, a demo version of one his all time top tunes and occasional quotes from Peel himself...

Natter-wise we'd like to know: which acts or tracks did you pick up on from the Peel show.  Which heavy hitters did you catch as absolute beginners, any low level obscurities or heard-once and never forgotten oddities..

Retune to Chance Radio to tap us up on any of the above from 9 tonight on Radio Podrophenia

If you missed last week's show grab below

Radio Podrophenia - Podrophonic Alphabet: E



If you missed our Peelcast from last year fill your boots below...

Podrophenia - Peelcast:soundalikes



A couple of nearly but not quites were...

Dear Diary:1980 - October

Fight,fight,fight - when I had rumble with Rochard (pronounced roach-ard). Our school year's notoriously handy Judo bloke. It started when he whipped a few stinging flicks of his school tie at a mate o' mine in the changing rooms - and ended with me having quick a straightener with him. Although the PE teacher walked in put the handbrake any more fiesty hi-jinx.

In other news, it's a weekend in London at cousin Sylv's where we call in to see her best mate Nick Saloman (who stopped by the blog for a guest spot earlier this year) and his legendary record collection. Including the rare Hot Rods edition of the Damned's debut album and tales about his childhood chum Stuart Goddard. Dig about and you'll spot Nick's mum making an appearance in Adam Ant's biog!

The London weekend

Then later - an evening at the pub to see his Nick's band the Von Trap Family, who had managed to nip a couple of spins on the Peel show, where I wore my dad's old Mothers Pride coat for it and put purple crazy colour in my hair. Would you believe in moment of psychedelic synchronicity Nick Saloman as Bevis Frond has just released a new album - The Leaving of London

Crazy Horses

And those wild horses are back, busting loose and running riot through  the school grounds. Although I'm still no clearer who the strange girl is who follows me home. And sits on the bus!

Records added to collection include: ver Subs - Party in Paris (with Capt Sensible on keyboards), Adam Ant - Dog eat Dog and The Professionals with Steve Jones doing a B A Robertson barnet..and of course The Von Traps..

The Von Trap Family - Dreaming Again



UK Subs - Party in Paris



Top 75 Singles

Top 75 Albums

E is for....

Earphones, EQ and every Tuesday at 9! Musically it's Elvis, Eddie and the Hot Rods, Eno and the unlikely alliance of  Edwin and The Beatles moulded and mashed into Starr Club companions

Why? Because the 5th edition of our Podrophonic alphabet gets unwrapped and revealed on Radio Podrophenia, live from 9 on Chance Radio this very evening. Along with the usual chat, banter and live action natter from the board members and regulars.

Swing by if you're about... or if not you can grab last week's edition here, via iTunes or stream below..

Radio Podrophenia - Kinda Country



As a last minute switcheroo, getting pitched in under the 'earworm' entry is this golden nugget of delicousness discovered over at Drew's corner of the interweb. You can grab a copy by zipping here

Dear Diary:1980 - September

September seems to be the month for horses and house parties - not at the same time obvs!

I say 'parties', they were actually more of a - buy some cider (Triple Vintage/ Merrydown) from the old dear at Unwins and get it down the hatch at a friends house - type tear-ups. For Hayes's socials, while the parents were out, the top-loader stereo -shaped and weighted like a mahogany block with wooden stalk-like legs - would be lumped down from upstairs for some music to booze to in the front room.

Horses: I'd chosen horse riding as a PE option but couldn't get on with it. The blooming things were typically either rearing up Lone Ranger style, or stopping for a steaming, streaming gusher of a comfort break. For extra curricular activity, we'd nip along to see J. Mowatt and mate Hayley Bill (not her real name, we added the surname for chuckles) daring a ride on Tempest. A flighty nag who was several hands too high for a 'rider' of my casual calibre, and why after being given a giddy-up slap on his back-end, Tempest shot off like a thundercrack, throwing me out of the saddle - but because of one foot still trapped in a stirrup, dragged  me behind like a sack of old spuds, bouncing across the tree roots and muddy bumps. I was black and blue for days after.

And photos too, (Michael) Hayes, (Jackie) Calvy and myself (with new bow tie) doing a photo booth squeeze at Southend Bus Depot (27th) - and Ye Olde School Photo taken on the 22nd

M.Hayes - top row, 3rd from left. Me  - next row, 5th from left. J.Calvy - bottom row - 4th from left

Top 75 singles

Top 75 albums

Records collected this month are: The Plasmatics, The Damned, more Spizz, more Splodgeness and Dead Kennedy's Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables - most which had been ear-wigged from late night listens to John Peel....

 The Plasmatics - Monkey Suit



Dead Kennedys - Chemical Warfare






A teaser trailer for next month's diary doings - where the entries are expanded in a Silvine notebook..
I haven't a clue who the 'weird girl' that follows me home is, or why I hide in the garage from her. And how about that! LOTR at our school!

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman

I'm a little bit country. I'm a little bit rock 'n roll

Take your partners for a rootin' tootin' tear-up as we go 'Kinda Country' on tonight's live action Radio Podrophenia - where everything from Abba covers to Zydeco stompers get pitched in the pot.

The Elvis back catalogue has been on and off the subs bench all week, as I've been doing some king-size juggling between outtakes and obscurities from the undubbed masters album One Hundred Years From Now and the blue-aired booty Cut Me and I Bleed, which in essence, is Effing and Jeffing with Elvis.
Similarly I still can't decide which way to swing on the offbeat. Either Marlene Webber's Stand By Your Man or the banjo 'n' blue beat bounce of Beverly Hillbilly Ska

And Fi Jacobs from The Railway Hotel drops in for a round up of what's on at Southend's most rock 'n' roll local during October. So buckle up from 9 for a ride around Podrophenia country

Marlene Webber - Stand By Your Man



 Granville Williams Orchestra - Beverly Hillbilly Ska



Natter-wise I'd like to try and nail look-a-likes for this 'orrible lot.  I'm claiming Mr Top Left as David Beckham - but what about the other salty ol' sea dogs..?

This masterclass in nifty-fingered frettery from Albert Lee will be appearing at some point tonight..



If you're not iTuned up - you can load up last week's Radio Podrophenia via this MP3 DL

And don't forget you can grab - Dolly does disco and northern soul here

Dear Diary:1980 - August

We posted a pic, some years back - of a buzzed-up teenage me wearing a just-bought muslin shirt (Anarchist Gang design). It was one of three tees bought from the ex-Seditionaries stock being sold off at Boy, while 430 King's Rd was being refitted as World's End. And behold, here's the very date in week two of our holiday (a week spent at home with trips and days out: Clacton, nan's...) 6th August!

After two weeks away, the record buying is back on track with everything from Spizz to Crass, being added to the collection (although I can't seem to find Discharge's (Fight Back). The Damned pitch in with three appearances - look away if you don't want to know the answers: White Rabbit (on import), the Rat Scabies produced Urban Gorilla and the entire band (minus Vanian) backing Magic Michael on Millionaire. We'll have more on this one-off curiosity later (with an exclusive from C Sensible)

But the key 45 here is Adam and the Ants. I'd heard 'Kings' deep into a Peel show one night - it may well have even been the playout track - the disjointed twanging and modal tones of Marco's riff, the clattering war drums and the tribal callback and chants crackling out of my radio at near-to-midnight, made it sound like nothing on earth - and of course I was hooked from the first hearing.

Well really! How's your blooming luck - all those stolen moments of flashes and snatches of free-eyefuls (if you'll pardon the phrase) from LOTR and she only goes and winks at my best mate Whitlow doesn't she (17th). Incredible! Although there's a snip of follow up news (22nd), but I'll leave that for another time...

Top 75 singles

Top 75 albums

A couple of oddities and obscurities rather than the obvious...The poppy-horror B-side to White Rabbit and an early doors version of 'Kings'...

The Satellites - Urbane Gorilla



The Damned - Rabid (Over You)



Adam and the Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier (first version)




Speaking of Rabid - the 'rabbits film' noted on the 9th - is low budget, mutant bunny flick. Night of the Lepus

Name That Tune

Well, it's more name that drummer really - who is the mystery tub-thumper bashing about on the Black Abbot's uptempo update of Soul Man?

Black Abbots - Soul Man



It's a tune pitched on to tonight's playlist - along with The Sid Presley Experience, The Len Price 3 and Betty Wright (or possibly Lowell Fulson instead) as we roll-out twelve tracks fitted around 'Names' for tonight's Radio Podrophenia - live from 9 on Chance Radio. Where we'll be joined by Gary Fowles all the way from Memphis, Norway - Sweden..

If you've had trouble tuning in or can't do Tuesday's, all back issues are grabbable via iTunes



You can catch the Len Price 3 live at the Half Moon Putney October 14th. Full details are viewable at Retroman's site

And the mystery drummer was....him on the second left. Russ Abbot

Dear Diary:1980 - July

It's holidays a go-go for July. A school camping trip to Danbury, where Dave Wright and I were wedged cat/fire brigade style up a tree while the school bus was rumbling its engines,  readying to head home.

Off to Surrey for and Auntie Sylv and Uncle Wally's, as I'd signed up for week long drama course in Leatherhead. I'd mentally doodled with the idea of becoming an actor at the time - but was plainly so shoulder-cringingly shy, it was never going to happen. Bless mum and dad for indulging me with a week to find out though. The week's group was an eccentric collective, mostly pooled from bored broker wives in velour tracksuits or soon-to-be-Sloane Ranger types. Except Eileen (22nd)- who looked like Oliver Cromwell in a tutu.

Keeping with the theme of theatrics, and amost as a  reprise of last month's Johnny Rotten run-out, was my improv school disco rendition of Sid Vicous doing My Way (16th). I'd slipped my copy of the single to the metalwork teacher turned DJ, and became so fired up when the slow-groaning opening notes came into play - I was off, miming Sid's gangly moves to the tune. It went down a treat. Spontaneous applause from the disco teens and pats on the back from pals. Even the RE tutor bought me a celebratory orange squash..

Next stop, Sale in Cheshire (never say 'in Manchester') for a week parked up with Uncle Les and Auntie Jean.  A run on the Corkscrew and terrifying dad by shaking our cable car during its slow-dragging, dangle-of-doom across the Alton Towers estate were trip highlights. All this and Blackpool too

A bit thin on records bagged this month though. Just Charlie Harper's (he of the UK Subs) solo single on snot-green vinyl..

Charlie Harper - Barmy London Army

Keep 'em peeled for a mad mix of metal and AOR in the charts

Top 75 singles


Top 75 albums

Seen in Swindle-vision at Southend's Odeon on the 19th - would you believe 31 years later, I'm nipping to our Rock 'n' Roll local to catch Tenpole Tudor in action this Saturday..



Sid does it his way...