[MUSIC]
What does the album name Stush mean?
Actually, Stush is a Jamaican way of saying someone's posh,
and it was named after our manager because she forced us to make a decision about calling the album.
We had to come up with the album title in five minutes,
so we just said, "I'm going to call it after you're going to call it Stush."
Rhythology.
There we go.
We've changed our name.
Changed the name.
If you couldn't find us and you tried to find us,
and you obviously have found us because we're here,
but if you didn't find us and you took a while to apologize,
then I got a bit overexcited with-
Mate, honestly, you've been the most efficient human being this week with this.
Just been on it. Just done it.
I thought, "I know.
I have a plan and I'll tell everybody," and then I just thought, "I'll just do it."
Then as I was just doing it,
I thought no one's going to be able to find us ever again.
But actually, it's done the opposite, hasn't it?
Apparently, yes. The show stats have gone up loads since we changed our name,
and the website is busy, so it seems like it's good.
It was a good move.
It was. Do you know what riffology means?
Theology of riffs.
I'm just going to look. It says, I'll ask Google.
Okay.
Google gives you an AI overview.
Very good.
Which means it's wrong.
It says, "Riffology is a collection of riffs for guitarists to learn and study.
It can also refer to a YouTube series that teaches guitarists how to play."
Then there's a book on riffology,
and it says that it teaches guitarists from artists like AC/DC, Metallica, and Queen.
I thought, "That'll do."
That'll do.
Because it's difficult to come up with a name for what we do.
Yeah, because we don't really do anything, do we?
We just put the mics on.
Basically, what happens is, the previous week on the podcast,
we decide what album we're going to do next week.
We do. You forget.
And then I forget.
And that asks me three times, "What was it this week?"
And I'll say, "It's this album."
And then on Wednesday, "What? Bronsbeaker again? This album?"
I could tell you, I could give you three different answers, and you'd be like, "Oh, okay."
But then there'll be a week, where not only do you know what album we're doing,
you're prepared by Tuesday for the Sunday, and you've got all the interviews ready,
and you just go, "Come on, I'm ready. I'm ready. Come on, let's do it."
Today wasn't one of those days.
It was not one of those days.
I haven't done anything.
Because I'm either. I've got two settings.
I've got a super productive, the most productive person on the planet,
or you're getting nothing.
No.
There's nothing. Silence.
Is that what you were doing today?
Silence, nothing.
I like, I've discovered a love for memes, you know, the shorts.
But the thing is, I compare it to other people.
If I show you my shorts reels, mine is just meme after meme.
There's literally nothing of value in there at all.
It's just people hurting their balls.
It's people balling off stuff.
It's cats destroying stuff.
It's just that.
It's just like, there's that lovely,
I sent you that video earlier of the dog going down the stairs
and scraping his balls all the way down.
I was in stitches.
I watched it like 20 times.
It was hysterical.
And that's what I like to do.
I do sometimes wonder, because I have security clearance,
and in theory, they can see what I see.
So in theory, they can kind of come and say,
"Oh, we want to go and check out."
And they're literally just going to see a dog with his balls.
It's a great video.
It's a dog going down the stairs,
and he literally goes down on his belly, so he slides down.
And all you can see is his balls slamming against the wall.
The thing is, watching it, you're just like, "Oh, it makes you feel a bit..."
Oh, yeah, you do get that.
You're like, "Oh, no, I'll just stop doing that."
I mean, to be fair...
But that's obviously the way that that dog does stairs.
Yeah, to be fair, he looks...
Seems fine.
So we are Riffology now.
Yes.
We were Monster Shop.
Let's say that, because that's what we were Riffop.
We were the Monster Shop.
The shop was causing us all kinds of...
Having the name "shop" in our name.
Yeah, that caused a lot of grief.
We got loads of grief off that.
And Monster.
Yeah, and Monster.
So we got...
So when we picked our name, like, years ago...
It was very bad.
It was what a bad choice of name that was.
We didn't know what we were doing, really.
But I mean, ultimately, what happened was when we did some work on our blog
and I had to do SEO, which is really tedious.
And as I was doing that, I was typing in keywords and stuff.
And essentially, it was lumping us in with fancy dress shops.
So that's what Monster gives you.
Tattoo shops.
And like, Teemu and Amazon.
And it was like, "Oh, God, we're none of those things."
And it's really difficult.
So you can see the poor AI was getting super confused.
And Meta used to take our socials offline for days at a time
because it said we'd broken their community standards.
And we haven't posted.
But one time, they said that we'd breached their community standards
for a post where we'd posted to say we'd released a new podcast.
About, I think it was like an Anthrax album or something.
And then we're just like, "No, no, no, no, no."
No, no, you can't do that.
You've breached the standards.
You can't do that.
And then it said you were trying to do something by deception or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What?
Yeah.
Anyway, so we did that.
So we are now Riffology.
We were the Monster Shop.
And this week--
The website's loads snappier.
Riffology.co.
What a website.
Banging.
Yeah, I should have mentioned that, Riffology, R-I-F-F-O-L-O-G-Y dot C-O.
Yeah, it's just great.
It's brilliant, isn't it?
It's great.
What else do you want?
I wanted dot com.
Because somebody's got that.
Someone's got that.
So I'm squatting on that now.
I want the dot com.
And this week is Stoosh by Skunk Anansi.
What an album.
I still have the CD of this.
I love the compact disc.
The music for this show is from my original--
Oh, wow.
CD back from 1996.
I remember buying this when it came out.
One of them isn't.
One of them is special.
Oh, we'll come on to that in a bit.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
One of them is.
And I've got the vinyl of the one that we are not using from the original CD.
I should have done it from the vinyl, shouldn't I?
Oh, that'd be wrong.
I can't record from my record player, yeah.
Can you not?
Well, I could.
Just put a mic on it.
Put a mic on it.
That's what you would do.
Just ram the mic into it.
But yeah, no.
So yeah, it's the original CD.
Looking a bit yellow.
Oh.
Do you know when CDs go a bit funny?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I think this one would have lived in the car for quite a while.
And my guess is probably in the footwell.
All CDs ended up in the footwell in my car.
So it would have been there for a while.
So I'm always shocked when CDs from this era still work for me.
But yeah, that's when this one was.
And it's just bonkers, isn't it, this album.
I think bang smack in the middle of Britpop, Oasis, Pulp, Elastica.
Yeah.
All of that stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was going to say Maxi Jazz, Faithless, all of that stuff.
Yeah, but I think they were more akin to the prodigy.
They were more akin to...
I think you're right.
...the old side of that era.
I mean, it was a hugely successful commercial album, but it didn't feel...
They didn't fit in.
...pop.
No.
It didn't feel the same as...
Yeah, but they were on top of the pops.
They were on top of the pops, they were on the radio, the radio loved them.
Radio One played them all the time.
But if you listen to Skin Singh, she's got the most incredible commercial sounding voice.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a beautiful voice.
It's a really pretty...
I mean, she gives it some as well, but she's really got it.
All the guitar playing's exquisite, the bass playing's absolutely just funk, just crazy.
It's just like a hyper tight band.
For me, it was almost like there's definitely a melting pot here of influences.
They're not all into the same stuff, no chance.
There's a lovely bit in one of the interviews that we... I don't know whether you actually
chose this bit to be on the show, but there's a lovely bit where they talk about
the influences of each one of them.
And one of them, like some of them you think, "Oh, yeah, I get that, I get that, it's fine."
And then it was for Cass, I think, saying that he was really into Lenny Kravitz.
Lenny Kravitz, yeah.
And I just thought it was just this whole... It's like an explosion in your brain.
Yeah, of course it is.
You know, because you can hear it so clearly once someone's made that connection.
Who are Skunkanancy's influences?
Well, that's a tricky one.
Every band member has completely different influences,
which actually is why Skunkanancy's records sound the way they do.
I would say Mark, he loves a bit of Bon Jovi.
He likes his Cock Rock and he loves his Abba.
He loves pop as well.
Ace is Motorhead and Black Sabbath.
He loves those bands.
Cass is Parliament, Funkadelic, a bit like Kravitz.
You know, the kind of groovy and sexier stuff.
Definitely threw in some Marcus Miller and some Bootsy Collins with that.
And me, I would say, Betty Davis, Blondie, Nirvana, Vatius Machine.
I do love Coworkings Tapestry.
I love pop music and I love techno as well.
I like to bang out with techno tracks.
The other thing that hit me with this in the interviews
was when Skin was talking about finding her place in the world
and finding her influences.
The first music that comes to me is my childhood music, which was reggae.
I was raised in a reggae household and it consisted of reggae, reggae, and then reggae,
because my granddad had a nightclub.
So my earliest memories are sitting on the steps watching everybody dance into Scar.
And Scar was probably the first music I ever heard.
A lot of Jamaicans in those early days,
these black guys weren't allowed to go into normal nightclubs.
Five black guys wouldn't go into a normal nightclub.
They're just not getting in.
And so they just created their own nightclubs, really, and shabines.
And they sell alcohol and have DJs playing.
And my granddad had probably one of the most famous ones.
There's a picture of Cassius Cayby coming in through the door,
or Marley Cayme, Peter Tosh Cayme,
Norman Manley Cayme, who was the president of Jamaica at the time.
It's quite a celeb fest.
And my granddad, I just remember everything was this kind of etched glass
and white table, really beautifully done.
Very dark, minimal lighting, really, you know, a lot of cigarette smoke.
Everybody smoked.
You know, I still love reggae, love us rock and dub, really.
I mean, love dub, to this day.
So it doesn't like my earliest memory.
It's like Scar and reggae and Dennis Bryan and Gregor Isaacs,
love us rock, and I was a bit older.
And then dance for, like, and all the chatting,
which I kind of then ran away from and tried to find things that I did like,
you know, and that led me to indie music and rock and roll.
You know, I used to watch Top of the Pops religiously.
I was one of those kids that would sit, like, one meter away.
You know, back in the day when, you know, televisions,
I just remember when televisions went from black and white to colour.
That's how old I am.
And they had this big, huge bulbous thing behind them.
And you had to kind of sit quite close to kind of get it,
you know, in any kind of focus.
And I was, Top of the Pops was my secret invisible friend, you know.
I used to watch Top of the Pops every single Thursday at seven.
I never missed it.
My whole childhood in the ten years years, I never missed Top of the Pops
until I went to university.
And that's where I kind of saw another world.
That was my kind of, you know, ass from one land
down the rabbit hole into like, wow, what are these people?
What is that boy George, is that girl or a boy?
And what is, you know, David Bowie wearing?
And, you know, all this kind of...
I realised it was another world out there of music
that I just wasn't seeing in my local community.
But I will actually say in terms of the modern sound that's gone condensate,
it was the first time I heard 'Rose Against the Machine',
'Killing in the Name World'.
I was like, that's the kind of sound that I wanted to do
and that's the kind of sound.
And I remember that kind of light bulb moments like,
this feels like the music that I love, you know, that I want to make.
Because also it had politics in it
and all the stuff that I was writing was political.
We were in the forgotten South London town called Brixton,
which had no money put into it, which was, you know,
during the whole of the Thatcher years, all of the inner city Southland,
all of the places that didn't vote for Thatcher basically were just left to rot.
At the same time, we were completely brutalised by the police at the time.
So, you know, people will say to me,
"Well, why do you have politics in your music?"
It's like, well, because I grew up in Brixton in the 80s.
That little Brixton girl is always with me
and that little Brixton girl that was asking questions about why is this so,
is always going to be there and that's where a lot of the songs came from.
And so I think "Raising Against the Machine" gave us, gave me permission.
I said, "Well, if they can be successful
writing songs about their experience and politics, then so can we."
And I remember that record just because
it obliterated everything that was happening at the time.
I mean, it was the end of "Cockrock" and "Spandex" and "Big Hair" and,
you know, we should become so overblown and ridiculous, you know.
In England, we had this amazing black metal scene, you know,
you know, Iron Maiden and all the kind of mid-country kind of metal black bands.
Lemmy, what's got the name of this band?
Yeah, Mo'head, Black Sabbath, you know, all this kind of like,
you know, really cool dressed in black, kind of like British sounding metal music,
which was amazing.
And in America, you had this, you know,
"Gums and Roses" and all the kind of "Spandex" and their hair and
the really exaggerated, you know, incredibly camp music scene.
And then Nirvana came along with that record.
And if you've in two weeks, all of that American hairspray stuff looks awful.
It just looks so dated.
And I remember we were all like, "Yeah, this is our sound.
This is our thing now."
Because we were all, we were all, that was us.
We were already in the army clothes and all of our clothes
were from secondhand shops in Camden and in Soho.
And so that was another watershed moment for us as a band.
I remember being, you know, being 15.
And I was really into the anti-apartheid kind of groups.
I joined lots of groups and demonstrations.
And a couple of years later, I was living in a housing co-op when I was like 17.
And half of it were Namibians who were been exiled from Namibia
because they had a pro-apartheid government.
And then Black British and one white guy.
And so that was just a hotbed of political activity.
There was always a big pot on the fire.
And someone was always cooking like chicken wings or meat or something like that.
Because there was always a meeting.
We were always making banners in the basement and going on demonstrations.
And "Free Nails to Mandela" was a song I remember that really kind of
summed up the feeling of a generation, you know?
And I think that's what a political song can do sometimes.
It's not like that song changes anything.
But that song can be the theme tune to change.
- At no point had I connected "Rage Against the Machine" with Skunk and Ansley.
- No, but as soon as you do.
- As soon as you sing it, you're just like, "Aww!"
- Of course it is.
- Yep.
- Yeah, of course it is.
- That's riffology.
- Isn't it? That's it.
- But that's the, it's the tight rhythm section, it's the funky bass.
And it's the kind of guitar that's almost a lead instrument within itself,
while the singer's doing the singing.
And I think that's the bit, the same with Skunk and Ansley.
Because the guitar, because what you don't get, like from this era,
if you talk about like the Britpop and the other stuff that was going on that was guitar-based,
it was very chordy and it was very chord-driven with a top-line melody on it.
And what you see with Skunk and Ansley is it's hugely riff-driven.
Which is, I think, where this kind of more grungy, rocky thing comes in.
- I think you're right.
- And it's mostly riffs with chords played, obviously, to fill it out.
- Yeah, yeah.
- It's really nicely placed riffs with a beautiful rhythm section
and just a fantastic vocalist on the top.
- She's, her vocals. We did Alana Smoresette last week.
- Yeah, yeah.
- And there are two, I think there are two really big similarities between them.
One is their voices are just really...
Interestingly, I found that there is a tribute band for Skunk and Ansley,
and it kind of made me wonder how...
- Yeah, how to do that? You've got to be good to carry that off.
- But it's not necessarily good, is it? It's like an inimitable sound.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- It's just like her voice is her voice, and it's that unique sound.
And then you've got the uniqueness of the band altogether behind it,
but her voice is just phenomenal. And the same with Alana Smoresette.
It's this kind of really unique sounding, almost like once in a generation voice.
But then the other thing that hit me, we're listening to the interviews between them
and remembering the interviews that we played last week for Alana Smoresette,
how eloquent they both are. And just this... Because it's easy, I think, to perceive Skin
as this angry, political... She's just going to scream at you and tell you you're a fascist
and punch you in the balls. And she's brilliant. She's just so articulate and eloquent and able
to get her point across in this non-flim-flammy way. And it really connected me to both of the
artists where Alana Smoresette did the same thing. She would get asked a stupid question
from a stupid interviewer and you can just see almost the eyes roll. And then two seconds later,
there's this really well-considered, articulate response back to this stupid question.
And I noticed Skin doing exactly the same thing. She was brilliant. There's a lovely bit in the
interviews where there's a thing that I found where she answers her most googled questions.
Most googled questions, yeah.
And I love it because she's having... For the mailing list, I'll include these. I didn't do
a mailing list this week because I was faffing around rebranding the sites when I was just too
busy. You were quite busy.
I was, but next week I'll do... So for this show, I'll do one.
How do people join the mailing list? Is it on the website?
Yeah, go to Riffology.co and the mailing list is there.
Just on their page.
I can't remember whether I've rebranded or renamed. But yeah, but if you go onto there,
the link is there to sign up and it's there. But I'll include the links to the YouTube videos
that we've used. But I love it because you can see she's just smiling and grinning all the way
through. She's having such a good time. Yeah, doing it. And I think that's one of the things
I noticed about nearly all of this stuff with the band.
They love it.
Yeah, they're all...
They love it. They love it and they love each other. And you absolutely get that. They love and
respect each other. They love and respect their music and they love and respect the experience
of being in a band together. And I think that that's... It made me listen to her in editing
the interviews and doing the things that I normally do with them. It made me want... There's not many
people I do this with, but I was like, "I'd love to meet these guys. I'd love to have a chat with
them. I'd love to interview them. I'd love to see what they're about." Because Ace does all these...
He did all these Kemper... Because I'm a Kemper user.
Oh, of course, yeah.
And he was one of the... Quite an early adopter of the... He was always really into his technology
and his guitar tech. And you'll hear even on Stush, the effects and the way the guitar's
processed is quite different to how a lot of guitars were processed at that time, because
they were all very much plug the thing into the amp and turn the gain up and get that big wall of
sound distortion. His thing is very considered. It's almost quite delicate sounding, but it's also
very, very processed from a pedals perspective. You put pedals on it and that kind of thing.
And a lot of things are based around delays or some sort of modulation effects. And evidently,
he loves his guitar gear and using the gear to influence the creativity making the sound.
Kemper is like an amp impulse response technology, which means it's like sampling the amp
so you sort of sample the impact that a guitar amp has on the tone and then it sort of packages
it into a file so that you can effectively play any guitar amp in the world with any setting.
He's got these kind of presets that he's made that you can download.
So you can sound like him.
I remember you first getting the Kemper and it absolutely blew my mind.
How's it doing? I want to talk a tiny bit about sound because you were talking there about the
sound that he gets live. One of the things that I loved about this band is in September 2013,
they released an album called An Acoustic Skunk Anansi live in London. It's recorded at
Cadogan Hall in April 2013.
Is this the thing you got on vinyl?
Yeah, yeah, I do. I'm an addict. I think it's one of, for me, it's probably one of my favourite
acoustic recordings ever. I just think it's phenomenal. There's an atmosphere to it and
there's a texture to it. It's probably my favourite way of listening to Skunk Anansi
live today. I absolutely adore that record. I think it's absolutely phenomenal.
This week, three times you messaged me saying, "I'd love to play this version of the song."
I didn't acknowledge it. I did read it, but I didn't feed back.
You were really out of it this week. I sent you some brilliant memes this week and you
were like, you didn't respond. I was just like, "Is something wrong with Baldwin?"
I was out of it, mate. I was, yeah, work, work, work, boring, boring old things.
It wasn't until we got in the car tonight and you had it on in the car, coming over,
that I'd actually listened to it. Mate, I don't think I've ever heard such a good sounding live
recording of anything. Phenomenal. It's Len Aaron on the guitar.
And then Erica Footman is backing vocals and keyboards for that record. I was just starting
my review period. Do you know what? I want to do something and I like writing. I just started to
email loads of PR companies and said, "Hey, can I review stuff?" This was one of the first things
that they sent me. I remember just the hairs on the back of your neck standing up listening
to the record. It just floored me. One of those records. Very similar in tone, I think,
to the MTV Unplugged stuff. Yeah, but better. The drum kit, the snare drum. Oh my God. I don't think
I've ever heard. Honestly, as you know, I like my recording. I like recording things. I don't think
I've ever heard anything sound so good and real and with you. It's like they're singing to you.
It's like they're performing to you and you're there. I can't even describe it. It's so incredible.
What is hedonism about? Hedonism is about the first time I fell in love. To be quite honest,
I was treated really badly and I was trashed. It was that situation where when you first fall
in love, you give 100% of yourself and you don't realize it. You've got to keep a little bit back
in case it doesn't work. I was really crushed for it and I was treated really badly. The lyric
of the song, "Just because you feel good doesn't make it right," was about the fact that my first
love, my partner, was just doing what she wanted to do and behaving how she wants to do it because
she felt it was okay, because she felt great. That was how I summed up the experience. Also,
it was a bit bitter. I hope you're feeling happy now. It's just, you know, cold bitterness.
Let's introduce Len Aaron to you.
Everything started with me and Len in a nasty flat. Can I say that about your flat?
The nasty flat in Deptford. But as a band, if you write one song that everybody knows and loves
and it touches and it means something to them, it's wonderful to have that kind of legacy.
We've got that with this song.
I hope you're feeling happy now. I see you feel the pain and all it seems. I wonder what you're
doing now. I wonder if you think of me at all. We used to play the same moves now. All the special
moves and so on. I hope you're feeling happy now. Just because you feel good doesn't make it right.
Oh no, just because you feel good. I still want you here tonight. I want you.
There's lots to discover you. I see through all the smiles and looks you write. We used to have
the same friends now. Smoke away your problems and your life. How do you remember me? I wonder
if you're laughing or crying. I hope you're feeling happy now. Just because you feel good
doesn't make it right. Oh no, just because you feel good.
I still want you here tonight. I want you.
Oh no, just because you feel good doesn't make it right.
Just because you feel good. I still want you here tonight. I want you.
Doesn't make it right. Just because you feel good. I still want you here tonight.
I wonder what you're doing now.
I hope you're feeling happy now. I wonder what you're doing now.
I hope you're feeling happy now.
I think the chemistry that we have is definitely, is still there and it's
different than 15 years ago because I think we kind of honor it more and we worship it more
and we're more sensitized to it and we care a lot more about it. We appreciate it more, you know,
because it's not something you can take for granted, but you know, the chemistry is chemistry.
You either have it or you don't have it and we're just very fortunate to have kept our chemistry
all the way up until now. I think we got very big very quickly. We were a lot younger and
some ways we didn't really know how to handle it. You know, we were, I think it's only, we only really
stopped just before the third album. That's when kind of fame and the adoration and the craziness
and how big we were as a band, that's what it caught up to us when finally we could kind of do
whatever we could do. We could go and record an album in Bearsville and New York and stuff like that.
Well that's all retrospect, isn't it? When you've had something and then you've lost it
and you get it back again, that second bite of the apple, you appreciate it more, you cherish it more,
it humbles you. It's something that you do take care of. It's like having your first love back
again. Growing older, you're more mature so you can handle problems better, but you're more
appreciative, you know how to look after things. Yeah, by the end of it we were pretty exhausted
and I think by that point we weren't making very good decisions because we were always knackered
and we just kind of, the chemistry between us really dissipated and it wasn't fun anymore
and so also we just growing up as people really got more skills you know than we have before
we're growing up. We know how to do what we want to do and how we want to do it, but I think that
it's now looking at it, I think it was great that we stopped when we did because we stopped at the
height of our powers. We didn't make two or three rubbish albums, you know, we didn't become less
successful, we didn't butcher each other in the press. We didn't see other's girlfriend and
disrespect, the vibe and the freshness and the name and the the truth of the band, you know,
we just stopped because we didn't want to continue. And then now it just feels like thank god we did
that, we didn't ruin the vibe because now it's like why did we split up? I don't know, nine years
have passed, I don't care, nobody really remembers because we didn't have beef with each other,
you know, we just kind of like lost our connection with each other, so it's a war on the ridge now,
we're just enjoying it. We get on very well, we're really good friends, we've got a lot of love in
our band and so, you know, all of that is a given for us. I've played with a lot of other musicians
and there is no chemistry like that. It's not something that you can make, you can't manufacture
it, it's either there or it isn't there, we just happen to have it. I think one of the things that's
important to call out actually, because I didn't realise, it was only writing that review and
realising that Len Aaron wasn't in, you know what I mean, he was a really core part of the songwriting
for Skunk Anansi and then he played on that. I love the way it lets you-
Like from the early parts of the band?
Yeah, I love the way it lets you hear because it's really pared back and the songs are
re-imagined, if you like. But not destroyed?
Oh no, no, no. It's really, what's the word, like strengthening to the song.
Yeah, it's still really respectful of the actual song but they're pared back to a point where you
can really hear, it feels like you can almost peer, it's like peering inside the machine a
little bit. The other thing that I loved about it was being able to hear the bass lines that
are lost sometimes in the original mixes, because they're big and thick and that big thick 90s rock
sound. I love the way it's pared back. There's this lovely, I can put this on where I couldn't
listen to the actual Stoosh record because the family would be going, "Oh, getting the heavy metal
off." But I can put this on and they're like, "Oh, that's cool." It's phenomenal. One of my absolute
favourites and I did maybe break my New Year's resolution again by buying it. So there you go.
So for the listeners that are new because they've just found us on Riffology, Neil's got a vinyl
problem. That's not unusual, is it? Hasn't everyone got a vinyl problem? Everyone's got a
vinyl problem, I think. It did make me realise though, even coming tonight and listening in the
car, I've not got anything very good to listen to music on. You're not? Not particularly, no.
Stuff, I've got alright headphones. Actually, the way I really like to listen to it, I've got this
technology called VSX with Stephen Slate where the Emulate Studio lives. And listening to that,
that's gorgeous. The Archon thing is just great. My beloved head, I've got this most amazing pair
of Beyerdynamic. Oh, God, they're lovely. I've got a pair of DT 1990. And you've got a
still valve amp thing. Yeah, and I've got a lovely little valve amp that sits next to my desk. But
I've got a DAC that sits underneath it and I've broken it. And I've got to take it to my mate,
Phil, who's going to mend it for me. That's good. Fix it, Phil. The power cable,
it doesn't work anymore. It makes me very sad. But I didn't realise how much I loved them. They're
quite old now. It was all used at the beginning of the first lockdown. I just sold my entire life,
sold all my camera gear, sold all my audit, sold everything. And then just thought I probably
should buy some of it back again. And I just thought, because I had some quite expensive
headphones and stuff before that. And I don't know, I just kind of thought, I don't know whether I
appreciate all this stuff. So I just kind of sold it all. And then I remember listening,
I was listening to various headphones and stuff. And I listened to a pair of DT 1990 and I was just
like, that's it. That's exactly the thing that I want. And they were quite expensive new, but I
found them on eBay for like, I think it's like 180, 190 quid. They were used. They were from,
it was a guy said he had a recording studio and he'd shut it down for COVID and stuff. So I thought,
well, I'll buy them. And just fell in love with the sound. And them not working now has really,
makes me quite sad. It makes me, because I've got, I do listen on, I've got my record player and I
listen to the speakers and things, but there's just some, there is something different about
headphones. You like the immersion, don't you? I do. It's like that isolation almost that you,
they just, it's just kind of like rammed in your face. There's no, you can't get away from it,
you know? And it's just this, I think that there's a lot of this, there's a lot of this, this
Riffology stuff and obviously previously monster shop stuff that's all, there's always been about
our relationship with music and our relationship with particular bands or records or anything
like that. And I think that headphone way of listening is probably the most intimate way,
isn't it? I think so. Although there are different, I always think since my headphones
have been broken, it has changed the type of music that I listened to. So I tend to like,
like for example, Skunk Anansi in the car, I listened to the original albums, right?
Cause I want them loud and I want them in my face and I want to scream along to them, right?
And I listened to, in the car, I tend to listen to quite loud stuff. So I'm obsessed with bring
me the horizon at the minute. And I love their back catalog and I love the kind of concepts of
the new albums and stuff. And it's really shouty and loud and I enjoy it. Same with like Skunk
Anansi, Rage Against the Machine, like the 80s Slayer and Anthrax. I love all that in the car.
Headphones would be the Acoustics Skunk Anansi, or like Led Zeppelin or Dark Side of the Moon,
or I'll tell you what else I absolutely love on the headphones would be like Devin Townsend's
Lightwork. That's such an album. Such a great album. Porcupine Tree. Do you know what I mean?
I love all that kind of stuff. So a little bit more delicate to it over headphones. I need my
Audi back for listening to music. I had a good stereo, didn't it? Yeah, it had a Bose thing in it.
That was great. Oh my God, that was so good. Your current vehicle's got bad stereo.
I haven't really got a vehicle. Oh no, you've broken it. Yeah, I killed it.
The last time I saw you in a car, it was making a sound like a, like a six year old and stuck a
lollipop stick in the wheel. Yeah, I fixed that. And then the alternator went, and I was like,
that's another few hundred, but I'm not feeling this. So I scrapped it. Has it gone? Has it?
Gone. So now I'm car hopping. You're borrowing people's cars. That's the future. Yeah. It's very
green. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not even going to own anything. You just don't own anything.
I've got a bike, Hansa. So when it warms up, I got my motorbike. Do you know, my friend Wayne
bought a motorbike and he said the best thing about it is no one ever asks you for lift.
So it's brilliant. So you just turn up, it's just you, helmet, bag, turn up. Yeah. Oh no,
I'm like, well, I'm well into a midlife crisis now. When is midlife? For me, it was about 36,
37. And I was in there and I've not come out of it again. With your cabriolets. Yeah mate,
all the lot. I lost it, but it's going to carry on. It's not going to stop. I don't know how long
they last. Oh no, that's it now. Mine's just buying vinyl at the minute. I just,
I just see vinyl, like, oh, I'll just buy that. It's just crisis to the end. And I just go,
that'll be the last one. Right? Because I think I've bought, I mean, I've bought quite a lot this
year, actually. It's only February. It is. Do you know what I found this week? For eight pounds,
on the Earache website, I found a band that no one will have heard of. Yeah. It's a band called
Biters. And it's by a guy called Tuck Smith. And it's one of the best hard rock albums ever. It's
phenomenal. Absolutely. It will make you tap your feet. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. If you've
never heard of Biters, check them out now. They're fantastic. Eight pounds. Eight pounds. Eight
pounds for a silver vinyl, brand new from Earache, posted to my house. It was mega. It was brilliant.
Yeah. I don't, I can't, I'm trying to think of all the other crap that I've bought. I have bought
a lot of vinyl this year. New Year's resolution was one a month. And then in January, the first
day of the year, I bought five. But they're great. And also, do you know the one thing that I really
want? I want the Goo Goo Dolls Superstar Car Wash. Yes. I can't find it. I was dead tempted to buy
this album, actually, Stoosh. When we started to talk last week, I got back on the Monday in a
meeting, you know, when you're in meetings and you're like, I should be paying attention. And I was,
my mind was drifting a bit and I was searching for, for vinyl. And I thought, I know I'm going to,
I'm going to get an original copy of Stoosh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred quid. Really? Yeah.
So I didn't do that. It wasn't, I didn't own it, you see,
but I used to play in bands that played the songs. Oh, yeah. But you've played,
you've played in every band that's played every, I bet you've played every song.
I bet there's not a song that you've not played. So I played Hedonism. Yeah. Picking On Me was
something I used to play in college, which we're going to play very shortly because I love the
river. It was harmon, everyone's playing harmonics. Yeah. So there was like, nothing else matters.
And this, and it's this E minor kind of harmonic shape of the 12th fret. It's always like this
blingy sound. Yeah, it's lovely actually. And that was the thing that everyone thought was quite
clever. And the girls liked it because it looked quite flashy. Do you know what's brilliant about
Picking On Me? What's that? Short. Yeah. Two minutes, 16 seconds.
♪ He's picking on me ♪
♪ Kick my head in 'cause that's all that it seems ♪
♪ Soon enough he's picking on me ♪
♪ Picking on me ♪
♪ I told my teacher ♪
♪ She looked at me so indifferently ♪
♪ Her whole night was spent marking paper, red tape ♪
♪ So I had to learn to fight ♪
♪ Kicked his sister 'cause I had no respect ♪
♪ So here's the start of another war, you against me ♪
♪ Soon enough he's picking on me ♪
♪ Kick my head in 'cause that's all that it seems ♪
♪ Soon enough he's picking on me ♪
♪ Picking on me ♪
♪ Soon enough he's picking on me ♪
♪ Kick my head in 'cause that's all that it seems ♪
♪ Soon enough he's picking on me ♪
♪ Picking on me ♪
When did Skin first cut her hair off?
I first cut my hair off in Brixton.
My best friend, Cal Walker, her boyfriend,
was a guy called David and he had a pair of trimmers.
And I just, you know, I just never,
I was just never happy with my hair, hated it,
just never felt good.
And I just had this idea,
let's just shake it off and start again.
And so I got him to come around with his hair clippers
and he wouldn't shave it low enough.
I was like, no, shave it lower, lower, lower.
And then he was like, no, I'm not shaving at that.
I'm not shaving that low.
And so I went to a barber's and they cut it lower,
but still wouldn't shave it all off.
So I had to buy some hair clippers
and I did it all by myself, shaved it all off.
And then I remember looking in the mirror afterwards
and saying to myself, ah, there you are.
That's where you are, that's where you've been hiding.
'Cause I just knew I looked good and I felt really comfortable
and I felt really happy about it.
Shall we do some minor facts?
Yes.
I'm gonna go through my facts list.
So released on 7th of October, 1996,
runtime 47 minutes, 33 seconds and 11 tracks.
Released on a record label called One Little Indian.
And we'll come to them in a bit,
but they're not called One Little Indian anymore.
How does Skunkanetsy get signed?
Skunkanetsy got signed off the back of our second ever gig.
Rick Lurt, who was working for,
he was an hour guy for a label called One Little Indian,
which I now think they've changed their name
to One Little Independent.
Headed by Derek Burkett,
who's from Flux of Pink Indians, amazing band.
And we actually got signed the day Kurt Cobain died
because Rick was a massive, massive Kurt Cobain fan
and a Violet fan and he nearly came out.
But, you know, he promised to come to a gig,
so he came to our gig, our second ever gig.
And he came to us afterwards and said,
"I was so upset today and I completely forgot about it
because you guys were so good."
And any band that could make me forget about
one of the most tragic things that ever happened must be good.
Recorded at Great Linford Manor in Milton Keynes,
which we've established.
Milton Keynes hasn't got a sound, has it?
Isn't it where Marshall lives?
Yeah. Oh, yeah, they are.
So they've definitely got a sound.
I like it.
Tesseracta from Milton Keynes.
Yeah, you see?
It's not the worst.
It's not got an identity, though, has it?
You don't think Milton Keynes and you think rock identity.
It's like Burmese, like Black Sabbath.
Ozzy doing his last ever gig in Birmingham with like
the greatest list of supporting artists ever coming up in July.
If that doesn't melt the ticket machines or anything, that's bonkers.
Anyway, yeah, they recorded at Great Linford Manor in Milton Keynes, England,
produced by Garth with 3G's.
You've said this before.
Yeah, see, when I hear Garth, I just think Wayne's World.
That's the only Garth I've ever known.
Well, you know Garth now.
Yeah, Garth.
Yeah, I don't know how to pronounce that.
So let me go through my list.
So the debut album from Skunk and Nancy was Paranoid and Sunburnt.
Yeah, they had two before this one, didn't they?
Yeah. So let me go and get the list of albums that I've got.
So this is from our blog at Riffology.co that Neil made because we wanted notes for the show.
The blog's taken off and everyone likes it.
Google likes it.
So it's showing all the people all my mistakes, which is great.
People love telling you that you've made a mistake on a blog.
I will tell you that for nothing.
Keep your money.
I do love people telling me that I've made a mistake on the blog, which is lovely.
So, right, so we've got Ace on vocals.
Sorry, we've got Skin on vocals.
It's Skinny.
Her name's Skinny.
Skinny.
Yeah, everyone calls her Skinny.
Although she changed it to, when it came down to the band name,
she called it Skin because she felt it sounded cooler.
And actually, she talks in one of the interviews that we read that
Skinny was like a Jamaican insult.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So like being Skinny is not a good thing in Jamaica.
It means you're like, you know, scrawny and stuff.
We've got Ace on guitar, Cass on bass guitar and backing vocals and Mark Richardson on drums.
Mark is obviously the only one without a cool name.
Yeah, I see.
That's not very, but Mark Richardson stands out now because he's not got the cool name.
Only one without a cool name.
Great drummer.
They're all great.
All of them.
They are.
I think, again, in the interviews, it comes out really clearly.
I think that they've all got really different influences.
And I think the Skunk and Nancy sound is that combination.
But you've got to be a great band to do that because otherwise you end up with
somebody overpowering somebody else or it just doesn't work.
I just think it's excellent.
It's such a vibe though.
Like the one, there was the interview that you sent us with Lorraine Kelly,
which is just, what a vibe.
That was the one that I heard that I went, I'd love to just go and have a coffee with this person.
I'd love to have a coffee with Lorraine Kelly.
Both of them.
Lorraine Kelly's lovely.
You wouldn't imagine but Lorraine Kelly, she's been to see them live.
She talks about being at university and going to see them, having the best gig.
It's absolutely great.
And it's just such a great interview that one is.
Getting into the band in my early 20s was when I started to really be happy with myself.
And it's like, what am I going to do with my life?
What am I going to do?
I'm here.
I'm moving forward.
This is going to be it.
This is what I'm going to do.
And it was definitely, it's nice to be back.
What we're really good at, and many bands aren't, it's just a great rock show.
Getting in there with the audience, sweating.
Really fun, fun.
Playing all the big riffs and the big hits.
In the early days, I used to get horrible stage fright.
Literally like this just before I went on stage.
It's like you get on the stage and suddenly something switches and I'm there now.
I've got to do it.
There's all these people watching me.
I better be good.
It's, oh gosh, it's like sometimes you don't know what you're going to do.
The lighting might go down.
All these things used to really worry me.
And now I know that those things kind of enhance the show.
Funny, I actually sang Happy Birthday to Nelson Mandela
with Stevie Wonder playing keyboards.
Nina Simone, who was my favourite artist.
First record I ever brought was Nina Simone.
And Michael Jackson.
It was a bit of a weird.
So he was doing backup though.
I did lead, he did backup.
It was Nelson Mandela's 80th birthday party in South Africa.
And I think Skank and I were one of the first multicultural, multiracial bands
ever to play in South Africa post-apartheid.
I just say post because some people thought it was before.
But no, it's definitely post.
And yeah, it was a wonderful experience.
It was really fun.
We were like this mad rock band in the middle of lots of R&B people.
Chaka Khan was there.
And I spent a whole day backstage with Chaka Khan,
who was just amazing because it went on quite late
and it was quite a long-winded thing.
It was like three or four hours late.
And she was backstage just like laughing and joking.
She just kept the vibe up and positive.
And then she got me on stage and I sang with her.
Ain't nobody.
So it was financed by One Little Indian, and I was reading the history of One Little Indian.
So there's a few great bands.
That's Bjork, isn't it?
That's Bjork's first couple of bits.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Was that called Sugar Cubes?
Yeah, yeah, they did Sugar Cubes.
There's a bunch of others that they have on their roster.
Paul McCartney put an album out with One Little Indian.
Not called that anymore, called One Little Independent.
And apparently it was because a fan of the record label wrote to him after Floyd.
Who was the guy that died?
Anyway, there was a whole bunch of stuff happening in the U.S.
And somebody wrote to him and just said, look, you know,
the logo for the record label and all of the things that are really offensive.
And I think it's Mark Burkett who runs it.
Just so that actually, you know, as much as you're a bit of a dickhead,
thanks for educating me.
And then went off and made the changes.
I don't know.
I really like that.
I think that shows great character, I think, to be able to do that.
And it's not about being woke or anything.
It's just, you know, somebody.
Yeah, yeah, it's a problem.
So put it right.
Yeah, I liked that.
I think, you know, it wasn't like, it wasn't virtue signaling or anything that people do.
It was just like, actually, I don't want to be, you know, that's not what I meant.
I don't want, I didn't want the record label to be about that.
That's not, you know.
And so it changed it, which I thought was pretty cool.
Yeah, we talked about it being recorded at Great Linford Manor.
It's a massive house, essentially.
Yeah, all the best albums are recorded in a massive house.
Yeah.
This is a common theme to our research.
It is. Yeah, maybe.
Yeah. It's to stay in a big house with...
Garth, I don't know how to pronounce it.
Garth, write it in and tell us how to pronounce it.
I can't say good, good Garth.
I wonder when he wrote it, whether he thought...
I wonder if it's GG.
GG, GG Garth, might be.
Good Garth, good, good Garth.
I don't know.
That's going to plague me for days.
He worked with Rage Against the Machine.
Okay, right.
There we go then.
And that's the bit that, again, the kind of penny dropped a little bit.
And L7, I love L7. Good to do an L7 album.
Yeah, kind of a forgotten band on the L7 a little bit.
Yeah, there's lots of bands around this time that I think
they were fantastic and don't get enough...
No.
I mean, Skunk and Nancy were a brilliant example
where they just don't get enough love for these.
And they've done some brilliant albums that span into the new millennium.
I can't remember if I did include this bit at the interview.
There's an interview where Skin's saying...
No, I didn't use this, I don't think,
because it was an interview for like a newer album,
perhaps a more recent one.
And she was saying, "Yeah, my voice is better."
I'm like, "How can your voice be better?"
I know.
Because it was unbelievable before, but actually it kind of is.
Her voice has matured incredibly.
And she kind of, she's obviously, she's got a great...
The thing about singing is you have a relationship with your voice.
Right.
And you either have a good one or a bad one.
And she's obviously got an incredible relationship with her voice.
And she looks at, because it's a really difficult thing to describe,
but it's almost like another part of your personality.
Right.
And it's a character, and it's like you have to look after...
That thing is an entity that you have to look after.
And she's obviously got a really great, great relationship.
She obviously loves her voice.
Yeah.
And a lot of people don't.
A lot of people don't like their voice.
Always feels effortless to me when you hear...
Again, really similar to Alanis Morissette.
It looks like she's able to produce this massive sound.
And again, often it sounds really tightly mic'd,
but whenever you see them, they're like three feet away from it.
And it's just the volume.
Yeah.
It's just absolutely epic.
Yeah.
The other person...
Do you remember I spoke about "Dad Can Dance" the other week?
It was about bringing instruments to life.
The singer from that band was Lisa Gerard.
And Lisa Gerard, you'll know her voice because it was...
She sang on the Gladiator soundtrack, that kind of haunting vocal.
Gladiator.
No, not that.
The Russell Crowe film.
Oh, the one where he walks through the field.
That's it.
And he touches the soil.
Yeah, so she's got this really kind of like...
She's got quite a very haunting sounding voice.
Yeah.
But she's all over that soundtrack.
Totally different Gladiator situation, in my head.
I've gone all spandex and 1990s jet and swishing my hair.
Yeah. And she was one of the first persons I heard
speaking about her relationship with the voice.
Because she's got an incredible vocal, but it's unusual.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So almost like learn to love it, learn to understand what it was.
And I think it's true.
I think it's interesting.
Yeah, yeah.
Great Linford Manor had two consoles.
They had a VRL console.
From Japan.
Oh.
And they had an EMI console.
From Abbey Road.
Oh, gosh. Wow.
Which I think is really good.
Yeah. So that EMI console would be the one with the mad faders.
They're like an airplane joystick thing.
Unless it was...
Because it talks about a vintage EMI console.
I wonder if it was...
When in '96, they wouldn't be using a manual desk.
No, I bet.
That would be the motorized...
Yeah, probably.
It'd still be analog.
I can only dream.
Can I just imagine?
Yeah, just a whizzy...
Imagine that it's the one that you have to do this with.
That's what everybody wants.
Oh, and yeah, so the notes here.
So throughout the recording, the band encountered various challenges,
including maintaining creative vision amidst the technical demands of the studio.
Anecdotes from the sessions reveal moments of tension and triumph,
such as the decision to include hidden tracks,
which added a layer of intrigue for listeners.
Now, for those that are too young to remember, the compact disc.
Yeah.
If you think back prior to the compact disc on the LP,
you can't hide stuff because...
You can see it.
You can physically see where the music is.
So you just drop the needle and you're like,
"Oh, there's music there," and you drop the needle on there.
And so it was difficult to hide stuff.
On tape, what they used to do is have a really long run out at the end.
So they'd have like 15 minutes of nothingness,
and you'd just get bored and turn the tape over.
But then if you left it running, there might be something else.
What they did with compact discs was in the table of contents,
it would say when each track began and when it finished.
And that would mark on the compact disc, that would mark
essentially where the laser started reading and where it stopped reading.
And then in between each track, there would be like a gap.
And what Skunk and Nancy did was a mixture of things.
They did somewhere in the pause between the tracks, there was music.
So you would see it jump.
So you would have like track one, and then when it went to track two,
you would see it almost jump.
And then it wouldn't start at zero.
It would start...
Do you know what I mean?
It would have to sort of seek back.
Yeah, exactly.
It would start at like 30 seconds and then you could rewind it and then you did music.
And then the other thing that they would do quite often with CDs
is they would have again, like a 15 minute silence at the end.
And then there'd be like a track at the end.
So you could kind of, you know, whizz forward a little bit.
Super cool, I thought that stuff was.
But they had, there was some like acoustic stuff and other bits and pieces on there
and some talking and things on there.
Super cool.
I can't remember many other albums that, I'm sure there were,
but this is the one that stands out for me that first discovering that and seeing that on there,
which that was really, really cool.
Um, commercial performance, um, it did okay.
This did for a British album at the time.
It sold a million, uh, a million albums, uh, huge singles were, um, all I want hedonism, um,
which, which got really, really big.
I think that those, those two singles got absolutely massive.
Three other, uh, really big albums that were released in the same year.
So Odellay back by Beck, um, 2.8 million tragic kingdom by no doubt.
10 million copies, um, Metallica released load.
Guess how many copies that sold?
Load.
Yeah.
I don't know.
7 million.
5 million.
And that's cause it was shocking.
It was, don't shout at your, don't shout at your radio sets.
It wasn't shocking, um, and Bob Rock isn't the devil.
He's a bit like the devil.
Stoosh received loads of accolades, including a spot in rock hard magazines,
500 greatest rock and metal albums of all time.
Pop matters, uh, listed it in the 15 overlooked and underrated albums of the 1990s.
And I think it is, I think it's one of these albums that people miss.
People could have missed.
Yeah, I certainly did when it came because I, because my thing was, uh,
very much the Brit pop thing.
I was very much into Oasis, Oasis.
It's interesting that, you know, one of the interviews with, uh, skin when she talks about
Brit pop and then being a little bit ostracized and the Brit, the Brit pop bands didn't really
like skunk and antsy, skunk and antsy didn't really like, uh, but she loves wonderwall
and slide away is a favourite.
Yeah, like the music.
But what I thought was interesting is she made this comment and said, well, there wasn't,
the Brit pop wasn't a sound.
Like we talked about scenes and the LA scene and the hair metal bands.
There was very definitely a sound, right?
There was a sound, there was studios.
You went into the studio and your hair metal record came out sounding like a hair metal
record from LA and Brit pop just didn't know, like blur didn't sound like Elastica,
which didn't sound like Oasis, which didn't sound like faithless, which did, do you know
what I mean?
And they had this big like pulp, but they didn't, none of these bands sounded the same,
no, no, but they were all part of the same scene.
Um, we should do Brit pop.
Yeah, just give it a couple.
Cause that wasn't my, skunk and antsy was my scene.
Skunk and antsy was very definitely my scene.
That's what my people were.
And Brit pop just wasn't, I don't really.
Yeah, I think I was a little bit later, so I was sort of, you know, picking up off morning
glory and into stereophonics where it gets around that kind of era.
Yeah, I don't know where stereophonics didn't really fit either.
No, not really.
They weren't Brit pop.
We should do that album where it gets around.
That's a good one.
Performance and cocktails.
But yeah, the one about skunk and antsy is, as I say, we used to play their songs.
Like hedonism was one that we played and the other one and picking on me and a few others.
But that was, that was because we had a girl singer in the band.
Oh yeah.
And she like, you know, she had a great voice.
So she could bang them out.
Yeah, she really could.
And I did enjoy playing them.
You know, they're really enjoyable songs to play.
That's the thing I remember the most.
I think, yeah, I didn't have a relationship with the album.
I can imagine you playing Oasis songs for the girls.
Where did it get to?
Oh, right.
I got to an album titled Stoosh is slang for posh or stuck up.
And it came from if we've got the interview, that would be awesome to include this,
but there's a bit in there where they say, where did the album come from?
Where did the name come from?
And it was for their manager.
He was British and posh and put them on the spot and gave them like 30 seconds.
You've got to choose an album name.
So they just named it after her, which I think is, I don't know, listening to,
listening to skin talk, you just think I can totally imagine you just like doing that.
We did put it up because we put it at the start.
You don't know this.
So I don't know which order Chris has put in the music or the interview.
I have absolutely no idea what's going on.
Right.
Here's some interesting stuff.
Interviews.
I love going back to interviews back in the day.
Sputnik music gave it three out of five.
While the album shows signs of maturity, it does not surpass the quality of the debut.
Really?
Isn't that interesting?
It is.
I think the debut had got more like fight.
That was weak.
Was that, did that have weak on it?
Yeah. But I think the, the, the debut had a bit more.
Yeah.
Kind of visceral.
I think this album was more, um, the word for it.
I think you're like, um, Alanis Morissette was very autobiographical.
Yes.
I think this was, it feels to me very like skin was really writing about her experiences.
A lot more.
And I think she was more, um, more articulate on this record than I
think on any other record, actually.
She was definitely telling stories, wasn't she?
Yeah. And I think, I mean, she's really good at it.
I mean, she's absolutely phenomenal at it, but it did highlight to me just how good
Alanis Morissette is at storytelling.
She was able to tell these stories like in an otherworldly ability.
You know, I think Skinny is a great storyteller.
But you know, there's just this kind of extra bit that
Alanis Morissette was able to put into those, those songs.
I think I, you know, and don't get me wrong, the Skunk Announcement were very much that
that was the music I loved and I listened to.
But when you, when you analyze it now, when you listen to it like decades later,
I can kind of see why all the millennial girls were fawning over Alanis Morissette.
Right. What else did we get? What else did I get to here?
Um, oh yeah. So they've, um, uh, they've done tons of other albums.
So they have a, uh, quite a good back catalog.
There's a lot of really, really great records that they did after that, after that time.
So, um, you know, don't, uh, I think that they kind of, well, they did, um, uh,
post orgasmic chill after that.
But then they've done others like Wunderluster, um, uh, like, uh, the brain's gone now,
but they did, uh, they've done probably three or four quite big records after that point.
And they've, well, they've got, they've got a new single out right now, actually.
But so we're, we're Feb, 2025 at the minute. Um, and there's the artist, there's an artist
track that's just come out, which suggests there's probably some new music on the way album wise.
Um, it's a great song. It really is.
Yeah. You'd have thought so, wouldn't you? You'd have thought that there's, there's,
there's, there's more stuff from them. Um, the other thing is that they, um,
headlined Glastonbury and, um, and I didn't know this, I didn't, I wasn't paying attention, but they,
um, so they, uh, yeah, they, uh, did, um, Glastonbury. Um, you had, uh, like Maxi Jazz
was also, uh, was in, um, he, uh, headlined, uh, Glastonbury a couple of years before them.
Yeah. Um, but Stormzy, like a few years ago, uh, headlined Glastonbury and, and proclaimed
he was the first black British person to headline it. And then in the, in the comments on, on,
on spot, uh, Twitter, uh, skin is there going, I will beat you to it, mate. But what I love about
it is it storms is just like, you know, or, you know, he just properly pulls it back and is, you
know, he's, he's, he's a, he's a, he's a nice gentleman, I think. But, um, but you kind of
forget that, don't you? That like Skunk and Nancy were like headlining massive things back in the
day. And, you know, but that was the, but, and, and the other thing from one of the early interviews
that we put on was that they are super well known, not in England. Like, so these albums you're
talking about, that, you know, England, England and the media in England, like they've got fans in
England, obviously, but the media in England and that sort of thing, they just don't, they don't
give them the kind of space and air time that they perhaps should. Whereas around the route,
around the world, um, I noticed that a lot of the interviews that we were cutting up, you know, had
like a Dutch accent or a French accent or something like that. Yeah, they do, don't they? That's really
true. You know, they've really got a movement going in, in Europe. I think, you know, that's
probably in reference to our history, really. I mean, I think that in the beginning, it's always
been difficult. And I think that's Skunk and Nancy, you know, we're kind of cultish and
undergroundish, but things are definitely not easy for us. You know, um, it's, it's, it's, you know,
some places really love us and some places like England, you know, we don't get any, you know, love
or radio play. Yeah, the fans love us, but the media and the press, you know, they just, you know,
they don't love us. So it's kind of like, you know, some things are a real struggle and some
things aren't. But freshness for us is, is always to be relevant and contemporary and to more,
more importantly, enjoy ourselves. Cause we know that if we really love a piece of music and it's
really doing something for us, that infection will spread and people, other people will as well.
They'll like it. There's a certain kind of, you know, genuine kind of genuineness in the music
that is, it's about the music. And if we love it and we make something that we really like,
we know that other people are going to like it, I think. I think that you couldn't, once the songs
are at that certain point, you can really think that, oh, this is actually going to be a big song
on the album. I mean, I think it's, what's always interesting is the songs you think are going to
potentially be singles or big hits or whatever, other songs come up and surpass them. You know,
certainly on this album, a couple of songs that we thought were going to be amazing got completely
slammed and dwarfed by songs like "Hero" and "Sad, Sad, Sad" and "Break You" and "Diving Down" and
"Summer Kills the Sun". You know, we thought "Drowning" and "Satisfy" when we were kind of
starting off and those songs are great but just got slapped in the face by the songs.
And that's one of the things about recording, you try and bring out the best of every song but,
you know, I think that the tricky thing with recording is keeping the love and the energy
and the thing that inspired you about this song at this beginning point, keeping that all the way
up until the end, the mastering's done. Well, I think you just got to kind of like not do too
much and not just kind of keep stepping back and looking at a song and not overworking it and not
over singing it and not over because I mean that's why I always hate doing demos because demos are
basically just like doing crappy cheap versions of great songs and I hate that idea. You know,
I think the demo should just be the crappy recording when you first recorded the song
and for me it's like I always hold back on singing something because I think that music is
capturing a moment in time so you've got to hold back and hold back and not give your best performance
in the demo or something. You have to wait until you've got that beautiful mic in front of you
before you do your best vocal performance. We tend to also revert back to when we write the songs,
we sit in a room and we play them live together and what we have to do is remember the essence
of that song, not necessarily the structure and the progressions and all stuff, it's the essence.
What did we like about that song when we played it in the room together? And we would go, we liked
the energy or the fact that when we were in there the kick drum was really pushing the song along
or the fact that it was really fast and noisy so as we're making the song we try to revert back
and remember the essence of the song. No matter what we're changing in it, why did it excite us
the first place and try to keep that all the way to the end? We write fast and then we move on.
We can write a song an hour so we kind of write and then when we think we've got the song kind
of good enough so we all remember it and we know our parts, we just stop and then we move on because
yeah you can really, we're always under rehearsed. I was just looking, I've just opened Apple Music
so I can look at the albums that came out so I can get the right name. So let me go through,
so we got Paranoid and Sunburnt in '95, Stoosh in '96, then you had Wunderluster in 2011,
Black Traffic in 2012 and Architecture in 2016 and then they did 25 Live at 25 which I really liked
and then you had, oh sorry you had Post-Orgasmic Chill that came after Stoosh and then the live
albums, they did an Acoustic Skunk and Nancy Live in London, that's the one, absolutely adore that
one and you got Smashes and Trashes as well and then they did This Is Not A Game which was an EP
2013 and then yeah they've got a lot of stuff going on. So when you think like oh we haven't
seen them you know a lot since, they've still been busy. Yeah and there's a good variation as
well of those. I think they, there's a lot of like, I think they had a bit of a break, was it a nine
year, they had a nine year break where I think they took a rest to do like solo things and other
projects and that kind of stuff and then kind of got back to it. They did, I'm looking up the
official, I'm looking on my thing for the official discography because the Apple Music
ones got all the wrong dates which is why I'm getting a bit confused. Oh I see yeah because of
re-releases or whatever else. Yeah yeah they've made a bit of a mess of the dates so I'm just
looking now on their, yeah no their Wikipedia page is, the Wikipedia page is right I think. So
you had Paranoid and Sunburn in '95, Stoosh in '96, Post Orgasmic Chill in '99, they changed
label for that, they moved on to Virgin and then Wunderluster in 2010. Yeah that was the big break.
That was a big, that's 11 years. I remember buying that, that's interesting because it's a very
different sounding record I think. Wunderluster's a really different sounding record to the first
three and then they did Black Traffic which started to go back a little bit and then Anne
Architecture which again changed sound a little bit. But yeah they've got a great, and then
Smashes and Trashes was 2009, that's like a best of. Yeah okay yeah yeah. Again there's some cool
stuff on there that you wouldn't kind of normally get. But yeah absolutely great band, lots and lots
of I think interesting stuff there. As you go from album to album it's still, you know it's
Skunk and Ante, I think it's the Skins voice. Yeah yeah yeah. But the tone, like the first three
records I think have got quite a similar tone to them and then once they moved on to like Wunderluster
it's like a slightly different. Yeah it's like Skunk and Ante 2.0 almost, just like a slightly
different. I suppose after that gap, you know they've got to, they've come back and they've
grown haven't they? They've all grown in their own ways and then they're bringing those influences
back to the band. Yeah I think you know and there's other things as well with Skunk and Ante that I
liked. So they were on, I remember being at the movies and seeing... Oh you were saying this on
the way, Crawl Intentions. Crawl Intentions yeah, it's on right at the end and I remember, you know
like when it's a band that you love, it's your band and I remember hearing that track at the end
and just, I mean I just sat glued to my seat watching the credits as the track rolls out
and I don't know, there's just something super cool about songs and bands that you love when
you hear them in the movies. I don't think so, I couldn't find much for Stoosh. I thought like
Hedonism might have been used somewhere but I looked and looked, I can't find any, if anyone
knows where it's been used in TV and movie and stuff I'd love to find out because there's no like
database for this stuff. So when we do the blogs, you have to go and look and often you end up like
trawling through Reddit pages and stuff and it's a massive pain but there's no like, like IMDB have
got some but they don't have much in like rock and metal. So it's quite, I don't know, I think it's
quite tricky. So again, if anyone knows where to find that stuff let me know because it would make
my life much easier if we knew where to find all that stuff but I don't know where to find it at
the minute. Well that feels like a good reasonable length podcast. Is it 17 hours long? No we've done
very well this week, the last two, the last two or three have been about an hour and a half.
Just waffle, waffle, waffle, waffle. Yeah no we're good, we're good tonight. Say tonight wherever
you are, it might not be night but where we are is night. Yeah we haven't done a discussion about
time. My kids have been abusing me all week because the podcast is now called Riffology and there's a
meme called Yapology which is about talking too much. So as I was leaving tonight to come to see
my mate to do this, the kids are going "are you going to do Yapology?" Dickheads. Kids are dickheads
aren't they? So I think we should play Fucking Political to finish with because that's a banger
and then I think that is probably the closest in energy actually to the new single.
I think it's back in popularity isn't it? A bit of fight. Yeah and I think we've talked about this
before but I have this really strong belief that music kind of echoes the world. It's a creative
response to what's going on isn't it? Yeah exactly. So if you're - like Skin talks about being in
Brixton as a young girl and you know no investment and you know it's like she talks about - there's a
lovely interview with her where she basically said you know as a young girl growing up I didn't
understand why some of the boroughs in London were rich and well looked after and all pretty
and where I was was just this dilapidated and there was no investment, no love for it whatsoever.
Yeah because they didn't support Thatcher. Yeah exactly so yeah and then she said you know as I
grew up I kind of realised there was almost this fight right there where the boroughs that didn't
support Margaret Thatcher didn't get funding and so she said that made me really angry you know and
that's kind of that's where that comes from but if the world's all nice and happy and shiny you know
there's a lovely - I love Tim Minchin absolutely so if you've not come across Tim Minchin is an
Australian like songwriter and comedian he's incredibly funny a bit sweary but very funny.
There's a lovely bit where he does this kind of sketch saying he wants to be a rock and roll
star it's called rock and roll nerd and then but he talks about it talks about bringing being
middle class and his parents are still together and he's not got a drug addict you know he's not
got an addiction problem and that makes it difficult to write songs. Yeah yeah. And it
always makes me laugh because it's like it's so true if you grew up in in LA in the 80s
do you know what I mean you're in the kind of decadence and the strip and you've got something
to write about and if you grew up in in Brixton you've got something to rail against and you've
got do you know what I mean whereas if you if you grew up in Surrey you know in a private school
you've got less to you know to come up with and so. It's awkward to nick my pencil. Yeah
that's a brilliant name for a band. Bloody Tarquin. What next? I don't know we'll play
this and then we'll and then we'll talk about it shall we. Should we do what we did do you
know what I did last time? What did you do last time? Was I went onto the blog and I clicked on
the years because there's like a little year selection you can click on the year and it'll
show you the albums that we've we've considered. Oh yeah yeah yeah. And then I thought oh they're
interesting we could pick that. Yeah. Should we do that? Yeah let's do that. Let's rock.
Why are Skunk and Nancy called Skunk and Nancy? Skunk and Nancy are called Skunk and Nancy because
Brewery Nancy is the Brewery Nancy there's a half man half spider character a nursery character
that I used to watch on tv in Jamaica when I was little. There was this lovely lady called
Miss Lou and she used to read Brewery Nancy stories on television like a storyteller type
of character. So I wanted the name to have something that was kind of to do with my heritage.
Cass came up with the name Skunk because he said Skunk's a black and white animal
in the jungle and nobody wants to bother that animal. Not even a lion would mess with a skunk.
So I put them together because I remember Arnold Schwarzenegger saying that people say to him you
know why didn't you change your name Mr. Schwarzenegger and he's like because it's really
difficult to learn and I think that if you have to learn it then you'll never forget it. So I kind
of took that bit of advice at the time everybody was calling themselves Blur, Punk, Elastica, Oasis
these one name things and so I thought it would make us stand out a bit. Why is Skin called Skin?
Okay good question actually when I was very very young I was super super horribly skinny and everyone
used to call me Skinny my actual nickname is Skinny because you know in Jamaica to say someone
is Skinny is not a good thing you know it's like "Oro maga, Oro tu Skinny" and so when I got into
band I just halved it and called it called myself Skin just because I thought it was cooler to be
honest but the band all called me Skinny all my friends call me Skinny. Well to be honest I think
it's a bit of a stretch to say I was friends with David Burry like we weren't going around
for dinner at each other's houses but we did do a lot of gigs with him and we did one summer where
he was always asking for skunk notes to support him so we did a bit of a festival tour and I
hung out with him a lot and also his wonderful wife um Eman.
So the boys in your slick mink, political.
Yes it's fucking political. Everything's political. Yes it's fucking satirical.
Everything's satirical. Yes it's fucking political. Everything's political.
I know what it was like to hide as a dirty breeze confides in the life of baby horse,
political. Negative are all your views so you can prop up your fake cool. Perfect all the same, political.
Yes it's fucking political. Everything's political. Yes it's fucking satirical.
Everything's satirical. Yes it's fucking political. Everything's political.
So
yes it's fucking political. Everything's political. Yes it's fucking satirical.
Everything's satirical. Yes it's fucking political. Everything's political.
So
you know what I like about the album just before we talk about the next one? Yeah. Is um when every
song is explicit you know you get a little explicit yeah you go yeah yeah this band's got something
to say. It was the it was the PMRC sticker wasn't it? Yeah it was the parental advisory.
You knew you were on a winner when you saw that. You knew it was going to be dead good.
I enjoyed that. That was one of my favorites. I know we like some it's interesting isn't it.
Doing this show some of the albums are new to us right because they're either you know they're
from like a generation that was either before us or after or they were records that like passed us
by like you know I was kind of heads down in the thrash scene in the eight in the mid-80s.
I missed everything else that was happening in that in that time to be honest um you know and
there were other phases of my life where I wasn't listening to that much music and so coming back
and rediscovering this one however was one that was firmly wedged in my CD player and yeah it's
been lovely to to remember that again so super cool and I hope you've enjoyed it. Yes oh time
wise yeah I made a mistake when I said oh this one's shorter now oh dear because I didn't add up
yeah all of the different interviews that we put in oh so it's just our conversation our conversation
was around an hour but but now this is this is going to be over an hour and a half. That's a
new record. We were talking off air a little bit and I asked Chris to pick a year for the next
show's album and Chris chose the year 2001. I chose a couple of others first. Yeah I didn't
have anything for those shows. Now it's worth pointing out the show so the idea of the show
I think realistically I think we set ourselves this it's got to be 20 years old yeah or more.
Yeah so 2001's in yeah and let me go through what we've got on the blog so let me go through what
our options are really. Oh that's good because as we do this over the years yeah that opens up more
time yeah that's very good that was the concept. That's a good concept. There's four in our list
which is handy because we can do a poll on on X for four. We're doing a poll so you've already
chosen. I haven't. You're going to put a poll out and then whatever the poll says you're just going
to choose the one you want anyway because I'm not on it I won't even see the poll so I won't know.
Yeah you would not be able to tell you anything. I reckon that I totally trust our social media
crew to make the right decision on this one because they've never let us down yet. So here
are four records. The making of Toxicity by System of a Down. The making of Moota by Rammstein.
Lateralist by Tull and Iowa by Slipknot. Which would you pick? I would yeah but will they not
influence the voting? No. No Iowa? I would I think this is really interesting. I would like
five years ago I would have gone for Iowa every day of the week. Yeah. Iowa or Toxicity probably.
Yeah yeah yeah. That they were the two. See I wouldn't have chosen that five years ago. Would
you not? I'd have chosen Tull. Yeah so I would choose Tull now. Okay so we swapped right. I think
we swapped a little bit. I have to be honest I think. Yeah because I like see I like the proggy
stuff. Yeah. You like the thrashy stuff. I do. And then we did the original Monster Shop show and then
we kind of flipped around where you got really into the prog stuff and I got into the hard stuff.
I do I really really I've always really liked well not always loved Slipknot. I didn't like at
the point where this album came out it was just like full of young kids with hoodies and I was
like don't like you don't like your music and then and then realised it's brilliant so I fell in
love with Slipknot probably I don't know like 2008 2009 so probably quite late actually but I've
absolutely loved them these days. Of those four I think Lateralist is the killer. I think that's the
giant killer of the four. I just think that album is it's bigger. I think Iowa was phenomenal but I
don't think it's the best I don't think it's the best Slipknot record. It's not my favourite Slipknot
record. Muta again I don't know it's not the best that they've done. System of a Down Toxicity
is I think it's a phenomenal record but I think Tool's just got the edge from me I think you know
in the whole thing I think is there but our our social medias will solve this for us. Yeah I'll
do a poll from Monday to Friday. And will this be X? It'll be on it yeah well yeah I don't know how
to do polls and it's too much. So Riffology.co on X. Yeah yeah just fine just search for Riffology
on X and you'll find us. Yeah I would do we do we're really we're mostly on X and Blue Sky.
That's kind of where I spend if you want to if you want to engage with us that's mostly where
we spend our time and I don't know how to do a poll on Blue Sky. Yeah X it is. And so X is very
busy so that tends to be where we spend most of our time but we'll do a poll there and then that
will be how we do decide. Democracy. It is and then if you choose the album that I don't like
I'll ignore the poll. No I think we see we stuck to the poll last time. Yeah no we did yeah. Because
it agreed with me. That's the way that I don't know that's the way the world works isn't it?
Of course it is. It is it's great but The Frogger Died you know it's good. I was chatting to somebody
online earlier today about the best years ever and it reminded me that I think you and I have to
had this conversation about like years big years and every time you've asked me I've said 1986
because it's got like Master of Puppets it's got Somewhere in Time it's got these massive albums
but I don't think it is I think my favourite year is actually 1991. Is it really? Yeah it's got like
1991 has got and in fact we might have to dive into this a little bit but it's got Soul Destruction
by the Almighty, Necroticism, Decanting the Insolubrious by Carcass which I've just bought
off Earache Records they've got them on discount for £14. On vinyl? Yeah so I bought myself a copy
of that. In fact don't go if you're a vinyl addict don't go to Earache.com because you'll
spend money on there. Another album Danger Danger released Screw It which is phenomenal in '91,
Entombed released Clandestine, Morbid Angel released Blessed Are the Sick, Queen did Innuendo,
Skid Row did Slave to the Grind, Sepultura did Arise and that's just on the first page of the
blog for '91 it's honestly I think '91 is is kind of it Nevermind came out the black album came out
yeah yeah I think '91 I think '91 is actually the best year for music ever I think it's that simple
okay I think that's a hill I'll that's a hill that's a hill I'm gonna die until someone tells
me it's a better year but there you go shall we do one? I'll give it a week yeah I'll give it a
week until you discover a better year I just not it's gonna stay this has been brewing for quite
a while I think so and you know I change my mind quite a lot do you yeah I do and then but this is
I think I it's 1991 that's it then there we go we'll see you next time love you bye love you bye