....I spend my Monday and Tuesday commute listening to part 1 and 2 of his weekend Radio 5 podcast. I'll make sure to download this ready for tomorrow. Baker should definitely write a book about his musical adventures.

It seems like a hell of a long time ago but my friend John and I used to listen to Danny B on BBC Radio 5 (as it was then) in the car on the way to work in sunny Dewsbury. I was always amazed that he seemed to have plundered my record collection when playing music, and used to shout out the answers to his bizarre questions (e.g. "How much does the British army weigh?" Answer-15 hundred tons). I have just forced myself to stop the podcast after 10 minutes so that I can re-create the old days by listening to the rest on the way to work tomorrow. Why has it taken so long to get him on - as Hepworth and Ellen seem to have known him since the dawn of time. Great first ten minutes.. can't wait for the rest tomorrow.

snigger.

thank gawd for punk.

who are those two mugs with him?

does he mention EL&P, I'm still downloading it?

the punk thing happened not because there was nothing to do... at the time there was a lot of very imaginative music around... BUT punk was a reaction against the fact that music at the time belonged to the record-companies and was becoming too much like just another brand.
there's the old story of how The Jam almost got dropped at the height of their creative period by Polydor because the latest beegees album had flopped and the company had to recoup their losses.
punk was about putting the music back into the hands of the people, about helping each other out... and yes, a lot of the punks who went onto greater things had a musical background or knowledge, but they took that DIY aesthetic with them.
i can recall going into record shops in '77, and seeing a lot of good classic albums in the racks, music was very, very healthy in those days, especially in the album section... but the songs weren't reflecting what people were going through, as mostly all your rockstars were now safely ensconced in ivory towers... they weren't telling the stories of the record buying public... we were being fed a diet of coca-cola flavoured nostalgia... and US excess.
we needed some popstars who looked like us, and spoke like us.

Just finished listening,absolutely wonderful. The Best Podcast Yet.

I'd pay for that every time without a thought. Stunning.
Next time get Du Noyer in for the Dream Team. Be good to hear Dan interview Paul about In the City given the former's closeness to many of the bands.
Might the Word team also consider a sideline in events too? Perhaps a live podcast recording somewhere or other with a some of the band's musical friends playing.

If James Joyce had grooved to King Crimson and appeared on podcasts he might have come up with a monologue like that. It's not often that Messers Ellen & Hepworth can't get a word in edgeways, but such was the sheer propulsive force of the Baker gob that they were left almost speechless.

Absolutely brilliant. I enjoyed it so much.

More! More!

To me, Danny Baker will always be the guy with the flipchart (whiteboard?) who told Michael Aspel on the 6 O'clock Show about all the exciting-sounding stuff that was going on in London that weekend that I was never likely to be a part of.

I've never been a big fan, but I listened to one of his recent Radio 5 podcasts and thoroughly enjoyed it, so I may give this a listen. I've not bothered with the Word Podcasts much recently as Hepworth's repeated interrupting of Fraser's stories was doing my head in, but it sounds like the tables may have been somewhat turned this time!

....a new highwater mark for the Podcast. Superb. Butch Trucks, real first name? Claude.

who talks non-stop for almost an hour about everything from conker-wielding Rutland hermits to duping fearsome receptionists by feigning sprains before he drops the line "I was in Led Zeppelin for 25 minutes."

Big props also to Messrs H&E, for knowing that the way to get the best out of Danny Baker isn't to spout forth; it's to chip in.

Almost like a return to the HORA for the full hour...

Here's the Climax Blues Band. They were originally called The Chicago Climax Blues Band but had to drop the Chicago part due to a (possible?) legal writ from the band Chicago.

Dan really should write that autobiography. It will take twenty volumes, at least.

Because he's strapped with guests he doesn't know? Because the show is too "produced"? Because he doesn't have the foils to play off who know when to sit back and let him riff away? Because he'd rather be at Waitrose?

I'm not sure, but he doesn't sound as though he's having half as much fun as he does here. I'm sure he'll be back.

I always look forward to the weekly podcast and I really enjoyed this one - a wonderful fund of stories AND some positive comments on prog (particularly the remastered King Crimson albums). Elton John in the record shop is a great story! Well done to all at The Word and to the irrepressible Mr. Danny Baker.

In a long, long time, tell Danny Baker that we'll all give him a fiver each time he turns up. Much better than his radio show which has too much football for me.

I always liked Danny Baker but hadn't listened to him in a long while. Last Sunday a friend played me his interview with David Lee Roth (wasn't it just last week you were talking about the personalities of heavy metal singers?) which should be compulsory listening for anyone interested in radio or interviewing.

And now this. Great stuff.

I'd love DB to revisit his NME interviews with Jacko, then still relatively compus mentis.....

That was the best podcast EVER. Danny is a national treasure.

Radio 2. Saturday or Sunday night. 7pm - 10pm. “All Back To Dan’s Place”: Danny Baker plays records and talks to, and about, the people who made them.
It would be unmissable.

Superb show
credit to all of you

cheers

The best ever podcast, bring DB back and do it all over again please

Many, many thanks for a wonderful podcast.

"English as tuppence, changing yet changeless as canal water, nestling in green nowhere, armoured and effete, bold flag-bearer, lotus-fed Miss Havishambling opsimath and eremite, feudal still, reactionary Rawlinson End"

Sign Danny up to do one of these at least once a month.

Loved it. Best podcast by far. I love his weekend footy show podcasts but Danny really should have a radio show or podcast that concentrates on music. This guy has so much to tell. Ellen and Hepworth obviously enjoyed it. Please get Baker back in soon and also advise Danny to do a music radio show or podcast. After this podcast we're now screaming up for one.

Superb!!

were wrong though.
in my opinion.

maybe from a london-media-centric point of view, that's how it was percieved, but the legacy of punk far outshines the few rich, artschool poseurs who lived in squats in chelsea at the time.
minutemen were more punk than the sexpistols ever were.

loved his patter about prog rock, meeting Jagger and Elton John in record shops etc. lets have more of that.

I've listened, signed up.Who do I pay my money to for this to take place regularly? Dan on the podcast each week would be great. Messrs Hepworth and Ellen have done us proud.

Stories about music from people who love music is what we want to hear. And DB has more stories than most. Best one since the College gig one.

Thanks soooo much for the best Podcast in a long time. I was driving to work listening to the first half, so was saved the embarrassment of laughing out loud several times on a bus.

This one reminds me that I'd happily pay for my subscription to the podcast (on top of my Word sub), especially if it made it more likely to be like this every week.

... I always think of him as a person who enjoys making fun of people who he thinks we should all laugh at.

As nearly everyone else here seems to love him, maybe I'm mistaken.

http://www.ledzeppelin.com/video/q-awards-1992

I'd heard most of these Baker stories before but it was like a high intensity Greatest Hits of the man.
Hats off.

I never thought we'd hear an episode where Mark could hardly get a word in edgeways, but here it was. Now get Danny Kelly in. I'd love to hear his stories of editing NME and Q.

Don't get Baker and Kelly together though, as you'll all be dead from oxygen deprivation.

Yours, thumbing through the new B&K book... (which should be required reading, even if you don't like football)

Danny Baker in full flow is one of the great modern wonders of the world and this podcast proves it beyond doubt.

Reminded me of his recent R2 incursion with Zoe Ball while Jonathan Ross was, ahem, resting. Now that's who should get Wossy's place when his contract expires.

Enjoyed the 6 O'Clock Show references, because I hardly seem to know anyone who saw it. Guess you had to be living in London during the late 70s and be a bit of a TV nut. Weren't Janet Street Porter and Fred Housego on it, as well?

Seriously, though, Danny should be a monthly fixture on the podcast. It would save a job having to think up what to talk about.

Numerous laugh out loud on the train moments, and Danny's clear and holistic insight into musical history is a joy. I now have a burning desire to hear King Crimson remixes with the Greg Lake vocal removed. And he is on the money about the 70s - this "it was dark and gloomy and nothing was going on till punk saved us" thing is so lazy and is of course total bollocks. He summed it up perfectly.

I wish Danny was still writing pieces on a regular basis somewhere, he's one of the all-time greats.

willingly pay for the podcast if they were all as good as this one. Never taken any notice of Danny Baker before as I thought he was all about football but this was brilliant.
As a non-fan of football, is his own podcast worth listening to?

That's me not the podcast. I was sniggering like a loon on the tube as Dan realted one tall tale after another.
I agree with the other comments, the best podcast yet.

an Observation by James Blast

A tonic! what a drive to and from work today, I am not worthy

Track down his radio show from the day MJ died, it's an amazing bit of work. He talks about him for 2 hours basically.

Absolutely brilliant. Best podcast ever. How many anecdotes per second?

Danny expressed confusion about Pete Sinfield's role as "lyrics and illumination" for King Crimson. I was lucky enough to see the original band in 1969 at Aylesbury Friars. One of the best things about the show was the black and white light show, operated by Pete Sinfield

The best podcast ever. I listened to it for most of my commute. I got to work this morning and could not recall any details of my journey, which is slightly worrying from a road safety point of view. Please can we have Danny every week? What with that and the podcasts of his Saturday morning show, commuting doesn't seem so bad.

And anyone who still carries a torch for ELP gets a plus in my book!

This thing about punk saying music was terrible before it came into being is more of later misconception/misremembering isn't it? At the time it seemed to be more about a reaction against all things hippy - letting us down with their failure to bring about a revolution, and ending up hypocrites, hence the symbolic clothing choices, type of drugs - OK, the punks did no better, actually worse really. Idealism mattered so much more in those days compared to now. So whatever was not associated with hippydom pre-punk was OK - reggae, Bowie and Bolan (who ironically were once hippies of course, but moved on), ska etc. The trouble with progressive rock, as Robert Wyatt has said he came to realise, was that it thought it was (the clue is in the name) progressing popular music - foolishly thinking it was coming up with something better than/improving upon 3 minute singles about heartbreak. But on such deluded ideas is pop history based, and who would want it any other way. Punk helped shake things up and put the emphasis back on the single as the essential form for pop and rock, and reminded us of the value of short sharp busts of excitement. So we thereby got the delights of 2-tone, Ian Dury, Elvis Costello, Squeeze etc. There were downsides too of course. The good thing is that now we can enjoy all forms of music and not worry about what we are meant to like.

Anyway, the best podcast yet. More reminscences from the old NME days would be most welcome. I think I spotted Danny in the clip around 3:21 in, or was he one of those with a knotted handkerchief on his head?

Unlike most slebs, he has so much to impart. And it would be so easy. Turn up with recording device. "Tell us about your childhood Dan. Tell us about the NME Dan etc." Transcribe verbatim. Collect cheque.

Failing that, the only pop culture Baker I've ever read were his columns for Empire. I'd love to read his original interviews from when he was a journalist. Could Word please republish them?

on my ears which are still in a state of shock fom the full frontal anecdotal assault

wonderful stuff

Still makes me chuckle when I think of it. I commissioned him to do it, on a tip-off from Hepworth that he might just be up for it. He was, and he did it for more than a year, and it was fantastic, but he didn't half make you sweat for the copy. I seem to remember the bike actually having to wait outside his house, motor running and waiting for the copy while we sat at the printers trying not to panic over the Baker-shaped hole in the mag. Always well worth the wait, always made it just in time, and very happy days.

Maybe not quite the full year now that you mention it, but surely to God it was more than just the two issues. Maybe it just felt like a year, what with all the waiting for the copy. Outrageous that she got the Empires by the way.

was also great. 1991 i think.

Double Post!

I second the comment above about Danny writing a book, its not just the tales its in the telling and he is the meister (although this is one occasiion where I think I would go for the audio book).

I am a sucker for any book by ex-NME journalists (see Collins. MacConie, Morley, Lamacq et al) but, no disrepect to the others, Danny's book would be streets ahead.

On another note re the Baker, does anyone rembemer 20th Century Box, this was a programme shown on sunday lunchtimes (I think) and featured presenters such as Danny and janet Street Porter looking into various aspects of modern London life. There was one episode in which Danny explored the underground Blitz scene, later to mutate in New Romantics. I can remember being completely engrossed by this as a 12 year old kid and thinking it the coolest thing in the world (turns out i wasnt quite right but I wasnt a cynical 40 year old then). Great early clips of Spandau performing at places like the Scala and shots from inside Billy's, which, if you looked back, would I am sure feature dozens of household names. Strange thing is I cant find clips of this anywhere, one of the few occasions YouTube has failed to deliver.

20th Century Box featuring Iron Maiden is on one of their DVDs and naturally on youtube alongside one on Rockabilly and the Mode clip

...and that's that.

And I usually have problems hearing a lot of what the regular presenters say. This week, however, every word from Danny Baker comes across as clear as a bell. This is either because Danny is the consummate radio professional and never strays far from the microphone (a la Mr Ellen) or he's got a loud voice. I think it's probably a combination of the two.

More Danny Baker podcasts please (if only so I can hear everything that being said).

And that'll be the next 10 podcasts sorted. Brilliant stuff from a genuine National Treasure. I'm about to strap the 'phones on, saddle up the dog and listen again.

South of Watford was
another one, Friday nights tho

particularly an excellent episode on club kids circa 86

I was literally in tears of laughter on the bus going to work. It comes to something when Mark Ellen can't get a word in edgeways. I await the follow up Baker podcast with relish.
How about a special with Rick Wakeman.

Re. Baker's reference to Stinkfoot; It is happening!

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47052327146&ref=ts

Absolutely joyous. I was laughing out loud on the Underground this morning.

Please get him booked in again soon !

Great fun (the podcast). I remember when DB was - all too briefly - on R1 on both Sat and Sun mornings, for 3 hours at a time. I'd tape that and play it gradually throughout the week, going to work etc.
I don't think I've ever heard Saint Marshall Crenshaw's "Fantastic Planet of Love" on any other radio show and I remember DB's righteous indignation at some fatuous "Increase the Peace!" nonsense trailer around the time of (I think) Armistice Day.

Anyway, nice to hear him talk about music etc so entertainingly again.

As podcasts go that one is an absolute beaut. Loved every silly inconsequential, triviality stuffed second.

and made my day. I've heard DB in so many formats over the years, and this was one of the most enjoyable - let's do it again one day!

I think he benefits from having the structure (such as it is!) of something like the Podcast with a few well chosen prompts. His brain is so quick that left to his own devices he can dive off into the deep end and you're never quite sure if he's going to resurface. Part of the appeal I suppose.

Perfect example of mouth in tune with an active brain and memory.