The Strange Brew - artist stories behind the greatest music ever recorded

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Homer Flynn – The Residents Oct 19, 2026

Show notes

The Residents don’t give interviews, so when they have something to say, Homer Flynn says it for them. He is their art director, their spokesperson and part of the Cryptic Corporation that has looked after them since 1976. Eskimo is currently on the road. The 1979 album, with its invented vocals and wind treated as seriously as music, reaches the stage this autumn with inflatable icebergs, projections and five new songs.

Homer tells me how a 20-minute slot at a San Francisco event grew into a full production. He explains why the first costume idea, a giant silver Christmas ornament with a top hat, was talked out of existence by costume makers, and how the eyeball that replaced it became The Residents’ symbol. We also get into the Mole Show and the Emulator sampler, the Freak Show comic and CD-ROM, the 100 archive boxes Hardy Fox kept, and The Lonely Wound, the new Residents album Homer says is in its final stages.

Further information

The Residents website, Eskimo Live

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Podcasts also available: Wolfgang Flür – Kraftwerk, Robin Scott – M, Rat Scabies (The Damned) and Chris Constantinou (Adam Ant), Tim Arnold and Kevin Godley

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Simon Nicol – Fairport Convention’s Early Years Oct 16, 2026

Show notes

Fairport Convention made a £5 profit from their first gig, at St Michael’s Church Hall in Golders Green on 27 May 1967. About 30 or 40 people turned up, and the band had printed the tickets and hired the hall themselves. Simon Nicol, whose house gave the group its name, was a professional musician at the age of 16.

Here Simon talks as Fairport embark on their autumn 2026 UK tour, a seated acoustic run that includes village halls and social clubs, and for the 60th anniversary shows in May 2027.

Nicol grew up in North London, where Ashley Hutchings lived just down the road and his father was Pete Quaife’s doctor. He saw the Kinks play their last gig as the Ravens and their first as the Kinks two weeks later. Fairport’s own break came when Joe Boyd watched them support Pink Floyd at UFO and signed them, though their debut single, “If I Had a Ribbon Bow”, sank without trace. Judy Dyble then left and Sandy Denny arrived, and Nicol says she “made a huge impression musically and personally”. The band made What We Did on Our Holidays, Unhalfbricking and Liege & Lief within 11 months, a stretch that also included the May 1969 motorway crash that killed Martin Lamble. Reflecting on those 60 years, Nicol explains why Fairport have remained active while “not a tribute band to ourselves”.

Further information

Tour dates and tickets from fairportconvention.com

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Podcasts also available: Simon Nicol (2023), Ric Sanders, Ashley Hutchings, Dave Mattacks, Chris Leslie, Iain Matthews

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Downes Braide Association Oct 12, 2026

Show notes

Geoff Downes and Chris Braide talk about Trauma, the new Downes Braide Association album, and how the project has evolved since the first DBA record in 2012. They discuss the difficult circumstances behind the record and the hope that runs through it.

They also trace how DBA began, and how bringing in Dave Bainbridge (guitars), Andy Hodge (bass) and Ash Soan (drums) has expanded their sound. They explain why making the records they wanted, with no A&R department steering them, has been essential, and how Roger Dean’s artwork has shaped their identity.

Along the way, they cover the David Longdon recordings drawn from the archive for Trauma and other collaborators, including Marc Almond and Andy Partridge. They also discuss how DBA sits alongside Geoff’s work with Yes and Asia and Chris’s songwriting and production career.

Further information

Downes Braide Association – Trauma

Downes Braide Association website

A dinner for David Longdon with Geoff Downes in London, 6 November 2026

DBA podcast tracks

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Podcasts also available: Annie Haslam & Jim McCarty: The Story of Renaissance, Inside Kate Bush’s Never For Ever, Alan Parsons on Pyramid, The Beatles and Pink Floyd

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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Ian Gillan – Deep Purple Oct 09, 2026

Show notes

Deep Purple play their last show of this run on 19 December in Mexico City. After two weeks at home for Christmas, Gillan goes straight back into work with the band, before leaving their Nashville sessions three days early to rehearse for a twenty five date speaking tour built around the practice that gives it its name: filling gaps with nonsense words until the real lyrics catch up.

Gillan covers The Javelins, Episode Six’s German club circuit, joining Deep Purple, the new album SPLAT!, Jesus Christ Superstar, the Ian Gillan Band and a year with Black Sabbath he still calls the longest party he ever went to. He also describes Ritchie Blackmore rejoining the band on stage for Smoke on the Water, and how a broken guitar string at the Lyceum turned into a stage habit he still uses today.

Further information

Talking Gib’rish tour
Deep Purple official site
Ian Gillan online

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Podcasts also available: Nick Simper – Deep Purple, Chris Slade – AC/DC, John Coghlan – Status Quo, Michael Schenker

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Randy Edelman Sep 28, 2026

Show notes

Randy Edelman is probably best known to British listeners for the records he made in the 1970s and early 1980s, including Uptown Uptempo Woman and Concrete and Clay. The Carpenters recorded his songs and took him on tour, and his records found an audience in the UK that he hadn’t found in America.

Then his career took a different turn. After working his way into film scoring, Twins led to a long run of Hollywood films including Ghostbusters II, Kindergarten Cop, Gettysburg and The Last of the Mohicans. Randy spent two decades concentrating on film music and didn’t write a song during that time. He’s now making records and performing again, with a new album, Green Park. We talked about his early records, his connection with London, The Carpenters, the move into film, and why he returned to songwriting.

Further information

randyedelman.com

Randy Edelman – Green Park

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Podcasts also available: Dean Friedman, Rick Wakeman, Danny Kortchmar, Leland Sklar

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Youth: From Dub and Killing Joke to The Orb, Paul McCartney & Pink Floyd Sep 25, 2026

Show notes

From the dub sound systems of 1970s Ladbroke Grove to Killing Joke, The Orb, Paul McCartney’s Fireman project and Pink Floyd’s The Endless River, few musicians have moved through as many worlds as Youth (Martin Glover). In this conversation with Jason Barnard, Youth discusses the CHANT Artist Collective’s new release, Relics Of Tree Worship In Dub (Gaudi & Don Letts Roots Dub Plates), and explains why he still calls dub “an endless river” of reinvention.

He goes back to Gooseberry Sound Studios and the John Lydon-produced 4″ Be 2″ session that set him on a path into music, his departure from Killing Joke, the birth of The Orb and “Little Fluffy Clouds,” and what pulled him into the studio with Kate Bush, James, Crowded House, Paul McCartney and Pink Floyd.

Further information

Relics Of Tree Worship In Dub (Gaudi & Don Letts Roots Dub Plates)

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Podcasts also available: Trevor Horn, Dave Ball – Soft Cell, Andy Gill – Gang of Four, Glen Matlock

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Allan Clarke Sep 18, 2026

Show notes

Allan Clarke started The Hollies with Graham Nash as a teenager, copying other people’s records at Abbey Road. He left the group, came back, then left again, and along the way his voice carried the group through four decades.

Jason Barnard sat down with Allan again to talk through his new single “Walking On Still Waters,” a decades-long search through faith, the stroke he’s been recovering from, his wife Jenny who got him through the hardest years, and what the future holds for The Hollies and their legacy. Clarke also explains how “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” came together with Roger Cook in half an hour, why he’s glad Carl Wayne was first to front The Hollies after he left, and how he ended up singing lead on tracks for Steve Howe, Alan Parsons, and Carla Olson.

Further information

“Walking On Still Waters” by Allan Clarke is out now

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Podcasts also available: Allan Clarke – The Hollies (2023), Allan Clarke (2014) – Part 1, Allan Clarke (2014) – Part 2, Bobby Elliot – The Hollies, Mikael Rikfors – The Hollies, Roger Cook

This podcast is also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Google apps and all usual platforms

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John Leckie on XTC and The Dukes of Stratosphear Sep 12, 2026

Show notes

John Leckie joins The Strange Brew to talk through the Dukes of Stratosphear story, from his first sight of a young XTC through to the new Dolby Atmos edition of the complete Dukes recordings.

Leckie was the Abbey Road staff engineer who cut XTC’s 3D EP in three days, then White Music at the Manor, then Go 2 and the dub experiments released as Take Away / The Lure of Salvage under Andy Partridge’s Mr Partridge alias (later gathered on the Explode Together compilation). He explains how that dub habit of pulling a mix apart and rebuilding it shaped his production work and the Dukes sound years later.

He talks through the years between, freelancing after leaving Abbey Road in 1978, work with Simple Minds and Bill Nelson, the Lost Jockey orchestral project, a spell in the Rajneesh commune, and how a collapsed Mary Margaret O’Hara session left Andy Partridge with six spare weeks of studio time, which became 25 O’Clock. Leckie recalls the Chapel in Hampton Bishop, the sound effects tape run live during mixing so nobody knew what would come up when a fader was raised, and the move two years on to Psonic Psunspot at the boat-access-only Sawmills in Cornwall.

Further information

Psurroundabout Ride (Dolby Atmos)

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Podcasts also available: John Leckie on producing Be Bop Deluxe, Terry Chambers, Colin Moulding – Part 1, Colin Moulding – Part 2, Dave Mattacks

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Steve Hackett & Steve Rothery Sep 09, 2026

Show notes

Steve Hackett and Steve Rothery discuss their joint album The Roaring Waves. They explore creative process behind it, their individual artistic histories in Genesis and Marillion, and their respective plans for future work. The conversation ranged from the nautical themes of the album and how it was assembled, to the broader philosophy of progressive music, the influence of early prog and blues-rock guitar heroes, and the personal and professional circumstances that shaped their life in music.