Category: The Pod

Lonely Hearts Clubhouse – Episode 9: Fred Astaire

November 9th, 2022

And so we come to the end of Season 1 of the Lonely Hearts Clubhouse, and we finish with a fun episode about musician, actor and dancer – and Hollywood legend – Fred Astaire. He’s the ninth personage along in the back row of the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover. It’s hard to say which of the Beatles (or which of the artists involved) picked him, but he’s a very interesting subject. We opted for possibly Lennon in the end, but it could equally have been McCartney. Like Mae West and W C Fields, Astaire was an unconventional movie star. Not gifted with the good looks normally required to be a leading man, he nevertheless headlined movies because of his extraordinary talent for dancing.

More than that, Astaire was a versatile musician. You’ll see him at the piano in Roberta, and you’ll see him playing his drums in one of his TV specials. Macca-like in that respect. There’s even an extraordinary dance/drum sequence in Damsel in Distress in which Astaire plays drums with his hands and his feet, and tap dances, all shot in one continuous take with a single camera.

It’s this extraordinary talent that made him an inspiration for Frank Sinatra, 16 years his junior, but who always loved to sing songs made famous by his hero.

This is the season 1 finale of Clubhouse. Elodie is away in New Mexico for now, so season 2 will wait a while.
Lonely Hearts Clubhouse – Episode 8: Edgar Allan Poe

October 26th, 2022

Eighth along on the Sgt Pepper cover, and we come to the master of the macabre, the sovereign of spooky, the uncle of the uncanny, Edgar Allan Poe. A writer, poet, and critic who died, like John Lennon, at the age of 40 — and was name-checked by Lennon in the lyrics of “I Am the Walrus”.

An overnight success who laboured in obscurity for most of his working life, Poe can be seen as the originator of the detective genre, but is also the quintessential Southern Gothic author, and a purveyor of horror stories that were frequently focused on people being buried alive.

Join Elodie and me as we sit in the summer garden and discuss Poe’s life and debts. The usual health warning about the night sounds (bats! a Chihuahua with a chainsaw! hosepipes!), although we think the baby sparrows had fledged by this time. Elodie wrote the script and I chip in whenever it’s inappropriate.

This is the penultimate episode of the first season of the Lonely Hearts Clubhouse.
Lonely Hearts Clubhouse – Episode 7: Carl Jung

October 12th, 2022

It’s like a Jung-le out there. Or: somebody spoke and I went into a dream…

Carl Jung! Founder of analytical psychology, originator of the idea of the collective unconscious, coiner of terms like synchronicity — and seventh along in the back row of the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover.

I really enjoyed this episode, because this whole field of study is so fascinating. And of course, the Beatles were always singing about dreams and dreaming, so Jung’s interest in dream interpretation is central.

As with previous episodes, we recorded this outside in the garden, so there was a lot of noise in the background, and I had to do some serious work to reduce it as much as possible. The baby birds were either asleep, or flown away, but the hosepipe was running; the pump in the basement was droning, the night market up in the hills was in full voice, and there were the usual motorcycles and reversing vehicles.

Still! I think it is listenable. As usual, Elodie did all the research, and I chipped in. Listen to the end for her Jungian interpretation of the song “Let it Be”.
Lonely Hearts Clubhouse Episode 6: W C Fields

September 29th, 2022

Let me take you down, ’cause I’m going to… W C Fields. With apologies, there, not just to John Lennon, but to our loyal listeners, who have had to wait an extra day for this episode again, because I didn’t get my shit together on the right day. Wednesday was a busy day!

Another vaudeville star turned unlikely movie star, even six places along the back row of the Sgt. Pepper’s cover, a pattern is beginning to develop.

What seems remarkable about W C Fields is the way that his story of self-invention is so quintessentially American. It’s the story of Jay Gatsby, of Mae West, of Bob Dylan: a universal story about creating a character and living that character with every fibre of your being.

This is another episode recorded in the heat of summer, outside the house in the evening, this time with added SCREAMING BABY SPARROWS, as well as the usual background noise. A hosepipe. A bit of wind. Engines. And a chihuahua with a chain saw. Hopefully not to annoying and distracting to enjoy the fruits of Elodie’s research and my excellent dad jokes.
Lonely Heart Clubhouse Episode 5: Karlheinz Stockhausen

September 14th, 2022

Really, this should be episode #9, and a retcon should move this week’s subject further along the row to ninth position.

This episode is all about the German avant garde composer who was surely the inspiration for the Beatles’ experiments with tape loops and sound collage.

The thorny question of which Beatle was the most avant garde has rumbled on for decades, with Macca making the case for himself in recent years, and Lennon blowing his own trumpet throughout the 70s. It was John who put out Two Virgins, but it was George who put out Electronic Sounds, and Paul who was behind Carnival of Light, which few have ever heard.

As always, Elodie does the research and I step on the punchlines: avant garde a clue.

Like the previous episode, we sat outside the house in France on a summer evening, so this podcast should be subtitled Chihuahua with a Chainsaw.
Lonely Hearts Clubhouse Episode 4: Lenny Bruce

August 31st, 2022

Episode 4: Lenny Bruce

Fourth along in the back row of the Sgt Pepper cover is an image of standup comedian Lenny Bruce which looks… nothing like him! I suspect because Peter Blake colourised a black and white photograph and stuck the head on a (generic?) body to which it didn’t belong—because in the original photo Bruce is sideways on, with his head turned towards the camera.

This upsetting detail aside, Bruce has always been categorised as the comedian who was hounded to death in the cause of free speech. At this particular cultural moment, of course, free speech has become a political football, as people with dreadful opinions and huge broadcast platforms complain that they are being silenced by people not employed by billionaire media moguls. As Zoe Williams argues in this recent article about Durham University, the battle between the academy and the billionaire-owned press as to who should be the arbiters of free speech has been raging for decades.

As usual, Elodie has done the exhaustive research – especially into Lenny Bruce’s obscenity trial –, and my job is to see how quickly I can derail her script with my terrible dad jokes.

Written and researched by Elodie McMinn with contributions from Rob McMinn.

This is another episode we recorded outdoors because it was just too hot this summer to sit inside in a stuffy room with all the windows and doors closed. So you’ll hear the background noise of a French village at night, which all adds to the fun. Chihuahua!

One more note: a reminder that episode one is missing because Elodie mislaid all her research and her script so we couldn’t record it. How could this happen, you ask? Well, one of the problems of using Pages on an iPad is that every document ends up being called Blank##, and it’s surprisingly difficult to give them a proper name. Maybe it will turn up one day.

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Lonely Hearts Clubhouse — Episode Three: Mae West

August 17th, 2022

Third along on the back row, then, and it’s Mae West, star of vaudeville then Broadway, then Hollywood; protagonist of scandals; jailbird; dealer in double (and single) entendre; bombshell; legend.

In this episode, Elodie gives a potted history of Mae West, and we discuss the company she finds herself in when described as “box office poison”, ponder her inclusion on the Sgt. Pepper cover, and talk about a couple of her films, including the one she made with Ringo.

You’ll be wondering, did Mae West cover any Beatles songs? And the answer to that is…

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Lonely Hearts Clubhouse: pilot episode (episode 2!)

April 17th, 2022

This is a pilot episode for our show Lonely Hearts Clubhouse, which is an exploration of all the people and characters who appear on the cover of The Beatles’ 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

In this episode, second along in the back row: Aleister Crowley.

You’ll be wondering why we started with episode two. The original version of this show was a university radio programme presented by Elodie — but! She has lost the research and script for the first show, and she simply could not face doing it again just yet.

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