JeffreyMusic.Rocks

Jeffrey 2.5: Simon and Garfunkel

We've always known about Simon and Garfunkel as a thing, and known about both men as solo artists (mainly Paul Simon), but until now we'd never taken the time to listen properly to their five album output and decide which we liked best.
Their songs are inescapable, they're part of the furniture of Western Civilization, you cannot not know Mrs Robinson and The Sound of Silence and Hazy Shade of Winter and Bridge Over Troubled Water because even now, half a century later, these songs are still meaningful, still poignant, and still played.
So, as usual, we read some books and did some research and got to know the story of the band. It wasn't easy to rank the albums, there was a fair bit of disagreement, especially around the final two. We try to use disagreement to better inform our decisions by listening to each others opinions and being willing to change our minds and see things differently; we try not to just compromise by calculating an average view numerically ... but we don't always get that right and sometimes we just have to run the numbers - this felt like one of those times.
The Simon and Garfunkel Jeffrey Podcast Playlist is available here on Spotify and here on Deezer.
The Simon and Garfunkel page on the JeffreyMusic.Rocks website is here.
 

Jeffrey 2.4: Patti Smith

Neither of us knew much about Patti Smith when we started this podcast, we knew her name and thought of her as a mystical punk poet from the seventies, but didn't know much more ... then as we have explored other artists over the past few years, Patti Smith's name kept popping up over and again as a one of the most influential people of her generation ... and so we thought why not put her on the list for the Jeffrey Music treatment, and here we are!
The Patti Smith Jeffrey Podcast Playlist is available here on Spotify and here on Deezer.
The Patti Smith page on the JeffreyMusic.Rocks website is here.
 

Jeffrey goes to Patti Smith

John and Gordon head off to see the legendary Patti Smith, not an artist they knew particularly well before the research for this podcast. John goes to Madrid's Noches del Botánico festival and Gordon to Bearded Theory's Spring Gathering at Catton Hall in Derbyshire.
The Patti Smith playlist (in combined/fudged setlist order) is here.
Link to the post (including photos) on the JeffreyMusic.Rocks website.
 

Jeffrey goes to The Dead South

Second in a series of live gig reviews, the fellas teamed up to see The Dead South at Madrid's La Riviera, supported by Elliott Brood.
The The Dead South playlist (in setlist order) is here.
Link to the post (including photos) on the JeffreyMusic.Rocks website.
 

Jeffrey 2.3: Otis Redding

This podcast is not just about us wallowing in the music we already know and love (although it is mainly that), it's also about us exploring new stuff and addressing our musical blind spots ... and thus we decided to delve into 1960s soul and Motown with the great Otis Redding!
Our main source of research was Jonathan Gould's book Otis Redding: An Unfinished Life.
The
The Otis Redding Jeffrey Podcast Playlist is available here on Spotify and here on Deezer.
The Otis Redding page on the JeffreyMusic.Rocks website is here.
 

Jeffrey 2.2: Balthazar

In a change of pace, John and Gordon treat us to a discussion on Belgian indie-rock-pop-electro-soul types Balthazar and rank their five studio albums. This coincided (not by accident!) with seeing the band live and so there is separate gig review podcast available for your listening pleasure!
There wasn't much research done because there's not much information out there. Their website is devoid of facts, although there's a bit here on their Wikipedia page.
Here is the link to the La Cigale concert in Paris we mention.
The Balthazar Jeffrey Podcast Playlist is available here on Spotify and here on Deezer.
 
Jefflinks
Not strictly speaking a Jefflink, but In their early years, Balthazar often toured with the brilliant dEUS.
 
 

Jeffrey 2.1: Rush

No rankings audio product would be complete without discussing legendary heavy-rock / prog-metal / synth-pop / math-rock trio Rush, and Jeffrey is no exception in that regard. John and Gords head off to Toronto to go through their discography, ranking their albums, drooling at the musicianship, whining at the thin 80s production, and argumentatively struggling to put the bloody albums in any sort of sensible order.
The Rush Jeffrey Podcast Playlist is available here on Spotify and here on Deezer.
Research for this podcast included many online interviews, including this recent one with Alex Lifeson and this with Geddy Lee, the documentaries The Boys in Brazil and Beyond the Lighted Stage, and books by Martin Popoff (Anthem,  Limelight, and Driven covering the 70s, 80s, and beyond respectively, and the Album by Album book) and Roadshow by drummer and lyricist Neil Peart.
(There is a sound issue in the fourth, and final, section, due to an overheating laptop, apologies!)
 
 

Jeffrey goes to Balthazar

In a new series of podcasts from the Jeffrey Musical Empire, the fellas head off to see Belgian electro-indie aces Balthazar live in concert.
John saw them in Madrid's Sala Mon, and Gordon in London's Electric Ballroom.
The Balthazar playlist (in setlist order) is here.
 

Jeffrey 1.10: the Jeffrey Report (Season 1)

A reflective discussion on the first series of the podcast, dishing out the Golden Jeffreys:  best album, best album cover and a special mention for the coolest character. We also add a couple of live tracks to the playlists to illustrate the live side of each artist  ... and, because we know a thing of two about parties at Jeffrey Towers, we collate a Jeffrey Podcast Jolly Party Playlist™ with tracks from all featured artists.
If you want to party like Jeffrey, click here for a link to the playlist on Spotify, or here if you just want to listen to the Season One playlist.
Golden Jeffreys Nominations
Best album nominations: Jethro Tull (Thick as a Brick); Muse (Black Holes and Revelations); Komeda (The Genius of ...); Radiohead (In Rainbows); dEUS (In a Bar, Under the Sea and The Ideal Crash); Pink Floyd (Animals); and Fiona Apple (Fetch the Bolt Cutters).
Best album cover nominations: Jethro Tull (Thick as a Brick); Pink Floyd (Wish You Were Here and Animals); Radiohead (Hail to the Thief); The White Stripes (The White Stripes); Talking Heads (More Songs About Buildings and Food); Komeda (The Genius of ...); and Muse (Absolution and Origin of Symmetry).
Not strictly speaking a Golden Jeffrey, but the honourable mention for coolest character nominations: Mauro Pawlowski (ex-dEUS); Jack White (ex-The White Stripes); and Fiona Apple.
Listen to the podcast to find out the results!
 

Jeffrey 1.9: Pink Floyd

The Jeffrey podcast ends Season One with prog rock pioneers Pink Floyd. John and Gordon discuss (at length) the music and career of one of England's most admired and successful bands - John's favourite during those awkward teenage years - and rank their albums. No easy task for a band with so much variety covering such a lengthy career, but we got there in the end.
The Pink Floyd Jeffrey Podcast Playlist is available here on Spotify and here on Deezer.
(This is a reissue of the podcast as the original release was not the final draft).
 
There are countless interviews, documentaries and other content about Pink Floyd that fed into this podcast (including the Rockonteurs podcast interview with Nick Mason), we also read Nick Mason's Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd and Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd by Mark Blake.
 
Jefflinks
Roger Waters's solo album "Is This the Life We Really Want?" was produced by Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich.
The late Storm Thorgerson, album cover designer and Hipgnosis co-founder, went to school with Pink Floyd founders Syd Barrett and Roger Waters and was a good friend of guitarist David Gilmour. He went on to design most of Pink Floyd's album covers, and also designed the covers for "Absolution" and "Black Holes and Revelations" by Muse (their best covers by a mile).
 

Jeffrey 1.8: The White Stripes

John and Gordon explore the career of Detroit delta-blues rockers The White Stripes, discussing their music and upholstery, ranking their albums and picking their favourite songs for the playlist. A mix of nostalgia, discovery and incredulity, the glamorous gothic duo do not escape the sharp-edge of Jeffrey's critical tongue.
Special guest appearance by Daisy Dog.
The The White Stripes Jeffrey Podcast Playlist is available here on Spotify and here on Deezer.
 
In preparation for the podcast we (i.e. Gordon) read The White Stripes: 21st Century Blues by Dick Porter and Fell in Love With a Band: The Story of The White Stripes by Chris Handyside.
 
 

Jeffrey 1.7: Fiona Apple

Sparks fly as brothers John and Gordon disagree about the relative merits of Fiona Apple's output, in particular her highly-regarded 2020 album "Fetch the Bolt Cutters" - some may argue that the fact that John so obviously fancies Apple may have influenced his judgement, but they're your words, not mine.
The Fiona Apple Jeffrey Podcast Playlist is available here on Spotify and here on Deezer.
 
Research for the podcast was not so easy, there isn't a great deal out there about Fiona Apple. We watched various online interviews (including this for the WTF podcast with Marc Maron) and the movie Fiona Has Wings, so maybe's there's a gap in the market for a biography ... now there's an idea!
 

Jeffrey 1.6: Muse

John and Gords head to Teignmouth in Devon (not literally) to discuss the career and discography of power rock trio Muse, ranking their albums and assembling a playlist of their favourite tracks from each. Warning: we overuse the word "bombastic" but we try not to overdo the Radiohead comparisons, so it's not too bad.
The Muse Jeffrey Podcast Playlist is available here on Spotify and here on Deezer.
 
As part of the research for this podcast we read Muse: Out of this World by Mark Beaumont and Muse: Inside The Muscle Museum by Ben Myers.
Jefflinks
Produced David Bottrill ("Origin of Symmetry") also produced top album "The Ideal Crash" by Jeffrey favourites dEUS, as well as their 2011 album "Keep You Close" and a couple of tracks on 2012's "The Following Sea".
The late Storm Thorgerson, album cover designer and Hipgnosis co-founder, went to school with Pink Floyd founders Syd Barrett and Roger Waters and was a good friend of guitarist David Gilmour. He went on to design most of Pink Floyd's album covers, and also designed the covers for "Absolution" and "Black Holes and Revelations" by Muse (their best covers by a mile).
 
 

Jeffrey 1.5: Talking Heads

In this episode John and Gordon head stateside for new-wave-post-punk-pop maestros Talking Heads and rank their albums - a favourite of John's but a band that had largely passed Gordon by, so a voyage of discovery for the little fella!
The Talking Heads Jeffrey Podcast Playlist can be found here on Spotify and here on Deezer
There are quite a few documentary films (including this from The South Bank Show and Well How Did We Get Here? A Brief History of the Talking Heads) and interviews on YouTube we used in preparation for the podcast. Gordon also read Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa: The Adventures of "Talking Heads" in the 20th Century by David Bowman
We'd also recommend the excellent This Must Be The Talking Heads podcast - unfortunately this came out after our own Talking Heads podcast, so we couldn't use it as reference for our discussion.
 
Jefflinks
The Talking Heads song Radio Head, from True Stories, was the inspiration for the name of the band Radiohead
 
 

Jeffrey 1.4a: Marcus Holmberg interview (Komeda)

Supplemental Jeffrey (1.4a) is a companion piece to Jeffrey 1.4 (Komeda) and contains the full interview with their bass player Marcus Holmberg, discussing Koemda's career and music.
Marcus also ranks the albums and picks his favourite tracks - the playlist is here on Spotify or here on Deezer.
Komeda fans may also be interested in Marcus's current band Woodlands (link opens in Spotify).
 

Jeffrey 1.4: Komeda

In this episode we head to Sweden, where John & Gordon gush embarrassingly about one of their favourite indie pop bands from the 90s Komeda and rank their albums and ask why they don't get together and record some more stuff FFS!! ... if you don't know the band, here's your big chance.
The Komeda Jeffrey Podcast Playlist is available here on Spotify and here on Deezer.
 
There's very little information anywhere about the great Swedish popsters, so we were very fortunate to get to speak to their bass player Marcus Holmberg. You can hear the full interview here.
Komeda fans may also be interested in Marcus's current band Woodlands (link opens in Spotify).
 

Jeffrey 1.3: Radiohead

In this episode John and Gordon bicker about one of John's top bands Radiohead and rank their albums, you can probably guess which albums cause the most controversy but who seriously thinks Amnesiac is better than Kid A? You'll have to listen to find out (it was Gordon!)
The Radiohead Jeffrey Podcast Playlist is available here on Spotify and here on Deezer.
Among other things, we read Present Tense: A Radiohead Compendium by Barney Hoskyns and Radiohead - The Deluxe Ultimate Music Guide ahead of recording this podcast.
Link to the post on the JeffreyMusic.Rocks website.
 
Jefflinks
Radiohead took their band name from the Talking Heads song Radio Head
 
 

Jeffrey 1.2: dEUS

John and Gords talk through the career of one of their favourite bands, super-cool Belgian indie rockers dEUS, and rank their albums and reveal their awkward man-crush on Mauro Pawlowski.
The dEUS Jeffrey Podcast Playlist is available here on Spotify and here on Deezer.
We had some technical problems with the sound of Gordon's audio, but please persevere, it gets better.
There isn't a lot out there about dEUS, but in preparation for this discussion we watched Time Is The State of My Jeans film and various interviews with Tom Barman, especially on FaceCulture channel.
This was recorded before the release of How To Replace It which is reviewed separately here.
Link to the post on the JeffreyMusic.Rocks website.
 
Jefflinks
Producer David Bottrill ("The Ideal Crash", "Keep You Close", two tracks on "The Following Sea") also produced "Origin of Symmetry" by Jeffrey alumnus Muse.
dEUS also toured a lot with Balthazar in the latter's early years, being strong champions of their compatriots.
 

Jeffrey 1.1: Jethro Tull

The Jeffrey Podcast makes it's debut as John and Gords talk through the career of eccentric British rockers Jethro Tull and rank their albums. There are some long-forgotten gems, some fun discoveries, and some stuff that let's just say hasn't stood the test of time quite so robustly.
The Jethro Tull Jeffrey Podcast Playlist is available here on Spotify and here on Deezer.
There are loads of interviews and concert movies on YouTube that helped with the research for this discussion. The book we mention is Original Jethro Tull: The Glory Years (1968-1980) by Gary Parker and here is the link to the 1977 Capitol Centre concert (Songs from the Wood tour).
We'd also recommend the Ian Anderson interview on the Rockonteurs podcast. This came out after our episode so we couldn't use it, but definitely worth a listen!
Link to the post on the JeffreyMusic.Rocks website.