radio

deXter Bentley's 'Hello Goodbye' show is broadcast live every Saturday from noon to 1.30pm on resonance 104.4fm in Central London and at www.resonancefm.com on the web

HG 28 05 05 (ft: Peggy & Pete Seeger)

1st July 2006

Our last show before taking a break for the summer features several acts performing live tasters for this evening's Hello Goodbye Presents spectacular at the 12 Bar Club. The Monroe Transfer conjure up swooping, brooding epics from all manner of instruments, Derry born Cormac Heron celebrates his 33.3rd birthday by laying siege to some of his favourite songs with a banjo and Nueva Cruz Bluegrass outfit Indigo Moss get us in the party spirit with their songs of love, booze and Brockley.

24th June 2006

Like a blue bottle's frustrating ability to avoid being swatted, the Oriental inspired UNIT refuse to stay in one place when it comes to writing their music. Their fight for art rock originality has resulted in their unpredictable interpretations of prog, punk, pop, avant garde, rock, and folk, all of which mostly cover lyrical topics of a political and social nature. This is all put into practice with a live session from the band today. Also live in the studio are Captain Blood Blood & the Sea Dogs, a motley crew of Essex misfits who proudly boast "We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are", which their bizarre sea shanty punk anthems make all too apparent.

17th June 2006

Sonic entelechists Little Sparta supply a live sample of their current collaboration with growling blues vocalist Mike Patrick.  Wistful New Cross singer songwriter King also pays us a visit, with a handful of songs that ponder the well trodden themes of young love, city life & rock and roll yet still come up smelling of roses.

10th June 2006

We are delighted to welcome back onto the show the sensational vocal talents of  Rose Kemp. The depth of emotion and spontaneity with which this young woman can deliver a tune is enough to bring tears to a grown man's eyes!. Also joining us with his acoustic guitar in hand is Anglesey's very own anti-folk druid Filthy Pedro.

3rd June 2006

Putative bastard sons of a parallel Hasil Adkins from a Pennsylvania Dutch farming community, Hank Stirrup and Chet Tendon play live in session. They are currently visiting Europe to promote their LP 18 Rural Stomps and Ballads, out now on the RIM recording label, who say of the band ‘these real brothers don't know what they are doing but it sure sounds great!’

Also on the show are Hello Goodbye favourites and all round good eggs Jesus Licks, who will be performing a live selection from their new LP Terrible Beauty. Expect tales of daleks, sharks and Lord Greystoke set to a backdrop of banjo-driven feral folk

27th May 2006

This week's show features a live session of punk/disco/no-wave and what have you from chess-loving trio Attack Switch Attack. According to the good people of Artrocker 'this is where the disco punk scene meets North-Eastern artrock guitar shapes. Bristling and jangling guitars take the best of Maximo and Good Shoes into a no-wave disco region where the bass twangs like a Young Marble Giants minimal groove and the hi-hat is furious.'

Plus a visit from amiable punk rock legend Spizz, who will be dropping by to fill us in on Spizzenergi's alternative World Cup anthem 'We're the England'

20th May 2006

Scottish duo Tells, featuring Caroline Ross's vocals and Jim Version's scattered but beautifully executed off beat arrangements, will be playing a selection of songs taken from their newly released 'Hope your wounds heal' LP (Fire Records). Jim Version is now a celebrated producer having worked with the likes of Bonne Prince Billy, Alasdair Roberts and Hookers Green No.1 while Caroline Ross has recently featured as the voice on recent records by Susumo Yokota and Rothko. Together they make what could be described as the soundtrack to a modern day 'Wicker Man' (Two mentions for the same film in as many weeks...is there a theme developing here?). Also on the show is Suffolk's Belinda Gillett, who hotfoots it up the A12 with her strong, haunting vocals and dark contemporary songs to showcase material from forthcoming album 'The girl who disappeared'.

13th May 2006

Today's live session comes from power-folk trio Rowan and the Crops Failed, whose name derives from a line of dialogue in the 1973 British horror classic ‘The Wicker Man’. Their songs deal with doomed restaurateurs, unorthodox alphabets and stolen confetti, among other things. The band will be appearing at the next 'Hello Goodbye presents' evening on Friday 19th May at the 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street, along with Xerox Teens, Shimmy Rivers And And Canal and Hot Silk Pockets.

6th May 2006

Comic and sincere in equal portions, the almighty Bib return to the show to sing frivolous songs underpinned by searing social commentary about contemporary office life, the Internet and the highs and lows of gambling - definitely worth a flutter - yes miss!

29th April 2006

A duo of duos appear in session, with both Salt & Blue and Snotty Cock performing live. Salt and Blue play the folk music of England, Europe and their own twisted dreams. Mainly playing cello and hurdy gurdy, they look for new ways to play their instruments, exploring drones, driving rhythms, floating vocal melodies, harmonies and discords. Meanwhile, 'two man super punk Osaka gang' Snotty Cock specialise in music which is aggressive, spontaneous and by and large very very short.

22nd April 2006

2 sessions from across the pond feature on the show. Over the past 25 years performer Dave Cloud and his band The Gospel of Power have been garnering diehard converts in their hometown of Nashville. Referred to as both a ‘specialist in ecstasy’ and as Music City's ‘enfant terrible’, Cloud and his colleagues have repeatedly held a dusty mirror to pop music's tawdry conventions and deftly dismembered the Frankenstein monster of modern musical excess. Then, New York anti-folk legends Prewar Yardsale supply ‘two chord songs, killer bucket beats, delicate singing, very clever writing, cheap shellacky acoustic distorted guitars, cool guys’.

15th April 2006

Team B and Cannonball Jane play live in session. Considered by the South London Press as ‘more like scientists than musicians’, Team B utilise everything from children’s toys to Tubas to produce a cacophony of quite stunning thrashy trance rock tunes. Meanwhile Cannonball Jane, aka mild-mannered Brooklyn-based elementary school music teacher Sharon Hagopian,  gives us a blast of her smart and sassy electro-pop. Her double A side single ‘Take It To Fantastic/ Slumber Party’ is released on April 18th on Fortuna Pop.

8th April 2006

Jeremy Warmsley and Rose Kemp perform live on today's show. Jeremy has been gathering plaudits for his music, which encompasses a curious mixture of the new and the old, the traditional and the atypical, all things archaic or experimental. His "Other People's Secrets" EP is released on Transgressive Records on Monday 10th April. Rose Kemp makes a welcome return to the show in a purely solo capacity on this occasion (after appearing in session in January as part of the superb Jeremy Smoking Jacket). Rose has only just turned 21 and is blessed with an impossibly rich and reaching voice, sometimes accompanied by shimmering electric guitars, sometimes looping itself into complex, sumptuous, harmonised hooks, or sometimes simply rising unadorned and a’cappella.

Also putting in an acoustic appearance is another Hello Goodbye regular, Jason McNiff.

1st April 2006

A typically incendiary live performance from Bristol noiseniks  Hunting Lodge, playing songs from their newly released sublime LP 'Energy Czar' (Blood Red Sounds). The band salvage the pawnshop gold of Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, Boredoms, and King Crimson, infuse it in vats of piss and come away with base metal. Repetitive churning dirges framed by drunken skiffle, giddy house rhythms and inept free-form freak outs are clamped around lyrics about Whitby, a wizard and seagulls trapped in bins.

All this and an acoustic set from country punk chanteuse Lou Psyche into the bargain.

25th March 2006

This week's show takes the form of a Gothic special, featuring recordings commissioned by the Tate Britain museum to commemorate their current ‘Gothic Nightmares’ exhibition. A round table discussion at a recent ‘Late at the Tate’ event invited Goths to compare their experiences as members of one of Britain’s most enduring subcultures. Extracts from the discussion are accompanied by music specially created for the occasion by James III and the Courtesan continuing their fruitful collaboration with Tautologist.

At the same event dB also recorded members of the public discussing their nightmares and these are peppered throughout the show, ranging from the bizarre to the terrifying to the downright disturbing.

The show also features a selection of Goth music chosen by legendary music journalist and Goth expert Mick Mercer, who discusses the current scene.

On top of all this there is also be a live session from The McCarricks, who have performed with Siouxsie and the Banshees and whose work provides a fitting accompaniment to the nightmarish themes of the show, having been described by audiences as both ‘erotically charged’ and ‘downright frightening’

18th March 2006

Alexander Hacke (Einsturzende Neubauten) & Danielle de Picciotto drop in to discuss 'Mountains of Madness' (a homage to the 'Cosmic Horror' author HP Lovecraft), their collaboration with the Tiger Lillies taking place at the Royal Festival Hall this weekend.

Former Jazz Butcher Wolfgang Tschegg adds to the teutonic flavour with a live acoustic session (accompanied by Hannah Tame) while the non Germanic but delightfully named Tea & Toast Band bring their own brand of 'rapturous rural absurdity' to the airwaves.

11th March 2006

Electro pop quartet Morton Valence play live in session along with skull cracking bluegrass specialists Indigo Moss, who may very well be a 21st Century Peckham version of the Carter Family.

4th March 2006

Featuring a live session from The Monroe Transfer, a melodic 7-piece chamber noise ensemble, comprising viola, violins, double bass, drums, guitars, glockenspiel, trombone, ukulele, samples, effects & distorted recordings, all played with a range of picks, bows, mallets, sticks, screwdrivers and electronics. Their music is entirely instrumental, angry, melancholic and uplifting, combining elements of minimalist composition & rock instrumentation. Today's session features their hitherto unrecorded 14 minute epic 'I dreamt I was a hammer and everything was glass'.

Also joining us in the studio for two separate solo acoustic sessions are Rasha Shaheen (one half of Bristol duo Male) and fellow Bristolian Joe Volk.

25th February 2006

Oxford's The Evenings supply a live session of uptempo electronic rock while internationally unknown singing sensation Malcolm Kaksois performs cohenesque tales of leather trousers and gentleman's magazines as he prepares for a gig in Calcutta.

18th February 2006

The Mules perform a live electrobilly smorgasbord of country, punk, electro and klezmer performed on surf guitar, barrelhouse piano, soaring fiddle, fuzz bass & frantic drums with whispered and hollered vocal stylings.

David Hurn also plays live, delivering damning lyrics in an almost conversational style set against a gentle, powerful and brooding musical backdrop.

11th February 2006

On this day, Michael Garrad Productions in association with Sit Back and Relapse present a supergroup of hitherto unheard of superiority, a musical coalition based on a shared disrespect for little things like technical competence, practising and giving audiences a good time. Brought together for the first time on any broadcast medium anywhere, the Hello Goodbye show has kindly allowed James III and the Courtesan and Tautologist to unite and wreak degenerate havoc about the ears of Resonance 104.4FM's early afternoon listenership. Samplers from Cash Converters, keyboards appropriated from younger brothers and rank distortion feature prominently.

Also joining us once again is Brixton's Digi-Dub, featuring the vocal talents of both Helen McDonald & Fairshare Unity.

4th February 2006

Leftfield multi instrumental West Country supergroup Jeremy Smoking Jacket play live in session as they prepare to open their current UK tour at the Hello Goodbye presents night at the 12 Bar club this evening. The band, comprising Rose Kemp, SJ Esau and Max Milton, have reinvented song-writing theory, disposing entirely of the bass-drums-guitar triumvirate and replacing them with everything from the relatively ordinary (clarinet, chord organ and trumpet,) to the downright bizarre (coughing fits, mannequins and radio static). Their compositions range from wistful pastorals to angry anti-war big beats, all produced live and in the most insane manner imaginable. Their highly recommended debut EP "Now We Are Dead (And Other Stories)" is out now. As well as appearing in the band session, Rose Kemp will be playing a couple of solo songs.

The show also features an acoustic session from charango-weilding post-punk trio Arthur Brick, who will be appearing with Jeremy Smoking Jacket at the 12 Bar. Purporting to feature a former model, a former factory worker and a former schoolboy, their songs draw inspiration from Bermondsey war veterans, night buses to Catford, 1950’s homosexuals and religious fervour in the home counties, amongst other things.

28th January 2006

2 acts perform live in session this afternoon; first up are Chips for the Poor playing music that 'sounds like a malfunctioning railway station tannoy system'. Also joining us is Bristol artist Tristan Burfield with a 'glitch and noise' set.

21st January 2006

All-girl, all-action, art-punk outfit the Schla La Las make a long overdue return visit to the show for a session of sparse, skew-whiff odd-pop from girls in matching outfits. If only all bands made the effort to dress up for the radio!
Fire Recordings artistes Virgin Passages also join us in the studio. Through their love of the Mamas and Papas, Paul McCartney's ‘Ram’, Signor Rossi and James’s dedication to all things Charles Manson emerges a wonderful swirling mess of sound.

14th January 2006

Promising to wow us with a selection of tunes taken from their imminently released 'Fetch the Parrot Blanket' LP, our favourite all female cello wielding prog/punk outfit Gertrude join us once again to play an incendiary live session.

Wednesday (Yes, Wednesday!) 11th January 2006 11.30PM - 1.00AM

Our Christmas Eve show finally gets an airing after missing its original scheduled broadcast for reasons far too boring to go into here. Gerry Mitchell rounds up some of the finest live sessions recorded on the show during 2005. Expect to hear music from Big Joan, Glassglue, Jesus Licks, Suitable Case for Treatment, Pete and Peggy Seeger, Nought, Tiger Force and many other selfless performers who have risen to the challenge of getting out of bed early to provide resonance listeners with the most outstanding live music ever to be heard on a Saturday lunchtime!

7th January 2006

We begin 2006 in style with a live session courtesy of Soeza: an experimental rock band comprising two drummers, one bass, one guitar, lots of singing and a much neglected instrument in rock music, the French horn. Their music is frenetic but danceable and angular yet soulful, combining Ben Owen's emotionally charged lyrical outpourings with Jenny Robinson's beautifully soft vocals. These two contrast and complement each other over a big, boisterous rhythm section, effervescent guitar and melodic horn.

31st December 2005

As 2006 looms large, and Old Father Time once more sharpens his scythe and shampoos his beard, we take a final look back at 2005 with another selection from live sessions recorded on the show. Tune in to hear Wet Dog, Peggy Seeger, John Parish, Shimmy Rivers And And Canal, John Parish, Pete and the Pirates, Diamond Family Archive and many of the other fine guests to have graced the studio this year.

24th December 2005

Celebrate the festive season by gorging yourself on a selection box of some of the finest live sessions recorded on the show during 2005. Expect to hear music from Big Joan, Glassglue, Jesus Licks, Suitable Case for Treatment, Pete and Peggy Seeger, Nought, Tiger Force and many other selfless performers who have risen to the challenge of getting out of bed early to provide resonance listeners with the most outstanding live music ever to be heard on a Saturday lunchtime!

17th December 2005

The wise men of Hello Goodbye bring you seasonal gifts of golden girls Wet Dog, frankincense monsters Jail and myrrh-maids Male, all of whom will be giving a live taste of things to come as they prepare for this evening's Hello Goodbye presents... Xmas bash at the 12 Bar Club

10th December 2005

A former Rock'n'Roll drummer of the disillusioned variety, Metronomy (aka Joseph Mount) turned his hand to composing music on an old computer sold to him by his dad and now creates superbly crunching instrumental pop anthems. Today he makes his way to the Resonance studio to perform live, perhaps including renditions of tunes from his newly released EP 'You could easily have me', currently available through the Holiphonic record label.

3rd December 2005

Back by popular demand, old favourites of the show and young avant-rock upstarts Xerox Teens once again play live in session. Their wholly appealing 2nd double A-side single - Round/Man It's Hard to Beat a Woman (Big Billy records) sees them in fine fettle and augers well for a classic Hello Goodbye session. Miss it at your peril.

26th November 2005

With music simply oozing with wit and class as it happily swings between moody listening and succulent disco, Sheffield's The Chemistry Experiment grace the studio with a live session featuring songs from their current Fortuna Pop LP 'The Melancholy Death of the Chemistry Experiment'.

19th November 2005

deXter Bentley are honoured to welcome back onto the Hello Goodbye show Britain's adopted 'Godmother of Folk' Peggy Seeger

The daughter of musicologist Charles Seeger and composer Ruth Crawford Seeger, Peggy is the half-sister of Pete Seeger and her life partner was the English songwriter Ewan MacColl, who wrote 'The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face' for and about her. For decades, she has been one of the most authoritative voices in American and English folk and while she is acknowledged as an esteemed interpreter of traditional material and a gifted instrumentalist, she is perhaps best known for her observant and caustic original songs about women; 'Gonna Be an Engineer' being a case in point. Since 1959, she has written hundreds of songs, forging the missing link between the 1950s American folk-song revival and women's liberation.

12th November 2005

5th November 2005

Two more Hello Goodbye favourites make welcome returns to the airwaves this week:

Master are a Nottingham based trio comprising of ukulele, drums, clarinet and voice. Their ramshackle sound manages to combine elements of jazz, music hall, punk and experimental noise-core. Having recently lost a banjo player but gained a drummer, they are at pains to point out that they are still supremely dedicated to creating a zealously glorious racket.

Glassglue frontman Marcel Stoetzler may well resemble a taller Max Wall but in fact sounds more like a hybrid of both Marlene Dietrich and Howard Devoto. His short, sharp & witty observations are perfectly conveyed with the aid of his  geeky yet ever ready band members.

29th October 2005

22nd October 2005

No Hello Goodbye show this week as Resonance broadcasts live from the Frieze Art Fair

15th October 2005

David Cronenberg's Wife bring their dark, uncomfortable and off the wall subject matter set to throbbing and infectious rhythms into the studio for a live session. Gina Birch(Raincoats/Red Crayola) also joins us ahead of her performance at Wired Women at the Spitz on October 27th. Among other things she will be discussing her contribution to the soundtrack of Lizzie Borden's classic 1983 futuristic feminist film 'Born in Flames' which will be given a rare screening at the same event.

8th October 2005

This afternoon's live session is courtesy of purported teenage Outsider Metal specialists Scorpion Thunderbolt of the Twenty First Century Plan B aka 'STOT21stCPlanB', who all claim to suffer from a degenerative ageing disease. Rather than playing songs from their first album - 'Satan's Rat Trap and the Mouse that wound up dead' (Rim Records) - 'a dark and sardonic record crammed full of death!', they preview songs from their post-alt country concept LP inspired by the recent floods in New Orleans. Also appearing live is Gdansk's one man trio Jacek Kulesza, performing with guitar, tambourine and suitcase.

1st October 2005

Live sessions from some of the acts performing in this evening's 'Hello Goodbye' presents show at the 12 Bar Club.

Picture, if you will, a parallel universe in which Tom Waits joins forces with Sepultura to record a Captain Beefheart tribute album. The resulting sound of such an unlikely alliance would not be dissimilar to that produced by Oxford’s extraordinary Suitable Case For Treatment, who make a welcome return visit to the show today. The band defy categorisation at every turn, veering effortlessly from hardcore to ska and back again while onlookers can only gasp in amazement at alleged ex-circus performer Liam Ings-Reeve’s scorching gravel-coated rasp of a voice. Their superb debut album, ‘Of Motets and Misdirection’, described by Kerrang as a ‘madder-than-mad collection of crazed sea shanties and macabre experiments in grime-encrusted rock’n’roll’ is out now on Thin Man records.
 

Also from Oxford, the downbeat lush arrangements, simple, powerful songs and brooding presence of Fireworks Night are akin to Low or a very low-watt Calexico, with a deathly resonance that Will Oldham would no doubt approve of. With sparing use of pianos and guitars, they weave simple vignettes, maudlin tales of dissolved love, depression and darkness. There is nonetheless real beauty here if you choose to find it and while they may well kick you into the gutter, they also invite you to take a peek at the stars. Their debut album, ‘It’s A Wide, Wide Sea’ is out now on Organ Grinder Records.

deXter Bentley also give a live performance of one of our songs and, not content with playing two gigs on the same day, Pete and the Pirates drop in to play a couple of tunes as well.

24th September 2005

Two live sessions square up to each other this week: In the red corner Little Sparta summon up an atmospheric musical accompaniment to enhance the lyrical ramblings of our much loved in-house poet Mr. Gerry Mitchell. Meanwhile, in the blue corner, making a welcome return to the studio along with his band is Jason McNiff, treating us to a formidable feast of finger picking fury and damn fine songs.

17th September 2005

In our first 90 minute show, John Parish will be dropping by to fill us in on his career as a composer, performer, multi-instrumentalist, producer and PJ Harvey collaborator. We'll also be gently coaxing him into playing a live tune or three from his forthcoming LP 'Once Upon A Little Time'.

10th September 2005

Charango-wielding post-punksters Arthur Brick eulogise pedestrians and night buses live in session.

3rd September 2005

Actor and playwright Nick Moran joins us in the studio to talk about his current West End play 'Telstar', based on the life and death of pioneering 1960's record producer Joe Meek.

27th August 2005

Every now and then, inspired by Morgan Fischer’s 1980 ‘Miniatures’ album, we invite listeners to contribute recordings of around sixty seconds in duration to the Hello Goodbye show – these can be music, spoken word, soundscapes, field recordings and so on. When we’ve collected enough of these small but perfectly formed pieces, we combine them to form an hour’s worth of aural thumbnails. Today’s show is the final instalment in the series of bonsai marvels. The full track listing is as follows: