Saturday Night on BBC London 94.9 FM

3 April 04

David Byrne (& Magic Car live)

How to convey my pleasure and pride in spending an hour swapping records and spontaneous thoughts with David Byrne? Impossible, so you’ll just have to guess. Not only is he unfailingly modest, thoughtful and amusing, but David still finds things to say and ways of saying them that he has not said exactly this way before, a notable achievement for somebody who is asked to say what he thinks so often.

Almost alone among popular American musicians of his era, David continues to make intriguing, interesting records, each of which has a new twist in terms of genre, collaborators or subject matter. On his new one, Grown Backwards, David sings an operatic aria, which sounded particularly effective in the context of the other records chosen tonight. I assumed that each of them was new, but subsequent explorations, in search of album covers and website links for the playlist posted below, revealed that the Piccola Orchestra’s album came out in 1998 and Jo Carol Pierce’s three years before that. Dani Siciliano, on the other hand, is both new and British, but still a discovery for me. David also talked eloquently about Arthur Russell, who was active on the fringe of the New York music scene at the time when Talking Heads were emerging. David recalled that while Arthur was in some senses further ‘out there’ than most, he also enthused about Abba as consummate song-writers at a time when they were still regarded by everybody else as facile popsters.

After this Ping Pong was over, I thought of several questions I didn’t ask him. In particular, we never talked about his label Luaka Bop, because I had made the mistake of raising the subject with him before we went on air. And I’m notoriously bad at asking questions to which I already know the answer. The only way I can protect myself against this weakness is by not talking about anything of importance before the live broadcast begins, but there were exceptional circumstances in this case, which led to us having almost an hour together before we began, and it would have been difficult as well as rude to avoid all interesting topics. The answer, by the way, is that Luaka Bop is slowly re-emerging after being dropped by its distributor just over a year ago. Jim White has an album finished, which will be released through V2 Records, and A&R man Yale Evelev is compiling an album of psychedelic African songs from the early 1970s.

As a general principle, all but one of my weekly shows are broadcast truly live, with no opportunities for correcting mistakes. If I am out of town, Gerry Lyseight sits in for me (as he will do next Saturday) and the only exception is the end-of-year round-up of best guests, which is so complicated that we do prepare it in advance. When potential guests are offered to me on any day but a Saturday, I usually say, sorry I cannot do it. But when David Byrne was proposed… well, every rule has an exception.

So this encounter took place on a Thursday afternoon in February, which turned out to be a blessing because David brought along no CD albums, just his iPod. From his point of view, this was sensible and practical, but for us at BBC London it was an unprecedented adventure. How do you link an iPod into our rack of music-playing equipment? Thanks to the ingenuity and drop-everything-else co-operation of engineer Marcus Bailey and head of music Jim Lahat, we were able to make a link from the iPod to the back of a mini-disc player, and David was able to choose from his traveling menu of recordings. But a warning to any other would-be iPod players – there is quite a gap between pressing ‘play’ on an iPod and hearing the first sound. Because we were pre-recording, we could cut out those gaps afterwards. Maybe Apple can come up with a broadcast-friendly version, with an intermediate pause mode, which can be followed by instant play.

We also heard two songs performed live by Magic Car, a Nottingham-based group who did indeed arrive in a magic car, borrowed from the father of pedal-steel player Dave, after the group’s own van broke down. Quite how a full-size double bass, pedal steel and two guitar amplifiers fitted in alongside four substantial adults I could not fathom. I like the real-life imagery in the songs of the group’s writer Phil Smeeton, and the unhurried vocals of Hazel Middleton.

Tonight’s show was the last for volunteer assistant Richard Myers, who has come in almost every week for nine years, initially to answer the phones, and subsequently to organise the rota of other listeners who come in to help out each week. Many thanks, Richard, you’ve been a rock of dependability. I have been very fortunate in the calibre of volunteers over the years, currently enjoying the invaluable support of Nikki Akinjinmi, answering phone calls from listeners, and Philip Ryalls, who not only logs the information tabled at the end of this weekly bulletin, but photographs the CD sleeves and guests for the website.

Radio London is at 94.9 FM and on DAB (Digital Audio Broadcast) in the London area, and at www.bbc.co.uk/london worldwide. Each Saturday Night show can be heard ‘on demand’ for seven days at the BBC London website – the links can be found from the menu bar at the top of every page.

This site now contains a full listing of all the upcoming gigs mentioned on the show, stretching for several months ahead, which is displayed by activating the "What's On" link on the menu bar above. If you have pertinent information regarding live music in the London area, send it straight to Alan Finkel .

Guest images by Alan Finkel (David Byrne) and Philip Ryalls(Magic Car members)

In the playlist below, tracks marked with an asterisk were chosen by David.