Friday has landed and so has your 'best bits' from the past week on the Tom Dunne Show...sit back, relax and enjoy highlights from the past few days of our nightly content...
Hadley Freeman
Many listeners will be familiar with Hadley Freeman's opinion pieces in the Guardian in which she examines a wide variety of pop cultural matters from movies to music to fashion. She joined Tom on Tuesday night to discuss her new book Life Moves Pretty Fast. "I remember pretty much nothing from school but I can still recite the whole of Ghostbusters," said Freeman, as she expounded on the glory of '80s movies such as Dirty Dancing and Back to the Future and, most importantly, the reason why movies nowadays are not a patch on that decade's.
Listen back to Hadley here:
The Radiophonic Workshop
The Radiophonic Workshop was established as a small department of the BBC in 1958 in order to produce sound effects and original soundtracks for the corporation's programming. Many of the sounds that the Workshop created during its forty year tenure are now iconic, including the original theme tune to Doctor Who. A number of the original members presented The Radiophonic Workshop: Out of the TARDIS - An Evening of Doctor Who at the National Concert Hall (NCH) on Wednesday. One member, Dr. Dick Mills, joined Tom to discuss the Workshop's important legacy.
New Billie Holiday Book
It is just over 100 years since the birth of one of the twentieth century's greatest singing talents: Billie Holiday. John Szwed joined Tom during the week to mark the release of his brand new biography of the Philadelphia native. Szwed is keen to focus on 'Holiday the musician' rather than the mythology that has developed around her life. During the interview he stressed her remarkability to situate her voice behind the beat and her pioneering management of the microphone when that piece of technology was so new during her time.
Grateful Dead Film
Director Marc Weingarten also joined Tom this week to chat about his new documentary film on the Grateful Dead, entitled The Other One: the Long Strange Trip of Bob Weir. Weir is one of the core original members of the Dead, a band which is currently in its fiftieth year. They will perform a number of reunion concerts this summer in the States. The film is an attemp to shine a light on Weir's contribution not only to the band but also to rock 'n roll in general.
On next week's Tom Dunne Show (Monday to Thursday, 10pm to midnight) we have a number of special features devoted to Roxy Music. Plus, Tom talks to Steve Tilston, a musician who received a personal letter from John Lennon, forty years after it was sent.
