News

Like so much of Paul McCartney’s vast post-Beatles catalogue, it took those outside of his devoted fanbase quite some time to appreciate the eccentric brilliance of 1971’s RAM. For many, me included, it remains his greatest solo achievement. Actually credited to ‘Paul & Linda McCartney’ – making it unique in the Macca oeuvre – RAM sees Paul firing on all creative and musical cylinders; from the opening strains of ‘Too Many People’ to the triumphal fade of ‘The Back Seat of My Car’, he sounds buoyant, vital and – perhaps spurred on by the lukewarm response to his first solo effort, McCartney, released a year prior – determined to deliver the goods. And boy does he deliver the goods.

Happy new year to you all! A few recent appearances to tell you about.

A couple of months ago we guested on episode 337 of Jeremy Dylan’s My Favourite Album podcast to discuss Paul Simon’s classic 1975 LP, Still Crazy After All These Years. This was a blast, and we hope you’ll listen in.

We also had fun reminiscing about our formative years in music with Steve and Ben on episode 18 of the Songs From a Padded Envelope podcast. That one even contains an old demo of a song we wrote called ‘Sweet Tea’.

Print-wise, if you live in the North West of England there’s now a nice multi-page spread about the show in the January 2021 edition of Lake District and Lancashire Life magazine, thanks to Jeremy Blackmore for putting that together.

In November of 2021, the podcast will turn 10 years old, so we have some exciting stuff planned this year. Hopefully you’ll celebrate that anniversary with us when the time comes.

Something rather nice that happened during the first UK lockdown: the Sodajerker On Songwriting podcast was added to the British Library’s Sound and Moving Image catalogue. Search for it on their website.

Delighted (and not a little humbled) that our work will be preserved for posterity as part of such an amazing archive.

On the fourth anniversary of his passing, we’ve dug into the Sodajerker vault to find an unreleased bonus episode from a couple of years ago in which we sat down for an hour to talk about one of our all-time favourite artists – Prince!

We couldn’t resist bookending it with a Prince-inspired jam we found along with the recording. Enjoy!

Big thanks to Dorian Lynskey for kindly including us in his feature on the best music podcasts in the current issue of Q Magazine (published April 7, 2020), which is out now.

The issue also includes a 25th anniversary celebration of Morning Glory by Oasis, plus features on Jason Isbell, Flohio, Ghostpoet, Kooks, Avalanches, Mark Lanegan, Princess Nokia, Jarvis Cocker and Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien.

You can visit their website to find out more about the issue.

With the brilliant Adam Schlesinger’s tragically premature passing, the music world has lost an uncommonly gifted songwriter who, outside of his pivotal roles in Fountains of Wayne, Ivy and Tinted Windows, could turn his hand to seemingly any kind of project – TV, film, theatre – with unfailingly well-crafted, melodic and catchy results (and had sundry awards and nominations to prove it). The diversity of his resumé and consistent quality of his work (most recently showcased on the Emmy-winning US TV series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) speaks volumes for his talent.

We were deeply saddened recently to learn of the sudden passing of the wonderful Neil Innes. We are all the poorer for the loss, but we were so lucky to have him. He was an exquisite musical and comedic talent, a truly gifted songwriter, and a lovely man. Much like the four legendary Liverpudlians whose oeuvre he lampooned so well, his work had a truly universal appeal, delivering joy in spades.

In all our years doing the show, we’ve found that certain guests, when discussing their process, have an energy about them which gives us an extremely keen sense of what they must be like to work with creatively. Allee Willis certainly falls into that category.

As anyone who has worked with or interviewed her can attest, she was larger than life, a singular force of nature that swept you up in a whirl of positive energy. She was certainly a flamboyant character, but make no mistake, behind her colourful appearance was the mind of a searingly intelligent and thoughtful songwriter.

Huge thanks to everyone who attended our special event at the Meltdown Festival with Nile Rodgers and Merck Mercuriadis on August 8, 2019! It was such a pleasure to record the live episode at the Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, and we’ll release the episode soon so that those who couldn’t attend can hear it.

We were recently interviewed about Sodajerker On Songwriting by Caroline Crampton and Amanda Litherland of BBC Radio 4 Extra’s Podcast Radio Hour.

Our chat is now available to hear as part of a special Liverpool-based edition of that show. You can also hear it on the BBC Sounds app.

(Our segment starts at 33:40).

The 26th Meltdown, a festival packed full of exclusive collaborations, world-wide one-offs and unmissable nights, takes place at the Southbank Centre, London between August 3-11, 2019. This year, the festival is curated by legendary songwriter, producer and guitarist, Nile Rodgers, and will feature a live podcast recording with Sodajerker.

Last month, just a couple of days after interviewing Sting at his London home, we were lucky enough to be among the attendees of the 64th Ivor Novello Awards ceremony in London. (Quite a week for us!) The event honours the great and the good of British songwriting and was held at Grosvenor House on London’s Park Lane on 23rd May. If you’d like to hear more about the experience, check out our mini bonus podcast episode here: