All great records eventually have their moment. I’m writing this while listening to one such: Badfinger’s Baby Blue, which broke cover 40 years after its initial release upon being used in the final episode of Breaking Bad. The song is playing right now on Trash Can Radio, accessible 24 hours a day via trashcanradio.com, and through the night on south London DAB station Radio Nirvana. If, like me, you warm to the idea of a music service which doesn’t seem to be programmed by either a computer or a committee, you should get it while you can.
Trash Can Radio’s Mike Spenser has been flying the flag for his garage rock aesthetic since the mid-70s via his band the Cannibals. The policy of his radio station, he tells me, is: “We play what we want when we want”. The playlist in the Trash Can shop window includes Search And Destroy by the Stooges, Wang Dang Doodle by Howlin’ Wolf and You’re Gonna Miss Me by the 13th Floor Elevators, which gives you some idea. Spenser’s station may be swimming against the tide but it belongs to an international brotherhood doing much the same thing. To prove the point, it broadcasts Steven Van Zandt’s much-loved US show Underground Garage on Sundays at 8pm.
In A Brief History Of Anger (Saturday, 8pm, Radio 4), US humourist Joe Queenan reckons that the majority of the internet not devoted to porn is instead given over to anger. Political commentator Matthew Parris, one of his expert witnesses, says the only anger that works in politics is that which appears to be righteously employed on behalf of other people, otherwise you just seem to be losing it. There are clips of anger spilling out, from John Nott’s flouncing out on Robin Day after being called a “here-today, gone-tomorrow” politician, to Conrad Black’s crumbling hauteur when poked by Jeremy Paxman’s stick.
The greatest moment of all has to be Joan Rivers kicking off on Radio 4’s Midweek when she felt that Darcus Howe was implying she was racist. I could have done with a bit more of Chris Moyles’s epic tantrum about not having been paid when he was at Radio 1. In fact, I’d like to pitch a future Archive Hour devoted to breakfast show presenters taking leave of their senses after spending too long in the job. It’s a rich seam.
Presenters on rolling news stations depend on their regular contributors to take some of the strain from them. As such, the sky must be black with hats over Adrian Chiles’s studio when personal-finance boffin Martin Lewis makes his weekly appearance to answer listeners’ questions on 5 Live Daily (Mondays, 10am, 5 Live). Lewis isn’t just an expert; he’s also a great communicator who has framed his message in his head before he opens his mouth. He has that precious gift of being able to deliver complicated information very quickly and with massive energy. I had been wondering how the 118 118 service could afford to spend so much money advertising itself on TV. After Lewis reeled off a few examples of their eye-watering mark-ups, I wondered no more.
World Book Club (Sunday, 8.06pm, BBC World Service) comes from Anne Tyler’s home in Baltimore, Maryland and involves Tyler answering questions about one of her best-loved novels, Dinner At The Homesick Restaurant. It must be gratifying for an author of Tyler’s stature to be able to field queries from everyone from teenagers in Burma to seniors on the west coast. Nation shall speak peace unto nation, indeed.
