Episodes
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For the series finale of the Green Man Podcast 2024 please enjoy Huw Stephens chatting to Jude Rogers recorded live at the Talking Shop this August.
Huw Stephens broadcasts on BBC Radio 6 Music on his daily drivetime show, guest presents on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live and hosts weekly shows in both English and Welsh on BBC Radio Wales and Radio Cymru. He co-founded the Welsh Music Prize and Cardiff's Sŵn Festival. His new book, Wales: 100 Records, offers a multifarious encyclopedia of Welsh music, from Tom Jones and Bonnie Tyler, to Manic Street Preachers and Super Furry Animals, via Dafydd Iwan, Cate Le Bon, Gwenno, and Underworld, bringing us a vivid portrait of the irreverent spirit of this country.
Jude Rogers is the author of The Sound Of Being Human: How Music Shapes our Lives, an arts and culture journalist for The Guardian, The Observer and others, makes radio programmes for BBC Radio, and runs arts projects. She moved back to Wales in 2016 thanks to her love of the Green Man Festival, which she has attended since 2005, where she's interviewed the likes of Shirley Collins and John Cale, and co-run the Saturday quiz in recent years.
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A joyous return to the fields of Green Man 2024 with none other than festival MD Fiona Stewart herself. She is joined by former royal nanny and keen fisher Tiggy Pettifer, to discuss the River Usk that runs along the Green Man site, and the importance of conservation efforts needed in Wales.
Then we rejoin comic and Welsh wonder Esyllt Sears, who spends Sunday afternoon at Green Man meeting Little Amal, the 12-foot puppet of a Syrian refugee child, and a global symbol of human rights. Amal has travelled to over 166 towns, this is her first time in Wales, and she not only led the Little Folk parade but also joined the crowds for the burning of the Green Man at the festival's close.
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As we come towards the end of our 2024 series, we’re taking things up a notch with Manchester band Maruja, known for going hell-for-leather in their punk jazz vigour, joined in our studio (read: tent) by Big Special, whose working-class anger melds with anthemic punchy pop, and left crowds reeling at their Sunday night Rising stage headline set.
And then it’s time to get lost in the world of Welsh myth and legend, exploring the relationship between the magic of old and the technology of new. Megan Broadmeadow’s exhibition in the woods, Dewiniath (or Sorcery) mixes AI and superstition, and she’s joined in conversation by fellow visual artist Angela Davies, whose work Aequus uses a lido in north Wales to question constructs of space and greener energy solutions.
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Tomiwa Olowade is a British Nigerian writer and critic.
In his debut book ‘This Is Not America’, he looks at how a split away from American views on race and identity might help build an anti-racist agenda in Britain.
Here he speaks to journalist and author Jude Rogers.
Conversation recorded at the Talking Shop 2024.
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Smokin’ Jo is the only female DJ to have won DJ Magazine’s DJ of the Year Award, and stands as a pioneer of the 90s dance scene. She has gigged all over the world, from Ibiza to Miami, China to Brazil, and collaborated with many major figures in music, film and fashion. Her memoir, You Don’t Need a Dick to DJ, tells of a childhood spent in a children’s home, the elation, euphoria and community she found in the burgeoning acid house scene, drink, drugs, and the misogyny, racism, prejudice and homophobia she encountered in the course of her phenomenally successful career.
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Once more unto the fields of joy we go, as we join Olli Dutton of Duty Disco, the late night Green Man institution, in conversation with pillars of the festival scene Deptford Northern Soul Club, and from New York to Crickhowell-via-London, electro-punk disco connoisseurs Baba Ali. Between them they all know a thing or two about staying up late, and share some fond Green Man after dark memories.
Then we wander across the green fields to catch up with Jason Solomons at the wonderful Cinedrome tent. He’s chatting to director Janis Pugh about her musical romantic comedy based in north Wales, Chuck Chuck Baby.
To round off this episode, we hand you over to some of the rising stars of the audio world, the young people who've taken part in this year's Somewhere Podcasting workshop.
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Ash Kenazi returns to the Babbling Tongues stage for 2024 bringing the same humour, perspective and drama for which he has become cherished. Host of the podcast The Pink Room, Ash has spoken to the likes of Self Esteem, Mac De Marco and Ezra Furman on issues ranging from queer experiences in the music industry to the dangers of huffing poppers.
Here, Ash sits down for a sgwrs with our fearless leader, festival managing director Fiona Stewart. They cover a lot of ground in their time together, from her early years dressing drag queens in the infamous Black Cap in Camden, to her innate connection to wales, to running our favourite - and BBC Radio 6Music listeners' festival of the year - the Green Man.
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Joe Boyd is the legendary producer of Pink Floyd, Nick Drake, R.E.M., Fairport Convention, ¡Cubanismo!, Toots and the Maytals, Toumani Diabaté, Taj Mahal and numerous others. He founded and ran the Hannibal label for twenty years. His film productions include Jimi Hendrix and Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace. His memoir, White Bicyles: Making Music in the 1960s, was published in 2006 to wide critical-acclaim. Boyd’s latest work, And The Roots of Rhythm Remain: The Story of Global Music, is a definitive study of the genre, a culmination of a lifetime travelling the globe and immersing himself in music. It reveals how personalities, events and politics in places such as Havana, Lagos, Budapest, Kingston and Rio are as colourful and momentous as anything that took place in New Orleans, Harlem, Laurel Canyon or Liverpool. And, moreover, how jazz, rhythm and blues and rock ‘n’ roll would never have happened if it weren’t for the notes and rhythms emanating from over the horizon.
Laura Barton is a writer and broadcaster, specialising in music. She writes for a range of publications including The Guardian, Uncut and Prospect, and is a regular contributor to BBC Radio 4, where alongside her series’ Notes on Music and Notes on a Musical Island, she has written and presented documentaries on everything from Shakespeare to confidence, via rivers, roadtrips and reproductive rights. She runs the Talking Shop stage at Green Man festival, and moonlights in A&R, signing artists such as Self Esteem, Let’s Eat Grandma, and Cigarettes After Sex. Her next book, Sad Songs, is a memoir of music and sadness.
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Under the green canopy of the towering tree next to the podcast tent, Welsh comedian and podcaster extraordinaire Esyllt Sears chats to Irish folk legend and multi-instrumentalist John Francis Flynn, just before his performance on the Walled Garden on Sunday.
Then we pop across to the other side of the festival, joining broadcaster Jason Solomons backstage at the Cinedrome with Mercury Prize winner Adrian Utley from Portishead, there to present the remaster of their live album Roseland that turned 25 this year.
And finally we join drag sensation and Wishbone host Dolly Trolley exploring all things Green Man Workshops, and giving us a peek behind the curtain at the festival’s newest and most secret stage - think raunchy performances and cocktails to match!
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Ahead of their Far Out Stage headline slot, William and Jim Reid joined their co-writer, critic and radio host Ben Thompson, to discuss their memoir Never Understood: The Story of the Jesus and Mary Chain. A wildly funny and improbably moving chronicle of brotherly strife, feedback, riots, drug and alcohol addiction, eternal outsiders and extreme shyness, it is the story of how the Reid Brothers travelled from their working-class East Kilbride roots to form one of Britain’s greatest guitar bands.
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Joelle Taylor is the winner of the TS Eliot Prize and the Polari Prize for LGBTQ+ literature; a queer, working class author of six plays and four collections of poetry, most recently C+nto and Othered Poems.
She is the host and co-curator of Out-Spoken, the UK’s premier poetry and music club, currently resident at the Southbank Centre, features regularly on BBC radio and television, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts. Her first novel, The Night Alphabet, was published in February 2022.
Owen Sheers is an award-winning poet, author and playwright. Twice-winner of Welsh Book of the Year he was the recipient of the 2016 St Davids Award for Culture and the 2018 Wilfred Owen Poetry Award. His poetry publications include Skirrid Hill and Pink Mist, which was adapted for the stage by Bristol Old Vic. His BAFTA-nominated BBC film-poem The Green Hollow also won three BAFTA Cymru awards, including Best Writer. To Provide All People, his most recent film-poem, was broadcast to mark the 70th anniversary of the NHS. He is also the author of two novels, Resistance and I Saw A Man, and the BBC One drama The Trick.
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More magic awaits as Welsh folk singer Gillie, who brought wonder to the Walled Garden when she opened the stage on Thursday, returns to the fabled podcast tent, joined by Cerys Hafana, known for her transformation of classic Welsh Folk with her triple harp, and Sheffield’s own Gia Ford, the soft rock singer-songwriter who’s been supporting Self Esteem on tour.
Next, Scottish-born fingerstyle guitarist Sam Grassie, rising star of trad folk and member of folk collective Broadside Hacks is joined by his band members Daisy Rickman and Nathan Piggott for a chat. Together, their flurry of woodwind, sax, drones and double bass mesmerised the Green Man Rising stage.
Then, the podcast tent is electrified by comedy, with award-winning Essex talent Esther Manito, actor and comedian Eryn Tett, two-time BBC comedy award nominee Sasha LO, and Welsh stand-up and Green Man first-timer Caryl Burke. The four talk strange DMs, dream festivals, and getting comedy advice from the audience.
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Chameleonic LA composer and multi-instrumentalist Julia Holter has shape-shifted before our eyes since 2006, moving between indie, electronica, art pop, and chamber pop, between studios and outdoor settings, between ancient Greek tragedians and twentieth century American poets. Her imminent sixth album Something In The Room She Moves is an equally fluid exploration of melody and voice, and of “being in the passionate state of making something: being in that moment, and what is that moment?”
At Green Man, Julia sat down with Richard King to discuss his latest book, Travels Over Feeling: Arthur Russell, A Life, a landmark publication celebrating the life and work of one of the twentieth-century’s true musical visionaries.
Richard King is the author of Original Rockers (shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and a Rough Trade and Times Book of the Year), How Soon Is Now? (Sunday Times Music Book of the Year), The Lark Ascending (a Rough Trade and Evening Standard Book of the Year, shortlisted for the Penderyn Prize) and, Brittle with Relics: A History of Wales, 1962–97, all published by Faber & Faber. He is the current Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Cardiff University School of Journalism, Media & Culture.
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Recorded at the Talking Shop 2024.
André Marmot is an agent at Earth Agency in London, specialising in the common ground between African, jazz and global electronic music. Unapologetic Expression: The Inside Story of the UK Jazz Explosion, is his first book, and explores the new U.K. jazz wave, encapsulating its revolutionary spirit and tracing its foundations to the birth of the genre itself. Drawing upon extensive interviews with the likes of Shabaka Hutchings, Nubya Garcia and Moses Boyd to Gilles Peterson, Courtney Pine and Cleveland Watkiss, it captures the radical spirit of a vital musical movement, and places it within the wider context of a divided, postcolonial Britain navigating its identity in a new world order.
James Endeacott was born in Halifax on St Patrick’s day 1965, and the first record he bought with his own money was Space Oddity by David Bowie. He was 10, and in some regards he has been working in and with music ever since. From playing in bands and working in record shops, to managing Tindersticks, hanging out with The Strokes, and signing The Libertines to Rough Trade. He started his own label, scored a number one album, and these days presents a show on Soho Radio every weekday morning.
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Wales meets West Africa as we jump into another tale from the mountains, starting with Mari Mathias and N’Famady Kouyaté. Mari’s mystical sound won her status as one of the Green Man Rising finalists, and her mythical Welsh folk songs mesmerised the Sunday crowd. Mari speaks to N’Famady Kouyaté, Guinean artist based in Cardiff, who uses his wooden xylophone (balafon) to create modern interpretations of West African Mandingue songs. N’Famady makes his triumphant return to Green Man after supporting Gruff Rhys on tour.
Then we join Ash Kenazi and friends to talk Byrne’s Night, the world’s first Robert Burns and David Byrne crossover show. Described by some as “a joke that got out of hand”, the special guest-studded Talking Heads covers show brought the (proverbial) roof down on the Walled Garden this year. Ash chats to Lola Stephen and Maddy O’Keefe from the band Hank, Ali Shuttleworth from Lice, Hannah Hayden from Platonica Erotica, and Kyleen Hengelhaupt who corrals the lights and visuals for the show.
And then catch up with Welsh comedians Laurie Watts and Katie Gill-Williams having a sgwrs with Settlement headliner Tara Bandito. A wrestler's daughter, Tara burst onto the Welsh music scene two years ago, and has since been found on top 10 lists and BBC 6 music playlists. Mixing her experiences of learning yoga in India and touring with Charlotte Church’s pop dungeon, Tara’s unique style includes Welsh language, English, and Sanskrit, with raw lyrics and thumping beats.
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Join us on a jaunt over to Einstein’s Garden, Green Man’s hub of scientific delight, to explore the activism of anarchy gardening!
Stuart Goldsmith, the internationally award-winning podcaster & climate comedian, is joined in the garden by Kalpana Arias, the tech-philosopher and climate activist, and Koundinya Dhulipalla aka KD, a digital artist combining nature and technology.
Dive into a new world of guerrilla and cyber gardening, and bringing wildflowers back to cities and streets, as they discuss everything from planting without permission, to taking to the internet and building your own digital garden!
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The 2024 Green Man Podcast continues with another unmissable episode from the black mountains. We’re back to the podcast tent with festival icon Ash Kenazi, swapping stories with Moonchild Sannelly, the future ghetto funk musician and blue-haired tour-de-force who exploded onto the Walled Garden headline slot on Friday. They chat all things collabs, including working with Self Esteem, and Beyoncé herself. Then strap in for wonky pop connoisseurs Lime Garden sharing the mics with orchestral mayhem creators Man/Woman/Chainsaw. Mayhem is apt as they discuss performing at the festival, breaking America, and strange alter egos. Shelf Lives round off this episode chatting amongst themselves - Toronto’s Sabrina Di Giulio and Northampton’s Jonny Hilliard, whose rowdy comedic sets have left their marks on a number of stages, talk about the biggest meme of the year: Brat Summer.
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It’s time to tuck into a second slice of Green Man 2024! Join us again on site as we head backstage at the intimate Walled Garden to hear from a duo that are usually found hidden behind the scenes. Producer Barney Lister who has worked with Obongjayar, Rina Sawayama and Celeste joins forces with Kojo Degraft-Johnson, a vocalist who can be heard on Little Simz tunes to create MRCY, a soulful sound for tough times.
Then it’s time to venture into the woods to visit art installation, Dewiniath (or “sorcery”), by Megan Broadmeadow and supported by the Green Man Trust. Who better to discuss reconnecting and realigning with nature and folklore than forager, herbalist and founder of Healing Weeds, Maria Fernandez Garcia, a Right to Roam campaigner and educator fresh from her talk in the Einstein's Garden Omni Tent, and Welsh folk singer Gillie who brought wonder to the Walled Garden opening the stage on Thursday afternoon.
And to finish off this slice, we pop over to the Cinedrome, where compere extraordinaire Jason Solomons is in conversation with filmmaker Sally El Hosaini, who returns a year after her spellbinding masterclass to chat about her daring romantic drama Unicorns.
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Another weekend for the ages! If you’re already missing the mountains, let’s take you back there for the first podcast from the 2024 festival. Kicking things off is Green Man legend Pictish Trail, helmsman of Lost Map Records, in conversation with This is the Kit’s Kate Stables, who took the Mountain Stage by storm on Friday.
We then join first time attendees and folk duo Lemoncello as they take a wander around the fields of Green Man, taking in the sites and stopping at this year’s Green Man effigy which burns at the close of the festival.
Super Furry Animals’ parallel band and veteran performers Das Koolies then chat all things late night amidst the babbling brooks of fortune falls.
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Not long now ‘til we’ll be together in the mountains. In this final preview episode ahead of Green Man 2024, N’famady Kouyaté shares some Green Man stories and Ella from PVA picks her favourite After Dark offerings. See you all soon.
With balafon — wooden xylophone — in hand, N’famady Kouyaté returns to Green Man with his modern interpretations of West African mandingue songs. The Guinean artist relocated to Cardiff in 2019 and has already played among our mountains as well as supporting Gruff Rhys on tour. Expect to see a djembe, kora, doundoun, or calabash or two alongside brass, drums, and guitars, as he inflects traditional sounds with pop, funk, and jazz.
Key players in south London's fervent indie scene, PVA are purveyors of good times and beating pulses. Come witness their blistering late-night DJ set on Saturday in the Walled Garden.
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