C86 Show - Indie Pop

Myke Scavone in conversation with David Eastaugh 

Following the disbandment of the Doughboys, Scavone began a career as a session drummer throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was performing on demos for producers Jerry Kasenetz and Jeffry Katz when he joined the newly formed Ram Jam, led by guitarist Bill Bartlett, in 1977. The band had found success with a cover of the Lead Belly song "Black Betty". Scavone performed on both of the band's albums, Ram Jam and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ram before the band disbanded in 1978. He did not perform on the band's only hit, "Black Betty", as it had been recorded by Bill Bartlett's former band Starstruck and credited to Ram Jam following Starstruck's disbandment.

Dominic Mohan in conversation with David Eastaugh

https://www.amazon.co.uk/1996-Backstage-Wildest-Britains-must-read/dp/0008767130

https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2026/event/1996-a-celebration-of-the-wildest-year-of-britains-wildest

1996. Britpop ruled the airwaves.

The tabloids framed reality long before Instagram.Football was finally coming home. Tony Blair was learning to play rock star – and rock stars were learning they could play politics. Everyone was partying hard, and Britain was the coolest place on earth.

Showbiz reporter Dominic Mohan wasn’t watching the party from afar – he was in the room.

Backstage at Knebworth with Oasis. In strip clubs with Robbie Williams. On the phone to Bowie. On the receiving end of Spice Girls gossip, Gallagher gobbiness and tabloid-era chaos. From Euro ’96 euphoria to Brit Awards anarchy, from rave culture to New Labour, Mohan witnessed the moment the UK went from scruffy indie island to global cultural powerhouse.

Part memoir, part cultural autopsy and part riotous tour through the 90s and its greatest year, 1996 is a jaw-dropping front-row seat to the madness, the music, the football, and the politics that reshaped Britain – and created legends along the way.

Three decades on, Mohan returns to the year everything peaked, and asks: what the hell happened, why did it matter, and can it ever happen again?

Alex Newport in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.alexnewport.com/

https://fudgetunnel.bandcamp.com/music

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb232BkAe6A

 

Fudge Tunnel formed in 1989. They released their debut EP on Pigboy/Vinyl Solution in 1989, Fudge Tunnel. Although marketed as an EP, due to its short length, it was named "Single of the Week" in NME magazine in January 1990, with NME declaring "Absolutely and totally the best single ever to be released in 1990. Total nine guitar attack-rock".

The band followed up with their second EP, The Sweet Sound of Excess, in 1990, again on Pigboy/Vinyl Solution. Fudge Tunnel also found support via DJ John Peel as they recorded a Peel Session in 1990. They then signed to Nottingham's Earache Records. Their full-length debut album was 1991's Hate Songs in E Minor, which attracted a large amount of press interest after the original album artwork was confiscated by the Nottingham Vice Squad

Neil Howson in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://preciousrecordingsoflondon.bandcamp.com/album/prelp-8-age-of-chance-bbc-sessions-85-87

A stunning mix of Northern Soul, machine-like beats, electroclash, slogans and agitpop, Age of Chance were unquestionably one of the most exciting groups to emerge during the C86 era. They certainly didn’t sound like anybody else, that’s for sure.
An uncompromising live act, Age of Chance were frantic and frenetic – and they even dallied with the mainstream via their version of Prince’s Kiss. Janglepop this is not.


Now, not before time, their three sessions for BBC Radio 1 are collected by Precious Recordings of London as part of the label’s ongoing series. And for good measure, we’ve included both sides of their first two incredible ground-breaking singles – Motorcity and Bible Of The Beats, both unavailable in any form for decades.
Limited edition (500 copies worldwide) comes with unseen pics, sleeve essay by close associate John F Power. and download codes.

Includes unlimited streaming of PRELP 8: Age of Chance BBC sessions 85-87 via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Neil Taylor in conversation with David Eastaugh 

https://www.roughtrade.com/en-de/product/neil-taylor/document-and-eyewitness-an-intimate-history-of-rough-trade

Rough Trade is practically a byword for the history of independent music over the last thirty years. DOCUMENT AND EYEWITNESS: AN INTIMATE HISTORY OF ROUGH TRADE tells the story from the inside of a phenomenally influential record label, through the voices of Geoff Travis, Jarvis Cocker, Robert Wyatt, Green Gartside and many many more.

From the early records of Cabaret Voltaire, Kleenex and the Swell Maps, through to groundbreaking releases by The Fall, The Smiths and Scritti Pollitti, on through the collapse of the independent collective and the rebirth of Rough Trade at the turn of the century, this is the definitive, essential account for any serious music fan.