Prog & Progeny

Mark and Tallulah are joined by David Stopps, the promoter behind Friars Aylesbury, which he founded in 1969 and has run for 56 years. David recalls the club's earliest nights — including King Crimson and Genesis — managing Marillion for 5 short weeks, managing Howard Jones, and the Kickstarter behind Aylesbury's David Bowie "Earthly Messenger" statue. Plus Marillion's hometown return on 21 September.
Links:
How to make a Living from Music - David Stopps
David Bowie "Earthly Messenger" statue, Aylesbury
Friars Aylesbury
Stagehand (the road-crew charity David fundraised for during Covid)

Mark and Tallulah are joined by Guy Vickers — barrister by day, musician and lyricist by night — the man behind the lyrics on Mark Kelly's Marathon and the legal brain behind Marillion's battle with EMI.

00:25 — Introducing Guy: weekend warrior, full-time barrister

03:13 — How Pete's dinner introduction kicked off the EMI streaming dispute

06:03 — The dissolved companies crisis: six months to save the pre-'96 royalties

10:05 — Pitching the box sets to EMI, and Fish's pub reunion proposal

13:27 — Marathon begins: number stations, spies and lyrics as relationship code

19:30 — The Anthropocene concept and what makes a human human

21:02 — Writing Amelia and 2051: Earhart, Kubrick, Clarke and Stephen Hawking

23:00 — Finding Ollie and hearing Amelia sung for the first time in New Orleans

29:15 — Why "Marathon"? The Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow logic

34:07 — The lost song about plagiarism (and Led Zeppelin's borrowed blues)

39:00 — Why Amelia crashed: Morse code, blind spots and unknown unknowns

43:47 — Wingsuits, risk and how you'd want to go out

This week we dive into Mark's years on the FAC and PPL boards, fighting for artists' rights while Marillion were being short-changed by their old EMI deal. The lawsuit that followed and the after-the-event insurance gambit, the sleepless night when EMI claimed Marillion had no legal standing because Marillion Limited had been dissolved! Plus the Portugal writing session that ended in a tactless row with H over a lyric, and the six-month silence that followed.

This week Mark calls in from Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios — with a quick video tour and the story of meeting Peter Gabriel for the first time.
Then into deputising for Adam Wakeman in Travis (with "drink beer" written across half the setlist) and a candid post-mortem on Somewhere Else — the dropped pre-order, the EP that never was, Mike Hunter's confidence taking a hit, and which songs hold up (and which really don't). Plus "Almost a Midwife Mark", and the tweet that got Mark to delete Twitter, tour meet-ups, and a Marillion quiz coming for Patreon members.

This week we answer your questions. If you have a question for inclusion on a future episode ask it on our Patreon "Questions questions" chat.