Oh What A Time... - #123 Music in Unexpected Places (Part 1)

Episode Date: July 6, 2025

This week we’re discussing various tunes and music genres which popped up in surprising circumstances. We’ve got North Africa’s blues inspired Tuareg Rock, western music behind the iron curtain and modern attempts to recreate that original Tudor sound!Tom’s joined the rechargeable nasal hair remover revolution and we’re talking hair removal through history this week; we’re talking Norman Lamont, we’re talking Margaret Thatcher’s press secretary. To contribute on this subject or anything else, please email: [e-mail] you fancy a bunch of OWAT content you’ve never heard before, why not treat yourself and become an Oh What A Time: FULL TIMER?Up for grabs is:- two bonus episodes every month!- ad-free listening- episodes a week ahead of everyone else- And much moreSubscriptions are available via AnotherSlice and Wondery +. For all the links head to: ohwhatatime.comYou can also follow us on: X (formerly Twitter) at @ohwhatatimepodAnd Instagram at @ohwhatatimepodAaannnd if you like it, why not drop us a review in your podcast app of choice?Thank you to Dan Evans for the artwork (idrawforfood.co.uk).Chris, Elis and Tom xSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to episodes of Oh What A Time early and ad free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Keep people and pets safer. Always keep your dog on a leash in public. Learn more at toronto.ca slash leash your dog. A message from the city of Toronto. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle Three. Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible original series.

When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the Grandview shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in the supernatural thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. Hello and welcome to Oh What A Time, the history podcast that asks the question, was life much worse prior to things being delivered directly to your door?

Now the reason I ask this is because my wife just yelled something at the house I thought would make you guys laugh, which was, Tom, just to say your nose hair trimmer has just arrived. I've got a normal amount of nose hair, just to be absolutely clear. I'm not dealing with some unruly mess. Yeah, a normal amount for a 110 year old wizard. Exactly, yeah, completely.

Now, we were in bed last night, Al, this was like half nine at night, and that's when I mentioned, oh, completely. Now, we were in bed last night, Al, this was like half nine at night, and that's when I mentioned, oh, I might get a nose hair trimmer, it'll be easier. And now, what is it now? Three o'clock the next day and I have one, it's been delivered to my house. And you've got the nose of a toddler. Absolutely. Is this, so is this your first ever nose hair trimmer?

So it's the first one you can charge up by plugging into an adapter. Oh, okay. All of my previous ones have been battery operated. They'd run out of battery and then I'd never get around to replacing the battery and then I'd lose said trimmer. This one will have a place that I can place it by the mirror and occasionally, very occasionally,

because I actually don't have a hirsute nose, very occasionally use it. My issue isn't nose hair It's eyebrow hair. Yeah, give me two weeks and I am Norman Lamont. I'm Dennis Healy I'm a sort of street clown in a small French town. It is mad how long my eyebrow hair gets Do you ask the hairdresser to deal with it? Every time. How have you got to that point? And the first time...

And they come out with a fly mode? Yeah, and the... Yeah, sort of a strimmer. And the first time it happened, the hairdresser said, quite tentatively and sheepishly, would you... I mean, you obviously don't have to,

but would you be up for me maybe trimming your eyebrows as well? And I said, oh yeah, sure, fine. And he went, oh thank God. I was like, oh okay, wow. And then he did it and the difference was huge. It makes such- Getting onto the sit down lawn mower.

Yay. And asking you to lie on the floor. He's got a chainsaw and said, it's fine. I haven't had a drink for a couple of days. I'm steady as anything. But Al, it revolutionises your face. Whenever I'm not just you I mean in general whenever I ask a hairdresser to get it done I always forget but occasionally do do my eyebrows and it completely changes. Oh yeah. It does. Lighter eyebrows opens

up your face you look much better. What are they doing? Are they using scissors or clippers? Yeah just little scissors. Clippers and a comb. What are you getting? Clippers? They're or clippers? Yeah, just little scissors, yeah. Clippers and a comb. What? You're getting clippers. They're setting clippers on your eyebrows. How out of control are you? Big time. Oh no, not with mine. You've got a more extreme eyebrow than I have. They're just using tiny scissors for me for about a second.

I draw the line at a hairdresser taking clippers to my eyebrows. With LSA essentially hacking through the Amazon. I need the clippers. It makes a huge difference. I had to do it myself in lockdown and I was very nervous about it because you don't end up looking like you're on a rugby toe when you're 15. And I did give myself tram lines sort of Aaron Lennon style by mistake a couple of times. But no, it's, yeah, it's revolutionary. The thing with your nose hair

clipper is that prior to things like Amazon and other delivery services you would have had to have made that embarrassing purchase in the town in which you lived. Absolutely. I remember my friend Neil having to buy condoms and sort of driving to the other side of town because he he was hoping that no one would recognise him and tell his mum or something. But as you can now, click of a button, you can buy what you want. Yeah, absolutely.

You can buy bum cleaner on Amazon or whatever. Bum cleaner? Your arse bleach. Yeah, you can buy it all. No one will ever know. That lovely anonymous brown package. Fantastic. Can I make a suggestion for history's greatest eyebrows? Yes.

I'll send it to you now. Sir Bernard Ingham, the press secretary to Margaret Thatcher. Yes, yes. Let's have a look. These eyebrows are so out of control you could plait them. Yeah, yeah. They're amazing, aren't they? As long as his head... Whoa! It's ins... and if you're ever watching a documentary about Margaret Thatcher, he will inevitably pop up as a talking head. And it's so distracting. The eyebrows are enormous.

Looks like the boom mics come down too far, the talking head. Two boom mics come down too far and the talking head. Two boom mics. Yeah, Lamont and Healy are the other two and the great Welsh actor Hugh Griffith had incredible eyebrows as well. I'd like to imagine if my eyebrows got that big that at some point a friend or loved one would stage some kind of intervention. So they'd say, they'd say, Bernard, I need to tell you, your eyebrows, they're too big, mate. I hope that's alright. What's happened with Bernard Ingham there though is Lamont's and Healy's went up, and

Hugh Griffith's eyebrows went up, the actor, but Ingham's are going down over his eyes. He's like one of those sort of dogs you see at Crufts that can't see anything. He's very, very Crufts, Bernard England. Hugh Griffiths, yeah, he's pulled them up into a point. Like, you know, in the movie there's some, like, German men styled in moustache. He's done that with his eyebrows. I don't think I've ever seen that before. No, no, it's...

But I suppose when they're that long, you've got to work out what your angle is. Yes. The problem with like, if you're pulling your eyebrows up like that into a point, are you not always looking surprised? To me, when they're pulled up to a point, it makes it look like you're secretly Satan. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. And you're down on earth trying to hide the fact that you're actually the evil incarnate. Yeah. It's not a friendly look, I don't think. No. Chris, have you never trimmed your eyebrows?

Oh, I trim my eyebrows. Of course I trim my eyebrows. There we go. Yeah, for many years. And the tip is, someone told me, push your eyebrows up as far as you can and then just trim along a line. And that's what I do. Top tip. For all our eyebrow trimming listeners. Will Barron My introduction to Bernard Ingham wasn't

as when he was press secretary to Margaret Thatcher. It was in the episode of Brass Eye about drugs. He's one of the people who warns against the evils of cake. Several people have actually been brained by saucepans used to make this kind of cake before asking if it was to use their cheese box and say no, never. He actually, I always thought he got away sort of quite lightly I think in that episode. ALICE It's quite a niche historical character, really, isn't it? Did he get away lightly because most people would know who Sir Bernard de Ingham is? I don't know, sort of late 90s, he would have been, I suppose he was

probably as famous then as Alistair Cumberland is now, I reckon maybe? I'm not sure. Did you, I once, when I was about 21, I think you might have said, you just may have said that you had the same Chris, I briefly flirted with the eyebrow stripe, where you shave a little stripe into your eyebrow. I did have that briefly. That's around the time that sort of Beckham had it and people thought it was cool. You have not got the personality. No, absolutely not. As you know, I must have been about 19, it was my year out. It'd be like if you, if you're like a, I don't know, if you said, yeah, I'm gonna buy Harley Davidson and rock it with my local Hells Angels actually on my gap year.

I also had frosted tips, Al, as well. Did you? And one signed an autograph outside All Bar 1 because someone thought I was Noel from here, so. So, you know, it had its benefits. This is the thing about the Crane brand. If you go back to the early noughties, he is putting a tram line into his eyebrow, but even recently we did a record and he's wearing a Stowell Island top. And as I say, this isn't your brand.

Do you know what the Crane brand is? It's hugely inconsistent. Who are you? A man who cannot be relied on. You can let your watch to this man. Life, we're all groping for who we really are, aren't we? That's what it is. It's all an endless struggle to work out who we really are. Yeah, yeah. On the deathbed, I'll go, oh, got it. I was Frosted Tips Man. I was right all along. As the doctor saying, I'm so sorry, Noel, from here saying, but this is the end. Well there we go. I think we can agree.

Stuff sent to your door is a good thing. Another great thing, stuff sent to our email address. Yes, please. Good podcasting. Before we get into today's history, shall we do a little bit of correspondence? Shall we do that? Oh, yes, please. Now, El, I'll let you explain what this little bit of correspondence? Shall we do that? Oh yes, please.

Now, El, I'll let you explain what this little bit is, because I think this was something that came up in a recent subscriber episode, I may be wrong. We were talking about the leaflets you get in B&Bs around this country. If you can quickly explain to people who may not have heard what they are and what we were asking for. There'll often be a dedicated leaflet shelf for local attractions and this might range from a screwdriver museum or a working Victorian farm all the way to, I don't know, some mushroom zone, the theme park that's entirely mushroom orientated. Are you a fun guy? Yeah, yeah. Wonderful. And you know, if your B&B is near Alton Towers,

you'd be like, oh wow, this looks good. If your B&B is in a rural area and there's very little to do, some of those leaflets, those attractions will not warrant a leaflet, let alone an admission fee. You turn over the leaflet and it's one side, they haven't printed anything on the other side. Oh no, that is it.

Yeah, the other side is for you to give your notes on ways to improve the attraction. That is exactly right. So these are the leaflets you find in B&Bs that tell you about all the weird things that are available to you within a five mile radius. And we wanted you to write in with things you've seen or things that are local to you that you think might meet this remit of slightly crap British attractions. I'm John Robbins and joining me on How Do You Cope this week is the domestic abuse campaigner and author David Chalon. My mother was always trying to find her reality because originally she was painted as a jealous, vengeful housewife.

As women who abuse women who kill their perpetrators are so routinely displayed as mad or bad is the only way to get out. And so it was an enormous thing campaigning to free my mother. To wrestle with knowing what had happened, speaking out, talking about coerce control. So that's How Do You Cope with me, John Robbins. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. Amy Irvin has emailed to say, Hello gents, big fan of the podcast. It makes my commute to work on the dreaded C2C into London bearable. I am writing in about regional historical attractions and more specifically

a wool museum. Which I think is something Al brought up the other day actually, the idea of a wool museum. Yes, there's one about 30 miles from my house and I see signs there all the time. Well, there are lots of them in Britain it turns out. Because growing up in Lancashire, Amy says, we went on school trips to what was once a factory that spun wool and cotton and celebrated the region's role during the Industrial Revolution. That is the bullseye of boring tricks when you're about nine, isn't it? Love it. Despite the school trip being nearly 15 years ago, the attraction does still seem to be in operation. It's Helmsmore Mills Textile Museum and now has its own page on the Lancashire County Council website.

Anyway, this is the bit that I loved. It really catches what life is like for a child in Britain in the early 90s. I remember that as a part of the school trip, we were all gifted a small piece of cotton to take home to show our parents. Not really sure why. As if any of them won't know what cotton is. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All wearing cotton at the point they're handed that cotton. What is your reaction if someone places a small amount of cotton in your hand for you to take home and show your parents? What are you saying to that? That's going straight in the bin.

What about you, Chris? What are you thinking? Will Barron Actually, yeah, you've grown up around cotton. So I get it just not, it's going straight in the bin. Yeah, correct. Chris Exactly. Well, she says there are lots of little mills dotted around Lancashire that are open as such attractions. Thankfully, we only visited one. Thanks for all the laughs. Kind regard, Amy. What I found quite interesting about this is it immediately made me think, oh, I'm eight and I can't be bothered to go on this school trip. Now I clicked on the link for the Helmsor Mills textile

museum and I think I would love to go for that. I've reached that tragic point in my life where I would happily go to a cotton museum, genuinely. Just have a lovely time for an hour and a half. And then have a go at your kids for not enjoying it enough. That's what I do. Come on, for God's sake! This man's using a plough that's over 40 years old! You could at least look grateful for that bit of wool I've just handed you. Being hammered with this! I told you my parents when I was a kid used to take me to some like, it was like a national grateful for that bit of wool I've just handed you. Yeah. Being hammered with this.

I told you my parents when I was a kid used to take me to some like, it was like a national trust site, I can't remember where exactly it was, but we'd go in there and the whole thing was like you're back in the Victorian age. Sounds brilliant. So you would go see a high street and it's just Victorian shots. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There'd be a little boy actor running around with a bat and ball. Hello, Mr. Do you want to play with this little bat and ball? You know, fuck off. Look, I know you're

acting mate. I know this isn't really Victorian London. I would be like, get me back to the car where my Gameboy is so I can play Tetris. I don't want to live in 1890. Take me back to 1993. We're the best things in Abacus. I've got a Game Boy. It's like, I grew up in Pembrokeshire. So every, especially if the weather was good, on a Saturday or Sunday, we would decide

what we were going to do. And me and my two sisters always wanted to go to the beach. My dad always wanted to go to Boscherton Lily Ponds. I'd always say, Lily Ponds? This is shit! What do you want about it? I'm not going to live... Bloody Lily Pond! As an adult, I've been to Boscherton Lily Ponds three times and I absolutely love it.

But kids are wrong. Kids are usually wrong about this stuff. Boscherton Lily Ponds sounds like a posh kid from a neighbouring school who's really good at cricket. You heard you got under 150 at the weekend at the Boschenton Lillipons. Yeah, he's actually part of the set up at Somerset Boschenton Lillipons. It's a bit of an all round day. Can I just throw out one more 90s cotton thing, right?

Yeah, yes please do. I saw some cotton buds the other day, my mum had some in the toilet, and it said on the side, do you not meant to use them for your ear? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. What are the point of, sorry, what? What is the point of cotton buds? What are they for? This is the most useless invention in history. I don't, I don't, do not know the purpose of cotton buds. It's like the whole world has been doing something wrong, but it's all our fault. It's been, it said that on the box since the very beginning. Oh yeah, by the way, don't put these in your ears.

And the whole world's been like, I can't wait to stick one of these in my ears. Pretty sure it says, only an idiot would stick this in their ear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do us like, you know silica gel, do not eat. Yeah. If the whole world's like, for what, for dinner tonight? I dunno, probably some silica gel, I think. That's a good point.

If you open a box of new trainers and that falls out, you're not going to go, I might eat that. Ooh yum! What do you want that for? Does history have a more popular misuse of a product than cotton earbuds if you really? That's a great question. An eating silica gel. I cannot think of one. That's a great question.

One of the things I like to watch on YouTube, Chris, at the moment, weirdly, is this guy who finds old games consoles from the 90s. Oh, yes. SNES, NES, Game Boy, stuff like that. And he does them all up. So they're like knackered. He finds them in car boot sales. He takes them home, takes them to pieces and does them up. He uses cotton buds to clean the circuit boards. That's what he used them for. So I have seen them used in a non-ear specific situation and it's the rescuing, it's the up-cycling

of SNESes and N54s. They're exclusively for retro gaming influencers. There can't be enough of a market for that to sustain the cotton bud. Johnson's invented the cotton buds to clean up old Mega Drives. I find that hard to really predate the Mega Drive, surely. Yeah, exactly.

That's what it was on before all along. It says, not for ears, for Game Boys. That's what it says on the back. There you go. Thank you very much, Amy, for that email that sent us off on that wild tangent. That really made me laugh, the idea of you being handed some cotton on a school trip and having to impress your mum as you got home.

If any of you have any local attractions that are equally crappy that you want to tell us about and you think you may have seen leaflets for in local B&Bs. And also, please email us if you've got a more popular historical misuse of a product than cotton earbuds in your ear. I'm desperate to know. Here's how you can get in touch with the show. All right, you horrible lot. Here's how you can stay in touch with the show.

You can email us at hello at earlwatertime.com and you can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at oh what a time pod now clear off Okay on today's show the theme is music in unexpected places and later in the episode I'm going to be telling you about a group of modern musicians who try to work out how ancient music should have sounded. I'll be telling you about the marriage between North American and West African folk melodies, which created a brand new genre of music, which I have started listening to in the last 24 hours and is now among my favourite genres of music. That's coming up later. That's very exciting. I'm going to kick us off with music, or pop music, in Eastern Europe. Now back on the 3rd of May. Yes, classic Alice. It's Eastern Europe again.

I love Eastern Europe. That is your domain. I bloody love it. Well, if you love Eastern Europe so much, why don't you go and live there? Is this like what you like when you do your DJ set? I'm first going to kick us off with some pop music from Eastern Europe so much, why don't you go and live there? Is this like what you're like when you do your DJ set? I'm first going to kick us off with some pop music from Eastern Europe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fade her up. Don't leave! Lock the doors!

Now, back on the 3rd of May, 1966, Yugoslavia launched the first rock music magazine to be published in any of the communist countries opposed to Eastern Europe. It was called Zubox, the Serbo-Croat for Duke Box. It debuted with a picture of the Rolling Stones on the front cover. Oh. So, you know, a lot of this music, you wouldn't have assumed that it was outlawed or, you know, that it was very unpopular with, especially with the authorities. But no, it's sold out almost overnight. Now incidentally… Do you know what that makes you think when you hear about that sort of thing? I know I know that these guys are wealthy. Successful. But you hear they're on the front of a magazine

in whatever that… when was that? 1966? 1966 in Yugoslavia. 1966, just in Yugoslavia. So they're literally everywhere. Just the tide of money that's coming in from these bands from everywhere in the world. The fact they are so ubiquitous and they're literally loved everywhere. Yeah. I mean, I would expect if I was to bump into Mick Jagger at the Cricket, that he gets the drinks in. Do you know what I swear, like the 60s, 70s, 80s, I would say was a great time for making money if you're Mick Jack, you know, someone like that. I listened to an interview earlier

with Dame Judi Dench and she mentioned that she bought her house off the back of a single advert for Clover. Wow. Oh wow, yeah. And that's Dame Judi Dench. Imagine the deals Mick Jack is doing. Yeah, yeah. And also it would have been in a really nice part of London, probably. Yeah. Whereas now, if you want to live in the kind of house that like, a dentist lived in in my hometown when I was growing up,

if that's in London, that will cost you £5.2 million. It's absolutely extraordinary. Absolutely, extraordinary. Now, incidentally, the editorial staff of the magazine had debated long and hard as to whether it ought to have been the Beatles on the cover, not the Rolling Stones. But as for the magazine's style, it was very similar to sort of like a Yugoslavian vision of the enemy or melody maker. Now, a few days before the launch, to mark May Day, the workers' holiday, Belgrade had hosted a rock festival. You just don't know. Yugoslavia was, for lots of reasons, it was slightly different to other countries

in the Eastern Bloc. But it's just not something you associate with places like Yugoslavia in the 60s. So it had hosted a rock festival drawing in the leading acts of Yugoslav rock music, or Why You Rock, and this followed the creation of a dedicated rock music radio show on Radio Belgrade in 1961 and the rise of rock and roll bands. Right, 1961, Radio Belgrade, that's prior to Radio 1 in the UK. Obviously we had Radio Caroline and things like that, but yes, it's funny,

isn't it? Now early examples, including the Atoms, or Atomy, as they were known in Yugoslavia, Ellipse Silhouette, and Iskra had made a name for themselves, featuring western rock and roll, but with a Yugoslav voice. Now Atomy took inspiration from the British band The Shadows, who had been the backing band of Cliff Richard, and they did cover versions of Shadows songs such as Find Me a Golden Street, as well as material of their own. So the band broke up when members were called up for military service in 1963. Wow, that still happens. Do you know that weirdly in K-pop?

Yes, but does it? Yeah, so K-pop is obviously this huge phenomenon in Korea and beyond with boy bands and girl bands singing Korean pop music. Often they'll get to like 21 or what it is and then just members have to leave for a year to do their, the band just can't operate in the way they had these massive stars. BTs who do that song with Coldplay, My Universe, they had to split up or pause their careers

because they were off having military service. But isn't it, I'm going out on a limb here, isn't it a bit of a lottery? You don't always have to, you kind of get drawn. Kind of like the Americans in Vietnam. Yes. Oh, I don't know. Cause national service ended in 1960 in the UK. The last national servicemen in the UK were discharged in 1963, and that's one of the many reasons

that you had the big rock and roll boom in the 60s. It was because young men didn't have to go and they weren't conscripted to do national service. Interesting. But obviously in Yugoslavia the situation was different. Now Ellipse, they prefer to draw on the Beatles and the Hollies and the Monkeys. They did a cover of I'm a Believer with a video shot at Belgrade Zoo. Silhouette played the role of the Rolling Stones in a rivalry with Ellipse and they produced covers of tracks by The Rolling Stones and the Bee Gees and the Searchers. Now Ellipse were the slightly better musicians but Silhouette were the better showmen

so not that they stopped Ellipse from producing the odd bit of instrumental brilliance. They did a version, I don't know if we can put this in the show notes, but they did a version of the Eurovision theme called Signal which is available on YouTube and I listened to that earlier on. And it just does sound like, you know, there were lots of those sort of instrumental groups, The Shadows being the most famous ones in the early sixties. And if you told me that that record had been cut in London or New York, I would believe you. But obviously it would have been, it would probably, it was made in Yugoslavia. Now, Zubox added to this musical awakening through a mini revolution of its own. So it printed the English language lyrics of songs

to encourage local cover versions, talked about foreign artists, published posters of those same artists. Tom Jones was a big one, because obviously he was huge in America and huge in UK. That's the thing with Tom Jones, obviously I'm Welsh, so I grew up with Tom Jones still being a huge star, so I grew up with Tom Jones still

being a huge star. You forget he was number two to Elvis, really. He was the one singer who Elvis was very nervous about and thought that he was absolutely massive in the 60s. He had his own TV show on American television in the 60s. In America, yeah, yeah, I've heard that. I mean, he was a big, big deal, Tom. What sort of show was it? Oh, like sort of chat and then he would do songs and he would get guests on and he would sing with the guests

and like probably like Prime, like he was a massive star, Tom Jones. Yeah. And he still is. It's just because we're cool young men with nasal hair. With rechargeable nasal hair devices. Clippers. We don't go to those gigs, but yeah, he's a big deal. Can I say very briefly, I confidently say Sex Bomb is in my top five least favourite songs ever.

I cannot stand it. I will actively run away if I hear it anywhere. It's in my top one songs that I put on when I need to get in the mood. Six bum, six bum. When Izzy hears that, she knows. So let's set the full scene there. Are you in the bathroom there getting ready? You sort of coming out in a dressing gown? No, no, no. She's asleep. On goes the lights, on goes the music, off comes the dressing gown. L, have you met Tom Jones?

I've not met Tom Jones. A couple of friends of mine have met him, but he is a big deal. That's a... I'm surprised you haven't met him. Because another Welsh stereotype, how old is that there's only about 50 people in Wales? Yeah, well, I think his fame is too American and he's too big. I watched a very funny clip the other day where I think he'd sponsored the London Welsh Youth Rugby team or something, this is in the early 80s, and so they send a TVAM presenter down to interview him, and he's probably only in his early 40s at this point, and he's still in great shape, obviously,

deep town because he's in LA. And the presenter who's interviewing him clearly fancies him so much, he could barely get her words out. Like, like, like, like,

like she is incoherent because she's so in love with him. It's really, really funny. And anyway, I'm with, um, God, well there he is. I mean, good God, Tom. Yes, don't, yeah, here, anyway, back to you in the studio. Don't mind me. Oh God. There was a real period where the best singers in the world were coming out of Wales.

Like Shirley Bassey too. Same era. What a rich vein of form in Wales. A rich vein of form. Acoustically. No, Shirley Bassey. Amazing career again. She was absolutely huge in the US. Yeah. We should do something on Shirley Bassey. She had a really, really fascinating life. Divas. Divas.

And of course, I mean the big one, Noel from Here Say. Yes. He's Welsh. He is. A man I know all too well. He's from Cardiff and we're lucky enough to be recording a podcast with him. This magazine, Jubeox, it printed the Yugoslav top 10, but it also printed the top 10 from other countries including the UK, France and the USA. Now one of the innovations of the magazine was the FlexiDisc single which allowed them to reproduce recordings from western artists including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Beach Boys, the Shadows, Cliff Richard and even Lulu and then give them away to readers. So a total of 16 discs were produced between 1966 and 1968. They were made by the Yugoslav record label,

Yuger Tom, which had a licensing contract with EMI. And all of this had an effect, not only on young musicians, but also on those who were on their way to being established, such as the singer, Miki Jeremovic, whose repertoire included among plenty of others, Serbo Crowat versions of Tom Jones hits,

Miki did Delilah, Brian Highland's Sealed With A Kiss, and perhaps the most startling of all, Laura or Tell Laura I Love Her, recorded in 1960 by Ray Peterson in the US and Ricky Valance in the UK and by Jeremiewicz in 1962. And I listened to a few of these songs and the music sounds like the sort of the western version. It's just, The music sounds like the sort of the Western version. It's just, I would say that the singing is slightly more operatic. Right. That's interesting. It doesn't quite have the kind of grit, maybe. Okay, yeah, yeah.

The rock sensibility. Whereas you would imagine Yugoslavia would have that sort of more gritty sound, wouldn't you? Well, yeah. I mean, in my experience, having gone to a few of those, the constituents' countries, they certainly smoke enough. But I would imagine that there would be a heavy metal rock sort of spirit there. That's what I would imagine. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. But now by the end of the 60s, the same musical exposure

to rock and roll had occurred throughout the Eastern Bloc. So in 1967, the Czechoslovak singer Petr Spaliny and his backing band Apollo Beat released their own cover of the song. Elvis was another one who they used to cover an awful lot. Now where the Yugoslavs went, the Soviet Union was not far behind although obviously there was great inflexibility. So it had a music label Melodija and they created a magazine called Krugoso, or The Outlook, which also produced flexi-discs of western music, although most of the artists were from communist countries. And on the front cover, Tom Jones appeared again, they were massive

fans of Tom Jones, and then Shirley Bassey followed in 1977, Tom Jones appeared on the cover in 1969. Now you only need to think about the effects this access to different styles of music had on the underground scene, where you had cover versions and bootleg recordings and they came to be known as Magnizidat, and they gained in importance and accessibility. So the word was modeled on the print equivalent Samistat. Now Samistat was, I remember reading about this at university, self-publishing. And it was a kind of dissident activity throughout the Eastern Bloc where individuals could reproduce

censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand. And then they would be passed, the documents would be passed from reader to reader. Oh, that's interesting. Okay. So it was a way of disseminating information that the authorities didn't want to be disseminated. So you'd have a censored or a banned book and then they'd have one copy of it and you might have six or seven people in a room and they would be passing page to page. So you'd read one page and then pass it on to the next person.

In a way we might share like an edgy meme or some of that nowadays. We might forward that on to a friend. Yes. Well, WhatsApp friend onto a friend. Yes. Well, WhatsApp friend. Forwarded many times. Yeah, exactly. Now, everyone from the Beatles through to Led Zeppelin made their way into the USSR this way, because the bootlegs are far cheaper than vinyl recordings or the flexi-discs from magazines.

But it was dangerous buying and selling bootlegs in the USSR with, get this, up to three years in prison for those people who were caught. Will Barron What? That's crazy. Will Barron But imagine being sent to prison for listening to the first Led Zeppelin album. But it was so widespread the authorities could do very little to stop it. Will Barron Worsell is receiving an album that two tracks in at the point you're caught, you're realising that this album actually isn't that good.

Will Barron Yeah, you don't even like it. Will Barron It's quite a weak offering. Imagine going to prison for three years for like the Stone Roses second album. Yeah, you know, I call it love spreads and 10 story love song, but three years on. Now, Magnitidat caught on throughout the Eastern Bloc and it encouraged underground music scenes

with bands like The Plastic People of the Universe who were based in Prague or formed in 1968 And these tapes were used and reused leading to all sorts of imperfections and the recording devices Picked up everything from background chatter and applause to the flush of the toilet or the rattle of a car from below a window or the rattle of a car from below a window. So like Bob Dylan bootlegs that were made in the village in New York in the 60s, they were very homegrown, but they're really, really fascinating and very, very compelling. So you can hear little snippets of people's lives. So what's interesting is, very briefly, sorry, is that in terms of modern production, that's a thing that producers are bringing back in more.

You listen to a lot of, I think people are trying to move away a little bit from the ultra-produced, clean production. Yeah, because people want authenticity. Exactly, and you'll hear little bits of chitter-chatter. That sort of extraneous atmosphere, real world, let's say the sound of the conversations in the recording studio, that sort of stuff they're feeding back in. And I think it does give that authenticity, doesn't it? It does give sort of like,

it makes you feel more in touch with the band and feel too cold. Plus the people of the universe, they're on, you can listen to them on Spotify and Apple Music and stuff. Oh really? Yeah, and they were kind of Czech, they're a bit like the Velvet Underground or something.

Okay. So they were this symbol of underground rebellion. And the music's really, really good. It's really, really interesting. Now you had the relatively open method of the music magazine or the sort of take your chances underground bootlegs, but young people in the East, obviously they were just as obsessed with young people in the West about the changing fashions of rock and roll. So they were desperate to know what was happening, what the latest thing and what the latest trend was.

It's just it was much harder to find out. But that didn't stop them from trying and it didn't stop them from succeeding. Wow. Fascinating. Some of my favourite concerts to watch are kind of like, there's a great Queen one in Hungary kind of behind the Iron Curtain where things started to relax and they brought in these big rock bands to do shows in Eastern Europe and a lot of these kids who have maybe heard bootlegs of Queen or heard bootlegs of rock,

see it live for the first time and the crowds just always lose their mind. There's something about that kind of just around the fall of the Berlin Wall, that kind of, late 80s, early 90s, where the two cultures really begin to come together and it's, I don't know, such a wonderful time for other cultural expression. Also being allowed access to something that you knew you would love. It's a bit like when you're a kid

and you're not allowed to watch a film that's got a 15 certificate. When you eventually watch it, it means so much more to you. It must be that emotion, but times 100. In that sense, because those bands were never playing them. On that note, when I was 13, I went to see Judge Dredd in the cinema with Mr. Sloan playing Judge Dredd.

That was a 15 certificate. Like I say, I was 13 at the time. The feeling of getting in to see that playing Judge Dredd. That was a 15 certificate. Like I say, it was 13 at the time. The feeling of getting in to see that, to Judge Dredd. Like, I felt like it was the heist of the century. Contrasted with the sorrow as your parents were wheeled away by the police. Arms behind their back. And then the film began and I was like, I can't believe I've broken the law for this That's the end of part one of music in unexpected places if you want part two right now Why not become an oh what a time full-time aware this month the bonuses include? Extra your letters plus Tom is doing a fantastic Subscriber special on Tom. Would you like to know what it is? Yep. I'm taking you through every detail of

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