The Luke and Pete Show - The Theremin and Pete Show

Episode Date: June 4, 2020

On today’s Luke and Pete Show, Luke’s temporarily replaced by Pete’s theremin, we’re advancing the theory on how many holes a straw has and we’re showing some love to glam rock icon Marc Bolan.Also on today's episode we’re weighing up the merits of drive-in nightclubs (is Donny for or against?), and televised pub sports.Plus, we hear the man who can beep like a car horn. And he can really, genuinely do it. Phenomenal.We'd love to hear from you at [e-mail]***Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or your preferred podcast provider. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks!*** Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Luke and Pete show. I'm Pete Donaldson and I'm joined by Luke Moore. Say hello, Luke. Hello. Check this out. Can you hear it? Good news for those of you who are... It's me, Theramin. I've got it working. Good news for those of you who are fed up with my voice. I will be replaced this week by a theremin.

So, enjoy. I'm trying to think what you can play on a theremin. It's just a Star Trek theme, isn't it? I feel like you should be getting better sounds out of this than that.

Well, I've literally just turned it on for the first time. Hang on. Let me take it down a bit. Describe what you're doing. Describe how you're making the sound. Well, a've literally just turned it on for the first time. Hang on. Let me take it down a bit. Describe what you're doing. Describe how you're making the sound. Well, a theremin is like just a big car aerial,

a big car aerial that misbehaves itself and you make funny noises. I've gone too high. I've gone too high. That's going off. That's going off. That has to leave us. That has to go. That's unfortunate.

I love it if you couldn't turn it off enjoyable love very enjoyable and Pete and promised promised on Monday delivered on Thursday

promised on Monday look we are the people who write checks that our arses can cash you just heard Pete and his first flirtations

with a theremin I mean it's definitely my favourite version of the Craig Davis song met Pete Donaldson on Monday talked about a theremin on Tuesday he, it's definitely my favourite version of the Craig Davis song. Met Pete Donaldson on Monday, talked about a theremin on Tuesday.

He was playing the damn thing on Thursday and Friday and Saturday, we chilled on Sunday. Yeah, by the time it comes round, that's what's happened, really. Oy, oy, oy. So, yes, how have you been? Luke, you all right? It's Thursday.

Pretty good. The weather has taken a little bit of a turn, but we won't let that dampen our spirits. No way, Jose. Not when there's a theremin at play. I know, right? And theremins could be installed in a wall. You wouldn't even know it existed.

I can't remember. I'm trying to think who was the last person I ever saw play a theremin live. I'm thinking it might... Was it the guy from the Hall of Steady? Would he have had a theremin at any point? It sounds like the kind of thing he would do. No, I think it sounds like the kind of thing he would do. Yeah, for sure, man.

Definitely. I can't vouch, but it sounds like it might be right. Who's the mid-naughties guy who did the song Magic Position? You put me in the magic position, darling. Oh, Patrick Wolfe. Incredibly sexual.

Patrick Wolfe. He was incredibly graphic with his sexual dancing on stage. I think he had a theremin. I've met Patrick Wolfe a few times. Is he nice? Well, listen, the context to me meeting him is that he was signed to, well, I don't know if he still is, but he was signed to Mercury Records which is an imprint of the

label I worked at for a while and he used to pop in and he used to see, he was looked after by the lady in the office next door to me so I would see him occasionally I never really spoke to him that much but he seemed alright I mean he seemed quite affected if that's okay for me to say but I'm sure he's a lovely chap It was the mid-noughties

we were all down the hallie. Exactly, Pete. And the thing is, one thing that I am a firm believer in, and I do think this is really important when it comes to musicians and artists and actors or whatever, is that the role they play in society, they should be weird and controversial and a bit needy and a bit strange and perhaps a little bit even,

dare I say, in the nicest possible way, and perhaps a little bit even dare i say in in the you know in the nicest possible way perhaps even a little bit problematic sometimes because they're supposed to be boundary pushing artists you know it's like bill hicks says about new kids on the block oh when new kids on the block you know there's it's it's you know it's music and it's entertainment that you can be safe with your kids i don't want it to be safe i want like like bill hicks said i want a guitarist from a rock and roll band puking up in the doorway that's what they're supposed to do right that's the point of it it's supposed to be john robusting it's supposed to be challenging and i i feel like sometimes

um people lose sight of that i don't want to see david bowie god rest him i never wanted to see him going to buy a pint of milk we've said this before it's not his role to be doing that it should be a gender bending space traveling superstar that's the point of it so if patrick wolf wants to dye his hair pink uh and and do weird do weird stuff play a ceremony great good on him that's what i said his hands down his pants during a performance now you take it depends where he is depends where he is that'sends where he is. That's absolutely clear. If he wants to rub bread around the toilet, let him do it. Oh,

I forgot about that. Absolutely horrific. I wonder what that man's doing now. Like, you know, this was, this story was from America, wasn't it?

I think it was the UK actually. Was it? Oh, right. Okay. I mean, he is no good in a COVID space, to be honest. He's getting all that kind of caper.

You do not want that man anywhere near your toilet. No. I mean, can I just make this absolutely clear? I don't want him anywhere near my toilet when there's not a pandemic. Because all it feels like to me is it's going to involve a lot of clean-up. Clean-up on island. Why are there breadcrumbs all over the bathroom? Well, look, if you are going to go to see Patrick Wolfe

or any gig person, it's probably pretty good to... There is a Japanese musician, Mazami Akita. Mersbo, his name is. He performed live in Taipei back in 2013. Somebody sort of unearthed this video of Wiley's playing in the crowd. A man is brushing his teeth. We've seen people brush their teeth before in public, the man that Chelsea springs to mind.

There's a shot of the crowd and a man is brushing his teeth, not just with toothbrush. He's also using toothpaste and water as well. He's keeping it clean. He's keeping it clean during the performance. It really is. What would you say the context of this was? Where was he?

He was in Taipei. It was a Japanese musician who played in Taipei, Merzbo, and there's just a white guy in the front row of the audience brushing his teeth and just, you know. If it's at a festival, that's not hugely surprising, is it? I don't think it was at a festival. I think it was just at a...

I think it was in an auditorium, so to speak. Push for time. Got to multitask. Experimental noise monster, Merzbo, requires a higher level of dental hygiene from his fans. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, absolutely right. Have you ever seen... Some of you lot should have a good look at yourselves via That's all I'm saying. Yeah, absolutely right. Some of you lot should

have a good look at yourselves via the mouth. I think that's probably fair. Have you seen Fuck Buttons Live, Pete? I think I have. I think I have actually. Would they have played at ATP? They would have done.

Their setup was like a big table with a lot of different stuff on it, and they would make noises with the different bits and pieces to make the songs. And I wondered whether at some point maybe a teeth brush into the mic might have been one of the sounds. If you're listening, either of the chaps from Fuck Buttons,

then get in touch. One of them's called Andrew. I can't remember what the other one's called. Get in touch if you're listening and let us know if you've ever brushed your teeth to make a sound. I watch a lot of, I don't actually watch it, somebody recommended it quite recently, ASMR. You know those videos where people just kind of stroke their hair.

Yeah, I don't really get that. Have I asked you about that before? Probably. Have you ever sort of like, you just never got your big, got your big noise got your big um noise canceling headphones out and i'd listen to some asmr no i know what it is and i've definitely sampled it but it's not i don't really know what they're supposed to do and i didn't really i didn't really enjoy it i thought it was a bit of a much of a much less really right it didn't

make you tingle it just makes you kind of like tingle it's like uh it kind of gets your spine up kind of like kind of like if you're a bit sensitive to kind of like noises and sounds and all that business. Yeah. Stuck in your hair. Stop it. If you want to clip this, I'm stuck in your hair. Oh, something you promised on Monday, Luke, was...

Speaking of sounds. Speaking of sounds and weird sounds. A man who can make a perfect, is it a car alarm sound? Right. Listen, people just need to listen to this, right, Pete? And I just need to give them some context because they can't see it. The noise you're going to hear sounds like a man being interrupted by a car. Now, he's not speaking in English,

and it sounds like he's going to be interrupted by the car. He isn't being interrupted by the car. He is making the car sound. And it is absolutely incredible. It really, really is. Here we go. How is he doing that? How on earth is he doing that?

And it's the face he makes when he's doing it, which I enjoy as well. He's really proud of himself. Are we going to give that a tweet? That's just an unbelievable sound from an unbelievable man. Yeah. And the thing is, here's why I answer. There's a lot of reasons why I like it. One, because just fucking listen to it.

That's number one. Number two, the face he makes is really adorable three is that he's doing it in what looks like an underground car park at an airport and what i like to think is happening is that like a minor bird he's worked in that environment for such a long time and worked on his skill that he's developed it in situ and now can perfectly mimic it so what i would say is could we put him in another employment environment and see if he can do it in another way i put him in office and make a sound of a photocopy or something yeah yeah printer how can we challenge this guy to to in a different environment to see if he's a one-trick pony or whether he can do a lot more.

What's your feeling, Pete? Yeah. I mean, he could do our adverts for us. He could sit in our advert space and do... He could do our shows for us. He could do our shows. Yeah, he could mimic the underwhelming output that is the Luke and Pete show every week.

I think that would be... It wouldn't be as big a challenge, would it? No, it's easier than learning how to be... I think that would be as big a challenge with it. It's easier than learning how to be. I mean, to be honest, a car alarm is so universal. I think it probably

would probably count as the most transferable. It's a horn though, not an alarm. Possibly have. All right. Well, yeah, but

how does your car alarm sound? Does it just activate the horn? Yeah, but it's still coming out. So your horn will still be produced with the same... If you knock into a car and it says a car alarm off, it's sometimes just the horn loads of times.

Honk, honk, honk, honk. It's the same microchip that's making the sound. What I love, Pete, is how you are living in 2020 that you are still so divorced from the the car what do you mean you just you've got no you've got no frame of reference what do you think a horn is in 2020 what do you if you get in a modern car what do you think that is it's just a big speaker they're not gonna put a honky air you know like you're not passing passing air through a horn are you it's just a big speaker it's like a big tannoy.

It can make loads of noises if it wanted to. You know what noise mine makes? What? It's like the car in Police Academy. Mine is a literal MP3 clip of that man doing the car horn noise. It's like reality uh mimicking fiction um pete i've got a question for you um but before i ask you a little bit of background if you if you wouldn't mind affording me that luxury so one thing the thing that typifies the luke and

pete show is me and you talking crap um weird things about japan certain sciencey things that we don't understand all the usual stuff right something else that typifies our um our output is the fact that you regularly get chastised and um teased by me for being a big fan despite your advancing years of the provincial indie bar is that fair so far right okay that's fair yeah indie bar indie club there's music in my heart yeah the music in my heart so what's apparently more likely to happen going forward due to the pandemic is that not only have we seen people driving to watch football games in their cars and we're seeing a prevalence of drive-in cinemas we are now apparently going to see drive-in nightclubs so apparently in france and germany people have sat in their cars to be a

part of church services and there's also been in the town of shutoff in germany the first drive-in rave happening attended by 500 people first, Pete, what do you think about that? Secondly, could you see it being adapted to an indie club and would you attend with a friend, of course, because you don't have a car? Well, the problem with any provincial indie nightclub is that at any point someone will play Ridge Against the Machine and that can only be a bad thing.

Then you are talking about a full circle demolition derby, cars smashing into each other. Do you remember that game on the PC? I used to love it. I do remember, yeah, destruction derby, yeah. You're just looking at that basically, cars getting tore, people getting seriously injured. So it's not an ideal situation. You're going to have to be very conservative

with your your playlist no limp biscuit no deftones no you know you can't be slamming into people but that said i'm enjoying sebastian yes bell and sebastian little bit of that lovely yeah anything a bit um a bit faint we yeah and possibly uh yeah from so so the thing is alpha is what i don't get um about this uh drive-in rave there's an interview in the news story i read with one of the attendees and she said um yeah it was fun they were dancing in their car took a bit of while to get used to but it was good and then she said oh um the we were we were pointed to a parking space and they broadcast the music for our car radio and it was good and then she said oh um the the we were pointed to a parking space and they broadcast the music for our car radio and it was really fun because we got to meet new friends it's

like well how are you getting to meet new friends if you've got to stay in your car and that that brings me to my central point which is pete if you're going to an indie club for example to meet new people this is going to negate that isn't it i? I mean, I'm not doing that, am I? But why are you going there? Because they play good music. Do it at home. Do it at home. Oh, your little listening part, he's pathetic. You just have a little drink. And to be honest, I've not been in a club for over a year.

All right? But if I find myself with a friend and mates, if there is a place that plays all right music, and they're never clubs. They're never clubs these days because people don't like dancing. People have got something against dancing. I just like a nice bar with nice drinks. What has got some good music on?

All right, so I can chat with my friends and just people watch because that is the greatest gift of all. How often have you been to an indie club in the last kind of year? Did I visit Cardiff to do anything on there? But the modern indie club, I can't figure them out. They're just all just all noise.

It's upsetting. We might hear more about that specific club in Cardiff in the email section after the break. Lovely. Hello there. It's the Look and Pete Show. I'm Pete Donaldson, and I'm joined by my compatriot slash character assassinator, Mr. Luke Moore.

Tormentor. Tormentor. More. Tormentor. I love that earlier before the break. Cause I get, I've got to do like a proper Gimlet media style cliffhanger. Yes. I like it. Yeah.

And you'll find out more about Steve and his leg next. Someone who's emailed in using hello at lukeandpeach.com is Luke from Cardiff, who says, Hello to Luke, hello to Pete. Been loving the show during lockdown. Cool. Doesn't love it at any other point. Yeah, he's not bothered other than that. Last time I got in touch was regarding Cardiff's local street legends.

I kind of vaguely remember that. But he says, in fact, I ran into Pete at closing time at Club E4 back last year when he crossed a seven for a big old piss up. Oh, that's all right. That's fine. That was fun. That was me.

My mate Matty, I don't get to see very often. He's got a bad knee. What, you can't see him because of his knee? Well, he can't get around anymore because his knee's buggered. But yeah, I don't get to see him. We grew up together, me, Matty, and little Ali Gonzala. And, yeah, we went out to Cardiff. I'd never been out in Cardiff.

I was a little bit underwhelmed, to be honest. I hate to slag off Cardiff, but it just seemed to be a lot of walkabouts and just, you know, just a... And muscle men. Muscle men. It just felt a bit more provincial than I was expecting this. Obviously, you know, we stayed in Cardiff Bear on a mate's house and it was very lovely,

but I just thought the nightlife was a bit provincial. Yeah, my memory of going out in Cardiff is a load of men with big muscles and tight T-shirts. Rugby, innit? Yeah, exactly. Rugby, big lads. But Luke from Cardiff goes on to say on the subject

of inappropriate songs James Corden did a small run of adverts for car insurance firm Confused.com the tagline for the company was drivers win they decided to use

the fantastic T-Rex song Get It On but I guess no one at the ad agency could remember that Mark Boland died instantly in a car crash in 1977.

Yeah, no idea. No idea, let's see. That is what I would call an own goal. Didn't a member of the BBC try and contact Mark Bolan for comment? Good luck with that. That was a big one, yeah. I believe he tragically wasn't wearing a seatbelt in a Mini, and I think the car veered off the road and smashed into a tree, sadly,

and he died instantly. Yeah, there's a little kind of shrine for him. Have you ever seen the Mark Ballen TV show? Well worth a watch on YouTube. He had six episodes. I think Boy was on one of them. Oh, yeah, they were pals. Talks a bit had a, I think he had six episodes. I think Boy was on one of them. Oh yeah, they were pals.

Talks a bit like this, doesn't he? He's got a very sort of posh, soft way of speaking. And, hi guys. And he sort of presented

this raucous music show. Hello everyone. And it was almost like sketches from this whispering man. Give it a Google. Mark Ballin, his TV show on, I think it was the BBC

in the 70s. It was a weird watch. It really was very strange indeed. Everyone just looks bleaked. give it a google mark ballen uh his tv show on i think it was the bbc uh in the 70s he uh he it was a weird watch it really was very strange indeed everyone just looks bleaked the the the everyone just looks stoned it's it's wonderful i think um he's one of the most underrated um songwriters and and pop artists um around actually because he the sheer amount of amazing banging tunes that he wrote and recorded i think goes fairly under reported in my possibly because there were so many other giants around at the same time he comes in in the sort of late 60s and there's obviously huge artists around then and obviously early 70s when he really comes into his own. But there was sort of this kind of fusion of quite androgynous,

glammed-up blues. It's glam rock, but it's also blue. And it's pop as well. And one thing I deplore in musical artists is this idea of obfuscation because they can't write really good melodies because it's quite hard to do. So being a really good pop artist is hard to do chiefly because the catchiness of the melody is um is really kind of difficult to obtain and i think these days that's been taken to to ridiculous levels because you know a lot of it's written by computer a lot of it's written by it with ai ai help and

they calculated that you've got about eight seconds to hook someone in if they're going to stick listen to your song or not because attention spans are so small but but then i mean some people just can just do it and mark bonin was just amazing at making these amazing really really instantly catchy timeless pop songs and i think he deserves a bit more credit than he gets personally yeah people don't talk about him in 2x i think the um think the problem, it was just the genre that he obviously kind of inhabited in the main was glam. And it just, it became very old very quickly,

didn't it? Dated badly. Yeah. You would only sort of get a celebration of that. I think the last time anybody spoke, I was like around, remember they released Velvet Goldmine. Yes.

With members of Pulp and, and, and I think. Didn't have, what's his name? Ewan McGregor in it. It name, Ewan McGregor in it? It did have Ewan McGregor in it. I think it also, did it have one of,

who's the bloke who's in... Oh, the Peaky Blinders, that bloke. Oh, Cillian Murphy. Cillian Murphy. Did it have Cillian Murphy in that? I want to say he was in that as well. I haven't seen it. But it was, remember they had like that album

where they had a load of indie artists covering like the songs of the day. But it was an all right film, I seem to recall. Again, nobody talks about that. Nobody talks about that. Okay, British film, which is a very thin field indeed. David Bowie said about Mark Bowden, what I saw in him was raw talent.

I saw genius right from the minute and the hour I met him. Yeah. So high praise indeed. If you could hear him. Hello there. I need to go and check that out. I'll do that. Do have a listen.

Do have a watch of that. It's very weird. It's like one of the weird, like TV shows were weird back then, but you're like, how the fuck did this get, how did nobody go, this is ridiculous? Yeah, but exactly, Pete. And the fascination around that for me. Why would you do it?

Yeah, it's just the idea that obviously TV's invented a long time before that. But of course, as would happen in any sort of revolutionary development, particularly entertainment, it takes quite a long time for people to work out what's good about it and how to use it and stuff. And I think definitely throughout that era, there's just a load of weird stuff that exists on TV that you just never, ever see now. And it can be across all sorts of different genres. Have you ever seen the...

This is all on YouTube as well. Have you ever seen... I think, to be fair, it's just a regional TV program, but it still went out, of this thing called the Indoor Sports League. No, what's that? Oh, like the... So basically, it's presented by Fred Truman, this Yorkshire...

I mean, I don't want to undersell the guy. I mean, amazing cricketer for Yorkshire and England, legendary cricketer. And he kind of turned into a bit of a media guy for a bit in the 70s. I think it's the 70s. But he's just absolutely changed nothing about him whatsoever so he's presenting this tv show which is about all the pub sports that used to be very prevalent in that part of the world or actually quite all over the

country during the 70s and it'll be things like indoor skittles bar billiards darts um table footballs in there as well and he's there presenting this tv show with a big tankard of ale and a pipe and a cardigan on and he's just wandering around interviewing people and covering pub games where they've got people from all over the country to compete in this indoor sports league tournament it's it's and it is actually quite good it's quite interesting but on the other hand it is the weirdest thing you've ever seen like even now people with all the tv channels we get and all the different um platforms to watch sport on no one's ever televised um like a bunch of guys from the pub playing table football but they were doing it in the 70s

that's what i'm saying. Check it out. It's absolutely mad and it goes on for ages as well. It's the most slow-paced TV you will ever see. The air rich with cigarette smoke. Fantastic. Oh yeah, it's proper. It's a proper fog all over it.

We'd better squeeze in an email before we get the end of the Thursday ep. Edward has got in touch. Hi, guys. I'm sure you realized at the time that your discussion around how many holes a straw has was actually a discussion around homeomorphisms from the mathematical field of topology. That wiki link that is appended, just Google homeomorphism, will go over your heads. I did a math degree and

most of it goes over mine now uh but the math degree uh but the important thing is the gif in the top right basically two objects are homeomorphic homeomorphic if they can be deformed into each other so like the donut and a coffee cup can be homeomorphic because you can change it into one another i think we can agree a donut has one hole and i think we can agree that a straw can be homeomorphic because you can change it into one another. I think we can agree a donut has one hole, and I think we can agree that a straw can be deformed into a donut. Therefore, a straw has one hole. Amazingly, maybe not giving Pete enough credit here. Thank you, Ed. The explanation Pete initially gave about squishing the straw down

was not only 100% correct, but exactly how mathematicians would think about the same questions. Yes, Pete. And he stepped in to derail things. Occasionally, a blind squirrel finds a nut a loss to the sciences that p i would say that there's something very uh important i think about my background that would pertain to me having a slight one-up on luke about forming 3d uh um primitives uh the the the the taur, the cylinder, the cuboid. I do have a bit of a background in doing a bit of 3D design.

So I think how I would form a particular object would be how I would – I reckon that helps me a little bit because how I would produce it, either using a Boolean or extruding a spline sort of curve, I think that gives me a bit of a help. But it was four years at university. I think for my part, Pete, I failed to acknowledge that or remember that. And so all I can say is I will happily on this subject defer to you. You're absolutely right, it sounds like.

I'm not a maths kind of guy or a science guy. I apologize for poo-pooing your suggestion and undermining your theory. And the only caveat I'll add to that is I was playing the numbers game. Yes, exactly. Yeah, yeah. I had no right to hit that. Zidane, top that. Yeah, yeah. I had no right to hit that. Zidane. Yeah, yeah.

I had no right to hit that. You've basically put your head down, closed your eyes and smashed the lever off it and it's gone to the top corner. Good on you. You deserve it. And that'll be replayed on YouTube compilations till kingdom come and you deserve it, mate. I'm Jimmy Glass.

I can't buy a painting sometimes. We're back on glass again. Yeah, there we go. This has been the Luke Moore and Pete show, Pete Donaldson show. Man, we rebrand ourselves. As we never call it. Just didn't say we never call it.

Luke and Pete show, we'll be back on Monday with more nonsense. Have a safe weekend. Look after each other. We'll be back on Monday. Hello at LukeandPeteShow.com if you want to get in touch. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

This was a Stakhanov production.