S4E26: Sparks
Rockonteurs with Gary Kemp and Guy Pratt
Rhino UK
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 27 May 2023
⏱️ 62 minutes
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Summary
This week Guy and Gary chat with Ron and Russell Mael aka Sparks. They have been releasing music since the last 1960s and their hits include ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us’ and ‘The Number One Song in Heaven’. They are hugely influential with fans such as Edgar Wright, The Smiths, Joy Division, New Order, Bjork and Cate Blanchett to name a few. They release their new album ‘The Girl is Crying in Her Latte’ on May 26, their 26th album! Remember to sign up at www.Rockonteurs.com for extra content such as bonus episodes, listener Q&A’s, video, and early access to live show tickets.
Rockonteurs is produced by Ben Jones for Gimme Sugar Productions.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi guy. Hello Gary. Big one today. Well a big catalog. I mean |
| 0:04.7 | Sparks have I think we were just wondering how many albums has it been? |
| 0:10.2 | 24 26 I think might be, I seem to think, say something about 25 albums in there, because they did that ridiculous thing, didn't they, where they played every album and they did a series of gigs in Islington? |
| 0:26.6 | Yes that poor band. They did a different out in fact I would ask about this surely they did they did a different one of their albums in |
| 0:35.3 | Chronological order every single night is that right yeah that's right how can you learn that stuff Well there was an interview with the drummer in the film and he says the things you spend a week learning an album and then you've got it and then the next week you own the next album, but then you've lost the one before. |
| 0:53.0 | Wow. |
| 0:55.0 | Yeah. I mean that's it is some catalog and of course there are sort of great moments in this |
| 0:59.8 | catalog you know I mean kimono my house. on you know we're one of those so we all so |
| 1:06.0 | remember that you know that was such a matter and it's we and they were kind I think |
| 1:10.7 | they've got that sort of the same thing as as Hendrix where kind of we think they're ours. |
| 1:16.5 | Yeah of course. Well I noticed on the latest album he sings he says the word cue and not line. |
| 1:23.2 | I mean, they're so anglophile in that, but they were. |
| 1:25.7 | I mean, they spent a lot of time in the UK |
| 1:28.0 | during the glam rock period and were embraced by the UK in a way that their home country didn't |
| 1:34.4 | That's right yeah and and but the other key moment we'll have to talk about of course |
| 1:38.8 | is you know number one song in heaven of course the Georgio Maroda moment and actually it's only now going back and looking in retrospect and realizing actually that was way more key and important and ahead of the curve than we perhaps thought at the time. |
| 1:56.0 | Well, no, I hate to say I was at the Blitz Club again. |
| 2:02.0 | And how important that scene was. I was |
| 2:05.0 | but Rusty Egan played that song |
| 2:08.0 | in the Blitz Club and everybody just went |
| 2:12.0 | this is it. |
| 2:13.1 | This band, I mean it influenced us |
... |
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