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Marc Riley's Musical Time Machine

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Music

Marc Riley

Marc Riley unearths archive music interviews that share something in common.

Marc Riley delves into the BBC spoken word music archive. In each programme, he unearths two interviews that share something in common.

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Marc Riley's Musical Time Machine: Series 2

Marc Riley's Musical Time Machine: Series 2: Episode 3: Lemmy and Joe Strummer

Episode 3

Episode 3: Lemmy and Joe Strummer

Series 2

Lemmy and Joe Strummer

BBC Radio 4 - Marc Riley's Musical Time Machine, Series 2, Lemmy and Joe Strummer

Marc Riley raids the BBC archive and finds interviews with Lemmy and Joe Strummer.

Marc Riley delves into the BBC's diverse, rich and rewarding spoken work archive to unearth two gripping music interviews - Lemmy from 1991 and Joe Strummer from 1981.

The BBC's archive is justifiably and inarguably world-famous, but most of this attention and praise is showered on the musical riches it contains - all those life-changing Peel performances, seminal sessions from Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie and so on. But there's another archive that's just as diverse and rich and rewarding - the BBC's spoken work archive.

As long as there have been pop stars, the BBC has spoken to them. Here, Marc Riley and his trusty Time Machine will steer you back through the years to visit the great and the good, the famous and the infamous. In each episode, Marc travels to two different points in time and revisits two interviews that have something in common - a person or place, a shared influence or ideology, a discovery or a misunderstanding.

In this episode, we hear from two musicians who, on the surface, appeared to have little in common - Lemmy of Motorhead was a long haired, unreconstructed rock 'n' roller; Joe Strummer of The Clash, despite being the son of a diplomat, was a polemical firebrand and a musical magpie. 

But in truth, they both had a similar ethos. Both were fiercely passionate about music and proud of their musical integrity. Both felt connected with, and appealed to, disaffected working class teenagers of the late 1970s. Both lived in squats in West London at the start of their musical careers. And both found early appeal within the burgeoning punk scene. 

The Lemmy interview comes from 1991 and he tells Tommy Vance about his reading habits, his love of history and why rock 'n' roll shouldn't aspire to be art. The Joe Strummer interview dates from ten years earlier and covers his political ideologies, The Clash's refusal to appear on Top Of The Pops and their sometimes shambolic business acumen.

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Marc Riley's Musical Time Machine

Series 2

Episode 3: Lemmy and Joe Strummer

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