Still high off the fumes of January’s first Big Beat Cinema episode, we return to the scene of the crime this week for a follow-up film special with Finn, Manchester’s very own pope of trash.
If you haven’t listened to the first episode in our mini movie season then we recommend you start there, lest you end up more confused than Hugh Jackman in the opening moments of Swordfish.
Since that show, Chal has finally watched Ocean’s Eleven (“slick”), Tom braved 1997’s Spawn (“not Big Beat Cinema, absolute garbage”), while Finn has been trying his best to stay off the slop – but as listeners of our first BBC episode will know, this stuff has long been in his bloodstream.
But in this episode – which absolutely no one is calling B2: Breakspotting – we start by diving into your feedback, ranging from literary theory to eyewitness accounts from big beat OGs. We expand the official BBC canon with even more movies, including Go, Twin Town and The Bourne Identity.
We then go deeper, asking what Big Beat Cinema tells us about life in the ‘90s and ‘00s, how class fantasies and lads’ mags shaped the subgenre, and whether that UK government anti-piracy ad is a forgotten classic of the movement. Finally, we try to locate the last gasp of BBC and explain why Moby and Fatboy Slim fell out of favour with Hollywood.
Follow us on Letterboxd to find the full Big Beat Cinema list and our running list of all the movies our guests have recommended (even including umru’s shout for Pirates of the Caribbean 3, lol).
The second pressing of our book No Tags: Conversations on underground music culture will be shipping at the start of next week, so if you missed out the first time, head to Shopify to place your order. The book can also be found in the following stores:
Bath: Magalleria
Bristol: Idle Hands, Rova
Manchester: Unitom
Leeds: Colours May Vary
Lisbon: Well Read
London: Artwords Broadway Market, Cafe Oto, Good News, Kindred, Magma, Photographer’s Gallery, Shreeji, Tenderbooks
Los Angeles: Ooga Booga
Stockport: Rare Mags
If you’re interested in stocking it, get in touch.
In the meantime, if you’re enjoying No Tags, please do rate, review and subscribe on your podcast app of choice. We’d also ask you to consider subscribing to our paid tier, which costs £5 a month and helps us continue braving some of history’s greatest slop to bring you these regular podcasts – not to mention honing our amateur Photoshop skills.
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