Only Three Lads - Classic Alternative Music Podcast

Season 4 finale!The festivities in Times Square may be over, but our balls don't officially drop until we've covered our Top 5 Songs of 2023! Uhhh...you know what we mean.Ring in the New Year with O3L and relive the best tunes from that bygone era of 2023.Proud members of the Pantheon Podcasts family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We step out of the classic alternative era and into the here and now as we recount our Top 5 Albums of 2023. And it just so happens that our guest this week is Jolie Holland, the acclaimed American singer/songwriter who released one of the best records of the year, Haunted Mountain. Actually, it's one of the TWO best records of the year named Haunted Mountain, but we'll get into that...Join us as we hip each other to new sounds, new films and new games (who's up for a round of music baseball?), and talk gender studies, the stories behind the songs, and New Mexican cuisine. Thanks to Maurice Bursztynski from the Love That Album pod for the introduction with Jolie!Proud members of the Pantheon Podcasts family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Brett presents The Vargo Family's 16th annual Musical Christmas Card, "La La La, It's Christmas." From the O3L family to yours, we wish you a joyous holiday season, a very Merry Christmas, the most prosperous of new years, and an abundance of “la la las.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's beginning to look a lot like the O3L Holiday Party! In what's become something of a holiday tradition, we invited listeners to join us for fun, games and frivolity. This year, we welcomed Briony from Ohio; Julie from California; Julio from Puebla, Mexico; Kimberly from California; and Paul from California. And who was the mysterious "S" that joined us but wouldn't talk?!? Was that you, Ed Sheeran?We chat about our favorite Christmas #1s and sausage rolls, and play two brand new world famous O3L games: "Dear Blank" (inspired by our chat with the great Dave Philpott last week) and "That's Sooooooo '23!"Plus, to get in the festive mood, we have music from one of our favorite current songwriters, London's Rich Longley. From Rich's various musical projects, we play two seasonal gems: Les Bicyclettes De Belsize - "Andy Partridge (from XTC)" Valentina Way - "A Sleigh Ride In The Sky" The party may be over, but you can still listen in to the fun!Proud members of the Pantheon Podcasts family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The '60s were marked by dizzying revolutionary change, musical evolution, and technological innovation. It was the decade where pop music as a whole went from ephemeral entertainment to serious art. It was the catalyst for social and cultural shifts. Most of the music that we talk about on this very show, from punk rock to power pop to synth pop, has very strong roots in the music of the '60s. Yet very few '60s pioneers were able to successfully cross over into the O3L era. Many sounded hopelessly out of touch as they tried to chase the trends of the day - glossy synths, gated snares, etc. Artists who were once the harbingers of cool traded in their mop tops and Spanish boots for big hair and Member's Only jackets. Who successfully crossed over to the classic alternative era? Joining us to discuss the topic is author Dave Philpott. For close to a decade and a half the Philpotts (Dave and his father Derek) have been getting under the skin of musical artistes. Picking up on glaring errors in their lyrics or sometimes getting completely the wrong end of the stick (perhaps to irritate things a little further) they totally misunderstand the meaning of ‘poetic license’.Hundreds of missives have landed on the real and virtual doormats of musicians, worldwide. In return, these lyrical legends have exercised their right to reply, correcting and sometimes confirming the authors’ summation of what went wrong... or right.In their new book Dear Catherine Wheel: Bonkers Letters to U.K. Indie Bands with Genuine Replies, letters were addressed to some of the finest indie/C86 bands, including The Soup Dragons, The Jasmine Minks, The Bevis Front, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, The June Brides, Talulah Gosh, and 80+ more. It's a brilliant, absurd, and hilarious book that you never knew you needed! It's now available at Amazon worldwide.The Philpotts have also authored the companion volumes Dear Mr. Kershaw, Dear Mr. Pop Star, and Grammar Free in the U.K.A portion of all sales aid the Musicians Against Homelessness organization.Proud members of the Pantheon Podcasts family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ah, punk rock. Some punks held onto the style and ideology for dear life (some more successfully than others). For others, punk was a springboard into exciting new territories where the possibilities were limitless. It's the latter that we cover this week - the artists who shed the ripped shirts and safety pins to creatively flourish after punk's initial rush.Join crusty old punks Gregg Grinder and Brett Ba$t@ard for an exploration on the topic of "life after punk," as well as Blue October, Liquid Death (no, we're not sponsored by them), Playboy (no, we're not sponsored by them either), the Post Office, scambaiting, Shakira, middle aged forgetfullness, and the pinnacle of human existence. Oi oi oi! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, we celebrate the beginning of the '90s (Or was it the end of the '80s? You be the judge.) When MC Hammer, Vanilla Ice and Wilson Phillips ruled the airwaves. When Uncle Gregg found some direction and joined the Navy. When teenage Brett co-founded his first band, Empty Glass. And when our special guest, power pop legend Jamie Hoover was caught in a flurry of activity, releasing his debut solo album Coupons, Questions And Comments and prepping for The Spongetones' 1991 third full length, Oh Yeah!Formed in 1979 and very much influenced by the British Invasion, Charlotte, North Carolina's The Spongetones carried on the musical genre through acclaimed original songwriting, jangle pop riffs, and lilting, Beatlesque vocals. In his 2007 authoritative book Shake Some Action, John M. Borack rated The Spongetones' Beat And Torn (a CD containing 1982's Beat Music LP - one of Brett's all time favorites - and 1984's Torn Apart mini-LP) at #24 of his Top 200 Power Pop Albums of all time. The band features the triple threat of talented singers and songwriters: Jamie Hoover, Pat Walters and Steve Stoeckel.In addition to The Spongetones, Jamie has shared the stage and recorded with Don Dixon and Marti Jones, The Smithereens, Graham Parker, Hootie & The Blowfish, Bill Lloyd, Emitt Rhodes, and Ray Paul, among others. Hoover either produced or co-produced all the Spongetones' albums, and continues to produce a wide variety of other musicians, recently including '60s singer/songwriter Bob Lind ('Elusive Butterfly') and young prodigy Elena Rogers. Proud members of the Pantheon Podcasts family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We hope all of our US friends had a marvelous Thanksgiving.  We gave you the main course on Tuesday, a second helping on Thanksgiving, and now it’s time for dessert.  Why?  Because it’s Black Friday...more specifically, it’s Record Store Day Black Friday. Join O3L´s Brett Vargo as we highlight some of the releases from this special RSD that we think will appeal to classic alternative music fans.Whether you´re lining up early, going to hit your favorite store later in the day, or chance it on the secondary market, there´s a little something for everyone to enjoy.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy Thanksgiving to those of in the US! To those other places, Happy Random Thursday.In what has become somewhat of an O3L tradition, we're here to either help you get through Thanksgiving or ruin it...it's a fine line! After all, one of the things that this holiday is about is gorging yourself, so treat yourself to a second helping of O3L this week. (B-t-dubbs, Thanksgiving is also about other things too, as you'll learn about with some enlightening trivia questions.) This year, we celebrate "Friendsgiving," where we cover our top five songs about friendship. Ain't that sweet?Oh, and Brett has an adult beverage during the show. It's a Thanksgiving miracle! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ahhh, vinyl records. For audiophiles and other assorted music nerds (know any of them!?!), it's the passport to sonic bliss. For others, it's an archaic, delicate, noisy and inconvenient medium. Whatever side of the fence you're on, there are albums that you gotta experience on vinyl - whether it be for the sound quality, the artwork, the liner notes, the overall presentation, or maybe it's not available digitally.Remarkably, decades after the format was declared all but dead and buried, it has experienced a huge resurgence in popularity. To commemorate the 75th anniversary of the commercial vinyl LP, In The Groove: The Vinyl Record and Turntable Revolution from Motorbooks is an authoritative and visual celebration of the history and culture of record collecting and turntables, from the first 78 to the explosive growth of vinyl in the last decade, with entertaining sidebars highlighting classic record stores, legendary labels and iconic artwork. Designed to satisfy readers from the most discerning of collectors to those new to the passion, In The Groove gathers five of the finest music scribes to contribute a chapter each. One of those writers (covering record stores) is our Third Lad this week, Gillian Gaar.Gillian G. Gaar is a Seattle-based author. Her first book, She's A Rebel: The History of Women in Rock & Roll was published in 1992. In addition to her own books, she has appeared in various anthologies, including The Nirvana Companion, Trouble Girls: The Rolling Stone Guide to Women in Rock, Nirvana: The Complete Illustrated History, Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, Goldmine: The Beatles Digest (volumes one and two), The Best of the Beatles Book, The Stranger Guide To Seattle, 33 1/3 Greatest Hits Vol 2, A Survey of American Culture, and various editions of The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives, among others. She was editorial assistant for Krist Novoselic's book From Grunge To Government: Let's Fix This Broken Democracy!She was also a project consultant/liner note writer for Nirvana's box set "With The Lights Out." She has written for numerous magazines, including Rolling Stone, Mojo, Q, Goldmine, The Seattle Times, The Stranger, Option, and No Depression, and was a senior editor at Seattle music paper The Rocket.She has also written liner notes for collections by Laurie Anderson, Judy Collins, Heart, Pat Benatar, Paula Cole and Mat Kearney, among others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices