We are trying to be heroic in an age of modernity, and, in other news, we are releasing an ep from the old Patreon vaults (shout out to the £3.80 legends of yesteryear): a deep dive between gigs into the sinister hum of Ivo's music journalism circa 2007 (or was it 2005?), going in to bat for the second Bloc Party album, musing on what it's like to be in a band (not that we'd know), and commissioning a fantastically speculative bit of data-harvesting for a starting price of £200. We will...

Letters to our daughters and our editors alike in this episode, as Ivo comes face to face with the train that crashed his heart, Oxstu music czar 2010 (and CBS Football correspondent 2024) James Benge. You might not need to know in real time when Stephen Fry is scratching his arse, but there’s some solid glasnostalgia about Tinie Tempah, Alphabeat, Pure Reason Revolution and other people we (James and Alex) interviewed when they were just kids in the dark, alongside their more recent trip...

Which gig pigs gig has your disbelief been most suspended at? What’s Alex’s dad doing for his 90th? And who is Ted Sneezington? This and other big questions resolved in an epic poem of a Gig Pigs episode which is set in the Royal Opera House, but still manages to spend much of it debating Strokes albums. We’re so fun! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oh hogs you're damn right, you can't read a pig's mind, we're living in two tribes and heading for war! The four porkiest poptimists in podcast put aside their whole lotta history to pay tribute after tribute, arguably one too many, to June's gig at the Something Kinda Ooooh2. Nobody sees the show, not all of it anyway, but it's an electric night and a long hot recap ft. the definition of mawkish, a horrible memory from The Inbetweeners S02E02, a brief grapple with Nicola Roberts's political...

Gig Pigs for the girls! Series 4 lurches us closer to husband and wifecast as the newly Kealyed Mhairi Beveridge returns, for a BBC bitesize level discussion of the H.O.T.T.est new pop star in the world, and some uncomfortable existential inquiries for King Gigzard, the Pigzard Wizard and their new GP tees. They didn’t get TO GO! to the gig but you’d have to stop the world just to stop the podcast! Download extra swill, rate and leave review. The Extra Swill...

Where are your friends tonight? Once more, one little piggy stayed at home while the other plumped to go johnny go go go to Glastonbury without him. Here's the single-cam report from the farm, then: getting up front for Janelle, giving himself to every breath at Fontaines, and getting into a right tizz about who punched Biff. For extra bonus Gig Pigs episodes and exclusive content every month head over to www.patreon.com/gigpigs to support the show. Download extra swill, rate and leave...

We wanna gig you in our pigs, in our pigs, is this love? Another trip to Heaven (not Alex’s first) for the podcast, this time to watch “your new favourite festival band”, Dutch upstarts Pim Blom, with writer, actor, dancer and Thong Song enthusiast Celeste Dring. We discuss the band’s place in the Dutch music firmament, the logistics of a family-friendly rave, and whether it’s just easier not to talk to your parents (unless they’re helping sell your merch). And, either side of that, we’ve got...

A betrayal filled pod about a very happy few hours snoozing, (la) luzing, diving, dashing, fathering and falling in Brockwell Park. Into the blue again, into the silent water, we saw what we saw! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Do you like funny jokes? Do you like famous bands? Well, you have no idea what you’re getting yourself into here, as Alex and Ivo (electro) swing from the Ally Pally to the Staggy Claggy via a Staggeringly Specific Shakedown of Alex’s DJ choices in Machynlleth. Uphold awhile the unyoked humour of our idleness! And see you on June 8th! For extra bonus Gig Pigs episodes and exclusive content every month head over to www.patreon.com/gigpigs to support the show. Download extra swill, rate...

Los Campesinos!? As in, death to Los Campesinos!? The gigd*icks and the dipsh*t lay down their weapons to discuss pinching lyrics, kissing Tories and living off 2008, via a triumphant gig at the Troxy and the announcement of a new album! All’s hell that ends well! For extra bonus Gig Pigs episodes and exclusive content every month head over to www.patreon.com/gigpigs to support the show. Download extra swill, rate and leave review. The Extra Swill...

He’s an astronomical, fan of bowling balls, so welcome in Felix White, the shirt-shredding, pepper-grinding, review-devouring guitarist of first the Maccabees and now 86TVs, who pigs as hard as he gigs and has plenty kind words to say about liking the rock music of Sea Power, Cumbria’s finest via Tunbridge Wells, the Islington Assembly Hall and the (Irish it turns out) Isle of Aran. We never wanted his tales to end: a precious time discussing the delicate art of the full album play (our third...

We're the wrong kind of people, why'd you listen to us? Because we've achieved our Desire! Desire! and (so nearly) watched Everything Everything, the most interesting and consistent band of their generation, alongside their biggest fan, and Alex's birthday twin, Lolly Adefope (Saltburn, Ghosts, @elevenish). A joyous hour of pig climbs, pig falls, and pink piggies with their hands on their ears: she makes the foolish grin, we flap around in pigskin, and for just one pod, one pod we feel, like...

Is he free, can he gig, is he promised to the pig? An apologetic pleasure to speak easy with Johnny JR about the Planet of Sound (if not Vision) that was Pixies at the Forum: bearded villains, corporate restructuring and where his mind's at re: gig etiquette and encore requirements. Our heads were feeling scared but our hearts were feeling free! For extra bonus Gig Pigs episodes and exclusive content every month head over to www.patreon.com/gigpigs to support the show. Download extra...

Seasons change, and we’ve grown tired trying to change for you (we haven’t). Alex and Ivo are joined by Eleanor Tiernan to discuss hot chocolate, fanboying the Waterboys, and Baltimore’s finest, Future Islands, who made some old pigs very happy at the Kingston Pryzm in January! For extra bonus Gig Pigs episodes and exclusive content every month head over to www.patreon.com/gigpigs to support the show. Download extra swill, rate and leave review. The Extra Swill...

Connect me to the manager please, we’re on 302! From Bake Off to bag drop, a vast rotation of mirth with critically acclaimed apocalypse dreamers Frankie and Liv, who were in a uniquely weird place when it came to watching this week’s mum-ringing 6 music darling. We’re more than alright with this pod! For extra bonus Gig Pigs episodes and exclusive content every month head over to www.patreon.com/gigpigs to support the show. Download extra swill, rate and leave review. The Extra Swill...

The pigs are officially back gigging (/uploading discussions of more gigs we pigged in 2023) and what a jewel (emerald) we have to kick things off: multi-instrumental viral alchemist and late-noughties Oxegen mainstay Michael Fry, guiding us through the scorching intensity of his compatriots Gilla Band and their lamentably cursed garage, as experienced at Fabric in December. We try not to boast and put it on toast, but we'll be honest with you: we're big fans of this episode! For extra...

How many Beatles songs is Paul McCartney obliged to play at Glastonbury? How many Beta Band songs is Steve Mason obliged to play at Green Man? And how many Gig Pigs songs will Foxes and Hedgehogs be obliged to play at the Amersham Arms? Both of them, we hope, as Alex and Ivo talk to Dan and Jack of F&H, soundtrackers to the pod, ahead of February 16th’s collision of worlds in south east London. Tuck into this hallmark pre-gig pig, also featuring Kombu Nori and Jeez Lluis, and join us on...

This is how we gig, with our face to the pig, and we were delighted to do so this week with comedy’s most dedicated music purchaser and reorderer, James Acaster, after a trip to watch newly unretired Idahoan dream-popper Youth Lagoon, with some solid time allotted to wedding DJs, prepared shibboleths and a one-man anti-Slipknot protest at Reading Festival 2000. It’s the last episode-with-guest til Christmas but we’ll still be putting out Gigzard-Wizard over the festive break so don’t stop...

Has Ivo always been like this? No one more qualified to answer than this week’s guest, his very own sister, joining us to eat, sleep, gig (nothing but pig) at apparently the most beautiful venue Bombay Bicycle Club have ever played! Nostalgia heavy even by our standards this week: it’s that ancient love that you won't outgrow! Support your local record store! Download extra swill, rate and leave review, just add it to the list of things that you are gonna do. The Extra Swill...

You know we’re bad at communication, it's the hardest thing for us to do, and it's said, it's the most important part that podcasters need to do! In this case, one pretty honking error from Ivo in the top, apologised for profusely in the tail, with an hour and a bit of glorious Alison Spittle (we've forever believed in their insight) in the middle, chatting Shrek suits, Mumba marquees, and a stunning night watching “our Rumours” in full in west London! Now! We're! Talking! Download extra...

Give us everything you've got, we’ll take what we can get, we want to hear your story and be a part of it! The casual text that snagged nominated nut-buster and Office reinventer Felicity Ward to join us for true-blue indie supergroup Boygenius at Pryzm Kingston and then answer some easy questions about work and school for a souvenir. It was a good idea, and she was all about it, a joyous guest with enough passion, portmanteaus and pearls of wisdom about builders’ qualifications to more than...

Leave your home, watch a gig, wait a week, do a pig! A colossal ep reflecting on two dumb, slow shows at the Ally Pally by a band who don’t know how much we love them, do they? Serial Berningerer Helena Wadia and montage connoisseur Stuart Laws join to try and figure out everything at once, from novelty bombs v novelty bongs to just how much money, how much money, Ive-owes! Sign up to the Patreon because we’re desperate to entertain! Download extra swill, rate and leave review, just add it...

Gig-pigger, where you been? You look so worn, so thin. To be fair, it was halfway through the Fringe when the pod that doesn’t take the easy road, the easy road, bundled Chloe Petts, classiest glasser in town, into the Pleasance Cabaret Bar to find the silver linings in a chagrin heavy evening at the “hideous” O2 Academy. And before we even get to it - and its side helpings of Kasabian pits, Killers passwords and, obviously, G4 - there’s a windy intro that truly is the sound of Keals and his...

A quart(sthoff)-century of eps into the pod and it’s been sorely lacking in two things: classical music and the First World War. What a delight to have rectified both omissions in Edinburgh in August, watching a history-infused Amatis Trio at the Queen’s Hall with the crown prince of the Fringe (other sweeping statements available on request) Kieran Hodgson. Grab yourself a Swedish bun and relax as the man of a thousand voices vets our pronunciations, lampoons our noisy neighbours, launches...