Culture Club: John Gibbons

0:00The last word with life pharmacy over 100 local pharmacies nationwide that are always here to help life pharmacy live better together so sometimes we get asked what's John given to really like well the way to find out is not to have a conversation with him about the environment or about his book but to ask him to give all the answers to the culture club and we'll see what comes out of that John Givens you're very welcome to celebrate just past five years as our weekly contributor on the last word in the on the environment so culture club instead. It's delighted to be here Matt and thank you. Okay so let's get straight to it because you don't need any introduction to this. First single you ever bought in so far as you have a precise memory of that. Yeah this was Santana's she's not there. It was in April 1977 I remembered very well Matt because it was actually supposedly a birthday present I was buying a birthday present for my big sister and I kind of liked that I think

1:00I liked that record more than she did right so and the budgets were tight at that time so I kind of really it was a present yes but I think I I'm the one who got the use out of it so I remember it very well indeed. And has that been your approach to present given you ever since? Well it's it's about reusing and recycling it's all about being efficient I didn't realize that was quite so efficient but been been skinned does make you efficient and I was certainly skinned growing up. Okay let's hear a little bit from Santana she's not there. It's too late to say oh sorry how would I know why should I care

2:02he's don't bother trying to find her she's not there nobody told me about her what could I do who don't want to be about her who they all do but it's too late to say oh sorry how would I know why should I care yeah she's don't bother trying to find her she's not there I would love to tell you about who and she's who and she I could put color over there I would love to stop and do I would clear and break but she's not there Carlos Santana and guitar for she's not there very sophisticated first choice what can I tell you yeah I think for me music back when I was a teenager it was everything

3:02it really was I guess you know arrived in boring school what a week after my 12th birthday and I think kind of a light switch went on music was your connection to the outside world and really I kind of I can literally from pre September 75 to from that almost that day onwards I just became a sponge for music and it became really the connection to the outside world and we didn't have really we had no TV for example in in boarding school rockwell in temporary no TV no access to newspapers believe it or not right which is a strange background for for for a media person but anyway and radios technically were also banned but was this what was that I was surprised that they used to allow you to listen to me yeah there was a bit of a loophole and that is that the cassette recorder if it had a radio in it they couldn't quite figure that out because cassettes were allowed but but there was you were allowed to listen on Sunday evenings to the BBC countdown which counted down the top singles and that was the thing that we hung on so I could practically

4:06list you out every single from September 75 until I don't know almost until 1980 it was that stronger connection so music for me and it has remained to the to the present day you know it's the thing over and above anything else it's that incredibly strong emotional connection yeah and what sort of music from that era well I mean the the whole shooting match I mean obviously as a teenager you'd have to pick teenage kicks that was one of one of my absolute favorites I guess I was what 13 or 14 when that came out so it kind of rang a very loud bell with everybody and the undertones being an Irish band I think as well you know the 70s it was a pretty glum time to be Irish you know anytime you turn on the news especially abroad it was all about the troubles and stuff and I remember for example being in France on one of those student exchange things in 1979 and my little heart bursting with pride to hear the boom time rats I don't like Mondays actually making the top of the charts and of course the previous year rap trap had been top of the charts in the UK and bearing in mind how what a vital connection

5:09that was for us and for me there was a huge sense of pride and I think music carried that for me and especially the Irish bands whether it was you know the undertones or the rats are indeed thin lizzy you've given us quite a few favorite albums give us a few of them sure yeah I suppose I started with the bends from Radiohead this is about 1995 and it's a funny one Matt because I suppose you know the way you as I say that your teens music is everything and into your twenties it sort of tails off whereas this actually came out in my early 30s and I kind of thought by then I was beyond being blown away by an album and the bends absolutely just through me for through me for six and it was the best way I can describe it was it was almost like a hypnotic trance I'd really never heard anything quite like it and I think that's what 30 years plus a go and it still sounds great in fact I played it again a few days ago to refresh myself and it's just fantastic the lyrics you think of songs like fake plastic trees it and there's one of my favorite lines from planet tell ex it says

6:14everything is broken everyone is broken it's just kind of it's timeless and also feels oddly timely as well it's actually one of my favorite albums as well street spirit will be one of my favorite tracks but the one that we have from the album probably better known fake plastic trees you but you're far from a rather man and a town for the rubber bands to get rid of it

7:19the waves around... the waves around the waves around... OK, that is fake plastic trees by radio out from the bends. Give us other albums. You've given us quite a few mentions. Yeah, automatic for the people from Orem 1992. Absolutely fantastic. Sounds as good today as it did when it was released. I loved Madonna. I've always liked Madonna's music and she's brilliant. And I think it peaked for her. Well, for me anyway with her with the album like a prayer in 1989. Just it's fantastic. And some of the album tracks that the non-singles on that are absolutely gold.

8:20I also maybe it's grown up on the countryside but have a teeny tiny graph for country music. And not all country music and certainly not country in western but for example the Dixie Chicks or the Chicks as I think they're now known. They produced two albums in the early 2000s home and taking the long way and they're absolutely fantastic. And what I loved about them as well Matt is they're so political. They were given the two fingers to the Bush administration in particular and their attempts to silence dissent after 9-11. And these young women stood up for American values. Well for human values at that time and they paid a huge price for it. There was a big fan of Pink Floyd. Oh yeah, I mean Pink Floyd. I was a little bit young when when Dark Side of the Moon was released in 73. So I came to it probably about about a decade later. And again just an amazing just fabulous difference just so completely different.

9:20And again it holds up so well over 50 years later it's an album that I would play on average probably once a month. And it's one of those albums that I will always go somewhere quiet and listen to the whole thing. And I think that's maybe something we've lost a little bit in the Spotify era is this idea not of a song or a single but of whole albums and of experiencing an album as a continuum rather than sort of diving into the dolly mixtures of just picking random favorite songs. For people of a certain age myself included the album experience is is is is completely different to to as I say surfing music. Okay, well I guess tell us who's the favorite bands on artists serve. Yeah, I mean again obviously some of the ones I've just described but I would add to that for example I've been I've been a huge fan of Simon and Garfunkel again before my time but I have had the good fortune of seeing them. I actually saw them I think it was in in 95 in the RDS and they were fantastic but you know just the whole Simon and Garfunkel thing again it predated my time but the music it's just so I don't know just stays it stays with you all the time.

10:28So certainly Simon and Garfunkel also staying back in the 60s absolutely love the doors don't know why just any time I want to lift I put on the doors and you know it's it's just one of those bands that always makes you feel better. And I mentioned Orem I mean automatic for the people but they had a slew of albums and I would I would regularly listen to listen to them and probably a band that that goes with me all the way back to boarding school in the 70s was the electric light orchestra ELO. Two weeks in a row Pat Kinnevin last week as well. I know I heard that yeah and it's just an amazing band like way seriously underrated. I think I think you know there may be not regarded as quite as serious an operation as some other bands but in fact absolutely brilliant music timeless sounds and I find myself going back time and time again to ELO albums from the 1970s and in fact one from 1981 called time an amazing album. You've also admitted to a liking for AOR I think as they call it adult oriented rock very few people I don't anyone has ever admitted on this spot before to liking the likes of foreigner and Boston.

11:38I know I know these are my guilty secrets well first of all Boston's eponymous album Boston Boston more than a feeling and so on it's just fantastic. So look back is their best track? Well some would say but I suppose I that's the one that I really like foreigners is a funny one matter for some strange reason my two kind of romantic involvement in the early 1980s weirdly enough the first one coincided with I've been waiting for a girl like you I know I know I know and then a few about three or four years later it was the I want to know what love is oh God forgive me for saying all this out loud but it's true and as a result I suppose that it hit the small spot and with me and I'm afraid it's always remain there so I do I must admit that I I do like that AOR as well yeah okay but then the track we're going to play is from Beethoven's seven symphony played by the Berlin philharmonic why? Well first of all I love classical music I guess it goes back probably to influence of my father just and I suppose I walk a lot and I spend a lot of time at the desk and I so classical music is something you can enjoy without being completely distracted by the lyrics so I listen to a huge amount of classical music and I suppose Beethoven I suppose you keep coming back to I mean there's lots of others Dvorajak Mozart and so on.

13:02But I just Beethoven is the big daddy really of of of of classical music and within that Beethoven seventh it is spine tingling. Let's hear a bit.

14:02Beethoven's seven symphony as picked by John Gibbons as part of his culture club best gig you're ever at. Well I'll start with the first one not because it's hard to it's hard to get away from that that that first experience which for me was that in Lizzie in the the Carlton ballroom in to Kenny which is a. Basic enough venue let's be honest but it was in I remember well I was in. Eastern 1980 so it was the midterm break just before the leaving search have to tell you are serious producer to remember is being at the very same gig yes you beat me to it so I mean what are the odds but I suppose probably everybody in to Kenny of a certain age was at that. That gig it was incredible I just remember we're rammed into this little ballroom with a low ceiling and everybody was jumping the whole place the floor was moving everyone is moving and they gave it sucks they were fun. They even had the big brass gang at the back that they hit at one of the things so again as a young fellow whatever 15 or 16 I think I was then it was an unbelievable experience to see a serious outfit like that in the flesh and then I suppose.

15:15Well actually let's play a bit of Lizzie that's not from the Carlton ballroom in to Kenny no audio available to that but it was around the time with our live and dangerous tour and album so here's. Here's a track which I think is very apt considering so many of your critics when they hear you on a Thursday don't believe a word. Don't believe me. Don't believe me. Don't believe me. Don't believe me. Don't believe me.

16:19Don't believe me. Don't believe me. Don't believe me. Don't believe me. Because words can tell lies and lies in the comfort where there's tears in your eyes. Don't believe me about telling you not a word. I'd be a Philist and I'd say that beat's better than any day and okay what are the gigs do you want to recall for us. Yeah I suppose my first big kind of outdoor gig was a couple of years later in 82 when I got to see the Rolling Stones in slain and also got to stay overnight in a tent in us.

17:26The whole thing was back in the day was a bit more thrown together. Facilities and stuff were basic but it was amazing and again the stones there wouldn't have been a big I wouldn't have been a big fan at the time but you know for a bunch of old ads I thought they were great and my God 40 years later they're still going just shows you. But yeah that was a terrific concert and I suppose since then a few standard ones mad for me would be as I think I mentioned earlier I did get to see Simon and Garfunkel they were amazing Bruce Springsteen I've seen him in the RDS fantastic but again the ELO in in 2016 in the in the three arena was just out of this world. What was that in the name of an album anyway and also in 2019 actually probably for sheer stage presence it's hard to look past Billy Joel in 2019 and he played in the in lands down road of the Viva Stadium and he was just brilliant his connection with the audience his self deprecation was just brilliant also his voice at that time was still 100% movie actor director what have you gone for here.

18:26Yeah I picked one again maybe it's the schmaltz in me Matt but I absolutely love the last of the more heekens from from 1992 that was directed by Michael Mann who people would know probably way back in the 80s Miami vice but he also directed some really serious films like for example heat in the mid 1990s but this one really it's a it's a period drama and I looked it up actually apparently there have been 11 film versions of this particular book but this is far and away the best. Absolutely outstanding Daniel Day Lewis in the lead role as Hawkeye and also it gave us a small little cultural nugget I remember at the time extra vision had an ad promoting it when it became available on video and they did it in the style of a more street seller and when something like this anyone there for the last the moheekens now come on you just can't improve on that so that that probably would be my standout film also the score for it as I mentioned I love classical music and the score for this. This was was jointly composed by Trevor Jones and Randy Newman or Andy Adelman I should say and they probably would have won the Oscar for for soundtrack except to to be nominated for an Oscar apparently there has to be only a single composer so unfortunately it wasn't eligible for the Oscar but I still listen probably again once about once a month I would listen to the soundtrack of last the moheekens it's absolutely brilliant and probably a little more up to date interstellar from 2014 which is directed by Christopher Nolan absolutely remarkable.

19:55Beautiful film for people not familiar with it I guess earth is in trouble there's dust storms and blight sweeping the planet and essentially people are facing the proposition of having to to leave having to try to find a home somewhere else what I particularly liked about it is that while they stretch things a little bit it was written within the laws of physics so there's some very strange playing with the concepts of time and relativity but they remain face to face. It's so painful to the laws of physics so from from us from the point of view of a science geek like myself it's such a treat and also of course visually it's it's just beautiful.

20:55Whatever people are here like nothing good. Okay pull back, pull back retro thrusters everything you got. Case relayed my transmission to the onboard computer and have it rebroadcast as emergency PA. Dr. But I am taking command of the endurance. This is not about my life or Cooper's life this is about all mankind. Interstellar okay why if you pick Glenn Gary Glenn Ross is your favorite play. Yeah I think it's one probably that just really resonated with me very strongly I think I saw a long number of years ago when it was early days and when I was setting up my own business at the time and somebody had to do the sales job and that ended up being me.

22:01I was a bit of a reluctant salesman and of course Glenn Gary Glenn Ross famously is about I suppose these real estate salesmen essentially killing each other for for a break for a lead and it's it's it's quite a vicious little play but brilliant and that one really stayed in my mind. Okay there's a version from Broadway from 2012 and 2013 which I was lucky enough to be at with Al Pacino and David Harber in this scene. What is that all that I'm saying is what is this you say what is that what is that a deal kicks out I got to eat shit Williamson shit you. Moss Roma look at the sheets look at the sheets nineteen eighty eighty one eighty two six months eighty two who's there who's up there Roma under him. Oh shit John bull shit April September nineteen eighty one it isn't can more still respect it's me it's me John.

23:05Yeah not lately it isn't just my ass lately lately. A little bit there Glenn Gary Glenn Ross Al Pacino and David Harber but you also you must like the ones the wordy ones wordy rather than worthy to kind of mock the word the Aaron Sarron our Aaron Sorkin production recently given that his adaptation pretty much the West wing of course what he's most famous for. That's right yeah no this was in the in the in the board gosh theater it was terrific although a little disconcerting in twenty twenty six to hear the N word on stage repeatedly quite honestly. I don't know how you get around that kind of thing but just it's it's it's jarring but it was a phenomenal it was a fantastic production there's no question about that. I say it wouldn't be the world's greatest theater go by any means and you know I guess I do like the the musicals as well like I Lemis Lemis Rabel. I got to see it in the West End in London a few years ago when it was just amazing like as a family experience and I'm I'm booked in somebody kindly got me Christmas presents of tickets for the Lemis in again I think it's in the three arena in June so I'm really looking forward to that.

24:10Okay we've have a lot of crossovers and things up until I think where we get to books so tell us about the books you love. Yeah love maybe is it is one word for it I suppose I think it the books that have influenced me hugely and I suppose the one that I keep coming back to is a book that was published in about the year two two thousands and it was called something new under the sun by J.R. McNeil Georgetown University and it was essentially a history of the biosphere in the 20th century doesn't sound like the most exciting topic you've ever heard but for some reason matter just knocked me off my feet and this is that a time long before I had ever written a single word in anger are spoken in public on any environmental topic and this one it wasn't really about climate change as such it was more about the human impacts on the biosphere and and and how they were rapidly intensifying so that kind of set me down a road that obviously you know I've continued on for for more than the last 20 years so it was very influential in a similar theme I suppose I think of the world without us by our advisement which is a again a sort of academic exercise in imagining what would happen if humans for example were to simply

25:18disappear without a trace tomorrow how what would what would happen to the world how would how would nature reset things over time and maybe that's less hypothetical than we might think I also admit I do like the political writers I like John Pilger he was certainly an influence of mine many years ago and I think back to a book called Heroes of his that I really enjoyed I did get to meet him. Yeah that was the mid 1980s that's right yeah and I think I encountered it in about 1990 and I got to meet John Pilger a number of years going in in Dublin at an event that he spoke at yeah I became increasingly skeptical about his writing over the years likewise Matt but I'm I'm talking this is vintage pillage and that was his peak absolutely no for sure and that's why I specifically attributed some of his early stuff and and you do find that with people they start out one way and they end up in in a different I do remember one of my college lectures in DC or NIH years at the time are actually saying that John Pilger's greatest hero was himself but they did subsequently give him an honorary doctorate in DC as well sure sure sure so I suppose Naomi Klein I think as well is a is a terrific writer and thinker and and

26:28agitator I think you know she she's brought sort of political activism and made it very accessible to a lot of people obviously famously for no logo there's various other books that she's written no is not enough was one of the more recent ones that are read by her and then if you like as a science writer one of the absolute best is Elizabeth Colbert of the New Yorker magazine well I say she just here extract from her book sixth extinction. Then the frogs around LVA started to disappear the problem it was not yet perceived as a crisis was first noticed to the west near Panama's border with Costa Rica an American graduate student happened to be studying frogs in the rainforest there she went back to the states for a while to write her dissertation and when she returned she couldn't find any frogs or for that matter amphibians of any kind she had no idea what was going on but since she needed frogs for her research

27:32she set up a new study site farther east at first the frogs at the new site seemed healthy then the same thing happened the amphibians vanished the blight spread through the rainforest until in 2002 the frogs in the hills and streams around the town of Santa Fe about 50 miles west of LVA were effectively wiped out in 2004 little corpses began showing up even closer to LVA around the town of Elcopé by this point a group of biologists some from Panama others from the United States had concluded that the golden frog was in grave danger they decided to try to preserve a remnant population by removing a few dozen of each sex from the forest and raising them indoors but whatever was killing the frogs was moving even faster than the biologists had feared before they could act on their plan the wave hit

28:36that is from the sixth extinction by Elizabeth Colbert that why you went to Costa Rica Jason recently chasing the frogs well I guess you know reading great writers like Elizabeth Colbert would certainly have been part of my inspiration but for sure again I love journalists like her who have done the field work who have been to places whether it's the rainforests or down in Antarctica not as tourists not as show boaters but doing the hard graft with the scientists from earlier time television you missed a lot of television by being a boarding school what do you remember from being young yeah I suppose I think back to the theme June to Hawaii 50 that was usually around the time that my father would start shouting at you to get that it was time for bed it would remind him to get rid of us but so I did love Hawaii 50 also I was at that age match where I remember the arrival of color television which was the closest thing anyone will ever experience in their lifetime to the arrival of aliens it was such a marvelous happy experience that would be one of my suppose other shows as as as you mentioned there is a bit of a gap there in during the teenage years

29:40but I love shows like for example Hill Street Blues beautifully made although again in hindsight maybe a little bit of police washing in there as well and of course I couldn't nobody can be careful out there of course yeah and and I think of Dallas as well we were all kind of stuck with Dallas in the 1980s and I suppose I would make the point with the map that it did bear out my my hunch that the oil businesses full of rogues and scoundrels and you also mentioned the office so let's play a brief clip for David Brent played by Ricky Drovez addressing new employees who've joined the slow office in Swindon welcome to Slau to the new people my name is David Brent and I've always been in the paper industry I don't know yeah my parents owned a paper shop until it blew away because that wasn't that okay yeah I'm not I'm not used to public squeaking I pissed pronunciate a lot of my worms you know that's the two wrong is not that that is classic stuff turn the phone off that's part of it

30:46you're not concentrating you're not going to enjoy it as much focus okay anyway good to have you all here from Swindon because I hear they drop an atomic bomb on Swindon about 15 quid worth of damage right okay okay to finish a buried treasure give us something unexpected please yeah I'm not sure how unexpected it is but I pick I picked this one out as a buried treasure because I don't think it's received the TLC the love and attention that it deserves and it's a book from 2017 called Whittled Away Ireland's vanishing nature by Paul Fogarty the ecologist who I'm sure many of your listeners will have heard speaking on various things but it's a really beautifully written lyrical account of both nature in Ireland and also it's sad decline and certainly for me reading it was a real eye opener as to the situation that we're in very realistic very accurate again based just like Elizabeth Colbert based on fieldwork lots of fieldwork lots of ground based research

31:46which is again that the vital component in good environmental reporting like your own books and I as a land it's been great having you John Gibbons that flew along we'll see you back here tomorrow for your weekly environments but the last word with life pharmacy over 100 local pharmacies nationwide that are always here to help life pharmacy live better together