It’s the final post of the year regarding the podcast – the final episode for 2015, here we have episode eleven – a chat with Alan Stuart. I met Alan years ago when I worked in music retail. He was a regular customer, we’d chat about blues and British bands from the 60s. We still talk about that stuff now, but over the years and via Facebook we have grown a friendship.

Alan’s a great writer – check out his blog Wiseblood. He’s also contributed posts here to my regular guest spots, with Five Albums He’s Loving Right Now and Five Films That Stay With Him (both excellent reads).

One day I visited Alan for a chat and at the end of a long conversation I thought it would be fun to record him, to talk about all of that wonderful music he experienced first-hand (seeing Hendrix and the Beatles, The Stones, The Who, Fleetwood Mac, as a teenager growing up in England) and talking movies, comedy, fatherhood, politics…we just kept finding angles, ways in, old conversation topics…staples, common interests. All of it informed by and returning to our own experiences as bloggers, cultural critics, part-time musicians.

It’s a long, wide-ranging conversation – so I’m leaving this one with you for the Christmas holidays. There are more episodes of the podcast in the can, ready for next year and I’ll be out to gather more stories and interviews of course. But meanwhile, I hope you enjoy your Christmas break. And that you enjoy this, the eleventh episode of Sweetman Podcast.