Learned folk have often disagreed on the origins of the bass line. Today, the daemonic bastard child of the drums and the guitar is the undisputed driving force beneath all of our favourite modern popular songs, but there was a time in the recent past when records were tinny and bland and completely devoid of funk. Some blokes down the pub would have you believe that the bass line was invented by noted Italian guitar manufacturer Oliviero Pigini, who, having had the misfortune of losing both his thumbs in a kneading machine accident as a child, miscounted the number of strings on his new range of guitars in 1946.

The new 4 string guitar was an instant hit amongst less able players all around the world and thus the bass guitar was born. However, that is an old wives tale. The truth is that the bass line was invented in 1879 by Nebraskan fisherman Valentine McConaughy. Valentine had specialised in catfish and trout fishing until a working holiday in the Caribbean caused him to fall in love with bass fishing – so much so that he developed his own range of extra thick fishing line for this purpose. Alas, back home in his landlocked home state there was little call for bass fishing, however, his “bass lines” proved an instant hit amongst local thick thumbed banjo players, and the modern banging donk was just around the corner. Many Thanks, Mr McConaughy and your fat thumbed friends!

In this week’s episode, Bill accuses Carl of being disingenuous about Soft Cell, Tim accuses Bill of being “sublime” and Carl accuses OutKast of being a “bourgeois disgrace”. It’s the usual stuff, on a different day.

This weeks playlists:

Bill's playlist

Carl's playlist

Tim's playlist

It would be facetious for a music podcast to go for any length of time without acknowledging the Beatles - as has been observed many times, the undisputed greatest album of all time is The Best of The Beatles; anyone who tells you different is selling something. With the acerbic lyrical wit of John Lennon, the edgy, genre-defining lead guitar work of George Harrison and the rhythmic dependability of everyone’s favourite Beatle, Ringo Starr, the Beatles reshaped the cultural landscape of the twentieth century. Also, the bass player’s wife made some superb textured vegetable protein sausages. You may think that there is nothing left to be said about the Beatles, but we’re the guys that did an entire podcast on the best way to soundtrack a hangover, so we’re pretty sure we can find something new to offer.

In this week’s episode, Tim doubles down on his controversial opinions about Paul McCartney, Bill blames a childhood of playing in brass bands for his hatred of “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and Carl’s hot take for the week is that Ravi Shankar’s tracks are quite good but just a little bit too long. It’s classic stuff.

This week’s Playlists:

Bill

Carl

Tim

The Golden Shuffle

It is easy to forget, in these times of endless drought, burned tundra and an inevitable future when our children choke on atmospheric red dust whilst android overlords decide our reproductive rights, that there was once a time when very small pieces of water would fall from the sky. That’s right, tiny pieces of that miracle fluid would descend from heaven - in older times they called it rain. Rain would then make plants grow - plants are those yellow and brown things on the ground. In the olden days plants were green and would grow and turn into flowers, fruits and vegetables. Seriously, when you write it down it seems very sci-fi, but this was actually how things used to be. Rain happened in other seasons, before the brutal and endless summer that the world is currently enduring. These “seasons” were called spring (mainly rain), autumn (cold rain) and winter (rain so cold it became semi-solid, like a flavourless slush puppy caught in the wind). The commemoration of these mythical “seasons” is the focus of our playlists this week. Of course, not everything went to plan - we blame the heat. Firstly, the fabulous Olivia Newton-John, the patron saint of Summer Nights, passed away whilst we were in post-production and we thus missed the opportunity for a proper send-off. Then, to add insult to injury, Bill admits that Bombay Bicycle Club are shit after all, Tim laments the lack of songs about artichokes, and Carl takes his ability to deliberately misunderstand things to a level which strains credulity. The whole thing is a shambles. This week’s Playlists: 

Bill

Carl 

Tim 

The Golden Shuffle

The Sakoku Edict of 1635 made Japan an isolated state, cutting off trade relationships with most other countries of the world and banning foreigners from entering Japan upon pain of death. Over the next two hundred years, the land of the rising sun would become a place of mystery for the rest of the world, and from this period of isolation it is thought that the West’s fascination with all things Japanese sprang. Indeed, many learned folk trace the first instances of Japanophilia to the 1894 book “Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan” by Greek writer Lafcadio Hearn. In this work Lafcadio detailed many fascinating and foreign aspects of Japanese culture, descriptions of the striking and romantic landscapes of a pre-industrialised Japan, and gave illuminating explorations of the Shinto and Buddhist religions, both relatively unknown to the West at the time.

At No Stairway, however, we understand what truly makes Japan cool - Godzilla, Ninjas and some of the greatest and most insane popular music ever made. Come with us as we explore dubiously named power-pop combos, Super Mario sound-tracking super bands and the peerless genius of Sheena Ringo. You’ll have to use your imaginations for Godzilla and the ninjas, but in all honesty if these playlists don’t invoke images of 300 feet tall lizards breathing nuclear fire on an army of robotic ninja warriors, then frankly there’s no hope for you. Ikimashou!

This week’s Playlists:

Bill's playlist

Carl's playlist

Tim's playlist

The Golden Shuffle