S4 EP18: Yardpigs For Failure

"Out of the water! I can hear the Fratellis coming on!" Another trip in the toe-curling time-machine to a criminally ignored Swiss music festival from the late noughties, where Alex dexterously unlocks Ivo's phone and his past to torture him with a spec review that could have been published in the NME if it was good enough, which we know of course it may not be. Next week: Alex's review of the European Youth Parliament! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Thursday Mercury Club is in retrograde mode this week, as the godfather of social media knockout formats and the suedebrother of the award’s second ever winners joins us to discuss chocolate, confetti cannons, and what really is the best British album of the perfectly divisible 1992-2023 era.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You want ANOTHER pod about the Wild God? We’ll give you one. Ivo’s picket-crossing Cavemania dogs to new moustachioed depths as he summons Alex and his fellow Wheels of Love (language) to one of the most bell-ringing, plate-spinning fan events of all time. Psychedelic conversations of Maths Pigs’ leap year calculations, we give to you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A blast from our patreon past (Nov 2023), in partial honour of Matt Berninger’s tour announcement - we’ll be back next week with a new ep! For this week's pig tale, have a shower and put on a blue blazer / beloved white shirt, then dive into Alex and Ivo discussing 2013's insightful The National tour documentary / hilarious spinal tap-esque mockumentary / heart-warming examination of fraternal dynamics / chronicle of creative doubt "Mistaken For Strangers". Clive Owen advertised BMWs, dontcha know? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who is the Tom Skinner of Gig Pigs? What is a homunculus? And what did Alex’s mum actually say at his 18th? All these questions and more answered in a thrillingly thinly disguised promo for Ivo’s book (May 22), in an episode that we thought would be out in January, and now features some very out of date Radiohead speculation. Pre order Yardsticks For Failure now! A-bosh! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's new world now, don't discriminate! Everyone is equally a gigger and a pig! Ivo missed 100% of this Bodega show but it’s Alex missing the final 10% that tees up one of the great Gig Etiquette Podcasts of our times, as culture connoisseur and post office nemesis Garrett Millerick lays down some brutal laws about coats, crowds and mistimed liquids. A (Jack in) titanic episode even before we get to the Stewart Lee impression and Marilyn Manson anecdote. Dedicated to the dedicated! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After their favourite weird hot man fails to take the Oscar, Alex and Ivo pig themselves up with some first rate correspondence. New Zealand vinyl pressing, songs about footballers and the inevitable long chat about Bloc Party, all scattered amongst a festive epic from our chief US reporter. You gotta really want it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There’s a podcast about Bob Dylan released now called Gig Pigs (what a title!). Nish Kumar is starring in the guest role. Nish is a brilliant podcaster so we were sure he’d be completely believable about Bob. Or a younger Bob. Or some other Bob. The podcast was recorded after the Pigs and Nish watched A Complete Unknown – a nailed on Oscar winner that came out in 2025. It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ‘60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport. After you’ve listened to the podcast give it a review! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Watch the G-I-G Tuesday, nail the P-I.G Friday, what a pod, What. A. Pod! Alex and Ivo are joined by two comedy clubnight pioneers this week to remember the hardest of the times they don’t forget, in an episode about Grammy guzzling Gallic gods of gain and groove that went from Genesis to (Daylight) Rendez-Vous, A-Cross the space of barely a week. Seek Justice wherever you can, pronounce it however you see fit, wear your home made jackets with pride, and go watch Haddow and Flood because they! are! Our friends! We’ll! Never be alone again! Until the multiple privilege adjacent Simian Mobile Disco anecdotes in the episode’s tail that is. No need to ask our school, to figure out how cool we are! 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 playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/45NNtgh2FbvR4emjWbAVQh Emails and recommendations in the usual places - [email protected] Follow us! @ivo_graham @alexkealy A 'Keep It Light Media' Production  Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Come on, come on, put your hands into the fire and brimstone of Ivo’s student music journalism. Does his article about the premier Cornwallian bedwetters of the mid noughties rehash too many of the themes of his Bloc Party piece? Well, (a) it doesn’t, and (b) we think you’ll enjoy Alex hauling him over the coals for his straw men, his definition of “spooky” and his prioritisation of Scroobius Pip over the original Ten Commandments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices