Pete Paphides started his career in music journalism at Melody Maker before going on to write for Time Out, the Guardian, Mojo, Q, Observer Music Monthly and The Times, where he spent five years as their Chief Music Critic. He has made several music documentaries for BBC Radio 4, including ‘Lost Albums’, ‘Follow-Up Albums’ and the New York Radio Festival Gold Award-winning ‘The Songs of Molly Drake’. Over the years, he has been a regular contributor to BBC Four music documentaries and he also made two series of Vinyl Revival for BBC 6 Music. Since 2015, he has hosted a weekly music show for Soho Radio and in 2020, Quercus published his first book, a memoir about childhood and music entitled ‘Broken Greek’. The book has been warmly received and was featured as BBC Radio 4’s Book Of The Week in May. ‘Broken Greek’ has since been optioned by Andrew Eaton (The Crown, 24-Hour Party People) for a television series.
Links
SOHO RADIO
Pete has hosted a weekly show for Soho Radio since 2015. All the archived episodes are available to stream here
FOLLOW-UP ALBUMS
Follow-Up Albums was a three part documentary series for BBC Radio 4 written and presented by Pete, in which he interviewed the musicians behind three legendary albums which were created under the pressure of having to succeed a commercial breakthrough record. The programmes revisited Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Tusk’, Dexys Midnight Runners’ ‘Don’t Stand Me Down’ and Suede’s ‘Dog Man Star’. All three programmes were produced by Laura Druce.
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LATE NIGHTS AT THE BLUE BOAR
in the 1960s, Watford Gap Services was a popular nocturnal hangout for musicians travelling from North to South (and vice-versa) after a gig. With no other establishments serving food and drink through the night, the likelihood of seeing a pop star tucking into a plate of egg and chips at 2am made this M1 pitstop a magnet for pop fans hoping to catch a glimpse of their favourite musicians. This BBC Radio 4 documentary looking back at the pop-cultural heyday of Watford Gap Services was first broadcast in 2011. The producer was Laura Druce.
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ROBERT FORSTER
In 2020, to mark the release of the second Go Is For Go-Betweens box set, Pete welcomed Robert Forster into his kitchen to talk about this phase of the group’s career. Robert Forster
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JOHN GRANT
At Green Man 2018, Pete hosted that year’s Mojo Interview with John Grant.
Listen to it Here
‘BROKEN GREEK’ – TORTOISE INTERVIEW
In April 2018, Tortoise’s Matthew D’Ancona interviewed Pete about his childhood memoir ‘Broken Greek’.
You can watch the interview Here
ACE RECORDS PODCAST
Pete hosts the Ace Records podcast. You can listen back to all the episodes Here
NEEDLE MYTHOLOGY PODCAST
Here is the Needle Mythology podcast, also hosted by Pete.
Play Here
WORD IN YOUR EAR
Word In Your Ear is a series of podcast interviews hosted by David Hepworth and Mark Ellen before a studio audience. In March 2020, they welcomed Pete to talk about his just-published childhood memoir ‘Broken Greek’
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