Ep 34: Glen Hansard Remembered, The Flaming Groovies Revisited and Nolan’s Odyssey Debated

Episode 34 of On The Record opens in sombre territory, with Brian Wise and Michael Mackenzie remembering Glen Hansard, the Irish singer-songwriter, Frames frontman and Once star who died aged 56 following a motorcycle accident outside Dublin.

Hansard’s career stretched back to the formation of The Frames in 1990, before his work with Markéta Irglová as The Swell Season, and a substantial solo catalogue. But it is the memory of his live shows that looms largest here.

Wise recalls a performer who gave audiences everything, including the habit of leading crowds from the venue and into the street for impromptu singalongs. Hansard’s concerts, he says, had the uncommon ability to turn a room full of strangers into a temporary community.

Mackenzie remembers seeing him at Bluesfest with The Swell Season and praises the filmed concert Live at the Iveagh Gardens. Both also return to Once, the modest, deeply affecting film that introduced Hansard and Irglová’s “Falling Slowly” to a far wider audience.

The song won the Academy Award in 2008, but its quiet power has never depended on the trophy.

The episode then returns to Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, this time with Wise finally making the long trek to an IMAX screen. Mackenzie’s previous, rapturous review may have set the bar a little too high. Wise is impressed by the scale, locations and technical achievement, but less convinced by the film’s length, some contemporary-sounding dialogue and Matt Damon’s Odysseus.

For Wise, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator remains the stronger ancient-world epic, with Russell Crowe a more compelling leading man. Still, he concedes that Nolan’s film is spectacular, the Trojan horse is particularly impressive, and the experience merits a second viewing—if only to catch the details missed during the latter stages of its near-three-hour voyage.

From Homer to San Francisco’s finest cult-rock obsessives, Wise celebrates the 50th-anniversary reissue of The Flamin’ Groovies’ Shake Some Action. Produced by Dave Edmunds and originally released in 1976, the album remains a glorious collision of British Invasion devotion, power-pop snap and scruffy garage-rock spirit.

The expanded double-CD edition includes alternate takes and live material, while the title track is rightly described as one of the great singles.

Wise has history with the group, having interviewed Cyril Jordan and Roy Loney in San Francisco in 1984—an encounter that earned him an Australian Hi-Fi Magazine award.

The Groovies may never have troubled commercial radio, but their cult status has endured because records this alive do not date.

The conversation then turns to the fine art of the interview. Wise reflects on the challenge of finding fresh questions for artists who have already completed dozens of promotional encounters.

Mackenzie nominates David Marchese’s two-part New York Times interview with Mick Jagger as a standout example of getting beyond the usual album-cycle patter.

The key, as Wise notes, is locating the subject that unlocks a genuine conversation. Bob Dylan can happily discuss pre-war music; Van Morrison once wanted an interviewer with detailed knowledge of post-war British jazz; Jagger, it seems, was willing to consider lyric writing, audiences and the peculiar mechanics of keeping the Rolling Stones moving.

A clip from The Voice UK provides another lovely musical detour, as Tom Jones recognises Peter Donegan as the son of his old friend Lonnie Donegan.

Their spontaneous performance of “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again”, written by Lonnie for Jones, becomes a reminder that songs can bridge generations more elegantly than most television formats deserve.

There are television recommendations too: Mackenzie offers Apple TV’s Lucky, starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Annette Bening and Timothy Olyphant, a tale of con artists, family traps and Fiona Apple’s opening-theme song “Horns of a Bull”.

Wise recommends BBC drama Rapture, while ABC’s Believe Me earns another strong endorsement.

Finally, Wise points listeners towards Rhythms’ mid-year music-books selection—a useful reading list, he insists, rather than a numbered ranking. Although, as Mackenzie observes, it is no accident that the Bob Dylan title is positioned very prominently.

Some things, like a great Glen Hansard performance, a Flamin’ Groovies single or Brian Wise finding a way to put Dylan first, are simply part of the natural order.