Glen Hansard’s Funeral, Rock Quiz Triumphs and AI’s Book-Bootleg Problem

Episode 35 of On The Record begins where last week’s conversation left off: with Glen Hansard.

Brian Wise and Michael Mackenzie watch the Irish singer-songwriter’s funeral, a ceremony that made plain the depth of affection held for the Frames frontman, Once star and inveterate musical collaborator.

Mackenzie was especially struck by the accounts of Hansard’s generosity, the presence of his battered, road-worn guitars in the church band, and the closing performance of Bob Dylan’s “Forever Young”.

From there, the mood shifts to the Espy, where Mackenzie joined the winning team at the latest live Rock Quiz.

With Vika Bull, Linda Bull and Mark Seymour among the night’s guests, it was a reminder of what the long-running format does best: turn music knowledge into competitive sport..

There is also affectionate discussion of Ted Lasso, now back for a fourth season, with Mackenzie arguing that the show’s warmth still counts in its favour even if the third series lost some momentum.

Brian, meanwhile, has rediscovered the pleasures of a dedicated Seinfeld channel, particularly Larry David’s exquisitely self-centred George Costanza.

Streaming recommendations continue with Ride or Die, a new Prime series starring Hannah Waddingham and Octavia Spencer as long-time friends whose lives are complicated by a secret career in assassination.

The much darker Believe Me, based on the crimes of a London taxi driver who preyed on women, prompts a more difficult exchange about institutional failures and the exhaustion of watching social injustice dramatised on screen.

Books also get a look-in. Brian recommends Patrick Radden Keefe’s London Falling, a true-crime investigation into the death of a London teenager who fell from a luxury apartment building.

He also flags Jimmy McDonough’s substantial new Gary Stewart biography, I Am From the Honky Tonks, a long-overdue study of the brilliant and troubled country singer behind “She’s Actin’ Single (I’m Drinkin’ Doubles)”.

That leads to the episode’s most urgent subject: AI-generated knock-offs.

Wise describes finding what appeared to be a cheap, stripped-down imitation of McDonough’s book—apparently produced by reworking the author’s decade of research.

Episode 35 closes with a preview of next week’s listening and viewing, including a Link Wray story, Netflix’s His & Hers, and documentary screenings at the Melbourne International Film Festival—among them a film on Marianne Faithfull.