E185: Andrew Smith on A.I. + Björk + The Notorious B.I.G.

Rock's Backpages

For this episode we're joined by the Brooklyn-based Andrew Smith, author of the bestselling Moondust, the "dotcom swindle" saga Totally Wired and the brand-new Devil in the Stack.

We start by asking Andrew about the peripatetic childhood that took him from Greenwich Village to Hastings via San Francisco's summer of love. A riveting account of auditioning to replace Mick Jones in the Clash leads us to our guest's recollections of writing in the '80s and '90s for Melody Maker and The Face — and eventually becoming chief pop critic at London's Sunday Times.

Jumping to Andrew's new book — with its subtitle A Coding Odyssey — we ask him about music's "digital revolution" in the mid-'80s, with particular attention to the ubiquity of Yamaha's DX7 keyboard. From there we revisit his 1995 interview with Björk – an artist who overtly embraced electronic sounds in that decade — and then listen to two audio clips from David Toop's absorbing encounter with the Icelandic maverick six years later.

After a fascinating discussion about A.I. – its upsides and its threat not merely to musicians but to humanity at large — we return to the mid-'90s to celebrate the all-too-short life of the Notorious B.I.G., hip hop's "King of New York" in that all-too-violent decade.

Mark provides quotes from recently-added library pieces about Captain Beefheart (1969), the Sex Pistols (1978) and oddly Francophobe goths Sisters of Mercy (1987), and Jasper wraps up the episode with his thoughts on articles about pop fanzines (2003) and writer, photographer and recent podcast guest Val Wilmer (2024).

Many thanks to special guest Andrew Smith. Devil in the Stack: A Coding Odyssey is published by Grove Press and available now. Visit Andrew's website at andrewsmithauthor.com for more details.

Pieces discussed: Andrew Smith on RBP, Björk: An International Word, Sound and Fury: Radiohead, Björk audio, Notorious B.I.G.: B.I.G. Trouble, Biggie, Tupac et al: Hollywood or Bust-up, Black Metropolis: Notorious R.I.P., Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band: Trout Mask Replica, The Sex Pistols: Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols, The Sisters Of Mercy: After The Flood, The Fanzine Editor: Publish And Be Damned and Val Wilmer: Deep Blues 1960–1988 (Café Royal).