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Music history comes alive. Forgotten favourites & undiscovered gems from the rock, soul & reggae archive and a few of the stories behind them. Your host is Simon Tesler, former publisher and editor of 1980s music, media and pop culture magazine BLITZ.
Hello, this is Simon Tesler with more great Sounds from the music archive. Our theme this week is What They Did Next: what well-known musicians did after their original band broke up. Coming up, follow-up projects from members of the Eagles, Buzzcocks, Talking Heads and more. But first, a trio of tracks from three guys who used to be The Clash.
"I like a bit of a cavort!" Perhaps the most surprising thing about the follow-up projects by members of The Clash is how very different they were from what they had done before and from the type of music each of the others was making. First up, that was drummer Topper Headon with I'll Give You Everything from his jazz-soul-big band hybrid. Those gorgeous vocals are by the veteran soul singer Jimmy Helms. After that, we had Joe Strummer of course, with his band the Mescaleros. That track is Johnny Appleseed from their 2001 album Global a Go-Go. Probably the song that sounds most like something the Clash would have recorded.
And rounding out the trio, Mick Jones's Big Audio Dynamite, with E=MC2. I'd argue that BAD were perhaps the most interesting of the three post-Clash projects, at least in part for Jones' pioneering use of samples from cult movies. That's catnip to film buffs like me of course. E=MC2 is a homage to the films of Nicolas Roeg, with lyrics that refer to almost all of Roeg's movies including Don't Look Now, The Man Who Fell To Earth, and Insignificance, as well of course as Performance. Those dialogue clips are all from Performance, which gave Mick Jagger his first film role as a reclusive rockstar Mick Jagger who starts playing mind games with gangster on the run James Fox.
OK a change of style now as we jump across the Atlantic for three tracks from American musicians. Joe Walsh and Don Henley were respectively the guitarist and drummer of the Eagles and both enjoyed considerable subsequent success with solo projects. After them, a fabulous rock-out track from Clarence Clemons, the powerhouse saxophonist in Bruce Springsteen's E-Street Band. But first Joe Walsh and Life's Been Good.
Life's Good from Joe Walsh, followed by The Boys Of Summer by Don Henley -- probably the single most commercially successful hit by any former member of The Eagles, and then Clarence Clemons with the fabulous Jumpstart My Heart.
Now let's catch the red-eye back to dear old Blighty for two more British musicians. I've played several tracks on the show before from Steve Allen, the off-and-on main vocalist from the much-loved Liverpool band Deaf School. Deaf School are back on the road again in 2026, but over the past few years Allen has also dabbled in numerous other projects with other musicians. I'm going to play The Love I Love, a fantastic mini-pop masterpiece by The Perils Of Plastic, a short-lived partnership with keyboard player Steve Naive, previously one of Elvis Costello's Attractions. First though, the title track from the second solo album by former Buzzcocks frontman Peter Shelley. This is Homosapien.
He writes a fine chorus, doesn't he. You'll be humming that catchy little earworm for days I promise you. Now, much has been said in recent years about the long-running friction between the members of Talking Heads, or rather between David Byrne and the rest of the band. Indeed bassist Tina Weymouth and her husband Chris Frantz gave several interviews on that topic around the publication of Frantz's memoir about their marriage and their difficult relationship with Byrne. There were some attempts on both sides to repair some of that damage, but I think it's safe to say that a Talking Heads reunion will never take place.
Anyway, the cracks were already beginning to show back in 1981 when Byrne went off to record the album My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts with Brian Eno. So Weymouth and Frantz launched their own side project, Tom Tom Club, channeling some of the rap and funk influences that were running rampant in New York at that time. I'm going to play, one of their finest moments, Genius Of Love -- I'm saving Wordy Rappinghood for another show next year.
So Talking Heads did get back together again for a couple of years in the second half of the Eighties but the writing was on the wall and they broke up for the last time in 1991. In the mean time, Byrne was also involved in numerous other solo projects in parallel with the last phase of Talking Heads, and after Genius Of Love I'm going to play one of the songs he composed for experimental theatre experience The Knee Plays in 1985. That's Tree (Today Is An Important Occasion) but first this is Genius Of Love.
Now, two tracks from ladies who have always insisted on doing things their way. First up, Wendy & Lisa, childhood friends who became lovers and then ended up as members of Prince's breakthrough band The Revolution. They were with Prince from the 1999 album through Purple Rain and until Parade before splitting off to produce their own very distinctive music. I'm going to play Are You My Baby, off their second album Fruit At The Bottom. Just to even things up, the band they put together for that album also features both girls' sisters on backing vocals. It's a family thing.
And then to close the show the incomparable Roisin Murphy. She came to prominence as half of electronic dance duo Moloko with Mark Brydon. Sing It Back, The Time Is Now and Familiar Feeling were all dance floor anthems of the early 2000s, but since Moloko broke up in 2004, Murphy has released a series of excellent solo albums. They've never achieved the same prominence as her work with Moloko but are worth seeking out. I'm going to play the fabulous title track from her second solo album Overpowered. But first this Wendy & Lisa and Are You My Baby.
That's all for this week. I'm Simon Tesler. Thank you for joining me for another deep dive into the Sounds archive. I hope you'll be back with me again next Wednesday -- Christmas Eve! -- for a special alternative Christmas selection. See you then!