Sing Along with Cricket Et Al

The story of a playlist

Pete and I have hosted hundreds of podcasts since we paired in November 2020 as Cricket Et Cetera, and relaunched last year using the name of this website after consciously uncoupling from The Australian. One of our happiest mementos of this time is The Etcetera & the et al (not cricket), a Spotify playlist lovingly curated by listener Evan Willis collecting those songs whose titles I have affixed to our episodes. It now offers more than fifteen hours of audio goodness.

I can’t remember how the tradition began - it has simply always been my job to write the stand firsts for each pod, which to my mind should take no more than a minute. I therefore reach for some vague musical echo of what we have just been talking about. Inevitably, The Fall, the standard by which all bands are judged, gets a good outing, along with faves like The Saints, The Breeders, Beck, Tom Waits and Wire. There’s a few of my daughter’s preferences too, including Will Wood and the Tapeworms, Graham Kartna, Toby Fox and Mother Mother - not that she’s a listener, but we often swap songs. Sometimes it is influenced by what I am listening to. I’m reminded, for example, of the phases I was obsessed with Killdozer’s Uncompromising War on Art Under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat….

….and with Hash Redactor’s Drecksound.

Dutiful Evan, it turns out, is an employment lawyer as well as a member of the Et Al village. He explains:

The origin of the playlist now a bit hazy, but as I best recall, I started it while idling through Spotify and half watching the 2022/23 day/night Australia v West Indies Test.

If my memory serves, you and Pete had been on a bit of top-ten-list-tear and I had also been intrigued by the podcast titles, so I had some list-building inspiration satisfy my ever shortening attention span, as Australia won that match in processional fashion.

I first started building the list based on where we were in time, and then quickly went into the back catalogue to build it out. I am now struggling to find a complete list of the cricket etc. pods to verify my process or how far back I went, but it has just dawned me that I have further back to go!

The hiatus between your exit from Murdoch (‘Last Orders’ live Stretford Civic Centre) and restarting the pod (The Models, ‘Man O Action’) under the Et Al banner was a bit sad but left the list as a sort of memento of a moment in time. Even so, it was very nice to have you back and to have my electric zen garden to tend once more.

It has been an enjoyable and unexpected musical education tending to the list. After years of having eclectic and adventurous tastes in music I had fallen into something of a midlife slump of listening to the same things over and over and so, each pod brought a some new genre or artist to explore and an improvement to the algorithm. I’m certainly far more familiar with The Fall than I was before! All thanks to you, your daughter and Pete!

I dare say you are, Evan! When we were last in Manchester for the Ashes, for example, we celebrated our pilgrimage with a solid week of titles by the mighty Fall.

Pete pays homage

And if you think this was a folly of my own, it’s worth pointing out that The Fall finished second in a 2023 press box poll of best Manchester bands.

MES had prominent backers.

Anyway, roving back and forward through this playlist has subtly reinforced something Pete and I sometimes acknowledged - that Cricket Et Al is a podcast about music as much as sport. I mean, what else are you going to call an Ashes preview?

Or an interview with Mike Brearley?

Or an interview with Tim Paine?

Or a Travis Head six fest?

Pete and I being very partial to covers, too, recent highlights include this John Prine take by the Viagra Boys…..

…..and James Brown reinterpreted by Big Black.

There’s subtle overlap too. Pete and I both interviewed the late, great Kinky Friedman…

…and defer to Garry Gray as an underrated savant.

A favourite? So hard to choose! But if you haven’t delved into the universe of Matt Farley, The Guy Who Sings Songs About Cities and Towns, don’t stop with this stirring tribute to my home town, partly inspired by the Cats’ 2022 flag. Anyway, as you were: back to cricket shortly.