Did the ancient Egyptians have B major, or were they just really into papyrus condoms? This week, Andrew and his resident logic-botherer Sam attempt to dissect the musical history of ancient Egypt, mostly concluding that three thousand years of history can't quite be summed up by Bruce Dickinson or an overly loud 90s metal kick drum.

Expect a completely uncalled-for bass-tuning intermission, a deep dive into why the 'Woke Police' banned The Bangles after 9/11, and the shocking revelation that ancient Greek war music sounds a bit too much like an Offspring track. We also listen to some genuine electronic pioneer madness involving barking dogs and celestial shapes, plus a bit of Coptic embalming music that sounds exactly like a knife going into some pharaoh's guts. It's educational, it's chaotic, and Andrew actually learns what a pentatonic scale is (sort of).

In a desperate bid to look like we know what we are talking about, we have overhauled the format. This week, Andrew drags a bewildered Dr. Sam through 1980s Liverpool to discuss why a three time Oscar winner spent his youth hiding in a camouflage suit.

We are diving deep into:

• The Scouse Trinity: Exploring the "Crucial Three".

• Julian Cope's Fear of the Floor: Why he performed on step ladders because he felt the floor was too dangerous.

• The Mysterious Drum Machine: The story behind the machine they called "Echo".

• The Big Lie: How they admitted the drum machine story was just a way to mess with journalists.

• "Caramelised Hair": The era of sugar-styling that attracted swarms of flies and smelled like a burnt bakery.

• The Cosmic Gateway: The time Bill Drummond decided a manhole cover in Matthew Street was a cosmic gateway to Iceland.

It is peak 80s chaos, involving more sugar and camouflage netting than a primary school bake sale in a war zone.

• "The Killing Moon": The one Ian McCulloch insists was written by God, though it is actually the intro to Space Oddity played backwards.

• "The Cutter": The band at the absolute peak of their 80s powers.

• "People Are Strange": The Joel Schumacher and Lost Boys payday produced by Ray Manzarek of The Doors.

• "Over the Wall": A masterpiece from their very dark, silhouette-heavy period.

• "Brussels is Haunted": The sound of the band in 2026, because they are still at it.

Viking metal is a sad parody of music. Or at least, that's how Andrew starts this episode before Sam drags him through a hedge of historical facts. In a bold new format where one of us actually prepares and the other just reacts with increasing confusion, Dr. Sam (our resident academic-lite) guides us through the reality of Viking influence on music. We cover why Wagner is responsible for the horn-helmet lie, why Led Zeppelin is basically a Viking recruitment brochure, and why the Harp Twins might be the most terrifying thing we've ever watched. We also learn that real Vikings probably sounded less like growling Swedes and more like barking dogs. If you've ever wanted to know about Viking divorce laws, fossilized worms, or why the Finns freaked everyone out, this is the rambling mess you've been waiting for.

Right, here we go. In this episode, Andrew and Dr. Sam tackle 'Foreign Music'—which is basically just a fancy way of saying 'songs where we don't understand the words'. We kick things off with an enormous tube of lube and some fizzy water that's apparently trying to destroy Andrew's teeth.

The lads dive into the archives to discuss why the British are so terrified of music that isn't in English, the mystery of Joe Strummer's 'garbled nonsense' Spanish on 'Should I Stay or Should I Go', and the revelation that Plastic Bertrand was basically a French Milli Vanilli on a trampoline. Dr. Sam tries to bring some 'academic' weight to the proceedings by reading high-brow philosophy about repetition, while Andrew just wants to talk about Nena's bass player and why subscription underpants are a recipe for disaster. Expect tangents on Star Trek moral codes, stealing cars you can't drive, and the universal truth that everyone eventually gets 'yogurt chucked up' at them.

• Dr Sam's Riff: Elvin Jones - 'The Prime Element'
• Andrew's Riff: Rebekah - 'Synthetic Collapse'

• The Clash - 'Should I Stay or Should I Go'
• Magma - 'Hortz fur dehn stekehn west'
• Pixvae - 'La Fuga'
• Mc Solaar - 'Qui seme le vent recolte le tempo'

• Plastic Bertrand - 'Ca plane pour moi'
• Blur - 'To the End (La Comedie)'
• Serge Gainsbourg - 'Bonnie and Clyde'
• Nena - '99 Luftballons'

Email us: beatmotel@lawsie.com

Look, we tried to have a sophisticated chat about interwar music (the stuff between the two big global scraps) but obviously, it devolved into a conversation about penis tattoos and whether or not Reddit is a valid academic source.

Dr. Sam brings the "knowledge" (mostly from books he is actually holding, for once), and Andrew tries to figure out how to eat a Scotch egg without a plate while pondering the sexual deviance of 1920s novelty songs. We cover Duke Ellington's Mood Indigo, the absolute filth hidden in "I'm Going to Bring a Watermelon to My Girl Tonight," and why Robert Johnson might have just practiced really hard instead of selling his soul to the devil. It is a rambling journey through jazz, folk, and German Marxist theatre that somehow ends with Woody Allen and a two-fingered guitarist.

Dr Sam's Riff

• Dog Faced Hermans - Jan 9

Andrew's Riff

• Witch Post - Worry Angel

1. Duke Ellington - Mood Indigo
2. Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band - I'm Gonna Bring a Watermelon to My Girl Tonight
3. Brecht - Instead-Of Song
4. Harlem Hamfats - Let's Get Drunk and Truck

1. Laurel and Hardy - Trail of the lonesome pine
2. Robert Johnson - Crossroad blues
3. Woodie Guthrie - This Land Is Your Land (1940)
4. Django Reinhardt & Stephane Grappelli - Minor Swing

Email us - beatmotel@lawsie.com

This is it. The big one. Episode 161. A milestone nobody asked for and even fewer likely wanted. It's the "Ego-death indulgent Spectacular Special," which is basically a fancy way of saying Andrew and Dr. Sam have finally disappeared up their own backsides to look at the wreckage of the last 160 episodes.

Expect a lot of self-congratulatory stats, clips of the pair sounding like absolute melts, and the usual technical failures that have become the show's unintended trademark. We've got deep dives into why Queen is discussed more than played, the actual number of times we've mentioned bodily functions (spoiler: it's lower than you'd think, which is disappointing), and a look back at the time Mike Watt told us he hated Zoom. It's a retrospective of chaos, bad decisions, and the occasional riff.

• The Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis – Deface The Currency

• LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER – Eins, Zwei, Drei

• Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Intro: We started with a lie. In Episode 1, Andrew promised a 20-minute show, but it ran to 55 minutes. Sam's original review: "Andrew, this was supposed to be 20 minutes".
• Cee Lo Green – FUCK YOU: Setting the tone early. Episode 1 ended with Andrew attempting professionalism while Sam signed off with a heartfelt "Fuck you all".
• Metallica – Fuel: It took us 63 episodes to finally deliver on the Metallica special we promised in week one.
• The Replacements – Here Comes a Regular: We predicted we'd be "irregular". We then accidentally published for 96 consecutive weeks without missing a single one.
• The Minutemen – Corona: Revisiting our favourite intro, the moment Mike Watt joined the Zoom call and immediately shouted, "Fuck those people".
• The Stone Roses – Tell Me: Statistically our most played artist with 14 appearances over the journey.
• Queen – Stone Cold Crazy: Our most discussed band (mentioned 26 times) that we almost never actually play.

• The Christian Vulvas: A band name suggestion that almost killed us with laughter.
• Thighs Wide Open: Walking into the technological dystopia with our "eyes fucking wide open," or something like that.
• 10 Pence Pieces: The failed monetization strategy involving skin insertion.
• Testicle Weather Vanes: A foolproof way to predict a tornado or an earthquake based on swinging.
• Ruddiger Broomhilder's Unripe Plums: The AI-assisted tale of a stomach-ache staging a revolution.

• PIL – This Is Not A Love Song: The stats are in. We prefer death (29 songs) over love (19 songs).
• Phil Collins 3 – Pooey Stick: Despite the scatological humor, "poo" has only appeared 11 times in the transcripts.

Watch more Beat Motel chaos here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWvEIcKhJxA&list=PLwnzX0gT6IrcZqrF2Xslb19NiBRgd9rj9

In this episode of Beat Motel, Andrew is joined by Tom Klute, a man who has spent 25 years running the Commercial Suicide label and presumably even longer trying to figure out how to stop CDRs from rotting into useless plastic coasters.

The pair embark on a quest to identify the 'Great Basslines of Our Time', a journey that takes them from the bowel-ripping valve amps of the 70s to the distorted sub-bass of 90s jungle. Along the way, they discuss why buying a headless bass is a cry for help, the terror of music trackers, and the peculiar joy of being a 'cool dad' who gives his son massive 70s speakers only to realise his lounge ceiling is now a vibrating drum skin.

Expect tangents on why the Smokey and the Bandit remake in Suffolk failed, the mystery of delaminating discs, and why the Sugarhill Gang might be absolute fibbers. It's an hour of gear talk, punk history, and bass-heavy nostalgia that'll make your trousers wobble.

Tom's Riff

• Kenny Loggins - Footloose

Andrew's Riff

• Fucked Up - Crusades

1. Stranglers - Toiler On The Sea

2. Roni Size - Share the Fall (Grooverider's Jeep Mix)

3. Discharge - Ain't No Feeble Bastard

4. Chic - Good Times

5. LFO - LFO

1. Fu Manchu - Grendel Snowman

2. Blur - Popscene

3. Venetian Snares - Öngyilkos Vasárnap

4. Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep

5. NOFX - The Decline