Gig Pigs with Ivo Graham and Alex Kealy

"Out of the water! I can hear the Fratellis coming on!" Another trip in the toe-curling time-machine to a criminally ignored Swiss music festival from the late noughties, where Alex dexterously unlocks Ivo's phone and his past to torture him with a spec review that could have been published in the NME if it was good enough, which we know of course it may not be. Next week: Alex's review of the European Youth Parliament! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Thursday Mercury Club is in retrograde mode this week, as the godfather of social media knockout formats and the suedebrother of the award’s second ever winners joins us to discuss chocolate, confetti cannons, and what really is the best British album of the perfectly divisible 1992-2023 era.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You want ANOTHER pod about the Wild God? We’ll give you one. Ivo’s picket-crossing Cavemania dogs to new moustachioed depths as he summons Alex and his fellow Wheels of Love (language) to one of the most bell-ringing, plate-spinning fan events of all time. Psychedelic conversations of Maths Pigs’ leap year calculations, we give to you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A blast from our patreon past (Nov 2023), in partial honour of Matt Berninger’s tour announcement - we’ll be back next week with a new ep! For this week's pig tale, have a shower and put on a blue blazer / beloved white shirt, then dive into Alex and Ivo discussing 2013's insightful The National tour documentary / hilarious spinal tap-esque mockumentary / heart-warming examination of fraternal dynamics / chronicle of creative doubt "Mistaken For Strangers". Clive Owen advertised BMWs, dontcha know? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Who is the Tom Skinner of Gig Pigs? What is a homunculus? And what did Alex’s mum actually say at his 18th? All these questions and more answered in a thrillingly thinly disguised promo for Ivo’s book (May 22), in an episode that we thought would be out in January, and now features some very out of date Radiohead speculation. Pre order Yardsticks For Failure now! A-bosh! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's new world now, don't discriminate! Everyone is equally a gigger and a pig! Ivo missed 100% of this Bodega show but it’s Alex missing the final 10% that tees up one of the great Gig Etiquette Podcasts of our times, as culture connoisseur and post office nemesis Garrett Millerick lays down some brutal laws about coats, crowds and mistimed liquids. A (Jack in) titanic episode even before we get to the Stewart Lee impression and Marilyn Manson anecdote. Dedicated to the dedicated! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After their favourite weird hot man fails to take the Oscar, Alex and Ivo pig themselves up with some first rate correspondence. New Zealand vinyl pressing, songs about footballers and the inevitable long chat about Bloc Party, all scattered amongst a festive epic from our chief US reporter. You gotta really want it! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There’s a podcast about Bob Dylan released now called Gig Pigs (what a title!). Nish Kumar is starring in the guest role. Nish is a brilliant podcaster so we were sure he’d be completely believable about Bob. Or a younger Bob. Or some other Bob. The podcast was recorded after the Pigs and Nish watched A Complete Unknown – a nailed on Oscar winner that came out in 2025. It’s a fantastic retelling of events from the early ‘60s that led up to the fiasco at Newport. After you’ve listened to the podcast give it a review! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Watch the G-I-G Tuesday, nail the P-I.G Friday, what a pod, What. A. Pod! Alex and Ivo are joined by two comedy clubnight pioneers this week to remember the hardest of the times they don’t forget, in an episode about Grammy guzzling Gallic gods of gain and groove that went from Genesis to (Daylight) Rendez-Vous, A-Cross the space of barely a week. Seek Justice wherever you can, pronounce it however you see fit, wear your home made jackets with pride, and go watch Haddow and Flood because they! are! Our friends! We’ll! Never be alone again! Until the multiple privilege adjacent Simian Mobile Disco anecdotes in the episode’s tail that is. No need to ask our school, to figure out how cool we are! For extra bonus Gig Pigs episodes and exclusive content every month head over to www.patreon.com/gigpigs to support the show. Download extra swill, rate and leave review. The Extra Swill playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/45NNtgh2FbvR4emjWbAVQh Emails and recommendations in the usual places - gigpigspodcast@gmail.com Follow us! @ivo_graham @alexkealy A 'Keep It Light Media' Production  Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: hello@keepitlightmedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Come on, come on, put your hands into the fire and brimstone of Ivo’s student music journalism. Does his article about the premier Cornwallian bedwetters of the mid noughties rehash too many of the themes of his Bloc Party piece? Well, (a) it doesn’t, and (b) we think you’ll enjoy Alex hauling him over the coals for his straw men, his definition of “spooky” and his prioritisation of Scroobius Pip over the original Ten Commandments. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After being pipped to the pod by Lauren Laverne last week, the boys’ Cave dwelling continues into a bonus episode about his eight choices, the people who have taken his songs to the island, and a simply excellent (if stressful) associated game from Alex. For extra bonus Gig Pigs episodes and exclusive content every month head over to www.patreon.com/gigpigs to support the show. Download extra swill, rate and leave review. The Extra Swill playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/45NNtgh2FbvR4emjWbAVQh Emails and recommendations in the usual places - gigpigspodcast@gmail.com Follow us! @ivo_graham @alexkealy A 'Keep It Light Media' Production  Producer: Michael Marden Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: hello@keepitlightmedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We don’t believe in an interventionist pod, but we know, darling, that you do. From font size to Five Guys, ogling bulges to leathering pipes, we invite Edinburgh Comedy Award double winner the Kearnel to pick over a long dark night in Nick’s red right hands, moving through the flames of anarchy and the winds of tyranny and also the difference between Reiss and M&S suit sizes. Do yourself a father! He’s there! For extra bonus Gig Pigs episodes and exclusive content every month head over to www.patreon.com/gigpigs to support the show. Download extra swill, rate and leave review. The Extra Swill playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/45NNtgh2FbvR4emjWbAVQh Emails and recommendations in the usual places - gigpigspodcast@gmail.com Follow us! @ivo_graham @alexkealy A 'Keep It Light Media' Production  Producer: Michael Marden Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: hello@keepitlightmedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here's the thing: in the modern world you don't reveal your favourite album of 2024 until three weeks into 2025. A chaotic Christmas on Excel resolves itself with the final present of the year being unwrapped: a top-heavy but fundamentally colossal album which dominated the vote despite Alex and Ivo nobly/disingenuously swerving it with their own selections. Thanks to all who submitted, congratulations to our lottery winners, and sorry to those whose choices narrowly missed out! It may feel bad! For extra bonus Gig Pigs episodes and exclusive content every month head over to www.patreon.com/gigpigs to support the show. Download extra swill, rate and leave review. The Extra Swill playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/45NNtgh2FbvR4emjWbAVQh Emails and recommendations in the usual places - gigpigspodcast@gmail.com Follow us! @ivo_graham @alexkealy A 'Keep It Light Media' Production  Producer: Michael Marden Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: hello@keepitlightmedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new year means an old us (releasing NYE content on Jan 16th, with the Gig Pigs Album of the Year to follow next week). Sophie Ellis Bextor, Jools Holland, and more ageless figures in the spotlight as the pigs ruminate once more on music based TV, music based board games and the music based passage of time. Bring on 2025! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Triangles are our favourite shape, but does anyone want an entire month of them? Recorded at the start of a nougat heavy advent, we’re crossing the (custom) tees on the year in our last episode before Christmas. Don’t forget to vote in the Gig Pigs Album of the Year, and see you in 2025! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alex and Ivo pick apart their raw data feels courtesy of Spotify Wrapped, before teeing up a new award that we’d simply love you to contribute to. Calling all instrumental soundtrack pixies and pink pilates pop princesses! Let us know your thoughts and your choices. Thanks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oh Lordy Lod, oh lordy me, what a gig Ivo missed this week, wild raving in the north while Alex and Vittorio "Victor" Angelone were wild roving in the west. Grab your Lankum tote and listen in horror (folk) at the various snafus he makes in pursuit of the emerald bandwagon, via viral pizzas, marital pledges and Master Kealy's Busted tap-in of dreams. All the words we have spoken, they were only in jest! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are trying to be heroic in an age of modernity, and, in other news, we are releasing an ep from the old Patreon vaults (shout out to the £3.80 legends of yesteryear): a deep dive between gigs into the sinister hum of Ivo's music journalism circa 2007 (or was it 2005?), going in to bat for the second Bloc Party album, musing on what it's like to be in a band (not that we'd know), and commissioning a fantastically speculative bit of data-harvesting for a starting price of £200. We will charm, we will slice, we will dazzle you with our wit! For extra bonus Gig Pigs episodes and exclusive content every month head over to www.patreon.com/gigpigs to support the show. Download extra swill, rate and leave review. The Extra Swill playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/45NNtgh2FbvR4emjWbAVQh Emails and recommendations in the usual places - gigpigspodcast@gmail.com Follow us! @ivo_graham @alexkealy A 'Keep It Light Media' Production  Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: hello@keepitlightmedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Letters to our daughters and our editors alike in this episode, as Ivo comes face to face with the train that crashed his heart, Oxstu music czar 2010 (and CBS Football correspondent 2024) James Benge. You might not need to know in real time when Stephen Fry is scratching his arse, but there’s some solid glasnostalgia about Tinie Tempah, Alphabeat, Pure Reason Revolution and other people we (James and Alex) interviewed when they were just kids in the dark, alongside their more recent trip (Ivo absent once more) to watch Natasha Khan dreaming of Delphi at the Barbican, alongside some pool-pooers who make Alex tear his luscious hair out. For extra bonus Gig Pigs episodes and exclusive content every month head over to www.patreon.com/gigpigs to support the show. Download extra swill, rate and leave review. The Extra Swill playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/45NNtgh2FbvR4emjWbAVQh Emails and recommendations in the usual places - gigpigspodcast@gmail.com Follow us! @ivo_graham @alexkealy A 'Keep It Light Media' Production  Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: hello@keepitlightmedia.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Which gig pigs gig has your disbelief been most suspended at? What’s Alex’s dad doing for his 90th? And who is Ted Sneezington? This and other big questions resolved in an epic poem of a Gig Pigs episode which is set in the Royal Opera House, but still manages to spend much of it debating Strokes albums. We’re so fun! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices