S3 Ep18: Why Oasis v Blur was such a life-changing gateway drug for us (Previously Unreleased Podcast Pilot)

You know that thing where an important artist dies and their record label spends the following decades cashing in on any distorted demo or half thought/finished track they even committed to tape? Well, we'd like to think of this release of the very first pilot episode for Demo Tapes as more like the scene near the end of 24 Hour Party People where Tony Wilson implores revellers at the last night of the Hacienda to loot the club of every memento they can get their sweaty palms on (nb. we don't know whether that actually happened in real life, we were mercifully too young to go to the Hacienda). In case you didn't follow that slightly convoluted narrative: Demo Tapes is ending for good, never to return, and everything must go! To be honest,  we never intended to release this pilot publicly, not least because at this point we had the dubious idea of calling the podcast 'Pieces of the People We Love', a name that would only make sense to people who paid attention to The Rapture's second (criminally underrated) album. However, as we prepare to record Demo Tapes' final episode, we found this forgotten first foray into podcasting in the Google Drive vaults and decided it was (just about) good enough to put out for the listening millions, even if it does feature a terrible Arctic Monkeys soundalike track as a theme tune which we quickly sacked off for the first episode proper.  Given that neither of us had ever stepped up to a podcast mic before recording this pilot, we checked we'd be able to ramble semi-coherently about music for a bit by picking an age-old topic close to both of hearts: the '90s Britpop battle between Blur and Oasis which acted as our mutual gateway drug into the indie scene. We recount our first experiences of hearing the bands' music, going to their gigs and, eventually, meeting our idols and interviewing them for the music press (or in the case of Noel and Liam, deliberately not. All will be explained on that one). This is the penultimate episode of Demo Tapes' final series. Look out for a final episode explaining why we're jacking in indie nostalgia - and sharing some clips of the best anecdotes from our three super, soaraway series - in the next week or so. Beg us to change our minds about ending the podcast on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/demotapespod And Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/demotapespod/ If that doesn't work (it won't), our personal Twitter handles are: https://twitter.com/rick_j_martin https://twitter.com/imsarahjanekemp Ok, just like Oasis, we might be open to seven-figure bribes to reform and return at some point in the future. Send them here: [email protected]