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Episode 34 - ADHD And Music
76 Plays1 year ago
Paul and Martin (co-Mayors of ADHDville) head to a Downtown bar to talk about music! ADHD and music seem to have a fascinating relationship so without skipping a beat, let's get right into it shall we?
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ADHD music from the Mayor Martin (AKA Thinking Fish)
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Put quill to paper and send us an email at: ADHDville@gmail.com
Theme music was written by Freddie Philips and played by Martin West. All other music by Martin West.
Please remember:
This is an entertainment podcast about ADHD and does not substitute for individualized advice from qualified health professionals.
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Transcript
Intro and Laughter
00:00:00
Speaker
the room back in the room actually no one just said that I realized that my assholes my my assholes make my muscles okay all right all kinds of weird noises
00:00:22
Speaker
We're here to talk about, about, about the music.
Music Quiz and Frank Zappa Quote
00:00:26
Speaker
And I thought just now that we do a one, a one question quiz. Okay. There's a thing in front of me. So, uh, it's a music quote. All right. So I'm going to tell you a music, a quote, right? Yes. Three people that, that may have said that. Okay.
00:00:54
Speaker
All right. So here's the quote. All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff. Wigs? With wigs and stuff. Yeah. All the good music has been written by people with wigs and stuff. So what's that? Beethoven. Right. Right. So was that a quote from Noel Coward?
00:01:20
Speaker
uh yeah was it from frank zapper right or was it from or was it from taylor swift i'll go with frank the zapper and you'd be right
00:01:39
Speaker
Nailed it. Nailed it. Nailed it. I've never really listened to Frank Zappa. I'm not really frequented with his music at all. Dave the Drummer in my old band loves some Frank Zappa. Dave the Humphreys. Dave the Humphreys.
00:02:04
Speaker
and I have listened to some and I must say it is quite extraordinary. Bye. It is.
00:02:14
Speaker
I mean, like, you have to kind of go in and go, OK, all right, well, I'm just going to kind of like have an open mind to it. But it is. Yeah, no, I think it would definitely be worth if you googled what's the one Frank Zapper album I should listen to and then go and listen to it. It's you know, it's like one of those things that you could get really hooked
00:02:43
Speaker
Or you could go, you know what, I can't do with this. There's some stuff that I couldn't listen to when I was a kid. Well, I could listen to, but I never really appealed to me. But then as I got older, I got into people like Neil Young. All of
Neil Young's Greatness
00:03:02
Speaker
a sudden Neil Young, which is like the most amazing thing to me.
00:03:10
Speaker
He's amazing. I remember I was in Canada and I was visiting my son and we were driving to Niagara Falls and then this song came on the radio and we were like, oh, this is amazing. What is this? What is this? And we were having to kind of Google it and it was a Neil Young
00:03:38
Speaker
right but yeah i mean he's i mean that whole the whole harvest album it's an extraordinary piece of work it's just really good now right he married to darryl hannah the old bugger is he he's married to pris from from blade runner
00:03:56
Speaker
All right, or the mermaid from Splash? Yeah, both of them. Oh, both of them. Oh, wow. Right, so if he wants to have sex on land, he goes to Pris, or if he wants to go for a swim-swim. It's a
Podcast Focus and Disclaimer
00:04:13
Speaker
mermaid with spray-on makeup. Nice. Well, on that surprising introduction, welcome to ADHDville.
00:04:29
Speaker
I have to say, I have actually written the words to this song and I've lost the words. Lost the true ADHD style.
00:04:45
Speaker
I've lost them. So I mean, I can remember a couple of lines and I was really happy with it. I was really happy with it. I actually came up with the words for the intro, like half in my sleep and I woke up and I thought, oh, that's a good song to write for the ADHD VL intro. I got up at four o'clock in the morning, wrote it down and I can't find it.
00:05:09
Speaker
on a piece of paper. Okay. Yeah. And I've been looking, can't find it. Anyway. Anyway, hello. I'm Paul Thompson and I was rubber stamped with ADHD four months ago. And I'm Martin Weston. I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2013. So it's been a while.
00:05:30
Speaker
So we're just two mates who, by coincidence or not, after 39 years of friendship, discovered that we're co-DHD-ers, hoorah. What? No, it's really, really, really important to say that this is an entertainment podcast about ADHD. It does not substitute for individualized advice from qualified health professionals who don't take any advice from us. No, no, no. We're just here as a kind of all-inclusive
00:05:56
Speaker
ADHD part-bench with room for everyone including your double gangers, your alter egos, your body doubles, your chaperones, and your best buddies. And for a limited
ADHD and Music Exploration
00:06:05
Speaker
period only, because we're feeling extra generous, we're making room for your rascals, your vagabonds, your blackheads, and your scallywags this week. So, you know, it's a win-win situation.
00:06:18
Speaker
Well, I think they're just umbrellas, everyone there. Exactly, exactly, exactly. We like to be inclusive, you see. It's a very inclusive park bench. OK, still here, the grab your jetpacks, pedilos, space hoppers or any other transportation method. And let us take you to HHD, or an imaginary town we've created in our minds. We would like to explore different parts of HHD.
00:06:47
Speaker
Lovely. And we start off as always at the town hall in the mayor's office where we, the joint mayors of ADHD, will take care of business. And this week we're going to talk about a really fun subject, which is music, ADHD and music. And that Venn diagram of awesomeness.
00:07:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was up there in our minds for quite a long time as a podcast. There's like synergy between them that hopefully will make some sense of or not in the next few minutes. Yeah. So let's head into our mayor's car and we're going to go head downtown
00:07:36
Speaker
to a cool little bar where I think all the musicians hang out. Right. And we'll get into it. So let's get into that. Let's bring the car around. Oh.
00:08:02
Speaker
downtown bar. It's good to hear that the car's been tuned up this week. You could tell it's ticking over slightly more smoothly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, because we did have it serviced a couple of months back now. But yeah, it's sounding good. All right. Well, who wants to kick us off on this? I don't know. Well,
00:08:30
Speaker
Well, I can if you like. Okay. I found this quite interesting nugget here. Okay. It just so happens that the part of the brain that we get rewards from, get rewards from music from, okay, it's called the nucleus accumbens. It's exactly the same
00:08:54
Speaker
part of the brain that our psychostimulant ADHD medications work on. It's exactly the same zone. They're in the zone, both of them. So music, they're like, you know, they're bedfellows, absolutely. Yeah.
00:09:16
Speaker
And yeah, it sits here, right? The idea of music being able to help ADHD is that it suppresses the braisability, directs itself towards irrelevant stimuli. And this allows the attention to be better directed towards early selection stimuli. Okay, so it kind of helps us along, right? So you think, well, isn't it the same with non ADHD people? Actually, no.
00:09:42
Speaker
People without ADHD are much more likely to be distracted by music than we are. Oh okay. Yeah, that whole distraction thing. Yeah, because I was thinking about that.
00:10:03
Speaker
Music and ADHD seems to be like it would be counterintuitive, right? That music would distract. But actually it has these... Well, I would go on to say that some types of music definitely do distract.
00:10:25
Speaker
and they certainly distract me. And then others, sorts of music help me focus. But then it depends on the task I think you're working on because they're saying like...
00:10:38
Speaker
I found a list of like, if you're like, if your task is like, if I'm focused on something, I'm really stimulated by it. Like let's say, uh, I dunno, I've just been given a, uh, an advertising campaign to do for some really cool brand or something. And I'm really into it and the clients are really cool. And you know, I could tell that they're going to be really into what we present, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:11:01
Speaker
i could put on on on thrash rock you know thrash metal and it wouldn't distract me you know i'll be fine i can like i can close out i can zone out of zoning to anything
00:11:17
Speaker
you know, without any distractions at all, if I want to. But if I do something really shitty job, then absolutely, then I have to like think about what I've got on going around in my years. I'm the absolute opposite, if I'm understanding this correctly. So if I have to focus on something like coming up with ideas or I have to think about things,
00:11:41
Speaker
then the music I play has
Music Preferences and Concentration Tips
00:11:44
Speaker
to be a certain kind of music. It can't have words or lyrics or singing in it because then that starts to like, because I've got my own internal
00:11:56
Speaker
chatter going on in my head. There's other lyrics going on and they're all like, I find that too hard to concentrate. So if I'm concentrating, I can't have lyrics, songs. But if I'm doing housework, it doesn't matter. I will more happily put on pop
00:12:19
Speaker
pop music or anything will be fine. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I am actually quoting more from like the kind of research that has been done. Right.
00:12:35
Speaker
because I'm going to talk myself round into actually agreeing with you on that into a certain extent, except when I'm really hyper focused and then I could play, you know, thrash metal music and I might be okay anyway. If I'm really in my tunnel vision moment, I can play anything and it doesn't distract me at all.
00:12:56
Speaker
But then, yeah, if I'm doing something banal, you know, like, like every day and I don't want to have to do it, that, yeah, I'll put something on that would motivate me, you know, put on my go to be like Radiohead king of snake or something. And it will make that task a little bit more doable for me. Is that acceptable? Are you saying underworld king of king of snake?
00:13:19
Speaker
Yeah, what did I say? You said Radiohead. I always get those two mixed up, you see. I've done that in another podcast. I've got the two mixed up. I did, yeah. We were talking about concerts, yeah. So yeah, because they say if you're working on a task,
00:13:42
Speaker
that is maybe that you're not really kind of like into it's not a dopamine feeder for you then you should listen to music without you should avoid music without a clear rhythm okay you should avoid music that's abrupt loud or heavy
00:14:00
Speaker
avoid extremely fast-paced music such as dance or club music avoid songs you really like or really hate thinking about how much you love or hate a song can disrupt your concentration okay should avoid songs with lyrics that can be destructive for your brain if you prefer music with vocals try listening to something that's sung in a foreign language okay
00:14:28
Speaker
And if possible, this one's a biggie for me. If possible, avoid streaming services or radio stations that have frequent commercials. Ah, man. God, I hate that. I hate radio. I hate commercial radio.
00:14:43
Speaker
Right. Listen to a nice song and it's like this crap advert pops in. I mean, Spotify, I think they did this on purpose. I think Spotify got a strategy. They want you to upload to a premium service. So they put in the worst kind of adverts that they can. It's really, they're really bad adverts. Right. So what you're saying is from that, from that little chitchat was if you want, if you need to concentrate on something, uh,
00:15:13
Speaker
don't have lyrical songs, unless they're in a foreign language, nothing too fast paced or that has abruptness to it, right? That kind of...
00:15:28
Speaker
draws your attention to it too much. I think probably this research was probably paid for by, who's that Irish singer? A female singer? A Sinead O'Connor? No, much worse. You too. I love Sinead O'Connor. No, she's like... Rest in peace. Oh God. I love Sinead O'Connor.
00:15:59
Speaker
Oh, and it's not in the ad, but I think she played within the ad. Hang on, we're gonna have to. And it's just like the tip of me of like, of like easy listening music. Just, oh, it drives me crazy. I might just have to.
00:16:27
Speaker
fill in for a while while... Yeah, fill in. While Paul goes down this little... I've got to do this. Sorry, guys. He's got his little... And it's not popping up, is it? No. She's not popping up there at all. Oh, no. It's got a buggy, mate. It is.
00:16:59
Speaker
She was so, she was like massive in the 90s. Rose Nutty, who's that? Annie Carter, who's that? So Lee? I don't know. Farrah A. Lee? No, no, okay, let's give it up. All right. Let it go, let it go. Okay, let's let it go. Anyway, yeah, they're basically saying you should listen to like, you know, easy listening music, aren't they, really?
00:17:30
Speaker
Yeah, well, easy listening music is a genre. I mean, I listened, I mean, I don't know if I've said this before, but I mean, I have a tab on my Google Chrome, which takes me to an ambient artist that I listen to.
00:17:55
Speaker
where he doesn't have any any ads. Well, he will sometimes have an ad right at the beginning. But but then it's like an hour or could be two hours or three hours of just ambient music. OK. I'll just click on that, click play. And then I know it's going to be like just really nice sounds. It's just going to wash over me. There's going to be no adverts. And it's and I've almost trained my brain. I think I said this before in a Pavlovian way that as soon as I hear it,
00:18:26
Speaker
You mean Pavlovian is like the dessert, the meringue based dessert. Yes, exactly. Like the meringue based dessert. Because I've done this so often that my brain hears the start of that whole of the music, the ambient music I've got in this tab.
00:18:50
Speaker
that it goes, oh, now it's time to start focusing and thinking about stuff. My brain kicks into gear. It's it's like I've trained it on this one album. Yeah. Yeah. Well, in actual fact, I mean, I didn't want to sound like degrading about easy listening music because actually, yeah, he's a genre, but actually it's a crappy name because actually, you know, like
00:19:17
Speaker
Brian Eno does some amazing ambient music albums. They're really, really cool. Really cool. Basically the guy who invented electronic music or one of them. He was there. He built his first, he built his own computers for, I think when he was playing for Brian Ferry, Roxy Music, he was building his own keyboards and stuff since.
00:19:45
Speaker
Nice. Nice. Yes, I have. So yeah, music for airports.
00:19:51
Speaker
I think anyway. So that, but one thing that I don't mention is what if you're like really uber familiar with a song and you've heard it maybe a hundred times. So you're not distracted by the words at all. Cause you just know them so well and you know, the melody so well. So it goes in your background. It goes kind of backgrounding anyway, just have a familiarity. I reckon because, you know, there are so many different types of
00:20:20
Speaker
neurodivergent brains out there all wired in their own unique way that you'll
Neurodivergent Music Preferences
00:20:25
Speaker
have. And like someone listening to this will go nonsense. I listen to, you know, if, if I want to concentrate on doing some boring
00:20:36
Speaker
you know, task that requires me to think, then I will put on this, you know, fast pace, complicated stuff with singing and that's my go-to. And fast and yeah.
00:20:53
Speaker
But what my goat as I said before is um Anything by underworld I? Just love it. I can really tune in to anything and concentrate on anything and listen to them. I don't know. It's weird Just like there's no hearted applying logic to that at all, but just works, right? Yeah, because I think of music as like a fidget toy you know like there's
00:21:23
Speaker
you can use it to you know to control your own anxiety right and you know that that analogy that I came up with ages ago which is like where you you go to a department store to go shopping with your little kid but you
00:21:49
Speaker
But as you go around, your little kids is like touching everything and causing chaos and being distracting. So you take them to the ball pit area and you just leave them in there to kind of go and play while you can concentrate on going shopping. And music is a bit like that.
00:22:13
Speaker
It's like a fidget toy. It almost occupies part of your brain. Part of it has to think about it. And for some reason, at least for me, is that
00:22:29
Speaker
you know, is that it allows me to focus because. Yeah. It facilitates focus. It's like we're saying, you know, what we said at the top was that the, you know, if for some reason that's quite specifically an ADHD brain, because neurotypicals are more likely to be distracted by that. So it's kind of quite different. It's kind of interesting, isn't it?
00:22:54
Speaker
Yeah. Cause I know that I'm like, can you remember like in, I think, I don't know whether they're still going on, but there are studies that pop up that will go in the classroom. You know, they say that if you put on classical music, say then all the kids, um, uh, perform better. And then there's all these, they've done the same research in prisons as well. All right.
00:23:24
Speaker
Okay. Some would say they're the same thing, but you know, it's another discussion. Yeah. I don't know. Well, where was I going with that other than, um,
00:23:42
Speaker
So with schools? Oh, it's so a neurotypical parent may go, no, you know, if you have music on while little Jimmy's doing his homework, you know, that's going to be a distraction. Whereas little Jimmy might do better with a little, you know, with some of his tunes going on.
00:24:10
Speaker
Yeah, funnily enough, it's weird to talk about Little Jimmy. I remember seeing, I think I only saw two episodes of it in my life, but there's an American, there's an Australian soap opera called Neighbours, right? And there were some kids, they were trying to remember their homework, so they tried a new technique, right? Where they would, to remember what they needed to remember, weirdly, great verbalisation, Paul, thanks.
00:24:39
Speaker
They, they applied everything they needed to remember to a beat. So one person was on a little set of drums, and they would like, remember the music, go, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, bump, 1066, to a beat. And because they said it helped them to remember stuff.
00:24:59
Speaker
Yeah,
Music's Emotional Role During Pandemic
00:25:00
Speaker
no, it's quite well known that if you want to remember stuff, if there's a little rhyme, there's a term for it, which I forget. But yeah, if you turn it into a rhyme, then you're much more likely to remember it.
00:25:24
Speaker
I know there's a whole other side of music apart from the kind of focus part, which is the, which is the, I would say the, the, the, the stimming part, like the, the kind of like letting loose and putting on a, your, your, your favorite track really loud and then dancing around the room. Yeah.
00:25:51
Speaker
yeah and kind of getting all that kind of energy out of you. Well it's funny you mention that because I right at the beginning of the of the pandemic I was because I lived near I lived in Turin which is like half an hour drive from Bergamo where it all
00:26:12
Speaker
first kicked off because they had some kind of Chinese convention, a business convention in Bergamot, so they had Chinese came over and it all kicked off. And it hadn't even arrived in England yet, okay. So there was a, we were, I was at home with my son and we were, you know, we were in lockdown, okay.
00:26:41
Speaker
And a song came on, on the radio, and it was King of Snake by Radiohead. Radiohead? By, there we go, Underworld, right? By Underworld. And I swear to God, I mean, I was feeling like we were scared, right? We were really, me and my son were like, in lockdown, like, what the hell? And we, just before, you know, anyone had
00:27:04
Speaker
heard about it maybe in the UK or in America and it's like holy crap and no one on the streets is like what the hell is going on and on came this song and I swear to god within seconds I was up on my feet bouncing around my room as the happiest person in the world and so I wrote because it was Sean Kivney's show with God bless him when he was still on Radio 6
00:27:32
Speaker
I've really missed him actually on Radio 6, he was really cool. I wrote to him straight away, I sent him a message saying thanks, it's really made a difference for me because you know, it's all kicking off here. And he mentioned me on the radio and I got such a big high off of that. Oh wow. Yeah, it just, yeah. So, got this message from Paul in Turin, he's gone into lockdown. So, and he said, oh, so we're all thinking about your mate and your son in Turin.
00:28:02
Speaker
And I hear that they still are, that every morning they have a little chat about you. Yeah, right. That's nice. Thanks for that. I remember texting you.
00:28:25
Speaker
and going, I've just heard you're in lockdown, mate. And you're like, are we? And then you're like, oh, shit, we are. Did I? Yes. Yes.
00:28:37
Speaker
I knew before you, weirdly. Really? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No, I went, I went, oh Jesus, mate, you're in lockdown. And you're like, are we? And then you went away. I don't know what you did, but then you were like.
00:28:56
Speaker
Well, that must have been really, really, really early on because literally I think probably the night before people were starting to go to the panic buying in the supermarkets the night before and buying up, you know, loading their trolleys with pasta. I'm not kidding you. That seems like what an Italian would do.
00:29:21
Speaker
That was the first response. The institute was like, I'll go to the new resoup market and fill the trolley with pasta. Yeah, right. I mean straight past the toilet rolls. That
Personal Music Escapes
00:29:37
Speaker
just takes up way too much space. Let's get to the pasta. I need macaroni.
00:29:46
Speaker
My friend Lav, hello Lav, if you've ever watched this podcast, but we're shopping together because he heard about it even before I did. And I said, this is like really early on. He was panic buying with mayonnaise. What are you doing? Mayonnaise. Yeah, I need mayonnaise. He was worried that it was going to be a natural shortage of mayonnaise.
00:30:09
Speaker
It was the logic. Anyway, maybe it was his, his, his, his, his safe food, you know, like how you have like, yeah, have like, yeah. Yeah. For me, it's my mind. That was my mind for me.
00:30:28
Speaker
so yeah but anyway so there's certain types of music that just take me to this like place you know and i can get completely i can be tele transported into my own world completely like with underworld or radiohead or ruddy size do you remember ruddy size
00:30:46
Speaker
yeah that used to be like oh man it just takes me to another i can i can literally live on a note a different plane you know like in a parallel universe with some types of music yeah absolutely what what kind of music does that for you
00:31:10
Speaker
Okay, so I have to be in the mood for it, but then I'll put on certain tracks. So yeah, Underworld's good. Not so much King of Snake, a little bit more earlier than that. Like Fro. Oh yeah, no, not quite that early. Dude, by Fro, great track.
00:31:38
Speaker
Right. But, you know, but there's sort of yellow, for example. That's a good one. Then there's like, oh, Frankie goes to Hollywood. Oh, really? Yeah. You know, you like some of that sort of two types go. Yeah. You know, that track thunders along. Yeah.
00:32:07
Speaker
But yeah, yeah, there's a few, there's a few. I watched, they didn't play together for years and years and years and I found a, there's a concert of them playing, oh, they played the Eurovision Song Contest last year in Liverpool. First time in about 20 years, Frankie goes to Hollywood. Oh, okay. It wasn't good. No.
00:32:29
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think they like each other very much so kind of you've kind of picked it up, you know Mm-hmm. They're like just we're not oh god. Let's do this, you know, whatever Yeah, but they were good weren't they? They were good
00:32:45
Speaker
Well, yeah, I tend to think of it as Trevor Horn was good. So Trevor Horn was the man behind them. Didn't know that. Okay. Same guy that did Art of Noise. Yeah. So I think the general thing was he wanted to find a band
00:33:12
Speaker
so that he could express his sounds, his sounds, all right? And he didn't want anyone famous because they would have an opinion. So he found this bunch. And they recorded like relax and two trubs and whatever. And then
00:33:37
Speaker
And then he completely like he completely changed it like it was Wow, it would have sounded like a whole different thing, right? So yeah whole
00:33:49
Speaker
That whole freaky sound was him. I mean, it was like 80% him. Right. Okay. Which is actually the reason they broke up because after recording that stuff, you know, the height of their popularity, the other people in the band said, no, we're not interested. Whereas in Holly Johnson, I think his name was the singer, he was kind of happy with what Trevor Hall did.
00:34:16
Speaker
The others were like, nah, we're not really into it. And there you go. Little issue
Musicians with ADHD
00:34:24
Speaker
about Frankie goes Hollywood. I've got, all right. So any, any, any other beauties in there?
00:34:33
Speaker
Well, I mean, I was just going to say that I, that as a musician myself, and I honestly kind of feel like a lot of ADHD is who have a bit of a creative side will, you know, I would say a fair amount of musicians are ADHD.
00:34:54
Speaker
For sure. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've got a few written down here. So will I am Dave, Dave, Dave, David Grohl.
00:35:04
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Justin Timberlake, Adam Levine. I mean, like, the list goes on. Oh, and us for sure. Yeah. And me. And I write the music and I put out albums for, specifically for putting on in the
00:35:28
Speaker
in the background while I'm doing work and concentrating like just ambient. Yeah, fairly chill ambient just helps me concentrate. But also I guess the process of making the music too? Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
00:35:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's it's kind of like a two stage thing. So, you know, like we hyper focus on something and you're excited about something, right? It's like doing a painting or or or whatever, or for me, it's like putting down a track. So you get that part of your brain is like all excited and we'll write something and then.
00:36:13
Speaker
when I need to kind of go and do something else like work or concentrate on something then I can put it on and it kind of keeps me nice keeps me me me focused so I will put a link to all of that stuff
00:36:33
Speaker
And I have a whole 10 hour, I've got one 10 hour continuous 10 hour track that is on the YouTube that have you hours long. It is 10 hours long. You're a dark pony.
00:36:51
Speaker
And it's not even, it's not even like, so I wanted to be continuously changing. So it's not like I wrote an hour and then I just copied and pasted it for 10 hours. Right. No, there's a whole continuous running. It changes all the time. I mean, like every couple of minutes they'll be changing, changing. It just, it just evolved. And it's sort of YouTube is.
00:37:18
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Links in the show notes. Blimey. Link in the show notes. Absolutely. Yeah. Ten hour long track. Can you believe it? It's things you find out about your old mates. It took
Music and Belonging
00:37:31
Speaker
me about, it took me about eight months, I think. Really? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. To write 10 hours.
00:37:44
Speaker
Okay, so I've got here moving on to the next part of music. I've got the tribal aspect because I just got this, I always had this feeling, I look back and I remember seeing as a kid, you used to like think, you know, in my subconscious at that time that I didn't fit in and I was weird and everything
00:38:03
Speaker
And then you'd go home and you have your dinner and then you switch on the TV and it's like, top of the pops is on. And there's this guy, someone like Gary Newman, the tube way army thing. Holy moly! What the hell is going on there?
00:38:24
Speaker
I don't know the fact because I mean he just likes he did this like Android look about him and it just looked like it was just wasn't on our planet at all and I think in my subconscious I thought oh hello there's what's going on here there's something maybe I'm not all by myself on this planet after all you know right yeah cuz he cuz he's on the spectrum he has yeah it's got Asperger's
00:38:51
Speaker
right which is yeah now autism right now autism because they've lumped it in yeah but yeah i don't know why they've lumped it i don't know why i just didn't give it another name just because it's uh i understand why they changed the name but i don't know why they just lumped it in because it's quite specific isn't it it's really specific type of autism they expanded it out so oh see
00:39:17
Speaker
what I don't want to do is kind of get into like because I feel like your eyes bleed well I don't know enough right that that's yeah that's that's that's where I am but yeah but in general terms I think Asperger's was you know like um level three
00:39:39
Speaker
autism, which is like nonverbal, you know, and that's the severe kind, right? And then they kind of like, that was like somewhere around the the Asperger's, but or the level two, which is like verbal, but needs a lot of support. And then they just expanded out what autism was. And then the the the the Asperger's
00:40:05
Speaker
part didn't really you know was was only concentrated on a small part of it so they just got really expanded it out yeah yeah okay take my my word for it but anyway yeah so Gary Newman was there
00:40:21
Speaker
He was looking weird and an alien and you were thinking, my god. Smiths, you know, with the gladioli, you know, like waving around, dancing, he's like a bunch of flowers. What else have I got there? I've got Ian Gere in the blockheads. What is going on? Iggy Pop.
00:40:41
Speaker
Right, because I think most people can think of a time when music is in the background and they might like certain stuff like I can remember I liked ELO and there was a bunch of kind of Kate Bush, I think, that was in there somewhere. And then there's a point where you hear something
00:41:05
Speaker
And suddenly it's like a part of your brain wakes up and goes, right? As you were saying, going, holy shit. And suddenly, yeah, you're like music becomes like this, this, this consuming passion. And then you're running out and you're buying albums and you're reading magazines and you're learning. Our friend's electric by Gary Newman, as it was then, who's two by army.
00:41:34
Speaker
It was the first record I ever bought, vinyl record I ever bought with my own money. It's the same. I think it was my first heaven inch. It is. I remember now we've had this conversation before many moons ago. Yeah. I'm so proud of that. It says so much about me and you and our ADHD, I think.
00:41:59
Speaker
Because it is just, I don't know, I listen to that song now and it just gives me goosebumps. Part nostalgia. But also pride. That's an unusual song as your first seven inch vinyl to buy. It clearly resonated on some level.
00:42:24
Speaker
Yeah, it was it was like one of those big, big hits. It was it was that big. It was that opening notes about do now now now. And suddenly suddenly all my hairs are like up on end again. Yeah.
00:42:39
Speaker
Exactly. The funny story is, because he gets out of nowhere, was appearing on top of the pops. He was just literally doing nothing. He was actually Two Way Army. He was a punk band. And they went into record Two Way Army. They went to record Our Friends Electric as a punk record.
00:42:59
Speaker
And they went into the recording studio and he found some sort of like this like MOOC synthesizer lying around. And he thought, he said to someone, what the hell is that? And he said, oh, it's a synthesizer. I said, what? What do you mean? And he abandoned the punk, punk band thing and totally rewrote it.
00:43:21
Speaker
Yeah. And then when he went on top of the parts, the reason why he looks like an Android is because he had terrible acne at the time. So he covered himself in white foundation. And that's why people, this is like, whoa, who is this guy? He was just really embarrassed by his acne, just to cover himself up.
00:43:41
Speaker
Well, it worked for him. I know. So, you know, if you get this, you know, so, you know, artists, you know, and certainly when you're a teen, you know, you get that hyper focus.
00:43:59
Speaker
thing, you get a huge, huge dopamine hit, and then you just, you know, have your favorite artists and you just, man, you know, like, and I almost think that it's as I have to think this, it's not very often that you get the same feeling about a certain
00:44:22
Speaker
artists like you did back then. So when you start getting into music, there's like
00:44:32
Speaker
You're just a sponge for
Music Discovery and Identity
00:44:34
Speaker
it, right? You're just like buying albums and listening to stuff. And I was listening to John Peele on BBC Radio 1 in the evening with the tape cassette ready on recording. Just like recording all this stuff off the radio.
00:44:52
Speaker
and you make tapes you pass it around to all your friends and you know how makes Steve would have bought a new album from a new band you've never heard of and then you put it on his eyes it's fantastic but that whole period is like seems quite finite
00:45:09
Speaker
Right. Because when you're an adult, it's not as intense. It's more spread out, it feels. Yeah. Okay. I guess there's so much discovery at that. There's a huge element of discovery at that point. It's also discovering your own identity as well. It's like, wow, this somehow, on some level, it resonates for you.
00:45:37
Speaker
And you can start to belong. Yeah, exactly. It's not like you weren't hanging on to what your parents were listening to at that time, but that could be another discussion. I think my parents were listening to Helen Reddy and Neil Diamond. So, you know, Christ. Neil Diamond ain't shabby. Well, he's written a couple of good tunes here. His best tune he wrote was for The Monkees.
00:46:06
Speaker
Oh, there we go. There we go. My parents were listening to the carpenters. Of course. And the... Good songs, though. The Beatles. So that's why. So Charles Asnivore, Charlie Bassi. Yeah. There were some... Barry Manilow. No, not in our house, thankfully.
00:46:35
Speaker
No, but then my dad my dad bless him out of nowhere He buys something that weirdly enough. I was listening to listen to on the radio Coming back from work today to do the podcast I heard on the radio Donna summer
00:47:01
Speaker
I feel love. Produced by George Moroder. Belting tune. Where did that come from? My dad had that. He bought it. Had the whole album.
00:47:18
Speaker
That's amazing. Good choice. Exactly. Blimey, where did that come from? So yeah, then go back to what I was seeing on TV at that time. I remember seeing in during the blockheads for the first time, hit me with your rhythm stick. Now he had, wow. I mean, apart from the fact that he had, you know, his physical disabilities, he had polio, but of his rocker.
00:47:48
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, he's rocking. I see him. He was. Well, what a sound just out of nowhere. And it just seemed so experimental at that time as well. You just didn't know what was around the corner. There's so many different types of music and musicians popping up all over the place. Completely different sounds. It's what I miss now, really. So it's not that I would argue that the the charts back in the 80s and.
00:48:17
Speaker
90s even, it was more varied. It seems a bit more homogenous now. Good word, mate. Homogenous in the chart. Let's turn on that word for a moment. Homogeneous. I think it's homogeneous, yeah.
00:48:42
Speaker
But I mean, but I mean, but there's still an amazing music out there. Talking of which, I'm going to see a band next Tuesday, British band, going to see the idols in Milan, which is going to be Belting. Belting, especially like the best live band in the world at the moment, or at least in the UK. Belting. And in a small gig as well. Little gig in Milan.
00:49:09
Speaker
Oh, nice. That's going to be outstanding. And we're going to be recording an episode of the the podcast the day after. Oh, that'll be fun then. All right. Well, we've we've got 10 minutes left. Is there is there anything that you that you want to be adding in?
00:49:31
Speaker
Not really. I was going to talk about binaural beats and white and brown noise, but we could skip over that. It's kind of a, I don't know. It's weird stuff. There's a lot of it out there. Like YouTube's full of this stuff. Brown noise, binaural beats. Yeah, right. Honestly, I've kind of been down that road and
00:50:00
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, sure. It makes me want to go on and kill someone, but that's just me. At the end of the day, I kind of put music on that makes my brain happy for the task that it's doing at that time. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. It leaves out a fundamental element of pleasure, surely.
00:50:26
Speaker
Right, and if you listen to binaural beats and that does it for you, good for you, you do your thing. I tried it
Listener Feedback and Conclusion
00:50:40
Speaker
just before we came on to record and my dog, he started making a nest on my bed
00:50:47
Speaker
So I don't know, he obviously had some effect on him. He started nesting in my bed. I don't think that's not their objective, I suspect. All right. Well, let's head back. Let's get back in the car and we'll drive over to the post office. Yes. Let's do that. We've got post as well. Yeah.
00:51:22
Speaker
the post office man this place needs a coat of paint it needs a coat of paint um all right so this is the part where you say
00:51:35
Speaker
I say this, Martin, thanks for asking. Your feedback is vital to us, it says here. We read all of your comments and we might read yours out on the future podcast. The Milky Bars are on me.
00:51:58
Speaker
right like like this comment like this comment from from um um our learned friend x over infinity x on tick tock x x over infinity x x um because he was talking about um he really loved our last um last podcast we put up with willy dub
00:52:21
Speaker
And he said he was so inspired by it that he was thinking of doing his own podcast. And he said, why were you inspired by it? I was worried that he was going to say something like, yeah, you guys just did such a bad job on it. I thought, I've got to do something about this. So no, he said it was much nicer than that. It was much more generous, obviously. He said, just because you lot are such beautiful bastards,
00:52:46
Speaker
and uh and they said oh i've got to see willy dubbs unscripted too so yeah all right i like that beautiful bastards cool i'll take that i'll take being a beautiful bastard all right well let's uh let's uh as we walk back to um uh to the mez uh
00:53:08
Speaker
office. Let's just remind everyone to the ADHDville is delivered box fresh every Tuesday from all purveyors of fine podcasts. Feel free to subscribe. Hit that subscribe button. Tickle it. Hit it. Nudge it. Hit it. Hit it. Poke it with your mouse. Or a stick.
00:53:33
Speaker
Yeah. The best poking is to be done with a stick. I personally advise a stick for poking. Right. What about a barge pole?
00:53:48
Speaker
Is that? Yeah, I think you can do that too. I'm not saying stick or barge pole. Which, which... Right. Oh, okay. I'll go for stick. It's more spontaneous. Stick. All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Easier to hold as well. Exactly. But yeah, so please comment. It actually helps us.
00:54:14
Speaker
A lot. But wait, there's more if you want to see how it goes. I always need massaging. Yeah. If you wish to see how beautiful, beautiful face is, then Sally Forth to YouTube. Or Sally Fields. Fine lady. She is. Fine lady. And you can also pick up a quill and email us at ADHDville at gmail.com.
00:54:44
Speaker
All right. Well, that just means that, yeah, come and visit us on TikTok, YouTube, the couple of friends that is Facebook, Instagram is. But in the meantime, be fucking kind to yourself. And I beseech you, fellow ADHDers, know thyself, sons of the house. Come hither and get the flesh. Get the flesh? Get the flesh. Not his flesh, my flesh. There, says the Mayor. That's that.