Episode 26 of On The Record is the first fully international edition—Brian Wise filing from Melbourne, Michael Mackenzie beaming in from the ancient fortified town of Monemvasia, deep inside the Peloponnese. The contrast isn't just geographic: Wise is braving Melbourne winter; Mackenzie is swimming in warm salt water off Byzantine fortress walls. 

The hate is, as he cheerfully acknowledges, entirely deserved.

Show Notes

RN's The Music Show: Miles Davis Centenary 

RN's The Music Show: Tribute To Sonny Rollins 

The Rolling Stones, Tracks Of My Years, with Vernon Kay 

It's Only Rock 'n' Roll - Ronnie Woods original home recording with David Bowie 

Ron Sexsmith - Don't Lose Sight (Official Video) 

Paul McCartney: 10 tracks defining his life including from Chuck Berry, Elvis, Prince & John Lennon 

Wilco Play 3 Nights in Marrakech - go into the comp to win the concert/hotel package 

The Boroughs | Official Trailer | Netflix 

"Spider-Noir" - Authentic Black & White Final Trailer | Prime Video

Episode 25 of On The Record with Brian Wise and Michael Mackenzie begins where so many arguments in roots music eventually end up: Bob Dylan—specifically, the minor detail of him turning 85 (born 24 May 1941) and still looming over popular music like a sarcastic weather system.
Plus two streaming recommendations, a bit of tech talk, and Brian’s fave Beach Boys album gets exposure on a new tour.

Episode 24 of On The Record with Brian Wise and Michael Mackenzie opens not in a record shop or a green room, but in the unglamorous reality of domestic collapse: Brian’s gas hot water service fails, leaving him hunting for a plumber and waiting five days for resolution.

Musically, the emotional high point is a warm, informed appreciation of David Byrne. 

The hosts tip their hats to Byrne’s wider career, including his work with Brian Eno, particularly ** My Life in the Bush of Ghosts **, and note his recent appearance at Jazz Fest.

Show Notes

Legends | Official Trailer | Netflix 

Shetland On Iview 

Talking Heads - Road to Nowhere (Official Video)

Brian Eno -- David Byrne - My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts - A1 - America Is Waiting 

Brian Eno -- David Byrne - My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts - A4 - Help Me Somebody 

David Byrne with Choir! Choir! Choir! - Heroes 

Talking Heads – Psycho Killer (Official 4K Remastered Video, Live 1983) 

The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues (High Quality)

Chris Franklin Doco on Spectrum's I'll Be Gone “Someday I’ll Have Money”

On The Record’s Episode 23 leans in to great songs, better stories, and the strange afterlife of pop careers.

Michael Mackenzie’s big night out is Split Enz at Rod Laver Arena, a reunion-sized crowd of “people in roughly our same demographic” packed into a venue that, he notes, holds 14,860. 

The gig itself? A triumph. Plus UK crime reviews and the long overdue recognition of The Zombies.

Show Notes

Split Enz Forever Enz Tour 

Bergerac Series 2 

Legends | Official Trailer | Netflix 

Hung Up On A Dream: The Zombies Documentary | Official Trailer | Utopia 

The Zombies - She's Not There 

The Zombies - Odessey And Oracle (2025 Mono Version) 

The Zombies Reveal the Real Story Behind “Time of the Season” | Hung Up on a Dream

On his final night in New Orleans, Brian Wise files a slightly frayed dispatch that captures Jazz Fest’s defining tension: a festival big enough to feel infinite, and a schedule brutal enough to make you choose your regrets in advance.

Episode 22 becomes a story about how festivals actually unfold—less like neat recaps and more like a sequence of weather calls, crowd-panics, and last-minute pivots.

With the festival reckoning done, the conversation swings to another kind of canon-building: Joni Mitchell. Sparked by a Mojo “top 50 songs” feature, the hosts trade favourites (Wise namechecks “Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter” and multiple Court and Spark staples, plus “Magdalene Laundries,” “Amelia,” and “River”), and Wise recalls seeing Mitchell at Jazz Fest in 1995, performing with her VG-8 guitar setup.

They also discuss an attention-grabbing industry development: a Joni Mitchell biopic being directed by Cameron Crowe, with Meryl Streep cast as the older Mitchell and Anya Taylor-Joy as the younger. The enthusiasm is tempered by a journalist’s instinctive question: can a close friend make an objective film?

Show Notes

Fred Wesley & The New J.B.'s | Live at Moods 

Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few - Full Performance (Live on KEXP)  

Wilco - Impossible Germany with full solo recorded live at the Saenger Theatre May 2026

Mavis Staples Chicago May 3 2026 New Orleans Jazz Fest 

Herbie Hancock - Chameleon (Official Audio) 

Joni Mitchell's 50 Greatest Songs In The New MOJO! 

Little Feat - Spanish Moon (Official Music Video) 

By Episode 21, On The Record has moved beyond anticipation and into immersion. Brian Wise is no longer circling Jazz Fest—he’s in it, navigating its scale, its heat, and its constant, often punishing, decisions.

Broadcasting from the French Quarter, Wise paints New Orleans as it always is: chaotic, convivial and faintly surreal. One moment it’s a communal gumbo dinner with locals and visiting friends; the next, pre-dawn screams echo through the street—mercifully revealed to be part of a film shoot rather than something more sinister.

But Jazz Fest remains the centre of gravity. The conditions alone are a test: 30-degree heat, heavy humidity, and crowds pushing well beyond 80,000 across the main days. It’s a physical endurance exercise as much as a musical one, and Wise is candid about the toll—even for a seasoned attendee.

Show Notes

Brother Tyrone and The Mindbenders - 6/1/2025 - Maple Leaf Bar Live 

Nicholas Payton + Butcher Brown - “All Blues” (Official Live Performance) 

GA-20 - Naggin' On My Mind (with Charlie Musselwhite & Luther Dickinson)

Ani DiFranco: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert 

Joy Clark - Lesson (Official Music Video) 

Glen David Andrews - Medley: Iko, Iko & Right Place, Wrong Time 

Marcia Ball - They Don't Make Em Like That 

Things They Like To Do by Jon Batiste Swamp show New Orleans Jazz Heritage Festival April 26 2026 

Ron Carter: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert 

Lucinda Williams Bus To Baton Rouge (Album Version (New Mastering) 

Bob Dylan I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You : Beacon Theatre Mar 2022 

The Lowdown | Official Trailer | Ethan Hawke, Kyle MacLachlan, Keith David | FX 

Elvis Costello Meets Jeff Tweedy in Mojo

New Elvis Costello Boxset To Feature A Wealth Of Never Before Heard Punk Era Recordings 

Bruce Springsteen My City of Ruins (Live at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, 2006) 

Episode 20 of On The Record finds Brian Wise reporting in from the field—first Austin, then New Orleans—with the kind of on-the-ground detail that reminds you why festivals still matter, even as many struggle to survive.

There’s even time for a detour through Austin’s bookstores in search of Dylan literature—because some habits travel well.

Show Notes

Railroad Earth - Been Down This Road 

The Last Revel - Iron and Ore 

Billy Bright + Geoff Union Trio : "Fischer Flood Take 1" 

Shelby Means - "Million Reasons" 

Shinyribs - Bitch Better Have My Money (Rihanna) / Long Train Runnin' (The Doobie Brothers) 

RAYE: Tiny Desk Concert 

Goose - Elmeg The Wise - 4/10/26 Asheville, NC 

After the Flood: Inside Bob Dylan's Memory Palace Hardcover – by Robert Polito (Author) 

Old Settler’s Festival: An Austin Treat 

Episode 19 of On The Record kicks off with one foot in the present and the other firmly planted on the long tail of rock history—touching on new Rolling Stones material before sliding into an excerpt from Brian Wise’s recent interview with Mike Mattison of Tedeschi Trucks Band.

It’s a neat juxtaposition. 

From there, the episode turns toward what’s ahead, with Wise preparing to head to Austin and New Orleans. What really comes through is a sense of curiosity about what the trip will feel like this time around.

Show Notes

Tedeschi Trucks Band website 

Check out The Rolling Stones’ vinyl-only new single ‘Rough & Twisted’ as The Cockroaches

Listen to Michael's debut (and possibly last) album Oversharing With Strangers 

BRUNSWICK BALLROOM Presents MIKE RUDD DOCO + Q&A + LIVE BAND SHOW WITH GUEST ROSS WILSON - HOST BRIAN NANKERVIS 6:30 pm, Wed 20 May, 2026

There are episodes of On The Record that wander; Episode 18 plants its flag firmly in one year—1966—and dares you to argue it wasn’t the moment pop music grew up.

Brian Wise and Michael Mackenzie mark the 60th anniversary of Revolver not as a nostalgic exercise, but as a forensic examination of how four-track limitations, studio ingenuity and sheer artistic restlessness combined to reshape recorded music.

Show Notes

The Comic Strip Presents s01e01 Five Go Mad in Dorset

THE MAGIC FARAWAY TREE Trailer #2 4K (2026) | 

THE ROSES | Official Trailer 

Revolver (2022 Mix) Full Album 

I'm Only Sleeping (Take 1) 

Thane Russal - Security 

The Rolling Stones - 19th Nervous Breakdown (Official Lyric Video) 

The Turtles You Baby TRUE 1966 Stereo 

The Righteous Bros (You're My) Soul And Inspiration 

The Knickerbockers - One Track Mind 

The Walker Brothers - The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore 

Them Call My Name 

Simon & Garfunkel Homeward Bound 

Jan and Dean Batman Theme 

The Kinks - Till The End Of The Day (Official Audio) 

The Beatles - Doctor Robert (Remastered 2009) 

If you want to know the exact moment legacy radio started to feel its age, it might have been when a major Australian station began giving away lacy doilies.

In the latest episode of On The Record, Michael Mackenzie and Brian Wise—veterans with a combined 70 years behind the mic—stage a fascinating "in-house" intervention for the medium they love (and occasionally despair over).

Joined by global "radio futurologist" James Cridland, the trio moved from a high-tech April Fool’s hoax involving Bob Dylan to a deep-tissue analysis of why the ABC is shedding listeners while community radio and podcasts are booming.

Show Notes:

Project Hail Mary - Official Trailer 

Sign Up for James Cridland’s weekly radio newsletter

The long goodbye to Bluesfest continues in Episode 16 of On The Record, but this time the tone shifts from shock to something closer to forensic analysis. If last week was a reaction, this is reconstruction.

If Bluesfest is a case study in organisational failure, Scarpetta is its televisual equivalent. The long-gestating adaptation of Patricia Cornwell’s crime novels earns a near-unanimous drubbing.

Redemption comes via The Outlaws, Stephen Merchant’s Bristol-set series, which earns a glowing recommendation for its balance of humour, character, and social observation.

Brian Wise reports from Castlemaine’s Theatre Royal, where the “Man Out of Time” tribute to Broderick Smith becomes a reminder of what Australian roots music does best: community, continuity, and songcraft.

The episode closes on a note of tentative optimism, with Wise anticipating a film adaptation of The Magic Faraway Tree, his “favourite book of all time.” Whether it will soar or suffer the fate of Scarpetta remains to be seen.

Show Links

Rolling Stone ‘It Wasn’t A Sudden Collapse. It Was a Slow Bleed’: Former Bluesfest Executive Speaks Out 

Jay E Clair The REAL Reason Bluesfest Fell Apart: From Sold Out to Collapse 

Check out Michael's debut album 'Oversharing With Strangers' under the moniker Imposter Syndrome 

Scarpetta - Official Trailer | Prime Video  

The Outlaws - Official Trailer | Iview  

The Magic Faraway Tree | Official Trailer 

Tedeschi Trucks Band website 

Tedeschi Trucks Band - "Midnight in Harlem" (Live on eTown) 

Florry - First it was a movie, then it was a book (Official Music Video) 

Geese – Taxes Jimmy Kimmel Live 

AUSTRALIAN GOOD FOOD GUIDE Origini in Castlemaine 

Broderick Smith - Snowblind Moon