EP.253 - SQUID

Adam talks with the members of celebrated English 5 piece Squid about band dynamics, whether they belong to the genre 'Ramen Rock', working with 'Windmill scene' producer Dan Carey, sweary shop assistants, the perils of playing pissed, and a very deep philosophical question. They also play a couple of songs from their recent album Cowards. Plus, Adam considers the dismayed response to a video he recently uploaded to his YouTube channel. Conversation and live music recorded face-to-face at Pony Music Studios https://www.ponymusicstudios.com/recording-studio on 2nd April, 2025 Thanks to Séamus Murphy-Mitchell for production support Podcast illustration by Helen Green https://helengreenillustration.com/ Order Adam's book 'I Love You Byeee' https://lnk.to/iloveyoubyeee_ Pre-order Adam's debut album 'Buckle Up' https://shop.decca.com/products/buckle-up-vinyl-signed DONATE TO MSF https://msf.org.uk/adam-buxton-podcast PIC AND RELATED LINKS ON ADAM'S WEBSITE https://www.adam-buxton.co.uk/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Adam Buxton?

  I added one more podcast to the giant podcast bin. Now you have plucked that podcast out and started listening. I took my microphone and found some human folk. Then I recorded all the noises while we spoke. My name is Adam Buxton, I'm a man. I want you to enjoy this, that's the plan.

• 0:31Adam Buxton?

  Hey, how are you doing, podcats? It's Adam Buxton here, reporting to you from a beautiful Norfolk farm track. Second week of July 2025. The weather today, I would describe as perfect. It's warm, 24 degrees. Some clouds in the sky, but they're beautiful. Look at them, so painterly, expressive, all the different shades. Plus, there's a breeze, a warm breeze. I'm not with Doglegs today, I think she's up ahead

• 1:14Adam Buxton?

  with my son, who's taking her out for a walk. She's doing very well and sends lots of love. But wow, what a day. I'm wearing shorts. I wear them when the weather's warmer, after sports. And I'm a little bit achy. That's the only thing I can really complain about today. But that's because I've been jumping around all day. I was filming a music video for one of my tracks from my forthcoming album, Buckle Up. In fact, I think it's going to be the second single out in a couple of weeks, perhaps. Can that be true? Yeah, sometime around the Latitude weekend. And it's called You're Doing It Wrong.

• 1:59Adam Buxton?

  And this afternoon, I was joined by James and Jordan, James Hankin, and his able accomplice, Jordan. Didn't catch his surname, apologies, Jordan, no disrespect.

• 2:11Adam Buxton?

  And we rigged up the green screen and I did some dad dancing and lip syncing. It was good fun. Now they're gonna go off and do whatever they want to that thing. How are you doing anyway, podcats? I hope you're very well. Thanks so much for coming back and joining me again for this podcast, especially after last week. What do you mean buckles? Last week was the live podcast with Gus Khan, episode 252. It was an absolute hoot. Yeah, well, I agree with you. I think it was a hoot. But it also included a piece of music from that live show that that evening the audience saw with a video that I had

• 2:56Adam Buxton?

  made. And it was called I baked you a pie. And I showed it in a few of the live podcast shows that I did last year in early to mid 2024. And those shows would typically begin with a short, very funny presentation about the capabilities and also the quirks of AI music and image generation at that point in its development. And I baked you a pie, which was towards the end of last week's Gus Khan episode, had been made with the help of an AI music generator. But it was a kind of a callback at the end of the show

• 3:39Adam Buxton?

  to that early AI section. But I didn't really make that totally clear in last week's podcast. I should have provided more context. What I probably shouldn't have done was upload the video that accompanied the track with no context whatsoever to my YouTube channel and set it to public. So a lot of people got a notification that I'd uploaded a new video. They didn't know what the hell it was. They hadn't listened to the podcast with Gus. And I got quite a lot of negative comments underneath the video. I don't routinely read all the comments from the videos I upload. But I noticed a few hours after I'd uploaded

• 4:23Adam Buxton?

  the video that there were a lot of negative votes. So I scrolled down and the general mood of the comments was, I would say disappointment slash anger.

• 4:34Adam Buxton?

  They didn't think the video was funny. And if you haven't seen the video, don't feel you have to and get angry about it. But it was a song called "I Baked You A Pie", and it was like a jazzy number. I used the AI music generator because I wanted it to sound like sort of smooth jazz from the 40s or 50s or something with a nice female vocal. Anyway, the YouTubers last week were upset because of the ethical implications of using those kinds of AI models which are often trained on copyrighted images and indeed songs. And there's no attribution or acknowledgement of the original source material. And I confess

• 5:19Adam Buxton?

  I didn't think about that. When I made the video and the song, or at least I didn't think about it hard enough perhaps, in early 2024. I'm guessing a lot of those YouTube commentators did not enjoy my Donald Trump book promo a few weeks ago. Although, I don't know, maybe the ethical concerns don't extend to Trumplestiltskin. Anyway, I'll share a handful of those YouTube comments, as well as a very nice thoughtful email that I received, and you can see if you agree with what those folks have to say. And I'll do that in the outro. But right now, let me tell you a bit about my guests for podcast number 253. They

• 6:02Adam Buxton?

  are the UK-based, non-AI, five-piece band Squid. Squid facts. Formed in Brighton in 2016, but currently residing in Bristol, Squid are Ollie Judge, Louis Borlass (apologies for any mispronunciation here), Guyz, Anton Pearson, Laurie Nankavel, and Arthur Ledbetter. Their first EP was self-released in 2017. The second, Town Center, was released in 2019 and produced by Dan Carey, who signed the band to his label Speedy Wonderground,

• 6:43Adam Buxton?

  home of other Carey-produced acts including Fontaine's DC, Black Country New Road, and the now-defunct Black Midi. Those last two bands were, along with Squid, part of the so-called windmill scene that originated around the Windmill Pub in Brixton, South London, towards the end of the 2010s. The bands associated with the scene, also including Goat Girl, Shame and PVA, often leaned towards experimental rock and post-punk genres. There was a strong chance of declamatory spoken-word vocals and ambitious, complex instrumentation.

• 7:25Adam Buxton?

  Influences ranged from Talking Heads, Tortoise and The Fall, to Can, Frank Zappa, and even Miles Davis, to my ear, anyway. In 2020, Squid signed to Warp Records, and their debut album Bright Green Field, recorded in the first Covid lockdowns, was released the following year. Oh Monolith, their second album, emerged in 2023, and earlier this year, Squid released LP number three, Cowards, to widespread critical acclaim. Yum, that's the best kind of critical acclaim, nice wide, thickly-spread acclaim. I don't spread my acclaim too thick, I've got to watch out for my cholesterol.

• 8:10Adam Buxton?

  After a series of live shows around Europe this summer, Squid also play the End of the Road Festival at the end of August this year in Dorset, in beautiful Lama Tree Gardens. Also performing this year are former Black Midi frontman Jordi Greep. He's also just announced a mini-tour for the second half of July around the country. Link in the description, strongly recommend it. Saw him earlier this year at the waterfront in Norwich. He's a real original and the band are amazing. Also at End of the Road, you've got Black Country New Road. Speaking of the windmill scene, and also my Bake Off pal

• 8:52Adam Buxton?

  and forthcoming podcast guest towards the end of the year, Self Esteem, Throwing Muses are going to be there, Sharon Van Etten, Caribou, Father John Misty, Moonchild Sanelli. She was fantastic in Glastonbury last year, I remember. Adam Buxton will also be popping up at End of the Road too, in podcast mode.

• 9:15Adam Buxton?

  And I don't know, who knows what else I'll be doing. My conversation with Squid was recorded at a rehearsal studio in East London at the beginning of April this year, and as well as entertaining my questions about band dynamics, what musical genre they belong to, sweary shop assistants, the perils of playing pissed, and a very deep philosophical question that was not generated by AI, although one of the others was. The band played a couple of great versions of songs from their recent LP Cowards, but to get things going, they did me the honour of reinterpreting Ramble Chat Squid style. I'll be back at the end with a bit of AI controversy for you, but right now with Squid

• 10:00Adam Buxton?

  playing specially for this podcast, here we go.

• 10:04Speaker 01

  Two, three, four.

• 10:24Adam Buxton?

  Ramble Chat. Let's have a Ramble Chat. We'll focus first on this and concentrate on that.

• 10:42Adam Buxton?

  Ramble Chat.

• 10:46Adam Buxton?

  Let's have a Ramble Chat.

• 10:50Adam Buxton?

  We'll focus first on this and concentrate on that.

• 11:11Adam Buxton?

  Very much for convening for this.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  Thanks for having us.

• 11:15Adam Buxton?

  For playing, no, not at all. It's really exciting for me, you know, I'm a big music fan, I love your stuff. And it's really exciting for me to see you all playing and there was a great version of ramble chat. I don't know if it's going to replace the regular one.

• 11:32Speaker 02

  I hope not.

• 11:33Adam Buxton?

  But thank you very much for doing it. And you're going to be playing a bit more music later on as well. So thank you for that.

• 11:40Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 11:40Adam Buxton?

  How does it work when talking to you as a five piece? Is there any tension ever about who leads or is it very? I mean, how does the structure of the band work? Is there a leader? Is it a kind of anarcho syndicalist musical commune?

• 11:57Speaker 02

  Well, we're not a democracy, but we're not also like there's no leader. So we have to just take it in turn to speak.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:07Speaker 02

  Hmm. And try not to speak over each other and listen. Things take a long time to happen. I think that's a hallmark of a lot of groups and organisations who organise themselves and make decisions in the same way that we do, thinking of various like protest movements and who else? It's called unanimous decision making. There's a whole, there's loads of Wikipedia pages.

• 12:31Adam Buxton?

  Is that a real thing?

• 12:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, big time.

• 12:33Adam Buxton?

  That is the opposite of what Curtis Yarvin wants. Do you know who I mean by Curtis Yarvin?

• 12:40Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  No.

• 12:41Adam Buxton?

  He's some guy that my algorithm is feeding me because I've been listening to the wrong podcasts.

• 12:46Speaker 01

  Is he a CEO or something or like?

• 12:48Adam Buxton?

  I don't know what he is. He's like a kind of douchebag philosopher that I know very little about him. I watched an interview with some guy from the New York Times with him and his whole bag is that he thinks everything should be a monarchy, not with necessarily like a king or queen, but there should just be one person in charge and they say what happens and everyone does what they say. And then that's better than a democracy because a democracy is too wishy washy, there's too much fannying around, everybody disagrees, nothing gets done. And his example, one of his examples is like, well, You wouldn't want, like, if you want a good laptop, then you want it from a company called

• 13:30Adam Buxton?

  Apple, which is run as a kind of monarchy, as an autocracy. There's someone at the top. And it's structured that way. You wouldn't want to go and get your laptop designed by the local council because it would take ages and it would be much worse.

• 13:45Speaker 03

  Sounds like your laptop, Laurie.

• 13:47Speaker 04

  My, yeah, well, I had to get rid of the framework for it. It didn't do me good. And I went back to the monarchy.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  Went back to, yeah, I know.

• 13:55Speaker 02

  King Apple.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  And the monarchy is, is good for some speedy technological purchases, but in the case of our band, I'd say what we lose in speed, we gain in kind of collective and creative freedom.

• 14:09Adam Buxton?

  And harmony.

• 14:10Speaker 04

  And harmony.

• 14:11Adam Buxton?

  Because that is the big thing. Like, in a way, it's amazing that any bands are successful ever, I always think. Because it's so hard to be creative on your own, let alone with other people, let alone with five people who all have their own ideas and egos and instincts. And the fact that anyone manages to create anything at all that lasts more than three weeks is amazing.

• 14:38Speaker 03

  Yes, I think, I think that's so true. In my view, it's always, Squid's a byproduct of us being friends that are into music and at times bored because that's kind of like the first time we made anything. And it's still the case, but we're less, I guess, less bored and more busy these days.

• 14:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, still friends.

• 14:57Adam Buxton?

  What happens, though, when one of you gets a girlfriend?

• 15:02Speaker 03

  It's gonna suck.

• 15:04Speaker 04

  That'll never happen.

• 15:06Adam Buxton?

  Or a boyfriend, but that'll ruin everything.

• 15:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:10Adam Buxton?

  Because how long have you been together now?

• 15:13Speaker 02

  Coming on 10 years now, isn't it?

• 15:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, 10 years in July, I think.

• 15:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, we played our first gig in Brighton in July 20, uh, 2015 at the Verdict, which is, is it still there on 2015?

• 15:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what passed it the other day. Wait, July 20, is that, that would be July this year, 10 years.

• 15:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:30Speaker 02

  We've got to do something.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, maybe a gig at the Verdict.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  It'd be nice.

• 15:35Adam Buxton?

  Do you remember what it was like when you first got together, the five of you, to actually play music? After you'd all met and you said, hey, fancy being in a band? And you got together in a room. What was it like to compose your first bit of music? Did you start jamming other people's songs? How does it work?

• 15:53Speaker 03

  One of the first things we did together was a cover of the folk musician Robbie Basho. Have you ever heard him before?

• 15:59Adam Buxton?

  No.

• 16:00Speaker 03

  There's a great track of his called Blue Crystal Fire and we did a version of that at Brighton Festival, I think it was, at the Dome, but not in, I think I thought it was in the Dome and I thought, hang on a minute, this is like, this all seems a bit quick. I don't think we're really a good band to be playing in the Dome. So we played in the café of the Dome and that all made sense. We did a cover of that and maybe like one or two of our own tracks.

• 16:22Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 16:22Speaker 03

  But we were just kind of, me and Anton lived together for a bit. And Ollie lived together for a bit. We're all in Brighton, you know, it's pretty small. So we were just taking it in turns to have people around and write tunes.

• 16:34Adam Buxton?

  And then how did the writing of the first tune go? Like, does someone come in and go, I've got a great idea? Or do you all just, one person starts playing,

• 16:46Adam Buxton?

  and then the other one goes,

• 16:50Adam Buxton?

  I don't know, I've never been in a band, I want to know how it works.

• 16:52Speaker 05

  You pretty much nailed it.

• 16:54Speaker 03

  It sounds quite a lot like that, mate.

• 16:55Speaker 05

  I mean, yeah, I mean, that's one of the only things that we've got, like, we don't really have rules, but I guess like, one of the things we kind of stick to is that everybody's involved in everything that we do in kind of equal parts. And we don't, we don't like try to hold on to like, who came up with what idea? And everything we do is just like a process that we set in motion in rooms together. So like all of our songs were written together.

• 17:20Adam Buxton?

  Five-way publishing split?

• 17:22Speaker 05

  Absolutely, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 17:24Adam Buxton?

  Very important. And were the rest of you all more or less on the same page musically?

• 17:30Speaker 05

  Kind of, yeah.

• 17:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, sure.

• 17:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:32Speaker 04

  But a bit of variety.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 04

  Which is, yeah, definitely helped shape the sound, no doubt.

• 17:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 17:39Speaker 04

  Sometimes it's quite hard to, yeah, I guess, feel where we sit genre-wise and that's definitely down to five discreet minds that have some Venn diagram crossover, but definitely it feels possibly slightly less than another five people you could get in a room together, you know?

• 17:59Adam Buxton?

  How would you describe the music you make? Genre wise, if you had to put yourself in a box, which one of those labels are you gonna go for? Ollie, you worked in a record label, come on.

• 18:10Speaker 01

  Um, I'd just say rock music.

• 18:12Adam Buxton?

  Yes, so what about post-rock? Would you like that?

• 18:16Speaker 01

  I quite like that. I like all the post-rock bands.

• 18:18Adam Buxton?

  How about math rock?

• 18:20Speaker 01

  Uh, less cool.

• 18:21Adam Buxton?

  Less happy with that?

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, less cool, yeah.

• 18:23Adam Buxton?

  I came up with one, do you wanna hear it?

• 18:25Speaker 01

  I'd love to hear it.

• 18:26Adam Buxton?

  Ramen rock.

• 18:27Speaker 01

  I'd love that.

• 18:30Adam Buxton?

  Because it's white, noodly and delicious.

• 18:37Adam Buxton?

  Don't get hung up on the white aspect, it's not supposed to be a racial diss.

• 18:41Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it is true.

• 18:43Adam Buxton?

  Well, it's, it happens to be true, but it's not, I'm not implying anything bad by it. Also, it's not as if there aren't bands of colour that are also extremely noodly. I'm thinking of, do you know the band Stark Reality?

• 18:58Speaker 01

  No, I haven't.

• 18:59Adam Buxton?

  I think you might quite like them. Yeah. They're like, um, complicated jazzers, I would call them, from the late sixties.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  Complicated emotionally or?

• 19:09Adam Buxton?

  No, musically. And it is very, when you listen to it, you think, whoa, this is quite ahead of its time as far as pre-figuring the kind of music that you guys make, for example. And, uh, I mean, it's not exactly the same, but it is really

• 19:24Speaker 01

  You can see it through.

• 19:25Adam Buxton?

  Quite strange and it doesn't really fit with what else was going on around then.

• 19:29Speaker 01

  Say their name again?

• 19:30Adam Buxton?

  Stark Reality. Cool, check them out. It's a strong name.

• 19:33Speaker 01

  Can I write that down?

• 19:34Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, quite good. Maybe I'll put a little blast of Stark Reality in here.

• 20:10Adam Buxton?

  There you go, that's a blast of stark reality. It feels like that sort of music, the kind of music that you guys make and the sort of music that Dan Carey, your producer, also presides over with bands like Black Midi or used to. It feels very current again.

• 20:26Speaker 03

  It's so hard to say with Dan. I think he's really got his finger on the pulse with bands that are just starting out and just playing their first one or two gigs and have a lot of nervous energy that he can kind of immediately sort of detect. That's how he found us. I think that's how he discovered Black Midi as well. The windmill in Brixton being a really important local venue for a lot of young musicians. But kind of with his label Speedy Wonderground, if you know it, they make a track in a day, Dan and Lex do. And there's a kind of little handbook of rules, which is that the smoke machine comes on, the lasers come on, there's no lunch break, it's got to be in the first take if possible.

• 21:10Speaker 03

  And it makes all these young bands like us, when we recorded Dial in 2018, we were just like, "Oh my god, we're going to mess up every part." And then somehow you get through it and you haven't. And he's like, "Oh, that's the take because you're just kind of, you know, nervous and excited about what you've recorded with them." But yeah, he's an amazing musician as well. He's so good at kind of taking an idea that just springs to mind instantly and calculate it or kind of transpose it into something that is really just feels great for your project, your song or your EP, album, whatever.

• 21:43Adam Buxton?

  I think it's good to have rules. I quite like movements that have like a manifesto, you know what I mean? As much as I think it's nice for people to do whatever they want, obviously, and be completely artistically free, it is quite good to focus yourself with a little manifesto, like Dogma in film. And I would imagine, I would imagine Steve Albini would have been someone who would have produced things in that way that you were describing.

• 22:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:11Adam Buxton?

  Although I don't know.

• 22:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, I listened to your chat with Kim Deal.

• 22:16Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  And she was saying... She didn't do an album with Steve Albini because she wanted to do overdubs. I think rules are good, though. I listened to, there's a Brian Eno interview the other day, and he said all albums should have a deadline and have a small budget, because that's when the best kind of stuff gets made. Hmm. I kind of tend to agree with that, although Brian Eno has a lot of rules, I think. Yeah. He's got a whole deck of cards full of them. We tried, probably quite a big budget as well.

• 22:45Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, huge budget. Did you try using the oblique strategy cards? I think we did.

• 22:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 22:51Speaker 01

  We did on the second record.

• 22:52Speaker 03

  Aren't some of them like, go get lunch sometimes? And like, I think we had a badly shuffled.

• 22:57Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, let's find the lunch one, yeah.

• 23:00Adam Buxton?

  Fire the bases.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  That wasn't enough for those ones.

• 23:08Adam Buxton?

  At this point, I would like to introduce the first musical number. What are you gonna play?

• 23:13Speaker 01

  Cowards. Cowards, yeah. A song called Cowards, off of our album Cowards.

• 23:18Adam Buxton?

  The title track.

• 23:19Speaker 01

  The title track. Very somber affair.

• 23:21Speaker 03

  As you've never heard it before.

• 23:23Speaker 01

  Hmm, even somber ever.

• 23:26Adam Buxton?

  Sombre. Okay, here we go. This is Squid playing Cowards exclusively for the podcast, and I'm watching them play it. I'm in the middle of them playing it.

• 25:14Speaker 06

  It's always raining in the castle, but never outside.

• 25:29Speaker 06

  You switch it on, off all the time.

• 25:43Speaker 06

  Why do I dress when there's no one else to see?

• 25:58Speaker 06

  Parthine bags, they litter the streets.

• 26:12Speaker 06

  Parthine bags, they litter the streets.

• 27:03Speaker 06

  Coffee bags will never go away The stocks and rats will never escape If you said it could be better Well I probably won't believe you

• 27:31Speaker 06

  Well I'll knock the teeth out my head

• 27:37Speaker 06

  We'll see

• 27:42Speaker 06

  While the feds waiting for me

• 27:49Speaker 06

  Beyond the castles

• 27:56Speaker 06

  Beyond the carriages

• 28:24Speaker 06

  We put the pallets down And we walk around the town When we put the pallets down And we walk around the town Don't ever say I'm bored Cause there's always something more When we put the pallets down And we walk around the town

• 30:05Adam Buxton?

  Yay, thank you very much.

• 30:09Adam Buxton?

  That was good. I mean, I feel a bit crass going yay and clapping after a track like that. It feels like I should come up with a different sort of response.

• 30:18Speaker 05

  Flowers.

• 30:18Adam Buxton?

  Give it owl whistle maybe. Mmm. Yes, exactly.

• 30:22Speaker 05

  Gorgeous, very impressive.

• 30:29Adam Buxton?

  Now I'm gonna ask you some... Sorry, were you gonna say something?

• 30:32Speaker 05

  No, Louis asked me to do a peacock impression and I said, "I'm not gonna do it."

• 30:36Adam Buxton?

  Do the peacock impression. Never heard anyone do a peacock impression.

• 30:41Speaker 05

  Oh, man.

• 30:42Speaker 01

  Alright. You always send them quite far away, so I'm gonna move away from the mic a little bit.

• 30:46Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 30:46Speaker 01

  And they're always kind of like, "Ooh, ah!" Do you know what I mean?

• 30:49Adam Buxton?

  Is that a peacock?

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, good, yeah.

• 30:51Speaker 05

  It is.

• 30:52Speaker 01

  There was lots in Traitors, wasn't there? On this series of Traitors, they used lots of peacock sounds in it. I think that was pretty bang on, I'd say.

• 30:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, well done. Cheers.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  It was, yeah, it was always good.

• 31:02Adam Buxton?

  That sounded like I associate that sound with the jungle.

• 31:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:06Adam Buxton?

  That's more, that's more, "Ooh, ah!"

• 31:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, but what would that be?

• 31:11Adam Buxton?

  Monkey. I've no idea.

• 31:12Speaker 02

  Oh, that's like, yeah, monkey.

• 31:13Adam Buxton?

  Is it a monkey?

• 31:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, I reckon.

• 31:15Adam Buxton?

  Oh, yeah. That was Anton on Peacock.

• 31:19Adam Buxton?

  Thank you very much, Anton. Now, at this point, I'm going to ask you a sort of ragbag of questions. But I will tell you that some of these questions were generated by A I. And you have to call out when you think it's an A I generated question. But you still have to answer it.

• 31:36Speaker 02

  What do we say when we call it out?

• 31:38Adam Buxton?

  Uh, you just say, I think that's an A I question.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 31:41Adam Buxton?

  Um, do you mind shop assistants swearing in front of you?

• 31:46Speaker 01

  If it was in anger at at me?

• 31:50Adam Buxton?

  No, it wouldn't be anger. It would just be like chatting, maybe chatting to another member of staff. And they are just effing and jeffing all over the shop.

• 31:59Speaker 01

  I don't mind. That's okay. Maybe a.

• 32:01Adam Buxton?

  God, you're very relaxed.

• 32:02Speaker 02

  Tell you what, you know what? If it was a kind of Malcolm Tucker style, like getting annoyed when you're trying to weigh the vegetables and you can't find the carrots on the thing, I'd be, I'm all for it. Like, that's frustrating. I don't like the machines. But at somebody, if they're frustrated with something, that's out of order. That's not okay.

• 32:18Adam Buxton?

  No.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  That that's the.

• 32:19Adam Buxton?

  I'm not talking about they're swearing at you. I'm just, I'm thinking about, I went into a bike shop the other day and they they saw that I was waiting. And it was a couple of guys at the till and they were chatting to each other about some till discrepancy or other. And it was just absolutely filthy language that was being used about the till. Yeah, they weren't angry, I don't think. But it was just like, oh, fucking hell. I mean, uh, I think it was rung in, oh, fuck, you can't, come on. Try and remember, because it's got to balance it. It's like, there's a customer here standing in front of you. It's not appropriate to say can't.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  I think the C word is outlawed.

• 33:02Adam Buxton?

  It's too much, isn't it?

• 33:03Speaker 02

  That's too much.

• 33:04Adam Buxton?

  It's a lot, yeah. But bike shop, though, anything goes in a bike shop. It's like a guitar shop. You can sort of say anything you want.

• 33:15Adam Buxton?

  Okay. How do you balance improvisation with composition?

• 33:19Speaker 04

  AI.

• 33:20Speaker 03

  AI is deep all over it, yeah.

• 33:22Adam Buxton?

  Well spotted.

• 33:25Adam Buxton?

  I mean, is that a question worth answering?

• 33:28Speaker 04

  Do you have to answer?

• 33:29Adam Buxton?

  I think that's an interesting question from DeepSeek.

• 33:31Speaker 04

  Shall we answer as if we're DeepSeek versions of us?

• 33:35Adam Buxton?

  If you want, yeah.

• 33:37Speaker 04

  We like to balance improvisation fleetingly within our compositions on stage. When performing as squid, we will play five to 10% improvisation within our standard compositions. These often take the form of improvisations upon the harmony within which we are inhabiting at that moment, for example, a B flat major seven chord.

• 34:06Adam Buxton?

  That's good, Laurie. That, thank you very much.

• 34:08Speaker 03

  You even did the thing that some of the new AI that's really good at it does it, where it puts like um and like long pauses in.

• 34:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, that was really accurate.

• 34:16Speaker 03

  It's terrifying, really.

• 34:17Speaker 04

  I'm training.

• 34:20Adam Buxton?

  Thank you. That was Laurie in AI mode there. Have you ever made, you don't have to answer this one, it might be a sensitive subject or a question you don't want to answer, of course. Do you ever make music on drugs?

• 34:34Speaker 05

  No.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  No.

• 34:38Adam Buxton?

  Never even tried?

• 34:40Speaker 01

  That sounds like a title live when me say it like that, doesn't it?

• 34:43Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 34:43Speaker 03

  No?

• 34:44Speaker 01

  No. No.

• 34:45Speaker 03

  No. No.

• 34:46Speaker 04

  I don't think.

• 34:49Speaker 04

  I don't think we have tried.

• 34:51Speaker 03

  Alcohol's a drug.

• 34:52Speaker 04

  Caffeine is a drug. Come on.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Vapes are drugs.

• 34:56Speaker 05

  We're usually pretty.

• 34:57Speaker 04

  The good stuff.

• 34:59Speaker 05

  Pretty straight edged on the.

• 35:02Speaker 04

  On work time.

• 35:03Speaker 05

  On the work time, yeah.

• 35:06Speaker 03

  When, sometimes when we even just have a pint. We've started doing evening rehearsals now and sometimes we'll set up and then have dinner and have a pint, but then even then. Ends up being quite a short rehearsal, doesn't it?

• 35:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  That's what I was gonna say, that there were some times in the past where we were a bit more adventurous. And usually the performances or rehearsals would start off quite well, the first five, 10 minutes.

• 35:31Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 35:32Speaker 02

  But it doesn't last long.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:34Speaker 02

  And, uh, yeah, half an hour into the show, the audience has tinned out a bit.

• 35:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was.

• 35:41Speaker 04

  We, we split opinion, I think, when, back in the day, if, if that would ever be the case.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  There was one at Glastonbury, wasn't there, that was, for some people, the best show they've ever seen. And for other people, the worst show they've ever seen.

• 35:56Adam Buxton?

  By you guys?

• 35:58Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:58Speaker 04

  The experience becomes more polarizing.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  And I think it was only good because your brother was in a squid costume, crowd surfing, I think that's what people really liked about the show.

• 36:08Speaker 04

  Thanks, Frank.

• 36:09Speaker 01

  Not our lackluster performance.

• 36:10Adam Buxton?

  But you weren't, I mean, you weren't hammered, but you'd had a couple of drinks, is that right?

• 36:14Speaker 01

  We were quite hammered, I'd say.

• 36:16Speaker 04

  This was three AM, at the craziness.

• 36:18Speaker 05

  It was a long time ago, yeah.

• 36:19Speaker 04

  And it's very small audience, it was very fun, forgiving audience.

• 36:23Speaker 05

  Yeah, we get it a lot, though, like, people in the audiences, particularly at festivals, saying things like, "Oh my god, what drugs are you guys on?"

• 36:32Adam Buxton?

  You guys!

• 36:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, I've had that loads of times, loads of times.

• 36:36Speaker 04

  I've never had that.

• 36:38Speaker 05

  What about the guy in Liverpool that said, "You guys like talking heads, but on the gear?" And we were like, "Okay."

• 36:47Speaker 04

  Excuse me?

• 36:51Speaker 04

  But I thought, that was, that was about music, wasn't it?

• 36:54Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 36:55Speaker 01

  But they think we're on.

• 36:56Speaker 05

  They think that all the music must have come from a place of heavy drug-taking, which.

• 37:01Speaker 04

  And I was thinking about it, just metaphorically, you know, Talking Heads, if Talking Heads were, was as a concept, taking cocaine.

• 37:08Adam Buxton?

  I think they used to. I think Tina Weymouth and Chris Brown, certainly, he took loads of cocaine. He writes about it in his book.

• 37:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 37:17Adam Buxton?

  Best stay clear of the stuff. But I always, I definitely grew up thinking that alcohol equals fun. And so if you're working and drinking alcohol, that's as fun as things get. And then I learned, it took me quite a while to learn that that was not true. And actually, it seems so obvious now that the fun is in doing something well. And if you are pissed or wasted in some other way, the chances of you doing that well, go right down. Some people, they could, it doesn't really matter. And being kind of off their heads just makes it more interesting. Because they've got such a.

• 37:56Speaker 02

  Well, it doesn't matter on stage.

• 37:57Adam Buxton?

  Right.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  For them. I guess it would be difficult coming off stage.

• 38:01Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, well, there you go. I mean, that's, that's, that's setting aside what personal mayhem the whole thing is.

• 38:06Speaker 02

  But you know, but I also feel like for us, yeah, it just, I think you're so right. Like it's so normal for us to play having not drank or taken anything. That's just completely there. By the way, every show happens, pretty much. That the thought of playing drunk now is just terrifying.

• 38:24Adam Buxton?

  Terrifying.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  But that was such a bad idea.

• 38:27Speaker 04

  It was definitely a process gang at that point.

• 38:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:29Speaker 03

  It was like again, Birkenhead where we'd, we played in the library in Birkenhead and.

• 38:34Speaker 04

  But in the day, two P M.

• 38:35Speaker 03

  At two P M, which I guess, yeah, was helpful. But you said, this is the first show we've played, but we haven't had a pint before. And all the people were there were there, but it's been like, wow.

• 38:46Speaker 02

  People are worried. We're in the green room being like, yeah.

• 38:50Speaker 05

  It's also like, I suppose, because we've been going on tour over the last, I mean, I guess we started going on tour about six years ago or something. And if you're doing six shows in a week and your default is to just have two pints before a show and one pint after, for example, you know, you end up having eighteen pints in a week without even really thinking about it.

• 39:10Adam Buxton?

  That's more than you're allotted.

• 39:11Speaker 05

  Yeah, and like way more than you're allotted. And like, you're not even doing it to have fun. You know, it's like nice to have a drink with your friends sometimes or whatever, but you're just doing it because of routine, our routine. And that's like quite a bad kind of pattern to get into, I think.

• 39:27Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, definitely. It's not a good long-term strategy.

• 39:32Adam Buxton?

  I mean, that's part of the reason why bands don't stay together that long on the whole, I guess, isn't it?

• 39:36Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 39:37Adam Buxton?

  And comedians as well. I think it's even harder for a lot of stand ups because the urge to be a little bit off your face is so strong to just put some separation between you and the audience and not be a hundred percent exposed. But it's not a, it's not a good, healthy lifestyle. Um, how about this? Do you want to go out with a, this is not A I, this is a buckles.

• 40:06Adam Buxton?

  This is a pretty, this is a profound question.

• 40:09Speaker 03

  Okay, hit us.

• 40:11Adam Buxton?

  Which you can respond to in any way you prefer. Which is preferable, living a blissfully happy life, filled with great friends and lovers, only to discover on your deathbed that your friends had swindled you and your wife has been cheating on you? Or living a horrible, painful life and being shown love and kindness right at the end?

• 40:36Speaker 03

  That's an amazing question. I think I'd live the blissful life.

• 40:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 40:40Speaker 03

  I'm unaware that everyone's stabbing me in the back until I, until just before I die.

• 40:45Adam Buxton?

  So how many, you've got to say your name and then say how you would prefer to go.

• 40:49Speaker 01

  I'm Ollie, I'd prefer a blissful life where I find out everything's a lie right at the last second.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  I'm Arthur and I'd also choose the easy way uh through life and then at the end bit misery, but then it's over.

• 41:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 41:05Speaker 04

  I'm Laurie and I conquer with those two. I guess maybe that kind of thing might happen with A I, you know, we'll all realise we're a matrix in some points.

• 41:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:16Adam Buxton?

  And you don't mind because usually, you know, the psychologist Daniel Kahneman, he talked about what's known as the peak end rule. So that most people judge and experience by how it ends.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 41:30Adam Buxton?

  And how they feel at the end of it. How about the other two of you guys?

• 41:34Speaker 03

  Well, that, yeah, that's a hard one.

• 41:37Adam Buxton?

  This is Louis.

• 41:38Speaker 03

  There's a big part of me that's saying this life of torment only to have a realisation at the end that there's been so much redemption by this good stuff happening. That you're, yeah, you're there with that last feeling that this was actually great in the end. I can't remember who said it, but there's a great quote where it's, um, I'd rather be hated. For who I am than loved for who I'm not.

• 42:03Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 42:03Speaker 03

  Hummer we said it. I've been thinking about it, isn't it? And yeah, maybe that, yeah.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Uh, ice cream, please.

• 42:13Adam Buxton?

  You're going for the cosy option.

• 42:15Speaker 01

  Come on, grandpa.

• 42:19Speaker 01

  It's vanilla, your favourite.

• 42:21Adam Buxton?

  Very good. Well, I'll check in with you in 20 years' time and see if you still feel that way.

• 42:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:27Speaker 01

  You're the one cheating.

• 42:32Adam Buxton?

  If I'm still around, that is.

• 42:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 42:34Adam Buxton?

  I may have expired by that point, having had some pretty bad things revealed to me on my deathbed.

• 42:44Adam Buxton?

  It's probably time for some more music, isn't it?

• 42:46Speaker 01

  Chamolim.

• 42:47Speaker 03

  I think so.

• 42:48Adam Buxton?

  So what are you going to play for us now?

• 42:50Speaker 01

  Building 650, which was previously known as Tuesday Rock Idea.

• 42:56Adam Buxton?

  Tuesday Rock Idea?

• 42:57Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 42:57Adam Buxton?

  Oh, I like that. That's good utilitarian title.

• 43:00Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 43:01Adam Buxton?

  Am I allowed to ask what Building 650 refers to?

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Hi, Ollie here. I think it's the Nike headquarters in New York. That's the building number. And I'm not going to say anything else than that.

• 43:14Adam Buxton?

  Okay, so here's Squid's tribute to their favourite trainer brand, Building 650.

• 43:22Speaker 01

  I'm wearing Adidas. Two, two, four.

• 44:27Speaker 06

  Frank's my friend, he's my friend We are friends, there's murder sometimes But he's a real nice guy

• 44:48Speaker 06

  Well Frank's my friend We tie them up

• 45:19Speaker 06

  A flame could melt

• 45:23Speaker 06

  His nose and mouth

• 45:27Speaker 06

  A flame could melt Almost anything A shopping mall Some Carol's scene

• 45:42Speaker 06

  I like the shoes Cause I've seen rarer things Like a murderer Saying lovely things A flame could melt

• 46:01Speaker 06

  His nose and mouth

• 46:05Speaker 06

  A flame could melt Almost anything Those plastic films On the windowsill

• 46:20Speaker 06

  There is no taste

• 46:24Speaker 06

  Just an empty gaze

• 46:28Speaker 06

  Frank's my friend Not your American

• 46:42Speaker 06

  Don't you American?

• 46:49Speaker 06

  Don't you American? The lights are on in building six five.

• 46:58Speaker 06

  The lights are red. Where we go.

• 47:06Speaker 06

  Frank's my friend. Don't you American? Frank's my friend. Don't you American?

• 47:25Adam Buxton?

  Thank you so much.

• 47:27Speaker 05

  You're welcome.

• 47:28Adam Buxton?

  Is it weird having someone else in the room when you're together? Like, does one other person watching you play?

• 47:34Speaker 05

  No, it's not weird. It definitely does change the energy, but not in a bad way. Makes us play better, I think.

• 47:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think it was positive.

• 47:42Speaker 05

  In fact, all the albums we've done, we've not done in a studio like this where the where the control room's different to the live room. We've always done them in rooms where it's all one space. So it's quite normal for us to be in a kind of studio environment where there's the five of us and then some other people listening in the same room as the performance. I think it's quite good to have that kind of back and forth rather than like feeling like you're cut off from people.

• 48:07Adam Buxton?

  Yeah. Well, I was honoured to be in here and absorbing your musical vibes. I mean, music's the best thing, right? How do you feel about the current state of music? What about that is a big question? This, that was not generated by AI. It was generated by the AI part of my brain. I just can't get my head like, I've sort of lost track of where the music industry is at. I don't really understand how it works at all. I guess my understanding seems to be that bands make money from touring and that's about it. No one really makes money from sales. You have to stream billions and billions before you make any money from streaming.

• 48:51Adam Buxton?

  What am I getting right and what am I getting wrong?

• 48:53Speaker 05

  I think all those things are right. I think a big, I mean, we can only kind of share our perspective and there's... It's probably quite different for people who are on like major labels or people that are unsigned. But what we are is signed to an independent record label. So we've got like one perspective on how things work. I mean, all those things that you said are true. But one of the main things that's like a big worry at the moment is that loads of venues are shutting down. And when you've got a situation where like the only way that bands can make money and sustain themselves and produce the things that people love hearing from them is by playing shows. And then simultaneously lots of venues are disappearing.

• 49:37Speaker 05

  It's quite a scary, scary thing.

• 49:40Adam Buxton?

  Shout out for your favourite venue that you would like people to patronise.

• 49:45Speaker 04

  Oh, Spanners.

• 49:48Adam Buxton?

  Spanners, where's Spanners?

• 49:49Speaker 04

  Spanners is in Loughborough Junction and it's a small hundred capacity venue with two very lovely owners. Lots of smoke and kind of nice kind of orange lights.

• 50:00Speaker 03

  Cafe Otto in Doleston, amazing venue. And I feel like it's an institution that I really hope isn't going anywhere. But it's a great place in London to go and see some strange music that you may or may not have heard. And it's, yeah, it feels like a lot of what I remember venues in Brighton being like, but in London.

• 50:20Adam Buxton?

  I think I've been to Cafe Otto.

• 50:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, do you remember who you saw?

• 50:23Adam Buxton?

  Yeah, I'll do some name dropping. I went to Cafe Otto with Julian Barrett from The Mighty Boosh and maybe even Rich Fulcher from The Boosh.

• 50:31Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:32Adam Buxton?

  And we saw Bob Logg the third.

• 50:35Speaker 01

  Oh, I love Bob Logg the third. I've seen him loads.

• 50:39Adam Buxton?

  Explain Bob Logg the third for people unfamiliar.

• 50:42Speaker 01

  Well, I don't think anyone's ever seen his face, right?

• 50:45Adam Buxton?

  He wears a motorbike helmet.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, with a telephone receiver as the microphone. And he plays the kind of blues slide guitar and drum machine with his feet. And he often gets people to come sit on his knee while he like jiggles them up and down and plays the drums with his feet. He played at End of the Road quite a lot.

• 51:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's ringing in many, many bells.

• 51:09Speaker 01

  Cafe Otto, that's amazing.

• 51:11Adam Buxton?

  Yeah.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  Great.

• 51:12Adam Buxton?

  Back in the day, quite a long time ago. But I didn't know, he didn't jiggle anyone on his knee there.

• 51:19Speaker 01

  No, he got two people when I saw him.

• 51:22Adam Buxton?

  One on each?

• 51:23Speaker 01

  On both knees.

• 51:23Adam Buxton?

  Did he?

• 51:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it was quite impressive.

• 51:25Adam Buxton?

  You've got to be careful with jiggling people on your knee these days.

• 51:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, this was, um, this was quite a long time ago.

• 51:31Adam Buxton?

  If he took his helmet off, it might turn out that he's some DJ from the seventies.

• 51:41Speaker 07

  Wait. This is an ad for Squarespace.

• 51:45Speaker 07

  Okay, we'll return to the AI apocalypse in just a wee, wee moment, but first I wanted to talk about Squarespace. Do you know about Squarespace, Steve? Uh, yes, Monty. I think I might even be a little bit more tuned into modern tech, websites, et cetera, than you. I don't know, just guessing. Oh, Steve, I love this dynamic. I'm old and conservative and you're young and progressive. And that's what makes the Newswind podcast such great listening. But yes, you're right. I must admit, I didn't know much about Squarespace. But because my new grumble book, Hell in a Handcart, is out this month, and I look forward to getting enraged by that, so I should hope. Um, um, um. Anyway, the publishers, Bluestar and Dogwhistle, made a beautiful website for the book using Squarespace. I know, I got the newsletter that you sent out using Squarespace and the website does look great. Videos of you airing your views, members' areas for your mad fans. You've even got a merch store, I see.

• 52:29Speaker 07

  That's right, the Union Jack top hat is a big seller, but they constructed it all so fast with Squarespace. They did most of it over one lunchtime, Steve. Well, you wouldn't want to spend much longer on it, would you? Shut up, Steve. But here's the thing, anyone listening to this can start a free trial right now at Squarespace.com/boxton and see how easy and versatile Squarespace is. And when they're ready to launch a new website or domain, they can save 10% off their first purchase by using the offer code BOXTON at checkout. Right, well, maybe I'll visit Squarespace.com/boxton and start a new website just to refute all the nonsense in your new book. Oh, don't do that, Steve. I will. Oh, shut up, Steve. Uh. Shut up. Now, back to more depressing matters on Newswind.

• 53:09Speaker 04

  Continue.

• 53:20Adam Buxton?

  Hey, welcome back, Podcats. That was the members of Squid talking to me there. And I was very grateful to them for making the trip to London, which I think they may have made specially for the podcast. With all their instruments, great big instruments they had. Guitars and cellos and drum machines and all sorts of bits and pieces. Thank you very much to them and to the crew at the studio that day who recorded the session. A reminder that Squid are playing at End of the Road Festival towards the end of August this year. I'll be there too, it'll be a hoot. Come along, maybe I'll see you there.

• 54:01Adam Buxton?

  Another reminder that you can see fellow Windmill Scene alumnus Jordy Greep, ex of Black Midi, touring around the UK between the 17th and 25th of July. There's a link in the description so you can see where Jordy is headed. That was a musical highlight from earlier this year for me. Seeing Jordy and his band playing music from his recent solo album, The New Sound, at the waterfront in Norwich. He is a real original, although if I was to compare him, maybe I would compare him to a combination of Marky Smith and Frank Zappa. What about that?

• 54:44Adam Buxton?

  Pretty good combo as far as I'm concerned, musically. Anyway, so before I go today, I thought I would share some of these comments with you that were left underneath my "I baked you a pie" video, which you can still see, it's no longer set to public on my YouTube channel. I felt quite foolish after I saw all the negative comments. Not merely because I hadn't really considered properly some of the things they were talking about, but also because I really thought hard before I uploaded it. I thought, is this offensive? Is this, you know, in the same way that I would normally think pretty hard before I

• 55:29Adam Buxton?

  put a video out there on my YouTube channel. I'm not saying they're all brilliant or that they're all timeless classics. Indeed, every now and again, I'll take some down. Um, and I probably will take this one down at some point, but I'm leaving it up there on a private link for the time being. And you can access that private link by checking out the show notes for last week's live podcast with Guz Khan. The images that I used on the video were also generated by AI and the prompts were all requests to see an image of me, Adam Buckston, who AI seemed to think looked a lot like Rob

• 56:13Adam Buxton?

  Delaney in various forms, meeting various celebrities, some of them from Bake Off, because the song was kind of a Bake Off joke. And a lot of the results were very wonky and strange. And just the ways that the AI was interpreting some of the prompts, I thought was interesting and kind of funny. But yeah, I foolishly set it to public, which means that everyone who is subscribed to my YouTube channel gets, maybe gets a notification. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but certainly it racked up a few thousand views in the first couple of hours. You know, it didn't break the internet, but it was viewed enough times for there to be

• 56:58Adam Buxton?

  a few hundred comments underneath. And most of them, as far as I could tell, were negative. Here is a handful of responses, and I'm not reading these out in order to ridicule the people who left them. I just thought that it might be interesting for you to hear what they had to say. Uh, maybe I will keep them anonymous.

• 57:24Adam Buxton?

  One comment here that says, "Dear previously creative funny grandad. Okay, you've discovered AI and it seems amusing now, so get it out of your system. Because in a couple of weeks, it will start to make you feel sick every time you see or hear it. I promise, I know because I've been there." Dear previously creative funny grandad. That certainly tweaked my anxiety nipples. Um, here's another one that says, "As a big fan of your work, Adam, please don't do this." And there was a lot of comments like that, actually, nice comments, people saying, "I like your stuff, but I don't like this."

• 58:10Adam Buxton?

  Another one says, "You're better than this AI slop, Adam." A lot of people saying that kind of thing, calling it AI slop, which I appreciate and I understand where they're coming from. There is a lot of AI slop, but I felt that I was using AI as a tool. I think that AI can be a useful tool for creative projects. But perhaps it didn't look as though I was being very creative with it to those people. But also, of course, there are the ethical implications about how the images are generated and the kind of copyright infringement implied, which I probably should have thought harder about.

• 58:54Adam Buxton?

  Final YouTube comment that I'll read says, "Got one of those feelings, he made this for his wife or something as a joke and then thought, 'Just put it on the internet, why not?'" I mean, I would say that that's pretty accurate. It wasn't entirely made for my wife as a joke, but I certainly did play it to her. And she did think it was funny. This was beginning of last year. Obviously, since then, she's read Nexus by Yuval Noah Harari and if she saw it now, it would make her physically sick. But yeah, back then, there was chuckles at Castle Buckles, I'm sorry, but there were.

• 59:36Adam Buxton?

  But that's not the whole reason I uploaded it. "Just put it on the internet, why not?" Did I think that? Maybe a bit. Look, there's worse things happening in the world. But I appreciate that feelings and anxieties run high around the subject of AI. And I thought hard about the more thoughtful comments that people left. Not implying that the ones I just read out weren't thoughtful, but some people did leave particularly thoughtful messages. And one of them was from a musician called Jessica Rock, who sent me a message that was very kind and positive. But there was a big but halfway down.

• 1:00:19Adam Buxton?

  She says, "I just had a listen to your last episode with Gus Khan and thought it was fantastic. I could listen to you chat all day and I was so happy to hear his return on the podcast. You might already know what I'm about to say, as I've already told you I'm a composer, but I was slightly bummed by the AI music-generated song, partly because I just love the music that you create yourself, thank you very much, Jessica, but also because that AI model was likely trained with music from composers slash songwriters who are already having a tricky time in the industry without robots stealing their music.

• 1:01:01Adam Buxton?

  You had Kate Nash on the other day, who was excellent at talking about some of those things." And then later she says, "I'm just wary that if we normalize using AI music generators, it screws over musicians and composers even more so than Spotify and all those other things that Kate Nash was talking about." And then she tells me a little bit more about herself and one of her musical projects, which is part of a display at the Design Museum in London. I will put the link in the description. But thank you, Jessica, for your very kind and considered message, and indeed to everyone else who left messages underneath the YouTube video.

• 1:01:45Adam Buxton?

  Fair points, made me think differently about the whole thing. I don't hate AI personally. I do think that some of it is actually kind of marvelous. I do appreciate.

• 1:01:57Adam Buxton?

  And share many of the concerns around it, obviously, I mean, none of us knows how it's all gonna pan out and it does seem very worrying the way that the companies responsible for rolling it out seem reluctant to take people's concerns properly into account. Several people underneath the YouTube video were just sick of the whole subject though, saying, "I switch off every time you start talking about AI on the podcast." I'm afraid I can't guarantee that I'm gonna stop talking about AI. I do think it's like a fact of our lives, whether we like it or not now, and I think it's quite an interesting thing to talk about. I apologize if you disagree.

• 1:02:40Adam Buxton?

  But I will bear it in mind and I will try not to bang on about it in too repetitive a way. Anyway, there you go. Thanks for all your correspondence. That's it for this week's podcast. Thanks once again to the members of Squid. Thank you very much indeed to Seamus Murphy Mitchell for his invaluable production support. Thanks very much indeed to Helen Green for her beautiful artwork. Thanks to everyone at Acast for liaising with my sponsors. But thanks most of all to you. Really appreciate the mainly warm tone of the messages, even

• 1:03:18Adam Buxton?

  though they were critical, under the YouTube video. And if you have no objection, I wonder if we can have a quick creepy hug? Come on, hey, previously creative grandad. Okay. Until next time, please go carefully and hey, look, for what it's worth, I love you.

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