What’s the Gig Stories Podcast?
A celebration of gigs, venues, festivals and the live music experience hosted by Alex Winters and Chris Payne. Each episode we’ll have a special guest on to chat about memorable live performances. What was their first gig? Favourite venue? Worst performance? Join us to find the answers to these questions and more…
Who do we think we are?
Alex Winters
Alex’s love of music began at a very young age when his mum indoctrinated his ears with Vivaldi, Dr Hook and Barry Manilow. His ears survived and grew to appreciate Glenn Miller, The Beatles and the soundtrack to West Side Story.
After quitting the violin and attempting to play the bass like his hero Nicky Wire, he soon realised he was destined to always be on the crowd side of the stage barrier. So, what else could he do but pursue a career in broadcasting attempting to steal the limelight from Mr Tumble on CBeebies.
Part of this stellar career included co-curating and hosting ‘Trashed TV’ - a live, recorded Manchester event which included live music and interviews with a variety of artists and performers including Clint Boon, Denise Johnson, Argh Kid and The Blinders.
Hundreds of gigs and years later, Alex now takes his own children to gigs and festivals, protecting their ears from such hits as “Copacabana” and “Mandy”.
Alex can be seen pretending he’s still “got it” down the front of a Manics gig near you.
Chris Payne
Chris grew up in a musical household, his mum a music teacher and singer, dad a singer in choirs and sister a flautist. He started playing clarinet around the age of ten and quickly progressed to alto saxophone.
He’s been in several bands, including a jazz/funk outfit called Nimbus, a celtic big band named Junction Pool and Manchester ska band The Uplifters (supporting ska legends The Beat, Bad Manners and Neville Staple).
Chris is now a photographer specialising in theatre, outdoor arts, food & drink and, of course, live music. In 2019 he had his first exhibition, Flash Bang Wallop - a series of 25 portraits of drummers and percussionists which took place at HOME arts centre in Manchester.
An ongoing project, Chris hopes to continue interviewing and photographing drummers until he’s done every single last one of them.
And that’s a lot.
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MOOOOOOOOO! https://t.co/Mms1nt0IsT -
Happy birthday to our guest from Episode 39, the wonderful Jack Jones @Trampolene_Band - and belated birthday wishe… https://t.co/XAjrokiq49
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Massive birthday wishes to maestro @Mike_Batt - a delightful guest on our 18th episode. He even played the blues fo… https://t.co/Ka1zMACRxY
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RT @xtofallabout: Need a wee listen for the morning commute? Our new episode with @PatNevin is out now - a treat for fans of football… https://t.co/LZHJzKlgzy
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RT @DaveAmitri: Thanks to @GigStoriesPod and @rockonteurs for their brilliant Nick Heyward podcasts that helped put this together 🙏 https://t.co/O64Hx3mAW9
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Our latest episode has its own page on the Gig Stories website, with a banging playlist and a load of videos, inclu… https://t.co/d2y7hevmeN
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**NEW EPISODE!!** The mighty @PatNevin chats to us about Cocteau Twins, @bellesglasgow, @DuruttiColumn,… https://t.co/879EcWhQxq
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Our next episode will be out very shortly, and we're excited to announce that our guest is midfield maestro… https://t.co/60gCxC1HE8
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Well, interview recorded and it was an absolute joy. You are in for a treat. Another clue - we talk about Cocteau… https://t.co/U5SJXCpTGH
