David Greaves

Live at Something Else Show in September 1979, from the album Unknown Pleasures

When I was an undergraduate student in Bristol 1978-1981 I saw some great bands live and I was really affected by seeing Joy Division six weeks before the untimely death of their lead singer Ian Curtis. The LP Unknown Pleasures was pretty much an ever present on my turntable throughout my second year.

Live at CoManCHE Student Union, Manchester, 6th February 1981

Good for Bernard Summer for taking things in a different, perhaps more optimistic, direction post Ian Curtis. I was fortunate to see one of New Order’s first gigs at Bristol in 1981. New Order then moved on to produce some of the best electronic dance music – see here.

Growing up in West Yorkshire in the 1970s the only music I was exposed to was brass bands and the hymns of Charles Wesley. Perhaps not entirely surprising then that when I left home I quickly embraced contemporary music from the other side of the Pennines.

6 Music Live, October 2014

I was not into The Smiths in the 1980s, but their music stands the test of time and what better place to appreciate that than on YouTube?

All the best bands at their peak are bursting with ‘creative tension’ and are only ever one ‘clear the air’ conversation away from exploding, usually citing ‘musical differences’ but the truth is they cannot stand each other any longer.

Morrissey and Johnny Marr were supremely talented musicians but worlds apart. I like the working-class guitar hero that is Johnny Marr. He seems very comfortable nowadays, he even talked about his musical philosophy at the Oxford Union in 2019 (again available on YouTube).

I was delighted when Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016. Dylan is one of our greatest living poets, alongside Eminem. I highly recommend this video essay that analyses the 130 words of the song illustrated with some fascinating footage of Dylan around 1967.

Many people prefer Jimi Hendrix’s cover, including Dylan himself and I love other people’s covers not least many contemporary buskers (like this one).

1. I wish I had learned to play the guitar when I was a teenager – this guy is 21-years old.
2. I miss live music – look at all those people less than 2 metres apart without masks drinking beer and dancing!
3. Cover versions are often much better than the original version – although the original version of this song has an interesting back story.
4. Studying the history of blues music teaches you a lot about America

Not all the best music comes from Manchester or the Deep South of America. I first discovered the Philadelphia-based band The War on Drugs and their lead singer Adam Granuciel in Companion Coffee Shop on Little Clarendon Street. I think they are a band best appreciated when they play live.

As a molecular biologist living through the Covid-19 pandemic, I have been following the evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus with great interest. YouTube provides some fantastic teaching resources such as this 19-minute masterclass on virus replication strategies from Nobel Laureate David Baltimore (Caltech) who discovered the virus encoded enzyme reverse transcriptase essential for HIV replication.

Every day millions of people across the world take the reverse transcriptase inhibitor drug AZT (Zidovudine) which was developed initially as an anti-cancer drug before it was repurposed as the first effective anti-HIV medication in 1985.

In my research lab in the Dunn School of Pathology we are looking to repurpose current anti-cancer drugs as novel anti-inflammatory drugs for the treatment of important human diseases such as coronary artery disease and rheumatoid arthritis.