The Paranoid Squirrel was originally a Record mail order company that would “Bring Scandinavia closer to your stereo” formed in April 2000 by Armitage and Jo-Squirrel. The name comes from the book ‘Lost In Music’ by Giles Smith which Jo-Squirrel, quite rightly, thought summed them up. Come 2006 the trend was starting to go towards Streaming Platforms, even though many people were still asking for vinyl. So, Armitage decided to go into podcasting as he believed people still wanted, needed to hear good music that the mainstream and even DAB radio stations, at that time, were failing to deliver. Jo-Squirrel, who was very experienced in the realms of Pirate Radio having shows on Radio Free London, to name but one station, declined to participate in the latest Paranoid Squirrel adventure. It is safe to say without her imagination, input, influence and general squirrelness Armitage wouldn’t be as musically aware as he is today. (but he’d be a lot richer)
The first Paranoid Squirrel Rock Show came out on the 21st July 2007 as a downloadable only file but from the second show onwards the show could be found on Mevio which sadly in April 2014 ceased trading meaning many episodes were lost. Some early shows can still be found here;
www.yourlisten.com/armitage
and here
www.theparanoidsquirrel.podbean.com