Word In Your Ear

This week’s news stories charge out onto the pitch but which are heading for promotion? In the running at the final whistle …   … “a ghoulish, soulless cash-grab”: the multiple disasters in the making of the Michael biopic   … how spectacle is replacing music   … which do we prefer, the truth or the myth?   … did Steve Reich re-invent music?   … when the Dalai Lama appeared at Glastonbury   … how does it feel to perform to a sea of non-clapping motionless mobile phone users?   … the remodelling of Coachella   … “producers are in the business of creating of high-profile communal rights”   … Vilma Jaa: “like Sandy Denny making music with Massive Attack”   … how festivals are all about special guests and social media   … the 1974 Diana magazine quiz: “how tall is Alvin Lee?”   … 20 year-old Word in Your Ear podcast unearthed!   ... plus Luciano Berio, Slow Club and “the bawdy harridan and her jive muse”. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Be glad for the pod has no ending! Now in our 20th year and, this week, ruminating fondly on the following …   … the “underhand” selling of Geese   … Morrissey’s absurd whinge about the Salford Lads Club photo   … Jay Leno’s $50 ruse to get comedy gigs   … when bands “didn’t even know what a hotel was”   … radio sessions in Andy Kershaw’s flat   … what’s the point of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?   … when has any aspect of the entertainment business EVER been “fair”?   … “Four eyes, one vision!” Elvis Costello busking in Park Lane   … the great Supremes records after Diana Ross   … Focus, 10cc, Devo, Zappa, the Shadows and other musical dead-ends   ... Ronnie Wood and … Beverley Knight?   …. “Shove off, Phil Collins! And have you got your Barley Sugars?”   … and birthday guest Stephen Lambe about why Focus are largely forgotten. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Take your protein pills and put your helmet on as we voyage to the far side this week to take a picture of …   … the Kanye West & Wireless ding-dong   … Springsteen with Tom Morello, Pet Shop Boys with Johnny Marr: the fine art of the ‘special guest’   … when Time Magazine invented Swinging London   … Gregg Allman and the judge’s wife   … Fake Plastic Trees! Pressure Drop by the Clash! Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)! Politicians trying to be hip   … a primal howl from the Troggs written by the son of a golf professional from Westchester County (Chip Taylor RIP)   … why all bands should have ‘membership’ gigs   ... Back Home! This Time We’ll Get It Right! Are we still making World Cup anthems?   … never drive a car listening to the Mahavishnu Orchestra followed by the Sun Ra Arkestra and Trout Mask Replica   … plus birthday guest Chuck Loncon is listening to every record he owns. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley read a review of the Sex Pistols in February 1976, borrowed a car, drove to London, asked the NME where they’d find the band and were told ‘try a sex shop in the King’s Road’. The events that followed changed both the culture of Manchester and the course of rock history, a story mapped out in David Nolan’s excellent ‘I Swear I Was There’, a book as much about the audience as the band. His theory: “If the Pistols hadn’t played the Lesser Free Trade Hall … no Buzzcocks, Joy Division, Factory Records, ‘indie’ scene, Smiths, Fall, Nirvana, Blur, Oasis, Radiohead or Prodigy.’ As the 50th anniversary looms, he talks to us here about …   … those who claimed to be there and the ones who actually were   … the contrast between myth and reality   … the letter Morrissey sent the NME: “Maybe the Pistols will be able to afford some clothes which don't look as though they've been slept in”   … punk metaphor: Howard Devoto asking a tailor to narrow his trouser legs and being told, “there’s no going back”   … North/South crowd violence: “a battle with a gig breaking out in the middle”   … the three reels of home-movie and the photos that turned up 36 years later   … Sister Rosetta Tharpe, ‘Judas’ at the Free Trade Hall, Stones In The Park and other landmark Manchester moments   ... the pioneering impact of Granada TV     … “if you look at Manchester now, its media, its skyscrapers, its cultural prosperity, none of that would have been happened without those Pistols gigs”   … “Sheffield would have admired them, Manchester thought: we can do better!”   … and various bit-part players – Tony Wilson, Peter Hook, Paul Morley, Jordan and Jon the Postman.   Order ‘I Swear I Was There’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Swear-Was-There-Pistols-Manchester/dp/1786060159   Book promotions at Walthamstow Rock & Roll Book Club, London - 25 May (link below); Nudie, Manchester – 28 May; Central Library, Manchester - 11July: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/david-nolan-i-swear-i-was-there-tickets-1985356197832?utm_experiment=test_share_listing&aff=ebdsshios&sg=0713ff5cbb20ee739ec0a8803927c4228f74fda0c5bac9785b11548a1e5b7c04ba91c0af5267ba677dfafa61163636f97633016b86ba8be02a78ecdb7f234740f0be4f90136c5fd636905d294b Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The life of Keith Moon can be seen as Animal from the Muppets or as a dark, psychological odyssey. And the two co-exist in Tony Fletcher’s magnificent ‘Dear Boy’, first published in 1998, never out of print and now ‘remastered’ with new pictures, updates, epilogues and a foreword by Mandy Moon who “has to keep reminding myself this person was my father”. Tony looks back here at events along the way, many of which now seem unimaginable. Among them …   … fact versus fiction: his fudged birthdate, his hidden marriage, the Roller in the swimming-pool   … Tony’s meeting with Moon two months before he died   … the letters to his wife Kim when touring America     … Mel Gibson, Mike Myers, Jason Schwartzman, all once in line to play Keith onscreen   … “I killed a man”: the terrible incident with his chauffeur   … the legs in the bath, the head in the bed, the loudspeaker in the bushes: the punchline of all his pranks was “someone’s going to suffer”   … “working-class rock stars who conquered the world like pirates without a map”   … would things have been different if he’d been hailed as a pioneering drummer?   … the times he met Larry Hagman and Oliver Reed   … do book publishers look down on drummers the way musicians do?   … to Golders Green with Viv Stanshall in German uniforms and an open-topped car: #DifferentTimes   … and a sad and telling moment on the Stardust film shoot.   Order copies of ‘Dear Boy’ here: https://omnibuspress.com/products/dear-boy-the-life-of-keith-moon-omnibus-remastered?_pos=1&_psq=dear+boy&_ss=e&_v=1.0 Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dominic Mohan saw Britpop on the inside from the showbiz desk of the Sun in the days when it sold 4.5m copies, a series of heated memories recorded in ‘1996: My Backstage Pass to the Wildest Year of Britain’s Wildest Decade’, a lost age of hedonism, stupidity, drunkenness and creativity. He makes a compelling case in this very funny and colourful podcast which stumbles into …   … the advice David Hepworth gave him when he was 16   … Euro 96 and headlines you couldn’t run now   … how the deaths of Kurt Cobain and John Smith changed the picture   … doorstepping Phil Collins’ ex-wife   … the wreath for Noel Gallagher “the fat dancer from Take That” sent to the Sun   … Cool Britannia and that brief love affair between music and politics    … on the dancefloor at the Labour Conference with Mo Mowlam, John Prescott and Chris Evans   … Knebworth 1996, the perfect marriage of alternative music and club culture with a £250,000 bar bill   … the debt Pulp, Oasis and Blur owe Ray Davies - “less the Godfather of Britpop, more a concerned uncle”   … is it hard to identify a new zeitgeist when people don’t congregate as much?   … the ‘reverse-ferret’ from American culture towards bespectacled blokes from Sheffield   … the shameless age before people public apology   … how the post-Spice Girls TV talent shows soaked up the budgets and column inches   … and Madonna dancing with Dennis Hopper.   Order copies of ‘1996’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/1996-Backstage-Wildest-Britains-Decade/dp/B0FZBZHPNR   The Barbican Show curated by Dominic: https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2026/event/1996-a-celebration-of-the-wildest-year-of-britains-wildest Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A seasonal egg-hunt in the rock and roll backyard finds the following conversational confectionary …   .. Wild Bill Hickok? Valentino? Bob Dylan’s bizarre new media manoeuvre   … Liza Minnelli, Peter Sellers, Harrison Ford, Aaron Paul: people born to play one part   … how to spot writers using AI   … “dried-up old prune”? Trump’s pot-kettle war against Springsteen   … what BBC DJs must think when they see ‘Woo’ Gary Davies in reception   … “Neil Young looks like an unmade bed”   … when invincible ignorance meets invincible confidence: the stupidest thing we’ve ever done   … do most rock stars eventually get ‘work’ done?   … plus the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, the Roots, Daisy Age hip-hop and our link with the Hatton Garden heist. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tony Visconti left Brooklyn for London in 1967, began working with the Move and Marc Bolan and formed a life-long friendship with the teenage David Bowie, playing on his first two albums and producing 10 of ones that followed. And in 2014 he formed Holy Holy with Woody Woodmansey, a live celebration of Bowie’s music from 1970 to Blackstar. They’re touring again in September with Glenn Gregory as lead singer – “you can’t mourn forever.” He talks to us here about …   … the gig they played the night Bowie died   … life at Bowie’s commune at Haddon Hall – “I kept my door firmly locked!”   … Marc Bolan at Middle Earth, “a hundred spellbound kids sitting cross-legged on the floor”   … hearing Flowers In The Rain (which he arranged) as the first record on Radio One   … “A little chinwag?” How Bowie broke the news about his illness   … his dislike of Space Oddity, “I told him it was novelty, a sell-out”   … producing The Man Who Sold The World and the emotional Blackstar   … the night he met the teenage Bowie and they wound up in a Chelsea cinema   … “Why are you doing this?” Bowie’s reaction to the first Holy Holy tour in 2014   … his time as the red-caped Hypeman and Ronson and Woody’s resistance to make-up, “macho boys from Hull”   … walking round New York with a cassette of secret The Next Day album in his pocket   … and the big emotional moments in the Holy Holy set list   Order Holy Holy tickets here: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/holy-holy-tickets/artist/2096354 Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Matt Johnson’s life story has been mapped out as one long Q&A conversation from meetings with old friend, fan and BFI director Jason Wood. ‘Cognitive Dissident’ traces his trajectory from the East End to Soho to the beloved albums he made with a series of super-groups and his 2021 comeback. He looks back here at …   … his earliest musical memories – Donovan, the Move, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown   … the old East End and the Two Puddings pub run by his parents, “full of ghosts”, Bobby Moore, Francis Bacon and the Krays   … his Uncle Kenny promoting the Who, the Kinks and Jerry Lee Lewis   … “Get yourself on a sunbed!” and other advice from George Michael   ... what he learnt at De Wolfe Music, aged 15, in the red-light Soho of the late ‘70s   … legendary manager Stevo signing the band’s CBS contract at midnight in Trafalgar Square   … “cigarettes, coffee, warm analogue equipment”: the Proustian scent of old studios   … his NME ad recruiting The The members via the Residents, the Velvet Underground, Syd Barrett and Throbbing Gristle   … being part of “the Long Mack Brigade” with Cabaret Voltaire, This Heat, Wire and the Gang of Four   … Leonard Cohen’s premonition of the internet   … the Albert Hall: “like a tennis player playing Wimbledon”   … the genius of Hank Williams   … and his 2018 comeback, “like reunion of old army buddies”   Order ‘Cognitive Dissident’ here: https://omnibuspress.com/products/cognitive-dissident?_pos=1&_psq=cognitive+dissi&_ss=e&_v=1.0 Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When he was 19, New Yorker Brian Cullman covered the London music scene for Crawdaddy, landing at the birth of folk-rock and the singer-songwriter boom and watching its leading lights from unimaginably close quarters - Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, John Martyn among them. He even played on the same bill as Drake at Les Cousins club, all this recorded in his book ‘How To Prepare for the Past: Travels in Music and Time’. He talks to us here about that golden age and the American stars he met later, stopping off at …   … Ed Sullivan at the shoe-shine: “in six months the Beatles will be lucky to be playing a bowling alley!”   … Nick Drake in the same clothes he wore on the cover of Five Leaves Left   … Sandy Denny: “She knew she was extraordinary but didn’t know if she was any good”   … Jackson Browne, onstage from the age of 12   … being hired by rock encyclopaedist Lillian Roxon, “my fairy godmother”   … Tim Hardin making Bird On A Wire, “so wasted they followed him round the room with a microphone”   ... and “14 hotdogs”? The cavernous appetite of Big Joe Turner.   Order ‘How To Prepare for the Past’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Prepare-Past-Travels-Music/dp/B0FTS8ZPTW   Or here: https://www.zebooks.com/books/how-to-prepare-for-the-past Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whooping, whistling, punching the air, standing on the arm-rests and generally adding our voice to the sound of the crowd this week involves …   … the creepy way Google eavesdrops our conversations   … the cleverly positioned “secret” on McCartney’s new album   … why a knackered piano made Keith Jarrett’s Cologne Concert a success   … Daryl Hannah, Mick McCarthy, Ray Manzarek: people who hated the way they were played in biopics   … Pectoralz? The Rain? Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem? Abandoned band names moratorium   … how movies are still revolve around white-hat heroes and black-hat villains   … “Festival Seating” and the days when suffering was part of the entertainment   … why Zappa thought bands exploited live audiences   … “Jackson Browne In Concert”: when going to gigs was like going to the movies   … plus Blink 182, Big Audio Dynamite and the days when the Marquee had two front rows of plastic seating. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul Gorman, author and curator, has put together fascinating maps of the London haunts of Bowie and the Stones and just published one about the Clash built around key locations in the network that formed them and helped them to flourish. It’s a beautiful thing: buy one and take the walking tour! He talks to us here about …   … how an Agit-Prop alternative West London emerged with links to Oz, IT and San Francisco counter-culture   … kindred spirits meeting in Rock On, Compendium Books and the dole office in Lisson Grove   … how their artwork and black and white photos linked them to the past   .. the days when corrugated iron and fly-posters were part of the London vernacular   … Guns On The Roof: how the band and press ramped up an element of danger   ... the art school background that gave them control of their visuals   … “Big Audio Dynamite was the band the Clash could have been!”   … Nick Lowe’ theory that everyone is either funny or not funny: “The Clash? Not funny”   … Kosmo Vinyl’s attempt to get their triple album released for the price of a single   … their connections to the Slits, Bernie Rhodes, Patti Smith, Pennie Smith, Hawkwind and Heathcote Williams   …and the moving story of Joe and Mick’s last meeting.   Order the Clash map here: https://www.herblester.com/products/london-calling-the-clash-in-the-capital   Paul’s Slits walking tour here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/slits-are-girls-walking-tour-with-paul-gorman-tickets-1985048002010 Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A milky tea, a jam sponge and this week’s news served on a tin tray with a steam train painted on it points our very English conversation towards the following …   … what connects the Monkees and a British Prime Minister?   … when are you too old for Indie?   … A Certain Je Ne Sais Quoi? A Bar on The Piccolo Marina? Noel Coward or Neil Tennant?   … the Move, the Streets, the Kinks, ELO, Ian Dury, Anthony Newley, the Jam, Herman’s Hermits, Cat Stevens, Arctic Monkeys and other acts with a sense of Englishness   … Girl in the Thunderbolt Suit: when Marc Bolan went science fiction   … how London Zoo could have put the tin lid on the Beatles   … the daft story of Randy Scouse Git   … how Michael Caine cooked up the name Harry Palmer   ... the most English pronunciation of a songword ever   … Black Crowes, Byrds and the allure of misspelling   … Roxy, 10cc, the Hollies, Manfred Mann, Human League  and other original line-ups we want to reform   … plus Angine de Poitrine, Kaleidoscope rebooted by Jimmy Page and birthday guest Jonny Wren. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neil Tennant co-wrote a musical at Primary School and soon decided that “learning other people’s songs was hard work compared with making up your own”. He’s chosen some from the Pet Shop Boys’ 40-year catalogue, hits and obscurities, in ‘One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem’, just out in paperback, and added fascinating notes about their context and composition. This very funny and revealing conversation lands on the following …   ... the first song he ever wrote   … auditioning for Rocket Records in 1975   … does songwriting have rules?    … how Chris Lowe tamed his inner “musical snob”   … rap, Brecht-Weill, Betjeman, Noel Coward, My Fair Lady and the art of “speak-singing”   … the decades of lyrics stored in our brains   … the Songwriting Bootcamp that produced What Have I Done To Deserve This?   … the essence of melancholy (and the chord that expresses it)   … “the sound of words is often more important than the sense”   … whether Dylan deserved the Nobel Prize for Literature   … West End Girls and whether to rap in English or American   … the writing of King's Cross, Cricket Wife, Odd Man Out and I Made My Excuses And Left   … “Robert Maxwell stole my pension!”   … and the “geology of my life” in diaries that one day might make a memoir.   Order ‘One Hundred Lyrics And a Poem’ here: https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571397891-one-hundred-lyrics-and-a-poem/   And ‘Pet Shop Boys: Volume’ here: https://shop.petshopboys.co.uk/gb/pet-shop-boys-volume/9780500027479.html Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the age of four, Steve Nieve drew pictures of piano keys and pretended to play them. He joined Elvis Costello & the Attractions when he was 19, the start of a life that involves having to find a flight case for a Steinway Grand. He talks to us here from his Paris apartment about Stiff package tours, recording remotely, his upcoming shows with the French singer Kessada and …   … being a teenager as fond of Stravinsky as Alice Cooper and the Carpenters   … playing in a mid-‘70s Top Forty covers band   … the ad for a “rockin’ pop combo” that changed his life   … touring with Costello and Ian Dury and how he got his stage name   … playing the Thunderbirds theme as a chat show bandleader on the Last Resort   … a giant Klavins piano “that has stairs leading up the seat”   … working on Morrissey’s Kill Uncle   … the 40,000 audience that watched his online Lockdown shows   … unreliable stage pianos and the story of Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert.   Tickets here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/westhampsteadartsclub/2059256   The “About Love” album: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/about-love/1834791707   Steve’s new album: https://stevenieve.hearnow.com/piano-night-2026   Steve’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steveprofessornieve/   Kessada’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamkessada/   www.stevenieve.com www.kessada.com Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Watering the scented hedgerows of news to see if any green shoots appear. And they do, in the form of …   … the most effective protest song ever written   … the commendable box-ticking life of Country Joe McDonald   … the Timothée Chalamet ding-dong: is it still safe to voice an opinion?   … Harry Styles’ 67 dates in just 7 locations: how ‘Destination gigs’ throttle the competition   … was Wings a worse name than the Beatles? And McCartney as a shepherd: discuss   … what makes a song work as a football chant?   ... the most unusual things we've heard sung by crowds   …. Stormfront, Gothic Serpent, Midnight Hammer, Rolling Thunder … album title or US military campaign?   … why we love improv theatre   … when Champion Jack Dupree lived in Halifax and Kid Creole in Rotherham   … plus barrelhouse blues piano, ‘inflicting’ music on people and birthday guest Avi Chaudhuri & rock music as community singing. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pointing the scanner of inquiry at the baggage carousel of news to see what gets the lights flashing, which this week includes …   … we know what’s making Morrissey miserable   … bands that can get a whole stadium singing   … the rock star who misses the music press most   … “a Likely Lads for the rave generation”, anyone?   … the speed at which news now travels   … Loudon Wainwright and Richard Thompson, Ben Sidran and Boz Scaggs, Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer, Steve Martin and Martin Short … in praise of inseparable old pals!   … Anfield Rap (Red Machine in Full Effect)! Lift it High (All About Belief)! Whatever happened to football singles?   … I Started Out with Nothin and I Still Got Most of It Left, Musta Notta Gotta Lotta, Trouble Over Bridgewater: albums you bought because you liked the title   … “English radio stations won’t play new music!” Really?   Plus birthday guest Adrian Ainsworth on the Sensual World, Us, Monster, the Rhythm of the Saints and other great experimental sequels to big-selling albums. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A gorgeous and lavish new publication tells the story of the Kinks in the ‘60s via the key events in their unsteady trajectory plus concert bills, letters and ephemera assembled by Andrew Sandoval, the kind of non-digital research that’s filled his archive with yellowing back numbers of Disc & Music Echo. It’s “nirvana for any fan”, the title hinting at the level of detail – ‘The Kinks: All Day and All of the Night, the Day By Day Story Part 1: 1940 – 1971’. He joins us here from Los Angeles to talk frock coats, deathless tunes and own-foot-shooting setbacks, and what he learnt about the band from compiling it. Which involves …   … their magical run of 16 hits from 1964–68 (by a sole songwriter)   … the five people who ran and managed the band and what they had to put up with   … the last chance saloon backstory of You Really Got Me and the Jimmy Page rumours   … the Kinks’ alleged black-listing on the American tour circuit   … Ray’s “unauthorised autobiography” and perpetual self-sabotage   … Granada TV’s record of Alan Bennett and John Betjeman as possible co-writers for Arthur   ... the 12,000 miles required to re-record three seconds of “Lola”   … the ways Reprise, Pye and Marble Arch sold the Kinks catalogue     … and Ray and Dave’s live debut as “the Kelly Brothers”.   Order copies of ‘The Kinks: All Day and All of the Night’ here: https://beatlandbooks.myshopify.com/ Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Author and broadcaster Samira Ahmed used to watch A Hard Day’s Night once a week and she’s just written an enthralling account of the shoot and its impact for the BFI’s Classic Films series. A movie, she points out, that celebrates Britishness and suburbia made largely by immigrants that broke every Hollywood rule, a film made to capture the essence of the Beatles before the bubble burst “which turned out to be the start of something not the end”. She talks to us here about …   … the film’s connections with the Goons, the Young Ones, Dr Strangelove, Star Wars, Billy Liar, It’s Trad Dad and the Nouvelle Vague   … and its influence - from the Dave Clark Five’s Catch Us If You Can and Paul Jones’ Privilege to Charlie XCX and the Moment   … how the train sequence for I Should Have Known Better invented pop video   … the play John and Paul wrote (Pilchard!) that was a homage to its scriptwriter Alun Owen   … Paul’s two-day solo shoot with Isla Blair and other (mercifully) deleted scenes   ... Profumo, pirate radio, the changing Britain of 1964   … Pattie Boyd, Anna Quayle, Alison Seebohm and other stand-out female stars   … Wilfred Brambell’s gigantic fee and how badly his part has aged   … why George and Ringo emerged as the stars   … surely the greatest scene? – “She's a drag, a well-known drag. We turn the sound down on her and say rude things”   … “hair that moved!”: the film’s impact in the USA   … “beat-up and depraved in the nicest possible way”   … and how the dubbed-on dialogue about Ingmar Bergman made the German version “a film for cineastes”.   Order Samira’s book here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/hard-days-night-9781839029394/ Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bob Dylan and the Beatles watched each other closely. Jim Windolf is fascinated by the parallels in their stories, the obvious moments they influenced each other and the unconcealable tensions at the times they met, all mapped out in his book ‘Where The Music Had To Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other – and Changed the World’. He talks to us here from New York about what he discovered when writing it, which touches on …   … deep-end Dylan and Beatles fans: which can be “crankier”?   … the Chaplin-like comic timing of Dylan’s early shows and the humour of the Beatles’ early stage act   … the song Lennon and Dylan wrote, recorded and then lost – now possibly in the Dakota archive     … the theory that 4th Time Around refers to the four Beatles songs clearly derived from Dylan   … first impressions of each other - “Teenybop music!” “Folk crap!” – and how both acts were crowd-pleasers who could feign indifference   … when the two superpowers met at the Delmonico, Warwick and Savoy hotels   … Dylan in ’66: “girls still scream at me … but in a different way”   … the night Bob, Paul and Dana Gillespie saw John Lee Hooker at Blaises   … how Lennon’s I Want You was a direct response to Dylan’s song of the same title   … the 15 Dylan songs played in the Get Back sessions   … Bob’s touching low-key visit to Lennon’s childhood home   … and the failed attempts by Bob and McCartney to collaborate.   Order copies of ‘Where The Music Had To Go: How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed Each Other – and Changed the World’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/where-the-music-had-to-go/jim-windolf/9781399627849 Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mark Lewisohn began his Beatles’ trilogy in 2003, the first volume appearing ten years later. He’s hoping the second, Turn On, which covers 1963 to 1966 and every recording session, might be ready by 2031 and working “nine days a week to achieve it, assembling a framework and then sliding it together”. Further good news – his lecture about their life in 1962, Evolver62, is now available on film! “No matter how deep you dig, there’s gold there”. He talks to us here about …   … how you research such an infinite subject and know when to stop   … the one-in-a-million coincidence in the story of I Saw Her Standing There   … the attractive world of telegrams, postage and showbills from the days “when the Beatles were still like us”   ... how AI has muddied the waters and misinformation (like “Woodbine’s Boys”) becomes established fact   … “people are reshaping the Beatles’ story as what they want to believe”   … those perilous moments when their career seemed in the balance   … the Beatles v Shakespeare and which has the greater agency   … the Lewisohn work schedule - “6am til bedtime, nine days a week”   … the “rank amateurs” Decca signed the year they turned down the Beatles   … James Brown’s invented spat with Beatles and the struggle to separate fact from fiction   … Paul’s private battle with Nik Cohn   … and the US merchandise disaster, “a book in itself”   https://www.marklewisohn.net/   Order Evolver:62 on these links: UK https://amzn.to/4bP7bGS US and Canada https://apple.co/46m6L7x https://bit.ly/4qsUXHy https://bit.ly/45SSvTu https://amzn.to/4pXf4gL DVD https://bit.ly/3Zap37F And copies of the Tune In book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beatles-All-These-Years-Tune/dp/1408705753/ref=asc_df_1408705753?mcid=3bbe6ad2416f31d59786d0f169b18876&th=1&psc=1&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=697210774528&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7934131385361801281&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9072502&hvtargid=pla-525100023999&psc=1&hvocijid=7934131385361801281-1408705753-&hvexpln=0&gad_source=1   Tune In (trade edition): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beatles-All-These-Years-Tune/dp/1408705753/ref=sr_1_1?crid=Z5U3TCUCHL4Y&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.iARC_o0NanHFRSyWD51V1iwunMv6f4RVXwczxRVhEfk.HhdP2t3MG4xUMoVQHwdVFQUL7a9gWFWI-jjw6pvwhNw&dib_tag=se&keywords=lewisohn+tune+in&qid=1771317358&sprefix=lewisohn+tune+in%2Caps%2C99&sr=8-1&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.95fd378e-6299-4723-b1f1-3952ffba15af   Tune In (Extended special edition): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beatles-These-Years-Extended-Special/dp/1408704781/ref=sr_1_2?crid=Z5U3TCUCHL4Y&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.iARC_o0NanHFRSyWD51V1iwunMv6f4RVXwczxRVhEfk.HhdP2t3MG4xUMoVQHwdVFQUL7a9gWFWI-jjw6pvwhNw&dib_tag=se&keywords=lewisohn+tune+in&qid=1771317358&sprefix=lewisohn+tune+in%2Caps%2C99&sr=8-2&ufe=app_do%3Aamzn1.fos.0fa28f01-6fca-4422-af4e-d52d5ad71bfe Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Spinning sides at the conversational disco to see what fills the dancefloor, which this week includes …   … Jerry Garcia had seven fingers! Brian Jones had seven children! Morrissey worked for the Inland Revenue!   … the most terrifying villain in the history of cinema     ... is pop music becoming inbred?   … when Neil Sedaka made records with 10cc (and Abba)   … Happy? Get Lucky? Crazy In Love? What was the last hit single the whole world seemed to be singing?   … Noddy Holder, Kim Wilde, Robert Wyatt, Gary Numan: what makes you a National Treasure?   … rock and roll puns and double-entendres   … “drawn from the national conversation”: the divine Englishness of the Pet Shop Boys   … the Gilded Palace of Sin, In The Court of the Crimson King and other records we bought because of the title   … and acts wiped out by the Beatles “like corn before the sickle”. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Glenn Tilbrook wrote an album with Chris Difford about a futuristic nightclub when they were teenagers and, 52 years later, they’ve recorded it and are performing it on the upcoming tour. He looks back here at the partnership that once wrote 200 songs in three years, the first gigs he saw, his recent decision to take control of the group and what’s changed the way they sound. Among the highlights …   … what he learnt from watching Radiohead and Doechii   … when you walk into a teashop and Tír na nÓg are playing   … T. Rex and screaming girls at the Lewisham Odeon – “comfortable, confident, thrilling”   … Terry Reid, Traffic, Bowie and darker memories of Glastonbury 1971   … “that age when Pickettywitch are as engaging as the Rolling Stones”   … the song that came to him in a dream   … constructing “a knockout set that’ll slay any audience”   … winning a talent contest at Butlins in Clacton, aged 12 – “a week’s free holiday!”   … “the breadth and depth of what we can do now outstrips the way we were”.   Order the ‘Trixies’ album here: https://squeeze.lnk.to/trixies   And Squeeze tickets here: https://www.squeezeofficial.com/ Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stuart Adamson co-founded the Skids and Big Country but was profoundly ill-suited to the spoils of his success. Author Scott Rowley unpacks his passage from Dunfermline to Nashville and Hawaii to get a sense of his demons and what drove and inspired him. He talks to us here about his compelling new memoir ‘Stay Alive: the Life and Death of Stuart Adamson’ and touches on …   … hints of troubled family life in his early lyrics and the shadows of his father and grandfather   … that famous three-word review: “More crusading porridge!”   … the guilt of his success when he returned to his Dunfermline roots   … why learning to sing is unwise!   … how Big Country were saved by Steve Lillywhite and the resentment about their being sold as a pop group   … Nick Drake, Sinead O’Connor … “people who should never have been given a record contract”   … insurmountable friction with Richard Jobson   … how Nevermind made the old rock landscape look outmoded   … “guitars that sounded like bagpipes!” and other hoary old clichés   … “empty, breast-beating, bombastic!”: the rigours of the rock press consensus   … and how Big Country nearly played Live Aid.   Order ‘Stay Alive: the Life and Death of Stuart Adamson’ here: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Stay-Alive-The-Life-and-Death-of-Stuart-Adamson/Scott-Rowley/9781917923538 Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our ‘big air’ manoeuvres on the rock and roll ski jump this week land the following tricks …   … why don’t we re-use old protest songs instead of writing new ones?   … “a temple of music and gothic lust:” would YOU buy Jim Steinman’s unsellable home?   … when Madness played on the Buck House roof   … Ptolomaic Terrascope? Aquarium Drunkard? Real and made-up music magazines   … “too complicated, not catchy, like a high-minded think-piece”: U2’s Days Of Ash EP   … when the Ramones invaded the London library   … Rod, Elton, Adele, Noel, Ed … do they cut it as National Treasures?   … “the best sport still works with the sound off”   … what links Steely Dan to American College Football?   … plus the Bishop of Ramsbury, Robyn’s “dream doner” and birthday guest Keith Adsley with a quiz about American college football walk-out music. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Some shared stages. Some made records and films together. Some had love affairs. Matt Thorne is fascinated by stars’ collaborations and what they reveal about them. He talks here about 14 musicians who collided and the discoveries he made in the six years spent writing ‘Famous: Ego, Envy and Ambition in Pop, Rock and Hip-Hip’, with all this high in the mix …   … Frank Sinatra’s ‘Welcome Home Elvis’ TV Special and how threatened he felt by rock’n’roll   … “Chuck Berry thrived on tension in exactly the way Mark E Smith controlled the Fall”   … what you’ll find in Lou Reed’s archive at New York’s Library for the Performing Arts   … McCartney at “the showbiz event of the year”, January 1968, at a rare low ebb in the Beatles’ fortunes   … the mystifying One Trick Pony where Paul Simon inexplicably chose to play a failure, and his comic turn on Saturday Night Live   … Bowie’s and Tina Turner’s TV ad and love affair   … what Chuck Berry tried to hide about his studio trickery and the “psychological terrorism” of what played on his TV sets   … “all musicians are obsessed with the idea that they’re on the way out”   … why a book like this would have been impossible 30 years ago   … and Dave Stewart’s vision of Lou Reed as a piece of pasta on a motorcycle.   Order copies of ‘Famous: Ego, Envy and Ambition in Pop, Rock and Hip-Hip’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/famous/matt-thorne/9781474616386 Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul Rees fell in love with AOR when it began with Boston in 1976, the polished, ramped-up hits that were briefly the music of the American heartland. His book ‘Raised On Radio: Power Ballads, Cocaine & Payola – the AOR Glory Years 1976-1986’ remembers the age when records were launched via car stereos, their eternally appealing sound and the preposterous lives of the people who wrote and played them – Bon Jovi, Pat Benatar, Asia, REO Speedwagon, Don Henley and Toto among them. “It’s happy music,” he points out. “Music that makes you raise a quizzical eyebrow.” In the mix …   … the original AOR sound: “Led Zeppelin hard rock with Eagles harmonies and a stratospheric high-tenor voca|”   … the absolute power of producers like Mutt Lange (a man raised on radio jingles)   … Pat Benatar, the former married bank clerk who wanted to be Robert Plant in a leotard   … “AOR stars were all salesmen who talked in quotes”   ... the many reasons Don Henley fired people on a whim    … Def Leppard’s vision of America built on AOR and cowboy movies   … “Chicago and the Tubes never played on their records”   … “he ended up butterball-naked in a cocaine threesome sting with two disguised police women”   … the producer who had his trout pond realigned as he couldn’t work looking at a garden that wasn’t symmetrical   … the story of Toto’s Africa: “tape loops strung round chair-backs and a quick flick through a geography book”   … “if this record’s a hit I’ll run naked down Sunset Boulevard”.   Order a copy of ‘Raised On Radio: Power Ballads, Cocaine & Payola – the AOR Glory Years 1976-1986’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Raised-Radio-Paul-Rees/dp/1408721112   Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After 40 days of relentless rain, you need our little ray of sunshine. And here we all are! Sitting in the rock’n’roll rainbow this week you’ll find …   ... the Wuthering Heights instagram gold-rush   … licensing Foreigner and Lynyrd Skynyrd: when is a band not a band?   .. what Michael Jackson asked the Superbowl promoter   … one long video for Charli XCX: “if that film was playing in my back garden I’d draw the curtains”   … Bob Dylan & Kurtis Blow, Kate Winslet & ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic: a brief history of weird duets   … a walk-on forest, 300 extras, 29 hidden messages: how can you top Bad Bunny? (“Disgusting!” – D Trump)   … what a 1969 Rock Encylopedia said about “the poets and minstrels of our time”   … “biopics are designed for people who don’t know the subject”   ... Paul Anka did Smells Like Teen Spirit? The Flaming Lips did Kylie Minogue?   … whippets, flat caps, bottles of stout: begone hoary old Yorkshire clichés!   … “that’s the biggest power station in Western Europe – and I know the manager!”: our love for Alan Bennett    … plus Top Gear, M*A*S*H, Twins Peaks, Arena (by Brian Eno) and birthday guest Paul Monaghan on great TV theme tunes. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Andy Bown found the 20 year-old recordings of “a deep-space love story” he’d written with the sci-fi author Russell Hoban and he’s just reworked and released them. He talks to us here about “Out There” and life in the Herd, Judas Jump and Status Quo, which involves …   … playing the Three Tuns in Beckenham with Bowie   … “Foot gun, gun foot. I always tell the truth.”   … Peter Frampton when he was The Face of ‘68   … “we were earning £225 a night and got £15 a week. Where did the money go?”   … Quo’s Whatever You Want and how co-writing works     … David’s memories of the Herd supporting Chuck Berry in 1968   … opening for Hendrix at Saville Theatre, eight feet from his flaming guitar: “you could feel the heat”   … Judas Jump, Don Arden, the huge advance and the “appalling” album   … sessions with Jerry Lee Lewis who played the solo with his foot    … early days in Status Quo when he played behind a curtain and how they got to be Live Aid’s opening act   … “You’d think John Fogerty would be pleased about Rockin’ All Over The World. Au contraire!”   Order ‘Out There: A Deep-Space Love Story’ here: https://andybown.com/ Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The album has had 25 years of being hammered by other formats – Napster, iTunes, Spotify, TikTok – and not only survived but thrived. For Keith Jopling it’s the irreplaceable way to hear music and to measure the people who make it. His new book Body Of Work celebrates its battle-scarred trajectory from the beating heart of pop culture to 21st Century affordable luxury, and stops off at …   … growing up in the age of cassettes   … his lifelong devotion to a Police album left on his doorstep   … Adele’s battle with Spotify to get records played in sequence   … how albums are how you calibrate a career, from the Beatles to Taylor Swift   … has anyone ever loved a CD the way they love an album?   … how parents used to despair of their kids loafing in bedrooms listening to records but now try and persuade them to do it   … pictures of equipment: rock porn!   … the swingback to Listening Parties and analogue recording   … records as shining examples of the packaged goods business   … “we need to regain control of our attention”   … and the iTunes launch party and why Smashing Pumpkins thought they’d seen the future.   Order Body Of Work in the UK here: https://www.roughtrade.com/product/keith-jopling/body-of-work-how-the-album-outplayed-the-algorithm-and-survived-playlist-culture   And in the USA here: https://repeaterbooks.com/product/body-of-work-how-the-album-outplayed-the-algorithm-and-survived-playlist-culture/ Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unredacted exchanges about the rock and roll underworld this week highlight the following …   … real or made-up stars’ kids’ names: Speck Wildhorse? Blue Ivy? Everly Bear? Motorhead Michelob?   … man plays drum solo with his head!   … Olivia Dean, Lola Young, FKA Twigs: what do today’s ‘professionals’ learn at the BRIT School and what happened to the age of the amateurs?   … why Joni Mitchell’s life was even more extraordinary before she was famous   … Three Dog Night, Kiss, Grand Funk Railroad, Linda Ronstadt: American acts that never broke Britain   … rude, racy, naughty, delightful: our love of old pulp paperbacks     … “Go to your room, young lady, and play a Nick Drake album in its entirety!”   … and when Dandelion became Angela.   Plus birthday guest Paul Higham and why most stars’ stories need a lively biographer. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bowie’s early years have been scrutinised repeatedly but people tend to speed through the last act, from the early ‘90s to his death in 2016. Alexander Larman’s ‘Lazarus: The Second Coming Of David Bowie’ looks at his resurrection and the mystery of his final days in Manhattan in attractively honest detail, a book that’s as fondly critical of his artistic decisions as it’s celebratory. Under discussion here …   … ‘David Bowie was a fictional invention and much of his life an act’   … how wrong so many album reviews turned out to be   … “he liked to be liked and he put a lot of effort into being liked”   … Eno, Tony Visconti, Nile Rodgers, Pet Shop Boys and his endless search for collaborators   … the Lucian Freud incident at the Dorchester   … Scott Walker’s taped message: “I see God in the window”   ... “he trusted in the idea he was a genius”   … the sharp contrast been his public image and private life   … how his Lord’s Prayer at the Freddie Mercury tribute was a deliberate attempt to steal the show   … the piercing question Tin Machine were asked on ‘Wogan’   … and the struggle to find anything sincere in his interviews.   Order ‘Lazarus’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lazarus-Second-Coming-David-Bowie/dp/1917923449 Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Sinclair was a long-running rock critic for the Times, Rolling Stone and many others and now makes records himself. He looks back here at some of the first bands he saw and the extraordinary people he interviewed, which touches on …   … the day Bowie took him to the Hammersmith Odeon to stand on the spot where he announced his retirement   … Keith Richards’ dark side (and what he said about Lady Di)   … interviewing Prince “who seemed like a shadow”   … seeing Free in 1970: “I still think about it. Some bands are like footprints in fresh snow”   … Hendrix on a bill with Cat Stevens and the Walker Brothers when he was 14   … singles he wore out in the days when you had to change the needle   … his theory about the lyrics of Crossroads   … “the Simon Templar of rock journalism”   … the purgatory of being a serious musician when Spotify adds 100,000 new tracks a day   … and the Shadows, the Scorpions, Sting, ZZ Top, David Coverdale and … Millstone Grit.   David Sinclair’s music here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4oMczlXHj1pt6M4ZNGR14E?si=_9Dx_G_UQ3GifCFGFra07A   To buy here: https://www.davidsinclairfour.com/shop   Tickets to the 100 Club, May19: https://www.solidentertainments.com/100club/index.html Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A bone-shaking ride on the weekly news cycle, stopping off here to pump up the tyres ….   … Springsteen’s Streets Of Minneapolis: it’s not what he said but the fact that he’s said it     … “they’re all just Sly & Robbie records but with someone different singing on them”   … the price of stadium tickets: if it’s too high, don’t go – but stop complaining!   … Catherine O’Hara’s wit and humanity in Waiting For Guffman and A Mighty Wind, and why Home Alone wouldn’t work without her   … Melania’s deal with Amazon: the most craven act in the history of entertainment?   … is Mick Jones the first cousin of a Tory Home Secretary?   … the secret art of “four-walling”   … are most fans conservative with a small ‘c’?   … the romance of knackered old ‘70s New York: “the cheap pleasures have gone”   … and the whitest rap of all time!   Plus birthday guest Roger Millington and the agony of a band’s “new direction”. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Adele Bertei got a Greyhound to New York in 1977 intent on joining a band. James Chance thought she “looked like a pimp” and hired her as the organist in the Contortions, an instrument she couldn’t play. Her memoir No New York captures the most intoxicating times imaginable, the rise of Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, Madonna and her fellow raft of No Wave cheerleaders in pursuit of dismantling music. Highlights include …   … the local priest recommending the Velvet Underground when she was 11   … “imbibe and dream”: her weekend with Lester Bangs   … the rubble-filled New York wasteland of 1977, landlords setting fire to property just to claim the insurance   … the No Wave circuit: crowd violence and singers who either talked or screamed     .. her rivalry with Madonna: “our labels didn’t want people to know we were white”   … the local Cleveland “Rust Belt” - Pere Ubu, Chrissie Hynde, Devo   … why Warhol, Ginsberg and Burroughs seemed laughably outmoded   … Brian Eno’s shopping list   … the power of Tina Weymouth, Patti Smith and Debbie Harry (“sexy but with a snarl”) and why New York’s venues are internationally mythical.   Order Adele Bertei’s ‘No New York’ here: https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571386154-no-new-york/?srsltid=AfmBOor2IKVLRyzzZDisLz_8cTGDYIjDXphZVU9Lw5drAd4CdKR1KVhs   Adele with Thomas Dolby on Whistle Test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ3bGioFCXU Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Steve Lillywhite first got a foot in the studio door aged 17 making demos for Ultravox and became a producer with credits on over 500 records. He doesn’t have a copy of any of them but kept his Grammys and his CBE. The job involves being a lightning-rod, cheer-leader, editor, finisher and “as diplomatic as Henry Kissinger”. He looks back here from his ‘Lillypad’ in Bali at the milestones along the way, among them …   … “I’d done my 10,000 hours by the age of 22”   ... “If it ain’t broke, break it!”   … when he screwed up as a tape-op: “you only do it once”   … why bands never want to leave the studio   … breakthrough hits with Johnny Thunders, Siouxsie and the Psychedelic Furs   … “there’s been no new technology in the last ten years”   … the radio plugger who heard Sunday Bloody Sunday and said “sounds like a hit but you’ll have to lose the word Bloody”   … “when Mick and Keith weren’t talking they communicated through me”   … why Muff Winwood wanted to fire Larry Mullen   … why producers can’t hear a hit     … Adam Clayton and Nick Rhodes “aren’t musicians”   … “make the drums less Huntley & Palmers!”   … the Wrecking Crew versus the “One-Man Show" production of today    … and memories of making Vertigo, Fairytale of New York and Making Plans for Nigel. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scanning the baggage carousel of news to see what sets off the alarm, which this week involves …     … Springsteen: why is America’s most American American so quiet about his President on home turf?   … the Seven Ages of Nepo: in defence of Julian Lennon, Joe Sumner and Brooklyn Beckham    … the Robbie Williams story that gets our goat … why do half the UK music venues make no profit?   … the onstage ‘act’ that did 104 minutes non-stop … pre-testing EDM singles on the dancefloor   … Four Boys in the Wind! What A Night That Day Was! - foreign editions of A Hard Day’s Night   … in praise of the Latin Playboys   … the mid-‘60s mystery album that outsold the Beatles   … and we name the root of all ills in popular music! Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Fairport tour again in 2026 and are playing their annual Cropredy Convention in August, its 50th year. The rolling Kent landscape behind him, co-founder Simon Nicol looks back at almost six decades in the line-up, the first shows he ever saw and played, why he can’t wait to get back on the tour bus again, and …     … the intoxication of live music – “lost in a moment that’s never happened before and won’t be repeated”   … Count Basie at the Astoria, aged 7 – “the moulded Turkish ottomans! The massed ranks of brass!”   … December 4 1972, the day he left the band (and why)   … “we’ve been self-governing since we were kicked out in 1979”   … the Ravens in Muswell Hill the night they became the Kinks: “frock coats and hunting boots”   … Professor Bruce Lacey, the mad scientist-inventor celebrated in a Fairport song   … Ashley Hutchings’ Little Black Book where band line-ups were assembled: “like an executive chef who chose the ingredients but didn’t wash up”   … playing Mississippi Fred McDowell and country blues in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra   … narrative songs and the “shoulders-down” rhythms on Music From Big Pink and how Fairport found their identity   … finding obscure Phil Ochs, David Ackles and Joni Mitchell songs for early Fairport   … and the first Cropredy in the village hall in 1976: you can still arrive by barge!   Fairport Convention tour tickets here: https://www.fairportconvention.com/gigs-tours/   Cropredy 2026 tickets here: https://www.fairportconvention.com/tickets/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Miles Hunt is on tour in 2026 – solo, with Vent 414 and the Wonder Stuff - and looks back here at his 40 years on stage, which involves …   … stifling hecklers the John Lydon way: “the exits are clearly marked!”   … what percussion does to your ears   … “when a tout’s selling your £3 ticket for £50 you know you’ve made it!”   … keytars, flat drums, guitars without headstocks: things that are JUST PLAIN WRONG!   … seeing Slade at Birmingham Town Hall when he was 10   … why the Size Of A Cow was “the moment a lot of our audience thought we’d sold out”   … Hunter S Thompson, Charles Bukowski: books that work on a tour bus   … when drummers ‘cramp up’   … and why he won’t perform Dizzy with Vic Reeves.   Order Miles Hunt and Wonder Stuff tickets here: https://thewonderstuff.co.uk/tour/ Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake is being reissued on Kenney Jones’ Nice Records, along with unheard outtakes discovered when the original master was found in one of his battered old drum cases. He talks to us here – with the compiler Rob Caiger – about the chaotic construction of the Small Faces’ 1968 masterpiece and his mission to “carry on the legacy”. Are you all sitting comftybold two-square on your botty? Then we’ll begin. Among the highlights …   … the Thames boating accident that inspired the album   … booking Stanley Unwin when Spike Milligan turned them down – and the day Stanley invented ‘Unwinese’   … insomniac days in the band’s Westmoreland Terrace flat   … the value of Marriott’s stage school background: “he could always ham things up”   … hidden treasures on the original tape – “you hear Steve and Ronnie talking”   … the magic of that fragile tobacco-tin artwork   … possession is nine-tenths of the law!   … Marriott’s wall-banging Chiswick neighbours that inspired Lazy Sunday   … “I’m the only one left and want to carry on the legacy”   … other lost Immediate sessions to be released on Nice Records   Order the Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake expanded 3CD set here, direct from Kenney’s Nice Records imprint: https://www.nicerecords.co.uk/collections/ogdens-nut-gone-flake Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A tie-dyed-in-the-wool rock & roll space odyssey to infinity and beyond which stops off this week at …   … why the Dead’s music was “like lighting a match in the wind”   … Ha Ha Harlem! Rebels Without Applause! – Morrissey song or Lenny Bruce comic routine?   … Sting v Sumner & Copeland and what Every Breath You Take makes daily just from streaming   … is Oasis “the biggest exchange of money for old rope in the history of commerce?”   … rock stars in shorts   … John Hartford and his Willie Nelson Sliding Doors moment   … how Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions became the most hi-tech band on the planet   … Rock ‘babes’ in the Bob Weir mould – eg Michael Clarke of the Byrds, Evan Dando and Mark Gardener from Ride   … has anyone made more by doing less than JJ Burnel on Golden Brown?   ... plus Warren Zevon song titles, Mary Coughlan in a coracle and the first records we reviewed for money. Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Steve Cradock’s touring with Ocean Colour Scene in 2026 and in his own show, Travellers Tunes, with his wife and son Steve – “we’re like the Von Trapps!” This highly original night involves them “living like gypsies in the spirit of Ronnie Lane”. He looks back here, from his psychedelic Mod-shrine converted garage in Totnes, at the first shows he ever saw and played, which touches on …   …seeing UB40 at Birmingham Odeon, aged 13 – “I was bruised for days”   … an after-school Duran Duran video shoot   … “three 45-minute sets a night”: doing J Geils Band and Lennon covers pre-Bingo in working men’s clubs, aged 15   … playing Scooter Rallies in Gorleston-on-Sea in pilled-up homage to the Purple Hearts, the Jam and Secret Affair   … the imperishable sound of the early Small Faces – “the tone, the feedback, Plonk smashing his bass”   … an intense love of Northern Soul, Soft Cell, the Pretenders, Costello and the La’s   … the Stones Roses, “the most important show I ever saw – the hair, the clothes, the songs, the guitars”    … supporting Oasis at Knebworth   … “musicians’ books bore me”   …. three days in a pub with Chris Evans and regrets about “the double-edged sword” of the Riverboat Song on TGI Friday   … and Paul Weller with love beads   Buy Steve Cradock tickets here: https://www.stevecradock.com/tour/ Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mary Coughlan – aka “Ireland’s Billie Holiday”, adored by Nick Cave, Shane MacGowan and Elvis Costello - is on tour again in 2026. This warm, funny and circuitous conversation looks back from her home in Wicklow at the first shows she ever saw and played and various milestones along the road, among them …   … singing Two Little Orphans (aged 5) at a Christmas party: “The adrenaline rush! Applause and lemonade!”   … escaping down ladders from school to see Rory Gallagher in Galway and the nuns waiting when she returned   … seeing Donovan on the Aran Islands in 1969, a trip from the mainland by currach   … meeting Mike Stoller and re-recording Peggy Lee’s savaged Mirrors album: “more relevant now than ever” … Elton John (dressed as a hornet) at Watford Stadium and the embroidered floral skirt she’d made to watch him   … her love of cabaret and old 78s and the songs she and Erik Visser chose to launch her career   … her transformative slot on the Late Late Show in 1984: “I played to four people the night before; a week later they were queuing round the block”   … Frank Sinatra’s mysterious autocue and sitting next to Roger Moore in his audience (“very orange”)   … “I adored St Dominic’s Preview and 15 years later Van Morrison was in my dressing-room”   … her cure for insomnia   … why Joe Strummer meant so much to her   … and her 200-song live repertoire – from Meet Me Where They Play The Blues and Don’t Smoke In Bed to Love Will Tear Us Apart.   Order Mary Coughlan tickets here: https://www.marycoughlan.ie/upcoming-shows Help us keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘January,’ a revered pop lyricist once wrote, ‘sick and tired you've been hanging on me.’ And if that’s the mood down your way, this might help crank up the heat, alighting as it does upon the following …    … Guns N’Roses and the imperial age of the pop video: director Nigel Dick remembers the $750,000 budget   … ‘lost elfin Scots superstar’: missing Incredible String Band member found after 40 years!   … comparing the original West End Girls to the re-made worldwide hit: “like a Top Of The Pops album doing the same song”   … the three ages of Bowie and why he’s becoming a religious cult   … gangster-wall-papering the Melody Maker office as an Ian Dury promo stunt   ... the magic of stars’ childhood bedrooms   … “he’s got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin”: Star Wars in a nutshell   … Tales of Brave Ulysses: psychedelia in under three minutes   …. and has there ever been a fictional band as convincing as McGwyer Mortimer?   Andy Miller on Licorice McKecknie here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/incredible-band-146577648   Nigel Dick’s wonderful video for God Only Knows here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXhEkug1G-Q Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cartwheeling into 2026 with the usual cast of rock and roll heroes and pantomime villains. Behind you this week you’ll find …   … Boy George? Rick Wakeman? Chas Smash? Vanilla Ice? Pop stars who’ve done panto   … will there ever be another Rock Knighthood?   … Dylan, Elton, Chrissie Hynde and Lil Wayne mention Brigitte Bardot in songs: but who’s seen any of her films?   … “the Brigitte Bardot idea of beauty was conceived at the same time as the idea of rock and roll”   … Chris Rea’s obsession with Miles Davis – and the tale of Benny Santini   … Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ and ‘Hello’ by the Beloved and their roll calls of saints and sinners    … David saw Bob Marley at the Lyceum but now thinks he’s seen a show that was even better   … the great attraction of cinema is “our furtive dreams in the dark”   … what Van Morrison owes Hugh McCracken for the intro to Brown-Eyed Girl   … and birthday guest Andrew Slattery’s Hepworth v Ellen SmashWaddy reviews quiz! Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Hammill has spent nearly six decades building the most devoted following imaginable – Bowie, Peter Gabriel and Mark E Smith among them. ‘Rock And Role’ tells his invigorating story, beautifully illustrated with photos, cuttings, artwork and memorabilia. Author Joe Banks looks back at his life, impact and captivating way with words, and stops off at …    … the value of looks and charisma in the days when labels hadn’t the faintest idea of the future   … how Hammill “created a world to live inside and broadcast from”   … psychedelic cabaret with wolf masks and blood capsules   … meeting Hammill’s muse and former girlfriend Alice: “50 years later, each still think the other one left them”   … “songs that ask the big questions about life”   … discovering VDGG in 1984 (via Marillion) and piecing together their story in the days before the internet   … public school, Gilbert & Sullivan and the Hallelujah Chorus   … the influence of A Plague of Lighthouse Keepers on Genesis’ Supper’s Ready   … his plans with Mark E Smith and how Bowie had every new album delivered to him all his life   … Charisma, Tony Stratton-Smith and the freedom to experiment  … the intensity of his following in Japan and Italy: “there’s no such thing as a casual Hammill fan”.   Order ‘Rock And Role’ here: https://burningshed.com/store/kingmaker Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Deck the halls with cheese and Bolly! … and a dish of the usual rock and roll distraction which this week throws the following logs on the fire …   … the greatest Xmas single ever?   … Metal Machine Music, Cut the Crap, Two Sides of the Moon … can panned records ever be rehabilitated?   … how Roxy Music invented ‘rock brand-value’ and turned it into pictures   … Joe Ely and the romance of songs about the American landscape   … Rob Reiner and why that scene in When Harry Met Sally is the greatest marriage of people and ideas   … the real-life moment that inspired Spinal Tap   … “most American pop music is about geography”   … "I keep my fingernails long so they click when I play the piano"   … Jordan Carl Wheeler Davis? Michael Holbrook Penniman Jr? Mystery acts playing Wembley Arena   … the British think America is “fabulous and otherworldly”. Americans think Britain is “quaint”   … plus the magnificent McGarrigles’ Christmas Hour, farewell Hofner and we name the Finnegan’s Wake of rock music! Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com.wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Beloved Australian songwriter Paul Kelly has just turned 70 – “it sounds Biblical, threescore years and ten.” He looks back here at the road he took to get there, from early days in Adelaide to the pub circuit to his catalogue of stirring and eloquent songs about the big issues of life and love, as Neil Finn says, “with not a trace of pretence or fakery”. You’ll find …   … the moment he felt he’d arrived   … the story of How To Make Gravy – “a Christmas song with no chorus about a man in prison” – and Rita Wrote A Letter, its ghostly sequel   … early records he loved – Tommy Roe, Peter Paul & Mary, Yes, Deep Purple, Frank Zappa, the “chaotic” Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong   … life on the Melbourne pub circuit playing Neil Young, Gram Parsons and Hank Williams   … touring with Leonard Cohen – “a masterclass in performance, like a prayer, a ritual, like a Vaudevillian Rabbi”   .. the storytelling songs of the Stanley Brothers, the Louvin Brothers and Buck Owens   ... the great Calypso cricket tradition and the track he wrote about Shane Warne   … “the odd-sock drawer”: the file in his computer where he stores early sketches   … I’m In Love With A Blue Frog, the five chords that underpinned 50 years of songwriting!   … the intricacy of Neil Finn’s impressionistic lyrics   … and the things you hear in your songs when someone else sings them.   Order Paul Kelly’s ‘Seventy’ here: https://paulkelly.lnk.to/seventy Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lucinda Williams was a teenage activist singing We Shall Overcome at protest marches and she’s taken up the cudgels again on her new album World’s Gone Wrong. She talks to us here from her home in Nashville about …   … early inspirations - Dylan, Donovan, Joan Baez, Peter Paul & Mary, Buffy Sainte-Marie – and her love of Sandy Denny, Bert Jansch, Nick Drake and ‘60s British folk   … playing Delta blues for tips at Andy’s in Bourbon Street in 1971   … her sudden favourite Beatle switch – “Paul … then George!”   … her Dad’s Ray Charles and Hank Williams records   … seeing jazz pianist Sweet Emma Barrett in Preservation Hall in the ‘60s and Hendrix at a New Orleans sports arena   … the effect of her stroke in 2020 and having to re-learn the guitar – “I tend to write in G now as it’s the easiest chord to play”   … the allure of medieval murder ballads, “far too dark” for most Americans   ... songs she always plays live (one by Neil Young)   … finding her tribe in Nashville – “when I arrived people asked, ‘What church do you go to?’ not ‘Do you go to church’?”   … being “a quarter Welsh”   … and the song she wrote about her president in 2018 – 'We have slow-danced with the devil/ We have swallowed the liquid of his lies’ - and the new version she’s just recorded.   2026 tickets here: https://www.lucindawilliams.com/tour   Order World’s Gone Wrong here: https://30tgrs.ffm.to/worldsgonewrong Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shock, horror, public outcry and moments of moral turpitude plus with the usual news, rants and old hokum, which this week alights upon …   … why Gene Simmons thinks “musicians are treated worse than slaves”   ... the high noon of Madonna and her foil-wrapped Sex book   … is Rufus Wainwright pop’s most successful nepo-baby?   … how CMAT forced Bertie Ahern to pull out of the Irish Presidency   … the Stackwaddy Quiz: If I Had Legs I’d Kick You? Getting Killed? Sinister Grift? Pitchfork Album of the Year or an entry in the Berlin Film Festival?   … from Mods & Rockers to illegal raves: pop scandals that hit the headlines   … can we blame Gap for the moment kids started to dress the same?   … was the death of Top Of The Pops the end of the pop consensus?   … Fela Kuta, arrested 200 times   … Jackson Browne, “never far from tragedy”   … is ‘70s funk and soul the best driving music?   … 42 year-old hears Hejira and the Stooges’ Metallic KO for the first time   … plus Tetsu Yamauchi RIP, David Sylvian in a converted ashram in New Hampshire and birthday guest Sandra Austin.   CMAT’s Euro-Country (which skewered Bertie Ahern): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nz8_HxITJF0&list=RDnz8_HxITJF0&start_radio=1   Dave Brubeck ‘playing’ Golden Brown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qs1J612nZs Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What’s the word ‘punk’ come to mean 50 years later? It’s been adopted by the very people it sought to unsettle. Chris Sullivan – DJ, club runner, lecturer, former band-leader – arrived in London just as it kicked off and looks back at a time when everything was a challenge, no-one apologised, outsiders linked up and fought for recognition, and pop culture could change overnight. We talk to him here about ‘Punk: the Last Word’ which traces its roots from Socrates to Soho, touching on…   … does ‘punk’ now mean conformity?   … is pop music still allowed to be outrageous?   … Socrates, Rimbaud, Lee Miller, the Warhol superstars: 2,000 years of people who embody the punk philosophy   … how the clothes often precede the music   … the 1975 pre-Pistols world – “people dressing as teddy boys, Marilyn Monroe, Cary Grant, records by Patti Smith, the Velvets, MC5”   … the days when you were attacked for dressing up, in his case by the Newport Rugby team and a guy with a starting handle at a service station   ... new punk equivalents emerging in 2025   … how the spirit of punk gave people a drive and identity – Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst, Jonathan Ross, John Galliano    … “I threw a policeman through a plate-glass window”   Order ‘Punk: the Last Word’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/punk/stephen-colegrave/chris-sullivan/9781915841254 Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

UK Subs formed in 1976 when Charlie Harper was 32. They’ve had over 80 members, some of whom he can’t remember. They never split up and are touring in 2026 to celebrate his 82nd birthday. “I vowed I’d keep playing as long at the Stones - which I’m now starting to regret!” After 50 years on the punk frontline, he’s the first to see the humour in going deaf and “having to have the occasional sit-down”. This fond and honest conversation looks back at …   … seeing the Stones at Ken Colyers’ jazz club and drinking with them in the Porcupine   … making £4 a day – “a fortune” – playing tube stations in 1964: “ex-buskers never get stagefright”    … “dreadlocks, Afros, convoy cuts” – confessions of a teenage hairdresser   … what he learnt from Joe Strummer and the 101-ers   … his punk epiphany: seeing the Damned at the Roxy in 1976   … playing France’s Hellfest to 30,000 people and why the spirit of ‘77 still burns on the West Coast   … famous fans: Guns N’Roses, Hanoi Rocks, Dinosaur Jnr   … the UK Subs’ run-in with US Immigration   … skiffle, Jesse Fuller, Woody Guthrie, Big Bill Broonzy, Donovan and mid-‘70s R&B   …the onstage rigours of getting old: “I don’t get adrenaline anymore and have to have the occasional sit-down!”   … Where Did I Leave My Glasses? Why Did I Come Upstairs? – our fantasy tracks for the senior citizen!   Order UK Subs tickets here: https://ww.uksubstimeandmatter.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16899&Itemid=161 Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The boys of the NYPD choir are still singing Galway Bay, so pour yourself a measure of the Rare Old Mountain Dew and warm your toes on the following …   … Steve Lillywhite (in Bali!) remembers making Fairytale Of New York and how “a fiery redhead” kicked the Chrissie Hynde duet into touch   … the most recent singer-songwriter you could call “a ledge”?   … records we loved in our 20s but now feel a bit embarrassing     … “discipline and economy, tension and release”: the immortal twangs and tweaks of Steve Cropper and how the MGs redefined the idea of a great record   … Green Onions, I Thank You by Sam & Dave and the white heat of Otis Blue’s 24-hour recording   ... Tim Buckley’s Greatest Misses   ... performative listening: the exquisite awkwardness of the album playback!   … the link between Imogen Heap and the Hissing of Summer Lawns   … Jon Bon Jovi’s version of Fairytale – “so bad they had to turn the YouTube comments off!”   … plus Gram Parsons, the cult of the Blues Brothers, the Monochrome Set and a quiz from birthday guest Peter Petyt: spot the Hepworth/Ellen reviews of yesteryear!   The new live version of Fairytale of New York: http://pogues.lnk.to/FONYLiveGlasgow1987   Josh Smith demonstrating Steve Cropper’s guitar parts: https://youtu.be/LJEIwggKAsg?si=29weA4tBQE6ccj1- Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 1963, Capitol Records considered the Beatles “a band who looked and sounded weird with an odd name and no leader” and refused to release their records in America, despite being owned by EMI. As author Andrew Cook points out, “the truth is stranger than fiction”. New correspondence unearthed in his fascinating Capitol Gains maps out the tortuous wranglings of the deal-makers and “pantomime bad guys” behind the greatest and most successful marketing hype in history, all jockeying to take credit and manage their reputations. Some highlights here …   … the truth behind Epstein’s mythical phone calls   … “the more successful the Beatles were, the more Capitol were proving themselves wrong”   … why 1966 was the band’s “Last Supper”   … “from the Battle of Hastings to World War 2 to the Beatles ... it’s the winners who rewrite history”   … the American 12-track rule and how they repackaged product “to give it more grab”   … the Beatles’ commercial fate if they’d never been successful in the States   … the pitiful (standard) original EMI deal – “18.75 of a penny per group member for every album”   … the “Butcher sleeve”: how 750,000 were printed and the fortune lost in “Operation Retrieve”. And the Capitol exec whose kids made $1.5m from copies stashed in his garage   … how Epstein was contracted to make 25 per cent of all Beatles monies ‘til 1975    … Bob Dylan’s tangential role in the signing of the Beatles to Capitol   … and the “cowboy film” that nearly happened.   Order Capitol Gains here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Capitol-Gains-Beatles-Conquered-America/dp/1803997281 Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Glorious news! The Undertones, dependable symbols of eternal youth, are setting out on a 50th anniversary tour in 2026, still playing Teenage Kicks and Here Comes the Summer in their mid-60s. Damian O’Neill joined when he was 14 and can’t believe it either. He looks back here at …   … their first gig in a scout hall - “Feargal was a Scout leader!” - and their second for 1,000 schoolkids at St Joseph’s in Derry   … the world-wide appeal of their Irish identity and why “America never got us”   … David’s memories of interviewing them for Smash Hits in 1979 the day they thought “we’re finished”   ... “We were anti-pretension!”   … seeing Horslips, Rory Gallagher, the Blockheads, Eddie & the Hot Rods and the Lurkers   … joining the band at 14 and playing Beatles, Stones, Them, Cream and Dr Feelgood covers   … parkas, Millets jeans and the Derry boot-boy look. “If you dressed up in those days you ran the risk of getting your head kicked in”    … being in the band’s HQ the night Peel played Teenage Kicks twice in a row   … songs about “love and lack of love” – and girls and chocolate   … how it feels to be on Top Of The Pops and then watch your single go down the charts   … their first visit to a studio (Wizard in Belfast) and self-producing Teenage Kicks with just an engineer – and still playing it in your mid-60s   … and a heartfelt apology to the people of Blackburn!   Order tickets for the Undertones 50th Anniversary tour here: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/the-undertones-tickets/artist/959984 Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Twenty pounds of headlines plus rants, theories and the odd slice of old hokum: served hot. Which this week involves …   … Jimmy Cliff and how his versatility worked against him   … the Conjuror? Eyeball Tickler? The Concert in the Egg? Hieronymus Bosch painting or late-period Oasis B-side?   … Motown, Jacksons, Beatles, Chili Peppers? What’s the greatest bassline on record?   … what you notice watching the new Beatles’ Anthology 4   ... why the leading edge of novelty is the internet   … from Eddie Cochran to the Bonzos, Can, Hawkwind, Costello and Stone Roses: the pioneering life of label-boss Andrew Lauder   … when did it become impossible to date records by their sound? And when did they stop sounding like glorious accidents?   … Joan Armatrading? Carole King? Dido? Which singer-songwriters are legends?   … what’s “stuck culture”?   … is Tomorrow Never Knows the only one-chord wonder?   … the link between Good Times, Another One Bites the Dust and Rapper’s Delight   … whalebone corsets, butchers’ knives: Nick Cave and the art of 18th century lyric-writing   … “Graham Coxon was a trumpet player and plays the guitar like a trumpet!”   Plus birthday guest Kevin Walsh: which musicians are freaks and which cheerleaders?   Hear Wilton Felder’s isolated bass on the Jackson 5’s’ I Want You Back’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z91l_lPz1oc Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Boo Hewerdine, beloved singer-songwriter, has been onstage for 40 years in venues of every type, shape and size. He thinks of himself as a “tradesman”, a world that’s immensely satisfying but a tough call. This very funny, poignant podcast paints a vivid picture of the best and worst of times. Which include …   … playing scout huts, libraries, churches, folk clubs and the Palladium   … the world’s best dressing-room (it’s in Stroud) and worst venue (Pittsburgh)   … “the engine inside you that makes you want to be onstage”   … places that only suit “a lute being played with a feather”    … a home birthday show with no audience and the chilling lyrics of Chris Difford’s ‘Round The Houses’   … the joy of writing for commission   … seeing Dr Feelgood in 1975   … what’s satisfying what gives you pause for thought   … the brilliant Ballad Of Wallis Island, streaky bacon as a bookmark and the kind of Travelodge with a bottle-opener attached to the desk.   All things Boo: https://boohewerdine.com / @boohewerdine   ‘Things Found In Books’: https://yvonnelyon.bandcamp.com/album/things-found-in-books Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

News, rants, theories and curios which this week includes ….   … how Mani made the Stone Roses swing   … Mick & Keith, Meg & Jack, Hall & Oates, Neil & Chris … ‘Sliding Doors’ encounters that changed the landscape   … the glorious sound of profanity on records!   … what makes you a legend in county music?   … the subtle genius of Nicky Hopkins’ session work   .. would Elvis have happened without Marion Keisker?   … Willie Nelson – “a face like Mount Rushmore, a voice like the whole hinterland of America”   … ever catch yourself listening to something and think ‘how would I explain this to an observer?’   … the music you hear when 14 stays with you all your life   … the singles charts of 1978 – Terry Wogan next to John Otway! Arthur Mullard and the Stranglers! Nick Lowe and Ally’s Tartan Army!   … why Lucinda Williams is an open book   … when XTC went pastoral   … 42 year-old hears Clear Spot and Raw Power for the first time!   ... plus the Wrecking Crew, a Libertines Xmas sweater, birthday guest Dean Roderick and the time Emmylou Harris had two puddings.   Pig’s Boogie by the Jerry Garcia Band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd0357IsE9k Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Crispian Mills knew he’d be onstage as he’s from a “family of professional show-offs” but they begged him not to be an actor. He talks here about his extraordinary showbusiness childhood and the band that emerged from it full of psychedelia, echoes of the East and warm invitations to join the First Congregational Church of Eternal Love and Free Hugs. Along with …   … his mother Hayley Mills playing him Tubular Bells to get him to sleep - “profoundly scary”   … Roman Polanski’s ‘special’ Marlboro cigarettes when filming Tess in Brittany   … grandfather John Mills being “discovered” by Noel Coward in Singapore and memories of him playing Gershwin and Cole Porter on the piano   … “you need talent and hard work but nobody makes it without luck”   … what the record store hippie told him when he bought Deep Purple In Rock aged 12   … leather jacket, polka dot shirt, Brian Jones bowl haircut, My Bloody Valentine gig – “I’d found my tribe!”   … supporting Oasis at Knebworth – “I couldn’t see how they were going to cut it”   … Adam and the Ants, Rock Me Amadeus and playing Ramones songs in the school band   … returning from Rishikesh in 1995 and watching the Beatles’ Super-8 clips: “as if we’d been on the same holiday”   … nostalgia for the big TV and radio events of the ‘90s   … Shirley Manson’s speech about the “tragedy” of the 21st C music business   … and Kula Shaker’s Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show – “oil slides, pure analogue!”   Tickets for their 2026 tour here: https://kulashaker.co.uk/pages/live Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“All bands are sad stories,” Peter Doggett points out, but is there a more woven, moving and, at times, farcical tale than that of the Beach Boys? It gives the sound of them a greater melancholy and resonance with every passing year. As his fascinating new book Surf’s Up reveals, nothing that happened is straightforward and very little as simple as it sounds. We talk here about …   … Dennis Wilson and the Beach Boys’ creation myth   … what started their revival   … why they’d never have survived beyond 1962 without Mike Love   … was Derek Taylor’s ‘Brian is a genius’ campaign partly to explain his procrastination and eccentricity?   … the chaos of SMiLE and the long shadow of the Beatles   … Murry Wilson’s “superstar” ambitions and original plan for the group   … the days when they looked like Old Testament prophets or hippies from Central Casting   … Dennis and Manson, Carl v the draft, Mike Love’s arrest … scandals that would have sunk them in the days of social media   … the “Brian as victim trope” and his extraordinary appearance on “The Tension Behind the Music”   … when Bart Simpson turned them down   … can anyone name a good Beach Boys album cover?   … and the band’s future, a controlled touring franchise with no original members   Order Peter Doggett’s ‘Surf’s Up: Brian Wilson & the Beach Boys’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Surfs-Up-Brian-Wilson-Beach/dp/1917923341 Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Five decades of rock and roll with none of the names redacted. In the despatches this week …   … Kevin Rowland? Adam Ant? Toyah? Morrissey? Which Smash Hits cover stars are now ‘legends’?   … a classic encounter with Van Morrison down a Bristol alley   … the boy who mailed dead rodents and Boomtown Rats singles to radio stations became Pope Leo XIV!   … 25 recent big-name Hollywood films all flopped. Are robots the new movie stars? … was Sticky Fingers the last Stones album with songs?   … best nights out for a tenner   … RIP Gilson Lavis and Donna Godchaux   ... the daft rituals of the ’70s ‘slow dance’   … when Percy Sledge was a hospital porter   … “Run for your life, it’s Eater!”   … Tom Waits’ on-brand luggage, Boo Hewerdine and birthday guest Mike Sketch on the joy of gigs on your own (and in a scout hut in Staveley). Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Musicians have flirted with Nazi imagery since the ‘60s, lampooning its theatre, absorbing its style, exploiting its shock value, even promoting its ideology. Daniel Rachel’s new book ‘This Ain’t Rock ‘N’ Roll’ points up extraordinary examples – “from Tommy Steele to Kanye West” - and how our reaction intensified over the years. Which leads us to …   … parallels between stadium rock and the Nuremberg rallies   … hearing the Sex Pistols’ Belsen Was A Gas and seeing their Nazi insignia at the age of 12   … David Bowie’s German memorabilia and belief that “Hitler was the first rock and roll superstar” – and the doctored photo of his “Nazi salute” at Victoria Station   … Bernie Rhodes versus Malcolm McLaren on the “reclaiming of the swastika”   … the lyrics and imagery of the Siouxsie & the Banshees   … Viv Stanshall and Keith Moon’s atrocious visit to Golders Green   ... the German invention of the tape machine that started the record business   … “I’m not the Simon Wiesenthal of rock and roll!”   … Joy Division, New Order, K-Pop, Brian Jones and his SS uniform, Ron Asheton of the Stooges, John Lennon, Lemmy, Blue Oyster Cult, “Adolf Hitler on vibes” … “Rock and Roll has a duty to recognise its downfalls”.   Order ‘This Ain’t Rock ‘N’ Roll: Pop Music, the Swastika and the Third Reich’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/this-aint-rock-n-roll/daniel-rachel/9781399635721 Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dan Jennings’ podcast ‘Desperately Seeking Paul’ is so successful he’s used 250 of the interviews in a best-selling oral history. ‘Dancing Through The Fire’ has voices from right across the spectrum – family members, band members, writers, pluggers, label bosses, collaborators and famous fans. He talks to us here about …   … Weller’s real name and when he changed it by deed poll   … a theory about bands formed in towns not cities   … the handbrake turn from the Jam to the Style Council – one minute the intense young man cutting out his press clippings, the next espadrilles, singing in French and “nibbling Mick’s ear on the River Cam”   … Weller’s “very English” need to be heard and respected - but not loved   … the role of his manager father in the Jam’s success, the days when the family phone number was in the Fan Club ads   ... how Noel Gallagher engineered a Bono/Weller photo op   … Paul’s glorious chippiness – Band Aid, the pop press, “offering a journalist out for a fight in Victoria Park”   ... John and Paul Weller and echoes of Only Fools And Horses   … when the Jam played ice rinks and swimming pools   … the cab-driver gossip grapevine   … cutting 1.5 million words to 250,000 and the book’s biggest revelations and surprises.   Order a copy of Dancing Through The Fire here: https://geni.us/dancingthroughthefire Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marking our dance card at the rock and roll hop this week you’ll find …   … And Then He Kissed Me, I Saw Her Standing There, Springsteen’s All The Way Home: songs about the theatre of dancing   … is there a more influential sleeve than Patti Smith’s Horses?   … did Dylan invent the box-set?   … records you wish you liked   … when the Beach Boys were so off the boil they covered Dylan and three by the Beatles   … when did we stop dancing in couples?   … Jagger queueing for a sandwich, Beckham in a farm shop, Lady Di in Holland Park and other stars we’ve spotted   … Brown Sugar, All Right Now and the daft etiquette of the late ‘60s dancefloor     … Like A Virgin: 42-year-old hears Stairway To Heaven for the first time!   … “Are you dancin’? Are you askin’? I’m askin’! I’m dancin’!   … plus George Faith, train songs, records you’ve not played for years, the anthem Zohran Mamdani was stopped from using, and birthday guest Giles Fraser on stars in unusual places. Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Bowie’s significance just keeps expanding and the look and sound of him never age. Paul Morley has been gripped from the start and his new book ‘Far Above The World’ explores the many reasons why. These among them …   … Labyrinth, YouTube and the new ways people discover Bowie   … why he’s a figurehead of a vanishing world   … dressing up for radio interviews   … his almost fatal relationship with America and the 1971 promo tour that was his ‘On The Road’   … Haddon Hall and his first key collaborators   … writing a book about Bowie in public as part of the V&A exhibition – “I was an art installation!”   … Five Years, the internet, the studio as an instrument and other ways he was ahead of the curve   … “his YouTube reels are now part of his catalogue”   … his boundless curiosity about art, film, books and technology   … that unforgettable clip of TFI Friday: “every interview was performance art”   … a missed chance on the Marc Bolan Show   … “music to repel the Dark Ages”   … and why his look and sound never age.   Order ‘Far Above The World: The Time And Space of David Bowie’ here: https://www.resident-music.com/product/morley-paul-far-above-the-world-the-time-and-space-of-david-bowie Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sam Sussman’s mother Fran had a year-long love affair with Dylan when he was working on Blood on the Tracks – she’s mentioned in Tangled Up In Blue – and they met again in 1990. What she told him about that relationship is mapped out in the book he’s just written, Boy From the North Country, along with the firm belief that he’s Dylan’s son. Imagine how that must feel. This extraordinary conversation takes a number of turns and these are among them …   … Norman Raeben’s art class where Dylan was trying break his creative block and met the 20-year old Fran Sussman     … details of their 12-month affair and how it ended: “he gave me love songs but not love”   … the verses of Tangled Up In Blue that relate to Fran and the philosophy, art and poetry woven into his songs at the time   … Dylan’s other women in 1974   … being told by a teacher that he looked like Dylan and how he’s played up that connection ever since   … how it feels to think you might have numerous Dylan siblings - and how many there might be(!)   … the kind of people Sam meets in his book-signing queues   ... and why his mother wouldn’t confirm who his father was.   Order copies of Boy From The North Country here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/boy-from-the-north-country/sam-sussman/9781804711286 Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tom Bailey’s been based in New Zealand for the last 30 years, making records, DJing and avoiding British winters. He tours the UK in 2026 playing the Thompson Twins’ greatest hits and looks back here from Auckland at the first shows he ever saw and played, all this high in the mix …   ... dance music and the British Invasion of America   … the inspiring delights of Some Kind Of Mushroom, his local record shop in Chesterfield   … seeing Blodwyn Pig, Edgar Broughton and Principal Edwards Magic Theatre when he was 15   … “bass players go to bed last”   … when his folk-rock band the Witching Hour supported Mick Farren & the Deviants - and promptly split up   … living in Clapham squats with members of the Pop Group and the Slits   … the Thompson Twins - from “the young angry white-boy funk” to the MTV trio with a policy statement    .. their manifesto and division of labour – “Tom Bailey music, Alannah Currie lyrics, Joe Leeway the live show”   … Live Aid with Madonna when the David Letterman house band became the Thompson Twins   … “a miraculous palette of sound”: how affordable technology changed his life   … and the extravagant talent of his all-female band.   Tickets for Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey & Blancmange 2026 Tour here: https://www.alttickets.com/thompson-twins-tom-bailey-tickets Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The raw ingredients of this week’s news gently diced, simmered and served as a nutritious broth. And flavoured with the following …   … why Lily Allen’s divorce album doubled the value of her house   … how can you play real living people as fundamentally bad after Steve Coogan’s ‘Lost King’ court case?   … the cowbell on Honky Tonk Women, the guiro on Gimme Shelter, the tambourine on classic Motown: Richard Pite gives a percussion demo   … Kraftwerk, 10cc, Coolio, George McCrae – more records that sound unique   … music used in movies to say ‘we’re flying East!’   … You Have Selected Regicide, Kill Wealthy Dowager: Morrissey song or line from the Simpsons?   … Woodbines, potted herrings, Paris buns: things we expect to find in Van Morrison’s soon-to-open childhood home   ... why it’s worth hearing Mishima by Philip Glass and John the Revelator by Son House   … the time Jack Ashford was flown across America just to add a tambourine   … people who found they had a famous father   … and Mick ‘Two Pairs of Maracas’ Jagger and what Eno predicted about I Feel Love. Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Morrissey and Marr both wrote memoirs but Mike Joyce hasn’t read either, preferring to publish ‘The Drums’, his version of one of the great success stories of the ‘80s, a book about “the beauty we’d given to people – and to ourselves”. At one point he and Andy Rourke shout, ‘Where did it all go right?”. He looks back here at …   … the fateful meeting in Geales fish bar when Johnny told them he was leaving – “none of us, not even Morrissey, saw it coming”   … the first Smiths rehearsal and impressions of “Steve” the singer   … how the songs were written - “we never asked what they meant”   … and how they were arranged: “I locked with Johnny like Charlie with Keith, and Andy played a bass song over the top”   ... memories of Johnny at X Clothes in Manchester and Morrissey in ‘82 - “funny, dark, so Manc”   … the “almost anti-punk” appeal of the Buzzcocks and the urge for a John Maher red Premier drumkit   … “Morrissey’s articulacy was both his strength and his Achilles heel”   … echoes of Motown and James Honeyman-Scott in Marr’s guitar   … “Singers need to feel they’re the most important person in the room”   … on-stage gladioli versus “the austerity of the Hacienda”   … and Morrissey today - “very angry” - and the legacy of the Smiths.     Order copies of ‘The Drums here: https://www.resident-music.com/product/joyce-mike-the-drums Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  Boarding this week’s giddy carousel of news, we ride the following ponies …   … the Sliding Doors moment that made a ‘50s star a fortune   … Soft Cell’s Dave Ball and the art of being the Other One in a pop duo    … Bohemian Rhapsody, O Superman, I Feel Fine: records that sounded like nothing before them   … what links the Prodigy, Wet Leg, Daft Punk and Donna Summer?   … how all bands need a bad patch to make you appreciate the good ones   … “the concept album is a good servant but a bad master”   … Expensive = Reassuringly valuable? Cheap = Worthless?   … a new Taylor Swift album in ‘sweat and vanilla-perfumed orange glitter vinyl’, anyone?   … and the tricks singers use to disguise the fact that they can’t hit the top notes anymore.   … plus ‘the Siege and Investiture of Baron von Frankenstein's Castle at Weisseria’ by Blue Öyster Cult and birthday guest Phil Hopwood on best and worst concept albums. Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul Young was the bassist in a pub band playing Led Zeppelin and Patto covers ‘til his solo soul and blues slot launched him as a singer. He’s still touring nearly 50 years later, just back from filling Mexican stadiums with Rod Stewart. And next May launching his acoustic ‘Songs & Stories Tour’ in theatres, intercut with film clips and hoary old tales from the battlefield. He looks back here at …   … Smash Hits cover shoots and Rewind package tours: “what a glorious time the ‘80s was”   … the soul phrases he stole from Free and his impression of “the Paul Rodgers moan”   … discovering James Taylor, the Doors, Gregg Allman, Vinegar Joe and Van Morrison   … supporting Bob Marley when the crowd threw a dead duck at Joe Jackson – “and hit him!”   … Mike & Bernie Winters in panto - “I was rolling in the aisles”   … playing Led Zeppelin, Cream and Patto and the Bill Withers and Albert King covers that launched him as a singer   … memories of Live Aid – “I wish I’d thought about it more”   … “What am I, a performing monkey?”   … when Midge Ure told him the opening line of Band Aid had actually been a secret audition – “Simon, Tony Hadley or me”   … the “deafening” Slade at Luton Tech, the night the DJ played Black JuJu by Alice Cooper   … the over-cranked news story that he’d lost his voice   … and the night the Mafia came to Rhode Island.   Tickets for ‘Paul Young – Songs & Stories’ here: https://www.awaywithmedia.com/tours/paul-young-2026 Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

‘Billy Bragg: A People’s History’ is just out, a new and wholly original kind of memoir written by himself, friends, collaborators and fans, and packed with old snapshots, concert bills, reviews and ephemera. It’s very good indeed. He looks back here with us at …   … meeting Taylor Swift – “and we both knew who the other was!”   … a total of 2,700 gigs – “not counting prisons, In-Stores, Port-A-Stacks and picket lines”   … old blokes trying to take selfies   … finding old diaries in his archives and sensing how the memory plays tricks   … songs that get you out of trouble on stage   … bootlegging albums on his reel-to-reel, aged 12, complete with noises off - eg “Bridge Over Troubled Water plus a voice telling me Reach For The Sky was on telly!”   … a word-perfect recitation of Mr Tambourine Man   … listening to the Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll when the rest of the school was Glam Rock   … buying Ronnie Lane’s amp, “like returning home with a religious relic”   … “the power of music”: meeting someone who’d heard him on the radio beyond the Iron Curtain   … anxiety about American border control: “I was advised to get a new phone. As if that’ll make any difference. I’m Billy Bragg, political songwriter!”   … lost off-grid in Salt Lake City in the days before internet   … “Music can’t change the world but it gives you the ability to think it can be changed”   …plus Ian McLagan, Desmond Dekker, Ry Cooder, Jam b-sides and Motown Chartbusters Vol 3.   Order Billy Bragg: A People’s History here: https://burningshed.com/billy-bragg_a-peoples-history_book   https://www.billybragg.co.uk/product/billy-bragg-a-peoples-history-an-oral-history-in-the-words-of-people-who-have-been-moved-by-his-music/ Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Graduate, Trainspotting, Jaws, Star Wars, Citizen Kane – films you can’t picture without thinking of the music. Mark Kermode has been gripped by the marriage of movie and soundtrack since Dougal and the Blue Cat (aged 6) and, with Jenny Nelson, has just published ‘Surround Sound: the Stories of Movie Music’. We talk to him here about…     … Scorsese, Cameron Crowe, Sofia Coppola, Edgar Wright: the new generation “who grew up with a headful of not just music, but records”   … how John Williams is “the last Whistle Test composer”: two bars of ET, Jaws or Star Wars and you instantly know the film   … how “silent cinema was never silent” and his band the Dodge Brothers playing live soundtracks   … Butch Cassidy, Easy Rider, Blackboard Jungle … pioneers of the music video   … the genius of American Graffiti: “Lucas wanted it so marinated in music the town would sound like a pickle jar”   … how scores are recorded and edited and what happens when a director tells an orchestra he’s changed his mind   … “by the time each Lord of the Rings soundtrack reached New Zealand, Peter Jackson had re-cut the film”   … Forbidden Planet in 1956, the days when electronic scores weren’t real music   … Martha Reeves, Jonathan Richman and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion in Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver   … Tarantino’s kitsch use of “his own scratchy vinyl” and why Jonny Greenwood‘s There Will Be Blood is unique and exceptional   … plus the “atonal squonking” of the Exorcist and the greatest soundtrack of all time.   Order ‘Surround Sound: the Stories of Movie Music’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/mark-kermodes-surround-sound/mark-kermode/9781447230564 Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s news put through the wringer and hung out to dry. On the line you’ll find …   … Taylor Swift and Ophelia and other things pop videos turned into tourist attractions   … the appeal of D’Angelo’s Voodoo: “he made albums with no disdain for the listener”   …. David Hepworth and “the single most exciting thing that ever happened to me in my entire life”   … bands whose story means more than their music   … Nick Drake, Hendrix, Portishead, Nirvana: why three albums is the perfect back catalogue   … when Morrissey was just “Steve from Stretford” and Bowie “some bloke in Beckenham”   … Elvis Costello, the Nashville Rooms and how Mark escaped being “killed to bits”   … is there a better sign of obsession than being able to name all a band’s members?   … Your challenge: listen to the Dead’s Dark Star for the first time. Discuss!   … esoteric tracks played by mobile coffee vans   … “Gor Blimey, hello Mrs Jones. How’s old Bert’s lumbago?”    … plus JJ Cale, Canned Heat, Cameron Crowe and Fred Neil’s The Dolphins. Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Zombies formed before the Stones and had huge hits with She’s Not There and Time Of The Season. Their baroque masterpiece Odessey and Oracle now gets ranked beside Revolver and Pet Sounds. Colin Blunstone has a solo tour in 2026 and looks back here in his wood-panelled den at the first shows he played, the people he met and being No 1 in America aged 19. This too …   … when your career starts at 16 “and you think it’s over at 21”   … seeing the Beatles at Luton Odeon and the Stones at Studio 51 Leicester Square “sitting on stools playing acoustic R&B”   … winning the talent contest that got them a record deal and a worldwide hit with “the third song Rod ever wrote”   … playing Murray the K’s Christmas Show when No 1 in America with “all our heroes” - the Shirelles, Patti LaBelle and Ben E King   … his father’s warning when he wanted to go to Art School   … the misspelling of Odessey And Oracle and its rushed recording at Abbey Road – “in mono when everyone wanted stereo!”   … “only Kenny Everett and Penny Valentine liked it”: the album’s afterlife, “now ranked alongside Revolver and Pet Sounds”   … how he still hits “my suicidal top notes” and the old trick of pointing the mic at the audience if you don’t want to sing them   … life in an insurance office when the Zombies split and “the three writers had made all the money”   … and Al Kooper, Denny Laine, Russ Ballard, Rod Argent and the time Mike Hurst inexplicably relaunched him as ‘Neil MacArthur’.   Order tickets for the Believe In Miracles Tour here: https://www.colinblunstone.net/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This lavish, beautifully designed collection of late ‘60s news stories, reviews and press clippings sheds new light on the band’s roots and ascent from the days when the Kidderminster Shuttle would spell their name wrong and print their parents’ address. Richard Morton Jack, author and compiler of ‘Led Zeppelin: The Only Way To Fly’, looks back here at ….   … the fact that there was already a group called ‘Lead Zeppelin’ in 1967   … the way Page has fudged early details of his and the band’s career   … why 1968 was Last Chance Saloon for Plant, Jones and Bonham   … the second British Invasion and why America was so ready for them   … “the Hindenburg was only 30 years earlier. Imagine using the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster on a cover now!”   … their claim that critics always hated them in the face of massive evidence to the contrary   … Plant’s publicity stunts before he joined the band – Harold Macmillan, Legalise Pot, the Noise Abatement Society …   … the ‘60s Birmingham scene v the London scene … their eternal grievance about the press sparked by the “Ground Zero” moment of Rolling Stone’s 1968 review   … the venues they played - the Toby Jug in Tolworth, Pirate World, an aqua theater, an ice rink in Vegas   … and the bands they shared bills with - Frosty Moses, Kimla Taz, the Ladybirds.   Order a copy of Led Zeppelin: The Only Way To Fly here: https://lansdownebooks.com/ Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Shifting the pass-the-parcel of news and removing the wrapping when the music stops. Which this week happens here …   … will rock bands get offered the Saudi money?   … “there could be no British nightclubs in 2030”   … Diane Keaton and why all men were besotted   … the day Led Zeppelin played an Aqua Theatre for an audience swimming and in boats   … “the optimum number of band members is either three or loads”   … did Easy Rider invent the music video?   … Trainspotting, Reservoir Dogs, Midnight Cowboy, Almost Famous – soundtrack moments that made their movies   … 12 million more UK tickets were sold than in 2019 yet 150 small venues closed in two years: “scale is now part of the appeal”   … the genius of John Sebastian   … the end of MTV UK and how video changed the landscape   … “Here’s to you Mrs Roosevelt”: how Simon & Garfunkel got into the Graduate    … can anyone fathom Ghost Town Blues by Prefab Sprout?   Plus Tim Hardin, Harry Nilsson and birthday guest Matthew Elliott on why three is the magic number. Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The look, sound, story and dynamic of the Beatles can’t be imagined without him. Nor can their success. Tom Doyle, author and drummer, examines the unexplored depths of the one at the back from 70 different angles, one per chapter, in his new memoir ‘Ringo: A Fab Life’ and talks to us here about ….   … how he learnt to read by looking at his Dad’s Beatles singles and the one that first made him notice the drumming   ... what you learn re-watching him in Peter Jackson’s Get Back   … why Ringo gave them universal appeal and his key role in their conquest of America   … supernatural brilliance: exceptional moments such as the un-slowed original Rain and “the way he makes the sound of the holes in Blackburn, Lancashire”   … the delicious Britishness of comparing Rishikesh to Butlins and the mantra the Maharishi gave him he still uses every day   … the pre-Beatles time he applied to emigrate to Texas and what stopped him doing it   … the only Beatle who could dance: the proof!   … the Lost Years and the day he had his head and eyebrows shaved   … the mortifying fate of the first recording of the four Beatles together (in 1960)   … how all four spent the rest of their lives in recovery   … what Sam Mendes might accentuate in his upcoming portrait of Ringo   ... and the clip that’ll be all over the news on the day he bows out.   Plus our campaign to buy the Sentimental Journey pub starts here!   Order Tom Doyle’s ‘Ringo: A Fab Life’ here: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Ringo/Tom-Doyle/9781917923132 Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Steering the supercar of enquiry round the rock and roll racetrack with the occasional stop for a tyre change. Foot-to-floor moments this week include…   … why are the British so hung up about posh pop stars?   … the 10-second moment of his stage routine that Springsteen must find addictive   … the flaming bra, the flying dress, the human horse: Lady Gaga’s most OTT entrances   .. would YOU want Madonna as a sister-in-law?   … Fleetwood Mac, the Grateful Dead, the Bee Gees: bands the NME said were finished in 1975   … John Paul Jones in Marks and Sparks   … musicians’ houses we’d most like to live in (actually one’s a lifeboat)   … the goth/fantasy allure of Steve Nicks on TikTok   … and the still-haunting times we died onstage “like a louse in a Russian’s beard”.   Plus Noel Coward, Julie Andrews, Jem Finer, birthday guest Phil Turner and Tony Bennett’s favourite meal. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

London’s Blitz club in 1980 had a huge impact on the way the decade looked and sounded, the launchpad for Boy George, Spandau Ballet, a new age of electro-pop and many writers, designers and photographers. The author and broadcaster Robert Elms was one of its cornerstones, “a place for people who’d outgrown the 20th Century”. We talk here about his book ‘Blitz: the Club That Created the ‘80s’ with all of this on the dancefloor …     … the Blitz Club rules, “unspoken until Steve Strange spoke them”. And the door policy: “Look at yourself, darling. Would YOU let yourself in?”   … first nights “with a Space Cossack shirt and asymmetric wedge” and the origin of the term New Romantic   … the rise of the “home-made Macaronis” (dictionary definition: “over-dressed popinjays of dubious sexuality”)   … Bowie’s Starman, Roxy, soul, disco, Weimar, Max Ernst, Otto Dix, Edith Piaf, Swinging London, Andy Warhol and other keys strands of Blitz DNA   … its anti-rock stance and impact on the mid-‘80s American charts   … the news-friendly night Mick Jagger was barred entry   … “I was spat at by an old lady at a bus stop for wearing eyeliner and a kilt”   … when Island offered Spandau a deal after just three numbers     … the role of the Face, Smash Hits and the new full-colour media   … the author’s “dilettante” passage through skinhead, suedehead, soul boy and punk   … and the night Bowie appeared, “like Jesus walking into your local church and sitting in a pew”.   Order ‘Blitz: The Club That Created the 80s’ here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/blitz-the-club-that-created-the-eighties-robert-elms/e672041a84e0cde9?ean=9780571394180&next=t&next=t Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Prince’s commercial peak was Purple Rain but John McKie thinks Sign O’ The Times was his creative masterpiece and tracked down over 200 collaborators, girlfriends, “Prince whisperers”, assistants and admirers to piece together the story of its construction (without allowing himself to use the word “genius”). Which leads us up some colourful, spot-lit alleys, among them …   … “a man in suspenders playing funk”: why a disastrous support slot on the ‘81 Stones tour was pivotal moment     … Mozart/Salieri levels of rivalry: he once told a Paisley Park engineer to stop singing Culture Club “as that’s the competition”   ... battles with Warners president Lenny Waronker: “he believed he was right and the rest were wrong”   … “creative incontinence”: an autocrat in need of an editor   … bodyguard “Big Chick” Huntsberry, performative stunts and the BRITS moment that immortalised him   … the controlling, manipulative nature of anyone who can play 27 instruments   … “he changed his cars to match the colour of his album campaigns”   … artistic parallels with his hero Joni Mitchell   … why he loved comedians in the way he loved jazz musicians   … what we know about his “secret” wives Mayte Garcia and Manuela Testolini   … and the four acts with eternal mystery – Prince, Bowie, Dylan, Dolly Parton.   Order ‘Prince: A Sign O’ The Times here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/prince-a-sign-o-the-times/john-mckie/9781785121944 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul Gorman, biographer of Malcolm McLaren and friend of the pod, tells the extraordinary story of the three young hipsters behind Granny Takes A Trip, the Kings Road store that was a magnet for rock’s glitterati in the late 60s. •⁠ ⁠Sheila Cohen, the first queen of cool; she invented the whole idea of vintage •⁠ ⁠Nigel Waymouth, who never went to art school but changed the face of London with his posters •⁠ ⁠John Pearse, who could make a jacket out of anything - and did •⁠ ⁠The days of aatering to the 200 fashionable people in London •⁠ ⁠Why the Beatles, Stones and Pink Floyd beat a path to Granny’s door •⁠ ⁠How the three walked away in 1969, the shops were exported to the USA •⁠ ⁠How GTAT became the outfitter of choice for the rock aristocracy •⁠ ⁠Some of its clothes are immortal thanks to album covers from Lou Reed, the Isleys and Todd Rundgren •⁠ ⁠All the rest are in secure storage Paul’s book, which is lavishly illustrated and contains a pictorial catalogue of the wardrobe of the Rolling Stones, is here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Granny-Takes-Trip-Fashion-Boutique/dp/1399623613 You can read a preview here: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Granny_Takes_a_Trip/_SZSEQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT6&printsec=frontcover The Rolling Stones London 1962-71 map can be found at: https://www.herblester.com/products/down-the-road-apiece-the-rolling-stones-london Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

News, rants, theories, stories and assorted old hokum which this week stumbles into …   … Kate Bush, Thunderbirds, Tim Buckley, the Blind Boys of Alabama … the magical bass adventures of Danny Thompson (and the time he headlined over the Beatles)   … how Claudia Cardinale wound up on the sleeve of Blonde On Blonde   … would Roxy Music have made it if their albums had been released in brown paper bags?   … how TikTok is destroying the “superfan”   … do late night TV hosts need us more than we need them?   … Boris Johnson chose the Clash? Charles Kennedy chose Toploader? Theresa May chose ‘In These Shoes’ by Kirsty MacColl? MPs on Desert Island Discs   … packaged goods: how CDs removed music’s greatest marketing tool   … the peculiar life of Johnny Carson   … have you ever bought an album solely on the strength of its cover?   … and Carmel, Andrew Ridgeley, Jay Leno’s pay packet and birthday guest Jon Pickles on high-impact sleeve art. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’ve always liked Thea Gilmore who once crossed America with Joan Baez in a pre-Election campaign tour and has released 21 albums (“I’ve got musical ADHD!)”. She looks back here at the first shows she ever saw and played which involves …     … a deep dive into Jake Thackray – “Last Will And Testament still makes me cry”   … spotting her dad in the crowd in the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival movie and why “My dad treated Dave Pegg’s dog” jump-started her career…   … what Joan Baez did on their pre-Election American tour the night George W Bush won a second term   … “Thea Gilmore looks Borstal-bound”: her first review, in Mojo in 1998   … two weeks’ life-changing work experience at Fairport’s Wormwood studios   … “there’s no point writing songs if you don’t perform them”   … which are easier, small gigs or big ones?   … Ani DiFranco getting the audience to harmonise on When Doves Cry, “an epiphany”   … intense stage fright versus the “precocious teenage belief that I was interesting”   … the impact of first hearing It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)   … and when someone leaving “reduces your audience by a fifth”   Tickets for Thea Gilmore’s tour here: https://www.theagilmore.net/live   Order ‘Thea Gilmore - My Own Private Riot 2008-2015,' 7CD Box Set here: https://www.cherryred.co.uk/thea-gilmore-my-own-private-riot-2008-2015-7cd-box-set Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Roger Armstrong co-founded the legendary Rock On record shop and was running the Chiswick label long before the punk rock explosion of independents, a believer that you could license rare R&B, soul and rockabilly classics while cutting new records with rising stars (Shane MacGowan, Kirsty MacColl and Joe Strummer among them). He then co-founded Ace Records and talks to us here about the thrill of trawling through American label vaults, locating vintage tracks and finding them a whole new audience. Along with …   … seeing Ella Fitzgerald and the Beatles in Belfast in the early ‘60s   ... inventing a new Irish rock circuit and turning showbands into soul bands   … how American Graffiti, Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues and the mod revival all chimed with Ace Records’ re-issues   … promoting ‘Tin’ Lizzy (“that’s what it sounded like on the phone”) and being immortalised in one of their lyrics (“I get my records at the Rock On stall”)   … Joe Strummer in the 101-ers – “sensational, full-tilt, as if playing a stadium”   … releasing Dylan’s Theme-Time Radio Hour box-sets and the size of his record collection   … finding a Little Richard demo and making an Elvis Presley speech album a money-spinner   … being a pioneer tape rat and crate-digger and Ace Records quality control – “Stack ‘em low, sell ‘em high!”   … “think of the strapline, then choose the tracks”: making compilations with Jon Savage, Bob Stanley, Bobby Gillespie and Paul Weller   … plus reflections on John Martyn, Carol Grimes, Brinsley Schwarz, Rocky Sharpe, Irma Thomas, Arthur Alexander and the Count Bishops (“like the Stones at 78”).   Order ‘Chiswick Records 1975 - 1982 Seven Years At 45 RPM’ here: https://www.acerecords.co.uk/chiswick-records-1975-1982-seven-years-at-45-rpm Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the menu at the rock and roll state banquet …   … Into the Mystic, Meet On The Ledge, In My Life, Tom Waits’ Take It With Me and other perfect songs for a last farewell   … the day we joined the world’s best band   … Robert Redford’s blinding handsomeness and the greatest moment – all three seconds of it – in Butch Cassidy And the Sundance Kid   … best-looking rock stars   … were the Shadows really a UK Eurovision entry?   … “very special guests” and the new age of the stadium rock “bring-on”   … how John Prine and Iris DeMent won the big door prize   … “the movie camera is the biggest lie-detector in the world”   … strange double bills of our time - the Foo Fighters and Rick Astley, Bo Diddley and the Clash   Plus Cary Grant smoking, watching Brad Pitt do ordinary things and birthday guest Steven Way on the subtle billing of support acts. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Novelist and journalist Tom Piazza struck up a friendship with the irreplaceable John Prine in the last years of his life. This relationship, which began as a profile for a magazine, almost blossomed into an autobiography and involved a road trip in an inadvisable vehicle, has resulted in a new book “Living In The Present With John Prine”. Which involves: •⁠ ⁠setting off in a 1977 Coupe De Ville and driving “until the engine burns up”. •⁠ ⁠sitting up all night playing old country songs. •⁠ ⁠remembering how he came to write some of the greatest songs of the last fifty years •⁠ ⁠an evening’s swapping stories with Elvis Costello which ends with the alarming word “the jukebox is on fire!” •⁠ ⁠what Prine’s last album “The Tree Of Forgiveness” has in common with Beethoven’s late quartets Buy Living In The Present With John Prine: https://amzn.eu/d/9vWv9rg Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Having disposed of the surprising history of pop stars who posed for Playboy, discussing whether the universe really needs another album called "Play", come up with a couple of nominations for Best Album Title Of All Time, we hear about Alex's experiences seeing Oasis in the midst of 90,000 who have never been to Manchester and how he "used the force" to get some face time with Jack Black and Dave Grohl. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Hammill, adored by Bowie, Mark E Smith and many others, co-founded Van Der Graaf Generator when he was 19. And he’s made 47 albums since, powered by “hubris, enthusiasm and sheer bloody-mindness” and celebrated in a new 18-CD box set. He talks to us here from Somerset about …   … supporting Hendrix at the Albert Hall and being ‘the Shirley Bassey of the Underground’   … meeting David Bowie - who asked for Hammill’s new music to be sent to him all his life   … Van Der Graaf Generator being bottled off by medical students in the days when you rang from a phone-box to see what gigs you were playing   … the Bee Gees, Eric Clapton, Champion Jack Dupree and Jimmy James & the Vagabonds at the Locarno in Derby   … Tony Stratton-Smith and the Six Bob Tour – 30p! – with Lindisfarne and Genesis   … Nut Rocker, Theme Of Exodus and other teenage keyboard staples    … the value of “Boswellian superfans” who know more about you than you do   … breaking the £100 barrier for a live performance   … writing blues songs, aged 16, with “a gnat’s experience of life”   … the unsettling lyric to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s ‘You've Got to Be Carefully Taught’   … and his new young audience via the internet and “that right of passage, your parents’ records”   Order The Charisma & Virgin Recordings 1971 - 1986’ here: https://peterhammill.lnk.to/CVRecordingsPR Pre-order 'ROCK and ROLE: The Visionary Songs of Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator' here: https://burningshed.com/store/kingmaker Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Has there ever been a group like Talking Heads? Jonathan Gould’s Burning Down The House explores their affluent background, the root of their ambition and the springboard of the New York scene of the late ‘70s (he was a regular at CBGB). Along with …   ... the romanticised image of CBGB and the reality   … their black music roots: “the same instrumentation as Booker T & the MGs”   … the influence of the Modern Lovers: “Jonathan Richman and Byrne were both oddballs, appealing but peculiar”   … how the economy of New York’s real estate let them rent a 2,000 square foot loft for $289 a month   … bands from affluent backgrounds take greater commercial risks: “there was always a Plan B”   … the art-school drop-out lineage that began John Lennon and Keith Richards   … how different they were from the CBGBs acts, a band that sang verses in French and “didn’t dress like the New York Dolls”    … the band’s dynamic, Chris and Tina “effectively one person”   ... did Byrne really make Tina Weymouth “re-audition”?   … the success of the Tom Tom Club and the tension that caused   … Byrne’s invention of his own “white choreography”   … Stop Making Sense, as big a part of their legacy as any album   … and why there can never be a reunion   Mentioned in dispatches: Brian Eno, Adrian Belew, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Ramone and Fela Kuti.     Order ‘Burning Down The House’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/9780063022980 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Freddie Mercury had an affair with a close friend’s wife and, in 1977, became a father. He’s now a grandfather. That’s the foundation of a new book ‘Love, Freddie’ by his highly respected biographer Lesley-Ann Jones which details a four-year, detailed exchange with his daughter ‘B’, now 48, and the contents of the 17 notebooks he gave her before he died in 1991. We talk to Lesley-Ann here about this gripping new tilt on his story which covers …   … the 41-page document B sent her in 2021 and how the author assumed it was a hoax   … why B was outraged by his portrayal in the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic   … how the notebooks Freddie gave her are legally owned by Sony “and she would burn them if they tried to collect them”   … Freddie’s turmoil at the time of her conception - engaged to Mary Austin, a love affair with David Minns   … B’s secret life in Kensington and Montreux and her father’s “scary knitwear” disguises   … “in the age of AI, even a real photo of Freddie and his daughter would be reckoned a scam”   … the unheard – surely priceless - recordings Freddie made of the two of them singing together   … how B’s existence stayed a secret and the members of Queen’s inner circle who might have known about her    … the photo of B, aged four, with her dad and David Bowie   … and how there were no denials about B’s existence from Queen or any Cease & Desist demands when the book extracts published.   Order ‘Love, Freddie’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Freddie-Mercurys-Secret-Life/dp/1916797962 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

All the leaves are brown and the sky’s a bit unruly but mellow fruitfulness abounds in this week’s pick of the rock and roll news. Add to basket …     … is Morrissey hacked off, broke or just desperate for attention?   … are stadium gigs the new tourism?   … bucket hats, Man City, lads culture … how did America finally ‘get’ Oasis?   … singles that weren’t on albums   … are we sated by an overabundance of music?   … how Gary Numan got a record deal   … why Gene Loves Jezebel are the new Sam & Dave!    … the new age of the rock and roll pilgrimage   … did Slade record the Hokey Cokey? The Dave Clark Five did Neil Young? The Troggs did Foxy Lady?   … the Jam, the Yardbirds, The Nice, the Smiths: bands who broke up because they couldn’t crack America   … selling Barry White records to Middle Eastern airline pilots   Plus Tubeway Army, the Scaffold doing Ging Gang Goolie, “Mister Ferry’s diction” and birthday guest Jelltex. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Immortalised by Hendrix, ‘Hey Joe’ had its roots in 18th century murder ballads, ‘60s folk and rock clubs before the world got to hear it. Jason Schneider unravels its twisted genesis in ‘That Gun In Your Hand’, and talks to us here about the miracles that allowed it to happen and the sad fate of Billy Roberts, the man who claimed he wrote it. Along with …   … “all pop records are built on the back of other pop records”   … the allure of violent songs: “we get our kicks from real-life murder”   … the bit-part players in the story – David Crosby, Dino Valenti, Tim Rose, Cass Elliot, the Byrds, the Leaves, the Creation and Bob Dylan   … the final twist: how Chas Chandler was looking to make Hey Joe a hit when Linda Keith pointed him at Hendrix   … “a song with no chorus and a circle of fifths”: why it was a rock staple alongside Gloria and Louie Louie   … the cruel fate of Billy Roberts who never recorded Hey Joy as couldn’t bear to give away 50 per cent of the royalties   … the girl murders the man? “It’s a song still in evolution”   … how Andy Summers was the first person to hear Hendrix play in the UK   … 1,881 guitarists mass-performed Hey Joe in 2007 but could you even release a version of it now?   You can order ‘That Gun In Your Hand: The Strange Saga of Hey Joe and Popular Music’s History of Violence’ from Anvil Press here: https://www.anvilpress.com/books/that-gun-in-your-hand-the-strange-saga-of-hey-joe-and-popular-musics-history-of-violence   And from the US distributor Asterism here: https://asterismbooks.com/product/that-gun-in-your-hand-the-strange-saga-of-hey-joe-and-popular-musics-history-of-violence-jason-schneider Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Maddy Prior – folk royalty, an absolute hero of ours – is touring with Steeleye Span again this autumn 66 years after they started, a life someone should make into a movie. She talks to us here about her undimmed love of live performance and …     … when the height of your ambition is a £3 ticket to Blackpool Pleasure Beach   … “Rod Argent, the first boy I ever kissed”   … her fox-fur-trimmed Lambretta when a teenage mod   … the night Steeleye Span showered their audience with £4,000   … seeing Acker Bilk, Chris Barber, Josh White and Sony Boy Williamson in St Albans clubs   … driving Rev Gary Davis round Britain in a Triumph Herald: “Miss Maddy, you’d make a great nurse! Was that a compliment or an insult?”   … “Traditional music is great material to work with. It’s like steel – you can bend it but you can’t break it”   … hearing Dylan for the first time (with Donovan) and thinking “this man can’t sing”    … memories of her father who wrote Z Cars   … life with Tim Hart: “Living in sin? No, we’re living in Archway!”   … Tony Secunda, his spray-can and his promotional stunts – “Win 24 hours with a member of Steeleye Span”   … Alan Partridge and the great ‘Gaudete’ moment   … the new Steeleye Span album Conflict “about the rip and tear relationship we have with the planet that hosts us”   … and Singing For The Uncertain, her course for singers who think they can’t   Steeleye Span tour dates here: https://steeleyespan.org.uk/sample-page/tour-dates-2025/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our pencil-chewing, critical assessment of this week’s news gets mainly * and *** reviews, among them …   …. Sting v Summers & Copeland over Every Breath You Take, the goose that laid the golden egg   … what John Lennon would have thought about the ‘cancelled’ track on Some Time In New York City   … when did “critically acclaimed” come to mean unpopular?   … the knock-about days when a critic was “a jerk, a crank and a spoilsport”   … Jonny Greenwood’s dad was a bomb disposal expert? Pete Doherty’s mum was a Lance-Corporal in the Royal Army Nursing Corps?   … what matters more, the song or the record?   ... Anthony Fantano, Rick Beato and the rise of the YouTube rock review   … “negative comments about a famous act’s new album are like graffiti on the walls of a hallowed institution”   … Bob Dylan’s Self Portrait, Andrew Ridgeley’s Son Of Albert (“half a star”) and the lost age of the crushing review   … and “you never mention Depeche Mode!” Find out more about how to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Debsey Wykes was in Dolly Mixture, one of the very few all-girl groups in post-punk London, a time when bands with charisma won the battle for attention and you promoted singles on the back of a truck. Her memoir Teenage Daydream perfectly captures a slice of late ‘70s life, the thrill of playing the pub circuit and trying to storm Radio One. Along with …   … the agony of re-reading teenage diaries   … being supported by U2 then watching their “annoying” ascent   … Girls With Electric Guitars and why rock hacks couldn’t take them   … forming bands for self-expression: “you reach that moment when all you want to do is scream!”   … “when Jean-Jacques Burnel rests his boot on your head you don’t wash your hair for a week”   … early adventures with Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, David Cassidy and Bowie: “Cassidy was normal, Bowie was weird”   … diary entries: “the lead singer of the Only Ones has fantastic legs and glittery plimsolls”   … “Sugary Sweets Cause Youth Decay!”: the NME’s withering interview    … the satin-and-silk allure of Stevie Nicks   … violence at ‘70s gigs: “we were locked in the dressing-room with the sirens going off”   … “a cross between the Slits and the Nolans”: John Peel’s producer’s loathing for Dolly Mixture   … the vicious rivalry between ‘70s girl singers   … letters from her old boss and headmaster after she appeared on Top Of The Pops   Order ‘Teenage Daydream: We Are The Girls Who Play In A Band’ here: https://linktr.ee/new.modern?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=008bc73f-2400-4a67-81df-04fa9758dc06 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A tub-thumping, snare-cracking, cymbal-simmering, two-way backbeat to this week’s rock and roll news, the on-beats including …   … “Trauma-bonding?” Why being ‘a fan’ is like a love affair   … Ian Brown, Morrissey, Siouxsie, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison … why singers who don’t play an instrument are a different species   … the stadium-rock drummer transfer window   … Sigourney Weaver at Shea Stadium in ’65   … singers who don’t sound like their personalities   … what can a singer-songwriter write about if they get famous at 18?   … the unreleased Beatles Holy Grail?   … can you be a fan of someone younger than you are? Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear   … how do you know a drummer’s knocking on your door?   … plus Leonard Cohen, Phil Oakey and are you ever too old to be wearing a Libertines military tunic? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How can you not love the Divine Comedy whose inspirations include Tom Lehrer and “Landfill Indie”? And Neil Hannon wrote music for Wonka, Father Ted and the IT Crowd. There’s a new album, Rainy Sunday Afternoon, and a tour in October and all bases are covered in this conversation from Kildare, these among them …    … seeing U2 at Croke Park “and feeling as though I’d won the Wonka Golden Ticket”.   … favourite bands of the ‘80s and ‘90s - Pixies, Sugarcubes, Sonic Youth and Ride. … the miserably cancelled Father Ted musical and how he’s recycled the songs he wrote for it.   … a research trip to an Indie Disco with Stuart Murdoch of Belle and Sebastian.    … how it feels to record at Abbey Road.    … his teenage band inventing new words to R.E.M songs in an Enniskillen youth club.   … how new songs begin.   … supporting Carter USM and Suede, “the moment I first felt like a pop star”.   … Mar-A-Lago, a childhood trip to London and further melancholia on his new album Rainy Sunday Afternoon. … rocks on the street in Derry en route to Primary School during the Troubles.   … Hepworth and Ellen appearing on a Duckworth Lewis album - “nudging and nurdling!”   … his first stab at “witty pseudo-intellectual lyrics”.   … “never leave your tour bus, be rehearsed before you start rehearsals” and other ways touring saves money.   … and the five songs he always plays. Divine Comedy tickets here: https://thedivinecomedy.com/live Pre-order Rainy Sunday here: https://lnk.to/RainySunday Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tanita Tikaram’s second gig had an audience of three – one paying customer and two concert promoters. When one of them wanted to talk to her afterwards she said, “sorry, I’ve got to get the train home.” She was 17. In this podcast she tells us the story of the one of the fastest career ascents on record which stops off at …   … an open-mic night with a girl who cut up newspaper – “what happened to her?”   … Basingstoke alumni –Tanita Tikaram, Jane Austen, Liz Hurley …   … ignoring Wham! in favour of Suzanne Vega and Tom Waits.   … the lure of school theatre groups – “a skive, you could basically be arty and smoke”.   … “Ringo Starr gave me an award!”   … supporting Warren Zevon and Jonathan Richman - and John Martyn (with Tracy Chapman).   … the faint absurdity of promoting Twist In My Sobriety on Kids TV.   … “when you’re young, you’re adaptable”.   … mourning the loss of mainstream music.   … a summer spent miming on European pop TV shows.   … the thrill of hearing Ancient Heart was Top Ten when playing the Cambridge Folk Festival – “they all thought, that’s one of us in the charts!”    … and today’s imbalance between new music and nostalgia.   Order Tanita Tikaram tickets here: https://www.tanita-tikaram.com/live/   Order Liar: Love Isn’t A Right here: https://www.tanita-tikaram.com/music/ Find out how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bob Mould, whose records with Hüsker Dü had such impact on Nirvana and Pixies, is back on tour again, both solo and with a band. “I’ve built this tiny soap box - and if you don’t like it, it’s been nice knowing you!” He talks to us from San Francisco about …   … March 30 1979: “the day that changed my life”   … over-refreshment on the bus to see Rush and Aerosmith, aged 16   … the influence of Hüsker Dü on Nirvana, Pixies and My Bloody Valentine – “it’s a game of hot potato. YOU take this sound now!”   … seeing the Ramones opening for Iggy Pop – “simplistic on the surface but I got all their ‘60s pop references”   … the art of the three-song set-opener   … playing Buzzcocks and Ventures covers in ‘three-two’ bars   … opening for the Foo Fighters, playing for 100,00 people – and for crowds wearing masks during Covid   … “the more the production, the less the spontaneity”   … visual clues playing solo to let the audience know where the beat is   … “I’m one of those others”: inter-song riffs about politics, protest and oppression   Order Bob Mould tickets here: https://bobmould.com/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Damping down the wildfires of rock and roll news this week we focus on the following …   … Oasis, Taylor Swift and Coldplay and the new age of Winner Takes All   … did Bob Dylan write a song with Gene Simmons, advertise lingerie or appear on a telethon with Harry Dean Stanton?   … movies that need making eg the Molly Drake Story, the Rock And Roll Mitford Sisters (Pattie, Jenny and Paula Boyd)   … surely what makes the rock business ‘unfair’ are the people spending the money on it?   … is the Golden Age of TV over?   … Paul Weller’s magnificent Find El Dorado and the songwriters he’s rebooting - Willie Griffin, Bobby Charles, Duncan Browne, Eamon Friel   … a JR Hartley moment: Brian Protheroe taking his grandson to watch his album being re-mastered at Abbey Road   … ‘Programmes made for older viewers always have a lot of green in them’   … will we ever get another comedy record?   … why did we love Succession, Breaking Bad, the Queen’s Gambit and Six Feet Under yet have no burning desire to ever watch them again?   … how 200 Go-Betweens box-sets came with books from the late Grant McLennan’s library signed by Robert Forster   … ‘Never glad confident morning again!’   … new acronyms – RIYL, anyone?   … do any new TV comedies merit an Xmas Special?   ... plus the Trump Awards, main character syndrome, Black Pudding Bertha (the Queen of Northern Soul) and birthday guest Ed Newman on box-set addiction – “this way madness lies!” Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paul Weller has just covered it on his new album. Morrissey played it to Noel Gallagher who took the idea and ran with it. What explains the enduring appeal of a record that stalled at number 22 all those years ago? Actor/musician Brian Protheroe doesn’t know but he’s certainly grateful that it’s being reissued once again. His story takes us back to: …the days when young musicians hitch-hiked to London …the way the sun shone on the day “Sgt Pepper” came out …when Soho was a village and an out of work actor could afford to live in Covent Garden …when being dumped by a girl could inspire that actor to diarise his daily routine …when the jazzman who played the solo on the record couldn’t remember it for “TOTP” …how it feels to take your grandson to Abbey Road to watch your album being remastered. Pre-order the Chrysalis Red reissue of the first Brian Protheroe album: https://brianprotheroe.lnk.to/PNB Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Other, weaker podcasts may take the summer off. Not this one. …the story of Jerry Garcia’s alligator strat, Paul McCartney’s violin bass and the instrument Peter Frampton thought had gone forever …the long story of Terry Reid, who turned down Led Zeppelin, and the golden afternoon when he was the most charismatic figure in roc …the real reason why you wouldn’t have wanted to be at Keith Richards’ place on that day in 1967 …why there’s nothing more boring than hedonism Mick Jagger’s 1967 affidavit is here: https://www.ewbankauctions.co.uk/20250821M1-lot-4008-The-Rolling-Stones-typed-documents-that-appear-to-relate-the-infamous-Redlands?auction Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

word-podcast-798-peter-ames-carlin Friend of the pod and chronicler of the careers of Springsteen, Paul Simon and REM, Peter Ames Carlin has heard all the recordings that went into the album which was Springsteen’s last chance saloon and spoken to the people who were there to put together the story of how it was all done. ….the lucky break that came when the boss’s son went to a Springsteen show ….the man who played on Bruce Springsteen’s greatest record and then left ….how Springsteen learned that the way to make a live-sounding record was not to record it live ….the reconnecting of 70s rock with the great American rock & roll of the 50s …the thinking behind one of the few album covers deserving of the adjective “iconic” …what happened when Steve Van Zandt told the Brecker Brothers what to play ….the fundamental difference between American and British music Tonight In Jungleland: The Making Of Born To Run: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tonight-Jungleland-Making-Born-Run/dp/0385551533 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jah Wobble - touring in October - is outstanding company and rattles on here like a steam train, sparking off at tangents in a brilliant, barely steerable monologue with a crackling cast of characters. It’s not often a podcast gets a visitor mid-recording who says, “I’ve put more poison in - but the good news is, there’s nothing in your traps!” Here you will find …   … an afternoon with Anthony Hopkins   … the time Ginger Baker got the wrong dessert - “a bowl of rhubarb went flying”   … East End violence: the Whitechapel firm v the Mile End mob   … why bands are like short-order cooks   … his first gig with Public Image – teargas, barricaded in the dressing-room and the head of security getting kicked in the throat   … and his second gig – “someone threw a frozen pig’s head and it lay there looking balefully up at me”   … Wilko Johnson (“a caged tiger”) and Lee Brilleaux tying his shoelaces to the mic lead   … Bob Marley at the Lyceum and how Aston Barrett changed the game   … tour managers whose metal briefcases have a cosh and a pepper spray   … onstage exorcisms with the Invaders Of The Heart   … John Lydon meeting Arthur Brown, the Heavy Metal Kids, Woody Woodmansey and the man with six fingers in Get Carter   … and his community music project ‘Tuned In’ at Merton Arts Space, Wimbledon Library.    Order tickets here: https://www.songkick.com/artists/13218-jah-wobble/calendar Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s a widely accepted view of the relationship between Elvis and his manager Tom Parker, the one sustained by the recent Baz Luhrmann movie, but a new and fascinating archive of unseen letters makes you see it differently: it was warmer, deeper and infinitely more complicated. Peter Guralnick – rock book royalty! - met Parker towards the end of his life and has just published ‘The Colonel And The King: Tom Parker, Elvis Presley and the Partnership That Rocked The World’. He talks to us here about separating the myth from reality which touches on …   ... overturning the conventional wisdom “that Elvis was the puppet, Sam Phillips the genius and Tom Parker the manipulator”.   ... how theirs was “a partnership of equals” – though Elvis was in charge, not the Colonel.   … how Presley’s “security risk” – carrying guns and drugs across borders – was a factor in his refusal to accept world tour offers.   … two men powerfully motivated by money – Elvis liked spending it, Parker liked losing it.   … humour, charisma, intelligence, a force of nature: how Parker’s letters paint a different picture.   … “he was an entirely self-invented man. And there was no-one more American – which was ironic as he was Dutch.”   … the full story of the Elvis TV Christmas Special.   … how Parker grossly undersold Presley’s catalogue rights to RCA in 1973 for $5.4m.   … the Colonel’s Honesty game – “think of the number I’m thinking of and I’ll pay you if you’re right!”   … how Parker tried to curb Presley’s “smutty humour” and sell his “James Dean enigma” to the film industry after Dean’s death in 1955.   … how the only time he didn’t carefully manage an Elvis appearance was the Steve Allen Show hound dog debacle.   … why Parker couldn’t control either his or Presley’s self-destructive habits.   … his gambling addiction and a miserable 72-hour stint in a Vegas casino.   … and would the first internationally-known artist’s manager have been as famous had he not called himself “the Colonel”?   Order ‘The Colonel And the King’ here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/peter-guralnick/the-colonel-and-the-king/9780316399449/?lens=little-brown Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lowering the magnet of curiosity into the scrapyard of news and seeing what’s attracted, which includes …   … does anyone still write satirical songs?   … Four Sides of the Circle, Margaret On The Guillotine, From Here To Infirmary … real or fictitious working album titles?   … the rarity of hearing new music without knowing what the musician looks like    … the Strokes, the Faces and other confident gangs you wanted to join   … Poisoning Pigeons In The Park, the Vatican Rag and the moment Tom Lehrer claimed was the death of satire   … the dwindling need to feel ‘contemporary’ - Blur, Primal Scream and the Libertines have made one album in the last ten years   … when MTV went ‘lifestyle’   … how ‘a 60 year-old rock star’ still feels young   … bring on the ‘90s package tour!   … “Please give my regards to Mr. Chainz, or may I call him 2?”   … and honorary mentions of Chappell Roan, Blink 182, Henry Kissinger, Wet Leg, Randy Newman, PP Arnold and ‘Kicking Pigeons’ by Spunge. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Wedding Present formed 40 years ago – why does that seem astonishing? - and have a new box set and tour to celebrate. David Gedge digs out his old notes about the first gigs he ever saw and played and looks back at what four decades onstage might have taught him. Among the delights …     … Rick Wakeman in full cape attire at Manchester Free Trade Hall in ’76 and how Be-bop Deluxe pointed to the future   … the bone-dry humour of the Ramones – “the only time I ever pogo-ed” – and memories of seeing Wire and Queen.     … how Leeds’ goth culture coloured his early band the Lost Pandas (who had the nerve to play “minor chords”)   … ‘Reception: The Wedding Present Musical’, about to open in Leeds and built around stories, characters and relationships in his songs. “Musicals are very divisive and I wasn’t sure I liked them”   … “meticulous and geeky”: how the set lists flow and the two songs he never omits   … how John Peel playing Go Out And Get 'Em, Boy! ten times launched the Wedding Present: “he was like the Emperor Nero really, almost too powerful. If he didn’t like you, you could vanish without trace”   ... the unexpected challenge of band member manipulation   … “if anything gets a laugh, repeat it”   … and costly future visions of the Wedding Present plus orchestra!   Order tickets to the Wedding Present 40th anniversary tour here: https://www.scopitones.co.uk/forthcomingconcerts   And the box set here: https://www.scopitones.co.uk/post/the-wedding-present-to-release-career-spanning-40th-anniversary-compilation Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bret McKenzie now mainly works on movie soundtracks, the Simpsons, Minecraft and the Muppets among them, which brings the pure delight of hearing his songs sung by Lady Gaga, Benedict Cumberbatch, Miss Piggy and Tony Bennett. He talks here about his early life in Wellington (ballet teacher Mum, racehorse trainer Dad), narrative comedy, songwriting heroes and his new album Freak Out City, and unravels New Zealand’s double-edged sense of humour. Along with …   … how Randy Newman pitches songs for soundtracks   … “the test of a good song works is if it works with just one instrument”   … lyrics he loved growing up like 16 Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford – ‘Some people say a man is made out of mud/ A poor man's made out of muscle and blood’   … Morrissey’s wounded reaction to his sausage-firing Quilloughby on the Simpsons ‘Panic On The Streets Of Springfield’   ... solving the “fun puzzles” of a song brief and writing for “donkeys who have a dream”   … the ingenious humour of John Prine, Harry Nilsson and Leonard Cohen   … the moment in his live shows where he asks the audience for a story and creates a song around it – “one woman suggested ‘falling out of love’ with her husband standing right beside her”   ... playing the local girls schools aged 15 as the drummer in a James Brown funk band   … reworking rejected songs – “which was hard with one from Paddington with its multiple rhymes for marmalade and Peru”   … Flight Of The Conchords lampooning the acts they loved (Bowie, Pet Shop Boys) and playing the O2 – “pretending to be a stadium band and the audience pretending to be a stadium audience”   … live on-stage application of the John Lennon “pomegranate” lyric-solving technique   … “Play like a used car salesman! I need a Steely Dan solo here!” Recording with LA session legends like Leland Sklar.   Order Bret’s ‘Freak Out City’ album here: https://music.subpop.com/bretmckenzie_freakoutcity Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear   Tour dates and tickets … https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/bret-mckenzie-tickets/artist/5380913 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Justin Currie recorded and toured with Del Amitri and solo for 30 years and his travelogue The Tremolo Diaries perfectly captures the rhythm of life on the road. He talks to us here about combative crowds, the curious bubble you occupy and a recent shock diagnosis that’s forced some adjustments. This includes …   … hard-won rules for life on tour: “Never leave the boat, stay in the bubble, never interact with real life, always maintain low-level adrenaline.”   … seeing Dr Feelgood in ’77 “who passed the punk rock smell test”.   … choreographed abuse from rugby club members; a Liberal Party benefit with his Beefheart-like school band; following rock antagonists Jackyl at Woodstock 2; being pelted with toilet rolls at an ice hockey stadium in Minneapolis.   … the tensions between the Glasgow acts from the Gorbals and the “influx of enormous middle-class twats like us”.     … bands who look exactly like they sound.   … Edwyn Collins as style icon – fringe, corduroy, plaid – and how it took courage to walk round Glasgow dressed like that in the early ‘80s, “a scary place full of pitch battles and hooligans”.     … the loss of the pop tribes when pop music was subsumed into the entertainment business.     … Michael Stipe’s advice about life on the road and how that changes when you’re over 40.   … “if an audience doesn’t like you, the smaller that audience, the worse it is”.     … and his medical diagnosis in 2022 “and my negotiations with the disease”.   Order the Tremolo Diaries here: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/The-Tremolo-Diaries/Justin-Currie/9781917923002 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just when you thought it was safe to listen to a weekly rock and roll podcast …   … how Black Sabbath discovered the dark side   … why Elvis went onstage with a pistol in both boots   … rock stars out of their comfort zone   … five perfect things about Jaws we’d never taken onboard   … Ozzy Osbourne, the bungled burglary and the fingerless gloves   … Tony Iommi’s accident and how limitations are always strengths   … beautiful men in military jackets and “an Account of the Misfortunes and Disasters Which Befell Barry Lyndon"   … was Presley’s Americanness the most appealing thing about him?   … rock stars managed by their wives   … “everything was derived from American R&B and then we were plunged into this medieval graveyard. How could that possibly be entertainment?”   … Syd Barrett outtakes? Rare Nina Simone? Richly competitive tape-making in music magazine offices   … Colonel Tom Parker’s ‘Honesty’ game – “think of the number I’m thinking of and I’ll pay you if you’re right!”   … and birthday guest David Cook on how meeting musicians changes your view of their music. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cally Colomon looks after the legacy of Nick Drake, who died in 1974 but attracts new teenage admirers all the time. Here he talks to David Hepworth about just some of what that involves, including:   …chancers getting in touch with a bogus live recording when they’ve got a tax bill to pay   … film producers wishing to superimpose their image of Nick Drake on everybody else’s …spending months in the archives finding out exactly what is on every tape …listening to people who claim they know exactly what happened on a Tuesday sixty years ago …sorting out the real material from the bogus to put together a set which expands our understanding of the 1969 recording …responding to people who think all this work should somehow be available for free. The Making of Five Leaves Left: https://NickDrake.lnk.to/TMOFLL Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Suzi Quatro’s been onstage from the age of 14 as the bassist in the all-girl showband the Pleasure Seekers and the rock act Cradle. And then moved to England in 1971 when signed by Mickie Most. This podcast is a testament to the power of self-belief – she’s got more front than Woolworths! - and the two things her father told her. She’s just started another world tour and talks to us here about …   … how British “island humour” took a while to get used to.   … two deals in a week: “Elektra wanted the second Janis Joplin. Mickie Most wanted the first Suzi Quatro.”   … seeing Elvis on Ed Sullivan aged five and thinking “that’s what I want to do”. And how his comeback changed the clothes she wore.   … why playing a disastrous Sgt Pepper set at a ‘60s festival was a fork in the road.   … knowing she had “the X-Factor, the charisma button”.   … hard times in Crouch End while waiting for a hit and how Chinn & Chapman turned her sound in three-minute singles.   … supporting Slade and Thin Lizzy – and being supported by Kiss and Blue Oyster Cult.   … wise advice her father gave her.   … playing Leather Tuscadero in Happy Days and reunions with Henry Winkler.   … Michael Aspel wandering on from the wings for ‘This Is Your Life’ at the Palladium. Order tickets here: http://www.suziquatro.com/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A rain-splashed, dub-filled, cash-scattering foray into this week’s news and events which happily lands upon …   … meeting Maddy Prior – a Prior engagement? – and the time Steeleye Span showered their audience with £8,000.   … hearing Nick Drake’s demos on a narrowboat in the pitch dark a few hundred feet below London.   … Steve Miller’s cancelled tour, absurdly blamed on the weather.     … who’s older, Lulu or the King? Kim Wilde or William Hague? Neil Tennant or Andy Fraser of Free?   … Bob Marley at the Lyceum in 1975 – the confidence of their pace, the heft of their sound, what the audience wore. And David’s backing vocal on No Woman No Cry.   … the ugliest group in history – “they make Crabby Appleton look like the Walker Brothers”.   … an imagined duet by Rick Astley and David Cameron.   … is Bob Dylan the Tommy Cooper of rock and roll?   … David Ackles and the curse of “the greatest album ever made”.   … the Coldplay ‘Kiss-cam’ clip – “either they’re having an affair or just very shy”.   … the crackle of crime at ‘70s gigs.    … how someone could have seen the opening night of Charlie Chaplin’s Gold Rush and – 50 years later - Bob Marley at the Lyceum.   … why aren’t there still fanzines with names like Ptolemaic Terrascope?   … and birthday guest Gianluca Tramontagna claims Bob Dylan is neither sage, seer or prophet but an immensely comic “song and dance man”. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Picked up in the great singer-songwriter sweep of the late 60s and signed to Elektra Records, David Ackles made four albums which went over the heads of the record-buying public, attracted over-the-top reviews and earned the undying devotion of fans like Elvis Costello and Elton John. Now Mark Brend’s book brings together an appreciation of his work with an account of his career before and after the three period when he was going to be the next big thing, taking in… ….the night he found himself supporting his biggest fan Elton John at the Troubadour in Los Angeles ….his year in Berkshire planning and recording “American Gothic”, an album about his distant homeland …how two different record companies took him to their hearts but had no earthly clue how to promote him …why it is that rock fans who boast of their eclectic tastes can’t deal with anything which sounds like musical theatre …will he ever join the pantheon in which we have installed Nick Drake, Judee Sill and the other late musicians we are pleased to call a “lost genius”? Buy Down River: In Search of David Ackles: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Down-River-Search-David-Ackles/dp/1916829228 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our patent fact-from-fiction separator goes into overdrive this week though sometimes, as Robert Wyatt observed, Ruth is stranger than Richard. High in the mix …   … FOMO (Fear Of Missing Oasis), Gen Z’s love of queuing and has there ever been a greater outpouring of joy at a band reunion?   …what’s the greatest musical city?   … Kevin Rowland – cheat, burglar, arsonist, menswear salesman – and his capacity for self-sabotage.   … the harder to get tickets, the more people feel compelled to go.   … Kylie Minogue is a year older than Jacob Rees-Mogg!   … the best album to come out of New Orleans.   … memoirs you can read as either comedy or tragedy.   … Ed Sheeran turns Ipswich pink.   … the Salt Path saga and the pursuit of profit over truth.   … Mirrors In The Smoke, Dust On The Wind, Echoes Through the Pines: spot the AI-generated song title!   … the Beatles’ Tree in Chiswick: let’s keep local landmarks a secret!   … John Otway’s 5,300 gigs: the hardest working man in showbiz.   … and birthday guest Patrick Butler and cities with the greatest legacy – Liverpool, Birmingham, Nashville, New York, Chicago, New Orleans? Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Otway – self-billed as “Rock And Roll’s Greatest Failure” - has played 5,260 gigs in 53 years, a record possibly only beaten by BB King. There are more this autumn of course. He simply can’t stop. “People buying me drinks and telling me what a good bloke I am? Why would you stop?” We talk to him here about the art of shambling stagecraft and a life lived almost permanently on the road, which involves …   ... a burning desire to perform from the age of nine.   … “Don’t think before opening your mouth!”   … the rhythm of life when you play two gigs a week for five decades. And the value of ‘Micro-stardom’ - “I’m at the bar when they walk in”.     … seeing the Move, Free and Mott the Hoople in Aylesbury.   … how people always noticed him – not least because “I was idiot-dancing by the bass speakers”.   ... his first performance, a massively overwrought version of Peter Sarstedt’s Where Do You Go To My Lovely.   … best-selling Otway merch - “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better! It’s Nearly Rock And Roll But I Like It!” etc.   … “You have to capture an audience in the first 20 seconds.”   ... why playing the same size venues every night doesn’t challenge you.   … a recent three-month ‘trial retirement’.   … when he estimates he’ll play his 6,000th gig.   … and his planned and bank-breaking 2026 World Tour.   John Otway tour dates here: https://www.johnotway.com/gigs.html Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Hook, bold pioneer of the high, clambering, tune-filled bassline, is touring this autumn with Peter Hook & the Light. We talk to him in Prestatyn - about to deejay at mate’s birthday - about the first gigs he ever saw and played, heavy-handed club owners, tough crowds on dance floors, the world audience for his two old bands and few key moments of a long life onstage, which involves …   … why you should never read your reviews.   … how Ian Curtis was precisely the opposite of how people imagined him.   ... why deejaying is “the loneliest job in the world” and three tunes to play when it all goes wrong - “and I don’t play Blue Monday for obvious reasons”.   … seeing the Nolans at Salford Rugby Club, aged 15.   … his bell bottoms, clogs and Heavy Metal phase.   … seeing Led Zeppelin and the Sex Pistols the same week – “the Pistols were so bad they were relatable. I thought I could do that!”   … Stiff Kittens’ first gig: “a third-rate punk band aping all the others”.   … how DJs need to be “belligerent” and why people find them hard to love – and the book he’s writing, ‘How Not To Be A DJ’.   … how Ian Curtis’s vision of an international Joy Division following has finally been realised – “and with three generations in the crowd”.   … radiogram-wrecking early adventures in bass guitar.   … and the reasons he wanted to leave New Order and the thrill of maintaining their legacy.   Peter Hook & The Light tickets here: https://peterhookandthelight.live/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A 40th anniversary special with two of its presenters (Hepworth and Ellen) and old pal and TV critic Boyd Hilton who watched on the day aged 18 (“young, pretentious, idiotic”) and reviews the new BBC documentary. We look back at …   … the ways Live Aid changed television – “not about music but spectacle and scale”.   … would the idea of staging it have ever come about in the world of social media?   … being in the room for the Geldof F-Bomb.   … Ian Astbury smoking on live TV, the concrete mausoleum of the old Wembley Stadium, Concorde, Status Quo and other things that now seem so 1985.   … how Live Aid was the death of the New Romantics – “they don’t work in daylight” – and why Boy George turned it down.   … the footage set to the Cars’ video, the emotional pivot of the day, and the interview with the Ethiopian girl Birhan Woldu in the new documentary.   … how the thin sound of ’80s acts like the Style Council and Ultravox didn’t have the impact of old-school guitar/bass/drums.    … was Live Aid the first live televised rock concert event?   …and fragments of our fading memories – the U2 drama, Adam Ant, Sade, the lost link to Ian Botham, Billy Connolly in tears, acts unwisely playing new singles, Noel Edmonds’ helicopter shuttle, the BBC insisting it “mustn’t feel like a Telethon” – and all achieved without mobile phones.   Plus the return of Oasis, the BBC’s tangle with Neil Young at Glastonbury and the fall-out from the Bob Vylan broadcast.     … and a few Glastonbury moments - Rod Stewart’s cocktail-dress cabaret girls and the 1975’s Matt Healy stumbling on with a f*g and a pint of Guinness. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ian Anderson is touring again in 2026 and talks to us here about tweed stage-wear, an audience of four, his teenage heroes and the first shows he ever saw and played. There’s all sorts within, including …     … playing his first gig to Catholic schoolgirls at the Holy Family Youth Club in Blackpool – “we emptied the room”.   … queues round the block at the Marquee in 1968 – “the moment I knew we’d arrived.”   … how Joe Cocker nicked his breakfast.   … seeing Cliff at the ABC in Blackpool – “he was our Elvis.”   … guitarists who played “nicely”– Hank Marvin, Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Ritchie Blackmore. “Precise, accurate, they sang melodies.”    … the ceremonial christening of Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond.   … exotic clothes, stage names and parallels with Beefheart’s Magic Band.    … recording Feel Like Makin’ Love with the 90-year-old Engelbert Humperdinck.   … learning Guitar Tango by the Shadows - “not blues or rock and roll - progressive pop!”   … the fine art of dressing up: Jethro Tull in America – tweeds and deerstalkers v check shirts and denim.     … fund-raising shows for imperilled cathedrals.     … the allure of touring by train – “I’m Michael Portillo with a flute”.   … the three songs Jethro Tull always play.   Tickets for the Curiosity Tour 2026 here: jethrotull.com   Ian Anderson presents Christmas With Jethro Tull: Thursday 18 December 2025 - Bath Abbey Friday 19 December 2025 - Peterborough Cathedral Saturday 20 December 2025 - Southwark Cathedral Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s Happy Hour in the Rock and Roll Lounge of News and we’re working our way through anything over 40 per cent proof. Which means ice, a slice and ….   … how the F-Bomb lost its impact.   … Mick Ralphs and Lalo Schifrin RIP – and chapeau to "There's A Whole Lalo Schifrin Goin' On’.   … the Blush-o-meter! Album sleeves that’d get you lynched in the 21st Century – and that means you Roxy, UFO, BowWowWow, Blind Faith, Tom Waits and Supertramp!   … why the TV comedy W1A was the last record of the world before Covid.   … Irresistible song titles – eg Rikki Don’t Lose That Number, Misty Morning Albert Bridge, Jeannie Needs A Shooter.   … where was Instagram when Roxy Music started?!   … the genius of Sabrina Carpenter’s publicity machine.   … “The oldest used to have the power. Now it’s the youngest.”   … Jeff Bezos v a canal full of inflatable crocodiles.   … I’m Getting Buried in the Morning, Paintball’s Coming Home … the eternal joy of Half Man Half Biscuit.   … “Meeting a man from the motor trade - like a line from a TS Eliot poem.”   And birthday guest Guy Constant on the value of lyrics - plus ‘grollies, ‘70 supergroups and Theresa May swearing.   Here’s the link set up by Jon Hotten to help the rock writer (and former podcast guest) Mick Wall after he’d suffered a heart attack: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/jon-hotten-2 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bobby Bluebell remembers the “cuddly duffle-coat friendship” of Glasgow bands in the early ‘80s and the Bluebells’ second act rebooted by the Volkswagen ad. The band are touring again and an even bigger part of the city’s thriving musical community, and he looks back here at the first gigs he ever saw and played, along with …   … singing “When I’m Dead And Gone’ in an old folks home.     … on the town with Siobhan Fahey, her sisters and boyfriends Kevin Rowland and Gary Crowley.   … buying Rocket Man and Wee Neil Reid’s Mother Of Mine, aged 13. And Elton John at Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall.   … his side project The Golden Tree (with Grahame Skinner of Hipsway) playing ‘Scottish’ songs by Marmalade, Strawberry Switchblade, Ewan MacColl, Coldplay, the Easybeats, Talking Heads and the Bay City Rollers.   … “Glasgow had six gangs. You had to choose your route home carefully if wearing Kickers.”   … Clare Grogan’s sister’s part in the Bluebells’ fortunes.   … Edwyn Collins and Alan Horne holding HIT and MISS signs in the front row of an Oxfam Warriors gig.   … “A cuddly duffle-coat friendship”: the Glasgow bands of the early ‘80s and memories of Altered Images and Peter Capaldi’s Dream Boys.   … why Dolly Parton was ditched and ‘Young At Heart’ chosen for the Volkswagen ad.   … playing the Old Grey Whistle Test with the Psychedelic Furs.   … “the best way to get an audience to stop talking is to entertain them.”   … “All hits are luck”.   … his Golden Rule when playing festivals.   The Bluebells tickets here: https://www.songkick.com/artists/315250-bluebells/calendar   The Golden Tree: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7HO0TGE0vgPgwDoaBUMAJF?si=LUsXAtrURVWYjEkzDpI0mQ&nd=1&dlsi=65dddbf6bf6c45e4 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dennis Bovell has worked his dub magic on everyone from Janet Kaye to the Slits, the Pop Group, Jarvis Cocker and Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood – and his own band Matumbi. He talks here about the thrill and freedom of making dub records, his new album Wise Music In Dub – which reworks ‘Pass The Dutchie’, Minnie Riperton and the Stylistics – and how the phone never stops ringing with requests for an echo-filled clattery sonic re-boot. And about spending lockdown in a “dub bubble”, how recording has changed since his days with a one-track Phillips tape-machine, and recruiting Swizz The Panist (“who plays steel pans like a classical piano”) and Duke Baysee, the harmonica-playing Routemaster bus conductor.   Pre-order Wise Music In Dub here: https://wiserecords.bandcamp.com/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rick Wakeman was onstage from the age of five and looks back with us here on a life of live performance – jazz and blues bands, the Strawbs, Yes – and ahead to this autumn’s tour performing King Arthur and the Six Wives of Henry the Eighth. “I wake up every morning, throw off the duvet and – if nothing else has fallen off – have a great day!” There’s more …   ... how it feels when the rock press call you ‘Tomorrow’s Superstar!’ at the age of 24.   … the contract he once had to sign that said “Mister Wakeman will wear at least one of his capes during the performance”.   … seeing the Bonzos in 1965, “Viv Stanshall so paralytic he sang the entire set lying down”.   … being on a packed tube to Gants Hill and suddenly realising he was on the cover of the Melody Maker he was reading.   … Mrs Symes, his piano teacher, who launched his career (aged five).   … his teenage band Atlantic Blues “who ended Wipe Out eight times faster than it started”.   … the day his Strawbs’ Hammond organ solos were applauded by the Telegraph and Times.   … early piano sessions for Cat Stevens, Ralph McTell and Al Stewart.   … aspects of touring that prove “financially non-viable”.   … and how Wolf Hall rebooted the legend of Henry the Eighth.   Plus Atomic Rooster, Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Brown, green PVC trousers and a cape collection that includes “four originals”.   Buy tickets here: https://www.rwcc.com/live.php#ere2025 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chasing the shade and applying Factor 50 in the wilting heat of this week’s rock and roll news turns the conversation to …   … Kneecap v the Prime Minister. … will any openly anti-Trump musician find it hard to tour the States? … the girl who’s listening to all 10,000 of her late father’s albums, one 60-second Instagram reel at a time. … a bottle of Snoop Dogg rosé, anyone?     … why Carol Kaye turned down the Hall Of Fame.   … Hollywood and “the genius of the system” v the current vogue for applauding individual genius.   … Lottie Golden, Laurie Styvers, Jeannie Piersol and our love for High Moon Records, the Virago of the record business.   … why self-sabotage is a British institution.   … Nick Cave Unisex Clogs? Pet Shop Boys chrome pepper-grinder? Brave new frontiers in pop merchandise.   … Genya Ravan’s I Won’t Sleep On The Wet Spot No More.   … Beau Dommage, Dragon’s Breath, Two Left Feet … Canadian band or voguish craft ale?   Also in the mix … Dawn French, Phoebe Snow, Humphrey Ocean, Alan Bennett and Bridget St John. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Farm are touring again this summer and have just made their first album for 31 years (with the same-line-up). This sparky and wide-ranging conversation with Peter Hooton stops off at the following …   … the advice Mark E Smith gave him when they were interviewed by Select magazine.   … “Suedeheads v Trogs and Greebos”: early ‘70s tribal warfare in Bootle.   … seeing Cockney Rebel, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band and Genesis at the Liverpool Empire.   … the death of old heroes – “you imagined Bowie was always going to be there”.   … backstage with the Clash in Paris and why they were the Farm’s role models.   … Bill Drummond’s attempt to remodel them “in tracksuits with hard dogs”.   … how the death of John Lennon made him start writing.   … the use of All Together Now as a football anthem – from everyone to Everton to Euros 2004 to a disastrous campaign by the Labour Party - “but the Qatar World Cup was a bridge too far”.   … touring with Mick Jones (“the Pied Piper”) for the Hillsborough 96 Campaign.   … his school band, Breakwind - “the forerunners of Half Man Half Biscuit” – and being in the cast of Oliver!.   …. his guided music tours of Liverpool and the places they visit.   … and why The Farm has “omni-appeal – a band who look like they’re from a street corner”.   Also in the mix: Big Audio Dynamite, Deaf School, Nile Rodgers, Roger Eagle and Cliff Richard on Top Of The Pops.   Buy tickets and the album Let The Music (Take Control) here: https://thefarmmusic.co.uk/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Carol Decker - another Smash Hits cover star on the podcast! T’Pau are playing dates this summer and autumn and she talks here – hilariously - about life on the ‘80s package tour circuit and the first shows she ever saw and played, which stops off at ….   … does any audience beat a Butlin’s Mid-Weeker on their third pint?   … from Black Mirror to PG Tips: the afterlife of a hit.   … seeing Rod & the Faces in Stoke-On-Trent and Dire Straits in a Wrestling Hall.   … “Appearing In An A&E Near You!”: accident-prone ‘80s stars, a sitcom waiting to happen.   ... the arcane world of the backing vocalist – “don’t distract, nothing too big”.   … the grim tradition of headline bands’ road crews making the support acts suffer.   … ‘80s package tours with OMD, Kim Wilde, Toyah, Clare Grogan and Nik Kershaw.   … playing working men’s clubs with the Lazers in 1980 - “an unwelcome distraction from the Bingo”.   … visits to Dusty Springfield’s grave.   … “Universal own the world”: when your songs appear in films and ads but you couldn’t keep the rights.   … more power to the Amnesty for Unrecouped Bands! Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversatiom going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As the great Warren Zevon said, ‘Enjoy every sandwich’. The two-man canoe navigates this week’s rock and roll rivulet which sadly entails reflections on a pair of towering musical giants ‘whose legend occupied the space where activity should have been’. Things considered include …   …are you born with genius or does a set of circumstances allow it to flourish?   … the impossible task of living up to people’s expectations and the calamitous ways it led Sly and Brian Wilson to behave.   … like Sly’s plane landing at the moment he was meant to be onstage at Madison Square Garden.   … the massive cultural contrast between Woodstock and ‘the Black Woodstock’ a month earlier and how Sly & the Family Stone looked like they’d ‘come from Mars’.   … how Derek Taylor, Tom Nolan and Nick Kent helped fashion the Beach Boys’ myth.   … Sly’s impact on Miles Davis, Prince, Massive Attack and hip-hop and how a record as radical as There’s A Riot Goin’ On was a No 1 Christmas album.   … In My Room, a completely new kind of teenage song.   … David’s five Beach Boys teenage moments …   … and Mark’s three examples of Brian Wilson’s Greatest Bits – eg the overture to California Girls.   … and 'Arise, Sir Roger Daltrey!' Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Liam Gallagher calls Ted Kessler and Hamish MacBain “the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore of music journalism”. Both worked at the NME (and Ted at Q), both interviewed the band many times and have just published ‘A Sound So Very Loud’ which, in the grand tradition of Revolution In The Head, tells the story of every Oasis song ever recorded. They talk to Mark here about …     … why Oasis struck such an almighty chord and were the band the press were waiting for.   … their dismantling of the notion of rock stardom.   … “a visceral dislike”: why they were so socially divisive in the ‘90s.   … Liam “waking up in police custody with two missing teeth”.   … the Gallaghers’ dependable flair for the Smiths-style “performative interview” and why it sold the rock press.   … what Noel stole from Tony Blair’s maiden speech for the lyrics of Magic Pie.   … the turning point in the shift in the brothers’ powerbase.     … Liam and the invention of “Stillism”.     … “70 per cent of a band is the singer’s identity”.   … Noel’s blog and Liam’s Twitter and how the split might have been avoided if their debate hadn’t been played out in public.   … Supersonic, Cigarettes and Alcohol and the admirable honesty of Noel’s “brazen theft”.   … how Stop Crying Your Heart Out became an X-Factor standard.     … and the 5am Liam Gallagher social media publicity machine.   ‘A SOUND SO VERY LOUD’ BY TED KESSLER AND HAMISH MACBAIN Preorder link here!: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/ted-kessler/a-sound-so-very-loud/9781035078257 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Elkie Brooks was on a package tour aged 15, supported the Beatles and the Animals, made a single when she was 19, joined the jazz-rock Dada, then Vinegar Joe (with Robert Palmer) and has since made 20 albums. She’s now out on her ‘Long Farewell Tour’ and looks back with us here from her home in Devon at …   … supporting the Beatles in ’64 and an audience already screaming for the headliners.     … memories of Dusty, Cilla and Maggie Bell and how few girl singers there were in the ‘60s and ‘70s.   … singing Cliff Richard’s ‘Pointed Toe Shoes’, aged 15, at the Don Arden talent show that won her a tour with Conway Twitty and Wee Willie Harris.   … supporting the Animals at the Paramount, New York.   … the male-weighted music world and how long it took to win any respect.   … seeing Ella Fitzgerald when she was 12 and being fired up by the range and phrasing of Billie Holiday.   … what she learnt from Humphrey Lyttelton and Eric Delaney.   … life on the scampi-in-the-basket cabaret circuit as a teenager.   … trying to keep Vinegar Joe together after Robert Palmer left.     Book tickets to the Long Farewell Tour here: https://www.elkiebrooks.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Facing down the leg spinners of rock and roll news while trying to wallop the odd shot across the pavilion roof. On the scoreboard this week …   … has there ever been a rock feud as bitter as Trump v Musk?   … what Ray Charles, Taylor Swift and Dave Clark have in common.   … the 30-year golden age music video.   … things Van Morrison can’t forget.   … how some songs about lying in hammocks necking cocktails ended up worth $275m.     … Beyoncé, Stetsons, pink Cadillacs and how all visiting American acts bring with them the aura of America.   … the greatest and most influential video ever made.   … the song Carly Simon wrote about Cat Stevens.   … “Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)”   … Nick Mason’s menagerie: things your teenage self never imagined would happen.   … Kraft Cheese slices, Kylie videos, the cut above David Beckham’s eye and other things labelled ‘iconic’.   … and Birthday guest Paul Thompson’s night at the Music Video Preservation Society! Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stuart Maconie – broadcaster, prolific author – has a brilliant and original new perspective on the Beatles. His latest book With A Little Help From Their Friends identifies the 100 people who had the greatest impact on their story, from the inner circle to bit-part players – schoolfriends, girlfriends, managers, muses, support acts, advisors and exploiters. It’s immensely entertaining – and revealing, even for obsessives like us. Look out for these in particular …   … memories of his Mum taking him to see the Beatles in Wigan when he was three.   … the Shakespearian supporting cast – “we know the Othellos and King Lears but there are a lot of Rosencrantz and Guildensterns” such as Marsha Albert, Melanie Coe, Pablo Fanque, Mr Mustard and the night with the poet Royston Ellis that inspired Polythene Pam.   … villains of the piece who might have been misunderstood like the Maharishi and Allen Klein.   … what Derek Taylor shouted at Peter Blake at the Q Awards.   … the full extent of the Beatles’ American merchandise catastrophe.   … the “moving and spooky” sensation of standing on the spot in Woolton where John and Paul first met - and its repercussions.   … the Sliding Doors moments and why no other band merits this kind of depth and detail.   … the hoary redundant old saw about John v Paul – “guerilla genius v slick vaudevillian” and how Peter Jackson’s Get Back made us all fall in love with them even harder and deeper than before. . … the regrettable question he asked McCartney about Gerry & the Pacemakers.   … the tragedy of Jimmie Nicol – “being a member of the Beatles, even briefly, was the nearest equivalent to going to the Moon”.   … the impact of Paul’s life with the Ashers on the band’s intersections with art, theatre and poetry.   … how the ‘Oldies But Goldies’ album broke the band beyond the Iron Curtain.   .. why Penny Lane is like a Play for Today.   … and the greatest song the Beatles recorded.   Order With A Little Help From Our Friends here: https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/with-a-little-help-from-their-friends-the-beatles-changed-the-world-but-who-changed-theirs-stuart-maconie?variant=54870051815803 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Rob Caiger is one of those special people who turned their teenage obsession with music into a job   … from being the only one in ELO’s office who knew where the old tapes were   … to learning that what it says on the outside of the box isn’t always what’s on the tape   … through embarking on a ten-year project to put out the last Small Faces album from 1970 in its proper form     … via blindfolded journeys to mysterious destinations with the promise of finding some long-lost jewels   … and hearing a Rolling Stones out-take bleeding through a multi-track by the Move   … through the vault under Smithfield Market out of which tapes would sometimes emerge covered in blood   … to preparing for a future where nobody who was there will be able to explain how and why things were recorded   … this is the world as seen by the remarkably dedicated people who put together the box sets we all hanker for.   The Small Faces: The Autumn Stone record and CD - https://www.thesmallfaces.com/shop/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hoary old tales retold – ideally in an Irish accent - and new ones prized from the giddy carousel of rock and roll news which, this week, features …   … was there a better stage name than Rick Derringer?   … Linda Ronstadt, Ronnie Spector, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and other new biopics under construction.   … genuinely ‘iconic’ rock images – the Ziggy lightning stipe, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, Elvis dancing in Jailhouse Rock, Dylan and Suze Rotolo in Jones Street …   … our old pal Barry McIlheney, his Belfast band Shock Treatment and the time he asked U2 to draw a duck.   … the thin wall that separates hilarity and grief.   … how TikTok and a 1962 B-side booted the 87-year old Connie Francis.     … Banned words! – ‘iconic, circle back, reach out, Ramones-esque, eponymous sophomore effort’ and other clichés that MUST be banished!   … “Sgt Pepper: it’s like the Beatles on acid!”   … why 80 per cent of the stadium experience is beyond our control.   ... how Freddie Mercury still makes headlines beyond the grave.   … the real Rikki in ‘Rikki Don’t Lose that Number’.   … and when you find yourself at a Springsteen gig next to a Trump supporter.   Watch the Barry McIlheney podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cjw-6HZWa-E Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Martha Wainwright is a key member of the Wainwright/McGarrigle clan, all of them big favourites of ours. She’s currently on her 20th anniversary tour and looks back here at the first shows she ever saw and played which involves …   … growing up in a folk dynasty in Montreal.     … the sight of Perla Batalla and Julie Christensen, backing singers on Leonard Cohen’s I’m Your Man tour, “who made me want to be onstage too”.   … the story of ‘Matapedia’, the song Kate McGarrigle wrote when an old boyfriend thought she was her teenage daughter.     … her first shows playing Elvis, Dylan and Woody Guthrie songs on the coffeehouse circuit.   … singing with her brother Rufus and her cousins with Kate & Anna McGarrigle at folk festivals.   … onstage at the Roches’ Christmas shows in New York.   … the time her brother stole the show over Emmylou Harris: “I thought I want that kind of attention!”   … seeing Pink Floyd’s The Wall in a Montreal hockey stadium, aged 9 – “a very marking experience”.   … the songs of her mother’s she always plays: “I’m obsessed with her legacy”.   Martha Wainwright 20th Anniversary tour tickets here: https://marthawainwright.com/shows Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Small boy begins breeding budgerigars in Liverpool, makes enough to buy a drum kit and becomes the power behind Big In Japan, the Slits, the Creatures and Siouxsie and the Banshees. And one half of punk rock’s most famous couples. The immensely engaging Budgie has finally written his memoir, ‘The Absence’, and talks to us from Berlin about …   … are bands only as good as their drummers?   … Siouxsie, the Ice Queen goth-in-waiting who was actually “a cackling crazy tomboy from Chiselhurst”.      … playing Shadows instruments in a nightclub cabaret, aged 13.   … the gnawing pain of not being asked to play Live Aid – “we just weren’t part of that all-pals-together-in-the-wonderful word of music”.   … “World Exclusive!”: seeing Bill Nighy in a band in the ‘70s singing Rosalita.   … the Apache and Wipeout drum patterns in the rhythms of the Slits and Banshees.     … in praise of drummers: Bill Buford, Phil Collins, the Glitter Band, Humble Pie’s Jerry Shirley.   … the peculiar world of the teenage budgerigar breeder.   … the dynamic of the Slits – “Palmolive, off-the-scale crazy”.   … ‘You're The Biggest Thing Since Powdered Milk’ by Burke Shelley’s Budgie, Humble Pie’s ‘Rockin’ the Fillmore’ and when you only have one cassette in your car and it’s ‘Wonderworld’ by Uriah Heep.   … Siouxsie’s Jim Morrison fixation and lack of ambition.   … the advantage of being in a band with a girl singer.   … and the likelihood of a Banshees’ reunion.   Order Budgie’s memoir ‘the Absence’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Absence-Memoirs-Banshee-Drummer/dp/1399621564 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The two-man pedalo of enquiry sets out on the Bank Holiday boating lake of news pausing to consider …     … Florence Welch, Dua Lipa and the rise of the rock and roll book club.   … the 92 year-old that Bob Dylan supported at the Cascades Amphitheatre, Ridgefield.   … the Beatles had 18 drummers!   … the sad end to Billy Joel’s tour schedule.   … is Hollywood dead?   … what’s your relationship with reading if your first experience of literature is dressing up as a wizard on World Book Day?   … why is there something unfailingly comic about drummers being fired?   … “No nudity! No voluminous outfits!”: Cannes new red carpet ruling.   … is Chimes Of Freedom Bob Dylan at ‘peak wordage’?   … are books and record sleeves the new antiques, items to furnish a room?   … Sherlock Holmes, Hunter S Thompson: Corey Hart of Slipknot’s recommended reading.   … and how Springsteen is taunting Trump.   Plus Starry Eyed And Laughing, old drummer gags and who the hell’s seen Ne Zha 2 or Mickey 17? Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our worldwide Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dylan Jones – writer, former editor of i-D, Arena and GQ - was 15 in 1975 and dressed like Jimmy McCulloch of Wings (“a lot of denim and silk scarves”), a time he thinks had enormous influence on the following five decades. There are many highlights in his latest book ‘1975: The Year The World Forgot’, a lot of them discussed here with David and Mark, including …   … the lasting impact of the cover of Patti Smith’s Horses.   … the “frightening” Millie Jackson, 50 years ahead of her time.   … why Blood On The Tracks was the first middle-aged rock album.    … the information black-out and the value of the ‘70s rock press - particularly Street Life – for such experimental music.   … how the sarcasm of Steely Dan still feels contemporary – “Donald Trump is a figure they could have made up 50 years ago”.   … the three key rhythms of the ‘70s – Fela Kuti’s afro-beat, James Brown’s funk and Klaus Dinger’s Neu!-beat.   … the reason Donna Summer’s Love To Love You Baby is 17 minutes long.   … how Brian Eno’s accident led to the birth of ambient music.    … “writing about pop music allows you to write about anything”.   … how the sophistication and intellect of the mid-‘70s was pilloried in Punk’s Year Zero.   … the Quiet Storm genre - aka “foreplay music” – from Sade to Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye.   ... the unrecognised power of the female record-buyer and the sexism of the rock press.   … and the greatest record of 1975!   Pre-order ‘1975: The Year The World Forgot’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/1975-World-Forgot-Dylan-Jones/dp/1408721988 Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our worldwide Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Beach Boys’ SMiLE was abandoned by Brian Wilson in 1967 and eventually performed at an emotional gathering of the faithful in London 37 years later. For writer and lecturer David Leaf it became an obsession. He made a documentary about it in 2004 and has just published ‘SMiLE: The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of Brian Wilson’ drawn from detailed conversations with the people involved. He talks to us here about his discoveries, which include …   ... the Rolling Stone story that kick-started his obsession.   … “a bicycle ride from Plymouth Rock to Hawaii” and other early plans for the album.   … how Leonard Bernstein, the Beatles and Derek Taylor racked up the pressure in the studio.   … why the other Beach Boys – and Capitol and Murry Wilson - felt the new music was a threat to their livelihood.   … how Brian composed the “teenage symphony for God” that became an albatross around his neck.   ... “Ray Davies needed a deadline”: the perils of endless recording time.   … the magnetism of Van Dyke Parks, a man who “talks in paragraphs”.   ... the imagined impact on the world and the band’s career if SMiLE had come out in 1967.   … the birth of “art rock” versus the strictures of the music business.   … the value of the SMiLE myth in the eventual rebirth of the Beach Boys.   … the reaction to its long-awaited performance at the Festival Hall in 2004.   ... why Brian thought shelving the album would save the group yet “they went from a No 1 single to an act nobody cared about in under a year”.   ... and the greatest Beach Boys record of all time.   Order SMiLE: the Rise, Fall & Resurrection of Brian Wilson here: https://omnibuspress.com/products/smile-the-rise-fall-and-resurrection-of-brian-wilson-published-10th-october-2024?_pos=1&_psq=smile&_ss=e&_v=1.0 Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our worldwide Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Slapping the beanburger of news on the sizzling grill of scrutiny and served with relish by Alex Gold and Mark Ellen (David’s in Spain with his bucket and spade). This week’s specials include …   … Springsteen’s unprecedented speech onstage in Manchester about his nation’s “corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration” and the Dixie Chicks’ career-popping anti-Trump manoeuvre of 2003.   … John Niven’s upcoming play ‘The Battle’ and the Blur/Oasis soundclash it celebrates.     … the 50th anniversary of the Stones’ (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction: from motel bed to finished recording in six days.   … “Lennon’s all about the legs”: the art of playing the Beatles, Keith Richards and all four of the Small Faces onstage (involves “ducking, bobbing and dipping”).   … brilliant songs written in seconds – by Lady Gaga, the Beastie Boys, James Brown and the White Stripes.     … the tour circuit and the trouble at borders.   … “the sound of dental floss being pinged by a squirrel”: Bill Bailey’s impression of the Edge with a power failure.   … Elvis v Cliff, Beatles v Stones, Hendrix v Clapton, Bowie v Bolan, Clash v Pistols, Duran v Spandau, Blur v Oasis: what was the last great rock rivalry?   ... and Elvis Costello’s inspired use of the Ansaphone. Fast Show clip ‘Mr Wells’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FRAeFyBX1w Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our worldwide Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dennis Greaves took a week off from Nine Below Zero in 1980 but otherwise kept his nose firmly applied to the grindstone. They broke up in 1983 when he formed the Truth, who broke up in 1989 when he rebooted the old band. He looks back here at the first gigs he ever saw and played – a world with the attractive scent of spilt beer and tobacco – stopping off at various points, among them …   … why blues and R&B flourished in South London, police and villains drinking together at the Thomas A Becket and the folklore of the Old Kent Road.   ... the great advantage of never having a hit.   … taking his parents to see Chuck Berry in 1972.   ... the lasting appeal of R&B in a world of processed music.   … what he learnt from Glyn Johns when he produced them at Olympic Studios, “the man who invented phasing with Itchycoo Park”.   … buying singles at A1 Records in Walworth – “Progressive, Reggae, Artists A-Z …”   … seeing Blackfoot Sue and Scarecrow on the pub circuit, and the Groundhogs and Rory Gallagher at the Rainbow.   … Pete Townshend watching Nine Below Zero from the wings - “you remind me of us in the ‘60s”.   … seeing the Jam 11 times – “900 people in a 400 capacity venue!”   … “getting gyp is good as you learn how to control an audience.”   … 2am service station food and how touring has changed in 45 years.   ... performing in the pilot for The Young Ones in 1982.   … “the song you should study for A-Level Pop”.   … memories of Mylone LeFevre, Capability Brown, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGee, BB King, Muhammad Ali, Henry Cooper, Uriah Heep, The Little Roosters, Deep Purple, Gary Moore, Greg Lake, Love Sculpture, Free, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Alvin Lee, Dr Feelgood and Charlie McCoy playing Lady Madonna on the harmonica on the Val Doonican Show …    … and the greatest record ever made!   Nine Below Zero tickets and tour dates here: https://www.ninebelowzero.com/tour Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our worldwide Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Capaldi – aka Malcolm Tucker, Dr Who, the universal screen delight and an Oscar-winning film director – was the singer in the punk band the Dreamboys in the late ‘70s who put out a single when he was at the art school in Glasgow. And then became an actor. And then - in the grand tradition of actors who’ve made albums, Hugh Laurie, Scarlett Johansson, Jeff Bridges and Keanu Reeves among them – released St Christopher in 2021. He’s just recorded a second, Sweet Illusions, and talks to us in this extremely funny and entertaining pod about …   … how his sole motivation was “a burning desire to be on the telly”.   … the difference between fronting bands and being in plays.   … how he grievously stitched up support band the Cocteau Twins at a gig in Grangemouth.   … a teenage love of Slade - “a bit terrifying but still a bit safe”.   … first-hand evidence of the connection between Blakey from On the Buses, Adolph Hitler and Beatles.   … “you have to write a hundred songs before you can write a good one”.   … arriving at art school in ’76 a Neil Young fan and his overnight transformation – “peroxide hair, PVC trousers and bright red crepe sole shoes”.   … seeing Simple Minds at the Mars Bar in Glasgow, Jim Kerr with his Shakespearian haircut, “strange, powerful, imaginative, post-glam”.   … forming the Dreamboys and “trying to be big, clever and Kafka-esque”.   … the stigma of being virtually the only band in Glasgow not to get a John Peel session.   … writing the “bizarro pulp” lyrics for the Dreamboys – “we couldn’t decide if we were the Cramps or Talking Heads”.   … what’s required, “apart from a terrible Scouse accent”, in playing John Lennon onstage and George Harrison onscreen.   … auditioning (comedian, actor, TV host) Craig Ferguson as the band’s drummer.     … how Bill Forsyth launched his acting career: “one minute you’re supporting Altered Images, the next in a movie with Burt Lancaster”.   … forming a duo with Keanu Reeves when filming Dangerous Liaisons in Paris – powdered wigs in the daytime, guitar/bass punk-thrash at night.   .. the romantic Edward Hopper charm of Glasgow in the ‘70s - proto-goths, street lights, rain.   … how Dr Robert of the Blow Monkeys and four months filming The Suicide Squad in Atlanta spurred him into writing songs.     … the greatest record of all time.   Order the Sweet Illusions album here: https://shop.lastnightfromglasgow.com/products/peter-capaldi-sweet-illusions-vinyl-lp-cd-lossless-dl Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our global Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The teenage Alan Parsons was hired as a tape op by EMI and worked with the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Steve Harley, orchestras, comedians, Pinky And Perky and countless others in the control room at Abbey Road, and saw almost 60 years of technical revolution. He’s just finished a 50th anniversary box set of Harley’s the Best Years Of Our Lives and talks here from his Santa Monica home studio about …     … the things you find buried in old recordings.    … how AI will allow anyone to remix their favourite record.    … the miraculous transformation of Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) from a vindictive dirge to a No 1 pop hit, its backing vocalists and its DJ-baffling false ending.   … cutting the tape with John Lennon to end I Want You (She’s So Heavy).   … seeing himself - ‘in an orange shirt and black knitted tie’ - in the Get Back movie 52 years later. ‘It proves I was there!’   … recording the clocks, footsteps and airport announcer for The Dark Side Of The Moon - ‘playing Abbey Road studios as an instrument’.   … recording He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother with Reg Dwight on piano.   … the magical ‘60s technology that made Pinky And Perky.   … opening the door at Savile Row and first seeing the Beatles and all their girlfriends.   … recording Pilot, the Hollies and the Joe Loss Orchestra.   … the story of Clare Torry and The Great Gig In The Sky.    … Abbey Road recordings stored at a nearby squash court.   … working with David Gilmour on an Earls Court show from the 1990s.   … touring with the Alan Parsons Project (who never toured originally).   … why Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone is the greatest record of all time (clue: the hi-hat and bass figure).   Pre-order Steve Harley’s ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ here: https://SteveHarley.lnk.to/TBY Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Perched outside the Vatican Of News awaiting puffs of white smoke, which this week arrive in the following fashion …   … Brandi Carlile’s Mothership Weekend and her genius for publicity.   … Jim Morrison is alive and living in Syracuse, New York!: barrel-scraping new rock documentary incoming.   … Hip Hop Wealth v Rock Wealth: the $57m house Kayne West bought, gutted and left to disintegrate.   … real or fictional ‘religious’ musicians – Saint Pepsi, Cardinal Rex, Pope Plastique, the Reverend Horton Heat?   …. Lady Gaga at Cobacabana Beach and is there anywhere in the UK you could feasibly hold a concert for two million people?   … “Crafting smiles for today’s legends’: Kayne West’s devious dentist.   … is Elvis still ‘sighted in Brent Cross Shopping Centre’?   … the Noel Gallagher sunglasses range! The ‘She’s Electric’ train route to Wembley!: the eternal churn of the Oasis rumour mill.   … the life and luck of Peter Capaldi, one minute supporting Altered Images, the next in a movie with Burt Lancaster.   … is there music for everyone anymore or is it all repackaged for subsects of the population?   … ‘the towering gates of Sean Combs' estate have flaming torches burning day and night’. Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dennis McNally was the Grateful Dead’s publicist in the mid-‘80s, one of many reasons why he’s supremely qualified to write his new book about the birth of the counterculture in America’s West and East Coast and Britain. ‘The Last Great Dream: How Bohemians Became Hippies And Created the Sixties’, a celebration of music, beat poetry, radical thinking, free speech and artistic liberty, seems even more precious now in the light of recent events. All sorts are discussed here, these being some of the highlights …    … how the Summer of Love of ‘67 actually happened in the Fall of ‘66 in Haight-Ashbury.   … “rigid, stagnant, terrifying”: early ‘60s America before the revolution.    … the three key cities that “experimented with freedom”.   ... how San Francisco “cherished strangeness” and had a self-proclaimed ruler, Emperor Norton, who created his own currency.   … how the Grateful Dead - “the ultimate example of the bohemian pulse writ large in music” – spent $1m building a sound system when they were earning $125 a week.   … the influence of Private Eye, Beyond The Fringe and That Was The Week That Was on British culture. And of Lenny Bruce, the Hungry I club, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen and Mort Sahl in America.   … how Rebel Without A Cause and the Wild One helped establish the West Coast as rebellious.   … “there are two flags of freedom – one to make as much money as possible, the other to be as open-minded and thoughtful about everything”.   … Eisenhower said “in God we trust!” But which God?   … the entire security for the 25,000 crowd at the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park was two mounted policemen.   … “nothing is more fun than researching”.   ... how the counter-culture was created with very little money or technology.   Order the Last Great Dream here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Great-Dream-Bohemians-Hippies/dp/0306835665 Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Passing the thermometer of conversation over the rock and roll news to see where the mercury rises, which this week includes …   … the new Barbra Streisand duets album. Duets are ‘playlets’, small intense dramas that depend on human interaction, but so many are recorded separately (including, tragically, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell).   … but … duets you HAVE to hear! eg Cash & Carter, Otis Redding & Carla Thomas, Ray Charles & Betty Carter, Siouxsie & Morrissey, Nick Cave & Kylie, Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush.   … the extraordinary story of the rebirth and Indian Summer of Mississippi John Hurt after 40 years of invisibility.     … blues lyrics that now seem unimaginable.   … Frank Zappa as a drug dealer? Miles Davis as a pimp? Cyndi Lauper as a trophy wife? Real or made-up Miami Vice rock star cameos.    … great opening lines – “We got married in a fever …!”   … how you always learn something you never knew about someone from their obituary - like Mike Peters’ involvement in the highest altitude concert ever performed (on Everest with Glenn Tilbrook and Slim Jim Phantom).   … where people listen to the Word In Your Ear “poddy” – eg in the bath, in court, at wedding receptions, by the Allman Brothers’ graveside.   Plus birthday guest John Montagna on rock stars who should be in a TV series. Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which comedian Al Murray and historian James Holland talk about their new book Victory ’45 and our twin national obsessions, the Second World War and The Beatles. Includes: ….how being emotionally shut down enabled Montgomery to collect the surrender at Luneburg Heath ….how a profound sense of duty helped Harry Truman make the most dreadful decisions anyone has ever faced …how German soldiers could keep on invoicing right until the end …what all this has to tell us about our present predicament …why thousands of blokes in camo (and a surprising amount of women) attend their We Have Ways Fest every summer: https://wehavewaysfest.co.uk/ ….what it is that continues to fascinate us about World War II. ….how its story is being told in new ways …how they both came to The Beatles Buy Victory '45 here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Victory-45-history-bestselling-historians/dp/0857507958 Help us to keep the conversation going by joining our Patreon community: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Derek Shulman was at the heart of two great transformations – Simon Dupree & the Big Sound switching to psychedelia, and then sensing the prog-rock trade winds and becoming Gentle Giant. One minute he was singing Kites, the next Pantagruel’s Nativity (Gentle Giant’s rebooted ‘Playing The Fool: The Complete Live Experience’ is just out). After which he was a record label president signing Bon Jovi, Slipknot and Nickelback and rebooting AC/DC and Bad Company. It’s a phenomenal story and involves …     … three pieces of advice for any band today.   … playing the ‘64 circuit in his R&B band the Roadrunners.   … the fictitious character he invented as Simon Dupree.   … when Dudley Moore was their session pianist.   … memories of Marc Bolan (“flat on his back playing guitar”), Tony Iommi, Tony Visconti, Don Arden, Gerry Bron and “the English mob”.   … what they borrowed from Traffic in the Great Psychedelic Scare of 1967.    … auditioning for George Martin and the lab-coated sound engineers at Abbey Road.   … being phoned on a ship returning from Sweden to be told ‘Kites’ was Top Twenty and doing Top Of The Pops with Status Quo and the Kinks.   … “cars and bags of jewels”: the advantage of being “the darlings of the Isle of Wight Mafia” (which included the Krays).   … watching Bowie recording The Man Who Sold The World at Trident.   … Elton John’s advice that helped form Gentle Giant.   … the catastrophic US tour with Black Sabbath (on their “chemical romance”) where the audience threw cherry-bombs onstage: “you learnt how to work a crowd!”   … George Underwood’s cover for the first Gentle Giant album.   … what he saw in Slipknot and why he signed them.   You can order GENTLE GIANT – PLAYING THE FOOL: THE COMPLETE LIVE EXPERIENCE here: https://gentlegiantuk.lnk.to/PTF Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

While Mark Ellen is hanging out with the other old ruins in Athens, David Hepworth and Alex Gold compare and contrast the organisation of the London Marathon with the Travellodge in Frimley and wonder… …Rolling Stone cover stars or members of Trump’s clown cabinet? …if you were interviewed as often as a rock star would you too make stuff up? …was Max Romeo’s innocent explanation of “Wet Dream" convincing? …where do you listen to the Word In Your Ear Podcast? All this and more in your favourite podcast. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Moon Zappa grew up in what appeared, on the outside, to be an enviably free-wheeling and creative household in Laurel Canyon. On the inside, not so much. Her extremely funny, soul-baring and colourful account of dysfunctional family life in her memoir Earth To Moon is as gripping as it’s unsettling. A typical day: “Your mother’s on the rampage, I need you to hide the gun!” Only other children with famous parents can fully gauge the emotional turmoil. She talks here about her memoir Earth To Moon – just out in paperback – and the impact of Frank’s work and tours on the frail domestic set-up and the years they all spent “stewarding his genius”. Along with …   … “is genius worth the collateral damage?”   … fond memories of rare moments with her workaholic father.   … the Zappa family’s perilous finances: “Could he write a pop song or did he just choose not to?”   ... how she was shut out of the control of Frank’s estate “plus a clause saying if I found religion I’d get no money at all”.   … the nurses’ reaction when they discovered her new-born brother was named ‘Dweezil’.   ... recording Valley Girl, the song that made her a teenage star and changed the family fortunes but got no gratitude from her parents.   … why Frank found Valley Girl’s success “mortifying”. And how her one catastrophic live version put her off stage performance for life.   … and that unique bond you have with other celebrity offspring: “Jakob Dylan and I just cackle with laughter. ‘That happened to you too?’”   Order ‘Earth To Moon’ in paperback here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Earth-Moon-Unit-Zappa/dp/1474623859/ref=asc_df_1474623859?mcid=ae11e321cea83f4486c71a35dd95a9ea&th=1&psc=1&hvocijid=15982814295882496701-1474623859-&hvexpln=74&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=696285193871&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15982814295882496701&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9072502&hvtargid=pla-2281435176458&psc=1&gad_source=1 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We like to think of Daryl Hall as a kindred spirit, his home-recorded Live At Daryl’s House series with its magnificent roster of guests now racking up 90 episodes. He’s about to tour in May and talks to us here from his house in the Bahamas – straw hat, roosters crowing! – looking back at the first gigs he ever saw and played and other delights such as …    … travelling with his mother’s Broadway dance band when he was three.   … seeing the Temptations, Smokey Robinson, Patti LaBelle and the Bluetones in the Uptown Theater, Philadelphia, in the early ‘60s.   … Three Men In A Boat: a barge trip through London with Dave Stewart and Bob Dylan.   … “My teenage rule: I will only wear dark green or black and needlepoint shoes. I had balls in those days!”   … why Hall & Oates is “in the past” - “He initiated the split and neither of us want to resolve it”.   … songs he always plays - Sara Smile, I Can't Go for That (No Can Do) – and why you’ll never hear She’s Gone again.   … making his first records on a four-track in Virtue Studios, Philadelphia, and recording with MFSB. “I still like to keep it lean and mean.”   … playing session piano with the Delfonics and making a single with Chubby Checker.   … his first cheque for songwriting - $15.   … “I brought rock and roll to my High School!”   … the success of Live At Daryl’s House and the episodes with Todd Rundgren, Smokey Robinson and Glenn Tilbrook.     … his sideline in restoring 18th Century houses.   Live From Daryl’s House here: https://livefromdarylshouse.com/   Daryl Hall tour dates and tickets here: https://hallandoates.com/tour/   Buy/stream the ‘D’ album here: https://ingrv.es/DarylHallD Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The chocolate Easter bunny of rock and roll news in highly nutritious and digestible fragments, such as …    … the Who’s very public sacking of Zak Starkey.   … why no band ever wants to play quietly.   … how a magazine in a shop window sparked the Neil Tennant/Mark Springer album.   … Katy Perry’s space ‘mission’ and the trenchant observations by her and the ‘crew’ – “I can’t put it into words but I looked out the window and we got to see the moon!”   … The Thing In The Cellar, Dogs Are Everywhere, Roadkill … Pulp song or episode of The Good Life?   … the brilliant new ‘One To One: John & Yoko’ documentary and how we miss the days when rock stars went on live chat shows and said the first thing that came into their heads.   … why musicians are fundamentally different from other entertainers.   ... perilous domestic gadgets of the ‘60s.   … the allure of songs about space.   … “Ray’s at the controls!” When Ray Charles went walkabout on the band’s private plane.    … Pete Townshend: “We need bigger weapons!”   … Ben Watt DJ-ing in ear defenders.   … Ray Davies, Charlie Watts, Bill Wyman …? Who grew the first psychedelic moustache?   Plus birthday guest Al Hearton on Kris Kristofferson, John Travolta, Bruce Dickinson, Gary Numan and the rock and roll/aviation crossover. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dave Pegg joined Fairport Convention 56 years ago and fully deserves some sort of medal. They’re playing their 49th Cropredy in August and touring the UK later in the year. He talks to us here about the first gigs he ever saw and played which, delightfully, involves …   … the night Hank Marvin took him to see Bjork.   … an all-nighter in Birmingham with John Mayall, Eric Clapton, Chris Farlowe and Spencer Davis.     … memories of his “school hero” Denny Laine.   … the fine art of getting it together in the country: life at the Angel pub in Little Hadham – “flea-bitten, enough hot water for one person and a lorry crashed through the wall into Dave Swarbrick’s bedroom”.   … the link between ticket sales and high blood pressure.   … what not to do when you meet McCartney.   … a night on the whisky with Rick Danko that ended in hospital.   … how a band lasts 58 years without falling out.   … the Island albums that made their reputation but never earned them any money.   … unsung Birmingham acts: Denny Laine & the Diplomats (Bev Bevan on drums), Steve Gibbons in the Uglys, Jeff Lynne in the Idle Race.   … narrowboats, pewter ale jugs, outdoor settees, Matty Groves, Meet On The Ledge and other cornerstones of the Cropredy experience. … Dave Swarbrick’s “small holding” and further assorted knob gags.   Fairport Convention tickets here: https://www.davepegg.co.uk/gigs/fairportgigs/   Cropredy tickets here: https://www.fairportconvention.com/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Boldly pursuing tariff-free trade in rock and roll news, nostalgia, gossip and old hokum since 2007 and, this week, featuring …   … the romantic allure of life as a critic.   … Sting’s part in the success of ‘Adolescence’.   … Mick Jagger’s long engagement to Melanie Hamrick (born when Steel Wheels came out!)   … "Contained within these grooves are twelve convincing arguments against the capitalist system" and other vicious reviews revisited.   … when Bob Marley recorded ‘Sugar Sugar’ by the Archies.   … Al Bowlly’s menacing ‘Midnight, The Stars And You’ and how film soundtracks change your relationship with music.   … what Mike Chapman had to tell Blondie to make ‘Parallel Lines’ a hit.   … little-known pop fact no 97: Dave Pegg was at the same school as the man who invented the internet!   … "I can lose weight but you will always be the director of Brown Bunny” – cracking film review one-liners from Roger Ebert.   … the Jaws film and the Jeeves musical: both came out 50 years ago, both riddled with catastrophe. One broke box office records, the other died like a louse in a Russian’s beard.   … Gabrielle Drake - “If you’re going to be in a flop, best it be a huge one.”   … why Elvis Costello and Al Stewart should hit the lecture circuit.   … and David Hemmings, inconsolable, in a shower.     Plus birthday guest Chuck Loncon stages a quiz. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sparks are touring – playing dates in the UK and Ireland in June and July – and with a new (and 28th) album, Mad!. Russell Mael looks back at the first shows he ever saw and played which entails …   … sitting on the floors of LA clubs watching Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Move, the Faces, the Who and Tyrannosaurus Rex.     … his Mum taking him to see the Beatles in the Hollywood Bowl among “10,000 screaming girls”.   … “there was a faux honesty about the Laurel Canyon bands – ‘it’s just me and my guitar’ – whereas the British acts had the clothes and put on a performance. Which is just as honest.”   … what Todd Rundgren saw in the early Sparks.   … Edgar Wright’s “love letter” movie ‘The Sparks Brothers’ and how it’s expanded their audience.   … rehearsing for four months to perform all 21 of their albums in their entirety in 2008 (in Islington) and the people who came every night.   … playing pizza parlours in the ‘60s – “we were paid in pizza”.     … and how the Mael brothers’ creative relationship has worked - indeed thrived – for over 60 years.   Sparks tour dates and tickets: https://allsparks.com/   Order Sparks’ new album Mad! here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/MAD-Sparks/dp/B0DY9JD1TX Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The runners and riders in the rock and roll steeplechase first past the post this week include …   … how Ed Sheeran protects himself against song theft claims.   … ‘lost’ Hendrix, Beach Boys, Amy Winehouse and Jeff Buckley records: is anything unfinished ever any good?   … “The Unauthorised Breakfast Item”: can YOU tell a Bob Newhart sketch title from a Caravan song?   … US Office versus the UK original and the genius of Steve Carrell.   … The West Wing, Frasier, the Good Life and how romance is the root of all great sitcoms.   … rock and roll lighting: “you can do whatever you want now but that doesn’t mean you should”.   … Judge claims busking is “noise pollution”!   . … Pink Floyd: “it’s not going to work without the gong!”   … and a giant poster of David Hepworth and Mark Ellen pinned to a tree outside Wareham.   Plus birthday guest Stephen Lambe on the downside of the age of spectacle. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ed Tudor Pole entered punk rock from stage school and always felt he was playing a part. After being hired to act in the Great Rock’N’Roll Swindle, he formed Tenpole Tudor and had a brief and dramatic moment in the sun, all recorded in his rollicking memoir ‘The Pen Is Mightier.’ He talks here about …   … his “quite posh” ancestry and a great-grandfather bankrupted by the Wall Street Crash.   … a “Damascene conversion” to the Rolling Stones and ten hours in the burning sun at their Hyde Park show, aged 14.   … being at RADA with Timothy Spall, Imelda Staunton and Juliet Stevenson.   … The Great Rock’N’Roll Swindle audition and the “really horrid” Nancy Spungen’s striptease.   … how everyone’s related to Edward 111.   … the secret of a One-Man Show – adopt the voice of Will Hay and “let the audience do the work!”   … why “most actors are awful people and all crippled in some way” and his time in theatre was “like being a cow in a field of sheep”.   … how Stiff’s Dave Robinson hated punk and wanted Tenpole Tudor to be a novelty act.   … three months with five acts in a coach on the Stiff Tour.   … how the success of Swords Of A Thousand Men didn’t affect their ticket sales - “it was bought by 350,000 12 year-old boys who weren’t old enough to go to gigs”.   … why the Tenpole Tudor split broke his heart.   … as Socrates said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.” Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear   … surprise paydays like the use of Who Killed Bambi? in the Zero Day soundtrack to accompany Robert De Niro’s nervous breakdown.   Order ‘The Pen Is Mightier’ here … https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pen-Mightier-Autobiography-Punk-Rocker/dp/0857306057 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scanning the rock and roll ether with our patent heat-seeking Ripple-Detector®️ to see what rings the bell. Which this week includes …   … how reformed ‘90s pop groups all look like Paul Whitehouse characters from the Fast Show.   … the mutual agony of parents taking kids to concerts.   … “Tap! Tap! Tap!”, the “gacked up” sound of the Heartbreakers’ at work in Fort Petty.   … “Two old voices crack through the static/ Vinyl souls dissected so erratic”: AI’s nerve-jangling interpretation of Word In Your Ear – in song!   … the four stages of showbiz … and three stages of hearing music. … the miracle birth of Don Henley’s ‘The Boys Of Summer’.   … why we tend to run the other way when people insist we’d like something.   … records that make sense 40 years later – and a message from Brian Eno.   … EMF and the graffiti, Carter USM rugby tackling Phillip Schofield, Radiohead playing ‘My Iron Lung’: bands “too cool” for the Smash Hits Poll Winners’ Party.   … how simpler music appeals as you get older.    Plus the new Patreon roll-call and, from Les, the unsettling AI-generated tribute to Word in Your Ear:  https://suno.com/song/ba364f5a-1b39-4d77-8f5b-bcdb9bad6760?sh=N3TMfcz8YUIxPIyl Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The super-trouper of scrutiny scans this week’s events and lands upon …   … the man who’s played on 21,000 records.   … how Joni Mitchell is still stirring it up aged 81 and why we love her for it.   ... the impact of the stadium circuit on rock festivals.   … the longest-surviving group in the world – bowing out at Glastonbury after 66 years!   … “fake indignation” on social media.   … the 40th anniversary of Dead Or Alive’s stunning You Spin Me Round (Like A Record).   … the most unlikely looking person to have ever become a rock star.    … the serial winner of the Bass Player Who Most Resembles An Old Testament Prophet contest.   … why a record untouched for four decades – eg Day Of Radiance by electronic zither master Laraaji - seems to have matured like a fine wine.   … how Donna Summer’s I Feel Love was a new kind of music, one that made you one want endless repetition rather than change.    … “Kevin Ayers drank a pint of Pernod then drove me down a mountain”.   Plus birthday guest Avi Chaudhiri on the connection between Buddy Holly, Mike Mills and Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https:/www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kate’s an old pal from our days at Word magazine. She was on the staff for six years before heading off to the New Statesman and has just put out a collection of the sizzling and revelatory profiles she wrote for us, them and the Observer about a particular sector of the musical landscape for whom she’s always carried a torch. As she wonders in ‘Men Of A Certain Age: My Encounters with Rock Royalty’, “how is it that in the presence of wrinkly rock stars twice my age I sometimes think I’m meeting … me?” This tremendous exchange is full of hard-won insight about the mind-set of musicians and stops off at the following …    … the fascinating appeal of rock stars’ vulnerability, giant egos, oddness and obsessions – “they’re often frozen at the emotional age they became famous”.   … growing up with Britpop, the decade when “teenagers weren’t allowed to like anything”.   … things women notice and men often miss: the difference between male and female journalists.   … being driven down a mountain by Kevin Ayers after he’d drunk a pint of Pernod.   … why she’s so drawn to the critically unfashionable acts like Bruce Hornsby, Kiss and Terence Trent D’Arby.   … what she learnt from interviewing Joni Mitchell’s old boyfriend Cary Raditz.   … why the best route to understanding any rock star is via their parents.   … her obsession with “the shamefully unfashionable” Queen, aged 11, and the appeal of these self-styled “fun ambassadors” against the grating irony of the ‘90s.   … the “charming yet awful” Paul O’Neill of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra handing out $50,000 bundles of cash to the homeless.   … why musicians are more interesting when they’ve peaked.     … “the cartoon characters” of Shaun Ryder and John Lydon.   … “the only people at Jeff Beck’s interment were his wife and Johnny Depp”.   … and being refused an interview by Janelle Monae for not being sufficiently “queer or black”.   Order ‘Men Of A Certain Age’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Men-Certain-Age-Encounters-Royalty/dp/1788705645   Tickets for Kate’s launch event on April 3: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/men-of-a-certain-age-kate-mossman-with-alexis-petridis-tickets-1270535970289 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Harris is an old pal from our days in the music press. You might remember him from Sounds, the NME and Select (which he edited) and he’s been one of the mainstays of the Guardian ever since, writing mostly about pop culture and politics. When his son James was diagnosed with autism and, looking for ways to connect with him and help his development, John began playing him various types of music. The results were life-changing for the family and recorded in his moving and revelatory book ‘Maybe I’m Amazed - A Story Of Love And Connection In 10 Songs’. With autism, John points out, “you can see the trees but seeing the wood is harder”. This fascinating conversation involves …   … have we misread the eccentricities of John Coltrane or Van Morrison, Prince, David Byrne and Gary Numan?   … how many musicians are outsiders in an industry requiring them to be the opposite of what they feel capable of.   … how people with autism hear songs differently each time and “music is an endlessly replenishable source of wonder”.   … why so many lead guitarists are loners.   .. how James has perfect pitch and hears everything – birdsong, lawn-mowers, police sirens – as notes. And how music taught him to sight-read.   … vivid, unforgettable, emotional recollections of the moment you first heard records – in John’s case Sir Duke, Baker Street, Strange Town.   … “blokes in black denim jackets drinking Becks”: the allure of working for the West End rock press.   … “all records are novelty records when you’re young”.   … how 50-year-olds marvel at Spotify and 20-year-olds at vinyl.   … the artistic rise and fall of Britpop.   Order John’s highly recommended book ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Maybe-Im-Amazed-Story-Connection-ebook/dp/B0D6B7H5NY Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This one starts with memories of Genesis at Farnborough Tech in 1972 – Batwings? Fox heads? - looks back at school bands and the early ‘70s and ends with the current Mike & the Mechanics tour. But it mostly centres on the first live shows Mike Rutherford ever saw and played which features …   … his mum making him wash the Brylcreem from his hair before seeing Cliff & the Shadows when he was 17.   … buying an electric guitar before you realised it needed an amplifier.   … playing the same theatres he played with Genesis when he was 19.   … Cream at the Marquee Club - “the volume was like an atom bomb!”   … supporting Mott the Hoople at Farx in Southall, “the moment I felt we were getting somewhere”.   … the contract for their £7 fee he still has for Genesis on the Eel Pie Island, “like ancient fading parchment”.   … the non-competitive days of Yes, King Crimson, Rare Bird and the rock underground when there was room for everyone.   … making an album in three days with Jonathan King in Regent Sound (where the Stones recorded).   … Peter Gabriel developing his on-stage theatre because no-one could hear the words.   … ‘Man up!’ Note to self after breaking a hip skiing with his grandchildren.   Mike & the Mechanics tour dates and tickets: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/mike-the-mechanics-tickets/artist/1673635   Pre-order Looking Back: Living The Years here: https://found.ee/MikeATM_LBLTY Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Waterboys’ new album comes with the magnificent title ‘Life, Death & Dennis Hopper’ and the band start touring in May. Mike Scott looks back here at the first gigs he ever saw and played and the performers he watched closely, which involves … the Stones “when they were still dangerous” and the connective genius of Mick Jagger, Dennis Hopper’s lost decade, Nazareth and Emerson Lake & Palmer at the Glasgow Apollo, a love affair with microphones, how not to look at the audience, the days when he wrote songs called ‘Freefall’, Joe Strummer singing on his back and McCartney’s crowd going “totally buck-mental”.   Order Waterboys tickets here: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/the-waterboys-tickets/artist/888869   Order the new Waterboys’ album ‘Life, Death & Dennis Hopper’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Death-Dennis-Hopper-Waterboys/dp/B0DQSK48PC Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In eager pursuit of dance and merriment, we dust down the current events. Which this week involves ….   … are teenagers no longer in love? And what does this mean for pop music?   … are people better musicians now than 40 years ago? And is that because you can get online tutorials explaining how to play everything?   … Paul McCartney taking two buses across Liverpool just to learn the chord of B7.   … how the best pop songs start with someone walking into a room.   … Ghana! India! New Zealand! The Caribbean! The King’s Spotify Playlist, a carefully chiselled love letter to the Commonwealth.   … do couples still have “Our Tune”? And do they still request songs for each other on radio shows?   … Neil Tennant’s memories of pre-Putin Russia – “we swept into Moscow in Gorbachev’s limousine”.   … Thunder Road, And Then He Kissed Me, Wouldn’t It Be Nice and other magical songs about dating.   … Amanda Seyfried does Joni Mitchell!   … the best pop song ever written - and we know the answer!   Plus birthday guest David Messer and two great Lou Reed live albums (“he heckles the hecklers!”).   David and Mark’s One-Man Show in Wareham on April 4: https://loveitlocalmagazine.co.uk/events/one-man-show/   Neil Tennant’s piece about pre-Putin Russia: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/mar/12/neil-tennant-pet-shop-boys-russia-putin-gay-club-mtv Help us to find out more about how to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Someone else we put on the cover of Smash Hits 40 years ago who’s touring in 2025! He’s playing European festivals, ‘80s packages, dates with his band and a string of solo shows billed as ‘Musings & Lyrics With Nik Kershaw’, and talks to us here about the first gigs he ever saw and played, which involves …   … a bad case of Imposter Syndrome.   … how the relationship with your audience changes over 40 years.   … “it all seemed so important back then. I was in this little bubble where I thought the world was waiting for my next statement.”   … seeing Rory Gallagher, Wishbone Ash, Lindisfarne, Slade, T Rex, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band – and Vinegar Joe at St Matthew’s Baths in Ipswich.   … the sole appearance of his first band Thor at Rushmere Village Hall.    … instant success in 1983: four nights at Hammersmith Odeon without playing clubs first - “We’re going to need a bigger PA!”   … playing Steely Dan and Weather Report one night and The Birdy Song and Country Roads at a wedding the next.     ... appearing between Elvis Costello and Sade at Live Aid – “quite a sandwich” - and forgetting the words.   …and the ‘80s festival circuit: “one big club”.     NIK KERSHAW TOUR DATES HERE: https://www.nikkershaw.net/tour-dates/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gang Of Four’s moment was dramatic but brief. It was littered with times when the future seemed impossibly bright before disaster crept up with a cosh in their relentless “refusal to do the obvious”. Being a musician, he points out, is a ridiculous life best not taken seriously. His memoir ‘To Hell With Poverty!’ rightly describes itself as “rich with stories”, many remembered in this spirited exchange with David and Mark, among them …   … the transformational effect of a scholarship to the boarding school where he met GO4 guitarist Andy Gill and future film-makers Adam Curtis and Paul Greengrass.   … life-changing records he heard in the school art department – Highway 61 Revisited, the Stooges, the MC5.   … “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”.   … aged 11, bumping into John Lennon in Sevenoaks who’d just bought his Mr Kite poster.   … signing a contract with the manager that robbed them and whose busy and efficient office of “ripped and buffed” staff turned out to be hired actors.   … being thrown off Top Of The Pops for not changing an ‘offensive’ song lyric – “EMI were “mortified”.   … the old hippy world of the ‘70s – Hawkwind, the Whole Earth Catalog and “a Withnailesque flat where we had an airgun to shoot the mice”.   … hopeless online misinterpretations of his song lyrics - “there may be soil under f**k all” (aka “there may be oil under Rockall”).   … the rigours of trying to promote “outsider music”.   … reaching “the point where the game is up”.   … the Bourgeois Brothers, the ‘comedy’ duo he formed with Andy Gill at Leeds University and why they returned to England to form a band in the mould of Talking Heads, the Ramones and Richard Hell.   … and why recording the audiobook moved him to tears.   Order ‘To Hell With Poverty!’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hell-Poverty-Class-Inside-Gang/dp/1636142346   Gang Of Four tour dates: https://www.songkick.com/artists/393675-gang-of-four/calendar Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tyres pumped, engine cranked, chromework winking in the Springtime sun, the two-man conversational jalopy sets off on its weekly spin and visits …   … the day America broke the news and showed its dark side.     … Brian James RIP and Stiff’s brilliant ad campaign for the first Damned album: “Play it at your sister!”   … has entertainment been dwarfed by world events?   … why the Oscars were invented and what it said about American life.   … “negative publicity is the first response to everything”.   … why Adrien Brody’s speech set back the cause of actors being taken seriously by about 40 years.   … Will Smith v Chris Rock, Chumbawamba v John Prescott, David Niven and the streaker: Awards show bombshells and what today’s media would make of them.   … The Wizard Of Vinyl and his mission to “save the world from bad sound”.   … the days when Hi-Fi was considered a hobby.   … are musical memories mostly about context? David relives ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ on a jukebox in the Shady Nook café in Wakefield.   … how not to make a speech.   … and the band that called Nick Lowe “granddad” (when he was 27).   Plus birthday guest Adrian Ainsworth on the worst and most insulting Greatest Hits compilations of all time. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re long-time admirers of Denny Tedesco’s “Wrecking Crew” doc which celebrated the studio musicians of 60s Hollywood, the unseen hands who can be heard on all those Beach Boys and Spector hits. Now he’s done something similar with the musicians who were so much part of the success of James Taylor, Carole King and Warren Zevon in the next decade in “The Immediate Family”. We’re delighted to have been able to organise a screening of the film at The Art House in Crouch End after which he spoke to David Hepworth about what it was like to grow up married to the music business, how the culture of session players changed over the years, what has kept the likes of Leland Sklar, Danny Kortchmar, Waddy Wachtel and Russ Kunkel at the top of their game for fifty years and whether anybody else is still keeping their craft alive. The film is streaming on a platform near you now! The Immediate Family: https://www.immediatefamilyfilm.com/ The Art House: https://www.arthousecrouchend.co.uk/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ian Leslie posted his ‘64 Reasons To Celebrate Paul McCartney’ in 2020 and the viral reaction to its piercing and original points encouraged him to write ‘John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs’. Do we need another Beatles book? We do if it’s this one! It’s exceptionally good and highly recommended. The conventional wisdom for decades was that John was the tormented, anti-establishment genius and Paul the effortlessly tune-churning, bourgeois poser. Ian’s book points up that their deep devotion to each other and telepathic, close relationship was the root of the supernatural partnership that made those songs possible. The two of them were, as he puts it, “the bubble within the bubble – and the deeper you get, the more mysterious the story becomes.” He talks to us here about …    … their powerplays and their underlying rivalries for the leadership of the group.   … why the Beatles were in another league - “like Shakespeare versus Johnson or Marlowe”.   … how a songwriting duo where both wrote words and music gave them an extraordinary advantage.   … the writing of Yesterday and John’s fear that Paul might no longer need the group and leave.   … Paul’s discovery of his “superpowers” between ‘64 and ’66.   … how current groups now have “intimacy councillors” and in any other band the unmanageable Lennon would have been ejected.   … In My Life, Hey Jude and other songs they wrote about each other.   … how there was “an element of their fathers about them, of stiff upper lip” and displays of physical affection were rare.   … Paul as “the omnivorous culture-vore” in avant garde London while John was horizontal in suburbia.   … why Paul’s pace and creativity must have been psychologically punishing for the others.   … and how the emotional landscape shifted with the arrival of Yoko and Linda.   Order Ian’s book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Paul-Story-Beatles-decades/dp/0571376118 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which we pedal the conversational tandem uphill and down dale, like a rabbit through the pea-vine or a turkey through the corn, stopping for moments of reflection which include …   … “If someone wants to steal your music, it means your music’s worth stealing.”   … cats, birdsong: spot the ‘silent track’ by Kate Bush.     … when Gene Hackman smiles, be very afraid.   … what was written on Walter Matthau’s funeral card.   … “Home-Taping Is Killing Music!” and other threats that failed to sink the business.    … double albums: never mind the quality, feel the width.   … how Exile On Main St became a symbol of peak-Stones grimy decadence.   … Hunter Davies, Mark Lewisohn, Ian Leslie, Richard DiLello?: the best Beatles book ever written?   … “is genius worth the collateral damage?”: homelife in Frank Zappa’s house.   … things we never say on the Word podcast.   … when rock critics get it wrong.   Plus birthday guest Nick Foreman flies the flag for Hunter Davies. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We first saw Graham Fellows as Jilted John on Top of the Pops in 1978 and we’ve followed his characters ever since, especially drawn to the keyboard-prodding, car-coated John Shuttleworth and his deathless pop anthems ‘Pigeons In Flight’, ‘Up And Down Like A Bride’s Nightie’ and ‘I Can’t Go Back To Savoury Now’. Graham talks here about how and why he created them (and rock media studies lecturer Brian Appleton) and his new book ‘John Shuttleworth Takes The Biscuit’, along with … the allure of romantic punk rock (Patrik Fitzgerald, Buzzcocks, the Undertones), Sheffield mouse-breeders, comic melancholy, whether Northern humour is funnier than Southern, kissing Debbie Harry for a publicity shot, the advice his father gave him and the finer details of the Shuttleworth live experience.     Order 'John Shuttleworth Takes The Biscuit' here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Shuttleworth-Takes-Biscuit-Selection/dp/1915841305   John Shuttleworth tour dates: https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/john-shuttleworth Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As sinister autocrats stroke Persian cats in shark-pooled underground bunkers, their bony fingers reaching for the nuclear button, we shake another Vodka Martini and reflect on the week’s events, among them …   … Amazon buys Bond: but isn’t the essence of 007 its droll and unimpressible Britishness?   … and haven’t the lunatics taken over the asylum? Can you still invent unhinged fantasy villains with real life versions in the Kremlin and White House?   … why a Jam reunion would never have worked.   … when did ‘cool’ change from meaning exotic and unconventional to being just like everyone else? And why do we picture the concept of ‘cool’ in black and white?   … in stout defence of the pilloried record reviewer!   … why the Olympics was payday for Justine Frischmann.   ... when Johnny Cash was on the Muppet Show and was photographed with Richard Nixon.   … how come no-one complains about old online reviews but they do if they were physically printed?   … how Lonnie Donegan made a fortune from Nights In White Satin.   … hurrah for the silencing of the Pedicab boombox!   … newspaper sellers, milkmen, shifty ‘hot goods’ vendors: whatever happened to the street cries of London?   … plus birthday guest Paul Monaghan and rock stars who were architects – Art Garfunkel, Ice Cube, Pete Briquette, Chris Lowe, Ralf Hutter …– and teaching Damon Albarn and Justine Frischmann. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nights In White Satin - 260 million streams on Spotify - is still the central plank in the set Justin Hayward’s touring in October. He talks to us here about the first shows he ever saw and played, the ballroom circuit of the mid-’60s remembered in particularly vivid detail and involving the odd burst of song - “My kind of town, Great Yarmouth is …!”. Along with …   … the appeal of “a Moody Blues crowd”.   ... “Name Singer seeks guitar player”: the Melody Maker ad that got him into the Marty Wilde band, aged 17.   … playing a summer season on the same bill as a water feature – aka the Waltzing Waters.   … his early band All Things Bright and their Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Coasters setlist.   … the “onerous” publishing deal he signed with Lonnie Donegan that siphoned off the profits of Nights In White Satin.   … seeing Tommy Cooper at the Bournemouth Pavilion and the Barron Knights at the Locarno in Swindon.   … “Terry the Pill” in Eric Burdon’s office.   … toying with the idea of “a rock version of Dvorak”.   … the uncertain fate of Nights In White Satin and the plugger who threatened to resign over it.   … how Days Of Future Passed was the “Deramic Sound” demo record.   … and the highpoint of the Moody Blues story and their Second Coming.   Justin Hayward tickets here: https://justinhayward.com/pages/current-tour-dates   https://justinhayward.com/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

No musician is more closely associated with London or left more footprints than Bowie, and you can trace its influence on his life and work (and vice versa) through a series of landmarks from the suburbs to the centre. Author and curator Paul Gorman has just published an annotated street-map – David Bowie’s London - listing the places that played a formative role in his world and music, the places he rehearsed, performed, filmed and recorded, the homes of friends and managers, his schools and the addresses where he lived, worked and was photographed, made connections, bought clothes and generally raised the temperature. We talk here about many of those old haunts and the stories attached to them, which include…   … mysterious manager Ralph Horton who got him to change his name to Bowie and then vanished from the face of the earth.   … the fate of Heddon Street, home of K-West and the Ziggy phone-box.    … Marc Bolan refusing to let him sing at an all-night benefit at Middle Earth.   … “the Fairy Godmother of the New Romantics” at the WAG Club.   … when Lionel Bart came to Haddon Hall.   … Bowie and Steve Marriott auditioning for the Lower Third.   … how he levered his way into a Fabulous magazine fashion shoot.   … “the end of the age of Showbiz”: performing Chim Chim Cher-ee at the Marquee when at a crossroads between rock and roll and cabaret.   … the magical piano at the Trident Studios.   … a chance encounter with the otherworldly Vince Taylor whose ‘UFO map’ helped inspire the concept of Ziggy Stardust.   … the legend of Mr Fish, creator of the man-dress on the cover of The Man Who Sold The World.   … the days when people had a white Rolls Royce and matching Alsatian – and “the Great Sarong Scare of the ‘90s”.   … and various fringe figures including his art teacher Owen Frampton, Konrads agents Bob Knight and Eric Easton, muse and heartbreaker Hermione Farthingale, producers Shel Talmy and Tony Hatch (“the original Mr Nasty from Opportunity Knocks”) and slum landlord and racketeer Peter Rackman.   Order Paul’s street-map here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Bowies-London-Paul-Gorman/dp/1068523476 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We first saw Eddi Reader singing with the Gang Of Four on Whistle Test in 1982. This eventful pod traces her story from seven kids in a two-bedroom council flat (“me in the toilet with a guitar singing Your Cheating Heart”), to the Scottish folk clubs, busking with circus acrobats on the Left Bank, to radio jingles, life as a backing singer and the rapid rise of Fairground Attraction who reformed last year, 34 years after they split in 1990. It's highly entertaining from the kick-off, not least ….   … snogging the Earl of Moray’s son during Dylan at Blackbushe.   … the jingles she sang on ‘80s radio ads.   … what she learnt from Annie Lennox when touring with Eurythmics.   … backing singer stage-wear etiquette.   … performing Love Me Tender aged eight in the school classroom.   … singing Three Drunken Maidens and Lord Franklin at the Irvine Folk Club, over the road from Amanda’s Wet T-Shirt Night.   … busking in Paris and the songs that pulled the most money (eg Tupelo Honey and All Along the Watchtower).   … “men you put on the shoulder-pads for.”   … what Billy Bragg called “a civilian”.   … Chou Pahrot, Cado Belle, Café Jacques, Stone the Crows and other great lost Scottish bands.   … Hamish Imlach’s advice about how to project onstage.   … how to use a pencil as a pop-shield.   … and her Grandad “who loved his wife so much he nearly told her”.   Eddi Reader tickets here: https://eddireader.co.uk/gigs/   Fairground Attraction’s Beautiful Happening album: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beautiful-Happening-Fairground-Attraction/dp/B0CZ7NMJYV   https://eddireader.co.uk/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Passing the Dutchie 'pon the left-hand side, we sift through this week’s events, rants and theories which absorbingly include …   … that Drake v Kendrick Lamar beef in full!   … was Bowie only as good as his collaborators?   … Kingmaker, Toploader, Feeder, Slayer, Longdancer, Widowmaker …. has there ever been a good band with a name ending ‘-er’?   …… seeing the Jam at the Hope & Anchor.   … John Lennon was not a working-class hero. Bob Marley shot no sheriffs. Joe Strummer’s daddy wasn’t a bankrobber. Starship patently never built any cities on rock and roll. Monstrous rock and roll untruths exposed!    … why Film Star Good-Looking is different from Rock Star Good-Looking.   … one glove, a swan dress, comedy specs, a snake, a bat …. Pop stars with a cartoonable signature.   … Woody Allen, Lisa Kudrow, Scarlett Johansson and the Kanye West clip that was never sanctioned.    … JD Salinger, Scott Joplin, Thomas Pynchon, Banksy – people whose voices we’ve never heard.   … the gripes of Taylor Swift.   … ‘An Interminable Appetite For Spite’ and other album titles in waiting.   … and Buffy Sainte-Marie and the perils of misrepresentation.   Plus birthday guest Chris Lintott remembers seeing Bowie as a mime artist. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Direct from the Government Yard in Trenchtown where, over cornmeal porridge by a log wood fire, the events of the week are gently appraised, among them …   … how Bob Marley, the Walker Brothers, the Byrds, Hendrix, Ramones, Blondie and Nirvana “got the dust of England on their boots”.   … Chappell Roan’s demands for “a living wage” in a business built on inequity.   … why audio books surprise you in ways the print edition can’t.   … Beyonce? Best Country album? You sure?   … “separate immediately”: Marsha Hunt and the secret of a successful marriage.   … Bowie, Queen, the Velvet Underground: how the most streamed songs are rarely what you’d expect.   … when London, New York and LA were the centres of the universe.   … Bookends, Randy Newman’s Good Old Boys and other albums with a narrative.   … when the Police, Pistols and Clash tried to conquer America.   … Miles Copeland Senior in Ben Macintyre’s A Spy Among Friends.   … “the film world is constructed around 100 actors, eight of whom are celebrated every year”.   … plus birthday guest Keith Adsley turns the lights out for Pitchblack Playback – albums you should hear in the dark. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The teenage Woody Woodmansey was offered the job of under-foreman in the Vertex spectacle factory in Hull but then got a call from Bowie inviting him to move to London and play drums on his new album - “plus food and somewhere to stay”. It took him all weekend to decide. And involved some cultural readjustment when he did. 56 years later he’s a founding member of Holy Holy and touring the UK in May – along with Tony Visconti and Glenn Gregory – performing songs from Bowie’s breakthrough early ‘70s albums. He talks here about …   … the life-changing sound behind the silver door of an air-raid shelter in Driffield.   … supporting the Kinks in Bridlington and the Herd at Leeds University - and why Peter Frampton told him, “I’ll see you at the top”.   ... his first paid gig at the local girls’ school.   … the Spiders’ instructional group outings to see ballet, mime and theatre.   ... “never more than three takes”: how Bowie wrote and recorded and the sketches he drew for their stage gear.    … life at Haddon Hall and its “Gone With The Wind staircase”.   … Yorkshire to London and the cultural collisions involved.   … what Bowie realised was “the missing ingredient”.   … Woody’s checklist to assess Bowie’s talents when he met him: “He wasn’t Paul Rodgers or Roger Daltrey. He could write. He could communicate.”   … “I’m not wearing that!” The day Mick Ronson packed his bags and left.   Order Holy Holy tickets here: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/tony-visconti-tickets/artist/2003254 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a courageous stand against AI technology, a pair of old lags communing via two cocoa tins and a piece of string attempt to put the rock and roll world to rights. Which this week involves …   … what David saw in the HMV record store in Oxford Street “that shook me to the ground”.   ... music that only works played loud.   … Marianne Faithfull - there’s no middle ground between Sacred Figure and Outrageous Diva.   … why ‘60s fame is like no other fame.   … is there a more enduring example of bad press than Sting’s tantric sex?   … John Mendelssohn’s West Coast adventure with David Bowie.   … which is musically more significant: punk or disco?   … Tom Waits reading the weather forecast.   … which musicians make convincing actors - Sinatra, Lady Gaga, Elvis, Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Costello, Mick Jagger?   … Bowie singing Jacques Brel songs on a waterbed in Hollywood.   … why we miss the great press ‘hatchet jobs’.   … do slogans last longer than music?   … what kind of world plays When The Levee Breaks softly and in a Chelsea café?   … why rock music is like the Catholic Church before the Reformation.   … plus birthday guest Kevin Rose wonders which musicians made the best actors.   Order John Mendelssohn’s ‘Peculiar To Mr Bowie’ here: https://www.nortonrecords.com/a4-peculiar-to-mr-bowie-by-john-mendelssohn/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When we get off of this mountain, you know where we want to go? Straight down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. While surveying the week’s events as we paddle, which involves …   … the genius of Garth Hudson and the magnificent way he looked - “part lumberjack, part Old Testament prophet, part Brahms.”   … how Glyn Johns invented the sound of the Eagles.   … Carrie Underwood’s Inauguration catastrophe.   … only male voice choirs or gospel groups should be allowed to perform National Anthems!   … fiery, magnificent, sexy, vaguely threatening – the appeal of the great British rock bands.   … does a protest track have to be a good song to be effective?   … “screw up your eyes and Guns N’Roses, Aerosmith and Van Halen all look preposterous”.   … how the Band hooked up with Dylan.   … was there ever a more dramatic drop-off from hit singles to album filler than in the Eagles?   … can any song called Visions ever be any good?   … why there should be more Band tribute acts.   ... “any busker within 35 yards is noise pollution!”   ... plus birthday guest Roger Millington wonders why we love the Band Aid single but not We Are The World.   That touching clip of Garth Hudson playing and singing in 2023: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BtfvpS0EyO8 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We put Howard Jones on the cover of Smash Hits in 1983 billed as ‘the Most Promising New Act’ and, 15 albums and 42 years later, he’s about to set out on another tour, a double-bill with ABC. He looks back here at the first shows he ever saw and played which involves … … rehearsing his Live Aid slot backstage to an audience of one: David Bowie.  … pioneering the “one-man show” in the early days of Moogs and drum machines.  … Emerson Lake & Palmer firing cannons onstage at the Isle of Wight in 1970 (his first gig, aged 15).  … rough treatment from the British “pundits”. … school band Warrior – sample track title, Squashed Cat’s Intestines. … being in Ringo’s All-Starr Band and the ELP number he’d play with Sheila E and Greg Lake.  … “bad spectacles, terrible haircut”: early solo gigs in Oxford pubs.  … the current tour with ABC: “lifting people’s spirits, the best job in the world”.  Mentioned in passing: China Crisis, Hendrix, Bill Payne of Little Feat.  Howard Jones tour dates here: http://howardjones.com/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Another great hero on the podcast! We first heard Andy Fairweather Low with Amen Corner on jukeboxes in the late ‘60s and he’s touring the UK from February. Ten albums and countless collaborations later, he looks back here at teenage life on the psychedelic circuit and the first shows he saw and played, stopping off at …   … the Stones in Cardiff in ’64 - “they opened with Talkin’ ‘Bout You and it hit me like a virus.”   … Amen Corner – “you gauged how good a gig was by how many people fainted.”   … being The Face of ’69 when Peter Frampton was the Face of ‘68.   … getting Otis Redding’s autograph.   … the package tour with Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, The Move, Eire Apparent and the Nice “all in one charabanc together”.   … his first band the Firebrands playing to “literally no audience”.   … buying magical soul singles at Spillers in Cardiff.   … the days when you had a 26-inch waist and played Knock On Wood eight times a night.   … what people loved about Wide-Eyed And Legless.   … recording 50 Words For Snow with Kate Bush.   … the songs that “make the phones come out”.   … the rigours of getting old: “halfway through the set she asked, when’s Andy Fairweather Low coming on?”   ... and Don Arden, Andrew Loog Oldham, disappearing cash and the significance of the Spider Jiving sleeve.   Andy Fairweather Low tour dates: https://andyfairweatherlow.com/about-us/   Order Andy’s The Invisible Bluesman album here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Invisible-Bluesman-Andy-Fairweather-Low/dp/B0DKSN2CDZ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David feels a rant coming on. Mark lights the blue touchpaper, pulls on a tin hat and retires to a safe distance as they consider …   … the US closure of TikTok: has a single governmental act ever had such impact on the music business?   … film posters, Dinky Toys, “obscure vinyls”: the new record stores that are effectively antique shops.     .. why Virtually Parkinson is breath-takingly awful and an insult to the interviewers’ art.     … Melania Trump’s monstrous payday.   … Bob Dylan joining TikTok - “Good God, I must leave right away.”   … radio deejays: “the things they hate you for are the same things they love you for.”   … 50 per cent of people “looking for a vinyl fix” don’t have a record player.   … the three-word question all interviewers need.   … Blood on the Carpet: DLT, Danny Baker and the 30-year anniversary of Radio One’s “revolution”.   Plus birthday guest Paul Knox and the value of soundtracks, samplers, tribute albums and compilations “with a point of view” from Nice Enough To Eat and Stardust to the Pet Shop Boys’ Twentieth Century Blues. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Something happens when he walks out under the lights. He can never predict what but he’s programmed to perform. As he has for over 60 years and will again when he sets out on a 63-date tour in April peppered with stories of an extravagant life and billed as ‘an evening of Francis Rossi songs from the Status Quo songbook and more’.   He looks back here at the acts that showed him the way (Gene Pitney, Slade, ZZ Top, Mott the Hoople and “my uncles, the Stones”), Butlins in Clacton, the “elfin” David Bowie, the value of “dying on your arse”, the evolution of the Status Quo shuffle, the sight of a sea of denim, opening Live Aid (and why the other acts were envious) and memories of Dog Of Two Head and Ma Kelly’s Greasy Spoon. “There’s a handful who are talented,” he says, “and the rest of us are just winging it and getting by.”   Order tickets here: https://www.francisrossi.com/tour Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We both first heard Graham Nash just over 60 years ago when the Hollies’ Just One Look was on the BBC’s swinging Light Programme and we’ve followed him ever since, not least his transformational shift in the late-‘60s from suburban Salford to the wood cabins of Laurel Canyon. He’s touring the UK in October, An Evening of Songs and Stories with Peter Asher in support, and looks back here at the first shows he ever saw and played, which involves …   … Bill Haley in 1958 – “he opened the curtains and said ‘See yer later, alligator!’, and I’ve never been the same since.”   … meeting his heroes the Everly Brothers when he was 18.   … the talent contest he won with Allan Clarke in 1959 beating Freddie Garrity, the future Billy Fury and Johnny And the Moondogs.   ... the early days of the Hollies – “my acoustic was never plugged in”.   … supporting Little Richard the night he screamed at his soon-to-be-famous guitarist, “never play the guitar behind the back of your head again!”   …. making ‘Two Yanks in England’ with the Everlys, Reg Dwight, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones.   … playing Woodstock – “it’s hard to reach the back row when it’s raining and two miles away.”   … the songs he always plays and talks about onstage, Marrakesh Express, Our House and Teach Your Children among them.   Order Graham Nash tickets here: https://grahamnash.com/tour-dates/page/2/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Though you might hear laughing, spinning, swinging madly across the sun, it is in fact just two old lags reviewing the current events, which this week include …   … the made-up scene in A Complete Unknown which Dylan apparently insisted was included.   … the Day of the Locust: do the LA fires spell the end of the Hollywood Dream?   … why does no-one write songs about world events anymore?   … the unwelcome return of AJ Weberman.   … can you date records made between 2000 and 2025?   … Sam & Dave, Booker T & the MGs, the Stax horns, Isaac Hayes and David Porter and their purple patch from ‘65-‘68.   … Led Zeppelin’s five song-stealing court cases – but hadn’t what they stole been stolen in the first place?   … why most biopics would be better as a six-part TV series.   … “where there’s a hit there’s a writ”.   … plus birthday guest John Innes and the best and worst bands names – from Roxy Music to Prefab Sprout. Tickets for Word In Your Ear live here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bowie-in-london-and-hollywood-tickets-1118845138929?aff=oddtdtcreator Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s perishing cold in our frostbitten London HQ but we warmed our toes around a blazing conversational fire and roasted the following chestnuts …   … “the job of pop records is to be better than the year before”.   … the real reason new music tends to sound the same.   … Johnnie Walker – “his voice was his instrument”.   … The Kinks, The Shangri-Las, the Beach Boys, the Supremes, the Four Tops, the Righteous Brothers and the relentless change and variety of “the annus mirabilis” of the pop single.   … “Netflix rock documentaries are just there to stop the male member of the family cancelling their subscription”.   … the Byrds’ Mr Tambourine Man, a cornerstone of psychedelia and indie rock.   … the drum sound that “kicked open the door to your mind”.   … when novelty was 70 per cent of the appeal.   … the key moment in the career of Peter Waters Dingley was the day he changed his name.   … making records defensively.   … the only current match for the thrill and daily drama of the mid-‘60s pop charts is the Premiere League.   … plus a Lego record-player and birthday guest Andrew Slattery. Tickets for Word In Your Ear live here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bowie-in-london-and-hollywood-tickets-1118845138929?aff=oddtdtcreator Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Among the walnut shells, wrapping paper, dried tangerine peel and broken toys beneath the Christmas Tree Of News we found a few unopened presents, among them …   … Marine Homicide Unit solving murders in Scottish waters or former rock star dumping toxic waste? A crime drama Stackwaddy special.   … Roy Bittan, Duke Ellington: how musical “professors” date back to ragtime.   …’Suzanne’ and the other three songs Leonard Cohen gave away.   … Mary Martin, unsung connector and catalyst of folk-rock.   … how the spare, monochrome simplicity of John Wesley Harding flew against the prevailing wind of Disraeli Gears, Forever Changes and Magical Mystery Tour.   … “I’d rather be dead than wet my bed”.   … the invention of the “blockbuster album”.   … she’s only human: what Judy Collins thought when she met Leonard Cohen.   … Crowded House, John Fogerty, Ry Cooder, Ian Broudie, Patti Smith … when did having your kids in your band become almost compulsory?   … producer Richard Perry’s journey from Beefheart to the “surrealistic vaudeville” of Tiny Tim to the pure genius of ‘You’re So Vain’.   Plus a rare moment - something David Hepworth doesn’t know! - and birthday guest Sandra Austin. Tickets for Word In Your Ear live here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bowie-in-london-and-hollywood-tickets-1118845138929?aff=oddtdtcreator Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Deck the halls with beers and Stoli! The nutcracker of scrutiny was applied to this week’s noisettes of news and the following discussed over a glass of port …     ... are a lot of new song catalogues just blogs set to music?   … can any actor be convincing playing someone really famous?   … Robbie Williams’ Better Man: it’s the way forward! Who can his CGI’s monkey play next?   … why no-one writes songs with opinions anymore.   … Lola Young’s ‘charming’ press release.   ... when Elvis met Nixon (and was “crackling with drugs”).     … why we miss the one pound note!   … Dickens, Bing Crosby and why the concept of Christmas is rooted in the past.   … is part of the joy of Powerpop that it’s doomed to commercial failure? Big Star, the Shoes – perfect; Blondie – too successful!   … St James Infirmary, I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive, Stormy Monday – and other great songs about money - ‘These shabby shoes I'm wearing all the time/ Is full of holes and nails and brother if I stepped on a worn out dime/ I bet a nickel I could tell you if it was heads or tails’.   … the return of “a bankroll big enough to choke a donkey”.   … plus Hank Williams, Brenda Lee, Tom Waits and birthday guest Kevin Walsh wonders ‘what’s the classic Powerpop look and sound and who are its standard-bearers?’   Happy Christmas, all! … from us and ‘Bob Dylan’: https://x.com/FallonTonight/status/1597460887446900736?lang=en Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The tremendous Bill Bailey is staging “a magical, musical mystery tour of the mind, along with other pressing matters” for 42 nights in London from December 28, a celebration of what makes us human in an age threatened by AI. There'll be “a laser harp”. There’ll be electronic drum balls played by audience members. There'll be extracts from Kraftwerk’s lost album of children’s songs. He talks to Mark here about the first live entertainment he ever saw and first shows he played himself, which happily involves …    … “a lightbulb moment”, James Robertson Justice breaking the fourth wall, the genius of Les Dawson’s deadpan piano playing, OMD, the Cure, the Banshees, how TikTok changed song writing, Jean-Jacques Burnel whacking a skinhead with his bass, A Flock of Seagulls, the Undertones, seeing John Hegley’s mandolin-driven comedy act and thinking “I could do that”, Victor Borge and the invention of the disco bass line by a 17th century German composer.   Order tickets for Bill Bailey’s Thoughtifier show here: https://www.billbailey.co.uk/live Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The 17 year-old Al Stewart played electric guitar in a dance band in Bournemouth in 1963. When he borrowed an acoustic and sang Masters Of War in the break, he heard the sweet sound of applause. The next night he played three Dylan songs and sensed which way the wind was blowing. He talks here about moving to London, playing at Bunjies and becoming the compere at Les Cousins as his now 60-year career began to lift off. And about his Farewell Tour which kicks off in the UK in October 2025, a combination of songs and story-telling coloured by two great heroes, Peter Ustinov and Alistair Cooke.   This cracking exchange steers by way of Bert Jansch, Bob Dylan, Helen of Troy, Stalin, Hitler and the Battle of Moscow, the Weeley Festival of 1971, the three songs he always plays, the young Cat Stevens and what he told Paul Simon he should do with the just-composed Homeward Bound.   Order Al Stewart tickets here: https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/al-stewart Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  Gary Kemp has been posting reels of his recent visits to old haunts in Soho where he and his early bands used to rehearse, this in the run-up to releasing a third solo album, ‘This Destination’, in January. We talk to him here about how records were made and promoted in the ‘80s and how radically that’s changed today. Which includes …   … “all media is now about getting and keeping people’s attention”.   … the first time he heard one of his songs on the radio.   … Bowie, Bolan, Queen and Elton John at Trident Studios.   … how bands copy the groove of a track.   … technology and the curse of too much choice.   … why TikTok’s changed the way songs are written.   … how the first Spandau Ballet album was made.   … the phone call from Richard Hawley that kick-started a song.   … the craft of 10cc and Steely Dan and why it doesn’t work on 2024 radio.   … the male attitude to bands who are largely followed by women.   … cunning ways to infiltrate the NME in the early ‘80s.   … plus Robert Elms in jodhpurs and “fly dentists” in the Saucerful Of Secrets audience.     Pre-order This Destination here: https://lnk.to/GaryKempThisDestination Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We ran our patent heat-sensing Scrutiniser®️ over the week’s news and here’s what set the bells off …   … are buskers now more expensive live entertainment than Taylor Swift?   … a Dickensian oik in Chapel Market and other riddles of modern etiquette.   … ‘Holiness and horniness’: how Hallelujah rebooted Leonard Cohen and became a one-song industry.   … the teenage self-promotional flair of Robert Plant and Marc Bolan.   … are singles a social experience and albums a solitary one?   … “Would you like a fruit gum?”: the 1950s in a single phrase.   … highly recommended: Wendy Waldman, Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band and ‘The Room’ by Fabiano do Nascimento.   … rock snobs’ alarm about the revelations of their Spotify Wrapped.   … why the Sherman Brothers are as enduring as Lennon-McCartney.   … Hallelujah cover versions - from kd lang and Rufus Wainwright to Johnny Mathis and the Osmonds.   ... how King David removed ‘love rival’ Uriah the Hittite.   … reconnecting with records you haven’t heard for 40 years.     … whatever happened to She Sherriff?!   … Loudon Wainwright’s early inference about the YMCA.   … plus Lindsey Buckingham, Hugh Lloyd, Tony Hancock and fond memories of “stolen cheese guy”. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Paddling the three-man conversational kayak across the rock and roll rapids this week involved …   … Olive Mess, Candied Yams, Gorilla Biscuits …? Challenging indie act or seasonal vegan recipe?   … the amount YMCA earned through Donald Trump and why the man who wrote it is complaining.   … Tom Hanks’ valuable words of wisdom.   … Neil Tennant’s favourite bridge in a pop song (and it’s not We Can Work It Out or I Will).   … musicians and the modern world of the “one-night stand” circuit.   … Baker Street, Money, Careless Whisper, Giant Steps, Jungleland … and the sax solo that outranks them all.   … the genius of Henry Mancini and the powerful DNA of film music.   … the lost world of small ads – eg this pasted by Roxy Music: “The perfect guitarist for avant rock group: original, creative, adaptable, melodic, fast, slow, elegant, witty, scary, stable, tricky. Quality musicians only.”   … Beatles ’64 - “randomly assembled and directionless”, a listener declares!    Here’s Plas Johnson playing the Pink Panther theme with Henry Mancini:  https://youtu.be/jBupII3LH_Q?si=brjVwsPlmcnii1Md Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joni Mitchell called it “stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song”. Every record sent out for review used to come with a press release knocked together by an over-excited PR before terms like “psychedelia” or “prog” had been invented. They were scanned once for the odd fact or quote and usually chucked in the bin. Richard Morton Jack has tracked down scores of these handouts from 1962-1972, and the news stories they sparked, and published them in the sumptuous ‘Pressing News’, a fascinating window into how acts were sold in the days when pop stars liked rump steak, sports cars and “sincere people” but disliked “bad music, traffic wardens and people who say I look like a girl”. We leaf through his book here and talk about ….   ... the ingenuity of '60s PRs and why Marc Bolan was a turning point. … Robert Plant and David Bowie’s genius for self-promotion. … the pop hopeful whose favourite tipple was tooth-rotting, crystal-based ‘Creamola Foam’.     … how PRs sold rebels and outsiders.     … a £900 Olivia Newton-John press release.   … Beta Male pin-ups Nick Drake and Scott Walker.   … confected outrage over the Small Faces’ Lord’s Prayer.   … Joe Cocker, eternally a gas-fitter from Sheffield with “a face like the back of a Sheffield Corporation bus”.   … mysterious pop acts that never made it like the Virgin Sleep, the Accent, Bread Love & Dreams, Fresh Maggots and the Tickle whose songs were supposedly chosen by computer.    .. the Kinks – “four art students who dress like characters from Dickens”.   … the promotion of pre-psychedelia Pink Floyd – “a lyrical atmosphere whose words express a feeling rather than tell a story.”   … “the Zombies have 50 GCSE passes between them!” and other press release fiction trotted out in the papers.   … the mass 1966 adoption of the kaftan and Charlie Chan moustache.   Order copies of Pressing News here: https://lansdownebooks.com/products/pressing-news Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Reversing into tomorrow! This week’s news events given a vigorous once-over include …   … what will a Trump guitar be worth in 30 years’ time?   … the average age of a Glastonbury goer and how it sells its TV coverage.     … “the Beatles in America was like Cortez arriving in South America, the clash of two civilizations. How did this film manage to balls the story up so catastrophically?”    … Leonard Bernstein’s daughter’s dreams about George Harrison and the Fabs v the all-American alpha male.   … who should be next for a rock and roll blue plaque?   … the Beatles’ Ed Sullivan support act who became almost as famous as they did.   … why Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater is the most-streamed ‘60s track.   … Hendrix and the Isley brothers’ night in watching telly.   … and Rod Stewart’s genius for generating publicity.   Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

R.E.M. considered themselves missionaries against the prevailing pop culture – no solos, no old-school stagecraft, no printed lyrics, no lip-syncing, no hard-sell videos, no obvious leader – and mapped out a whole new route to international success. Peter Ames Carlin, whose books include biographies of Springsteen, Brian Wilson and Paul Simon, talks to us here about ‘The Name of this Band is R.E.M.’, what they pioneered and how it rearranged the rock and roll furniture. Which involves …   … why their Letterman Show was a statement of intent.   … “rather than bending to the mainstream, they did what they wanted ‘til the mainstream bent to them.”   … where you can see “the R.E.M. model” - from Sleater-Kinney to Taylor Swift.   … when ‘Mike Stipe’ became Michael.   … Stipe’s first TV appearance, dressed as Frank-N-Furter at a Rocky Horror Show screening.   … why rock critics connected with them.    … the strategies they share with U2, Radiohead and Coldplay.    … “Springsteen = Elvis + Dylan”.   … what was in the water in Athens, Georgia, that produced such unconventional acts - R.E.M., the B-52’s, Pylon, Love Tractor.   … their ‘straight’ but supportive parents – Stipe’s dad in the military, Mills’ dad a marine helicopter pilot.   … how R.E.M. “channelled popular culture”.   … their pioneering approach to record deals, royalties, videos, mixing and song-writing.   … and which of them most wants a reunion.   Order ‘The Name Of This Band Is R.E.M.’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Name-This-Band-M-Biography/dp/0385546947 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Neil Storey worked in the Island press office in the ‘70s and ‘80s and has set out on mammoth undertaking, to compile a series of gorgeous, album-sleeve-sized books telling the story of virtually every record the label released in its pioneering history and talking to all involved - musicians, producers, designers, photographers, label staff – and collecting old music press ads and ephemera from the time. This latest edition, ‘the Island Book Of Records 1969-1970’, has transported us back to our teenage selves when albums by Fairport, Nick Drake, Jethro Tull, Free, King Crimson etc were unmissable. We talked to Neil at his home in France which happily involved …     … the extraordinary story of the Unhalfbricking album shoot.     … when album sleeves were assembled by hand.   … how Island pioneered the ‘underground’ aesthetic and the cheap sampler album.   … the mystery of Ian Anderson’s 11 fingers.   … the “worst sleeve” in the label’s history (which involved a trip to the butchers).   .. the day the Island roster met in Hyde Park at six in the morning.   ... the curious marketing of Nick Drake – “who doesn’t have a telephone and will disappear for four days at a time”.   … and Roxy Music, Sparks, Head Hands & Feet and what else to expect in Volume 3.   Order the Island Book Of Records Volume 2 here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Island-Book-Records-II-1969-70/dp/1526182246 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danny Baker, the act you’ve known for all these years, is kicking his legs up again in 2025 on a thundering new theatre tour, ‘Aye Aye! Ahoy Hoy!’ “Dead men tell no tales,” he points out, “so we might might as well get ‘em all told now.” This will be another barnstorming one-man circus - as, naturally, is this barrelling conversation with the two of us which collides with the following …   … being shot, Welsh cake, an olive green Humber, goldfish, when videos were the size of a loaf of bread, why half his Maidstone audience got up and left, stolen gear being hustled over Waterloo Bridge, bad things done by Rod Stewart and Britt Ekland, ELP, the Average White Band, Max Miller, Kenneth Williams’ loathing for Michael Aspel, when records become like furniture, getting £4k for a Ziggy Stardust white label, why he doesn’t miss the 14,000 albums he sold, and the record that came out the same day as Sgt Pepper and Bowie’s first album but is better than both.   The podcast includes an extract from Ronnie Barker’s “A Pint Of Old And Filthy” and Terry Thomas reading PG Wodehouse.   Order tickets for Danny’s 2025 tour here: https://www.dannybakerstore.com/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s events piled into a pipe and enthusiastically smoked include …     … our memories of being at the Band Aid recording in Sarm studios, November 25 1984.   … why it was the last dance of the mass media and why nothing could have the same impact now.   … the “household name” that made all the difference.   … the real reason Bob Geldof could be involved.     … James Bond, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, the Spaghetti Westerns … how music is the real DNA of film franchises, the fingerprint that connects you with the original.     … why should a teenager know what a radio is?   … “Live vivid! Delete ordinary! Break moulds! Copy nothing!” The tortuous rebranding of Jaguar.   … what the BBC spends 95 per cent of its time doing.   … how Bee Gees’ drummer Dennis Byron unwittingly invented the tape loop.   … the appeal of inconvenient technology.   … David’s second Deep ‘70s compilation, “a dream fulfilment” – Americana, Skinny Tie music, cover versions, the outer limits of Island Records.   … plus birthday guest Mike Sketch on discovering music late in life (Dylan, Tom Waits etc).   David’s ‘More Deep 70s’ 4-CD compilation is available for pre-order now: https://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Hepworths-More-Deep-Misunderstood/dp/B0DCGGQDNK Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.