Alle afleveringen
1.029 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Alan Edwards, pop PR – ‘Bowie was like King Arthur and the Spice Girls like the Pistols’
20 mei 2024 · 42 min
We’ve known Alan Edwards since the days when we’d ring him for a quote from Blondie or the Stranglers in the late ‘70s and he’s still one of the key figures in music PR. He’s looked after the Stones, Prince, Michael Jackson, Blondie, Amy Winehouse, the Beckhams and many others. No-one is better positioned to see how that world has changed, from the pre-Google days when you could invent a story and the press would happily buy it to a 21st century where his flat was burgled in pursuit of lucrative celebrity leads. PRs, he believes, "are not messengers but storytellers” and his memoir ‘I Was There: Dispatches From A Life In Rock And Roll’ is full of them. He looks back here at … Lees meer
… striking a £1m photo deal for the Beckhams’ wedding.
… Midge Ure, Gen X and other prime examples of fake news.
… hotel workers, waiters and airline pilots who sold stories to the press.
… the days when a battery-operated portable phone gave you the edge.
… why he was hired by Blondie.
… the chilly, manipulative and inscrutable Lou Reed.
… Bowie’s disappearance in Berlin in the ‘70s and other things that would be impossible in the age of social media.
… Keith Moon in mid-air.
… and how it feels to be hacked.
Order Alan’s book here …
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Was-There-Dispatches-Life-Rock/dp/1398525243
The Outside Organisation …
https://outside-org.co.uk/
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Rock’s image-makers, men on dancefloors and why bands can’t act like bands anymore
19 mei 2024 · 55 min
This week’s items slapped on the rock and roll barbecue and lightly grilled include … Lees meer
… why Eurovision will never avoid political controversy.
… when AI does David Hepworth!
… what’s the secret of NTS radio?
… “there are two types of wedding disco, ones that start with Abba's Dancing Queen and terrible ones.”
… Tony Hall’s prophetic preview of Revolver in May '66 – “they shatter convention and may well have a far-reaching effect on the whole future of music”.
… when listening to the radio was a group activity.
… Daniel Kramer, Dezo Hoffman, Robert Freeman, Anton Corbijn and other photographers who shaped the way music looked.
... the rogue punctuation of "Paint It, Black".
… songs that start with the chorus.
… Elvis’s unrepeatable train journey from New York to Memphis in 1956.
… “there’s glass in the back of my head and my toenails don’t fit properly” – Dylan’s ’66 London press conference.
…. and hurry hurry hurry to Lot 71 in Danny Baker’s record auction, a snip at only £70!
Danny Baker’s record auction …
https://bid.omegaauctions.co.uk/auction/details/a230a-the-danny-baker-collection/?au=162&g=1
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Paul Carrack has seen it all – beat, soul, prog, pub rock, pop & the perfect ‘slow burn’ career.
16 mei 2024 · 38 min
We’ve followed Paul Carrack for 50 years, a big hit single – How Long – when he was with Ace, 19 albums, countless sessions (the Smiths, Eagles and Pretenders among them) and a touring band member with Squeeze, Roxy Music, Roger Waters and Nick Lowe. He once put out an album called ‘I Know That Name’ as for so many people he’s still under the radar. His newsagent assumes he’s called “Mike” as he was the singer in Mike & the Mechanics. He's touring the UK in the autumn and looks back here at … Lees meer
… seeing the Beatles, Chuck Berry, the Stones, Dylan and the Shadows at Sheffield Town Hall. And Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band at Mojos promoted by Pete Stringfellow.
… playing Cologne, Frankfurt and Hamburg clubs in the early ‘70s.
… his time with earnest prog adventurers Warm Dust – “please don’t look them up”.
… the value of having your own label in the world of streaming.
… when Elvis Costello got him to sing the vocal on Tempted by Squeeze.
… supporting Fleetwood Mac and Free.
… playing Ray Charles, Nat King Cole and Sinatra tunes with a big band.
… how it feels to be “dropped like a stone” by Radio Two when you no longer fit the demographic.
… the real meaning of the song How Long and what he has in common with Troy McClure of the Simpsons.
Paul Carrack tour dates here …
https://paulcarrack.net/
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Nige Tassell was so obsessed with Dexys he’s tracked down all 24 ex-members
15 mei 2024 · 35 min
Nige Tassell used to go to school in full donkey-jacket-and-woolly-hat ensemble to express his boundless devotion to Dexys Midnight Runners. Forty years later he set out to find and interview everyone who’d ever been a member. For some, their time in the ranks was a joyful, career-launching delight. Others felt it was like a slightly chilly and controlling cult. They all took a while to recover and they all had extraordinary stories to tell in his latest book ‘Searching For Dexys Midnight Runners’. Here’s a flavour of what gets discussed … Lees meer
… ‘No drugs or alcohol! No smiling! No eye contact with the audience!’ and other unsettling Dexys mantras.
… examples of Kevin Rowland ‘snatching defeat from the jaws of victory’.
… the many ways the band made themselves deliberately different’.
… the event supporting Bowie that got their power cut onstage in Paris and had them thrown off the tour.
... the heavy-handed recruitment of Helen O’Hara.
… Geno Washington and other strands of the Dexys DNA.
… the ad they took in the NME that soured their relationship with the music press.
… and how Rowland’s approach today remains resolutely unchanged.
Order Nige’s book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Searching-Dexys-Midnight-Runners-Tassell/dp/178512059X
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Why Nick Mason’s “cottage industry” band plays just early Pink Floyd
14 mei 2024 · 27 min
Missing being on tour and exasperated by internal disputes, Nick Mason set out to tour small-scale venues with his band Saucerful Of Secrets in 2018. They’re mid-way through another world tour (Gary Kemp’s the main singer and one of the guitarists). He doesn’t miss the stadium circuit where “you need a golf cart to get from one side of the stage to the other” and they play only the early psychedelic Floyd material, from their first singles up to (but not including) the Dark Side of the Moon, which audiences are less inclined to want to be note-perfect versions of the records. And he talks mid-set about the origins of the songs and his memories of Syd Barrett and life at the time. This podcast looks back at the first live shows he saw and played himself and how Saucerful of Secrets came about. Which includes … Lees meer
… Tommy Steele at the Hackney Empire – “I came straight from school in short trousers with my satchel”.
… seeing the Rolling Stones on a ‘63 package tour.
… performing Beatles songs at parties in Cuban heels and Oliver Goldsmith shades.
… playing the International Times launch party at the Roundhouse in ‘66 on the back of a cart.
…. early gigs at the Countdown Club, Regent Street Poly and the Albert Hall (with Alan Price and Peter & Gordon).
… the difference between Saucerful of Secrets and the stadium circuit – and the time Roger Waters played with them in New York.
… and the ‘60s demos of unreleased Floyd songs they’re hoping to add to the set.
Saucerful of Secrets tour dates here …
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kjkhMKXv4wPaR2XVbZ6h3WVMJ4ivesVn/view?usp=drivesdk
Buy tickets here …
https://myticket.co.uk/artists/nick-mason-saucerful-of-secrets
Nick’s re-released solo albums here …
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uwB_CYLuszOUNqsfeiWQH3nXd2TxGVf7/view
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Help us to keep The Longest Contin…
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Let It Be revisited, the wisdom of Steve Albini and a woeful tale about Steve Marriott
12 mei 2024 · 53 min
We were at the Curzon Mayfair on May 7 for the premier of the rebooted Let It Be in all its burnished finery and came away with a ton of things to unravel, among them … Lees meer
… what we never knew when the film came out 54 years ago.
.. seeing it in the shadow of Peter Jackson’s Get Back.
… how the edit was overtaken by events and the tangled reasons it turned out the way it did.
… why Lindsay-Hogg’s amphitheatre concept would never have worked.
… the divine symbolism of the Beatles v the police.
… why it’s a perfect social document of late-’60s London.
… the band’s three-film film contract.
… was the world really as distraught about their break-up as the 21st Century assumes?
… herringbone coats, red plastic macs, hairy black jackets: why someone should open a Beatles ‘69 clothes emporium.
Plus … the noble philosophies of the late Steve Albini expressed in a letter to Nirvana in November 1992.
… and what happens when rock stars don’t leave wills: Exhibit A - Steve Marriott.
Read Steve Albini’s letter to Nirvana here: https://news.lettersofnote.com/p/nirvana
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The genius of Little Feat, the Man with the Twang & pop’s greatest scandal in the making
5 mei 2024 · 46 min
We stuck a few coins in this week’s Wurlitzer and these were the tunes that got played … Lees meer
… when records became all about sound not songs.
… Fonzworth Bentley, Puff Daddy’s butler, the man who held an umbrella over him on the beach at Cannes.
… what Henry Kissinger, Martha Stewart and Leonardo DiCaprio kept very quiet about.
… Manchester’s Co-Op, a tale of unprecedented hopelessness.
… what’s the definition of a song? And can you steal a record?
… the magical skill of Aston Barrett on I Shot The Sheriff and James Jamerson on You Can’t Hurry Love.
… ‘Duane Eddy Does Bob Dylan’ and its ingenious sleeve.
… does anybody still want pop posters?
… “I'd watch Jeremy Clarkson boil an egg.”
… Moneybagg Yo & DaBaby, Cigarettes After Sex and other acts playing the O2 and Wembley Arena we’ve ever heard of.
… the ultimate autograph.
… and New Whirl Odor, Road To Rouen, Sax And Violins, Lead Me Not Into Penn Station and other tortuous album titles.
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Steve Diggle of the Buzzcocks remembers the day “a terrible beauty was born”
3 mei 2024 · 30 min
Steve Diggle met Pete Shelley when the Pistols played Manchester in 1976 and the Diggle-fronted Buzzcocks are now on a world tour that began in Mexico and takes in North and South America, Europe and Australasia before winding up at the 100 Club where they played the Punk Festival 48 years ago – “we’ve come full circle”. He looks back here at the first shows he saw and played himself and talks about Silverhead, Status Quo, Leo Sayer dressed as a clown, George Best, the Groundhogs, The History of Mr Polly by HG Wells, the Buzzcocks as “Lennon and McCartney in a blender”, “Led Zeppelin for Comprehensive schoolkids, Deep Purple for Grammar schoolkids” and a great story about Patrick Moraz of Yes with a bank of keyboards like a telephone exchange and an alpine horn. Lees meer
Buzzcocks world tour dates here: https://www.buzzcocks.com/events
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Rock snobbery, the seven wives of Gregg Allman & the greatest solo on a pop record
29 april 2024 · 1 uur 4 min
This week’s theories, rants, ruminations, recollections, weak gags and free and frank exchanges of view alight upon the following … Lees meer
… is pop music now all about identity?
…. the recording of the Animals’ House of the Rising Sun and other apocryphal tales.
… has any act been as ubiquitous since Frankie Goes to Hollywood in 1984?
… or has anyone inspired a greater level of personal devotion than Taylor Swift?
… Peter Green, a shotgun and his accountant.
… books bought but never read.
.. re-reading Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity and the changing benchmarks for good and bad musical taste.
… intriguing parallels between the book and record industries.
… and Neil Tennant braves the digital lynch-mob.
Plus Adam Clayton’s garden, Konstantin Chernenko, Richard Burton, Rebel Wilson, Dark Academia, creepy weepies and birthday guest John Montagna looks at singles by the same act that are ‘descendants’ – ie pretty much identical – eg the Monkees’ Teardrop City and Last Train To Clarksville, the Kinks’ You Really Got Me and All Day And All of the Night and Mark Knopfler’s Cannibals and Walk Of Life. Or just try the first few seconds of these four by the Inkspots – Maybe, I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire, If I Didn’t Care and Whispering Grass.
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Harold Bronson of Rhino Records kept a 40-year rock and roll diary…
28 april 2024 · 40 min
File this under ‘right place, right time’. Harold Bronson was a teenager in mid-60’s Los Angeles and saw every act imaginable. Then wrote for the Daily Bruin and Rolling Stone and interviewed everyone that interested him. Then managed a music store and co-founded Rhino Records, pretty much inventing the idea of the top-end reissue – “Sooner or later everyone ends up in a box.” All of this is in his memoir, ‘Time Has Come Today: Rock and Roll Diaries 1967 – 2007’, and many of its cast of thousands appear in this podcast, among them Johnny Horton and ‘the Battle of New Orleans’, the Purple People Eaters, the Temple City Kazoo Orchestra, the Doors at the Hollywood Bowl, the Stones supported by Ike & Tina (for $12), Ozzy Osbourne (“I’d never meet anybody with a tattoo before”), Hilton Valentine working at a Henry The Eighth-themed restaurant, Groucho Marx at a Led Zeppelin launch, a ‘Best of Louie Louie’ that sold 100,000 copies and a Ritchie Valens record made on a dictaphone. Lees meer
You can order Harold’s book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Time-Has-Come-Today-Diaries/dp/B0CGTX2YN8
Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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The “amniotic throb” of modern pop, the eternal life of the Top Gear theme and the Blue Nile’s lucky break
21 april 2024 · 48 min
With Mark Ellen in foreign parts David Hepworth and Alex Gold light cigars, pass the port in the correct direction and discuss….. Lees meer
…..the fact that there is only one way to play a Beatles song and that is the way the Beatles did it.
…..the chances that Taylor Swift is reaching her imperial phase and nobody is prepared to tell her what she really needs to hear.
….the very good reason that all contemporary pop records do literally sound the same.
…the 50th anniversary of Richard and Linda Thompson’s “I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight”.
….the story of the Allman Brothers’ “Jessica”, a jam that turned into Dickey Betts’ pension.
….how the Blue Nile got a plug which is worth all the bought media in the world.
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Hollywood Babylon, the inspired gimmickry of Catch A Fire and the luck of Ron Wood
15 april 2024 · 59 min
We lobbed the feathered arrows of enquiry at the rock and roll dartboard this week and these got the highest scores … Lees meer
… rock stars v the new league of the Super-Rich.
… package tours of the mid-‘60s – eight acts, an interval, a compere plus God Save the Queen.
… ‘Hits, Flops and Other Illusions’ by Edward Zwick and the fantastic tale about arrogance, money-squandering and Julia Roberts at the Halcyon Hotel.
... pop music used to be about persuading people to cut loose; now it’s about getting them to tighten up.
… why you can read Ron Wood’s memoir as either comedy or tragedy.
.. Chris Blackwell’s post-production trickery that sold Bob Marley to a rock audience.
… Master Tape Rescue: the arduous task of panning for gold.
... and why there should be a movie about the making of Shakespeare in Love.
Plus birthday guest Chuck Loncon in Savannah, Georgia – Neil Young v Spotify, Lady Antebellum, the Dixie Chicks and the tangled world of political correctness.
Subscribe to Word In Your Ear via Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Neil Tennant remembers life “with dyed red Bowie hair and clattering platforms”
11 april 2024 · 44 min
Neil’s an old friend from our days back at Smash Hits in the early ‘80s. The first Pet Shop Boys demos were played on the office tape machine, though he was a bit self-conscious about “the one with the rap on it”. He’s always had a journalistic capacity for story-telling, remembering everything in famously entertaining detail, and we had so much material from this reunion we turned it into a two-part podcast. Here’s a taste of what you’ll find in this second half ... Lees meer
… “every group has to have an angle”.
… pop’s current obsession with identity.
… why Bronski Beat were so significant.
… David Bowie’s scathing one-word reviews of Michael Jackson and Oasis at the Brits.
… “the whole world of pop songs is a giant ever-expanding artwork”.
… meeting Frida from Abba, “a song waiting to happen”.
… the ‘Pits & Perverts’ gay benefit for the miners in 1984.
… London clubs in the early ‘80s - “we had a competition to see who could wear the highest heels”.
… how everyone at Smash Hits thought Michael Jackson’s Thriller was “a damp squib”.
… recording West End Girls.
… first hearing a 12-inch single.
… appearing on Soul Train with Don Cornelius – “like being on a different planet”.
… why Dusty Springfield gave Jerry Wexler a nervous breakdown.
… seeing the last Ziggy Stardust show.
… meeting Steven Spielberg, Micky Dolenz and Joni Mitchell.
… and Boy George's gag about George Michael.
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PSB tour dates: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/pet-shop-boys-tickets/artist/735852
Order the new Pet Shop Boys album ‘Nonetheless’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/nonetheless-Deluxe-2CD-Shop-Boys/dp/B0CTKKBBVF
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Richard Thompson – “you know it’s time to go when the audience starts throwing chairs”
10 april 2024 · 24 min
Richard Thompson first appeared onstage aged 14 playing Beatles covers in a school group “so bad we were pelted with pennies”. Sixty years later his range of operations includes touring solo and with his band, occasional reunions with Fairport Convention, residencies on Adriatic cruise ships and running a Guitar Camp in the Catskill Mountains (along with his sons and grandson). Much has he seen and learned about live entertainment along the way and he talks to us here from his home on the American East Coast on the day of the solar eclipse. Among the highlights … Lees meer
… memories of the Marquee in 1965 – the Who, the Yardbirds, the Spencer Davis Group: “if you wanted to see both sets, you’d have to walk ten miles home”.
… seeing Nick Drake and the value of being “a silent, tortured genius”.
… life as a support act and how to “attack an audience”.
… Carl Perkins and Chuck Berry at the Finsbury Park Astoria in 1963 “when Chuck was at the height of his attention span”.
… Segovia at the Festival Hall.
… the perils of playing on sea cruises in rough weather.
… old and current album sleeves. “Dressed as a fly and now dressed as a fisherman … that’s progress.”
… how Ian Anderson and Captain Beefheart told the audience who’s boss.
… and watching the Band at the Albert Hall from a box with Fairport Convention.
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Richard Thompson tour dates: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/richard-thompson-tickets/artist/736296
Order the new album Ship To Shore here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ship-Shore-Richard-Thompson/dp/B0CVXHMFPB
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Neil Tennant remembers the pop press and “the last great era of forward-looking songs"
9 april 2024 · 37 min
Neil’s an old friend from our days back at Smash Hits in the early ‘80s. The first Pet Shop Boys demos were played on the office tape machine, though he was a bit self-conscious about “the one with the rap on it”, and he’s one of the few people who’s seen the music press from every angle - as a reader in the ‘70s, as a writer and interviewer and as a musician on its front covers. We had so much great material from this wide-ranging conversation that we’ve turned it into a two-part podcast. Here’s a taste of what you’ll find in this first half ... Lees meer
… the NME article he and his brother pinned to their bedroom wall.
… the event at a Sex Pistols show “which stopped me going to gigs for about three years”.
… the first time he saw his name in print.
… interviewing Marc Bolan in his “fat phase”.
… a barbed chat with Morrissey.
… the pop press shift from “super-showbiz to super-counter-culture”.
… Television, the Clash and other music he discovered through the NME.
… meeting John Taylor 35 years after interviewing him.
… the pop decade when “something extraordinary happened every day”.
… his mother’s horrified reaction when he left Smash Hits to start the Pet Shop Boys.
… the Human League in their Imperial Phase.
… Phil Collins showing him round Abba’s studio in Stockholm.
… and why ‘80s pop stars were “the most controlling”.
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PSB tour dates: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/pet-shop-boys-tickets/artist/735852
Order the new Pet Shop Boys album ‘Nonetheless’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/nonetheless-Deluxe-2CD-Shop-Boys/dp/B0CTKKBBVF
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Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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The Stones’ clothes, our love affair with Abba & rock’s most appalling spectacle
8 april 2024 · 47 min
We lobbed the cracked wooden ball of enquiry at the rock and roll coconut shy this week and a few choice items dropped off their perch, among them … Lees meer
… was Kate Bush ‘the Queen of Prog’?
… ELP, Black Sabbath and Deep Purple playing to 350,000 people on a Speedway track.
… the three things that sparked the Abba revival.
… the Further Adventures of Desmond and Molly Jones, Mean Mr Mustard, Polythene Pam, Father McKenzie, Rocky Raccoon, Maxwell Edison, Rose and Valerie, Sweet Loretta Martin, Vera, Chuck and Dave … Beatles characters awaiting development deals.
… was Britpop the moment the engine went into reverse?
… the two years went rock went ‘fancy dress’.
… why the Stones in 1964 were five walking fashion statements.
… Bookends by Simon & Garfunkel and its Yes connection.
… how the Beatles were in uniform on every album cover.
… David Vine at the 1974 Eurovision: “if all the judges were men, this lot would get a lot of votes and you’ll see why in a moment!”
… plus a birthday guest party - Al Hearton’s life in a Kate Bush tribute band and Stephen Lambe on the complicated birth of 90125 by Yes.
Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Big Characters we have loved and why the Clash wouldn’t last ten minutes in 2024
31 maart 2024 · 47 min
We’ve applied our celebrated sheep/goats separation technique to the rock and roll pasture and shepherded the following into this week’s pod … Lees meer
… Beyoncé and why it’s hard to connect with songs written by committee.
… are we too old for biopics?
… Marvel films, the Arctic Monkeys and other things you either love or avoid.
… reviewing Human Touch and Lucky Town in a high-security studio (and how you can only tell if an album’s any good if you’ve lived with it for two months).
… why Tony Blackburn is the greatest British DJ.
… “Bing was no more Bing than Sinatra was Sinatra”.
… hoary old tales that were the engine of the rock press - the Clash shooting pigeons, Kevin Rowland stealing his own master-tapes, Cliff v Elvis, Beatles v Stones, Hendrix v Clapton, Bowie v Bolan, Clash v the Pistols, Spandau v Duran, Oasis v Blur.
… are Oasis songs mostly about being Oasis?
… “fame is no longer enacted in the public space”.
… indie cliches – escaping the drudgery of the Man and mundanity of Small Town life.
… “the harder I practice, the luckier I get”.
… Scots punk act get movie soundtrack windfall!
… Alex is arranging a woke stag do - “you go to places where ladies put clothes ON”.
… plus birthday guest Andrew Newbury wonders if Country is more than “the three Ds - driving, dogs and divorce”.
Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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How Paul Cook broke into Hammersmith Odeon to see the Who, Slade, Queen & Alex Harvey
28 maart 2024 · 18 min
Paul Cook’s post-Pistols band the Professionals were once, rather surprisingly, on the cover of Smash Hits - “the pinnacle of our success!” – and they’re including the 100 Club on their upcoming tour, the location of another career highlight. He talks to us here about how the first time he played live was also the Pistols’ first appearance (Saint Martin’s College of Art - “utter chaos”), how their old Denmark Street rehearsal room is now an AirBnB (Rotten’s cartoons still on the wall), old punks in the audience, Danny Boyle’s TV series and the very slim chance of a reunion (“never say never”). But much of this is about climbing through back windows to see bands in the early ‘70s, Stevie Wonder, the Four Tops, Queen and Mott the Hoople among them. And seeing Alex Harvey on the day the whole of Scotland descended on London for the match against England at Wembley. Lees meer
The Professionals are playing four UK dates (and often chuck in a couple of Pistols' tunes):
https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/the-professionals-1-1
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Sharleen Spiteri saw Joe Strummer onstage and thought “that’s what I want to be”
26 maart 2024 · 35 min
exas are touring in the autumn and she talks to us here about what’s required to make it all look easy, a conversation that includes … Lees meer
… why working in a Glaswegian hair salon was the perfect preparation for pop stardom.
… the difference between the first second onstage and everything that follows.
… the advantage of being a singer with an instrument.
… seeing Jim Kerr in his mother’s blouse at Tiffany’s in Glasgow when she was 15.
… how Dusty Springfield remembered lyrics.
… Chrissie Hynde, Siouxsie, Depeche Mode, Cameo and the Clash.
… the overpowering spectacle of Prince’s Sign O’ The Times tour in Paris.
… playing racecourses and the unsettling sight of an audience wearing fascinator hats.
… supporting Fleetwood Mac (her second gig) and something useful learnt from Stevie Nicks.
… and the nocturnal sound of lions “going at it full swipe” near her house by Regents Park.
Texas tickets here: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/texas-tickets/artist/742180
Texas & Spooner Oldham sessions: https://www.texas.uk.com/
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Album sleeves as lifestyle statements and 5 seconds that made Phil Manzanera a fortune
25 maart 2024 · 37 min
The all-seeing telescope of truth scanned this week’s rock and roll heavens and noticed a few patterns emerge, among them … Lees meer
… the real story of the writing of Layla and who nicked what from where. And who didn’t get paid.
… why Sally Grossman was on the cover of Bringing It All Back Home.
… album sleeves with overflowing ashtrays that screamed ‘welcome to my bohemian world!’ – Soft Machine’s Third, Man’s Rhinos, Winos + Lunatics, Back Street Crawler …
… album sleeves that said “meet my girlfriend!” – McDonald And Giles, the Madcap Laughs, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, Love Chronicles, the Paul Simon Handbook …
… album sleeves suggesting the powerful aphrodisiac of music and the allure of ‘the bachelor pad’ …
.. our night out at a Leo Sidran show and what we’ll expect – indeed insist upon - at all gigs in the future.
… when rock stars read 12th Century Persian poetry.
…the time Lucinda Williams toured with Dylan and Van Morrison and never met either of them.
… the glorious squalor of ‘70s flats.
… “comedy is tragedy at a different speed”.
… mentioned in despatches: Sharleen Spiteri, John Mellencamp, James Burton, Bobby Whitlock, Daniel Kramer.
The Everly Brothers’ Walking The Dog. Is that the original Layla riff at 2.20? …
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=072OpLw-l_s
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Phil Manzanera Part 2: an insider’s guide to Roxy Music (and a great Bob Dylan story)
24 maart 2024 · 43 min
Phil Manzanera – who thought “every day in the band felt like Christmas” – has just published his memoir, Revolución to Roxy, and talked to us about it in front of a rammed and captivated audience at London’s 21Soho, an evening so full of detail, intrigue and revelation we’re putting it out as two podcasts. This is the second. He lifts the bonnet of the Roxy Music “art collective” in its various line-ups and shows you how the engine worked and why the idea of Eno onstage was “frightening”. He remembers working with a whole range of people – David Gilmour, Robert Wyatt, Heroes De Silencia, Quiet Sun, 801, David Bowie, Keith Richards, Jack Bruce and Tim Finn among them. He talks about the five seconds of guitar he knocked off in 1975 that’s made him “more money than all my Roxy earnings put together”. He reflects – and very poignantly – that bands never talk to each other and how he hopes the other members read his memoir as they’ll discover things about him they never knew. And he tells the fantastic story of the Guitar Legends festival in Seville and the way he managed Bob Dylan. Lees meer
And you can order a copy of ‘Revolución to Roxy’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Revoluci%C3%B3n-Roxy-Phil-Manzanera/dp/1783242817
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Phil Manzanera’s enviable life in Roxy Music and beyond
22 maart 2024 · 39 min
Phil Manzanera – whose relatives include a Colombian pirate, a spy and an Italian opera musician - has just published his memoir, Revolución to Roxy, and talked to us about it in front of a packed and enthralled house at London’s 21Soho, a life so fascinating, detailed and colourful we’re releasing the conversation as a two-part podcast. Here’s Part One which looks back at an exotic childhood in Hawaii, Caracas and Cuba – with first-hand memories of Castro’s revolution in 1959 – and then his school days, early bands (the Drag Alley Beach Mob, Pooh & the Ostrich Feathers, Quiet Sun), the audition for Roxy Music, how they were styled, supporting David Bowie and their rapid and eventful ascent to the first hit single. When he joined the band, he said, “every day felt like Christmas”. Part Two to follow! Lees meer
Order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Revoluci%C3%B3n-Roxy-Phil-Manzanera/dp/1783242817
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Fish is bowing out to become a Hebridean shepherd. What’s he learnt in 45 years onstage?
20 maart 2024 · 46 min
Fish has announced a Farewell Tour in 2025. “I’ve been there, done that and sold the t-shirt.” He’s moving to a croft on a remote Scottish island with nesting eagles, a flock of sheep named after the Hibernian FC team of 1972 and part-ownership of what’s just been voted “the best beach in the world”. Getting there is like the journey in Brigadoon. This covers a wide range of bases, among them … Lees meer
… how the fall of the Berlin Wall changed the tour circuit.
… his first gig as “a big, gangly, geeky teenager” at the Golden Lion in Galashiels playing Steely Dan and Ry Cooder covers.
… the lies boys tell when trying to get into bands.
… supporting Queen for an audience of 200,000 and how he “over-toured” Europe.
… how it feels to be “the Anti-Christ in the Church of Marillion” and their very public divorce in 1988.
… seeing Yes at the Usher Hall in for £1.25 and Genesis on the Lamb Lies Down On Broadway tour.
… the music press v the New Wave of British Prog.
… girls called Kayleigh whose mothers fancied the singer from Marillion.
… irate fans on social media.
… the fine art of “guerrilla touring”.
… plus the Faces, Sven Hassel, Edgar Rice Burroughs and a curious analogy about Sioux Indians.
https://fishmusic.scot/
UK tour dates here …
https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/fish-tickets/artist/740885
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The extraordinary story of Steve Harley’s greatest hit
18 maart 2024 · 7 min
Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me) was a slow-paced, vicious dirge about the band members who forsook and betrayed him which magically evolved into what appeared to be an optimistic love song, a radio staple that never stopped selling. David and Mark remembered its transformation. Lees meer
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Great divorce albums, Powerpop snobs and dark tales of 1999
17 maart 2024 · 1 uur 1 min
Various items set off the alarm in the rock and roll bag-check this week and were hauled back for closer inspection, among them … Lees meer
… when did records first try to sound like the past?
… why Karl Wallinger and Robbie Williams fell out over She’s the One.
... how Marillion and Chuck D changed the digital landscape.
… the only word for the sound of Free is “lascivious”.
… Blood on the Tracks, Here My Dear, Shoot Out The Lights, Tapestry, Tunnel of Love and other accounts of marital fracture.
… proof the mainstream no longer exists: Glastonbury headliner SZA has had 1.7b streams yet people claim they’ve never heard of her.
… the poignancy commercial failure lends to pop music.
… the Wire’s ‘100 Records That Set the World On Fire (While No-One was Listening)’.
… how Marvin Gaye married a woman 17 years older than him and left her for a 17 year-old.
… Eamonn Forde - in bed! - talking about his new book ‘1999: The Year the Record Industry Lost Control’, the people who knew the digital revolution was coming and the ones who didn’t believe it.
… Big Star, Dwight Twilley, the Raspberries, World Party and why Powerpop appeals to music snobs like us.
… “a Golden Age is when things behaved in such a way that you believed they’d behave that way forever”.
… plus Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Andy Fraser, Steve Winwood and the days when “music down a phoneline” felt like science fiction.
Order Eamonn Forde’s 1999: The Year the Record Industry Lost Control here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/1999-Year-Record-Industry-Control/dp/1913172775
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Stephen Fall’s reviewed 3,333 of his albums. Buy the book!
14 maart 2024 · 23 min
Stephen Fall wrote reviews of his records, one a day, to make him a better listener. A decade later he published them in a book so colossal that we drop it on a desk to prove it’s passed the Boff Test. ‘Reviewing My Record Collection: 3,333 Albums from A to Zuma’ is a laudable labour of love, records he bought years ago and revisited, records he found in charity shops and took a punt on, records with reputations, records that deserve “a mauling”, records he wants the world to hear, records arranged alphabetically by title from A by Jethro Tull to Zuma by Neil Young & Crazy Horse. He’s evangelical about the album format and never skips a track. It’s an attractively personal view and often mentions when the relationship began – “I found Moon Pix by Cat Power for £1.50 in a Cancer Research in North Finchley”. This fascinating conversation about a love that knows no bounds touches on CDs you always find in charity shops (eg by REM, Dido and Travis), how strange it is that the same records you can pick up for 50p are often being repackaged as “top-end super-deluxe vinyl reissues” and how he felt a sense of bereavement when he finished the book. Which he’s why, oh yes, he’s begun Volume Two. Lees meer
You can buy the first one for £17.99 from Amazon …
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Reviewing-My-Record-Collection-Albums/dp/B0CV53YD22#:~:text=Book%20overview,collecting%20records%2C%20tapes%20and%20CDs.
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It’s Arthur Brown, the god of hellfire … paging Health & Safety!
12 maart 2024 · 20 min
Arthur Brown – enduring psychedelic godfather – is out on tour again 57 years after first performing Fire in a flaming metal crown. He’s nearly 82. This is the most old-school podcast we’ve ever done, talk of seeing Salvador Dali in his audience in a Paris nightclub, jazz bands on the back of trucks, his grandmother’s hotel being bombed in WW2, the birth of Flower Power, gigs at the UFO club, Palaeolithic art, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, panicked security personnel with fire blankets and memories of the key components of his incendiary headgear over the years among them cow gum, Army gaiters and a pie dish full of petrol. As you’ll discover – and this couldn’t be more old-school either – Zoot Money once had to extinguish the flames with two pints of Newcastle Brown. Lees meer
Arthur’s keeping the home fires burning on a European tour. Dates here …
https://www.songkick.com/artists/333715-crazy-world-of-arthur-brown/calendar
Website - thegodofhellfire.com
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Suzi Ronson - Bowie’s stylist - knows why rock and roll is all about hair
11 maart 2024 · 38 min
Suzi Ronson was working in a hairdressers in Beckenham in 1970 when a Mrs Jones dropped in for a shampoo and set talking gaily about her son, “an artistic boy who plays guitar and piano”. The same son who’d had a hit with Space Oddity and occasionally drifted down the High Road in a dress. Within weeks she’d become the first rock stylist, transforming Bowie’s hair, image and stage clothes and launching him in the direction of Ziggy Stardust and an international audience. She was a key part of his entourage that toured the UK, America and Japan and she talks about later life married to Spiders’ guitarist Mick Ronson, the role he played in Bowie’s success and the trials of his solo career in its aftermath. Both this podcast and her memoir (Me And Mr Jones: My Life With David Bowie and the Spiders From Mars) look at Bowie’s early career from a wholly new and original angle - in fact someone should base a film on it. A few highlights ... Lees meer
… Haddon Hall and its exotic inhabitants.
… Schwarzkopf Red Hair Dye and other trade secrets.
.. how it feels to see an audience with the haircut you invented.
… expeditions to Liberty’s and Mr Fish with Angie Bowie.
… the Spiders’ northern sensibilities adjusting to the brave new world.
… how Tony Defries made Bowie mysterious and unreachable.
… why Lou Reed was a revelation.
… America’s Southern states reacting to the 1972 tour.
... and the magnetism of Bob Dylan and why Mick Ronson ended the Rolling Thunder tour with an invoice not a wage packet.
Order Suzi’s book here …
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Me-Mr-Jones-Suzi-Ronson/dp/057137185X
Suzi’s the special guest on the Lust For Life tour reading extracts from the book …
https://www.lustforlifetour.com/special-guest-support
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How the Beatles invented pop video and acts we love who always sound the same
10 maart 2024 · 34 min
Nutritious items on the rock and roll tasting menu this week include … Lees meer
… the curious life of Tom Verlaine, his grocery cart and his 50,000 books.
… was March 9 1984 the worst week ever for the British album charts?
… what all great records have in common.
… Yesterday’s news today! ‘Soundies’ at the cinema and the Scopitone colour video jukebox.
… why A Hard Day’s Night was the greatest advert for the magical qualities of the Beatles and the scene that was the blueprint for the pop promotional clip.
… comforting acts with a narrow range – JJ Cale, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, U2 (“like getting into your parents’ car after a school trip”). And what made JJ Cale’s recordings so mesmerising.
… did Johnny Marr ever play a guitar solo?
… “I work in advertising but tell my mother I play piano in a brothel”.
… the link between JJ Cale’s Call Me The Breeze and Family Affair by Sly & the Family Stone.
Mentioned in despatches … Cab Calloway and the Hondells, The Hoodoo Gurus, the Style Council, Jimmy Reed and the Inkspots.
Tom Verlaine’s 50,000 books …
https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/march/at-the-tom-verlaine-book-sale?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20240306blog&utm_content=20240306blog+CID_6b4a1bd19ed9ca733f5ffca04056ca8b&utm_source=LRB%20email&utm_term=Read%20more
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Is social media killing pop music? And where have all the bands gone?
4 maart 2024 · 43 min
Caught in the piercing super-trouper of perusal this week … Lees meer
... the BRITS 2024, a howling embarrassment.
… Medieval Beatles! She Came In Through the Privy Window, Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Kestrel, Comely Rita, I’m Happy Just To Joust With You …
… the wisdom of Tony Hancock.
… The Last Dinner Party and other ‘art concepts’.
… the Pattie Boyd/George Harrison/Eric Clapton love triangle.
… the days when “forming a band was a conspiracy against the tedium of life”.
… is it all over for young blokes in pop music? And is being in a band still considered sexy?
… the oldest musicians still touring: if Willie Nelson’s still going at 90, won’t Ed Sheeran be on the road at 100?
… “these days hanging a guitar round your neck insinuates that you might be homeless”.
.. and a whole range of facts that make starting groups seem less attractive (the cost, the likely profit, the decreasing appeal of ‘abroad’, digital gangs, how big ticket prices soak up all the live circuit cash).
... plus new patrons piped aboard!
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For Henry Normal comedy is like “sugar and salt”
3 maart 2024 · 29 min
Henry Normal set up Baby Cow Productions with Steve Coogan, co-wrote the Royle Family, Coogan’s Run and Mrs Merton and produced Gavin & Stacy and Red Dwarf. He’s been a central plank in British comedy since the early ‘90s and, throughout it all, developed his own stage show built around poems and stories. He’s touring the UK with Brian Bilston. This podcast is full of hard-won insight into what makes comedy work and how the best poetry connects with “a greater truth”. And much besides including … Lees meer
… what middle-class BBC execs wanted to change about the Royle Family and why it worked as it was.
… touring with John Cooper Clarke “who lived by a cemetery and had egg custard for breakfast”.
… putting on a Pensioners’ Disco, aged 14, that featured The March of The Mods played at 33.
... the influence of Roger McGough and the Liverpool poets.
… how, apart from the Office, American versions of British comedies mostly fail to get the point.
… seeing Juicy Lucy at the Nottingham Boat Club when he was 17.
… what made Spike Milligan’s Small Dreams Of A Scorpion so original.
… working with Caroline Aherne and Craig Cash and the Guardian’s first review – “three middle-class writers”.
… how to structure spoken word shows – “salad rather than soup”.
… and reflections about Mr Inbetween, Derry Girls, Clive James and Norman Gunston.
Get tickets for Henry Normal and Brian Bilston here: https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/henry-normal
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Steve Howe of Yes tells a few tales from topographic oceans
29 februari 2024 · 32 min
Steve Howe talks to us from the old house and studio in Devon where they rehearsed ‘The Yes Album’ in 1970. He’s been recording there for 54 years and is part of the current line-up about to set out around Europe. He looks back here on what he’s learnt from 60 years onstage and mentions … Lees meer
… the effect of seeing Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins and The Animals in 1964.
… playing old Shadows tunes at the Barnsbury Boys School in Holloway, aged 14.
… how Yes songs evolved and the cover versions they used to play (America by Paul Simon, Something’s Coming from West Side Story).
… “the dark 1968 that followed the rainbow 1967”.
... Duane Eddy, Hank Marvin, Chet Atkins, Alison Krauss and the Big Three.
… how Sgt Pepper – and blues, jazz and classical music - lit prog’s blue touchpaper.
… the value of “homework” and the hours of painstaking rehearsal that allowed them to play Fragile onstage.
… how Iron Butterfly helped transform the Yes stage show.
… Starship Trooper, Roundabout and other songs they’re guaranteed to play.
… old memories of Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe.
… and the road ahead: “I’ll keep going while I can still do the twiddly bits”.
Yes tour dates: https://www.yesworld.com/
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The evergreen record that’s 50 years old & Jeremy Thorpe at a hippie commune
25 februari 2024 · 1 uur
As this week’s rock and roll steeplechase thunders out over the jumps, the following runners and riders make it past the post … Lees meer
… “First he changed music. Then he changed the world!” and other over-cooked biopic sells.
… Billy Joel returns by the miracle of Artificial Ignorance.
… what you learn from visiting rock stars’ childhood homes.
… what’s Malta done to deserve a four-day Liam Gallagher festival?
… the one thing that’s never changed about Country Music.
… how Hotel California ended up in court.
… Sam Mendes’ Beatles project and the problem with actors playing very famous people.
… Beyoncé’s ‘Texas Hold ‘Em’: sampled banjo and other misdemeanours.
… from Watergate to Putin: the 50 year-old record so lean, smart and cynical that the world’s only just catching up.
… Don Henley on Irving Azoff: “He may be Satan but he’s OUR Satan.”
… Rock sea-cruises: “get your marital vows renewed by a member of Weezer!”
... why CD has ruined Jackson Browne’s For Everyman.
… what Hugh Grant superimposed on the character of Jeremy Thorpe.
… and birthday guest Adrian Ainsworth - Arse Curtains and other career-limiting band names.
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Richard Coles has faced every audience imaginable, one armed with pea-shooters
23 februari 2024 · 31 min
The Reverend Richard Coles is back on tour with his ‘Borderline National Trinket’ show and talks to us from his home in Sussex where he’s “the only person in the village who hasn’t won a BAFTA”. This looks back at his life – “a CV like the work of a fantasist” - and what he’s learnt from 50 years of watching various types of stage entertainment and playing to audiences ranging from the Wollaston Over-‘60s Methodist Ladies Fellowship to a bunch of delinquent Spanish pop fans with catapults. And he talks fondly of the Communards and how ‘80s pop was a Golden Age. Among the highlights … Lees meer
… Morecambe & Wise at the Kettering Granada with Arthur Tolcher on the mouth organ.
… finding your “pulpit voice”.
… Sir Robert Helpmann’s great gag about referees.
… why time is a healer.
… the “marble denim and mullets” of Legs & Co’s interactive dance to the Communards on Top Of The Pops.
… on the literary circuit sandwiched between John Lydon and Marti Pellow – “dreams do come true”.
… if he’s ever met a shy vicar.
… the stagecraft of Danny Baker, Adam Kay and Grayson Perry.
… standing on a chair to conduct the RPO, aged 8 and the time he wrote a Magnificat For Choir And Snare Drum in A Minor.
… seeing Bauhaus, John Otway and the 4-Be-2s.
… sitting between Lenny Henry and Torvill & Dean at a Kylie show.
… his teenage punk band Zerox playing Clash covers.
… and why there are never any forks in a Green Room.
Get ‘Borderline National Trinket’ tickets here, last date March 11 at London’s Shaftesbury Theatre …
https://www.seetickets.com/tour/reverend-richard-coles
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For Jah Wobble driving tube trains was even more thrilling than playing Glastonbury
20 februari 2024 · 36 min
Jah Wobble - aka John Wardle - wrote ‘Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer’ in 2009. It’s just been reworked, expanded and republished and it’s well worth reading, full of detail about growing up in the East End, unexploded bombs, pickling factories, grim schooldays, record shops and clubs, the bands he saw and his arrival at Kingsway College where he met John Lydon and Sid Vicious and became a cornerstone of the punk rock inner circle. And then two challenging years as the bassist of Public Image Ltd, the time he worked as a train driver and ticket collector for London Transport, a series of collaborations – Brian Eno, Baaba Maal, Holger Czukay, Sinead O’Connor, Chaka Demus – and some bold and original solo albums (you’ll enjoy Island Records' reaction when he pitches an album based on the poems of William Blake). Among this podcast's highlights … Lees meer
… the Kafkaesque world of working for the London Underground in the days when you could “punch an area manager and not get sacked”.
… why great rhythm sections are like great football players.
… his dad, an El-Alamein survivor, on seeing Mick Jagger on Top of the Pops: “the Rolling Stones should be used for mine clearance.”
… Public Image Ltd – “three of the weirdest people you could ever meet”, the band that kept their cash in a shoebox.
… “you can’t go through life as a tourist”.
… the secret of the perfect bass sound.
… watching the first Sex Pistols’ rehearsal.
… seeing Bob Marley & the Wailers at the Lyceum.
… the record that reversed his dislike of the Beatles.
… why working with Pharoah Sanders was the highlight of his musical life.
… his 2023 album, ‘The Bus Routes of South London’.
… Jim Reeves, Burl Ives and further sounds of the family homestead.
... and a powerful aversion to hippies.
Order John’s memoir here …
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dark-Luminosity-Memoirs-Geezer-expanded/dp/0571375359\
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Steve Wright and other great radioheads, McCartney’s bass & the non-profits of Python
19 februari 2024 · 51 min
Pausing occasionally to spark a Senior Service and sink a milk stout, we kick cans down this week’s rock and roll boulevard stopping off at the following hotspots … Lees meer
… the “Grunge Dripdown”: why Pearl Jam can play 60,000 seaters.
… the Elton Line, the Dury Line, the Bragg Line, the Kirsty Line …. What the London Overgrounds should have been called and why.
... how Steve Wright made radio and sowed the seeds of the Fast Show and Stella Street.
… actors who’ve joined the Choir Invisible but live on in voice-over.
… is any musician as closely linked to any instrument as McCartney to his Hofner bass? And the mysterious tale of its theft.
… J&M Studios (where Little Richard’s Tutti Frutti was recorded) is now a launderette with a jukebox. What became of Olympic, Town House, Motown and Bearsville?
… the Radio 2 v Greatest Hits ratings land-grab.
… does anyone under 60 still care about Monty Python?
… the latest glorious chapter in Taylor Swift and Kanye West’s 15-year “beef”.
… “All pop music is Strictly”: what David learnt from his six-year old granddaughters.
… the voice of Tommy Vance returns by the miracle of AI.
… “an elephant is a horse designed by a committee”.
... plus birthday guest Nick Foreman and why “underrated” is overrated.
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Max Décharné reboots the golden age of the Teddy Boys
18 februari 2024 · 35 min
If a film director wanted to flag up incoming violence in the late ‘50s, the camera would fall upon a couple of Teds lurking in the street outside. The teenage Keith Richards remembers razors, bike chains and bloodshed at dance halls and there was an infamous Teddy Boy murder on Clapham Common that plunged the nation into frantic, media-led moral panic. Max Décharné sets out to reclaim the Teds from their “Cro-Magnon, knuckle-dragging cliché” in his new book Teddy Boys and relives this dangerously thrilling rock and roll revolution – the music, clothes, films, press stories, the birth of Ted, Peak Ted, its eventual demise and what’s kept the flame alive since. Things of note include … Lees meer
… the full effect of Blackboard Jungle on a packed 4,000-seater cinema.
... that poignant sight of an old Ted pushing a pram with a woman with a beehive.
… Joan Collins in ‘Cosh Boy’.
… the first UK rock and roll gig, Bill Haley & the Comets at the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth in 1956.
… the crepe-soled, velvet-collared Duke of Edinburgh, unlikely ’50s fashion icon.
… Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis at the London Rock and Roll Show at Wembley in 1972, a key point in the Ted revival.
… Malcolm McLaren, Johnny Rotten, Wizzard and assorted Ted torch-carriers.
… Viv Stanshall and ‘Teddy Boys Don’t Knit’.
… fingertip drapes from Savile Row and how Teds subverted top-end fashion.
… Fleetwood Mac as Earl Vince & the Valiants doing ‘Somebody’s Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In Tonite’.
… and how the Beatles and James Bond helped kick the Teds into touch.
Order Max’s book here …
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Teddy-Boys-Post-War-Britain-Revolution-ebook/dp/B0C3SFMTFH
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Guy Garvey remembers the Grumbleweeds in panto, Santana fantasies & a song nicked from Roy Castle
14 februari 2024 · 27 min
Guy Garvey and Elbow start touring the UK in May and he looks back here at the first shows he saw growing up in Bury in the ’70s - when his five elders introduced him to punk, prog, folk, soul and Elton John - and proudly admits he still doesn’t know the names of the guitar strings. Look out for … Lees meer
… the secrets of the “Vanity Thrust” and other 21st Century stagecraft.
… the time they supported the Stones.
… being with the same band members for 34 years and each “wanting to be a different member of Santana”.
… what he’s learnt about live performance - “never announce new material”.
… his 6Music show, Guy Garvey’s Finest hour (“one hour too long” – Mrs Guy Garvey).
… the un-PC death of Roy Castle in the Peter Cushing movie Dr Terry’s House of Horrors.
… good things about Little Simz.
… the time a snowstorm doubled their audience.
… working with the BBC Concert Orchestra – “if it’s Wagner you’ll miss two tea breaks”.
… when Paul McCartney turned “Partridge-esque”.
… and the possible ‘star guests’ on the upcoming tour.
Elbow tour dates …
https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/elbow-tickets/artist/886289
Guy Garvey’s Finest hour …
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0072q60
Elbow are on Radio 2’s Piano Room with the BBC Concert Orchestra on Feb 21…
https://elbow.co.uk/bbc-radio-2-piano-room-month/
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Lulu, when Prince did a bad thing and how the Beatles changed the shape of the human head
12 februari 2024 · 53 min
This week the two-man kayak of curiosity tackles the following rock and roll rapids … Lees meer
… when was the last time there was a truly universal hit?
… why Waylon Jennings walked out of We Are The World.
... the story of Everybody’s Talkin’ and Midnight Cowboy.
… why the Beatles’ 1964 American invasion was the biggest surprise party in the world and how the Maysles Brothers’ doc became the template for A Hard Day’s Night.
… the secret haikus of Wes Anderson.
… the best moments in Jaws.
... why Tracy Chapman stole the Grammys.
… how USA For Africa v Band Aid showed a fundamental difference in the British and American character.
… the inscrutable world of Spotify royalty payments.
… when Lulu, Dusty and Sandie Shaw were re-booted.
… Mojo Nixon RIP, a “corner on two wheels on fire” kinda guy.
… Springsteen and Steve Van Zandt’s hair.
… “Let me die a young man's death” - Adrian Henri.
… plus birthday guest Keith Adsley suggests cover versions in movie soundtracks that are better than the originals – eg Fiona Apple’s Across the Universe, the Gypsy Kings’ Hotel California and the Soggy Bottom Boys’ Man of Constant Sorrow.
Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, pus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Musicians and their mothers and the records we could never sell
4 februari 2024 · 48 min
We spun the week’s rock and roll roulette wheel and this is where the balls landed … Lees meer
… why all rock biopics are worth seeing once.
… ‘demixing’: we spent ages perfecting records. Now we’re unperfecting them.
… the adorable hand-drawn flyer the 15 year-old Robert Plant made for his band Blacksnake Moan 60 years ago – “the weirdest, wildest sound in R&B!”
… are all musicians driven by the urge to please their mums?
… Pyjamarama, Crazy Diamond, Cigarettesnalcohol and other rock and roll racehorses.
… why “The Room” by Fabiano do Nascimento and Sam Gendel is “healing music”.
… has anyone been ‘bigger’ than Taylor Swift? And how can she be so universally popular and yet we can go through life without hearing a note of her music?
… the Pet Shop Boys at the London Palladium: “we don’t do waving”.
… “Something's lost but something's gained in living every day” – Joni Mitchell.
… are any possesions more precious than records?
... and birthday guest Kevin Rose recommends the Brian Wilson biopic Love & Mercy – and we talk about Control (Joy Division), Backbeat (the early Beatles), Rocket Man and Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis.
Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Tom Hibbert (the world’s funniest music writer) and why Madonna should be sued
28 januari 2024 · 46 min
Our piercing Hubble Telescope Of Truth scans the rock and roll heavens to see what new patterns emerge, among them … Lees meer
… running into Rod Stewart at a friend’s funeral.
… the priceless spectacle of rock critics dancing.
... Prefab Sprout and the fine art of bathos – “We were songbirds, we were Greek Gods, we were singled out by fate/We were quoted out of context - it was great!”
… the best songs about being in a band.
… Jackson Browne’s Running On Empty (and its hymn to self-love).
… King Kong, the most famous movie of all time - and why, like Jaws and Jurassic Park, the special effects now seem creaky but the drama still holds.
… our new pop star category: “dancer-singer”.
... how Tom Hibbert invented a whole new whole method of music journalism (and the only song that could get him on a dancefloor).
… “the crack of the backbeat on Vine Street”.
… and birthday guest Roger Millington on Heroes by David Bowie, the Archers theme tune and anything else that might make a new National Anthem.
Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content and much more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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TV's greatest musical moment - and are we still allowed to laugh at hopeless old rock bands?
22 januari 2024 · 50 min
Applying our patent ACME wheat/chaff separator to the rock and roll cornfield, this week’s podcast reaps the following harvest …. Lees meer
… Stray, Budgie, Fat Mattress, Atomic Rooster … ropey bargain-bin fixtures reborn as costly and collectible vinyl classics.
… Neil Or No Neil: Let’s Impeach the President, The Lone Ranger And Tonto Fistfight in Heaven … spot the fake Shakey song title.
… what they did with the Beatles’ Twist And Shout in the opening sequence of True Detective 4.
… the curious tale of the last line in Casablanca plus Dooley ‘Sam’ Wilson and his off-screen piano double.
… when the Dave Matthews Band tour bus tipped 800lbs of raw sewage onto a pleasure cruiser.
… why it’s hard to feel nostalgic about online magazines.
… “deep-end record-shop-haunting bores” (like us).
… the first three Robert Palmer albums and their old-school sleeves.
… life in the ‘70s without the NME: unimaginable.
… when Neil Young was sued for not sounding like Neil Young and John Fogerty for plagiarising his own material.
... and birthday guests Paul Knox and the biggest musical moments on TV, among them Magical Mystery Tour, John Martyn on Whistle Test, the Pistols on So It Goes ….
Is this the greatest musical moment on TV?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pKpfs5EK_s
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Graham Gouldman knows where to alphabetically file 10cc records
21 januari 2024 · 17 min
In March Graham Gouldman and 10cc are coming your way and here he talks to David Hepworth about: Lees meer
- seeing Cliff and the original Shadows at his first live show
- playing live in the sixties, when a band would plug all three guitars into the same amp
- where he keeps his fifty guitars
- what’s going on when it all goes quiet on the 10.c.c. tour bus
- the songs you have to play for the audience
- the ones you play for yourself
- what goes through his head every night when he’s standing in the wings
- the proper place to put 10 cc in an alphabetical record collection
Full tour dates here: https://www.10cc.world/events
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Annie Nightingale (“the great goth auntie”), choirs on pop records & the music they sent into space
15 januari 2024 · 53 min
We stuck a coin in this week’s jukebox of news and cranked up the volume and these were the tracks that got played … Lees meer
… fond memories of Annie Nightingale at Radio One and Whistle Test.
… the delicious melancholy of Sunday night pop radio.
… how David Gilmour writes songs.
… sex, clothes, gangsters: the eternal allure of Bonnie & Clyde.
… how the first Police album (including three hit singles) was recorded by a former doctor in a four-track studio above a dairy in Leatherhead for £1,500, and the band’s touching tribute when he died.
… the British Library hijack hack.
… the fantasy theme of so many ‘60s movies: ‘escape’.
… Ridley Scott’s Hovis ad.
… Blind Willie Johnson, Chuck Berry … Blodwyn Pig? The five tracks you’d send into space to represent life on earth.
… how future wars will be started.
… plus birthday guest Sandra Austin on the best use of choirs on records among them Aretha Franklin’s You’ve Got A Friend, Blur’s Tender, the Stones’ You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Roy Harper’s When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease.
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Jim Gordon - the supernatural gift and tragic fate of “the greatest rock drummer” with Joel Selvin
13 januari 2024 · 33 min
Jim Gordon played the drums on Wichita Lineman, Good Vibrations, the Byrds’ Mr Tambourine Man and hundreds of other recordings we all own and worked with pretty much everyone including Steely Dan, Tom Waits, Tom Petty, Randy Newman, John Lennon, Frank Zappa and the Everlys. He toured with Delaney & Bonnie and Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs And Englishmen package and was a member of Derek & the Dominos. He played with a “bounce, a lilt, a boiling undercurrent” that added a whole new melodic dimension and he saw two different worlds from the inside, the studio-based pop factories of the ‘60s singles boom and the big ‘70s tours of the heyday of the rock album. West Coast author and music columnist Joel Selvin considers his supreme talent and ultimately catastrophic story in his new book ‘Drums & Demons: the Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon’ alighting here at various points in detail, among them … Lees meer
… the intersection between “rock and roll and true crime”.
… the secret of “a compositional drummer”.
… how he started at the top, aged 17, touring with the Everlys and the Rolling Stones.
… how Rita Coolidge was robbed of her royalties, twice.
… his appetite for fame and recognition at a time when “being a rock star was the most elevated position in the world”.
… why he turned down a Dylan tour.
… the long, tangled evolution of ‘Layla’ and what Jim added to You’re So Vain that transformed it.
… and why he was sentenced to 16 years (for the murder of his mother) and ended up doing 38.
Order Joel’s book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Drums-Demons-Tragic-Journey-Gordon/dp/1635768993
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Great albums now 50 years old, the best gag ever & the haircut that launched folk-rock
7 januari 2024 · 54 min
Leaping across puddles, walking between the raindrops, its collar turned to the cold and damp, our weekly podcast builds a defence against the rigours of the rock and roll weather and offers shelter from the storm. Remain warm and dry with the following … Lees meer
… the 11 musicians who turned down a Knighthood, MBE etc.
… why Dylan & the Band’s 1974 tour set the template for all tours to follow.
… Rod Stewart minus the hair: unimaginable.
… the old duffers’ perfect New Year’s Eve.
… happy 50th to Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark, Van Morrison’s It’s Too Late To Stop Now, Steely Dan’s Pretzel Logic, Gram Parsons’ Grievous Angel, Big Star’s Radio City, Todd Rundgren’s Todd and Frank Zappa’s Apostrophe.
… Mr Bates v the Post Office and why sad films and books get harder to process as you get older.
… the wit and wisdom of our old pal Rod Sopp, the Smash Hits ad man - “a roll of cash big enough to choke a donkey”; “he’s so thin he has to run around in the shower to get wet”.
… Sting, Debbie Harry, Elvis Presley: spot the natural blond.
… how Woody Allen uses music to “make films look better”.
… the story of Everybody’s Talkin’ in Midnight Cowboy.
… why movie dance sequences are often filmed in silence.
… and birthday guest Andrew Slattery: All Along the Watchtower in Withnail, Sanctus in If, Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby in O Brother Where Art Thou? and other great movie soundtrack moments.
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Noel Coward, Gallagher & Squire’s superpower summit & the art of the Bob Dylan backbeat
31 december 2023 · 55 min
Amid the detritus of tangerine peel, half-eaten chocolates, broken toys and jars of home-brewed chutney beneath the rock and roll Christmas tree we found various items still unwrapped and awaiting this week’s podcast, among them … Lees meer
… how to create the Dylan Blonde On Blonde shuffle in under two minutes.
… “Middlesex Hepworth!” David’s triumph on University Challenge and an inside view of the whole experience.
… Noel Coward revisited through the 21st century lens in the ‘Mad About The Boy’ documentary.
… Liam Gallagher & John Squire’s super-duo: it’s the Mancunian nostalgia jackpot but are the days of pre-release hype now over?
… the most creative thing anyone can do.
… actors from humble backgrounds used to pretend to be posher, now the posher ones affect to be working class.
… how to listen to live albums: new Hepworth research reveals essential ingredient to enhance audio experience!
… ‘a mix is never finished, it’s merely abandoned’, ‘snapping to the grid’ plus the idiosyncrasies of a ‘smart drummer’.
This is the link to creating the Dylan shuffle: https://youtu.be/BMPoFYAwXQ0?t=78
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Hipgnosis album art, the hardest working man in showbiz & the moment the world went mad
18 december 2023 · 49 min
We check this week’s luggage on the rock and roll baggage carousel and remove the following items for inspection … Lees meer
… The People v OJ Simpson and why it’s worth re-watching.
… the only two convincing films about magazines and journalism.
… bands that look like mini-cab drivers.
… David’s upcoming appearance on University Challenge (cue the voice of Roger Tilling: “Middlesex Hepworth!”)
... the source of the phrase “Bring on the empty horses!”
… why someone called Riley asked John McVie and Nick Mason for his life back.
… who was more prolific, Michael Curtiz, Barbara Cartland or Mozart?
… the eternal destination of all Peter Pan royalties.
… the man who saved Po Powell from a spell in the cooler.
… “Morning, Gentlemen. Nice day for murder!”
… writing bands’ names on school bags.
… ‘I need a sheep, a psychiatrist’s couch, a vet and a ticket to Hawaii!’
... the old Word magazine gang and what they’re doing now.
Mentioned in despatches – the Atom Heart Mother cow, a duff Barry Gibb movie, the Mark Leeman Five and Balaam And the Angel.
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Denny Laine, the Move’s catastrophic court case & the man who's made 700 albums in 2 years
10 december 2023 · 59 min
This week’s wheat/chaff separation process sifts the following from the rock and roll cornfield … Lees meer
… Tony Secunda, his gangsterish suits and the publicity stunt that backfired spectacularly.
… our old Word magazine pal Rob Fitzpatrick talking about the Japanese composer Michiru Aoyama who's released an album a day since December 2021, each 20 minutes 20 seconds long. And the role of streaming in the ambient music boom.
… the life of Denny Laine and the great “chamber pop” hit he wrote.
... why the Move’s Flowers In The Rain has never earned the band a cent.
… how the death of John Lennon was the dawn of the ‘black border’ magazine tribute.
… Willie Nelson’s way with a middle eight.
… the last men standing in the Band On The Run album shoot.
… is there anyone still on the road older than “the French Bob Dylan” Hugues Aufray (94) and Marshall Allen 0f the Sun Ra Arkestra (99)?
… and mentioned in dispatches - Harold Wilson, Frank Ifield, Ginger Baker’s Air Force, ‘Ronnie & Clyde’ and birthday guest Rob Collis and the best rock and roll movies.
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The Beatles as seen by their roadie, co-conspirator & friend Mal Evans – and Kenneth Womack
5 december 2023 · 44 min
Mal Evans was the Beatles’ right-hand man, their bouncer, bodyguard, gofer, chauffeur, drug-runner, roadie, fellow party animal, confidante and friend. Along with Neil Aspinall he was the man who allowed the band to function daily and catered to their every need. He was such a central cog in the machine that Ringo declared, “now Mal’s left, the Beatles are really over.” Mal’s son delivered his archive of photos, manuscripts and memorabilia to the author, lecturer and world-renowned Beatles authority Kenneth Womack and asked him to write his father’s memoir, and the result – ‘Living The Beatles Legend: On the Road with the Fab Four – the Mal Evans Story’ – has just been published. It sees the whole story through a completely different lens. Among the highlights in this illuminating conversation with Ken you’ll find … Lees meer
... Mal’s delicate relationships with the band and role as a peace-keeper.
… further proof that Allen Klein “caused despair”.
… why Lennon said life on the road “was like Satyricon”.
… Mal’s brief tenure as Apple’s MD.
… how Cynthia Lennon unknowingly shopped him to his wife.
… the internal world of “the eight outsiders” (the Fabs, Brian, George M, Neil and Mal).
… the reunion with John and Paul at a Harry Nilsson session and the Jesse Ed Davis incident on the Lost Weekend.
… echoes of Mal in John Junkin’s character in A Hard Day’s Night.
… and the tragic and complex circumstances of his death at the hands of the police in 1976.
Order Ken’s book here:
https://www.waterstones.com/book/living-the-beatles-legend/kenneth-womack//9780008551216?awaid=3787&utm_source=redbrain&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=css&sv1=affiliate&sv_campaign_id=176013&awc=3787_1701449123_6949508e18ba11ed742bd07b0529cc8e
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Hos…