David, Mark and our token bucket-hatted parka monkey Alex tackle the return of Oasis, its grip on the public imagination and why they’re the biggest band of the last 30 years, which includes …  

… the Gallaghers’ mixed fortunes since 2009.

 … who won the battle of the underdogs.

… “Noel has a thousand buttons, Liam has a thousand fingers”.

… why the ‘90s was just like the ‘60s, a golden age of British pop culture.  

… no whizz-bangs required, no props, no choreography, no lasers, no extras … why Oasis is the cheapest stadium gig to stage imaginable.

… what happens to the ticket money between now and the tour.

… Noel, the media and the common touch.  

… “a level of public demand that’s almost a sickness”.

… why “Oasis tickets are like utility bills”.

… the fate of bands that fall out with each other’s wives.

… how Liam was rescued by Debbie Gwyther and Noel’s ruinous divorce.

… the kind of watertight contracts and insurance required to ensure the band won’t fall apart again.

… “Liam, stay away from the fruit bowl!”.

… and Mark’s breakfast with Peggy Gallagher.

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In a concerted effort to put the world to rights, David and Mark ruminate upon the following …

… Kylie and the Wiggles? Canned Heat and the Chipmunks? Real or invented pop star/childrens’ entertainer collaborations.

.. the charmed life of Greg Kihn.

… will the BBC have any archive left if it keeps cancelling presenters?

… why Inside Llewyn Davis works and so many other biopics fail.

… the full story of the statement Springsteen made with the Born To Run cover shoot.

… Stewart Lee’s long-running beef with Ricky Gervais.

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Passing the baton of discourse on the rock and roll racetrack, our Olympian hosts sprint in the following direction …

… watching Toumani Diabaté play in the pitch-black Malian night.

… Laurel Canyon, the Brain Damage Club and the great fire of ‘79.

… the Kinks in Fortis Green Road, the Beatles in Chiswick House and other alternative London rock landmarks.

… is Cerrone’s Supernature nicked from the Days Of Pearly Spencer?

… lower-level graduates from the John Mayall Academy – Jon Hiseman, Keef Hartley, Larry Taylor, Aynsley Dunbar – and how being sacked from the Bluesbreakers was a badge of honour.

… why do songwriters value suffering over joy?

… “the more seriously someone takes musical taste, the more you should disregard them”.

… what connects Bob Dylan and the Life of Brian?

… a blueser from Preston in a Sioux headdress and one from Macclesfield pretending to hop a freight train.  

… and why “song and dance man” Leadbelly had to play “complaining songs”.

Plus Birthday guest Gianluca Tramontana.

The Beatles at Chiswick House:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvvVNaU_qa8

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Spicy and nutritious items in the rock and roll bouillabaisse this week include …

… Roger Waters at the Palladium: a masterclass in how to insult an audience.

… “without Andrew Loog Oldham, the Stones would have been Manfred Mann.”

… the only rock star who can tell a story onstage.

… Nempnett Thrubwell, Hinton Blewett, Glaister Fagan … Leafy Somerset hamlet or venerable reggae dubmeister?

… the money Dave Grohl made from Nirvana (and it’s less than you’d imagine).

… why Barry McGuire’s Eve Of Destruction was so terrifying.

… please, someone, stage an exhibition of original paintings used on album sleeves!

… the rise and rise of the rock spectacle.

… Hogg, Fat Grapple, Makin’ Bacon? Real or fictitious pork-related acts from the Melody Maker Club Calendar 1971.

… has social media taken the place of protest music? Why has no-one made a statement the Israel/Hamas war?

… more smoking-themed album covers.

… what, in her darkest hour, Madonna must think about Taylor Swift’s movie triumph.

… and In The Court of the Crimson King and other albums that sound like their covers.

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on October 30th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFae

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on November 27th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ZOthfatjxi

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Nick Banks - nephew of the great Gordon Banks – saw a note pinned by his favourite band to a wall in 1986, his Sliding Doors moment: ‘Pulp Want Drummer. Call Russell or Jarvis’. What happened next he records in his memoir ‘It Started There: From Punk To Pulp’. We talk to him about life in Sheffield in the ‘70s and ‘80 and why it took 15 long years for Pulp to crack it. Among the highlights …

… why punk rock was like “Harry Potter’s Sorting Hat”.

… what drummers bring to groups.

… Pulp’s stage act in 1982 – “trombones, backing singers, orange paper fish”.

… being denied a Number One by Robson & Jerome.

… the band’s response to Jarvis Cocker’s brave new direction – “Barry White meets the Pet Shop Boys”.

… what happened at the BRITS and who’s to blame.

… real life in what promised to be “the gilded palace of stardom with limousines and dancing girls”.

… the moment that caused “the raised eyebrows of disdain” in the Pulp story. 

… and his first sighting of “that mesmerising, bespectacled, lanky streak of piss”.

Order Nick’s memoir here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/So-Started-There-Punk-Pulp/dp/1915841100

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Engaging blips on the rock and roll radar this week include:-

… Iron Maiden album title or novel by Jeffrey Archer?

… selling Ringo’s ashtray.

… the Blood Doner: the Hancock script that keeps on giving.

… “Terrible album title. Terrible album cover, too.” The start of Rolling Stone’s review of which immortal record?

… how come acting runs in families but writing and music don’t?

… Smash Hits: the Musical - you heard it here first. And why the Live Aid musical will work.

… A Salty Dog, Shades, Smokin’ OP’s – album sleeves based on fag packets.

… the curious tale of the Equinox and the imposters on their album cover.

… which pop stars are in the Barbie doll range?

… why smoking is part of the DNA of rock and roll. And who smoked what? Bob Hope (Chesterfield), Lennon (Woodbines), Bowie (Gauloises) …

… the significance of Weaver D’s Delicious Fine Foods of Atlanta, Georgia.

… and musicians who outsold their famous parents.

Plus birthday guests: Matthew Elliott on records you own but have never played, and Phil Turner “the Elton John album so bad it put me off him for 20 years.”

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on October 30th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFae

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Will Sergeant’s just put out the second volume of his memoirs, both of them Sunday Times best-sellers, Echoes and the first edition, Bunnyman. Here he revisits the Liverpool of the ‘60s and ‘70s in extraordinary detail - the clothes, the records, the gangs, the school days, the early shows he saw - and the many reasons he wanted to form a band. On the agenda …

… ‘rockist’ cliches the Bunnymen detested.  

… why America loved early ‘80s British groups.

… the powerful appeal of Jethro Tull, Status Quo, Slade, Roxy Music, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band and rock and roll theatre.

… clothes bought from NME small ads in the ‘70s.

… absurd rivalries with Simple Minds and the Jesus & Mary Chain.

… fond memories of David Thomas of Pere Ubu smashing a pig iron spike with a lump hammer.

… the ‘Porcupine’ cover shoot in Iceland.  

… the charisma of the teenage Mac McCulloch.

… bands that borrowed from the Bunnymen.

… why the Ramones were “Status Quo with drainpipes”.

… and the magic ingredient that held Mac’s hair aloft.

Order Bunnyman here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bunnyman-Memoir-Sunday-Times-bestseller/dp/1472135032

And Echoes here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Echoes-memoir-continued/dp/1408719304

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on October 30th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFae

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Crime novelist Cathi Unsworth turned Goth in her teens in rural Norfolk fired by a cocktail of Dennis Wheatley, the Damned on the Peel show and the dark arts of the York Festival “Gothtopia” bill in 1984. She devoted long hours to trying to construct Robert Smith’s “tarantula hair” and acquiring black lace garmentry. Something about its music and folklore chimed with a life marooned in the middle of an East Anglian beanfield pondering tales of Shuck, the fabled fire-eyed ghostly hound alleged to roam the neighbourhood at night. We talked to her about her marvellous ‘Season of the Witch: the Book of Goth’ for a live podcast recorded at London’s 21Soho on 25 September, a very funny and wide-ranging exchange that included …

… why Goth is like no other tribe: you never make a full recovery – or ever want to.

… the part played in its family tree by Aleister Crowley, Aubrey Beardsley, the Brontes, Joy Division, Magazine, the Cramps, Jim Morrison and Bobby Gentry.

… why Leeds became one of Goth’s key spiritual centres.

… the shocking spectacle of Dave Vanian in full Stygian rig in broad daylight.  

… “the three Goth Ians” - Astbury, Curtis, McCulloch.

… the significance of Cabaret and A Clockwork Orange.

... why Goths feel obliged to dress the part.

… the romantic allure of Robert Smith against that of Nick Cave.

 … the curious link between Siouxsie and Margaret Thatcher.

… and how Goth keeps finding new recruits.  

Order ‘Season of the Witch: the Book of Goth’ here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Season-Witch-Book-Cathi-Unsworth/dp/1788706242

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on October 30th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFae

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Richard Morton Jack interviewed over 200 people when assembling what’s unquestionably the best, most colourful, comprehensive, revealing and accurate portrait of Nick Drake ever published. We talked to him about ‘Nick Drake: The Life’ at a live podcast recording at 21Soho on September 25 and explored various remote corners of this sad, surprising and eternally gripping story, among them ….

… the fate of the tape of the 20-year old Drake playing for the Stones in Morocco in 1969.

… what the press and public made of Five Leaves Left, Bryter Layer and Pink Moon when released and Joe Boyd’s reaction to their eventual success.

… the early school days of the head boy who won a cup for “General Efficiency”.

… his obsession with Francoise Hardy and the disastrous day he met her.  

… the peaks and troughs of his live performances including the time he played an event for a Birmingham rugby team supporting Genesis (required to play the Hokey-Cokey).

… Kirstie Clegg, his on-off girlfriend from 1969.

… Drake’s uncelebrated fondness for TV sitcoms and Benny Hill.

… Peter Paul And Mary and other unlikely staples of his early repertoire.

… and the events that helped re-boot his legacy.

Order Richard’s highly recommended book here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nick-Drake-Richard-Morton-Jack/dp/1529308089

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on October 30th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFae

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Spice-filled items tossed into the conversational cooking-pot this week include:-

… our charming encounter with Gary Numan, possibly the world’s most contented man.

… the next step in the age of spectacle: the sensory bombardment of U2’s shows at the Las Vegas Sphere and the crippling cost of experiencing it. 

… Taylor Swift’s genius for publicity and the subtle art of connecting with “Joe Six-Pack”.

… the shockingly unwise and unfathomable pronouncements of Roger Waters and how his fall-out with David Gilmour makes Lennon’s ‘How Do You Sleep?’ seem like a love letter. 

… pop stars and their hair transplants. 

… what do bands think of their tribute acts?

.. the ‘Austin Powers’ albums of David McCallum, a star so huge he needed a police motorcade.

… Hugh Laurie, James Gandolfini, Carrie Fisher, Colin Firth, Felicity Kendal and others whose TV roles made them sex symbols.

… and do rock stars really change people’s political views?

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21 Soho on October 30th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ysY3FvyFae

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Gary Numan is about to set out on a UK acoustic tour, some of it in churches and one date in a cathedral. He talks here - from the Scottish estate house he’s just bought – about some of the first shows he saw and what he’s learnt about live performance. This includes ...

… the peculiar effect of seeing Nazareth at the Rainbow in 1973.

… the fate of the £5 note he’d asked Queen to autograph.

… why he doesn’t talk onstage, and why that’s about to change.

… what musicians take for granted.

… the church that insisted on his lyrics before they let him perform there.

… what happened when he dodged the security for Bowie at Wembley Arena.

.. what’s involved in creating a “relentless” live act.

… a fondness for the Monkees and Marc Bolan and the secret of his 1981 Bogart hat.

Gary Numan’s tour dates here ..

https://garynuman.com/tours/

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Neil Storey is an old pal from our magazine days who worked in the press office at Island. He looked after U2, Bob Marley, Steel Pulse, the B-52’s and many others. About 15 years ago he began the mammoth task of compiling a series of books telling the story of virtually every record the label released in its pioneering history, tracking down and talking to all those involved - musicians, producers, designers, photographers, label staff – and collecting old music press ads and ephemera from the time. The book’s almost a foot square so LP sleeves can be reproduced ‘actual size’. The first volume is just out, The Island Book Of Records 1959-1968, a thing of very great beauty. As David says, “it’s like entering the record shop of your dreams.” We talked to Neil at his home in France about this and much else besides …  

… Chris Blackwell’s involvement in the making of Dr No and the single Jamaican beach shot that told them they had a hit movie.

… the album they released that no-one involved could remember.

… Shotgun Wedding by Roy ‘C’, Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, Lance Hayward, Millie Small’s ‘My Boy Lollipop’ …

… the letter Blackwell sent to the workshy Spooky Tooth with threats of wage deductions.

… the lucrative ascent of Jethro Tull.

… the little-known compilations of Rugby songs, ‘Bawdy British Ballads’ and risqué adult comedy that “saved the label’s bacon” in the mid-‘60s.

… the time Neil stumbled across Traffic’s fabled Aston Tirrold cottage on a school camping trip.

… the highly collectable “Birth of Ska’ album that was never released.  

… one immortal week at the Marquee Club.

… and why Island were banned for Olympic Studios.

Order the Island Book of Records Vol 1 here …

https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/product/neil-storey/the-island-book-of-records-volume-i-1959-68?channable=409d926964003230353632383608&gclid=Cj0KCQjw06-oBhC6ARIsAGuzdw1pbKtxLGkjgkiJfcAll84H65dVQ1r_h7obky-QWlVtpr21UgiQP54aAk1BEALw_wcB#hardback-signed-plus

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Both of us were involved in the launch of Mojo 30 years ago in the autumn of 1993 and we dug out our copies of the first issue. As editor Paul Du Noyer said on page 3, it was “our confirmed intention to pitch a wang-dang-doodle – all night long, if necessary.” The cover story was about a sequence from Eat The Document, the film by DA Pennebaker of Bob Dylan’s ’66 tour that was never released and could only be seen on bootleg VHS cassettes. And this bit was so rare and controversial it had even been deleted from most of the bootlegs - none more niche! – and featured Dylan and John Lennon’s stoned ramblings in a black cab after Bob had played the Albert Hall in May ‘66. The piece by Richard Williams also focused on 10 days in the life of Dylan and the Beatles at the time, the kind of specific, deep-end trawl that helped start a whole new wing of rock book publishing. You can see the seeds of the emerging ‘heritage rock’ in that first edition too. Mojo have a wonderful 30th anniversary issue out now, by the way.

Further logs on this week’s conversational fire include …

.. why people buy ‘vinyls’ when they don’t own a record player.

… David’s story about the HMV security guard who built a shrine to James Last.

… the brilliant – and fiercely competitive - mixtapes made and played in music magazines offices.

... the dreadful allegations about Russell Brand and the media rush to cut ties with him.

… the band t-shirt favoured by well-heeled businessmen to signify they were once a ‘wild card’.

… the Clones Roses, A Band Called Malice … the Dutiful South?

… mentioned in despatches: Cat Mother and The All Night Newsboys.

… and birthday guest Steve Way on the avenues of discovery encouraged by his love of Paul Weller (including the ruinous pursuit of being a Blue Note completist).

Ps Dizzying pop facts: go back 30 years from the launch of Mojo and it’s ‘I Want To Hold Your Hand’. There are copies of that first issue on eBay for £44.99 amazingly.

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Once again the ping-pong ball of conversation is batted across the rock and roll net and these are the scores on the doors …

 … how to wreck the national anthem.

… cover versions that are better than the original.

… the genius of Bob Newhart - "nutty Walt", Abraham Lincoln and that gag about country music.

… virtue signalling in rock magazines.

… why we connect with pop stars on the slide.

… how Tainted Love went from the Northern Clubs to the top of the American charts via a cloakroom in Leeds.

… Ingrid Andress and the curse of ‘cursive singing’.

… the comedy album that saved Warners Brothers Records.

… parenthood and Bruce Springsteen: “the world of love and the world of fear – and they’re the same world”.

… who’d rather Elvis Costello played (whisper it) other people’s songs?

… have there been any great album sleeves since the arrival of CDs?

… why Don Rickles and Bob Newhart’s friendship proves all showbiz is just an act.

... musicians, athletes, comedians, politicians and the addiction of adrenaline.

Rolling Stone’s 100 best album covers:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-album-covers-1235035232/#recipient_hashed=228eb87724435002888d7f82108650021cdb318bf64d1067e1ebef25cd1818de&recipient_salt=d0d82b7aaf06cd217ba5546bced15f5c8c98f6e3776c6c1b2145e79711b91e18

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This week’s pod was recorded just after we saw ‘Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm’ at London’s National Portrait Gallery, a warm and winning show that starts with him as a wide-eyed fan trying to take pictures of his heroes and soon switches to his shots of the whole world trying to photograph him. We talk about his pictures of French jazzers, Paris boulevards, backstage rooms at TV shows, models, paparazzi, light entertainment stars, screaming fans, American police guns, Miami beaches, billboards, views from plane windows, hotel rooms, cocktails and a New York theatre showing “Christine Keeler Goes Nudist plus Playgirls”. And wonder how it feels to discover 60 years later you had your photo taken by a Beatle.

PLUS …

… the top-flight rock and roll star we passed in Soho.

… the record David tries every year to force himself to like.

… the wonderful Geoff Davies of Probe Records, the much-loved Liverpool figurehead who signed the Farm and Half Man Half Biscuit.  

… bands who’ve had the most members.

… ‘Norman Wisdom, Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee, good times”. What’s not to love about the Human League’s Dare?

… the new U2 parlour game.

… why CDs sales are on the up.

… and what the police would know about you if they found your phone.

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho on September 25th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/1SwIYJWoHK

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David Remnick got his Pulitzer for his reporting on Russia. These days he edits The New Yorker, in which capacity he has had close encounters with some of music’s legends during their final acts, some of which is gathered in “Holding The Note”, a collection of his writings on music. From his ill-lit Manhattan eyrie he talks to David Hepworth of many matters, including:

….what was in the handbag which remained on the piano during Aretha Franklin shows

….what it was like being on the receiving end of an almighty dressing-down from the elderly Leonard Cohen

….how Bruce Springsteen learned nothing at school but has picked up a great deal since

….how Bob Dylan reckons he’s in a “post-interview” phase of life - or is he?

….how his father took him to see Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald and he has taken his own kids to see Radiohead

….how Keith Richards found a ghost writer who could throw his voice

….what was really the last good Stones album.

…why you should never try to get rock stars to like you.

Pre-order Holding The Note here: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/david-remnick/holding-the-note/9781035023974

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho on September 25th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/1SwIYJWoHK

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Recorded together in Mark Ellen’s attic! Among the conversational footballs booted round the park this week you’ll find:-

… Freddie’s “exquisite clutter”: would YOU buy one of his bonzai plant-holders, his catsuit with ballet shoes and a $0.5m silver bangle?

… when did the story change from “the Stones are old, knackered and ought to give up!” to “the Stones are old, brilliant and should carry on forever!”?

... do all enduring legacies need an element of tragedy?

… who calls the Ezra Collective “a jazz band”?

 … who’s been married the longest … Bono, Alice Cooper or Peter Noone from Herman’s Hermits?

… 1984 was the annus mirabilis of the album? Birthday guest Matthew North has the records to prove it.

… the perils of celebrities chairing press conferences (QED Jimmy Fallon).

... how they’ve only gone and wrecked the Rugby World Cup anthems.  

… and useful phrases to deploy when you didn’t much care for your mate’s band but don’t want to hurt their feelings – eg You’ve done it again! Only YOU could have put in a show like that! You took it to a whole new level!

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho on September 25th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/1SwIYJWoHK

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Fired by the rock and roll revival of 1970 and a post-Easy Rider taste for American music, a circuit of some 35 London pubs filled with bands playing fizzing, small-scale shows that never sounded quite the same on record, bands whose moment in the sun was ultimately wrecked by the arrival of punk rock. This pod – and Simon’s book ‘Before It Went Rotten: the Music That Rocked London Pubs 1972-1976’ – raises a dimple jug to some of its forgotten heroes including Meal Ticket, Roogalator, Ducks Deluxe, the Winkies and the Kursaal Flyers. Be honest, when did YOU last hear mention of the Count Bishops or GT Moore & the Reggae Guitars? So what was it about Southend? How did Eggs Over Easy play such a pivotal role in it all? And Creedence Clearwater Revival? And Dave Edmunds? Why was this the perfect launchpad for Ian Dury? And what was the final nail in the pub rock coffin?

Order ‘Before It Went Rotten: the Music That Rocked London Pubs 1972-1976’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Before-Went-Rotten-Londons-1972-1976/dp/0857305743/ref=sr_1_11?qid=1693561624&refinements=p_27%3ASimon+Matthews&s=books&sr=1-11

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Kevin Armstrong was the guitarist in the band David Bowie asked him to assemble for Live Aid and toured and recorded with him many times. Playing the guitar intro to Rebel Rebel in a stadium, he says, is “like lighting a match”. Start the Passenger with Iggy Pop and you’re greeted with “a great mass of love”. His memoir, Absolute Beginner, is “a window onto the high table of rock and roll” and full of insights into life in studios and on the road and the fathomless levels of diplomacy often required to collaborate. This entertaining pod expands upon …

… why he turned down the offer to join the Smiths.

… how Jim Osterberg transforms himself into Iggy Pop.

… the Sinead O’Connor’s tour manager’s trick to speed the band through security.  

… the song Bowie dropped from the Live Aid set.

… why Michael Hutchence is “terrified of small crowds”.

… Bowie’s ex-Navy Seal minder and the old decoys-under-blankets ruse.

… why Morrissey is “thin-skinned”.

… and the eternal curse of “Imposter Syndrome”.

Order ‘Absolute Beginner’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Absolute-Beginner-Memoirs-least-known-guitarist/dp/1911036173

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We dipped the shrimping net of curiosity in the rock and roll rockpool this week and transferred the following items to the podcast bucket …

… who now regrets being the “little tyrant” that broke up their band 30 years ago?

… who was the real Bungalow Bill and how did the song about him change his life?

… Bing Crosby and Paul Whiteman are almost forgotten. Are the Doors and the Kinks heading the same way?

… the unique and extraordinary Bill Wyman, “more a witness to the Rolling Stones than a member”, plus Nellcôte and the Birds’ Custard.

… is the ice finally melting in the Talking Heads camp?

… an everyday tale of Culture’s “Two Sevens Clash” on the mean streets of North London’s garden suburbs.  

… was Lennon v the Maharishi an early example of “career cancelling”?

… is Life During Wartime from Stop Making Sense the greatest live performance ever filmed?

… the curse of the Budokan.

… and birthday guests Avi Chaudhuri and Jelltex (who strongly recommends The Mood Elevator's second album, Married Alive).

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho on September 25th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/1SwIYJWoHK

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Ray Padgett lives in Vermont, first discovered Dylan when he was 16 in the 21st Century and was fascinated and besotted, later launching the newsletter ‘Flagging Down the Double E’s’ and now publishing the enthralling ‘Pledging My Time’, a collection of his interviews with over 40 people who’ve worked, performed and recorded with the inscrutable old rogue. Both the book and this fast-moving, whip-smart and very funny conversation are revelatory and highly recommended, the podcast shedding light on …

… the daily life of Bob Dylan – eg the piles of gifts he routinely receives and the security men who scour his vacated hotel rooms to remove anything that could be nicked and put on eBay.

… the only friend who seemed to co-exist with him on “an equal footing”.

... an eye-witness account of his first performance (aged 13) at a Jewish summer camp in Minnesota.

… the childhood friend who owned a fish business in Duluth and ended up running the Rolling Thunder Revue - as Dylan enigmatically put it, “if you can sell fish, you can sell tickets”.

... the time he went to a business conference and nobody recognised him.

… how he tells musicians to “never play the same thing twice”.

… the chance meeting with Scarlet Rivera – two hours later she was onstage as “my violinist” with Dylan and Muddy Waters.

… multiple examples of his love of spontaneity and the extraordinary way he hires musicians.  

… a rare moment when his career seemed to stall.

… and honourable mentions of Richard Thompson, Paul Stookey, Jim Keltner, Stan Lynch and Jeff Bridges.

Pledging My Time …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pledging-My-Time-Conversations-Members/dp/B0C6VRBZQC

Flagging Down the Double E’s newsletter …

https://dylanlive.substack.com/about

Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho on September 25th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/1SwIYJWoHK

Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/woridinyourear

https://www.covermesongs.com/about-ray-padgett

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Its tyres pumped, its engine tuned, its air-con still on the blink, the rock and roll charabanc trundles off on its circuit which, this week, makes the following stops …

… the singer who sold vials of her tears as part of a merchandise range.

… when Billy Bragg entered a Paul Simon lyric in his school poetry contest and only got 7 out of 10.

… why our favourite music still tends to be the stuff we heard in our teens.

… how Bill Graham’s “Electric Ballroom Experience” changed the landscape – “we were out there with no compass”.

… former Kursaal Flyers drummer Will Birch re-watches their ’76 TV film documentary: “There are only two good things about Scotland - the whisky and the road out of there.” “Five autographs? Wasn’t like this at the Carnegie Hall!”

… “creamy mousse with ripe stone fruits, bright citrus and a biscuity length”: home-brewing with Alex James.  

… and how Wreckless Eric’s made a living for 46 years out of just one song.

That Bill Graham interview …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVeuDS0n3XI

Melvyn Bragg introduces the Kursaal Flyers on the BBC’s 2nd House in 1976 …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQKNeWlQzdI&t=11s

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Even podcasts take “annual leave” but we’re back and once again propelling the two-man Pedalo of Enquiry down the rock and roll seafront stopping off at sundry wave-rippled spots, among them …

… what Chuck Berry said about the Clash.

… a band whose keyboard player is the King’s second cousin.

… the song Art Garfunkel sang for years without realising it was about him.

… Billy Connolly’s bicycle gag and other things you couldn’t get away with now.

… Ian Hunter remembering “that little bloke from Beckenham”.

… why Punk was like a religious movement. Guest Paul Burke claims it was a “passing fad and its over-cooked legacy was fashioned by the middle-class media”.

… the Shakespearian echoes of ‘The Boxer’.

… what Bowie would have done if the Laughing Gnome had been a hit.

… how Robbie Robertson lived the life Bob Dylan claimed to have lived and never recaptured the spirit of the first two Band albums.

… Earl Shilton, Norbert Putnam … American session player or remote place in Leicestershire?

… lost TV documentaries about Gene Vincent and the Global Village Trucking Company. 

That Global Village Trucking Company doc …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SNrBey7yQI

Punk’s fake history, Spectator column by Paul Burke …

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/punks-fake-history/

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The mellifluous melody and soaring counterpoint of this week’s podcast were comprised of the following notes …

… Morrissey’s broadside on the treatment of Sinead O’Connor – and her electrifying moment at Dylan’s 30th Anniversary tribute two weeks after she’d torn up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live.

… two unsettling events in the later life of Randy Meisner.

… Adele revives the old Las Vegas business model (at about £8m a night).

… the eternal mystery of Bob Dylan’s motorcycle crash and his Shea Stadium and Russian shows that never happened.

… how long news took to travel: the Battle of Waterloo (three days), the death of Jim Morrison (two weeks).

… Oppenheimer and why so many films are so long.

… Things It’s Almost Impossible To Accept, No 97: Mick Jagger is 80!

… in 2006 BBC viewers voted Morrissey second in a Greatest Living British Icons poll (Sir David Attenborough was first, McCartney third). Where would he be if they ran they voted tomorrow?

… that photo of Pulp and their 57-strong entourage.

… the time the Troggs turned psychedelic.

… the endless value of the mantra “never apologise, never explain”.

… TV clips from the Lost World of Rock And Roll – Hush tour Australia in 1997 (and pay their road crew $1 an hour);

Quintessence in 1970, ‘the sound of Notting Hill Gate’.  

-------------

Clips:-

Sinead O’Connor at Dylan’s 30th anniversary concert two weeks after she tore up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKeJifOXAnA

Glam-rock roadhogs Hush in 1977 …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-Iyytr1AJ4

Getting It Straight In Notting Hill Gate …

https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-getting-it-straight-in-notting-hill-gate-1970-online

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There’s something romantic about glorious failure and Will nails it perfectly in ‘Street Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence’. Over 40 years plagued by bad luck and self-sabotage with Felt, Denim and Mozart Estate, Lawrence has pursued fame and success while refusing to do what’s required to achieve them. Will spent 12 months wandering the streets of London with him to paint a fond, touching and extremely entertaining portrait of the worst-equipped pop star attempting a comeback, a man on a holy, monastic mission in a book about “sacrifice and the price of a dream”. Among many highlights here, we talk about …

… where Lawrence fits in the pantheon of great underachievers like Syd Barrett, Nick Drake and Arthur Lee.

… and his similarity to Kevin Shields and Kevin Rowland.

… the wisdom of a former girlfriend: “stop trying to be the pop star you don’t want to be and you might get somewhere”.

… is lack of success the central dream of the indie world?  

… why Denim were Britpop before Britpop happened and why EMI melted down all copies of their last single.

… his rules before the book began - “No anecdotes, no interviews with former members of Felt …”

… what his stalker planned to get his attention.

… fantasy girlfriends and “a fear of cheese”.

… why he didn’t go to his mother’s funeral.

… and why Truman Capote’s portrait of Marlon Brando, the Duke and His Domain, was a touchstone for this book.

Order ‘Street Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence’ here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Street-Level-Superstar-Lawrence-Will-Hodgkinson/dp/1785120220

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Blips on the rock and roll radar this week include …  

… Things You No Longer See, No 97: the celebrity airport arrival shot.

.. do we, in all honesty, need Roger Waters’ re-interpretation of the Dark Side Of The Moon for it is upon us on October 6?

 … is there really an Edinburgh Fringe show called ‘Bald Man Sings Rihanna”, ‘A Shark Ate My Penis’ or ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Ting: Prog Rock in A Reggae Style’?

… a 1976 clip of Elton John as the jobbing pianist on the Morecambe & Wise Show. “Elton John? Sounds like an exit on the motorway.

 … the poignant story of 1968’s lost psych-rock voyagers the Mike Stuart Span and what happened when they became Leviathan.

… the time Hipgnosis put a sheep on a psychiatrists’ couch in the Hawaiian surf and landed a chopper in the Alps to photograph a statue.

… the Scottish stately pile Bob Dylan’s just put on the market.

.. and – with birthday guest Patrick Butler - six theories as to why Steely Dan are hipper now than ever.

The Mike Stuart Span TV clip …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufD0e8tE-UY

Elton with Eric & Ernie …

https://twitter.com/eric_ernie_col/status/1673207024702636033

Roger Waters’ Money redux …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUVmeYgo1Iw

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Pat “PP” Arnold was hired as an Ikette by Ike & Tina’s Revue in 1965 and set off a 2,000 mile tour of America, coming to London a year later to support the Rolling Stones. Offered a record deal by Andrew Oldham, she lived in England for many years becoming “the First Lady Of Immediate” with a wide circle of friends and collaborators including the Small Faces, Cat Stevens, Hendrix, Rod Stewart, Nick Drake and the Bee Gees, all recorded in her memoir 'Soul Survivor'. Here she looks back at:-

… the rigours of the Ike & Tina tours where she was once fined $50 for crying onstage.

… the contrast between “the Chiltin’ Circuit and the Albert Hall.

... supporting the Stones in ’66 and her romance with Mick Jagger “who wanted to walk and talk like a black man”. She taught him how to do the Pony and the Mashed Potato.

… the success of The First Cut Is The Deepest.  

… her unique American take on the Swinging London of the mid-‘60s and quaint English expressions like “taking the piss”, and how an “unsophisticated” girl from the Watts district of Los Angeles saw the bohemian world (eg Chelsea restaurants where you got three sets of cutlery).

… her time with “my brothers” the Small Faces who were “a lot more ghetto than the Stones”.

… and a mention of recent collaborations with Paul Weller and Ocean Colour Scene.

Order Soul Survivor here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Soul-Survivor-Autobiography-P-P-Arnold/dp/1788705785

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As Mark Ellen had taken his shrimping net to the coast Alex Gold steps into the breach to talk to David Hepworth about

….how solo acts like Bing Crosby and Bruce Springsteen get to play the common man in a way they never could if they were in a band

….the extraordinary sight and sound of the band called Punch trying to make their name on “Opportunity Knocks” in the vanished land of 1976

….what to do with your wedding ring if you find yourself on the world’s largest cruise liner

….Cat Stevens’ “Father And Son” and a few less exalted things that Dads say.

Don’t miss the amazing Punch doc

http://youtu.be/_DxLtuK3pD4

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In his new biography “Nick Drake: The Life”, Richard Morton Jack set out to correct the misconceptions spread by magazines and former biographies, some ending up on Wikipedia. This involved talking to as many people as he could track down who’d met and remembered him, from key players like Joe Boyd, Francoise Hardy and Drake’s sister Gabrielle to the girl who played the cello on ‘Cello Song and a childhood friend who wrote a poem about him in the school magazine. The result is, by some margin, the clearest and most comprehensive picture of him to date, far more accelerated and self-promotional in the early days than we’d been lead to believe – “not just sitting in his ivory tower singing to the moon” – though it’s still hard to think of a musician worse equipped for the rigours of the music business and having, as Richard perfectly puts it, “a personality fundamentally ill-suited to display”. This covers a wide landscape from his lack of support (no real manager, no agent, no proper PR), the unusual and often disastrous gigs he played, the luckless timing of his record releases (Five Leaves Left out the day Brian Jones died), the mysteries of his love life, his time with John Cale, playing for Mick Jagger in Marrakesh, an awkward Parisian dinner with Francoise Hardy and his eventual decline and withdrawal from the outside world. It’s also a charming portrait of what real life was like in the late ‘60s when evenings revolved around a record deck, overflowing ashtrays and games of Monopoly.

You can order Richard Morton Jack’s book here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nick-Drake-Richard-Morton-Jack/dp/1529308089

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Growing up in remote rural Norfolk, crime writer Cathi Unsworth had a Goth conversion, a condition from which, she happily admits, you never fully recover. And never want to. She discovered Dennis Wheatley’s ‘To The Devil A Daughter’, heard Siouxsie & the Banshees on the Peel Show and saw a picture of Robert Smith in a magazine which she stuck by her bedroom mirror to help her construct his spectacular dishevelment. She’s just published ‘Season Of The Witch: the Book of Goth’, a highly entertaining account of the dark side of rock starting out with the Brontes, Edgar Allan Poe and Aubrey Beardsley and heading, via Jim Morrison, Jacques Brel and Nico, to Joy Division, the Cure and the Sisters of Mercy. This is a very funny and self-mocking pod in which you’ll find the following …

… why Yorkshire is “Goth’s Own Country”.

… the secret ingredient in Mac McCulloch’s vertical hair.

… Nick Cave - “the Dark Lord of Goth Music” (©️ the Daily Mail) – at the Coronation.

… Lee Hazlewood’s advice to Nancy Sinatra when recording Goth staple These Boots Are Made For Walking.

… “changing into fishnet tights in the bogs at school”, rival pop gangs, mooching about in graveyards and a mate “who used to sit up trees reading Dennis Wheatley and summoning Satan”.

.. the joy of crimpers and backcombing.

… “spreading the virus” at the Batcave.

… the inventor of the term Goth and the key Gothmothers and Gothfathers.

… local folklore about hellhounds in Norfolk.

… her first gig, the York Rock Festival in 1984 featuring the Bunnymen, Sisters of Mercy, Spear of Destiny and the Redskins: “Gothtopia”!

… “Beer Girls and Beer Boys” and why it was best to avoid them.

… dark Satanic mills.

… and the greatest Goth record ever made.

Order ‘Season of the Witch: the Book of Goth’ here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Season-Witch-Book-Cathi-Unsworth/dp/1788706242

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Filling the spinnaker of enquiry on the careering, two-mast schooner of rock and roll this week you will find …

… the prog drummer who made a fortune.

... did Brian Wilson bring a horse into a recording studio? Or write a symphony for drums? Or have an idea involving a hen in tennis shoes?

… why the New York Times review of the new Wham! documentary is ridiculous and wrong.

... the eternal allure of The Larry Sanders Show – “Madam, I killed a man like you in Korea!”

… the curse of identity journalism.

… the most influential British DJ of all time.

… Kenneth Tynan’s exquisite profile of Johnny Carson in the New Yorker and the dark art of being a TV chat show producer.

… the mathematical certainty that every review you ever write will eventually resurface. “Nothing will be forgotten - the afterlife is always longer than the first flush of success.”

… was there ever a briefer ‘fashionable’ moment than that of Guns N’ Roses?

… the great new expression for being drunk – “overserved”.

Watch that deathless Renia clip here …

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rv0VyHHEj2s&t=11s

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This week we paddle the two-man kayak of curiosity across the rock and roll seafront and make a few stops on the way, among them …

… “the future is always in the past”.

… the pure theatre of the E Street Band and its cast of characters – “our lives are repaired by the fact that they’re still together”.

… the growing appeal of Country & Western - and even “shronking” jazz – as you get older.

… Bless the Barn, Featherwash and Franny Wisp, Portlandia’s low-volume crowd-pleasers.

… the ‘Barry’ TV series (starring Bill Hader): that rare beast, a contract killer who’s a nice bloke.

… the 60th anniversary of the recording of She Loves You, why engineer Norman Smith predicted a flop and the fan break-in at Abbey Road that energised the session.

… is the success of Nick Drake partly an antidote to the age of technology?

… how our concept of ‘old’ has changed: McCartney at Live Aid was a coffin-dodging 43, same age as Kelis at Glastonbury.

… is cricket now the drunkest spectator sport? And which is the greater agony, seeing England doing badly when you’re there or watching at home with the commentary?

… and the Elton John Band have been together 53 years – but that’s only six years longer than Madness.

… plus birthday guests Andrew Stocks and Patrick Cleasby and a roll-call of new patreon supporters.

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Sizzling hot topics patted back and forth across the ping-pong net of conversation this week include …

… the republishing of Giles Smith’s Lost In Music, one of the funniest books ever written about our real life relationship with pop stars, records and being in bands. Giles – and Nick Hornby – kick-started a whole new literary vogue.

… has Cate Blanchett won Glastonbury?

… why do we update book jackets but never change a record cover?

… how the Stones’ Steel Wheels tour changed the gig economy.

… the Stackwaddy game: song titles - George Formby or Frank Zappa?

… how gigs became a status symbol and tickets a statement purchase.

... did a record sleeve ever put you off buying the album?

… what are YOU going to do with your vinyl collection? Original new “estate plans” considered.

… amusing things said by George Melly (and who was Mucky Alice?).

… Recession? What recession? 650,000 people bought arena/stadium tickets in London last weekend.

Plus Toe Fat, Blind Faith, “the Larynx on Legs”, author Giles Smith and birthday guests Blaine Allen and Richard Lewis.

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Aged 21 in 1963, Harvey Lisberg wanted to be the next Brian Epstein and ended up managing Herman’s Hermits and 10cc, among others, before relaunching the snooker stars Jimmy White and Hurricane Higgins. We thoroughly recommend his just-published memoir ‘I’m Into Something Good’ and this wide-ranging encounter takes in …

... the unique division of labour in 10cc and the magnificently doomed invention of ‘the Gizmo’.

… the perils of $100,000’s credit in Las Vegas casinos.

… life for the wives of rock stars “in love with music”.

… his friendship with Colonel Tom Parker and a day spent with Elvis in Honolulu.

… a prickly relationship with Mickie Most.

… why America fell in love with Peter Noone.

… Herman’s Hermits’ US tours with the Stones and the Who.

… and how he changed the snooker world by remodelling the “Artful Dodger” Jimmy White.

Buy Harvey’s memoir here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Im-Into-Something-Good-Managing-ebook/dp/B0BSHGRN5V

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This week’s pod veers off the conversational highway to break out its picnic hamper at the following leafy locations ….

… the Stackwaddy game: metal band or clawed demon from Dante’s Inferno?

… when bands stopped being good-looking.

… Paul Simon’s Seven Psalms: how long can you give a record before it clicks?

… Tony ‘TS’ McPhee of the Groundhogs (RIP) and the great British blues underground: cue the scent of damp greatcoats.

… does anything capture the time better than a record shop in a movie?

… the hard-fought life of Glenda Jackson plus “All men are fools and what makes them so is having beauty like what I have got”.

… eternally recommended: the crestfallen, poignant, melancholy world of the Fountains of Wayne.

… the moment in A Clockwork Orange that gave us Heaven 17 and Fuzzy Warbles.

… streaming services are now editing the movies they carry (eg the French Connection): Doesn’t this infantilize the audience?

… We Are Family. Are Ringo Starr and Joe Walsh related? Is Suzi Quatro Sherilyn Fenn’s aunt?

… a unique literary double-act: Robert Caro and the late Bob Gottlieb.

… how subtitles change the way we watch.

… Paul McCartney, consummate press-wrangler.

… and the lost appeal of late-night movie screenings.

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Employing controversial VAR technology, we re-examine various events on the rock and roll pitch and suggest a new perspective. Those key moments include … 

… the “bucolic frolic” at Knebworth 50 years ago as seen from 100 yards away just past the burger van and featuring Tim Buckley, Alex Harvey, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Van Morrison, the Doobie Brothers and the Allman Brothers Band. And a stark naked Jesus.

… when did the Age of Spectacle begin?

… how Two-Way Family Favourites helped start Live Aid.

… Waters v Gilmour, a feud way beyond candour and honesty.  

… the moment Van Morrison first became ‘Captain Letdown’.

… memories of Wembley Stadium on July 13 1985 – Status Quo, U2, the non-appearance of Cat Stevens, the planned link with Ian Botham at Trent Bridge and swapping Tony Hancock lines with a man on Concorde.

... the three stages of rock and roll.

… life before mobile phones.

… The Revenant and Zone Of Interest, films that feel like the past without trying to make the past look cool.

… “the older I get, the older I wanna get”.

… Joni Mitchell and why we love an old curmudgeon.

… and birthday guest Andrew Stocks wonders why some bands can’t bury the hatchet.

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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The super-trouper of gentle enquiry alights this week upon …

… why bands are at their biggest when they’re over the hill.

… Fats Waller v Morrissey song titles: can YOU tell your Waller from your Wallower?

… how could Dylan have written Queen Jane Approximately aged only 24?

… why you should hear Pieces Of Treasure by Rickie Lee Jones, particularly the track All The Way.

… the social media bin-fire that’s shredding the reputation of Bobby Gillespie and how Twitter loves a character assassination - “Pound shop Mick Jagger! Always a charlatan!”

… was anyone worse equipped for the rigours of the pop circus than Nick Drake?

… “big” 20-album record collections, board games and no telly: fond memories of real life in late ‘60s London.  

… Richard Thompson and Nick Drake’s painfully awkward tube journey.

… what risible sum Astrud Gilberto was paid for The Girl From Ipanema.

… and why Springsteen was called “the Boss”.

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Forty years ago Clare Grogan was on the cover of Smash Hits yet again and was the fourth guest at our garden party on June 3. Here she remembers the key events that have happened since which include meeting Bill Forsyth and the success of Gregory’s Girl (and why she only saw it for the first time recently), touring with Siouxsie & the Banshees when still at school, life as a pop star in the golden age, being Kristine Kochanski in Red Dwarf and its obsessive fans, her time in Father Ted, Kim Wilde’s call to get her to join the Here And Now ‘80s pop package tour and a great story about Nik Kershaw and John Taylor. Listen to what happened when she told the audience how she loves and needs applause – and loves “loud cheering” even more. Spoiler alert: contains both laughter and tears.

Order the new Altered Images CD here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mascara-Streakz-Altered-Images/dp/B0B29LG9B3/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=altered+images+mascara+streakz+cd&qid=1686041285&sr=8-3

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The first record by the Beatles came out on the same day as the first James Bond film. Over sixty years later they still send their differing forms of Britishness out into the world. John Higgs has written a book, “Love And Let Die”, about how closely they have been intertwined over the years, about how they stood for very different sorts of masculinity, how they changed the way we wanted to dress and behave and how they have, between them, shaped the British psyche of today.

Love And Let Die: https://www.waterstones.com/book/love-and-let-die/john-higgs/9781399600163

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Author, DJ, member of St Etienne and a regular on our podcasts, Bob Stanley was the second guest at our sun-baked garden party in the auditorium of Opera Holland Park on June 3 talking about his new book “Bee Gees: Children Of the World”. He feels – and very rightly – that in some quarters they’re still the punchline to a heartless joke and deserve infinitely more critical respect. This illuminating conversation touches on the “teenage delinquent” years in Manchester, their struggles in Australia, signing with Robert Stigwood, success and how badly they handled it, what the press made of them, how they invented the sound of Jive Talkin’ and Night Fever, the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, why they were known as “Pilly, Potty and Boozy” and the various people who’ve loudly sung their praises – Diana Ross, Pet Shop Boys, Take That and Noel Gallagher among them.

Order Bob's book ‘Bee Gees: Children of the World’ here …

 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bee-Gees-Children-Bob-Stanley/dp/1788705424/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=]2502&hvtargid=pla-1945216255331&psc=1&th=1&psc=1

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It’s a barely believable sixty years since the Rolling Stones put out their first single, “Come On”, so we asked Lesley-Ann Jones, the author of “The Stone Age", along to talk about them and how they have related to the women in their lives, from Brian Jones’s strange relationships with his Cheltenham girlfriends, Mick Jagger’s powerful attraction to women who look like him, the sexual competition that raged between him and Keith Richards and the mid-life crises of Charlie Watts and Bill Wyman. As they say on the disclaimers this podcast contains adult themes.

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This week’s rock and roll gumbo includes the following spicy and nutritious ingredients …

… “the internet is designed to let middle-aged men think they’ve had the last word”.

… will the Royal Blood storm-in-a-teacup do them more good than harm?

… Barry Gibbs’ beard.

… what ‘Three Lions’ did to the Lightning Seeds’ Scottish, Welsh and Irish fanbase.

… old memories of Kevin Coyne and Marjory Razorblade.

… why no band is ever “forgotten”.

… what’s so sacred about Love Will Tear Us Apart?

… can AI music ever work if you don’t feel a connection with the person making it?  

… why are the Doors fading from view?

… there are only two degrees of adulation: too little or too much.

Plus Birthdays guests Ray Roscoe and Paul Thompson.

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Fond and appraising enquiry of recent events, this week featuring …

… we now feel we have to approve of artists/musicians/writers before we can say we like what they do. When did all this start?

… a new Stackwaddy game – Hari-Krishna Stomp Wagon? Starchelle Chicago Bear? Flaming Lips song title or exotically named winner of Crufts’ Best In Show?

 … in defence of men with bad reputations eg Evelyn Waugh, Martin Amis, John Lennon …

… re-pressed versions of albums that were 70p in the late ‘60s now sell for £29.99. What fresh madness is this?

… Liam Gallagher’s son Lennon and Paul Weller’s daughter Dylan ‘toast the 20th anniversary of an iconic Mulberry bag’: an ‘It’s like punk never happened’ special!

.. how the Silicon Valley TV series tells the truth.

… Noel Gallagher’s magnificent use of the word ‘disingenuous’ (possibly to wrong-foot and baffle his brother). And why he wrote Acquiesce.

… the now comically over-the-top Cannes standing ovations and what’s behind them.

… and the weaselly worlds of film and daytime telly.

Tickets for Word In The Park in London on June 3rd here!: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-happy-return-of-word-in-the-park-tickets-576193870377

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A special extra podcast recorded just after hearing the news. We can barely remember a time when we weren’t aware of her. This looks back at the Ike & Tina R&B hits of the ‘60s, the Ikettes dance routines and how he copyrighted her stage name, the story of the recording of River Deep Mountain High with Phil Spector, Proud Mary on the Ed Sullivan Show, supporting the Rolling Stones, her unique vocal style and the way she sold the drama of the songs … and then the greatest comeback imaginable: the arrival of manager Roger Davies, the B.E.F.’s recording of Ball Of Confusion at Abbey Road (and the impossible demands of James Brown), Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome, Private Dancer (and Bowie’s 1984) and the record-breaking 180,000-crowd show at Brazil’s Maracana Stadium in 1988. And the fine art of dancing in high heels.

Tickets for Word In The Park in London on June 3rd here!: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/576193870377

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Put through the boil-wash of enquiry and hung upon the washing line of truth this week you’ll find the following one-size-fits-all garments …

… which acts are fading from memory and who’ll be remembered in 50 years’ time?

… how Paul Simon, Leonard Cohen and Warren Zevon addressed mortality – (‘My Ride’s Here', ‘Enjoy Every Sandwich’ ...).

… actors who’ve made albums.

… the photo that changed the perception of Johnny Cash.

… why you should watch the Pet Shop Boys’ new BBC interview, Reel Stories.

… the prog star who stage-invaded Jacob Rees Mogg’s speech at the Conservative conference.

… “Nothing will ever beat the first time you hear yourself on the radio”: Sting and the law of diminishing returns.

.. how Will Self capsized his own career.

… how Shakespeare and Robert Johnson’s reputations were both made by a ‘Greatest Hits’.

… Brian Jones’s fall from grace.

... who invented the term ‘goth’?

.. and the genius of Andy Rourke.

Tickets for Word In The Park in London on June 3rd here!: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/576193870377

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Further nutritious items on the pod’s tasting menu this week include …

… the story of Tubular Bells and how the Exorcist sent its sales through the roof.

… beneath the surface of every band is a drama waiting to kick off: the View’s reunion gig was “a brotherly bust-up that went too far”.  

… one of the following didn’t endorse a credit card, but which? – Beyoncé, Michael Jackson, Kiss, the Wu-Tang Clan, U2 and the Sex Pistols.

… crimes in rhyme perpetrated by Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen and Boney M - plus do YOU know a better one than ‘You told me love was too plebeian/ Told me you were through with me an’ …”?

… Beyoncé’s tour is “a celebration of black queer dance music” but that didn’t stop her playing a private gig in Dubai for $24m.

… plus stadium tour profits, singing bassists and 2001: A Space Odyssey and the Blue Danube.

Tickets for Word In The Park in London on June 3rd here!: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/576193870377

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Broadcaster and music writer Ann Powers lives in Nashville and grew up listening to Kate Bush and Blondie. The siren call of Blue sparked a life-long and deep-rooted devotion and her new book Travelling: On The Path Of Joni Mitchell takes a different tack from the standard biographies, mapping the context of the songs, the forces that drove her, the steel will it took to succeed and the love affairs that shaped her and her music. All discussed here. As is this ... 

… the scale of your ambition when your heroes are Nietzsche, Beethoven and Picasso.

… how she got her revenge for not being allowed to go to Woodstock.

… “she had to learn to walk three times”.

… the psychological impact of her “dynamic father and homemaker mother”.

… the love affairs with Leonard Cohen, David Crosby and Graham Nash.

… her capacity to turn disaster into triumph.

… the influence of Laurel Canyon neighbour Derek Taylor and the Beatles.

… the many reasons she declared the music business “a corrupt cesspool”.

… the tone of Rolling Stone’s ‘70s coverage and the letters she wrote to Mo Austin about the way she was marketed.

… David Crosby’s regret about not involving her in Crosby Stills & Nash.

… her reaction to the continued success of Tom Petty, Peter Gabriel and Don Henley in a world where mid-career women are “put out to pasture”.

… why the current renaissance seems “all legend, no bite”.

… and Laura Nyro, Tom Rush, Judy Collins, Patti Smith, Aretha Franklin, Maggie Roach, Stevie Wonder, Thomas Dolby.

Order Travelling: On the Path Of Joni Mitchell here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Travelling-Path-Mitchell-Ann-Powers/dp/0008332967

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Where the Gold Bracelets of Sincerity and Wisdom and the Rod of Equity and Mercy meet the piping hot music news agenda in a weekly podcast and alight upon the following ….

… the greatest singer of sad songs we’ve ever heard.

… the extraordinary tale of the B-side of ‘13 Women And Only One Man’.

… songs you couldn’t record these days.

… Rufus Wainwright’s re-recording of Neil Young’s Harvest – but CAN modern technology possibly make it sound any better?

… Noel Coward in the Italian Job.

 ... the mystifying UK pop charts at the time of the last Coronation.

… old records we’ve re-discovered: this week, Bonnie Raitt’s magnificent Give It Up (and especially Love Has No Pride).

… John Prine’s Angel From Montgomery.

… Gordon Lightfoot: why Dylan adored him and the tale of The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald.

… the return of Frankie Goes To Hollywood and the excellent current occupation of Brian ‘Nasher’ Nash.

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Tickets for Word In The Park in London on June 3rd here!: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-happy-return-of-word-in-the-park-tickets-576193870377

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Encountering the cheerful ping-pong bats of conversation this week you’ll find …

… the most unprepossessing rock band on God’s green earth.

… Ed Sheeran v Marvin Gaye – “the case continues”. But does anybody genuinely copy anyone else these days?

… Springsteen and Michelle Obama and their irresistible thirst for publicity.  

… the return of the Stack Waddy game: Spencer Birtwistle? Wilfred Mott? … Bernard Cribbins sitcom character or former member of the Fall?

… Santana’s Caravanserai still sounds like it was made yesterday.

… what Paul McCartney and Coldplay were paid to play Glastonbury.

… if you tell people they’ll like things they tend to look for reasons to disagree but can we (cautiously) recommend the Australian comedy Colin From Accounts?

… Happy 70th, Bill Drummond. We remember his deafening ‘retirement’ exit at the BRITS in 1992 and his exotic activities since.

… the delicate rhythms of the funniest lines by PG Wodehouse.  

… a chilling stat involving football academies.

… Harry Belafonte, the original “singer and activist”, and the time he was in a drama class with Walter Matthau and Marlon Brando.

… plus Shakespeare, a light-fingered Noel Gallagher and amplified busking.

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Tickets for Word In The Park in London on June 3rd here!: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-happy-return-of-word-in-the-park-tickets-576193870377

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Items run up the flagpole this week include …

… our memories of the exquisite agony of teenage dances, especially Dave’s at the Mecca Ballroom in Wakefield, 1965.

... unforgettable things said and done by Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson.

… rock stars with Brian Jones’s hair.

… do we care more about the people who make music than the music itself?

… a point from Massive Attack – “is the discussion ‘should AI recreate music?’ or is it ‘Why is contemporary music so homogenised & formulaic that it’s really easy to copy?’”

… songs that never fail to fill dancefloors. 

… a “Ladies’ Prosecco Afternoon” with a Robbie Williams impersonator.

… what’ll be the next music revival?

… when did you last see a Teddy Boy?

… Dave’s story about why Take It Easy by the Eagles meant so much to him.

… and the eternal appeal of Mod.

… plus birthday guest Andrew Newbury – “was We Can Work It Out the Beatles’ tipping point?”

Tickets for Word In The Park in London on June 3rd here!: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-happy-return-of-word-in-the-park-tickets-576193870377

Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early and ad-free access to all of our content!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.