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Word In Your Ear

"It ain’t 'alf been a gas this time!"

Ep. 378

In which we play theatrical moments from great live albums - Humble Pie, ELP, the Stones, James Brown, Sinatra & Count Basie, Free, the Who, the Allman Brothers ("Whipping Post!") - relive the wit and wisdom of James Blunt on Twitter, examine the raw agony of having a rock star as a parent (warning: Eve Hewson's Bono story involves public dancing to the Backstreet Boys in a dressing-gown) and reveal whose tour rider includes "oxygen tanks and a doctor available to give mid-set B-12 injections".


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  • 617. Sharleen Spiteri saw Joe Strummer onstage and thought “that’s what I want to be”

    35:14
    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 …  … 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/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
  • 616. Album sleeves as lifestyle statements and 5 seconds that made Phil Manzanera a fortune

    36:40
    The all-seeing telescope of truth scanned this week’s rock and roll heavens and noticed a few patterns emerge, among them … … 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_sSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
  • 615. Phil Manzanera Part 2: an insider’s guide to Roxy Music (and a great Bob Dylan story)

    43:07
    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.   And you can order a copy of ‘Revolución to Roxy’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Revoluci%C3%B3n-Roxy-Phil-Manzanera/dp/1783242817Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
  • 614. Phil Manzanera’s enviable life in Roxy Music and beyond

    38:45
    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! Order a copy here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Revoluci%C3%B3n-Roxy-Phil-Manzanera/dp/1783242817Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
  • 613. Fish is bowing out to become a Hebridean shepherd. What’s he learnt in 45 years onstage?

    46:11
    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 … … 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/740885Subscribe 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
  • 612. The extraordinary story of Steve Harley’s greatest hit

    06:57
    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.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
  • 611. Great divorce albums, Powerpop snobs and dark tales of 1999

    01:01:10
    Various items set off the alarm in the rock and roll bag-check this week and were hauled back for closer inspection, among them … … 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/1913172775Subscribe 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
  • 610. Stephen Fall’s reviewed 3,333 of his albums. Buy the book!

    22:35
    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. 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.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
  • 609. It’s Arthur Brown, the god of hellfire … paging Health & Safety!

    20:28
    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. 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.comSubcribe 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