Word In Your Ear

Glen Matlock came to our live podcast recording at London’s 21Soho at the end of November and lit up the audience with tales from his new memoir ‘Triggers’, stories of his early life in the late ‘50s and ‘60s, his brief and riotous shift in the Sex Pistols and his colourful adventures since. The full cast list includes Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, the DJ Mike Raven, Gary Glitter, John Peel, Kenneth Horne, Malcolm McLaren, Nick Kent, Ian McLagan, Ronnie Lane, Midge Ure, Wally Nightingale, Blondie and Bill Grundy. You get a real sense of the fabric of London around Ted Carroll’s record stall in Ladbroke Grove and around Denmark Street when the Pistols lived and rehearsed there. And look out for the night they played a Conservative Club to a crowd of six, the time McLaren begged him to return as “it wasn’t working out with Sid”, the Filthy Lucre reunion and his luminous account of Johnny Rotten’s audition backed by a jukebox playing Alice Cooper. Glen Matlock came to our live podcast recording at London’s 21Soho at the end of November and lit up the audience with tales from his new memoir ‘Triggers’, stories of his early life in the late ‘50s and ‘60s, his brief and riotous shift in the Sex Pistols and his colourful adventures since. The full cast list includes Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, the DJ Mike Raven, Gary Glitter, John Peel, Kenneth Horne, Malcolm McLaren, Nick Kent, Ian McLagan, Ronnie Lane, Midge Ure, Wally Nightingale, Blondie and Bill Grundy. You get a real sense of the fabric of London around Ted Carroll’s record stall in Ladbroke Grove and around Denmark Street when the Pistols lived and rehearsed there. And look out for the night they played a Conservative Club to a crowd of six, the time McLaren begged him to return as “it wasn’t working out with Sid”, the Filthy Lucre reunion and his luminous account of Johnny Rotten’s audition backed by a jukebox playing Alice Cooper. Glen’s tour dates are here: http://www.glenmatlock.co.uk/ And you can order ‘Triggers’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/triggers/glen-matlock/9781788709446Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

You wonder why her life hasn’t been made into a movie. Jenny Boyd’s mother had so many children she didn’t realise her daughter had quit school and become a model. The world of London clubs and fashion magazines was the start of 60 years’ close observation of rock stars in every context leading, eventually, to the publication of ‘Icons of Rock’, her interviews with 65 musicians. Among the highlights in this pod she talks about...… what life’s like when your sister marries a Beatle.… the day a besotted Donovan played her the song he’d written about her (‘Jennifer Juniper’).… how the 16 year-old Cheynes’ drummer Mick Fleetwood took one look at her and declared “that’s the girl I’m going to marry”.… the Crazy Elephant and the Scotch of St James.… watching the Beatles write songs in Rishikesh.… her transition from being “a dollybird” to "a searcher".… modelling in California and the Monterey Pop Festival.… the characteristics songwriters have in common and the meaning of “the peak experience”.… being the only mum in the Fleetwood Mac orbit, life at their Kiln House commune and why Mick was “the pot of glue” that held the band together.… “talent is inherited but stamina often isn’t”.… and memories of Peter Green, Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, Graham Nash and “Magic” Alex.Order ‘Icons of Rock’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Icons-Rock-Fleetwood-Mitchell-Harrison/dp/1789466717/ref=sr_1_1?qid=1700664733&refinements=p_27%3AJenny+Boyd&s=books&sr=1-1Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

We ran our metal detector over this week’s rugged rock and roll terrain and dug deep when it beeped. Among those prime locations … … the secret of Top Gear’s golden age. … is Bob Dylan a “cold weather concept”? … why Holger Czukay’s ‘Movies’ is a pivotal record. … Daryl Hall’s restraining order on John Oates: inter-band fall-out scales brave new heights. … the ground-breaking ingredient in ‘He’s Gonna Step On You Again’ by John Kongos. … why Joni Mitchell, Lee Perry and Pink Floyd were early pioneers of sampling. … the night some loon climbed the scaffolding above the E Street Band. … pre-McLaren theft of the Burundi Beat. … the irksome mob rule of the internet: “all bands are now sacred and anyone who says different is a heretic”. … when an album cover is a “lifestyle statement”. … plus birthday guests Kevin Walsh and Simon Poulter and best of this year’s rock books.Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

The week’s rock and roll luggage was put through the scanner by our sharp-eyed security chiefs and the following items kept back for scrutiny …… 82 year-old jazzer in lucrative samples windfall!… is there a more excruciating ‘mum’ moment than the 12 year-old Elijah Blue Allman’s in the Cher video If I Could Turn Back Time?…. the staggering sum total of what the Beatles did on 30 July 1963.… “Mailbox money”: how Phil Manzanera made more from a hip hop record than from 15 years of Roxy Music… why would anyone be a pop star these days?… further proof that in the world of the internet nothing is forgotten.… why the quantity of cash Kanye West pulled from the “athleisure” shoe market makes the music business look like toytown. And are “vintage trainers” the new rare vinyl?… when was the first sample?… and Christmas with David’s Uncle Stan.Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho on November 27th: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ZOthfatjxiSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

As if by some magical alignment of the planets, the  Specials, Madness and the Beat were all listening to the same music and developing the same look at precisely the same time, though completely unaware of each other. And when they started releasing records, the 10 year-old Daniel Rachel was transfixed. What happen next is recorded in his hectic and engrossing book, Too Much Too Young: the 2-Tone Records Story, the huge characters, the daily dramas, “the dance sensation that’s sweeping the nation”, a period whose white heat really only lasted 18 months but had a massive cultural impact at the time (indeed its crucible, Coventry, now has a 2-Tone Village!). And the movement’s main architect, Jerry Dammers, was a middle-class, ex-hippie art student raised in the church. All sorts of points come up in this engaging pod, among them …… the pivotal meeting between Suggs and Dammers at the Hope & Anchor.… the significance of Walt Jabsco and the 2-Tone merchandise – “when the rag trade gets hold of you, you’re made”.… the crossover between violence at gigs and football matches in the late ‘70s and the right-wing factions that attached themselves to Madness.… how the music press adored 2-Tone then brutally turned the tables.… Rico, Saxa and the revolutionary twin-generational line-ups of the Specials and the Beat..… why the Bodysnatchers only lasted 11 months.… why 2-Tone failed in America until the Dance Craze movie arrived.… how each member of the Specials thought they were in a different band.… why there were so many “2-Tone casualties”.… and the brief window between punk and electronic pop that helped 2-Tone take off.Order ‘Too Much Too Young: the 2-Tone Records’ story here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Too-Much-Young-Soundtrack-Generation/dp/1399607480Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho on November 27th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ZOthfatjxiSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Jude Rogers – writer, broadcaster, old pal of the pod - first heard Kirsty MacColl when she was nine and felt a connection ever since. She’s just written the sleevenotes for ‘See That Girl’, the best, most diverse and exquisitely packaged compilation of her music ever assembled, an eight CD box-set of singles, rarities, unheard songs, live and Glastonbury appearances, demos, BBC sessions and collaborations, along with an entire unreleased album. As Jude points out she wasn’t overlooked, but all the things you applauded about her made her very hard to market. She wouldn’t play the game. She refused to be fashionable. She was funny and honest and wrote about an unvarnished, real world which robbed her of a sense of mystery, and a lot of her songs were about fallibility and failure. Among the highlights here …   … a long-running lyric thread that began with There’s a Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He’s Elvis.   … why what she wrote about men (and women) was so original. … her strained relationship with her father. … what Johnny Marr admired about her and the power of her “Elysian chorus”. ... why you’ll never find another song like ‘Autumnsoupgirl’. … how she and Dave Robinson’s hairdresser launched Tracey Ullman’s career. … and David Hepworth’s inspired idea for ‘In These Shoes?’, the West End Kirsty MacColl musical. Order the 8CD box set ‘See That Girl’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/See-That-Girl-1979-2000-8CD/dp/B0C9GCDZSTTickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho in London on November 27th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ZOthfatjxiSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

This week’s winning hand from the rock and roll card deck includes … … a silver salute to musicians who don’t dye their hair. … did Al Pacino play Phil Spector? Roger Daltrey as Franz Liszt? Was Gary Oldman Joe Strummer? … rock stars you’d swap lives with. … the “theme-park-ification” of pop music. … the mysteries of rock and roll are slowly evaporating. As Tom Waits said: “before the internet, we used to wonder. I miss the wondering.” … the immortality of the Florida salesman who appears on the cover of Abbey Road (and had obituaries when he died). … why Leonard Cohen thought his romance with Joni Mitchell was “like living with Beethoven”. … how a split-second made and destroyed the lives of two photographers covering Lee Harvey Oswald at the Dallas Police Headquarters. … musicians who look even better older.   … how Pink Floyd helped kick-start rock’s love affair with football.   … the unenviable world of Robbie Williams.   ...and is Abba the only act that works as holograms? Plus Led Zeppelin’s Victorian Wiltshire thatcher and birthday guests Mike Sketch and Peter Petyt.Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho in London on November 27th: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ZOthfatjxiSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Slade were as revolutionary as T. Rex or Roxy Music, Daryl Easlea points out. At one stage they were outselling Bowie and Bolan. They were the band that hauled the sedentary early ‘70s audience to its feet. The sound of the Ramones was built around ‘Slade Alive!’ and you can feel them in the bones of the Pistols and Oasis. We talk here to Daryl about his funny, energetic, nostalgic and affectionate new book, ‘Whatever Happened to Slade?: When The Whole World Went Crazee’, stopping off at various stations on the route, among them … … why there are “two tiers of Slade”. … the drunken conversation that turned them into a skinhead band overnight. … a key moment involving Crispian St Peters, Kim Fowley and the Tiles Club. … what made them football terrace heroes. … how these “smashers and grabbers” tore up the live circuit. … the very ‘70s way they dealt with Don Powell’s accident. … why American audiences had their “mellow harshed”. … the publican’s son who styled them. … the transformational moment at the '72 Lincoln Festival. … the story of the ‘Give Us A Goal’ video filmed at Brighton’s Goldstone Ground. … and why the main salesman in their line-up was the one “with tinsel in his veins”. Slade were as revolutionary as T. Rex or Roxy Music, Daryl Easlea points out. At one stage they were outselling Bowie and Bolan. They were the band that hauled the sedentary early ‘70s audience to its feet. The sound of the Ramones was built around ‘Slade Alive!’ and you can feel them in the bones of the Pistols and Oasis. We talk here to Daryl about his funny, energetic, nostalgic and affectionate new book, ‘Whatever Happened to Slade?: When The Whole World Went Crazee’, stopping off at various stations on the route, among them … … why there are “two tiers of Slade”. … the drunken conversation that turned them into a skinhead band overnight. … a key moment involving Crispian St Peters, Kim Fowley and the Tiles Club. … what made them football terrace heroes. … how these “smashers and grabbers” tore up the live circuit. … the very ‘70s way they dealt with Don Powell’s accident. … why American audiences had their “mellow harshed”. … the publican’s son who styled them. … the transformational moment at the '72 Lincoln Festival. … the story of the ‘Give Us A Goal’ video filmed at Brighton’s Goldstone Ground. … and why the main salesman in their line-up was the one “with tinsel in his veins”. Order Daryl’s book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whatever-Happened-Slade-Whole-Crazee/dp/1783055545Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho on November 27th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ZOthfatjxiSubscribe to Word in Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

John Higgs' brilliant and wide-ranging book 'The KLF: Chaos, Magic and the Band Who Burned A Million Pounds' came out ten years ago and just keeps on selling. It sold initially to the fans who bought their records. Then to those absorbed by the fringe figures in their mythology - Ken Campbell, Alan Moore, Robert Anton Wilson, the Discordians. And then to people who just wanted a staggering and barely believable story about the attacks by two free-wheeling cultural terrorists on the worlds of art and music at the end of the 20th century. It sold so well in fact that it's just been republished in a 10th Anniversary edition with additional material.John Higgs is an exceptional speaker as this pod demonstrates and talks here about the outer reaches of their extravagantly lunatic strategies - the ABBA court case, the dead sheep, the pagan rituals on Jura, the collaboration with Tammy Wynette - and how many backfired on them and why Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty have barely seen each other in almost 30 years. This podcast was recorded in front of an enthralled audience at 21Soho in London on October 30th 2023.Order the 10th anniversary edition here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/KLF-Chaos-Burned-Million-Pounds/dp/139961035XTickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho on November 27th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/ZOthfatjxiSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear