Word In Your Ear

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

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

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

Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley read a review of the Sex Pistols in February 1976, borrowed a car, drove to London, asked the NME where they’d find the band and were told ‘try a sex shop in the King’s Road’. The events that followed changed both the culture of Manchester and the course of rock history, a story mapped out in David Nolan’s excellent ‘I Swear I Was There’, a book as much about the audience as the band. His theory: “If the Pistols hadn’t played the Lesser Free Trade Hall … no Buzzcocks, Joy Division, Factory Records, ‘indie’ scene, Smiths, Fall, Nirvana, Blur, Oasis, Radiohead or Prodigy.’ As the 50th anniversary looms, he talks to us here about … … those who claimed to be there and the ones who actually were … the contrast between myth and reality … the letter Morrissey sent the NME: “Maybe the Pistols will be able to afford some clothes which don't look as though they've been slept in” … punk metaphor: Howard Devoto asking a tailor to narrow his trouser legs and being told, “there’s no going back” … North/South crowd violence: “a battle with a gig breaking out in the middle” … the three reels of home-movie and the photos that turned up 36 years later … Sister Rosetta Tharpe, ‘Judas’ at the Free Trade Hall, Stones In The Park and other landmark Manchester moments ... the pioneering impact of Granada TV   … “if you look at Manchester now, its media, its skyscrapers, its cultural prosperity, none of that would have been happened without those Pistols gigs” … “Sheffield would have admired them, Manchester thought: we can do better!” … and various bit-part players – Tony Wilson, Peter Hook, Paul Morley, Jordan and Jon the Postman. Order ‘I Swear I Was There’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Swear-Was-There-Pistols-Manchester/dp/1786060159 Book promotions at Walthamstow Rock & Roll Book Club, London - 25 May (link below); Nudie, Manchester – 28 May; Central Library, Manchester - 11July: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/david-nolan-i-swear-i-was-there-tickets-1985356197832?utm_experiment=test_share_listing&aff=ebdsshios&sg=0713ff5cbb20ee739ec0a8803927c4228f74fda0c5bac9785b11548a1e5b7c04ba91c0af5267ba677dfafa61163636f97633016b86ba8be02a78ecdb7f234740f0be4f90136c5fd636905d294bHelp us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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

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

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

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

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