Word In Your Ear

Marco Pirroni’s moment in the sun was big, lucrative but incredibly short. It was under a year from Adam & the Ants’ first hit to their last and immediate break-up. Adam, he remembers, was the perfect writing partner – driven, intensely competitive and with “a pathological fear of only being Number 2”. He’s got no regrets, hasn’t had to do day’s work since, and looks back here at …… being the first band writing songs for the video age… “you can’t confuse fans buying records with love, it’s nothing personal”… Telstar, Fireball XL5, Roxy Music and the “moon-stomping hits of Slade”… playing covers of songs they didn’t like with Siouxsie at the 100 Club: “punk rock and my part in its downfall”… Adam’s “Shakespearian tirade” at the legal meeting with Rolf Harris when he sued over Prince Charming and War Canoe… Malcolm McLaren’s jukebox: the Flamin’ Groovies, Alice Cooper, the Troggs, “songs that weren’t very good”… “we stopped being a punk band or a pop band or a glam band – or any sort of band at all”… never tour America when you don’t have a bank account.Order ‘Your Money Or Your Life’ here: https://tr.ee/P2_qxNZ6jC

The Specials have officially disbanded, bowing out with a swansong album recorded in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral in 2019. Horace Panter looks back at the first shows they played - when Jim Callaghan was still PM! - and the rigours of mastering ska when some of the group thought it was “old man’s music”. Along with … … the dignified way for any band to retire … the 2-Tone tour of 1979 – “like a school trip with no teachers” … bonding with Terry Hall over comedian Ken Platt: ‘I won't take me coat off, I'm not stoppin'!" … the day Jerry Dammers came to rehearsal with Prince Buster’s Greatest Hits – “for all your rebellious needs!” … the poignancy of playing in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral when you start the set with an air-raid siren … seeing the Faces and Mott the Hoople, “once in my school uniform” … the sensory overload - “The space! The volume!” - of Led Zeppelin at the Albert Hall when you’re 15 and from Kettering … “strange to think few people under 60 have ever seen the Specials” … the bassist he pretended to be when posing in the mirror ... the Bilzen Festival in 1979 “when the chain-link fence was broken down and I came offstage like I was walking on air” … and creating the 2-Tone look with ex-Mod tonic suits Order ‘Live From The Cathedral’ here: https://shop.thespecials.islandrecords.com/

As this week’s news hurtles over the net, we sort the aces from the double-faults. The final score …  … Madonna, Shakira, Chris Martin and World Cup 11-minute half-time overload! … how many Stones albums were “the best since Exile On Main Street”? … Kevin Rowland’s heart-breaking songs about Life’s Third Act … 10 good reasons to miss the Nineties … Country & Western is about travelling through the vast geography of America. “Go 200 miles in Britain and you fall off the edge” … Florian Pilkington-Miksa, Cedric Bixler-Zavala, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond: rock’s real (or invented?) double-barrelled names … how “travel and never arrive” is the new entertainment experience … plus Sly Stone’s Babies Makin’ Babies, the comforting cry of “Gambo’s in the building!” and birthday guest Patrick Butler.

We first saw Kevin in ‘77 wearing jodhpurs onstage with his art-punk band the Killjoys! He’s formed a new version of Dexys, made an album, starts a tour in October, and looks back here at central moments in his life, some recent ones so huge and affecting “that I put them to music” and they’ll be performed as a drama in the first half of these upcoming theatre shows. This touches - in vivid detail - on bands that inspired him, repaired relationships, a health crisis, what it took to be a singer in the first place and what’s requires now to put the show back on the road, along with … … memories of music before the Beatles … playing Jim Reeves and Ricky Nelson in a social club band in 1975 “after the bingo” … the touching shift of power in his relationship with his 102 year-old father: “he was like a child again, he needed me” … Roxy Music on Top Of The Pops, “I couldn’t believe you could be avant garde AND commercial” … life on the Top Rank circuit supporting the Specials: “you learnt not to play at an audience but play for them”  … making Searching For The Young Soul Rebels in ten days with producer Pete Wingfield dancing in the studio … “Come On Eileen doesn’t belong to me anymore” … the alarming spectacle of an ‘80s Hear & Now package tour and what it taught him .. the song he wrote for his grandchildren (one of whom is 31) … a possibly terminal diagnosis in 2024 and “like Wilko Johnson, the relief I felt” … and the Tim Buckley song he just recorded without knowing who wrote it! Order the new Dexys album ‘Love’ here: https://dexysofficial.lnk.to/love And tour tickets here: https://dexys.tmstor.es/Live

This week’s penalty shoot-out of news sorts the surefire hits from the over-the-bar misses. That final score again … … what Morrissey’s only gone and done now … when your logo’s worth than your songs … Taylor Swift’s wedding and how Sly Stone got there first … do musicians care about awards?… Divine Comedy, Jonathan Richman, Fountains of Wayne, Zappa: why are ‘humorous’ records so divisive?… happy 200th birthday Stephen Foster, the man who invented the pop song!… and cover versions of his songs you’ll know - Hard Times Come Again No More (Dylan, Springsteen, Emmylou Harris), Beautiful Dreamer (the Beatles), My Old Kentucky Home (Randy Newman), Oh Susannah (James Taylor), Camptown Races and many more … why comic actors are funnier on TV than in films … the delicious melancholy of songs about going home … when did musicians ‘go pro’? Did the Clash or the Faces consider themselves ‘professionals’?… Oasis, New Order, the Hollies, Herman’s Hermits, Corrie, Man City/Man U, the Smiths: why is Manchester Feud Central? … plus Margot, Jerry & the take-away curry, and birthday guest Guy Constant.

The blistering heat of 1976 burnt various things onto the memory – standpipes, strikes, Entebbe, ‘Confessions’ movies, Jeremy Thorpe – but most of all the records that became its soundtrack, some of them revolutionary, others begging for extinction. John L Williams captures the moment in ‘Heatwave: the Summer of 1976, Britain at Boiling Point’ and a paints of picture of a country on the brink of a vast pop-cultural shift. We talk to him here about … … violence at gigs and football and on Derek & Clive albums … dumb people pretending to be clever (prog rock) and clever people pretending to be dumb (Ramones) … the rise of Joan Armatrading in the days before ‘identity’ marketing … how ‘funny’ t-shirts were the memes of their day … when Tom Robinson saw the future in Scarborough … “mainstream culture gave you things to both love and hate” ... how Rock Follies featured an imaginary Blitz Club where people danced in military uniforms … Andy Summers (with Kevin Ayers) and Stewart Copeland (Curved Air) on the same bill a year before the Police … why anyone with a Sensational Alex Harvey Band scarf got a wide berth  … Time Out’s headline: "It's the Buzz, Cock!" … Tom Waits, aged 25, unconvincing hobo-hipster … and Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Emmanuelle and the lowest point of the Radio One Roadshow. Order copies of ‘Heatwave’ here: https://tinyurl.com/2kudc6xr

Nige Tassell fell in love with the literary allusions of Prefab Sprout when at school and his new book ‘Truly Gifted Kids’ tells their unique and inscrutable story – and involves some delightfully off-road “deerstalker” investigation. You’ll find self-sabotage, square pegs in round holes, the eternal pressure to have hits, and a devoted portrait of ringmaster Paddy McAloon that leaves you convinced there’s never been anyone quite like him before or since. This sparks off in a million directions, these among them … … the lure of bands who'd clearly been to the library and were unlikely to have a huge hit ... Paddy’s stoic defence of their name … his distaste for “diary songwriting” of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen … Jesse James, Elvis, Hey Manhattan: the obsession with the romance of America … the archive of unrecorded songs (one box labelled ‘For Rod Stewart’) … how the success of The King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll came to haunt them … the inconceivable moment they appeared on the National Lottery with Bob Monkhouse and Mystic Meg … pop tribalism on the school bus … the dreadful circumstance that lead to I Trawl the Megahertz … Paddy’s visual transformation from tousled pop star to hermetic semi-reclusive Gandalf … and the fate of the Steve McQueen motorbike. Order ‘Truly Gifted Kids’ here …https://linktr.ee/newmodern_books?lt_utm_source=lt_share_link#566128608.

Tapping the barometer of news to see what’s blistering or stormy, which this week includes … … “The Man can’t bust our music!”: the crimes and misdemeanours of Clive Davis … the single biggest change in our lifetimes ... when did musicians become ‘artists’? … Johnny Marr’s guitar habit … unlimited cash and what we’d spend it on … Madonna smoking at Paris Fashion Week hoping someone would try to stop her … why Dave doesn’t own any Arista records … which five Paul Simon songs became film titles? … a Prime Minister who loves ‘Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You’ by Big Thief! … 56 year-old takes annual Dark Side of the Moon test: “and I still don’t like it!” … are there more registered songwriters or lorry drivers? Plus the biopic boom and birthday guest Andrew Stocks has a senior moment.

Seven hundred fans have contributed to ‘Gary Numan: A People’s History’, a lavishly published compendium of memories of discovering, hearing and watching him over the 50 years he’s been making music. As you might imagine, he’s immensely touched, not least because – in this honest and extremely modest conversation – he feels his roller-coaster career was down to “perseverance not God-given talent” and that if he hadn’t come along, that devotional space in his fans’ lives would have been filled by someone else. He talks to us here from his home in Los Angeles and touches on … … the extent of what music can mean to people … how careers pan out – “huge highs then you fall off a cliff for a while” … ‘I made though perseverance more than God-given talent’ … meetings with upstarts and superstars … why he doesn’t listen to new music … ‘Don’t call me, the Gothfather!’ … the press he got in the early ‘80s “that made fans hide their Gary Numan albums” … how hip-hop and Afrika Bambaataa absorbed his music … ‘I’m not unique, I simply supply a service” ... and having your Gary Numan tattoo sketched for you … by Gary Numan! Order copies of ‘Gary Numan: A People’s History’ here: https://burningshed.com/richard-bowes_gary-numan-a-peoples-history_book