Word In Your Ear

Michael Cragg’s devotion to all things Kylie once led him to Melbourne in search of the actual carousel horse she rode in a pop video. He got a tattoo a day later. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head is a funny and fondly detailed personal account of the risk-taking variety of her records, the mystery of her private life and the irresistible nature of her appeal, a girl who, were there a war on, would be painted on the tail fins of aircraft. He looks back here at … … her ‘90s reinvention by association – with Nick Cave, Michael Hutchence and Bobby Gillespie … how records about joy never get enough credit … wrestling back control after life with Stock Aitken & Waterman … the root of her appeal as a gay icon ... being vilified by the press for any public pronouncement … a capacity to charm her detractors when she meets them  … reciting I Should Be So Lucky at the Poetry Olympics alongside Patti Smith and Allen Ginsberg … a mixture of the ordinary and the exotic and the ‘Carry On’ sexuality of her videos … only Queen Elizabeth 11 has had more waxworks at Madame Tussauds … and Michael’s meeting with her – “I’m six foot eight, she’s five foot one” - and the resulting photo. Order copies of ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ here: https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571392766-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-in-search-of-kylie/

‘Sandy Denny: A People’s History’ has just been published, memories from fellow musicians, old friends, producers, writers, fans and admirers. Linda Thompson met her when they were both 16 and was devoted to her ‘til she died in 1978 – “she’s still with me, I talk to her all the time”. She looks back here at their lives in Soho bars, folk clubs and studios, the world they inhabited and the musicians they both knew. Among the many highlights … … meeting Sandy in 1966, onstage doing Jackson Frank’s You Never Wanted Me. “Eight million cigarettes a day but such breath control!” … why her singing and songwriting were unique … high times at the Colony Club with Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon - “famously grumpy” … “she didn’t put up with bullshit. Cross her and she’d deck you” … memories of Nick Drake – “spectral and gorgeous” … the repercussions of the Fairport car crash … memories of her family home in Wimbledon (on the cover of Unhalfbricking) … recording ad jingles for Ski Yoghurt and ‘flour so fine, it flows and it flows’ - £15 an hour, “a fortune” … making demos of Nick Drake songs with Elton John, “so full of Valium I had to be held up to the mic”   … sharing a flat with Tim Buckley in Holland Park … “anyone who can bear to listen to their own records must be no bloody good” … and the script Nick Hornby started about the life of Richard and Linda Thompson. Order ‘Sandy Denny: A People’s History’ here: https://burningshed.com/georgia-rose-lucas_sandy-denny-a-peoples-history_book

The news slapped on the conversational barbecue and served with a side of old hokum. This week’s mixed grill includes … … our favourite story in the whole of popular music! … Lisa Marie Presley & Michael Jackson, Neil Young & Daryl Hannah and other weird celebrity weddings … how Glen Hansard got hired for the Commitments … “Everybody has a plan ‘til they’re punched in the face” … Linda Thompson and the million reasons singers hate listening to their old albums … the fabulous life and times of Vicki Wickham in the days when 24 year-olds ran the business … Luke Combs, Nate Bargatze and the rising appeal of Mr Nice Guy … how David Bowie recorded … Mick Jagger’s only marriage … “Kingsley Amis Introduces Us To Pop Stars!” and other doomed TV ideas 

Tim Pope caught the video wave in 1981 and made hundreds of promotional clips, often three or four a week, edited at night and on-air days later. You’ll have seen them, singles for the Style Council, The The, Iggy Pop, Hall & Oates and many others. For 15 years he was the man to call – inventive, caffeinated, risk-loving, clubbable – and “nothing was too mad or stupid”. He celebrates that magic age of big budgets and creative freedom in his story-filled memoir ‘I Shoot Rock Stars’, just out, and looks back here at … … the video that made his reputation … MTV showing six of his clips in a row … the thrill of Bowie’s silhouette as he walked across the Rainbow stage in 1977: “there was so little footage back then, you’d rarely seen people move” … his teenage love of Dusty, ELP, King Crimson and Pink Floyd … shooting seven clips a fortnight and the one time a record label tried to interfere … Neil Young’s 2,000-acre Broken Arrow Ranch and the “burning fires of his eyes” … Iggy Pop singing I Wanna Be Your Dog in the John Snow pub in Soho … “German sausages, lumps of lamb, maggots, a whole party”: the Soft Cell clip that caused a walk-out ... “You’re a funny little arsehole!”: breaking the ice with Bowie … what he learnt from Mark Hollis of Talk Talk and spending time with his ashes. Order ‘I Shoot Rock Stars’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/i-shoot-rock-stars/tim-pope/9781035426959

Pauline Black was seen singing Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell songs in Coventry folk clubs and recruited by a local reggae band. Then converted to ska and joined the Selecter - back on tour this summer and with a box-set of live recordings, ‘The Selecter at the BBC’. She looks back here at … … their first gig with Madness for 47 years in Brighton – “very red fezzy!” … her Sliding Doors moment supporting Bert Jansch ... discovering the Pioneers, Prince Buster and the Skatalites through white skinheads in Coventry … the famous 2-Tone Brighton Beach photo of 1979 with the Specials and Madness … “there were three looks for a black girl singer back then – Tina Turner, the I-Threes Earth Mother … or invent something new. So I invented the Rude Girl” … seeing Pentangle playing the theme from ‘Take Three Girls’ in 1971 and then the MC5 and Arthur Brown with his “papier-mâché brain” … training as a bio-chemist and radiographer – “there isn’t an orifice I haven’t inspected” … the first Selecter gig – “flares, safari suits and me in pink spandex trousers like the girls from Chic” .. how Jerry Dammers created the cartoon 2-Tone look and the night radio played the first single … and “a black man with a gun and a stage invasion” on the BBC’s Pebble Mill. Order copies of ‘The Selecter At The BBC: The Complete Recordings 1979-1981’ here: https://theselecter.lnk.to/AtTheBBC Tickets here: https://theselecter.net/live-dates/

Tony Fletcher launched Jamming! when he was 13, wrote for the Face at 16, ran a label with Paul Weller at 17 and a year later was presenting the Tube. And was in a band signed to EMI. If anyone did more as a teenager, we want to meet them. It’s all in his coming-of-age memoir ‘Pow! When UK Punk Went Pop 1980-84’ - discussed here - which touches on … …the speed, the possibilities and the riches of success in the early ‘80s – and how it felt to be at the heart of it … “I knew nothing about running a label – and then discovered Paul Weller didn’t either” … Madness being interviewed by “spiky-haired, Harrington-jacketed, Ben-Sherman-shirted me” … when confidence meets ignorance … when bands went from selling 2,000 records to 20,000 and, in America, 200,000: “Phil Oakey always carried £500 in cash” … the research meetings that launched the Tube and his two-minute audition … the day Leslie Ash called in sick and he covered for her on live TV … Pete Townshend, 35, convinced the Who were finished ... discovering the inner circle within the inner circle … “to the Rainbow for the Mod Revival all-dayer!” … and memories of Wham!, Paula Yates and Pete Wylie and what he learnt from running labels and magazines.   Order copies of ‘Pow! When UK Punk Went Pop 1980-84’ here: US: https://www.trouserpressbooks.com/pow UK: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/pow-when-uk-punk-went-pop-1980-84-tony-fletcher/74b193de4c1dee68

Testing the temperature of this week’s news to see what trips the fire-alarm, which includes … … does having a Number One still matter? … Pauline Black’s sliding doors moment … rock stars you can’t imagine dancing … heatwaves, fire, rain, dust and thunderstorms: how extreme weather’s changing the festival circuit … when Jarvis Cocker was a fishmonger and Bryan Ferry taught pottery … is AI erasing our love of rock history? … Wuthering Heights Day: the lone fabulous amateur appeal of Kate Bush v the polished mass choreography of the 21st Century … all bands vividly remember first hearing themselves on the radio … and then rang their mothers … digital native or digital immigrant? … and when Mark met the Hells Angels in a Kentucky Fried Chicken.

This week’s news in a conversational cocktail-shaker and served with ice and a little paper parasol. Those Happy Hour highlights include … … six musicians who keep getting better looking … Plas Johnson RIP, a part of everyone’s life for 60 years   … the Odyssey and how Hollywood thinks the rest of the world has a foreign accent … why you couldn’t make Bugsy Malone today … Jonathan Richman’s genuine wide-eyed love of the modern world … Clare Torry’s Pink Floyd payday … “Styrofoam ice buckets full of ice”: the greatest song ever written about life on the road … Mick Jagger, the art of evasion and the exquisite boredom of Stones’ B-sides about America … the four rock stars who played the Artful Dodger … and what John Wayne said to ‘Jesus’.