Word In Your Ear

‘To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and civilizations and to boldly go where no podcasters have been before!’ Which this week involves …

… the lost 1978 Bowie footage about to tour arenas

… why Indie songs have such long intros

… Jagger’s great-granddaughter is three years older than one of his sons?!

… how Bill Wyman survived Brian Jones and the letter Jones sent Charlie asking him to join the band

… when Patrick Stewart worked for the Dewsbury Reporter

… what John Steinbeck wrote to Marilyn Monroe

... the two covers of Beatles songs that are better than the originals

… and the best gag ever printed in Viz.

Plus the Cure, Ed Sheeran’s daughter Antarctica and birthday guest Giles Fraser.

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whenever Carl Palmer joined a band, he was head-hunted by a bigger one - the King Bees, Chris Farlowe & the Thunderbirds, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Atomic Rooster and, eventually, Emerson Lake & Palmer. We get a vivid whirlwind tour here of six decades onstage – modest, very funny, barely pausing for breath – and a full account of how ‘An Evening with Emerson Lake & Palmer’ will work when he tours the show in 2027 (and the setlist). Tons of highlights, blink and you’ll miss them, these just a few …

… “You can’t call the group Emerson Lake & Palmer! What if somebody leaves?”

… playing jazz and cabaret from the age of 12 and memories of “formation dancing night”

… the King Bees at a Birmingham All-Nighter with Chris Farlowe, Steampacket and “a few black bombers”

.. the one-eyed bassist who drove the van

… American 10,000-seaters with Arthur Brown

… the Who in 1965 – “never seen anything like it!”

… who owns the name Emerson Lake & Palmer?

… the day he got a job for John Bonham

… being choppered to the Isle of Wight in their stage gear

... Vincent Crane sawing his Hammond in half

… the ELP audition and “Ahmet Ertegun from NY” ringing to twist his arm

… playing the Palladium where his grandpa conducted a Palm Court Orchestra

… and drumming on a vegan diet.

Mentioned in passing: Cozy Powell, Graham Bond, Erroll Garner, Oscar Peterson, Ginger Baker, Roy Orbison and Bruce Forsyth.

Order ‘An Evening With ELP’ tickets here: https://crosstownconcerts.gigantic.com/carl-palmer-tickets

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tom Hagler works at the BBC with access to every TV and radio programme involving Joni Mitchell for 50 years, all full of revelations about her songs and the times she spent in London. So he transcribed the interviews – even the bits off-camera - and talked to the people who’d watched them being recorded, now published as ‘River Of Words: Joni Mitchell At the BBC’. It’s full of fresh angles and good stories, like this podcast which touches on …

… Joni living on cigarettes, coffee and chocolate in a Bayswater flat in 1968

… early exposure by John Peel and on Stanley Dorfman’s pioneering ‘In Concert’ (she was the first guest!)

… her complete transparency in interviews – “I felt like a cellophane wrapper on a pack of cigarettes”

… the night she met Graham Nash

… the BBC failing to exploit their 1990 ‘scoop’ about her giving away her daughter for adoption, and the moment she thinks she met her (aged 3)

… how she held her own in the ‘70s rock Boys’ Club

… “save something of yourself”: when Kris Kristofferson heard Blue

… the Tracey MacLeod interview where she claims to be a reincarnated Arab rug dealer

… and the value of Big Yellow Taxi in the climate crisis.

Order copies of ‘River Of Words: Joni Mitchell at the BBC’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/River-Words-Joni-Mitchell-interviews/dp/1035435780

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stirring the spice-filled gumbo of news and turning the heat up. This week’s nutritious ingredients include ….

… is everything better shorter?

… the greatest opening line in a book ever written

… did Tom Waits, Warren Zevon, Joe Cocker, the Bee Gees, Cheap Trick, Sam Cooke, Talking Heads or Bill Evans make the greatest live album of all time?

… the worst beers Buster Poindexter ever had

… rock stars’ alter egos – Lady Gaga as Jo Calderone, Andy Partridge as Sir John Johns, George Clinton as Mr Wiggles, Justin Hawkins as Sir Voltage Blackthorn!

… Blur, Radiohead, Stones, Doors, Steely Dan, Bowie, Leonard Cohen … they all had a three-year golden streak

… “I’m writing a short letter as I don’t have time to write a long one”

… why the Matrix was a watershed moment

… the three stages of success – getting known, the magnum opus, basking in the glow

… and why we love August N'gutu Leibowitz-Clementine.

Plus Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Buckshot La Funke, birthday guest Phil Hopwood and how everyone at the BBC is a gossip.

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Helen’s violin at the start of Come On Eileen has filled a million wedding dancefloors. She was a member of Dexys Midnight Runners, later their musical director, at the boom time of Too Rye Ay (and its wobbly sequel) and captures the thrill of it all in her just-updated memoir, What’s She Like: A Violinist’s Tale. You’ll love this conversation - warm, candid, forgiving and touching on all the following …

… the day the dungarees arrived

… the tribal nature of bands

… the social skills required in a group as tangled as Dexys who’d “go to the caff and just … not talk!"

… what she learnt from the memorabilia found in her shed

… the myth that she met Kevin Rowland at a bus-stop and her reinvention as “the belle from Ballymena”

… working with Nicky Hopkins (“my hero”), Tom Dowd, Woody Woodmansey and Tanita Tikaram

… Dexys studio method: “focus, discipline, tightness” and trying to record a 12-minute track in one take

… hearing hits by Rod Stewart and Slade that featured violins

… and her swansong: recording Because Of You for the TV sitcom Brush Strokes.

Order copies of ‘What’s She Like’ here: https://www.route-online.com/all-books/whats-she-like

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

We first met Nigel Dick in the late ‘70s when he was the motorbike messenger for Stiff Records and watched him rocket to success in the video boom, directing career-launching clips for Guns N’Roses, Tears for Fears and Britney Spears and working with Cher, Joni Mitchell and McCartney, all recorded in his memoir ‘Music Video Mischief’. He looks back here on that big-budget golden age and the rise of the amateurs from his home in Colorado and stops off at …

… ‘You have to work out where the power lies’

… the story of the million dollar video

… how he finally found the Axl Rose charisma

… New Boots And Panties, ‘the most radical album to have that level of success’

… Stiff’s ‘frightening, lovable, devious’ Dave Robinson, characteristics every label boss requires

… ‘I’ll make sure you never work in this town again!’

… why the 16 year-old (ex-Mickey Mouse Club) Britney Spears was born for video

… working with his teenage heroes Yes: ‘the beautiful castles I’d built in my mind just collapsed to sand’

… the rise of AI – ‘best to check people haven’t got six fingers and a changing haircut’

… and working with McCartney, Cher, Band Aid, Oasis and Claude Van Damme.

Order copies of ‘Music Video Mischief’ in the UK from: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/music-video-mischief-ozzy-to-britney-oasis-to-gn-r-mccartney-to-cher-a-lifetime-of-rock-and-chaos-nigel-dick/619386081ce90352?ean=9798999048783

And in the U.S. from: https://www.trouserpressbooks.com

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two fearless men journey to the Edge Of News so that you don’t have to. Some highlights of this week’s report …

… when a gig’s all about the performer not the audience

… the power of singing other people’s songs

… can you ever trust a film critic?

… what connects Richard Thompson, Neil Tennant, Loudon Wainwright and Randy Newman?

… “bands can’t look like gangs if they’re not all the same height”

… can you picture ‘50s jazz without cigarette smoke?

… who – dear god – is “achingly cool” according to critics? Miles Davis? The Portico Quartet? Annie Lennox?!

… should we call time on the ailing Mike Love?

… biopics that can’t afford the music

… why Robert Evans hated the American Graffiti soundtrack

… people who perform sitting down

… plus BB King, Jack Bruce, Philip Roth, Woody Guthrie, Woody Allen, James McMurtry and the 15-year old “Michael” Jagger’s gym shoes.

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Richard Thompson has a new album, ‘Hippies, Thugs and Heroes’, and he’s touring again in 2027, the perfect excuse to get another of our favourite guests back in the chair again. He joins us here for a brilliant, free-wheeling conversation with a cast list including …

Arnold Schwarzenegger (and his son Wolfie)

William Shakespeare

Mandy Miller

Shostakovich

Fairport Convention

William Walton

Fellini

John Lennon

Louis Armstrong

Post-War Brighton gangsters

Nellie the Elephant

Les Paul

Harold Pinter

Booker T & the M.G.’s

Bix Beiderbecke

Stephane Grappelli

Ennio Morricone

John Coltrane

Django Reinhardt

My Fair Lady

‘50s radio show Journey Into Space

Once Upon A Time In The West

… his dad (a policeman) and his first girlfriend Deirdre.

Order copies of ‘HIPPIES, THUGS AND HEROES’ here: http://newwst.com/hippies

And tickets here: https://www.richardthompson-music.com/tour-dates/

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

You forget how huge and ubiquitous Rory Gallagher was in the ‘70s, just 22 at the Isle of Wight and auditioning for the Stones four years later, an inspiration for Johnny Marr, Andy Partridge, the Edge, Slash and countless others. And for his brother and manager Dónal - “it was a big wide world I wasn’t going to see unless I hung onto his coattails”. He’s just published a memoir, ‘Edged In Blue, A Rock’n’Roll Odyssey with Rory Gallagher’, and looks back here at some of the highlights, these among them …

… watching Six-Five Special through a closed TV shop window at night and adding vocals to entertain the crowd

… hearing jazz, Lonnie Donegan and Big Bill Broonzy on Forces Radio in Ireland

… auditioning for the Stones in 1974

… joining the Fontana Showband aged 15 playing ceilidh, Chuck Berry and Georgie Fame

… Taste on the chaotic Blind Faith US tour when Ginger Baker attacked the security

… when Johnny Marr and Joe Bonamassa asked to borrow his old guitars

… and “the BBC’s most recorded artist of the ‘70s” and managing his expanding legacy.

Order ‘Edged in Blue: A Rock 'n' Roll Odyssey with Rory Gallagher’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Edged-Blue-Rock-Odyssey-Gallagher/dp/1786052539

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s extension of The Longest Conversation In Pop History™️ you’ll be happy to find …

… the front row audience driving Gillian Anderson mad and why we feel for her

... can you still buy anything for £1.10?

… when did rock nostalgia begin?

… what Andy Partridge paid “the Hermit of Mink Hollow”

… the famous playwright who wrote a Beatles film script

… Spirit of Eden, Trout Mask Replica, Bitches Brew? Unlistenable?!

… whatever happened to the pop instrumental?

… My Bloody Valentine and bands who were “a challenge”

… Japanese noise pioneer Merzbow’s 53-hour marathon at Colchester Arts Centre

… Bricknasty, Tooth, Clutter, Sleepazoid … real or invented new bands?

… and memories of first hearing Sister Ray.

Plus Widowmaker, Stan Ridgway, the long-suffering hero who’s heard every one of our podcasts and birthday guest Matthew Elliott.

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

The third instalment of ‘The Island Book of Records’ is out, another sumptuous, elegantly designed, LP-sized chronicle of every album released on this most fabled of labels, in this case between 1971-72. They’re edited by Neil Storey who worked in the press office for years, and they’re magnificent, a painstaking assembly of the memories of producers, musicians and label staff involved in those records with photo outtakes, press cuttings and concert bills to illustrate. We talked to Neil in Jamaica, on his way to present Chris Blackwell with a copy, and touched on the following …

… why anything on Island still quickens the pulse

… how Blackwell understood “the packaged goods business” and only signed Roxy when he saw the shot they wanted on their first album cover

… Jess Roden, John Martyn, Tír na nÓg, John Wood, Jethro Tull, Hackensack and the record everyone forgot

… ‘the deification of Nick Drake is not a good thing”

… the misfortunes that derailed Bronco

… the ‘Renaissance’ look of Amazing Blondel and the member permanently dressed as an Elizabethan

… “Bless The Weather was the first John Martyn record where he didn’t want to be somebody else”

…. Spooky Tooth - “grunge before grunge was invented”

… and the Island albums that should have sold more.

Order ‘The Island Book of Records 1971-72’ here: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781807072995/

And here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Island-Book-Records-III-1971-72/dp/1807072991/ref=pd_lpo_d_sccl_1/525-3021267-6645350?pd_rd_w=s0hPN&content-id=amzn1.sym.bb13d3fc-af40-4fff-a822-e0e4c415da96&pf_rd_p=bb13d3fc-af40-4fff-a822-e0e4c415da96&pf_rd_r=WV2V75TAD07MAYDF00D9&pd_rd_wg=6Znhw&pd_rd_r=94f67c6f-23f0-4a15-afc6-890c382a264d&pd_rd_i=1807072991&psc=1

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

A lifelong Beatles obsessive, Gary Kemp bought Epstein’s black leather address book at auction and (with Simon Halfon) researched its 404 names to construct a picture of him, “a 360-degree look” built around musicians, managers, impresarios, hustlers, grifters, ‘walkers’, tricksters, writers, deejays, scene-makers and assorted fashion and media folk. It’s fascinating. As is this podcast where he talks about what he discovered compiling ‘1967: the World of Brian Epstein and the Beatles’ and how the contacts were like “an Advent Calendar leading to his death in August 1967”. We touch on …

… what he paid for the address book (but couldn’t tell his wife!)

… the last person Brian spoke to

… how the Age of Innocence became the Age of Experience

… the legal, contractual and social problems overwhelming him in 1967

… cracking the code that hid the Beatles’ phone numbers

… “these days Lennon would be cancelled many times over”

… the crisis just before Shea Stadium in 1965

… why Brian missed the last Beatles show and his absurd idea for the Sgt Pepper cover

… and “how different all our lives would have been if he hadn’t walked down those steps to the Cavern”.

Order copies of ‘1967: the World of Brian Epstein and the Beatles’ here: https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/1967-the-world-of-brian-epstein-and-the-beatles-the-address-book-that-defined-an-era-gary-kempsimon-halfon?variant=56206336885115

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Holzer was a Lou Reed fan from the moment he saw Walk On The Wild Side on Top Of The Pops but avoided Metal Machine Music for 42 years as it was supposedly unlistenable. He was transfixed when he finally heard it, began playing it daily and felt so strongly about “the most radical rock record ever made” he tracked down 60 fellow obsessives and wrote the enthralling ‘Lou Reed: Metal Machine Mystic’. And talks to us here from his home in Mallorca about …

… why Reed released MMM. To escape a ruinous contract? To boost his avant garde status? To torpedo his career?

… how it was made with two guitars feeding back and a one-note ‘Ostrich’ tuning

… the multiple rumours – “Part 4 is Part 1 played backwards!”

… its inspirational ingredients – Judaism, spirituality, Alice Bailly and Iannis Xenakis

… how he hated the reviews of its forerunner Sally Can’t Dance and the people who bought it (and made it his biggest album)

… the vindication of its first live performance, in Berlin in 2002

… its brutal reception by rock critics who “thought they were hipper than Lou”

… “Reed spent money like a sailor on shore leave”

… and what the record reveals when you’ve heard it 1,000 times.

Order copies of ‘Lou Reed: Metal Machine Mystic’ here: http://jawbonepress.com/metal-machine-mystic/

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

A long-running conversation that shifts from major to minor, back to major and all notes inbetween, this week’s lyrics including …

… can people who write ‘happy’ ever be cool?

… the best drummer who isn’t a drummer?

… when will Oasis buy Man City?

… why is Taylor Swift unmemorable?

… when’s “too old to mosh”?

… weird double-bills: Jimi Hendrix and the Monkees. Cat Stevens and Engelbert. Black Sabbath and … Neil Diamond?

… huge stars who barely had any hits

… what Todd Rundgren said about the New York Dolls, XTC and Bat Out Of Hell (“a parody of Springsteen”

… why black musicians had white gangster managers

… Mark paid £2.75 for six bands at Knebworth in 1974. What’s Alex getting for £500 in 2027?

… and “songs about Los Angeles are always about failure”

Plus Radiohead, Laughing Len, Kylie and birthday guest Phil Turner.

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jon Savage detested the UK’s mid-‘70s hits with a vengeance, “records so bad they made you want to strangle every deejay on Radio One, especially Dave Lee Travis”. Which is why he’s compiled ‘Jon Savage’s 1976: Something Was Going To Happen’, 24 ground-breaking tracks released the same year that paved the way to the future. He looks back here from his home in Anglesey at the thrill of hearing them the first time aged 22, the many highlights including …

… hilarious memories of the nauseating Jeans On, Fernando, No Charge, Combine Harvester and Save Your Kisses For Me

… and his undying love for Eddie and the Hot Rods, Pere Ubu, Candi Station, Burning Spear, Miami and the Flamin’ Groovies

… cheap Ronco and K-Tel compilations and Radio One’s stranglehold on popular taste

… what happened at parties when you took off Steely Dan and played the Ramones

… “reggae records never seem to date”

… seeing the Runaways at the Roundhouse and the Clash at Fulham Town Hall with the future Poly Styrene

… the first review he ever had published

… the early ‘70s ‘underground’ - psychedelia, prog, metal, glam, reggae and disco

… and hunting for records at One Stop, Dobells and Harlequin.

Order copies of Jon Savage’s 1976 album here: https://www.acerecords.co.uk/jon-savages-1976-something-was-going-to-happen

And look out for Jon’s brilliant books, among them

England’s Dreaming (about to be republished with a new Derek Jarman cover), Teenage and 1966.

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

The two-man conversational canoe paddles the rock and roll tideway, stopping off this week at …

… Van Morrison’s set-opener is Kidney Stew Blues by Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson. Do people have to play their big hits?

… what’s the key ingredient in success?

... “all great albums automatically have great sleeves. Bar one!”

… does Beyonce have a horsefly named after her? Is there a Jerry Garcia wood roach? A Sting tree-frog?

… U2’s new album cover is an Abbey Road pastiche. So … is this their swansong?

… “dress for the job you want, not the job you have”

… Elvis, Stones, psychedelia, Be Bop Deluxe, power pop, punk, Pete Doherty: rock stars in ‘statement’ ties

… the many ways Songs In The Key Of Life was a masterpiece

… plus “fibrous weaves, over-stuffed loons”, the Plimsouls, the Roaring Boys, Josh Rouse and birthday guest James Ewen.

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

While Mark Ellen visits his Scottish estates, David Hepworth and Alex Gold keep the home fires burning with a wide-ranging conversation, taking in:

•⁠ ⁠why every band containing a pair of brothers seems to inevitably succumb to fraternal warfare

•⁠ ⁠how Ed Sheeran found himself caught in the cross-fire between a multi-millionaire and a bunch of support acts keen not to get caught on the wrong side of a social media war

•⁠ ⁠the fine line that divides a British cheese from a motorway service area

•⁠ ⁠what are the best cases of “mailbox money” in show business?

•⁠ ⁠does anybody else think gigs finish too early?

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

A whole new format we’ve invented for people who’ve been guests before and were so entertaining we wanted them back. So we’ve devised some random questions to spark a few memories and revelations. First up, Sid Griffin of the Long Ryders, touring the UK this autumn, who looks back here at his early life before he “went to L.A. to quote-unquote make it”. You’ll love this as much as we did, especially …

… the Beatles song he knew he’d understand when he was older

… his teenage band rehearsal when the drummer got a hammer in his head

… the rock star he always wanted to be

… what happens when you wear the bug-infested cap you find on a bus

… DJ Carl ‘Weird Beard’ Markert burping in Pepsi commercials on WAKY Radio

… Gregg Turner and the Angry Samoans – “bad songs in bad taste”

… things he can still recite from childhood

… the best use of music in a movie

… how arch-rival Norrie Paramor made George Martin even richer

… and the greatest B-side ever written.

Plus English teacher Mrs Atlas and his deathless crush on Mimi Babcock.

Long Ryders tickets here … thelongryders.com/tour

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Good hair, good shoes, something to say” were the requirements of Indie Sleaze whose vanguard lit up the fading music press in the first decade of the 21st Century – acts like Franz Ferdinand, the Rakes, the Cribs, Kaiser Chiefs and Bloc Party. Janine Warren saw the Strokes in Camden in 2001 and life took a whole new direction. Her book ‘The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect’ looks back at old-school rock PR, unmanageable bands, and the summit and collapse of the last scene she thinks we’ll ever see. You’ll enjoy …

… Morrissey at St George’s Hall, Blackburn

… deejaying at Liquidation in Liverpool playing psychedelia and Northern Soul

… the impossible task of being Pete Doherty’s PR: “like sand running through your fingers”

… the day its editor realised the NME was doomed

… the indie dilemma: wanting fame and publicity while appearing not to care

… the rise of Arctic Monkeys, the first big digital success story

… the financial crash, big label panic, illegal file-share and other woes of the 2010 music business

… why rock scenes are a thing of the past

… and the greatest Indie Sleaze record ever made.

Order copies of ‘The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect: the Last Indie Music Scene 2000-2010’ here:

https://www.roughtrade.com/product/janine-warren-foreword-by-alex-kapranos/the-world-was-a-mess-but-his-hair-was-perfect-the-last-indie-music-scene-2000-2010?algolia_query_id=5510672a106c0f77be3b364fe1f570ce&algolia_object_id=57550933459275&algolia_index=shopify_prod_products&algolia_position=

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week’s news in three separate files - the Good, the Bad and the Befuddling. Which involves …

… have Oasis created their own economy?

… are stadium gigs now like historical re-enactment?

… “people listen to music more intently in Manchester as they’re inside while it rains”

… ‘includes All Things Must Pass miniature garden gnomes!’ The mad money-draining joy of the luxury box-set

… when bands don’t change but audiences do

…Sun = Happiness, Rain = Sorrow: lyrics as an emotional weather forecast

… the pianist who wouldn’t play minor chords

… Nicky Hopkins on records by the Kinks, Beatles, Who and Stones (“She’s A Rainbow was like a music-box Mozart”): has any session player made a more vital contribution?

… “Lose two teeth in German nightclub brawl, go back to Burnage”: real and fictitious rock band Monopoly sets!

… Blue Nile, Ann Peebles, Beautiful South, Paul Simon? What’s the best song about rain?

Plus J Blackfoot, Paul Simon’s Kathy from Brentwood and birthday guest Matthew North.

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.