Word In Your Ear

The chocolate Easter bunny of rock and roll news in highly nutritious and digestible fragments, such as …    … the Who’s very public sacking of Zak Starkey.   … why no band ever wants to play quietly.   … how a magazine in a shop window sparked the Neil Tennant/Mark Springer album.   … Katy Perry’s space ‘mission’ and the trenchant observations by her and the ‘crew’ – “I c...

Dave Pegg joined Fairport Convention 56 years ago and fully deserves some sort of medal. They’re playing their 49th Cropredy in August and touring the UK later in the year. He talks to us here about the first gigs he ever saw and played which, delightfully, involves …   … the night Hank Marvin took him to see Bjork.   … an all-nighter in Birmingham with John Mayall, Eric Clapton, Chris F...

Boldly pursuing tariff-free trade in rock and roll news, nostalgia, gossip and old hokum since 2007 and, this week, featuring …   … the romantic allure of life as a critic.   … Sting’s part in the success of ‘Adolescence’.   … Mick Jagger’s long engagement to Melanie Hamrick (born when Steel Wheels came out!)   … "Contained within these grooves are twelve convincing arguments a...

Sparks are touring – playing dates in the UK and Ireland in June and July – and with a new (and 28th) album, Mad!. Russell Mael looks back at the first shows he ever saw and played which entails …   … sitting on the floors of LA clubs watching Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Move, the Faces, the Who and Tyrannosaurus Rex.     … his Mum taking him to see the Beatles in the Hollywo...

The runners and riders in the rock and roll steeplechase first past the post this week include …   … how Ed Sheeran protects himself against song theft claims.   … ‘lost’ Hendrix, Beach Boys, Amy Winehouse and Jeff Buckley records: is anything unfinished ever any good?   … “The Unauthorised Breakfast Item”: can YOU tell a Bob Newhart sketch title from a Caravan song?   … US Off...

Ed Tudor Pole entered punk rock from stage school and always felt he was playing a part. After being hired to act in the Great Rock’N’Roll Swindle, he formed Tenpole Tudor and had a brief and dramatic moment in the sun, all recorded in his rollicking memoir ‘The Pen Is Mightier.’ He talks here about …   … his “quite posh” ancestry and a great-grandfather bankrupted by the Wall Street Crash. &...

Scanning the rock and roll ether with our patent heat-seeking Ripple-Detector®️ to see what rings the bell. Which this week includes …   … how reformed ‘90s pop groups all look like Paul Whitehouse characters from the Fast Show.   … the mutual agony of parents taking kids to concerts.   … “Tap! Tap! Tap!”, the “gacked up” sound of the Heartbreakers’ at work in Fort Petty.   … “...

The super-trouper of scrutiny scans this week’s events and lands upon …   … the man who’s played on 21,000 records.   … how Joni Mitchell is still stirring it up aged 81 and why we love her for it.   ... the impact of the stadium circuit on rock festivals.   … the longest-surviving group in the world – bowing out at Glastonbury after 66 years!   … “fake indignation” on soc...

Kate’s an old pal from our days at Word magazine. She was on the staff for six years before heading off to the New Statesman and has just put out a collection of the sizzling and revelatory profiles she wrote for us, them and the Observer about a particular sector of the musical landscape for whom she’s always carried a torch. As she wonders in ‘Men Of A Certain Age: My Encounters with Rock Royalt...

John Harris is an old pal from our days in the music press. You might remember him from Sounds, the NME and Select (which he edited) and he’s been one of the mainstays of the Guardian ever since, writing mostly about pop culture and politics. When his son James was diagnosed with autism and, looking for ways to connect with him and help his development, John began playing him various types of musi...

This one starts with memories of Genesis at Farnborough Tech in 1972 – Batwings? Fox heads? - looks back at school bands and the early ‘70s and ends with the current Mike & the Mechanics tour. But it mostly centres on the first live shows Mike Rutherford ever saw and played which features …   … his mum making him wash the Brylcreem from his hair before seeing Cliff & the Shadows when...

The Waterboys’ new album comes with the magnificent title ‘Life, Death & Dennis Hopper’ and the band start touring in May. Mike Scott looks back here at the first gigs he ever saw and played and the performers he watched closely, which involves … the Stones “when they were still dangerous” and the connective genius of Mick Jagger, Dennis Hopper’s lost decade, Nazareth and Emerson Lake & Pa...

In eager pursuit of dance and merriment, we dust down the current events. Which this week involves ….   … are teenagers no longer in love? And what does this mean for pop music?   … are people better musicians now than 40 years ago? And is that because you can get online tutorials explaining how to play everything?   … Paul McCartney taking two buses across Liverpool just to learn t...

Someone else we put on the cover of Smash Hits 40 years ago who’s touring in 2025! He’s playing European festivals, ‘80s packages, dates with his band and a string of solo shows billed as ‘Musings & Lyrics With Nik Kershaw’, and talks to us here about the first gigs he ever saw and played, which involves …   … a bad case of Imposter Syndrome.   … how the relationship with your audien...

Gang Of Four’s moment was dramatic but brief. It was littered with times when the future seemed impossibly bright before disaster crept up with a cosh in their relentless “refusal to do the obvious”. Being a musician, he points out, is a ridiculous life best not taken seriously. His memoir ‘To Hell With Poverty!’ rightly describes itself as “rich with stories”, many remembered in this spirited exc...

Tyres pumped, engine cranked, chromework winking in the Springtime sun, the two-man conversational jalopy sets off on its weekly spin and visits …   … the day America broke the news and showed its dark side.     … Brian James RIP and Stiff’s brilliant ad campaign for the first Damned album: “Play it at your sister!”   … has entertainment been dwarfed by world events? &nbsp...

We’re long-time admirers of Denny Tedesco’s “Wrecking Crew” doc which celebrated the studio musicians of 60s Hollywood, the unseen hands who can be heard on all those Beach Boys and Spector hits. Now he’s done something similar with the musicians who were so much part of the success of James Taylor, Carole King and Warren Zevon in the next decade in “The Immediate Family”. We’re delighted to have...

Ian Leslie posted his ‘64 Reasons To Celebrate Paul McCartney’ in 2020 and the viral reaction to its piercing and original points encouraged him to write ‘John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs’. Do we need another Beatles book? We do if it’s this one! It’s exceptionally good and highly recommended. The conventional wisdom for decades was that John was the tormented, anti-establishment genius and...

In which we pedal the conversational tandem uphill and down dale, like a rabbit through the pea-vine or a turkey through the corn, stopping for moments of reflection which include …   … “If someone wants to steal your music, it means your music’s worth stealing.”   … cats, birdsong: spot the ‘silent track’ by Kate Bush.     … when Gene Hackman smiles, be very afraid. &nbsp...

We first saw Graham Fellows as Jilted John on Top of the Pops in 1978 and we’ve followed his characters ever since, especially drawn to the keyboard-prodding, car-coated John Shuttleworth and his deathless pop anthems ‘Pigeons In Flight’, ‘Up And Down Like A Bride’s Nightie’ and ‘I Can’t Go Back To Savoury Now’. Graham talks here about how and why he created them (and rock media studies lecturer B...

As sinister autocrats stroke Persian cats in shark-pooled underground bunkers, their bony fingers reaching for the nuclear button, we shake another Vodka Martini and reflect on the week’s events, among them …   … Amazon buys Bond: but isn’t the essence of 007 its droll and unimpressible Britishness?   … and haven’t the lunatics taken over the asylum? Can you still invent unhinged fantasy...

Nights In White Satin - 260 million streams on Spotify - is still the central plank in the set Justin Hayward’s touring in October. He talks to us here about the first shows he ever saw and played, the ballroom circuit of the mid-’60s remembered in particularly vivid detail and involving the odd burst of song - “My kind of town, Great Yarmouth is …!”. Along with …   … the appeal of “a Moody B...

No musician is more closely associated with London or left more footprints than Bowie, and you can trace its influence on his life and work (and vice versa) through a series of landmarks from the suburbs to the centre. Author and curator Paul Gorman has just published an annotated street-map – David Bowie’s London - listing the places that played a formative role in his world and music, the places...

We first saw Eddi Reader singing with the Gang Of Four on Whistle Test in 1982. This eventful pod traces her story from seven kids in a two-bedroom council flat (“me in the toilet with a guitar singing Your Cheating Heart”), to the Scottish folk clubs, busking with circus acrobats on the Left Bank, to radio jingles, life as a backing singer and the rapid rise of Fairground Attraction who reformed...

Passing the Dutchie 'pon the left-hand side, we sift through this week’s events, rants and theories which absorbingly include …   … that Drake v Kendrick Lamar beef in full!   … was Bowie only as good as his collaborators?   … Kingmaker, Toploader, Feeder, Slayer, Longdancer, Widowmaker …. has there ever been a good band with a name ending ‘-er’?   …… seeing the Jam at the Hope...