Word In Your Ear

  Gary Kemp has been posting reels of his recent visits to old haunts in Soho where he and his early bands used to rehearse, this in the run-up to releasing a third solo album, ‘This Destination’, in January. We talk to him here about how records were made and promoted in the ‘80s and how radically that’s changed today. Which includes …   … “all media is now about getting and keeping peo...

We ran our patent heat-sensing Scrutiniser®️ over the week’s news and here’s what set the bells off …   … are buskers now more expensive live entertainment than Taylor Swift?   … a Dickensian oik in Chapel Market and other riddles of modern etiquette.   … ‘Holiness and horniness’: how Hallelujah rebooted Leonard Cohen and became a one-song industry.   … the teenage self-promoti...

Paddling the three-man conversational kayak across the rock and roll rapids this week involved …   … Olive Mess, Candied Yams, Gorilla Biscuits …? Challenging indie act or seasonal vegan recipe?   … the amount YMCA earned through Donald Trump and why the man who wrote it is complaining.   … Tom Hanks’ valuable words of wisdom.   … Neil Tennant’s favourite bridge in a pop song (...

Joni Mitchell called it “stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song”. Every record sent out for review used to come with a press release knocked together by an over-excited PR before terms like “psychedelia” or “prog” had been invented. They were scanned once for the odd fact or quote and usually chucked in the bin. Richard Morton Jack has tracked down scores of these handouts from 1...

Reversing into tomorrow! This week’s news events given a vigorous once-over include …   … what will a Trump guitar be worth in 30 years’ time?   … the average age of a Glastonbury goer and how it sells its TV coverage.     … “the Beatles in America was like Cortez arriving in South America, the clash of two civilizations. How did this film manage to balls the story up so c...

R.E.M. considered themselves missionaries against the prevailing pop culture – no solos, no old-school stagecraft, no printed lyrics, no lip-syncing, no hard-sell videos, no obvious leader – and mapped out a whole new route to international success. Peter Ames Carlin, whose books include biographies of Springsteen, Brian Wilson and Paul Simon, talks to us here about ‘The Name of this Band is R.E.M...

Neil Storey worked in the Island press office in the ‘70s and ‘80s and has set out on mammoth undertaking, to compile a series of gorgeous, album-sleeve-sized books telling the story of virtually every record the label released in its pioneering history and talking to all involved - musicians, producers, designers, photographers, label staff – and collecting old music press ads and ephemera from t...

Danny Baker, the act you’ve known for all these years, is kicking his legs up again in 2025 on a thundering new theatre tour, ‘Aye Aye! Ahoy Hoy!’ “Dead men tell no tales,” he points out, “so we might might as well get ‘em all told now.” This will be another barnstorming one-man circus - as, naturally, is this barrelling conversation with the two of us which collides with the following …   …...

This week’s events piled into a pipe and enthusiastically smoked include …     … our memories of being at the Band Aid recording in Sarm studios, November 25 1984.   … why it was the last dance of the mass media and why nothing could have the same impact now.   … the “household name” that made all the difference.   … the real reason Bob Geldof could be involved. ...

One of our rays of sunshine in the dark days of Lockdown was Toyah and Robert’s Sunday Lunch, fizzing clips of the two of them in their Dorset kitchen, him playing off-brand rock and roll, her singing in extravagant finery, occasionally on an exercise bike. Their version of Metallica’s Enter Sandman got 8.6m views alone. One time they were dressed as bees, another re-staging Swan Lake wearing tutu...

John Lydon is among us in 2025 - with Public Image in May and on his Spoken Word tour in September. Entertainment is guaranteed, as it is in this podcast with Mark where he considers … Norman Wisdom, Frankie Howerd, Tommy Cooper and the “sadness in all comedians”, stage fright, the day his dad threw him out of the house, why PiL is like opera, Ray Davies, Bryan Ferry, the “crippled emotions” of yo...

In which we feed the week’s events through our heat-seeking Fun-Filter®️ to see what makes the bell ring. Which includes …   … Richard Ashcroft in the new John Lewis Christmas ad.   … U2 v Coldplay, the Beatles v Pink Floyd – rock bands and the “diploma divide”.   … why can we still recite entire song lyrics we learnt when teenagers but can’t remember the shopping list we wrote this...

He’s written some of the darkest entries in the American songbook but became world famous with a sunny celebration of friendship on the soundtrack of “Toy Story”. Inbetween can be found a staggering range of songs dealing with everything from short people to Vladimir Putin, from performing bears to the Louisiana Flood., from ELO to the Great Nations Of Europe, all of which show up in this authorit...

After many years of invisibility, Peter Perrett of the Only Ones is out, about and on tour again and talks to us here about the first gigs he ever saw and played, which involves …   … what time he goes to bed.   … “he writes better lyrics than Elvis Costello and is prettier than Billy Idol”: why Nick Kent’s review was an insult.   … seeing the Small Faces in 1966, the Floyd with Syd...

Things this week that sent the needle into the red included …   … the last dance craze the whole world noticed.   ... “Rock stars used to be anti-establishment. Now they ARE the establishment.”   … artworks, flags, bespoke I-Ching Coins … would YOU pay £1,350 for a box set?   … why Quincy Jones made records like a movie director.   ... how Dylan’s Biograph and Springsteen’...

The most streamed Beatles song – 700 million plays more than any other – is not by Lennon/McCartney but George who, as author Seth Rogovoy points out, is still widely considered “an economy-class Beatle” though his contributions were central to the success of their records. Seth’s new book ‘Within You Without You: Listening to George Harrison’ sets out to right this monstrous wrong! As does this c...

Ian Broudie and the Lightning Seeds are about to set out on their 35th Anniversary Greatest Hits Tour – aka “beery parties”. He talks to us here about the first bands he ever saw and played in, which involves …   … memories of the Liverpool School of Language, Music, Dream and Pun.   … the secret of seeming enigmatic: “Never finish your sentences …”   … how Three Lions brought a who...

Our crack pair of inquisitors tackle the week’s events and sift out the good, the bad and the riveting, which includes …   … whatever happened to savage reviews?   … “For God’s sake, keep the robots out of music!”: the 50th birthday of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn.   … a Naked Nick Cave Plush Doll (£24) and some Jonny Greenwood olive oil.   … strange tales about the making of Disraeli...

Elliot Mintz, then a West Coast radio presenter, met the Lennons in 1971, the start of a close, unique and extraordinary friendship and hours of late-night phone calls. And he’s finally written a book about it, We All Shine On: John, Yoko & Me, which records the isolated, complicated life they led imprisoned by their celebrity, at times joyous and outlandish, at others bleak and uncomfortably...

Brushing aside the cobweb spray and luminous flashing skulls, we ring rock and roll’s doorbell in pursuit of both tricks and treats. Among which you’ll find …   … the gothification of entertainment … Harry Potter, Creedence Clearwater and Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings.   … Donald Trump dancing to Jeff Buckley.    … why Phil Lesh was the heart and soul of the Grateful Dead....

Mark King and Level 42 have just announced 2025 tour dates and he talks to us here about …   … the value of what you learn in covers bands from being ignored.   … why being thrown out of home for being thrown out of school was the best thing that ever happened to him.   … Level 42’s first gig, kicked off after four songs.   … Chile, Turkey and other new markets on the “flatter...

This is an extraordinary story on many levels – about the power and sanctuary of music, about what it took for bands to get noticed in the ‘70s, about how a teenager obsessed with King Crimson eventually joined the band and about the struggles of “a rabid Henry Cow fan trying to get on Top of the Pops”. Jakko Jakszyk is a fabulous storyteller, both in his memoir ‘Who’s the Boy With The Lovely Hair...

  Applying our patent wheat-chaff separator to recent rock and roll events, we filter out the following …   … “They’ve got the guns but we got the numbers”: whatever happened to political songs?   … the life of Libby Titus and the afterlife of Love Has No Pride.   … when gigs become stalking with a musical component.   … how Taylor Swift Tickets became the new currency. &n...

You’ll know Miranda Sawyer from the Observer and the radio and, possibly, from her days at Smash Hits and Select magazines that form the foundation of her new book, Uncommon People: Britpop and Beyond in 20 Songs, a time spent watching, interviewing and hanging out with the collection of misfits and outsiders fast becoming the last great musical movement this country ever saw. This pans in on the...

Our record-breaking partnership faces a fresh set of spin bowlers on the rock and roll pitch but rifles a few shots over the pavilion roof, among them …   … the time Elvis let his daughter ride her pony through the house.   … when Moon Zappa (10) found naked hippies making candles in the garden.   … “Can you get that? It might be someone important.” The Queen when her mobile rang. &...