Word In Your Ear

Rockfield is a converted farmhouse in the Welsh countryside where, for over 50 years, bands have lived while recording. In the ‘70s Tiffany Murray’s mum was the in-house cook, filling Motorhead to the brim with boeuf bourguignon and Black Sabbath with salmon en croute. Her touching memoir My Family And Other Rock Stars – hailed as “a rock and roll Cider With Rosie” – sees a succession of visiting...

Mark Blake calls Dreams: the Many Lives of Fleetwood Mac a “mosaic biography”, their almost six-decade saga presented as a series of enthralling short stories with titles like ‘Mick Fleetwood’s Great Epiphany’ and ‘Rumours: A Doomed Romance in Six Acts’. It opens in fact with a “cast of characters”, the 18 one-time members, as if dramatis personae in a play, a play that gets more outlandish and du...

Beloved Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith, old pal of the pod, is touring the UK in November, two of the nights at the Palladium, and looks back here at the first shows he saw and played himself. Which delights include …   … what you learn playing Canadian bars aged 16.   … seeing Elton John in a 75,000-seater stadium when he was 12.   … early memories of the Kinks and th...

Passing the baton of discourse on the rock and roll racetrack, our Olympian hosts sprint in the following direction …   … watching Toumani Diabaté play in the pitch-black Malian night.   … Laurel Canyon, the Brain Damage Club and the great fire of ‘79.   … the Kinks in Fortis Green Road, the Beatles in Chiswick House and other alternative London rock landmarks.   … is Cerr...

Once again the ping-pong ball of conversation is batted across the rock and roll net and these are the scores on the doors …    … how to wreck the national anthem.   … cover versions that are better than the original.   … the genius of Bob Newhart - "nutty Walt", Abraham Lincoln and that gag about country music.   … virtue signalling in rock magazines.   … why we conn...

There’s something romantic about glorious failure and Will nails it perfectly in ‘Street Level Superstar: A Year With Lawrence’. Over 40 years plagued by bad luck and self-sabotage with Felt, Denim and Mozart Estate, Lawrence has pursued fame and success while refusing to do what’s required to achieve them. Will spent 12 months wandering the streets of London with him to paint a fond, touching and...

Employing controversial VAR technology, we re-examine various events on the rock and roll pitch and suggest a new perspective. Those key moments include …    … the “bucolic frolic” at Knebworth 50 years ago as seen from 100 yards away just past the burger van and featuring Tim Buckley, Alex Harvey, the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Van Morrison, the Doobie Brothers and the Allman Brothers Band....

Broadcaster and music writer Ann Powers lives in Nashville and grew up listening to Kate Bush and Blondie. The siren call of Blue sparked a life-long and deep-rooted devotion and her new book Travelling: On The Path Of Joni Mitchell takes a different tack from the standard biographies, mapping the context of the songs, the forces that drove her, the steel will it took to succeed and the love affai...

The first EPs appeared in the late ‘40s and ‘50s (Frank Sinatra, Elvis) hitting a magical sweet spot between the album and the single and they’ve cast a spell ever since, an exotic reminder that record labels are part of the packaged goods business. Music writer Corey duBrowa stumbled across one by Oingo Boingo in the original Licorice Pizza store in Long Beach, California, when he was 13 and bega...

The rock and roll ballot-box is stuffed with votes and the exit polls suggest how this week’s debate might play out. Along these lines …   … is there still such a thing as British music?   … John Lennon as a lavatory attendant.   … Pink Floyd’s miming lessons.   .. how Neil Finn cheered up the All Blacks.   … the staggering difference in the UK album charts in the weeks th...

We’ve known Dylan since the days he was editing i-D, Arena and GQ and he’s been a regular on our podcasts talking about his books on Live Aid, the ‘80s, David Bowie and Wichita Lineman. And he’s finally written his memoir, These Foolish Things, full of insights and stories about glam rock, punk, the Blitz, four decades of the magazine world and the people he interviewed and shepherded into awards...

In which we hoof a few balls round the rock and roll pitch and try to stick some in the net. Extracts from the live match commentary include ….   … “Whipping Post!” “Paint it black, you devil!”: when did the audience become part of the show?   … the special, unrepeatable thing about Bill Evans At The Village Vanguard.   … GambleGate and the most we’ve ever bet on anything.   …...

The two-man tandem of curiosity wobbles its way down the rock and roll cyclepath pausing here to admire the view …   … “We’re captive on the carousel of TIME-AH!!”: tuneless Northern club singer Reg “Reg” Snipton performs Ver Greats.   … is going to gigs alone becoming a thing?   ... why Phil Oakey was a better musician than any of ELP.   … Seven Nation Army in football stadium...

Clare Grogan, a regular on our podcasts and rarely off the cover when we were at Smash Hits, is on tour again with Altered Images and playing festivals in the summer – indeed her fabulous description of the bus ferrying her, Midge Ure, Nik Kershaw, Kim Wilde and Living in A Box to the stage at Rewind sounds like an old Smash Hits cartoon come to life. As she points out, “the ‘80s revival has gone...

Graeme is an old friend of the podcast. We’ve talked to him in the past about his books on Phil Lynott and John Martyn. ‘Under The Ivy: the Life And Music of Kate Bush’ first appeared in 2010, and was revised in 2015 after her Before the Dawn concerts and it’s now been updated again as, despite no new music or public appearances, her worldwide reputation has rocketed through the roof. We look back...

Among the logs tossed on the conversational bonfire this week to combat mid-June’s British winter you’ll find … … ‘I Managed Van Morrison’ and other films screaming to be made.  … how it feels to watch someone play from the best seat in the house. … Françoise Hardy, her unsmiling photos and legions of besotted male admirers (ie us and everyone else).  … the time she met Dylan and Nick Dr...

Stewart Lee – beloved writer, columnist and stand-up - was on the podcast in 2022 talking about the first records he bought, immensely funny and fascinating, and we’ve been praying for an excuse to get him back since. And it’s here! - he’s on tour again and his ‘Basic Lee’ show is on Sky/Now TV on July 20. This covers his first memories of live entertainment - in the audience and as a performer –...

You’ll always find us in the kitchen at parties, near the hoppy summer ale and sausage rolls and, and this week discussing …   … he hasn't changed his look or sound for 30 years: is there a more conservative concept than Liam Gallagher? And how he became the one-man Oasis.   … the eye-watering sum Kevin Hart made from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.   … Loudermilk, Rob Gordon in Hig...

“I thought Dave Davies of the Kinks was a girl. When I discovered he was a boy, that’s when I got interested.” Jon’s an old friend of the podcast and the author of some highly regarded and influential books about pop and its repercussions, ‘England’s Dreaming’ and ‘1966: the Year The Decade Exploded’ among them. His latest is ‘The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Performers Shaped Popular Culture 1955-197...

Giles was 12 when he watched Abba win Eurovision in 1974 and was instantly besotted – and thus required to spend the next 20 years wrestling with The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name. His thunderingly funny, fond and illuminating book – My My!: Abba Through The Years – traces their story, looks at the snobbery and critical mauling they endured and figures out how they made records so universally...

Peter Meaden was a key figure in the Mod movement. He changed the world view of Andrew Loog Oldham, which shaped the early Stones, and he managed the Who, remodelling their look and sound, writing their first single and turning them into Mod figureheads. Steve Turner interviewed him in 1975, an exchange that's now the centrepiece of his new book 'King Mod: the Story of Peter Meaden, the Who and th...

This week the conversational Super-Trouper of Enquiry lights up the following … ... why care when "rock critics get it wrong"?  ... the dreadful death of the Allman brothers' dad.  ... is there any other branch of entertainment where you can be two hours late onstage? ... has any show got worse reviews than Eddie Izzard's one-woman Hamlet? ... the unlikely tale of how Iron Butterfly chan...

Tuning into this week's rock and roll soundwave to filter signal from noise, we cranked up the volume on the following ... ... 'Zuma Nester Rock' and the eternal curse of rock stars' kids' names.  ... Bowie's spat with Robbie Williams at Netaid.  ... celebrating awkward sods like Kevin Rowland. ... why Paul Carrack has seen it all. ... 'Lewis' Armstrong, 'Hoosker Doo' and others we've be...

They Might Be Giants – old school fiends John Flansburgh and John Linnell – have been making elliptical, funny and adventurous records for over 40 years and writing music for children, advertising and TV comedies. We talk to John Linnell here about songwriting, early shows in art spaces, the way you saw the world when a "wiseacrey teenager" and what you can expect from their autumn tour. Which, in...

Guy Chambers was a teenager in Liverpool and at John Lennon’s old school - "same headmaster, Mister Pobjoy". He remembers the Beatles, Queen, Abba and Jesus Christ Superstar sparking his interest in the "perfect song package" and went on to work with Tina Turner, Rufus Wainwright, Kylie, Diana Ross and scores of others. He talks here about early shows he saw, records bought and his own tour in the...