Word In Your Ear

Peter Capaldi – aka Malcolm Tucker, Dr Who, the universal screen delight and an Oscar-winning film director – was the singer in the punk band the Dreamboys in the late ‘70s who put out a single when he was at the art school in Glasgow. And then became an actor. And then - in the grand tradition of actors who’ve made albums, Hugh Laurie, Scarlett Johansson, Jeff Bridges and Keanu Reeves among them...

The teenage Alan Parsons was hired as a tape op by EMI and worked with the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Steve Harley, orchestras, comedians, Pinky And Perky and countless others in the control room at Abbey Road, and saw almost 60 years of technical revolution. He’s just finished a 50th anniversary box set of Harley’s the Best Years Of Our Lives and talks here from his Santa Monica home studio about …&nbs...

Perched outside the Vatican Of News awaiting puffs of white smoke, which this week arrive in the following fashion …   … Brandi Carlile’s Mothership Weekend and her genius for publicity.   … Jim Morrison is alive and living in Syracuse, New York!: barrel-scraping new rock documentary incoming.   … Hip Hop Wealth v Rock Wealth: the $57m house Kayne West bought, gutted and left to dis...

Dennis McNally was the Grateful Dead’s publicist in the mid-‘80s, one of many reasons why he’s supremely qualified to write his new book about the birth of the counterculture in America’s West and East Coast and Britain. ‘The Last Great Dream: How Bohemians Became Hippies And Created the Sixties’, a celebration of music, beat poetry, radical thinking, free speech and artistic liberty, seems even m...

Passing the thermometer of conversation over the rock and roll news to see where the mercury rises, which this week includes …   … the new Barbra Streisand duets album. Duets are ‘playlets’, small intense dramas that depend on human interaction, but so many are recorded separately (including, tragically, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell).   … but … duets you...

In which comedian Al Murray and historian James Holland talk about their new book Victory ’45 and our twin national obsessions, the Second World War and The Beatles. Includes: ….how being emotionally shut down enabled Montgomery to collect the surrender at Luneburg Heath ….how a profound sense of duty helped Harry Truman make the most dreadful decisions anyone has ever faced …how German soldi...

Derek Shulman was at the heart of two great transformations – Simon Dupree & the Big Sound switching to psychedelia, and then sensing the prog-rock trade winds and becoming Gentle Giant. One minute he was singing Kites, the next Pantagruel’s Nativity (Gentle Giant’s rebooted ‘Playing The Fool: The Complete Live Experience’ is just out). After which he was a record label president signing Bon J...

While Mark Ellen is hanging out with the other old ruins in Athens, David Hepworth and Alex Gold compare and contrast the organisation of the London Marathon with the Travellodge in Frimley and wonder… …Rolling Stone cover stars or members of Trump’s clown cabinet? …if you were interviewed as often as a rock star would you too make stuff up? …was Max Romeo’s innocent explanation of “Wet Dream" con...

Moon Zappa grew up in what appeared, on the outside, to be an enviably free-wheeling and creative household in Laurel Canyon. On the inside, not so much. Her extremely funny, soul-baring and colourful account of dysfunctional family life in her memoir Earth To Moon is as gripping as it’s unsettling. A typical day: “Your mother’s on the rampage, I need you to hide the gun!” Only other children with...

We like to think of Daryl Hall as a kindred spirit, his home-recorded Live At Daryl’s House series with its magnificent roster of guests now racking up 90 episodes. He’s about to tour in May and talks to us here from his house in the Bahamas – straw hat, roosters crowing! – looking back at the first gigs he ever saw and played and other delights such as …    … travelling with his mother’...

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...