Word In Your Ear

Phil and his brother Steven started a market stall in Cheltenham in the mid-‘80s and made enough money selling rare records to open the world-famous Badlands (now occupying three floors of an old coach house). It’s been thriving ever since specialising in Springsteen and Dylan, collectible vinyl, books and box-sets and branching out into concert package tours all over Europe. Here he talks about t...

… in which we remember watching and talking to the magnificent Wilko Johnson and look back at extraordinary moments in his life – the hippie trail to India, his appearance on Question Time, the three albums the Feelgoods made in a year, how they discovered what made them unique and the effect on everyone from Television to the Clash, Gang of Four, Blur and Franz Ferdinand of the band “who could st...

Ken’s a world authority and he’s been on the pod twice before, talking about his books about George Martin and the last days of John Lennon. He’s just revised and updated the one he wrote in 2007, ‘Long And Winding Roads’, partly to add new observations and material, especially in the light of Peter Jackson’s Get Back, and partly because the beleaguered world now needs the Beatles more than ever....

Further free-wheeling conversational detours include …   … “like the consequences of mating Patti Smith with a Hoover vacuum cleaner”: barbed reviews in the Rolling Stone Record Guide. … ‘Bowie and Bing in a bauble’? The Taylor Swift ‘Merry Swiftmas’ t-shirt? Real or fictional Christmas accessories. … the four tracks by women - and there are only four! – among the 66 records Bob Dylan conside...

Things run up the flagpole this week in pursuit of entertainment …   … Irish/American punk rock group or 19th Century criminal gang?   … the eternal dependability of the first Stones album.   … does ANYONE not like ska?   …. seven “legends” you can still see for under £30.   ... the now-for-sale cache of ‘50s love letters by a besotted Bob Dylan (and would you want anyone...

On the radar this week in an enquiring, celebratory or goat-getting capacity …   … has the World Cup balloon already been unmendably punctured?   … and is the same thing happening to Twitter?   … “if social media had come along earlier would Sergeant Pepper exist?”   … Richard Osman-created fictional sleuth or rock stars’ real names: you decide.   … a chance meeting with J...

The teenage Trevor Horn could be found playing bass in dance bands on the Top Rank circuit supporting acts like Tommy Cooper (and singing Long-Haired Lover From Liverpool and Hi-Ho Silver Lining). He began writing songs for Tina Charles, had a worldwide hit with Buggles and went on to produce Dollar, ABC, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Malcolm McLaren, Grace Jones, Pet Shop Boys and countless others....

… in which we remember the luminous music and diabolical life of the last of the old rock and roll guard standing. And this includes … the weird old America he came from (backwoods country, religious sects with their transporting songs), the career-cancelling British tour in 1958, the electrifying Live at The Star Club album, the Steve Allen Show breakthrough and the Seven Wives of Jerry Lee Lewis...

Sheila’s portraits of ‘80s musicians and the club circuit filled the pages of magazines like the Face and Smash Hits at the time and now feature in her book ‘80s: Sound And Vision’. You’ll know a few from album sleeves too. She talks here about some favourites – Nick Logan in the Face office, Bryan Ferry, Bowie with Marc Bolan, Martin Fry in the famous gold lamé suit, Siouxsie in ‘Japanese chic’,...

In the crosshairs this week …   Sampha, Skepta? Mercury Prize winner or Italian sports-shoe brand?   Was Revolver really the Beatles’ most “consequential” album?   James Corden v Balthazar: fame in the age of social media.   Liz Truss, Steven Gerrard, Bruce Springsteen and knowing “what it’s like to have failed with the whole world looking on”.   Danny Baker’s selling 12,0...

Craig was on the pod last year talking about his glorious Beatles book ‘One Two Three Four’ and he’s just published a collection of his writing called ‘Haywire: the Best of Craig Brown’ – Private Eye diaries, columns, reviews, essays and other assorted comic gems. It’s very good indeed. “Satirists,” he reminds you, “are on the side of things going wrong.” Here are just a few of the topics that stu...

One of them is Sympathy For The Devil. The Stranglers are in the Top Five too, as are the Strawbs. The best-selling historian and documentary-maker has spent the last three years working on his monumental, all-encompassing new book, ‘The World: A Family History’, much of it hammered out to the sound of very loud music. And he’s made a playlist to accompany it that connects with this vast human dra...

In which we waspishly suggest the odd nip and tuck is now standard practice - and name a few obvious suspects. And alight upon …   … Nick Hornby’s new book and the connections he’s found between Dickens and Prince.     … support acts we’ve seen who became household names.   … David’s dinner with Jess Phillips MP and what happened the day JK Rowling got a tour of the House...

Things picked up by the ankles this week and given a light shaking to see what falls out of their pockets …   … why King Crimson is like no other band on God’s green earth.  ... a sweet story about a Let It Rock writer David's just met at a book event.   … a McCartney Stackwaddy game.   … when did rock souvenir posters become a thing?   ... why Robert Crumb didn’t apologis...

Things given a grilling this week in hot pursuit of revelation and entertainment …   .. would YOU pay £45 to see Ian Brown and some backing tracks?   … the life of the late Joe Bussard, collector of 25,000 78s “who partied like it was 1929”. Joe thought real jazz ended in 1933 and the last great country record was Jimmy Murphy’s I’m Looking For A Mustard Patch. We love this man.   ....

In powerful pursuit of amusement and distraction we aim the piercing supertrouper of scrutiny this week in the direction of …   … why Ry Cooder MUST write a memoir.   … records that sounded like nothing you’d ever heard before, eg the Message by Grandmaster Flash and Donna Summer’s I Feel Love.     ... nighttime footage of the State Funeral rehearsal.   … why ‘Delhi C...

The Eiffel Tower dimmed its lights, the radio played “music for a solemn occasion” and this week’s pod is a reflection about the woman who’s been Queen all our lives (and we’re old enough to remember the national anthem being played in cinemas), why she looked so heroically bored, her diplomatic approach to clapping, whether she viewed life “through binoculars held the wrong way round” and how har...

Among the thoughts, theories and assorted old hokey in the firing line this week you will happily find …   … rock biopics someone ought to be making   … memories of Drummie Zeb and Aswad at Nottingham Boat Club   … the time British Forces radio turned down Whitney Houston   … the “awful fat man that spoilt Lady Di’s memorial for everyone”   … the slight return of the Stack...

Welcome to this week’s pod in which various white-hot topics are brought in for questioning, among them …   … Whatever happened to Dando Shaft?   … Alastair Sim, Terry-Thomas and flowsy saxophones in The Belles of St Trinian’s   … Does it matter if music-making acts are fictitious or that rappers are artificial and produced by computer graphics and AI?   … how many people were...

In bold and vigorous pursuit of entertainment we steer via the following topics …   … Thora Hird with a rifle.   … acts who wrote rejected songs for Bond movies.   … the legend of Van Duren.   … hilariously awful revelations about the private plane use of Taylor Swift, Tom Cruise, Steven Spielberg etc on @CelebJets.     … is pop music now largely about an old thi...

Our weekly stroll through the sunlit uplands of rock and roll visits the following topics … … Bob Dylan’s worst lyrics … musicians in movies, actors who made albums (Judi Dench?) and the slight return of the Stackwaddy game … why Hole in The Ground is the greatest comedy record ever made, plus the staggering versatility of Bernard Cribbins … the contents of the basket at the beginning of Two-Way S...

While Mark Ellen is away in his French chateau, David Hepworth goes off on one about Bruce Springsteen tours and why you can't use "dynamic pricing" in the world of live music and why the concert-going audience can always be divided into the bringer and the brung. Plus Alex Gold explains why he chose to go to southern Italy in the middle of an unprecedented heat wave with not one but two pairs of...

In which we paddle our conversational canoe through the rock and roll backwaters, stopping off this week at …   … the closure of Word magazine ten years ago and what we miss – and don’t miss - about it.   … who in their right mind in this day and age would possibly want to be famous?   … Bruce Findlay, the country’s only famous record store owner.   … the energetic sexual activ...

High in the conversational mix this week …    … the return the Stackwaddy game! - do Ben & Jerry’s do a Bohemian Raspberry? Are there really Apple Music genres called Pillow Talk and Countrypolitan?   … Errol Flynn and his dachshund water-skiing.  … James Caan’s opening scene in Misery. … is Nick Kyrgios the first ‘rap’ tennis star?   … why ‘Indie’ doesn’t tolerate non...

Nearly every Island act seemed impossibly hip, characterful and charismatic and much of that was down to the vision and long-term belief of the man who founded the label and ran it for 30 years. Chris Blackwell beams in from Goldeneye, the Ian Fleming estate he bought in Jamaica, to remember Errol Flynn and his dachshund waterskiing, the wit and charm of Noel Coward, record-buying trips for the lo...