Word In Your Ear

London restaurants were where musicians, actors, writers and TV stars were seen “and how you knew where they were in the days before social media”. They were a form of theatre with a shifting cast and a way of gauging celebrity status. Dylan Jones – who’s lunched long and hard in the heart of the media – sees that vanishing world as a measure of changing times and fashions in his toothsome new book ‘Table Hopping: the Secret History of London Restaurants’. And pulls up two chairs for us here to look back at …

… the birth of pop culture at the...

‘To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and civilizations and to boldly go where no podcasters have been before!’ Which this week involves …

… the lost 1978 Bowie footage about to tour arenas

… why Indie songs have such long intros

… Jagger’s great-granddaughter is three years older than one of his sons?!

… how Bill Wyman survived Brian Jones and the letter Jones sent Charlie asking him to join the band

… when Patrick Stewart worked for the Dewsbury Reporter

… what John Steinbeck wrote to M...

Whenever Carl Palmer joined a band, he was head-hunted by a bigger one - the King Bees, Chris Farlowe & the Thunderbirds, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Atomic Rooster and, eventually, Emerson Lake & Palmer. We get a vivid whirlwind tour here of six decades onstage – modest, very funny, barely pausing for breath – and a full account of how ‘An Evening with Emerson Lake & Palmer’ will work when he tours the show in 2027 (and the setlist). Tons of highlights, blink and you’ll miss them, these just a few …

… “You can’t call the group Emerson Lake & Palmer! What if so...

Tom Hagler works at the BBC with access to every TV and radio programme involving Joni Mitchell for 50 years, all full of revelations about her songs and the times she spent in London. So he transcribed the interviews – even the bits off-camera - and talked to the people who’d watched them being recorded, now published as ‘River Of Words: Joni Mitchell At the BBC’. It’s full of fresh angles and good stories, like this podcast which touches on …

… Joni living on cigarettes, coffee and chocolate in a Bayswater flat in 1968

… early exposure by John...

Stirring the spice-filled gumbo of news and turning the heat up. This week’s nutritious ingredients include ….

… is everything better shorter?

… the greatest opening line in a book ever written

… did Tom Waits, Warren Zevon, Joe Cocker, the Bee Gees, Cheap Trick, Sam Cooke, Talking Heads or Bill Evans make the greatest live album of all time?

… the worst beers Buster Poindexter ever had

… rock stars’ alter egos – Lady Gaga as Jo Calderone, Andy Partridge as Sir John Johns, George Clinton as Mr Wiggles, Justin Hawkins as...

Helen’s violin at the start of Come On Eileen has filled a million wedding dancefloors. She was a member of Dexys Midnight Runners, later their musical director, at the boom time of Too Rye Ay (and its wobbly sequel) and captures the thrill of it all in her just-updated memoir, What’s She Like: A Violinist’s Tale. You’ll love this conversation - warm, candid, forgiving and touching on all the following …

… the day the dungarees arrived

… the tribal nature of bands

… the social skills required in a group as tangled...

We first met Nigel Dick in the late ‘70s when he was the motorbike messenger for Stiff Records and watched him rocket to success in the video boom, directing career-launching clips for Guns N’Roses, Tears for Fears and Britney Spears and working with Cher, Joni Mitchell and McCartney, all recorded in his memoir ‘Music Video Mischief’. He looks back here on that big-budget golden age and the rise of the amateurs from his home in Colorado and stops off at …

… ‘You have to work out where the power lies’

… the story of the million dollar...

Two fearless men journey to the Edge Of News so that you don’t have to. Some highlights of this week’s report …

… when a gig’s all about the performer not the audience

… the power of singing other people’s songs

… can you ever trust a film critic?

… what connects Richard Thompson, Neil Tennant, Loudon Wainwright and Randy Newman?

… “bands can’t look like gangs if they’re not all the same height”

… can you picture ‘50s jazz without cigarette smoke?

… who – dear go...

Richard Thompson has a new album, ‘Hippies, Thugs and Heroes’, and he’s touring again in 2027, the perfect excuse to get another of our favourite guests back in the chair again. He joins us here for a brilliant, free-wheeling conversation with a cast list including …

Arnold Schwarzenegger (and his son Wolfie)

William Shakespeare

Mandy Miller

Shostakovich

Fairport Convention

William Walton

Fellini

John Lennon

Louis Armstrong

Post-War Brighton gangsters

Nellie the Elephant

Les Paul

Harold...

You forget how huge and ubiquitous Rory Gallagher was in the ‘70s, just 22 at the Isle of Wight and auditioning for the Stones four years later, an inspiration for Johnny Marr, Andy Partridge, the Edge, Slash and countless others. And for his brother and manager Dónal - “it was a big wide world I wasn’t going to see unless I hung onto his coattails”. He’s just published a memoir, ‘Edged In Blue, A Rock’n’Roll Odyssey with Rory Gallagher’, and looks back here at some of the highlights, these among them …

… watching Six-Five Special throug...

In this week’s extension of The Longest Conversation In Pop History™️ you’ll be happy to find …

… the front row audience driving Gillian Anderson mad and why we feel for her

... can you still buy anything for £1.10?

… when did rock nostalgia begin?

… what Andy Partridge paid “the Hermit of Mink Hollow”

… the famous playwright who wrote a Beatles film script

… Spirit of Eden, Trout Mask Replica, Bitches Brew? Unlistenable?!

… whatever happened to the pop instrumental?

… My Bloody Valentine and...

The third instalment of ‘The Island Book of Records’ is out, another sumptuous, elegantly designed, LP-sized chronicle of every album released on this most fabled of labels, in this case between 1971-72. They’re edited by Neil Storey who worked in the press office for years, and they’re magnificent, a painstaking assembly of the memories of producers, musicians and label staff involved in those records with photo outtakes, press cuttings and concert bills to illustrate. We talked to Neil in Jamaica, on his way to present Chris Blackwell with a copy, and touched on the following …

… why an...

A lifelong Beatles obsessive, Gary Kemp bought Epstein’s black leather address book at auction and (with Simon Halfon) researched its 404 names to construct a picture of him, “a 360-degree look” built around musicians, managers, impresarios, hustlers, grifters, ‘walkers’, tricksters, writers, deejays, scene-makers and assorted fashion and media folk. It’s fascinating. As is this podcast where he talks about what he discovered compiling ‘1967: the World of Brian Epstein and the Beatles’ and how the contacts were like “an Advent Calendar leading to his death in August 1967”. We touch on …

… what he paid for the address book (but couldn’t tell...

David Holzer was a Lou Reed fan from the moment he saw Walk On The Wild Side on Top Of The Pops but avoided Metal Machine Music for 42 years as it was supposedly unlistenable. He was transfixed when he finally heard it, began playing it daily and felt so strongly about “the most radical rock record ever made” he tracked down 60 fellow obsessives and wrote the enthralling ‘Lou Reed: Metal Machine Mystic’. And talks to us here from his home in Mallorca about …

… why Reed released MMM. To escape a ruinous contract? To boost his avant garde status...

A long-running conversation that shifts from major to minor, back to major and all notes inbetween, this week’s lyrics including …

… can people who write ‘happy’ ever be cool?

… the best drummer who isn’t a drummer?

… when will Oasis buy Man City?

… why is Taylor Swift unmemorable?

… when’s “too old to mosh”?

… weird double-bills: Jimi Hendrix and the Monkees. Cat Stevens and Engelbert. Black Sabbath and … Neil Diamond?

… huge stars who barely had any hits

… what Todd Rundgren said...

Jon Savage detested the UK’s mid-‘70s hits with a vengeance, “records so bad they made you want to strangle every deejay on Radio One, especially Dave Lee Travis”. Which is why he’s compiled ‘Jon Savage’s 1976: Something Was Going To Happen’, 24 ground-breaking tracks released the same year that paved the way to the future. He looks back here from his home in Anglesey at the thrill of hearing them the first time aged 22, the many highlights including …

… hilarious memories of the nauseating Jeans On, Fernando, No Charge, Combine Harvester and Save Your Kisses For Me

… a...

The two-man conversational canoe paddles the rock and roll tideway, stopping off this week at …

… Van Morrison’s set-opener is Kidney Stew Blues by Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson. Do people have to play their big hits?

… what’s the key ingredient in success?

... “all great albums automatically have great sleeves. Bar one!”

… does Beyonce have a horsefly named after her? Is there a Jerry Garcia wood roach? A Sting tree-frog?

… U2’s new album cover is an Abbey Road pastiche. So … is this their swansong?

… “dress for the...

While Mark Ellen visits his Scottish estates, David Hepworth and Alex Gold keep the home fires burning with a wide-ranging conversation, taking in:

•⁠ ⁠why every band containing a pair of brothers seems to inevitably succumb to fraternal warfare 

•⁠ ⁠how Ed Sheeran found himself caught in the cross-fire between a multi-millionaire and a bunch of support acts keen not to get caught on the wrong side of a social media war

•⁠ ⁠the fine line that divides a British cheese from a motorway service area

•⁠ ⁠what are the best cases of “mailbox money” in s...

A whole new format we’ve invented for people who’ve been guests before and were so entertaining we wanted them back. So we’ve devised some random questions to spark a few memories and revelations. First up, Sid Griffin of the Long Ryders, touring the UK this autumn, who looks back here at his early life before he “went to L.A. to quote-unquote make it”. You’ll love this as much as we did, especially …

… the Beatles song he knew he’d understand when he was older

… his teenage band rehearsal when th...

“Good hair, good shoes, something to say” were the requirements of Indie Sleaze whose vanguard lit up the fading music press in the first decade of the 21st Century – acts like Franz Ferdinand, the Rakes, the Cribs, Kaiser Chiefs and Bloc Party. Janine Warren saw the Strokes in Camden in 2001 and life took a whole new direction. Her book ‘The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect’ looks back at old-school rock PR, unmanageable bands, and the summit and collapse of the last scene she thinks we’ll ever see. You’ll enjoy …

… Morrissey at St Geo...

This week’s news in three separate files - the Good, the Bad and the Befuddling. Which involves …

… have Oasis created their own economy?

… are stadium gigs now like historical re-enactment?

… “people listen to music more intently in Manchester as they’re inside while it rains”

… ‘includes All Things Must Pass miniature garden gnomes!’ The mad money-draining joy of the luxury box-set

… when bands don’t change but audiences do

…Sun = Happiness, Rain = Sorrow: lyrics as an emotional weather forecast<...

Clint Boon was at the heart of “the two biggest musical revolutions of my lifetime” – as a teenager for Joy Division and Buzzcocks, and later the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Hacienda and onstage with Inspiral Carpets, a world of characters as big as his own. His memoir ‘The Manchester Chronicles’ is about obsessions, schoolteachers, purple winklepickers, mobile discos, good luck, catastrophe and being in the right place at the right time for 30 years. Along with …

… why Manchester listens to music so intently: “we’re stuck inside while it rains”

… auditioning Noel Gallagher “as the L...

The Slits burned very brightly – but briefly - and were gone, their bumpy and courageous tale crisply told in Zoë Howe’s updated ‘Typical Girls?’. She looks back here at the unforgettable things they wore, said and did as “outsiders in an outsider scene”, a band celebrated before they’d even played a note. And touches on …

... how other all-girl groups got started - the Moodies, the Runaways, Fanny, the Shaggs, Goldie and the Gingerbreads

… Nora Forster – Ari’s mum, German print heiress, the “punk rock Baroness Nica” who bankrolled the Slits

… Ari was...

Shawn Colvin was in the spotlight from the age of 10 playing her parents’ parties, singing in bars at college, acting off-Broadway and joining country swing bands before making 12 solo albums. She’s touring the UK and Ireland from late September and looks back on it all with us from her home in Austin, Texas. Lots of great moments here, these among them …

… growing up on hymns, Pete Seeger and the Kingston Trio with a Dad who tried to get stoned at a Judy Collins gig

… being a spoons-playing singing waitress with Maria Muldau...

Passing the conversational Dutchie 'pon the left hand side, we fire up the following …

… “speech, not music, brings people together”

… if music gets ever broader, why’s radio getting more niche?

… can YOU guess the NME’s 10 most influential bands in 2002?

… a doomed Dolly Parton kidnap attempt at the Hammersmith Odeon: we were there!

… ‘Voice-tracking’, ‘auditorium testing’ and other network radio secrets

... 61 year-old listener hears the Beatles for the first time and reports back. (Chapeau, Jelltex!)

 … short-lived...

Dave Rowntree had a camera with him as Blur took off in the early ‘90s and his book ‘No-One You Know’ distils the thrill of a band in ascent – backstage, in studios, with fans, on tour buses and their first trips to America and Japan. It bristles with joy and exhilaration. He looks back here at life in lift-off nearly 35 years ago and ahead to his spoken word tour promoting it, stopping off at …

… two years busking in France in the mid-’80s

… why pictures taken on film are more like paintings than pho...

Natalie Merchant joined 10,000 Maniacs when she was 17, had a long and successful solo career and then began teaching children in New York State. Realising the value of rhymes and theatre, her adaptation of Mother Goose (played by herself) was expanded into a multi-media performance with 150 four-year-olds and recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She even made most of the costumes. And she’s never had an audience reaction as enthusiastic and emotional. It’s a magnificent project to give children experiences that modern life rarely affords “right down to the thrill of seeing people play real instruments”. She talks to us he...

The Proclaimers have only had a handful of hits but they’re songs that have kept expanding for nearly 40 years. And the World Cup was a reminder of how far they’ve reached. Craig and Charlie Reid talk to us here about first adventures onstage, talent shows, the tour circuit, the new album ‘You May Offend’ and …

… the moment the Proclaimers took off

… first records bought in Woolworths in Fife (including the less-than-prophetic World Cup anthem Easy Easy)

… the fraternal voices of the Everly Brothers

… seeing Joy Di...

The original rock podcast - now in its 20th year! – knocks the week’s news across the conversational net. Amid the top-spin, rallies and double-faults, you’ll find …

… farcical developments in the Tupac trial

… the shock-horror reaction to the Sam Mendes Beatles’ wigs!

… Dave Marsh’s ‘1001 Greatest Singles’ in 1989: what 45s released since would make his Top 10?

… ‘If the Phone Doesn’t Ring, It’s Me’, ‘I’ve Been Flushed From The Bathroom Of Your Heart’: real or made-up Country song titles?

… “People buy albums because the...

Martin Simpson got backstage when he was 15 and met Jimmy Reed and Big Joe Williams and it changed his life forever. He’s been on the folk circuit ever since, still at the top of his game and with the wealth of knowledge and experience reflected in this extremely entertaining podcast. His ‘Some Kind Of Jubilee’ album celebrates 50 years since his first record and he’s on tour in September. And talks to us here about …

… his operatic Dad born in the 19th Century

… the message carved with a knife on the door of the...

The Shadows were the strongest brand in British pop, adored and widely imitated. When they went out of fashion, no-one wanted them to change. Bob Stanley salutes their enormous influence and creation of the guitar hero and unravels their rapid post-Beatles decline in his superb new book, ‘The Shadows: the Definitive Story’. And talks to us here about …

 … Hank and Bruce arriving in London aged 15 when the 2i’s coffee bar was a labour exchange and a social club

… entering a talent contest won by a Malayan opera singer

… the magic...

Stuff, nonsense, the white heat of debate and yesterday’s news today! Which this week involves …

… which of these didn’t host a TV chat show – Ian Botham, Charlotte Church, Lily Allen or Harold Wilson?

… if you’d paid £102 to see two-thirds of the Fugees show up an hour late, wouldn’t you SCREAM for a refund?

… Britain’s most rock’n’roll hotel and why the idea of “excess” seems purely American

… Dave and Stephane Grappelli at the Sunset Marquis

… Reversing Into Tomorrow! We C...

A sense of melancholy hangs over the music of songwriters whose lives were tragically short – Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, Eva Cassidy, Judee Sill - and we’re left knowing very little about them. Jamie Fisher, writer and New York Times researcher, discovered Elliott Smith 12 years after he’d died and contacted 40 of his friends and fellow musicians to build a picture of him for her memoir Nobody Broke Your Heart. She looks back here at his background and ascent from the Portland club circuit to the Oscars, and touches on …

… the emotional impact of first hearing his...

Michael Cragg’s devotion to all things Kylie once led him to Melbourne in search of the actual carousel horse she rode in a pop video. He got a tattoo a day later. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head is a funny and fondly detailed personal account of the risk-taking variety of her records, the mystery of her private life and the irresistible nature of her appeal, a girl who, were there a war on, would be painted on the tail fins of aircraft. He looks back here at …

… her ‘90s reinvention by association...

‘Sandy Denny: A People’s History’ has just been published, memories from fellow musicians, old friends, producers, writers, fans and admirers. Linda Thompson met her when they were both 16 and was devoted to her ‘til she died in 1978 – “she’s still with me, I talk to her all the time”. She looks back here at their lives in Soho bars, folk clubs and studios, the world they inhabited and the musicians they both knew. Among the many highlights …

… meeting Sandy in 1966, onstage doing Jackson Frank’s You Never Wanted Me. “Eight million cigarettes a day but such breath control!”...

The news slapped on the conversational barbecue and served with a side of old hokum. This week’s mixed grill includes …

… our favourite story in the whole of popular music!

… Lisa Marie Presley & Michael Jackson, Neil Young & Daryl Hannah and other weird celebrity weddings

… how Glen Hansard got hired for the Commitments

… “Everybody has a plan ‘til they’re punched in the face”

… Linda Thompson and the million reasons singers hate listening to their old albums

… the fabulous life and ti...

Tim Pope caught the video wave in 1981 and made hundreds of promotional clips, often three or four a week, edited at night and on-air days later. You’ll have seen them, singles for the Style Council, The The, Iggy Pop, Hall & Oates and many others. For 15 years he was the man to call – inventive, caffeinated, risk-loving, clubbable – and “nothing was too mad or stupid”. He celebrates that magic age of big budgets and creative freedom in his story-filled memoir ‘I Shoot Rock Stars’, just out, and looks back here at …

… the video that made his reputation

 <...

Pauline Black was seen singing Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell songs in Coventry folk clubs and recruited by a local reggae band. Then converted to ska and joined the Selecter - back on tour this summer and with a box-set of live recordings, ‘The Selecter at the BBC’. She looks back here at …

… their first gig with Madness for 47 years in Brighton – “very red fezzy!”

… her Sliding Doors moment supporting Bert Jansch

... discovering the Pioneers, Prince Buster and the Skatalites through white skinheads in Coventry

… the famous 2...

Tony Fletcher launched Jamming! when he was 13, wrote for the Face at 16, ran a label with Paul Weller at 17 and a year later was presenting the Tube. And was in a band signed to EMI. If anyone did more as a teenager, we want to meet them. It’s all in his coming-of-age memoir ‘Pow! When UK Punk Went Pop 1980-84’ - discussed here - which touches on …

…the speed, the possibilities and the riches of success in the early ‘80s – and how it felt to be at the heart of it

…...

Testing the temperature of this week’s news to see what trips the fire-alarm, which includes …

… does having a Number One still matter?

… Pauline Black’s sliding doors moment

… rock stars you can’t imagine dancing

… heatwaves, fire, rain, dust and thunderstorms: how extreme weather’s changing the festival circuit

… when Jarvis Cocker was a fishmonger and Bryan Ferry taught pottery

… is AI erasing our love of rock history?

… Wuthering Heights Day: the lone fabulous amateur...