Word In Your Ear

Bobby Bluebell remembers the “cuddly duffle-coat friendship” of Glasgow bands in the early ‘80s and the Bluebells’ second act rebooted by the Volkswagen ad. The band are touring again and an even bigger part of the city’s thriving musical community, and he looks back here at the first gigs he ever saw and played, along with …

… singing “When I’m Dead And Gone’ in an old folks home.  

… on the town with Siobhan Fahey, her sisters and boyfriends Kevin Rowland and Gary Crowley.

… buying Rocket Man and Wee Neil Reid’s Mother Of Mine, aged 13. And Elton John at Glasgow’s Kelvin Hall.

… his side project The Golden Tree (with Grahame Skinner of Hipsway) playing ‘Scottish’ songs by Marmalade, Strawberry Switchblade, Ewan MacColl, Coldplay, the Easybeats, Talking Heads and the Bay City Rollers.

… “Glasgow had six gangs. You had to choose your route home carefully if wearing Kickers.”

… Clare Grogan’s sister’s part in the Bluebells’ fortunes.

… Edwyn Collins and Alan Horne holding HIT and MISS signs in the front row of an Oxfam Warriors gig.

… “A cuddly duffle-coat friendship”: the Glasgow bands of the early ‘80s and memories of Altered Images and Peter Capaldi’s Dream Boys.

… why Dolly Parton was ditched and ‘Young At Heart’ chosen for the Volkswagen ad.

… playing the Old Grey Whistle Test with the Psychedelic Furs.

… “the best way to get an audience to stop talking is to entertain them.”

… “All hits are luck”.

… his Golden Rule when playing festivals.

The Bluebells tickets here: https://www.songkick.com/artists/315250-bluebells/calendar

The Golden Tree: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7HO0TGE0vgPgwDoaBUMAJF?si=LUsXAtrURVWYjEkzDpI0mQ&nd=1&dlsi=65dddbf6bf6c45e4

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Dennis Bovell has worked his dub magic on everyone from Janet Kaye to the Slits, the Pop Group, Jarvis Cocker and Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood – and his own band Matumbi. He talks here about the thrill and freedom of making dub records, his new album Wise Music In Dub – which reworks ‘Pass The Dutchie’, Minnie Riperton and the Stylistics – and how the phone never stops ringing with requests for an echo-filled clattery sonic re-boot. And about spending lockdown in a “dub bubble”, how recording has changed since his days with a one-track Phillips tape-machine, and recruiting Swizz The Panist (“who plays steel pans like a classical piano”) and Duke Baysee, the harmonica-playing Routemaster bus conductor.

Pre-order Wise Music In Dub here: https://wiserecords.bandcamp.com/

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Rick Wakeman was onstage from the age of five and looks back with us here on a life of live performance – jazz and blues bands, the Strawbs, Yes – and ahead to this autumn’s tour performing King Arthur and the Six Wives of Henry the Eighth. “I wake up every morning, throw off the duvet and – if nothing else has fallen off – have a great day!” There’s more …

... how it feels when the rock press call you ‘Tomorrow’s Superstar!’ at the age of 24.

… the contract he once had to sign that said “Mister Wakeman will wear at least one of his capes during the performance”.

… seeing the Bonzos in 1965, “Viv Stanshall so paralytic he sang the entire set lying down”.

… being on a packed tube to Gants Hill and suddenly realising he was on the cover of the Melody Maker he was reading.

… Mrs Symes, his piano teacher, who launched his career (aged five).

… his teenage band Atlantic Blues “who ended Wipe Out eight times faster than it started”.

… the day his Strawbs’ Hammond organ solos were applauded by the Telegraph and Times.

… early piano sessions for Cat Stevens, Ralph McTell and Al Stewart.

… aspects of touring that prove “financially non-viable”.

… and how Wolf Hall rebooted the legend of Henry the Eighth.

Plus Atomic Rooster, Charlie Chaplin, Arthur Brown, green PVC trousers and a cape collection that includes “four originals”.

Buy tickets here: https://www.rwcc.com/live.php#ere2025

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Chasing the shade and applying Factor 50 in the wilting heat of this week’s rock and roll news turns the conversation to …

… Kneecap v the Prime Minister.

… will any openly anti-Trump musician find it hard to tour the States?

… the girl who’s listening to all 10,000 of her late father’s albums, one 60-second Instagram reel at a time.

… a bottle of Snoop Dogg rosé, anyone?  

… why Carol Kaye turned down the Hall Of Fame.

… Hollywood and “the genius of the system” v the current vogue for applauding individual genius.

… Lottie Golden, Laurie Styvers, Jeannie Piersol and our love for High Moon Records, the Virago of the record business.

… why self-sabotage is a British institution.

… Nick Cave Unisex Clogs? Pet Shop Boys chrome pepper-grinder? Brave new frontiers in pop merchandise.

… Genya Ravan’s I Won’t Sleep On The Wet Spot No More.

… Beau Dommage, Dragon’s Breath, Two Left Feet … Canadian band or voguish craft ale?

Also in the mix … Dawn French, Phoebe Snow, Humphrey Ocean, Alan Bennett and Bridget St John.

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The Farm are touring again this summer and have just made their first album for 31 years (with the same-line-up). This sparky and wide-ranging conversation with Peter Hooton stops off at the following …

… the advice Mark E Smith gave him when they were interviewed by Select magazine.

… “Suedeheads v Trogs and Greebos”: early ‘70s tribal warfare in Bootle.

… seeing Cockney Rebel, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band and Genesis at the Liverpool Empire.

… the death of old heroes – “you imagined Bowie was always going to be there”.

… backstage with the Clash in Paris and why they were the Farm’s role models.

… Bill Drummond’s attempt to remodel them “in tracksuits with hard dogs”.

… how the death of John Lennon made him start writing.

… the use of All Together Now as a football anthem – from everyone to Everton to Euros 2004 to a disastrous campaign by the Labour Party - “but the Qatar World Cup was a bridge too far”.

… touring with Mick Jones (“the Pied Piper”) for the Hillsborough 96 Campaign.

… his school band, Breakwind - “the forerunners of Half Man Half Biscuit” – and being in the cast of Oliver!.

…. his guided music tours of Liverpool and the places they visit.

… and why The Farm has “omni-appeal – a band who look like they’re from a street corner”.

Also in the mix: Big Audio Dynamite, Deaf School, Nile Rodgers, Roger Eagle and Cliff Richard on Top Of The Pops.

Buy tickets and the album Let The Music (Take Control) here: https://thefarmmusic.co.uk/

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Carol Decker - another Smash Hits cover star on the podcast! T’Pau are playing dates this summer and autumn and she talks here – hilariously - about life on the ‘80s package tour circuit and the first shows she ever saw and played, which stops off at ….

… does any audience beat a Butlin’s Mid-Weeker on their third pint?

… from Black Mirror to PG Tips: the afterlife of a hit.

… seeing Rod & the Faces in Stoke-On-Trent and Dire Straits in a Wrestling Hall.

… “Appearing In An A&E Near You!”: accident-prone ‘80s stars, a sitcom waiting to happen.

... the arcane world of the backing vocalist – “don’t distract, nothing too big”.

… the grim tradition of headline bands’ road crews making the support acts suffer.

… ‘80s package tours with OMD, Kim Wilde, Toyah, Clare Grogan and Nik Kershaw.

… playing working men’s clubs with the Lazers in 1980 - “an unwelcome distraction from the Bingo”.

… visits to Dusty Springfield’s grave.

… “Universal own the world”: when your songs appear in films and ads but you couldn’t keep the rights.

… more power to the Amnesty for Unrecouped Bands!

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As the great Warren Zevon said, ‘Enjoy every sandwich’. The two-man canoe navigates this week’s rock and roll rivulet which sadly entails reflections on a pair of towering musical giants ‘whose legend occupied the space where activity should have been’. Things considered include …

…are you born with genius or does a set of circumstances allow it to flourish?

… the impossible task of living up to people’s expectations and the calamitous ways it led Sly and Brian Wilson to behave.

… like Sly’s plane landing at the moment he was meant to be onstage at Madison Square Garden.

… the massive cultural contrast between Woodstock and ‘the Black Woodstock’ a month earlier and how Sly & the Family Stone looked like they’d ‘come from Mars’.

… how Derek Taylor, Tom Nolan and Nick Kent helped fashion the Beach Boys’ myth.

… Sly’s impact on Miles Davis, Prince, Massive Attack and hip-hop and how a record as radical as There’s A Riot Goin’ On was a No 1 Christmas album.

… In My Room, a completely new kind of teenage song.

… David’s five Beach Boys teenage moments …

… and Mark’s three examples of Brian Wilson’s Greatest Bits – eg the overture to California Girls.

… and 'Arise, Sir Roger Daltrey!'

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Liam Gallagher calls Ted Kessler and Hamish MacBain “the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore of music journalism”. Both worked at the NME (and Ted at Q), both interviewed the band many times and have just published ‘A Sound So Very Loud’ which, in the grand tradition of Revolution In The Head, tells the story of every Oasis song ever recorded. They talk to Mark here about …  

… why Oasis struck such an almighty chord and were the band the press were waiting for.

… their dismantling of the notion of rock stardom.

… “a visceral dislike”: why they were so socially divisive in the ‘90s.

… Liam “waking up in police custody with two missing teeth”.

… the Gallaghers’ dependable flair for the Smiths-style “performative interview” and why it sold the rock press.

… what Noel stole from Tony Blair’s maiden speech for the lyrics of Magic Pie.

… the turning point in the shift in the brothers’ powerbase.  

… Liam and the invention of “Stillism”.  

… “70 per cent of a band is the singer’s identity”.

… Noel’s blog and Liam’s Twitter and how the split might have been avoided if their debate hadn’t been played out in public.

… Supersonic, Cigarettes and Alcohol and the admirable honesty of Noel’s “brazen theft”.

… how Stop Crying Your Heart Out became an X-Factor standard.  

… and the 5am Liam Gallagher social media publicity machine.

‘A SOUND SO VERY LOUD’ BY TED KESSLER AND HAMISH MACBAIN

Preorder link here!: https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/ted-kessler/a-sound-so-very-loud/9781035078257

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Elkie Brooks was on a package tour aged 15, supported the Beatles and the Animals, made a single when she was 19, joined the jazz-rock Dada, then Vinegar Joe (with Robert Palmer) and has since made 20 albums. She’s now out on her ‘Long Farewell Tour’ and looks back with us here from her home in Devon at …

… supporting the Beatles in ’64 and an audience already screaming for the headliners.  

… memories of Dusty, Cilla and Maggie Bell and how few girl singers there were in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

… singing Cliff Richard’s ‘Pointed Toe Shoes’, aged 15, at the Don Arden talent show that won her a tour with Conway Twitty and Wee Willie Harris.

… supporting the Animals at the Paramount, New York.

… the male-weighted music world and how long it took to win any respect.

… seeing Ella Fitzgerald when she was 12 and being fired up by the range and phrasing of Billie Holiday.

… what she learnt from Humphrey Lyttelton and Eric Delaney.

… life on the scampi-in-the-basket cabaret circuit as a teenager.

… trying to keep Vinegar Joe together after Robert Palmer left.  

Book tickets to the Long Farewell Tour here: https://www.elkiebrooks.com/

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Facing down the leg spinners of rock and roll news while trying to wallop the odd shot across the pavilion roof. On the scoreboard this week …

… has there ever been a rock feud as bitter as Trump v Musk?

… what Ray Charles, Taylor Swift and Dave Clark have in common.

… the 30-year golden age music video.

… things Van Morrison can’t forget.

… how some songs about lying in hammocks necking cocktails ended up worth $275m.  

… Beyoncé, Stetsons, pink Cadillacs and how all visiting American acts bring with them the aura of America.

… the greatest and most influential video ever made.

… the song Carly Simon wrote about Cat Stevens.

… “Avoid cliches like the plague. (They're old hat.)”

… Nick Mason’s menagerie: things your teenage self never imagined would happen.

… Kraft Cheese slices, Kylie videos, the cut above David Beckham’s eye and other things labelled ‘iconic’.

… and Birthday guest Paul Thompson’s night at the Music Video Preservation Society!

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