Word In Your Ear

The full and extraordinary story of “the Zelig-like” Cutler – poet, performer, broadcaster, playwright, surrealist, humorist – is mapped out in Bruce Lindsay’s exceptional new book, ‘Ivor Cutler: A Life Outside the Living Room’. Most of us discovered him through the patronage of fans like John Peel – or first saw him as part of the Magical Mystery Tour cast – but this fascinating conversation covers the early years too, his time as a progressive schoolteacher, the formative influence of Kafka and the Goons, his big break into TV via Ned Sherrin and his immediate adoption by the counter-culture. Has there ever been anyone remotely like him before or since? At one point Bruce reads a section of Life In A Scotch Sitting Room - with its echoes of Under Milk Wood and Sir Henry At Rawlinson End - and there are tales of gruts for tea, his fear of noise, the time he left an overheated hotel room to sleep on a station platform and a Denmark Street agent weeing in a sink.

Order Bruce’s book here …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ivor-Cutler-Outside-Sitting-Popular/dp/180050294X/ref=sr_1_6?qid=1671698453&refinements=p_27%3ABruce+Lindsay&s=books&sr=1-6

@bruce956

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Army greatcoats, plastic trousers, cowboy boots, scoop-neck t-shirts with bell sleeves … the list of laughable clobber and accessories we briefly thought were acceptable because rock stars wore them is delightfully long and shameful.

Also in the crosshairs this week …

… the rudest line the Beatles ever wrote.

 … Randy Newman – ‘the poet of the unworthy thought’.

… do bands with comic lyrics get the credit they deserve?

… a double Stackwaddy: real or invented Christmas singles.

… falling though a wormhole in time into a copy of the NME from February 1969: “The age of Supergroups! – set band members will be a thing of the past” – Klaus Voormann.

… “These days no two of us are on the same stream.” What we learn from discovering music separately.  

… Dead Eyes: the Tom Hanks’ comment that sparked a three-series podcast.

… why scat-singing brings us out in hives.

… the magic of Seinfeld – ‘four shallow self-obsessed people’ in a world where there’s ‘no growing and no hugging’.

… why you should listen to Joachim Cooder’ Over That Road I'm Bound: The Songs of Uncle Dave Macon.

… and what birthday guest John Innes learnt from re-listening to his entire music collection in chronological order – and the bands he decided to abandon.

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Gordon Raphael was the sonic architect of arguably the two most important and influential albums of the noughties - The Strokes' 'Is This It' and its follow-up 'Room On Fire', and in this special Word In Your Ear chat with 'Magic' Alex Gold he talks about the creation of those seminal records alongside other key moments in his life as told in his memoir 'The World Is Going To Love This: Up From The Basement With The Strokes', including working with Regina Spektor and the impact of seeing her perform at their first meeting, grunge-era Seattle and its legendary music store The Trading Musician, and his time with the pre-fame Libertines.

Buy 'The World Is Going To Love This: Up From The Basement With The Strokes' here: https://www.wordville.net/product-page/the-world-is-going-to-love-this

Gordon's website: https://www.gordotronic.com/

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In which we boldly tackle the burning issues des nos jours in our restless forage for entertainment. Nutritious items on the tasting menu this week include …

… albums whose cover was over half the sell.

… was Jet Black older than all the Beatles and Stones? Dave Greenfield and Edgar Allan Poe – separated at birth.

… that brief moment when Creedence Clearwater were the biggest thing on the planet.

… what people paid for the wooden balls on the Rumours cover and one of Christine McVie’s dresses.

 … Stackwaddy: Abba v Zappa song titles - spot the ringer!

… a Marshall Crenshaw 40th anniversary covers album? The race to find the next bizarre obscurity.

… Little Feat, Fragonard and a cake on a swing.  

… plus Anthony Blunt, Elton John will never retire and new Patreon supporters (and their fictional jobs).

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Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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Danny’s done two hysterically funny, cartwheeling canters round the UK in the last few years and sets out again in February for 49 nights with ‘At Last …The Sausage Sandwich Tour’, another ‘panjandrum of unstoppable anecdote’. His memories of old rock and roll and theatre shows are high in the mix in this crackling exchange. Among the highlights …

… Anita Harris at the ABC in Yarmouth.

… appearing with the Millwall squad and Jimmy Tarbuck singing ‘New York New York’ in top hat and tails.

… the joy of Keef Hartley’s Half-Breed.

… arriving to see Frank Zappa to discover he’d been thrown offstage in the afternoon show “but Cochise were still appearing!”

… his dad Spud’s amateur doctor who did a good sideline in racing tips.

… why selling his 14,000 albums is like being “unchained from a lunatic”.

… Black Sabbath playing ‘unplugged’ in a powercut at the Albert Hall.

… and an honorary mention of the pith helmet full of saveloys.

Tickets here: Danny Baker: At Last… The Sausage Sandwich Tour

https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/danny-baker

@prodnose

https://www.dannybakerstore.com/

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In which the piercing searchlight of conversational scrutiny points in the direction of …

… Christine McVie’s early adventures, our burning love for Chicken Shack’s ‘40 Blue Fingers’, her Sliding Doors moment in a Dickins & Jones window display, supporting the Shadows at the 2I’s coffee bar in ‘59, writing Songbird, the forgotten years of Kiln House and two film clips that point up Fleetwood Mac’s luckless mid-‘70s slog with the bank-breaking success to come.

… records you never connected with that suddenly make sense 50 years later.

… the deep-seated, underrated pleasure of ‘Electric Arguments’ by the Fireman (aka Youth and McCartney).

… what your InstaFest line-up reveals about your listening habits.

… and a rare mention of ‘Deed I Do’ by Blossom Dearie!

Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world alongside a whole host of extra and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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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 the first records he ever bought, XTC at Cheltenham Town Hall, the cassette and CD booms, the return of vinyl, new threats to the record shop world, taking Steve Van Zandt round Cheltenham (in full Little Steven attire) and the Greatest Record Ever Made.

https://badlands.co.uk/

@BadlandsUK

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… 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 start a fight in an empty room”.

Plus … Pet Shop Boys on the Archers.

… the 40th anniversary of Thriller and Quincy Jones’ speech about how “we’re here to save the music business”.

… the extraordinary - possiby incendiary - story of Bob Dylan and the faked autographs. 

… Lil Peep, Lil Flip, Lil Plum, Lil Dicky … spot the fictional rapper!

... and birthday guest Kevin Walsh on why everyone should hear ‘Electric Arguments’ by the Fireman (aka McCartney and Youth).

And here’s our Word podcast with Wilko Johnson (plus guitar) from 2010 …

https://shows.acast.com/word-in-your-ear-2/episodes/5fe229acf896715ee83196ea

Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early access to every future Word Podcast alongside a whole world of additional and exclusive content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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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. It’s written like a literary biography, as much about the art as the story. This covers the waterfront - thoughts about their deal with EMI, pivotal events in their trajectory, the recent re-evaluation of McCartney (“the convenor”), the gorgeous “guitar embroideries in the margins of their music”, the key role of Mal Evans (“found crying in McCartney’s garden when he heard it was all over”), the artistic touchstones of I Am The Walrus and the sheer and comforting delight in hearing the Beatles’ music - “returning to the font” - when the world finds itself in times of trouble. As well as being a writer and historian, Ken is Professor of Popular Music at Monmouth University in New Jersey and you’d kill to be in his class. The revamped ‘Long And Winding Roads: the Evolving Artistry of The Beatles’ is just out and he’s working on a new book about Mal Evans which should appear in June 2023.

Long And Winding Roads …

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Winding-Roads-Evolving-Artistry/dp/0826417469

The Mal Evans book ...

https://kennethwomack.com/mal-evans-the-biography-archives/

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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 considers in The Philosophy Of Modern Song.  

… “and any eye for detail caught a little lace along the seams”: exquisite descriptions of clothes in Joni Mitchell songs.

… the NME Encyclopedia Of Rock revisited, that well-thumbed, much-loved and indispensable bible from the world before the internet.

… who were Sons of Champlin, the Butts Band and Michael Fennelly?

… magnificent rock books, Nik Cohn’s A Wop Bop A Loo Bop A Lop Bam Boom and Barney Hoskyns’ Hotel California among them.

… and playing Mozart on a ukulele. Plus birthday guest Simon Poulter.

Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon and receive every future Word Podcast before the rest of the world, alongside a whole host of additional content, benefits and rewards!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.