Word In Your Ear

David Gray went through the roof with his White Ladder album in 2000 and he’s toured and recorded ever since, ending this summer’s loop at Latitude. He talks to us here about the rigours of seeing bands when you lived in rural Wales and the hilarious, hard-won lessons of the first gigs he played himself and every possible shade of crowd reaction. It’s an absolute whirlwind from start to finish and features ...

... playing weddings, clubs, festivals and a Welsh village regatta

… the role of music in the construction of your character

… the turning point: “I arrived onstage to more applause than I’d ever had when leaving”

… the time gave Morrissey his string of beads

… the emotional architecture of live performance and how Elvis programmed his shows

… vivid memories of seeing the Cult (“bloody nose”), the Mission (“headbutted”) and the Stranglers (“we left terrified”)

… running from stage to stage at Glastonbury in ‘86 and the insular genius of the Cure

… his Liverpool punk band in their perishing “Joycean” flat

… the unbeatable sound of a crowd singing one of your songs  

… Nick Drake’s frail sensibility and the value of growing a hard skin.

David Gray tickets here: davidgray.com

David Gray’s new album Nightjar, a companion to his 2005 No.1 record Life in Slow Motion, is out now via Bella Figura.

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

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Digging deep in the icebox of news to choose the following lightly chilled refreshments …

… 500 Miles, Wonderwall, Yes Sir I Can Boogie(?): what does it take to be a football anthem?

… Gorillaz brilliant reinvention of the “guest appearance”

… Jerry Dammers' father was the Dean of Bristol Cathedral? Siouxsie’s dad milked venom from snakes?

… Rod Stewart’s “laryngitis”- aka being on a private jet to watch Scotland play in Boston!

… how they’re celebrating Syd Barrett’s 80th

… the godawfullest album title in the entire history of popular music

… England 2 Colombia 0: Kirsty MacColl’s immaculate sense of melancholy

… Faux Fighters, Proxy Music, By Jovi: tribute bands aren’t lesser versions of the band you like but great versions of the songs you like

… the worst Boz Scaggs gig followed by the best

… teen fizz to chin-stroking introspection: the link between George Michael and the Beach Boys

… “Londoners like to feel they’re impossible to impress”

… plus 500 Hartlepool fans dressed as Smurfs and birthday guest Blaine Allan.

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Peter Frampton, for goodness sake! Part of our lives at Word In Your Ear since we were teenagers. Played guitar on national telly when he was 14. Joined the Herd at 16 and Humble Pie two years later. Had the biggest-selling album in American history in 1976 and now releasing his first new record in 16 years. From his home in Nashville, he looks back here – with great modesty, humour and affection - at how he adjusted to such mountainous success and to “when it all came crashing down” while throwing in a winning impression of George Harrison. This too …  

… the Herd pursued by screaming girls across Streatham Ice Rink

… when “the Face of 1968” (Frampton) joined “the Face of 1967” (Marriott)

… recording with George, Ringo, Billy Preston, Steve Stills and Phil Spector (aged 20) - “where the hell am I and how did I get here?”

… “I’d fallen off the radar and Bowie gave me the biggest gift anyone could give me”

… the petrifying success of Frampton Comes Alive! - “I felt I’d be like a Rubik’s Cube, here today, gone tomorrow”

… the Scout Club gig (aged 12) that lit the fuse and playing Ready Steady Go! when he was 14 (same show as the Stones)

… when his father met Mick Jagger

… making the doomed Sgt Pepper film with the Bee Gees

… working with Sheryl Crow who’d had a poster of him when she was 14

… and revisiting his childhood home in Beckenham.

Order ‘Carry The Light’ here: https://www.frampton.com/

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‘Graceland’ was an almighty gamble for Paul Simon, a costly, high-risk departure from the music he’d been making and a complex international venture. And a game-changing, worldwide triumph. When Ashley Kahn taught a course about it at New York University, Simon turned up to contribute. His book ‘Days Of Miracle And Wonder’ tells the story of what inspired the album, the way it was recorded and the global reaction when it arrived in 1986. We talk to him here about …

… the bootleg cassette of township jive that inspired the Graceland project 

… fraying relations with Art Garfunkel and Carrie Fisher

... his habit of playing unfinished tracks to people – David Byrne, Philip Glass, Neil Diamond – while singing the vocal into their ear

… the extraordinary way he apologised for the failure of One Trick Pony

… how Bakithi Kumalo’s bass solo on You Can Call Me Al is a palindrome – “first half forwards, second half reversed!”

… the advice Quincy Jones gave him about South Africa’s cultural boycott

… the key role of Roy Halee, engineer and long-time creative collaborator

... the Johannesburg sessions that “started with rhythm and worked backwards”

… Kind Of Blue, A Love Supreme, other albums that merit a book to themselves

… the details you hear in the tracks’ last seconds

… and the Grammy telecast that cemented the album’s US success.

Order copies of ‘Days of Miracle And Wonder’ here: https://geni.us/DaysofMiracleandWonder

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

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Kate’s an old pal of ours from Word magazine who writes scintillating columns and profiles for the New Statesman and Observer. We loved her book ‘Men Of A Certain Age: My Encounters With Rock Royalty’ – just out in paperback! – where she relives her meetings with a variety of legends, eccentrics and old lags whose music she finds particularly compelling and wonders what they all have in common. This typically funny and colourful conversation stops off at …

… the attractive fallibility of rock stars past their peak

… a lifetime’s devotion to Paul Simon

… “Olivia Dean is the Carole King of her generation”

… the ridiculous expectations we heap on musicians’ creativity

… why Arts Criticism is under threat

… when the first record you buy (aged five) is the Chicken Song

… “One-Hit Wonders have achieved infinitely more than most of us”

… Ray Davies and his “eternal sense of apartness”

… why George Michael is under-appreciated and the time he found someone living under his floorboards

… the days when Jeff Beck modelled PVC jackets for Rave

 … the genius of Pat Metheny’s Orchestrion

… and the new acts who’ll still be huge in ten years’ time.

Order copies of ‘Men Of A Certain Age’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Men-Certain-Age-Encounters-Royalty/dp/1788705645

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

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Amid much parping of vuvuzelas, the week’s news stories sprint onto the pitch. And these make it to the quarter-finals …

… Dua Lipa’s mega-wedding and its echoes of Mick & Bianca

… when did publicity turn into “perpetual planetary attention”?

… Chris Martin “curating” the World Cup Final half-time show

… if you can’t stand the noise, move out of Soho!

… watching Rufus Wainwright do Judy Garland  

… when Madonna was troubled by helicopters

… JBs’s Dudley, Mr Pickwicks, the Band On The Wall: who imagined old rock venues would be celebrated by the V&A?

… “Keep music away from sport!”

… is Taylor Swift really getting married in Madison Square Garden?

… and the Nation Blue, the Green Falcons, the Golden Lilies: starry-eyed indie act or World Cup team nickname?

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

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Dave Balfe was a key player in late ‘70s Liverpool, joined Big In Japan and the Teardrop Explodes, co-founded Zoo Records and, later, Food who signed and launched Blur. It’s fascinating to hear how he’s adapted to promoting music now with his new band Late Transmissions. We talk to him here about the landmarks moments that mapped out his life, among them …

… growing up in the Wirral and its patchouli-scented record shops

… seeing Wings and Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust tour in Liverpool

… how it felt to be immortalised in Blur’s Country House

… what he learnt making AI pop videos

… when your teenage band “goes punk”

… breaking and entering Rumbelows in pursuit of a synthesiser

… the curious link between Blur and JD Salinger in the days “they were all Kurt Weill and discordant”

… the Runaways at Erics – “I wasn’t entirely there for the music”  

… Big In Japan with Bill Drummond, Budgie, Ian Brodie and Jayne Casey

.. is AI like the arrival of synthesisers: “this is not proper music?”

… “the old gag, innovation is not pastiching bands that have already been pastiched”

… and Mark’s interview with him 47 years ago.

Lightning Never Strikes Twice video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhV02AcvQQ0

The Heart Wants What It Wants video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGvEWvS1ekk

I’m Done With London video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmUnP4b4GjQ

Order the Late Transmissions album here: https://musicsaves.co.uk/product/theheartwantswhatitwants/

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

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Star Ratings are now ubiquitous and inescapable and it’s not just music, films and books. Everything we encounter tends to be rated which colours our judgement before we try it. Choice can be paralyzing but do we read anymore or just count? Benji Wilson’s ‘Rate This Book: How Star Ratings Took Over the World’ traces their origin – back to 350 BC! – paints a picture of modern life and wonders here where we’re heading, along with …

… Aristotle’s 2,500 year-old system of star-rated animals

… how Michelin cooked up starred restaurants to get you to wear out your tyres

… can we spot fake reviews and the people who sell them?

… do we only tend to read one- and five-star reviews? And why writers hate the system

… the ingenious deceit of the Krays movie poster

… the value of reviews in a world where time and tickets costs are escalating

… “Star Ratings are the democratisation of criticism, the least-worst method”

… why a 2016 episode of Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror now seems prophetic

… the “hidden hands” that manipulate the ratings system

… and mass Amazon ratings and the power of Mob Rule.

Order copies of ‘Rate This Book’ here: https://linktr.ee/newmodern_books#560826579

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rate-This-Book-Ratings-World/dp/1917923651?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

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Philip Norman has written books about the Beatles – and John, Paul and George - and now turns the spotlight on the man who launched them and the extreme personal and professional obstacles in the dramatic path of his short life, the man who built a shield around them but couldn't protect himself. We talk to him here about ‘Mr Moonlight: Brian Epstein and the Making of the Beatles’ with particular attention to …

… how he changed Britain’s image and was mortified to get no recognition for it

… the Beatle whose demands he was always fastest to execute

… the level of homophobia and anti-Semitism he had to absorb

… his reckless pursuits in the days when homosexuality could mean life imprisonment

… contract killers, blackmail, rigged roulette wheels and why the Krays said “it wasn’t us” when they heard he’d died

… the way he fashioned his own myth and airbrushed others who’d helped the Beatles succeed

… why McCartney’s 21st birthday party could have ended the band

… his genius (and fraudulence) as a salesman  

 … the double catastrophe of Brian’s US merchandising deal

… John, Aunt Mimi and “a story about the British class system”

… and the chaperone on George and Pattie’s first date.

Order copies of ‘Mr Moonlight’ here: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Mr-Moonlight/Philip-Norman/9781398542266

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

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When the pedalo of perusal cruised the lagoon of news this week, it paused to inspect the following ...

… the particular magic of the late-night DJ

… a Get Well card to dear Bob Harris

… is Global Beatles Day a bridge too far?

… the exquisite Britishness of the Manics, the Fall and the Small Faces

… Cyprus Avenue, Soho, Asbury Park … the best places to visit to help you understand an artist who lived there

… how T.Rex and Roxy Music were “too fancy” for America

… Jagger, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Johann Sebastian Bach? Musicians with the most children

… All You Need Is Love – work of genius or “ropey old doggerel”? 

Plus birthday guest Paul Thompson, Foghat and watching the One World global-cast on a black and white telly.

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

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