Word In Your Ear

Kate’s an old pal from our days at Word magazine. She was on the staff for six years before heading off to the New Statesman and has just put out a collection of the sizzling and revelatory profiles she wrote for us, them and the Observer about a particular sector of the musical landscape for whom she’s always carried a torch. As she wonders in ‘Men Of A Certain Age: My Encounters with Rock Royalty’, “how is it that in the presence of wrinkly rock stars twice my age I sometimes think I’m meeting … me?” This tremendous exchange is full of hard-won insight about the mind-set of musicians and stops off at the following … 

… the fascinating appeal of rock stars’ vulnerability, giant egos, oddness and obsessions – “they’re often frozen at the emotional age they became famous”.

… growing up with Britpop, the decade when “teenagers weren’t allowed to like anything”.

… things women notice and men often miss: the difference between male and female journalists.

… being driven down a mountain by Kevin Ayers after he’d drunk a pint of Pernod.

… why she’s so drawn to the critically unfashionable acts like Bruce Hornsby, Kiss and Terence Trent D’Arby.

… what she learnt from interviewing Joni Mitchell’s old boyfriend Cary Raditz.

… why the best route to understanding any rock star is via their parents.

… her obsession with “the shamefully unfashionable” Queen, aged 11, and the appeal of these self-styled “fun ambassadors” against the grating irony of the ‘90s.

… the “charming yet awful” Paul O’Neill of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra handing out $50,000 bundles of cash to the homeless.

… why musicians are more interesting when they’ve peaked.  

… “the cartoon characters” of Shaun Ryder and John Lydon.

… “the only people at Jeff Beck’s interment were his wife and Johnny Depp”.

… and being refused an interview by Janelle Monae for not being sufficiently “queer or black”.

Order ‘Men Of A Certain Age’ here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Men-Certain-Age-Encounters-Royalty/dp/1788705645

Tickets for Kate’s launch event on April 3:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/men-of-a-certain-age-kate-mossman-with-alexis-petridis-tickets-1270535970289

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John Harris is an old pal from our days in the music press. You might remember him from Sounds, the NME and Select (which he edited) and he’s been one of the mainstays of the Guardian ever since, writing mostly about pop culture and politics. When his son James was diagnosed with autism and, looking for ways to connect with him and help his development, John began playing him various types of music. The results were life-changing for the family and recorded in his moving and revelatory book ‘Maybe I’m Amazed - A Story Of Love And Connection In 10 Songs’. With autism, John points out, “you can see the trees but seeing the wood is harder”. This fascinating conversation involves …

… have we misread the eccentricities of John Coltrane or Van Morrison, Prince, David Byrne and Gary Numan?

… how many musicians are outsiders in an industry requiring them to be the opposite of what they feel capable of.

… how people with autism hear songs differently each time and “music is an endlessly replenishable source of wonder”.

… why so many lead guitarists are loners.

.. how James has perfect pitch and hears everything – birdsong, lawn-mowers, police sirens – as notes. And how music taught him to sight-read.

… vivid, unforgettable, emotional recollections of the moment you first heard records – in John’s case Sir Duke, Baker Street, Strange Town.

… “blokes in black denim jackets drinking Becks”: the allure of working for the West End rock press.

… “all records are novelty records when you’re young”.

… how 50-year-olds marvel at Spotify and 20-year-olds at vinyl.

… the artistic rise and fall of Britpop.

Order John’s highly recommended book ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Maybe-Im-Amazed-Story-Connection-ebook/dp/B0D6B7H5NY

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This one starts with memories of Genesis at Farnborough Tech in 1972 – Batwings? Fox heads? - looks back at school bands and the early ‘70s and ends with the current Mike & the Mechanics tour. But it mostly centres on the first live shows Mike Rutherford ever saw and played which features …

… his mum making him wash the Brylcreem from his hair before seeing Cliff & the Shadows when he was 17.

… buying an electric guitar before you realised it needed an amplifier.

… playing the same theatres he played with Genesis when he was 19.

… Cream at the Marquee Club - “the volume was like an atom bomb!”

… supporting Mott the Hoople at Farx in Southall, “the moment I felt we were getting somewhere”.

… the contract for their £7 fee he still has for Genesis on the Eel Pie Island, “like ancient fading parchment”.

… the non-competitive days of Yes, King Crimson, Rare Bird and the rock underground when there was room for everyone.

… making an album in three days with Jonathan King in Regent Sound (where the Stones recorded).

… Peter Gabriel developing his on-stage theatre because no-one could hear the words.

… ‘Man up!’ Note to self after breaking a hip skiing with his grandchildren.

Mike & the Mechanics tour dates and tickets:

https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/mike-the-mechanics-tickets/artist/1673635

Pre-order Looking Back: Living The Years here:

https://found.ee/MikeATM_LBLTY

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The Waterboys’ new album comes with the magnificent title ‘Life, Death & Dennis Hopper’ and the band start touring in May. Mike Scott looks back here at the first gigs he ever saw and played and the performers he watched closely, which involves … the Stones “when they were still dangerous” and the connective genius of Mick Jagger, Dennis Hopper’s lost decade, Nazareth and Emerson Lake & Palmer at the Glasgow Apollo, a love affair with microphones, how not to look at the audience, the days when he wrote songs called ‘Freefall’, Joe Strummer singing on his back and McCartney’s crowd going “totally buck-mental”.

Order Waterboys tickets here:

https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/the-waterboys-tickets/artist/888869

Order the new Waterboys’ album ‘Life, Death & Dennis Hopper’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Death-Dennis-Hopper-Waterboys/dp/B0DQSK48PC

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In eager pursuit of dance and merriment, we dust down the current events. Which this week involves ….

… are teenagers no longer in love? And what does this mean for pop music?

… are people better musicians now than 40 years ago? And is that because you can get online tutorials explaining how to play everything?

… Paul McCartney taking two buses across Liverpool just to learn the chord of B7.

… how the best pop songs start with someone walking into a room.

… Ghana! India! New Zealand! The Caribbean! The King’s Spotify Playlist, a carefully chiselled love letter to the Commonwealth.

… do couples still have “Our Tune”? And do they still request songs for each other on radio shows?

… Neil Tennant’s memories of pre-Putin Russia – “we swept into Moscow in Gorbachev’s limousine”.

… Thunder Road, And Then He Kissed Me, Wouldn’t It Be Nice and other magical songs about dating.

… Amanda Seyfried does Joni Mitchell!

… the best pop song ever written - and we know the answer!

Plus birthday guest David Messer and two great Lou Reed live albums (“he heckles the hecklers!”).

David and Mark’s One-Man Show in Wareham on April 4: https://loveitlocalmagazine.co.uk/events/one-man-show/

Neil Tennant’s piece about pre-Putin Russia: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/mar/12/neil-tennant-pet-shop-boys-russia-putin-gay-club-mtv

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Someone else we put on the cover of Smash Hits 40 years ago who’s touring in 2025! He’s playing European festivals, ‘80s packages, dates with his band and a string of solo shows billed as ‘Musings & Lyrics With Nik Kershaw’, and talks to us here about the first gigs he ever saw and played, which involves …

… a bad case of Imposter Syndrome.

… how the relationship with your audience changes over 40 years.

… “it all seemed so important back then. I was in this little bubble where I thought the world was waiting for my next statement.”

… seeing Rory Gallagher, Wishbone Ash, Lindisfarne, Slade, T Rex, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band – and Vinegar Joe at St Matthew’s Baths in Ipswich.

… the sole appearance of his first band Thor at Rushmere Village Hall.

 … instant success in 1983: four nights at Hammersmith Odeon without playing clubs first - “We’re going to need a bigger PA!”

… playing Steely Dan and Weather Report one night and The Birdy Song and Country Roads at a wedding the next.  

... appearing between Elvis Costello and Sade at Live Aid – “quite a sandwich” - and forgetting the words.

…and the ‘80s festival circuit: “one big club”.  

NIK KERSHAW TOUR DATES HERE: https://www.nikkershaw.net/tour-dates/

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Gang Of Four’s moment was dramatic but brief. It was littered with times when the future seemed impossibly bright before disaster crept up with a cosh in their relentless “refusal to do the obvious”. Being a musician, he points out, is a ridiculous life best not taken seriously. His memoir ‘To Hell With Poverty!’ rightly describes itself as “rich with stories”, many remembered in this spirited exchange with David and Mark, among them …

… the transformational effect of a scholarship to the boarding school where he met GO4 guitarist Andy Gill and future film-makers Adam Curtis and Paul Greengrass.

… life-changing records he heard in the school art department – Highway 61 Revisited, the Stooges, the MC5.

… “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”.

… aged 11, bumping into John Lennon in Sevenoaks who’d just bought his Mr Kite poster.

… signing a contract with the manager that robbed them and whose busy and efficient office of “ripped and buffed” staff turned out to be hired actors.

… being thrown off Top Of The Pops for not changing an ‘offensive’ song lyric – “EMI were “mortified”.

… the old hippy world of the ‘70s – Hawkwind, the Whole Earth Catalog and “a Withnailesque flat where we had an airgun to shoot the mice”.

… hopeless online misinterpretations of his song lyrics - “there may be soil under fuck all” (aka “there may be oil under Rockall”).

… the rigours of trying to promote “outsider music”.

… reaching “the point where the game is up”.

… the Bourgeois Brothers, the ‘comedy’ duo he formed with Andy Gill at Leeds University and why they returned to England to form a band in the mould of Talking Heads, the Ramones and Richard Hell.

… and why recording the audiobook moved him to tears.

Order ‘To Hell With Poverty!’ here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hell-Poverty-Class-Inside-Gang/dp/1636142346

Gang Of Four tour dates:

https://www.songkick.com/artists/393675-gang-of-four/calendar

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Tyres pumped, engine cranked, chromework winking in the Springtime sun, the two-man conversational jalopy sets off on its weekly spin and visits …

… the day America broke the news and showed its dark side.  

… Brian James RIP and Stiff’s brilliant ad campaign for the first Damned album: “Play it at your sister!”

… has entertainment been dwarfed by world events?

… why the Oscars were invented and what it said about American life.

… “negative publicity is the first response to everything”.

… why Adrien Brody’s speech set back the cause of actors being taken seriously by about 40 years.

… Will Smith v Chris Rock, Chumbawamba v John Prescott, David Niven and the streaker: Awards show bombshells and what today’s media would make of them.

… The Wizard Of Vinyl and his mission to “save the world from bad sound”.

… the days when Hi-Fi was considered a hobby.

… are musical memories mostly about context? David relives ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ on a jukebox in the Shady Nook café in Wakefield.

… how not to make a speech.

… and the band that called Nick Lowe “granddad” (when he was 27).

Plus birthday guest Adrian Ainsworth on the worst and most insulting Greatest Hits compilations of all time.

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We’re long-time admirers of Denny Tedesco’s “Wrecking Crew” doc which celebrated the studio musicians of 60s Hollywood, the unseen hands who can be heard on all those Beach Boys and Spector hits. Now he’s done something similar with the musicians who were so much part of the success of James Taylor, Carole King and Warren Zevon in the next decade in “The Immediate Family”. We’re delighted to have been able to organise a screening of the film at The Art House in Crouch End after which he spoke to David Hepworth about what it was like to grow up married to the music business, how the culture of session players changed over the years, what has kept the likes of Leland Sklar, Danny Kortchmar, Waddy Wachtel and Russ Kunkel at the top of their game for fifty years and whether anybody else is still keeping their craft alive. The film is streaming on a platform near you now!

The Immediate Family: https://www.immediatefamilyfilm.com/

The Art House: https://www.arthousecrouchend.co.uk/

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Ian Leslie posted his ‘64 Reasons To Celebrate Paul McCartney’ in 2020 and the viral reaction to its piercing and original points encouraged him to write ‘John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs’. Do we need another Beatles book? We do if it’s this one! It’s exceptionally good and highly recommended. The conventional wisdom for decades was that John was the tormented, anti-establishment genius and Paul the effortlessly tune-churning, bourgeois poser. Ian’s book points up that their deep devotion to each other and telepathic, close relationship was the root of the supernatural partnership that made those songs possible. The two of them were, as he puts it, “the bubble within the bubble – and the deeper you get, the more mysterious the story becomes.” He talks to us here about … 

… their powerplays and their underlying rivalries for the leadership of the group.

… why the Beatles were in another league - “like Shakespeare versus Johnson or Marlowe”.

… how a songwriting duo where both wrote words and music gave them an extraordinary advantage.

… the writing of Yesterday and John’s fear that Paul might no longer need the group and leave.

… Paul’s discovery of his “superpowers” between ‘64 and ’66.

… how current groups now have “intimacy councillors” and in any other band the unmanageable Lennon would have been ejected.

… In My Life, Hey Jude and other songs they wrote about each other.

… how there was “an element of their fathers about them, of stiff upper lip” and displays of physical affection were rare.

… Paul as “the omnivorous culture-vore” in avant garde London while John was horizontal in suburbia.

… why Paul’s pace and creativity must have been psychologically punishing for the others.

… and how the emotional landscape shifted with the arrival of Yoko and Linda.

Order Ian’s book here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Paul-Story-Beatles-decades/dp/0571376118

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