In which we pedal the conversational tandem uphill and down dale, like a rabbit through the pea-vine or a turkey through the corn, stopping for moments of reflection which include …

… “If someone wants to steal your music, it means your music’s worth stealing.”

… cats, birdsong: spot the ‘silent track’ by Kate Bush.  

… when Gene Hackman smiles, be very afraid.

… what was written on Walter Matthau’s funeral card.

… “Home-Taping Is Killing Music!” and other threats that failed to sink the business.

… double albums: never mind the quality, feel the width.

… how Exile On Main St became a symbol of peak-Stones grimy decadence.

… Hunter Davies, Mark Lewisohn, Ian Leslie, Richard DiLello?: the best Beatles book ever written?

… “is genius worth the collateral damage?”: homelife in Frank Zappa’s house.

… things we never say on the Word podcast.

… when rock critics get it wrong.

Plus birthday guest Nick Foreman flies the flag for Hunter Davies.

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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We first saw Graham Fellows as Jilted John on Top of the Pops in 1978 and we’ve followed his characters ever since, especially drawn to the keyboard-prodding, car-coated John Shuttleworth and his deathless pop anthems ‘Pigeons In Flight’, ‘Up And Down Like A Bride’s Nightie’ and ‘I Can’t Go Back To Savoury Now’. Graham talks here about how and why he created them (and rock media studies lecturer Brian Appleton) and his new book ‘John Shuttleworth Takes The Biscuit’, along with … the allure of romantic punk rock (Patrik Fitzgerald, Buzzcocks, the Undertones), Sheffield mouse-breeders, comic melancholy, whether Northern humour is funnier than Southern, kissing Debbie Harry for a publicity shot, the advice his father gave him and the finer details of the Shuttleworth live experience.  

Order 'John Shuttleworth Takes The Biscuit' here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Shuttleworth-Takes-Biscuit-Selection/dp/1915841305

John Shuttleworth tour dates:

https://www.ents24.com/uk/tour-dates/john-shuttleworth

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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As sinister autocrats stroke Persian cats in shark-pooled underground bunkers, their bony fingers reaching for the nuclear button, we shake another Vodka Martini and reflect on the week’s events, among them …

… Amazon buys Bond: but isn’t the essence of 007 its droll and unimpressible Britishness?

… and haven’t the lunatics taken over the asylum? Can you still invent unhinged fantasy villains with real life versions in the Kremlin and White House?

… why a Jam reunion would never have worked.

… when did ‘cool’ change from meaning exotic and unconventional to being just like everyone else? And why do we picture the concept of ‘cool’ in black and white?

… in stout defence of the pilloried record reviewer!

… why the Olympics was payday for Justine Frischmann.

... when Johnny Cash was on the Muppet Show and was photographed with Richard Nixon.

… how come no-one complains about old online reviews but they do if they were physically printed?

… how Lonnie Donegan made a fortune from Nights In White Satin.

… hurrah for the silencing of the Pedicab boombox!

… newspaper sellers, milkmen, shifty ‘hot goods’ vendors: whatever happened to the street cries of London?

… plus birthday guest Paul Monaghan and rock stars who were architects – Art Garfunkel, Ice Cube, Pete Briquette, Chris Lowe, Ralf Hutter …– and teaching Damon Albarn and Justine Frischmann.

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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Nights In White Satin - 260 million streams on Spotify - is still the central plank in the set Justin Hayward’s touring in October. He talks to us here about the first shows he ever saw and played, the ballroom circuit of the mid-’60s remembered in particularly vivid detail and involving the odd burst of song - “My kind of town, Great Yarmouth is …!”. Along with …

… the appeal of “a Moody Blues crowd”.

... “Name Singer seeks guitar player”: the Melody Maker ad that got him into the Marty Wilde band, aged 17.

… playing a summer season on the same bill as a water feature – aka the Waltzing Waters.

… his early band All Things Bright and their Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Coasters setlist.

… the “onerous” publishing deal he signed with Lonnie Donegan that siphoned off the profits of Nights In White Satin.

… seeing Tommy Cooper at the Bournemouth Pavilion and the Barron Knights at the Locarno in Swindon.

… “Terry the Pill” in Eric Burdon’s office.

… toying with the idea of “a rock version of Dvorak”.

… the uncertain fate of Nights In White Satin and the plugger who threatened to resign over it.

… how Days Of Future Passed was the “Deramic Sound” demo record.

… and the highpoint of the Moody Blues story and their Second Coming.

Justin Hayward tickets here: https://justinhayward.com/pages/current-tour-dates

https://justinhayward.com/

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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No musician is more closely associated with London or left more footprints than Bowie, and you can trace its influence on his life and work (and vice versa) through a series of landmarks from the suburbs to the centre. Author and curator Paul Gorman has just published an annotated street-map – David Bowie’s London - listing the places that played a formative role in his world and music, the places he rehearsed, performed, filmed and recorded, the homes of friends and managers, his schools and the addresses where he lived, worked and was photographed, made connections, bought clothes and generally raised the temperature. We talk here about many of those old haunts and the stories attached to them, which include…

… mysterious manager Ralph Horton who got him to change his name to Bowie and then vanished from the face of the earth.

… the fate of Heddon Street, home of K-West and the Ziggy phone-box. 

… Marc Bolan refusing to let him sing at an all-night benefit at Middle Earth.

… “the Fairy Godmother of the New Romantics” at the WAG Club.

… when Lionel Bart came to Haddon Hall.

… Bowie and Steve Marriott auditioning for the Lower Third.

… how he levered his way into a Fabulous magazine fashion shoot.

… “the end of the age of Showbiz”: performing Chim Chim Cher-ee at the Marquee when at a crossroads between rock and roll and cabaret.

… the magical piano at the Trident Studios.

… a chance encounter with the otherworldly Vince Taylor whose ‘UFO map’ helped inspire the concept of Ziggy Stardust.

… the legend of Mr Fish, creator of the man-dress on the cover of The Man Who Sold The World.

… the days when people had a white Rolls Royce and matching Alsatian – and “the Great Sarong Scare of the ‘90s”.

… and various fringe figures including his art teacher Owen Frampton, Konrads agents Bob Knight and Eric Easton, muse and heartbreaker Hermione Farthingale, producers Shel Talmy and Tony Hatch (“the original Mr Nasty from Opportunity Knocks”) and slum landlord and racketeer Peter Rackman.

Order Paul’s street-map here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Bowies-London-Paul-Gorman/dp/1068523476

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We first saw Eddi Reader singing with the Gang Of Four on Whistle Test in 1982. This eventful pod traces her story from seven kids in a two-bedroom council flat (“me in the toilet with a guitar singing Your Cheating Heart”), to the Scottish folk clubs, busking with circus acrobats on the Left Bank, to radio jingles, life as a backing singer and the rapid rise of Fairground Attraction who reformed last year, 34 years after they split in 1990. It's highly entertaining from the kick-off, not least ….

… snogging the Earl of Moray’s son during Dylan at Blackbushe.

… the jingles she sang on ‘80s radio ads.

… what she learnt from Annie Lennox when touring with Eurythmics.

… backing singer stage-wear etiquette.

… performing Love Me Tender aged eight in the school classroom.

… singing Three Drunken Maidens and Lord Franklin at the Irvine Folk Club, over the road from Amanda’s Wet T-Shirt Night.

… busking in Paris and the songs that pulled the most money (eg Tupelo Honey and All Along the Watchtower).

… “men you put on the shoulder-pads for.”

… what Billy Bragg called “a civilian”.

… Chou Pahrot, Cado Belle, Café Jacques, Stone the Crows and other great lost Scottish bands.

… Hamish Imlach’s advice about how to project onstage.

… how to use a pencil as a pop-shield.

… and her Grandad “who loved his wife so much he nearly told her”.

Eddi Reader tickets here: https://eddireader.co.uk/gigs/

Fairground Attraction’s Beautiful Happening album: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beautiful-Happening-Fairground-Attraction/dp/B0CZ7NMJYV

https://eddireader.co.uk/

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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Passing the Dutchie 'pon the left-hand side, we sift through this week’s events, rants and theories which absorbingly include …

… that Drake v Kendrick Lamar beef in full!

… was Bowie only as good as his collaborators?

… Kingmaker, Toploader, Feeder, Slayer, Longdancer, Widowmaker …. has there ever been a good band with a name ending ‘-er’?

…… seeing the Jam at the Hope & Anchor.

… John Lennon was not a working-class hero. Bob Marley shot no sheriffs. Joe Strummer’s daddy wasn’t a bankrobber. Starship patently never built any cities on rock and roll. Monstrous rock and roll untruths exposed!

 … why Film Star Good-Looking is different from Rock Star Good-Looking.

… one glove, a swan dress, comedy specs, a snake, a bat …. Pop stars with a cartoonable signature.

… Woody Allen, Lisa Kudrow, Scarlett Johansson and the Kanye West clip that was never sanctioned. 

… JD Salinger, Scott Joplin, Thomas Pynchon, Banksy – people whose voices we’ve never heard.

… the gripes of Taylor Swift.

… ‘An Interminable Appetite For Spite’ and other album titles in waiting.

… and Buffy Sainte-Marie and the perils of misrepresentation.

Plus birthday guest Chris Lintott remembers seeing Bowie as a mime artist.

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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Direct from the Government Yard in Trenchtown where, over cornmeal porridge by a log wood fire, the events of the week are gently appraised, among them …

… how Bob Marley, the Walker Brothers, the Byrds, Hendrix, Ramones, Blondie and Nirvana “got the dust of England on their boots”.

… Chappell Roan’s demands for “a living wage” in a business built on inequity.

… why audio books surprise you in ways the print edition can’t.

… Beyonce? Best Country album? You sure?

… “separate immediately”: Marsha Hunt and the secret of a successful marriage.

… Bowie, Queen, the Velvet Underground: how the most streamed songs are rarely what you’d expect.

… when London, New York and LA were the centres of the universe.

… Bookends, Randy Newman’s Good Old Boys and other albums with a narrative.

… when the Police, Pistols and Clash tried to conquer America.

… Miles Copeland Senior in Ben Macintyre’s A Spy Among Friends.

… “the film world is constructed around 100 actors, eight of whom are celebrated every year”.

… plus birthday guest Keith Adsley turns the lights out for Pitchblack Playback – albums you should hear in the dark.

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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The teenage Woody Woodmansey was offered the job of under-foreman in the Vertex spectacle factory in Hull but then got a call from Bowie inviting him to move to London and play drums on his new album - “plus food and somewhere to stay”. It took him all weekend to decide. And involved some cultural readjustment when he did. 56 years later he’s a founding member of Holy Holy and touring the UK in May – along with Tony Visconti and Glenn Gregory – performing songs from Bowie’s breakthrough early ‘70s albums. He talks here about …

… the life-changing sound behind the silver door of an air-raid shelter in Driffield.

… supporting the Kinks in Bridlington and the Herd at Leeds University - and why Peter Frampton told him, “I’ll see you at the top”.

... his first paid gig at the local girls’ school.

… the Spiders’ instructional group outings to see ballet, mime and theatre.

... “never more than three takes”: how Bowie wrote and recorded and the sketches he drew for their stage gear.

 … life at Haddon Hall and its “Gone With The Wind staircase”.

… Yorkshire to London and the cultural collisions involved.

… what Bowie realised was “the missing ingredient”.

… Woody’s checklist to assess Bowie’s talents when he met him: “He wasn’t Paul Rodgers or Roger Daltrey. He could write. He could communicate.”

… “I’m not wearing that!” The day Mick Ronson packed his bags and left.

Order Holy Holy tickets here:

https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/tony-visconti-tickets/artist/2003254

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In a courageous stand against AI technology, a pair of old lags communing via two cocoa tins and a piece of string attempt to put the rock and roll world to rights. Which this week involves …

… what David saw in the HMV record store in Oxford Street “that shook me to the ground”.

... music that only works played loud.

… Marianne Faithfull - there’s no middle ground between Sacred Figure and Outrageous Diva.

… why ‘60s fame is like no other fame.

… is there a more enduring example of bad press than Sting’s tantric sex?

… John Mendelssohn’s West Coast adventure with David Bowie.

… which is musically more significant: punk or disco?

… Tom Waits reading the weather forecast.

… which musicians make convincing actors - Sinatra, Lady Gaga, Elvis, Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Costello, Mick Jagger?

… Bowie singing Jacques Brel songs on a waterbed in Hollywood.

… why we miss the great press ‘hatchet jobs’.

… do slogans last longer than music?

… what kind of world plays When The Levee Breaks softly and in a Chelsea café?

… why rock music is like the Catholic Church before the Reformation.

… plus birthday guest Kevin Rose wonders which musicians made the best actors.

Order John Mendelssohn’s ‘Peculiar To Mr Bowie’ here:

https://www.nortonrecords.com/a4-peculiar-to-mr-bowie-by-john-mendelssohn/

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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