Word In Your Ear

Kevin Armstrong was the guitarist in the band David Bowie asked him to assemble for Live Aid and toured and recorded with him many times. Playing the guitar intro to Rebel Rebel in a stadium, he says, is “like lighting a match”. Start the Passenger with Iggy Pop and you’re greeted with “a great mass of love”. His memoir, Absolute Beginner, is “a window onto the high table of rock and roll” and full of insights into life in studios and on the road and the fathomless levels of diplomacy often required to collaborate. This entertaining pod expands upon … … why he turned down the offer to join the Smiths. … how Jim Osterberg transforms himself into Iggy Pop. … the Sinead O’Connor’s tour manager’s trick to speed the band through security.   … the song Bowie dropped from the Live Aid set. … why Michael Hutchence is “terrified of small crowds”. … Bowie’s ex-Navy Seal minder and the old decoys-under-blankets ruse. … why Morrissey is “thin-skinned”. … and the eternal curse of “Imposter Syndrome”.  Order ‘Absolute Beginner’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Absolute-Beginner-Memoirs-least-known-guitarist/dp/1911036173Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho on September 25th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/1SwIYJWoHKSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We dipped the shrimping net of curiosity in the rock and roll rockpool this week and transferred the following items to the podcast bucket … … who now regrets being the “little tyrant” that broke up their band 30 years ago? … who was the real Bungalow Bill and how did the song about him change his life? … Bing Crosby and Paul Whiteman are almost forgotten. Are the Doors and the Kinks heading the same way? … the unique and extraordinary Bill Wyman, “more a witness to the Rolling Stones than a member”, plus Nellcôte and the Birds’ Custard. … is the ice finally melting in the Talking Heads camp? … an everyday tale of Culture’s “Two Sevens Clash” on the mean streets of North London’s garden suburbs.   … was Lennon v the Maharishi an early example of “career cancelling”? … is Life During Wartime from Stop Making Sense the greatest live performance ever filmed? … the curse of the Budokan. … and birthday guests Avi Chaudhuri and Jelltex (who strongly recommends The Mood Elevator's second album, Married Alive).Tickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho on September 25th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/1SwIYJWoHKSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ray Padgett lives in Vermont, first discovered Dylan when he was 16 in the 21st Century and was fascinated and besotted, later launching the newsletter ‘Flagging Down the Double E’s’ and now publishing the enthralling ‘Pledging My Time’, a collection of his interviews with over 40 people who’ve worked, performed and recorded with the inscrutable old rogue. Both the book and this fast-moving, whip-smart and very funny conversation are revelatory and highly recommended, the podcast shedding light on … … the daily life of Bob Dylan – eg the piles of gifts he routinely receives and the security men who scour his vacated hotel rooms to remove anything that could be nicked and put on eBay. … the only friend who seemed to co-exist with him on “an equal footing”. ... an eye-witness account of his first performance (aged 13) at a Jewish summer camp in Minnesota. … the childhood friend who owned a fish business in Duluth and ended up running the Rolling Thunder Revue - as Dylan enigmatically put it, “if you can sell fish, you can sell tickets”. ... the time he went to a business conference and nobody recognised him. … how he tells musicians to “never play the same thing twice”. … the chance meeting with Scarlet Rivera – two hours later she was onstage as “my violinist” with Dylan and Muddy Waters. … multiple examples of his love of spontaneity and the extraordinary way he hires musicians.   … a rare moment when his career seemed to stall. … and honourable mentions of Richard Thompson, Paul Stookey, Jim Keltner, Stan Lynch and Jeff Bridges. Pledging My Time …https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pledging-My-Time-Conversations-Members/dp/B0C6VRBZQC Flagging Down the Double E’s newsletter …https://dylanlive.substack.com/aboutTickets for Word In Your Ear live at 21Soho on September 25th here: https://www.tickettext.co.uk/1SwIYJWoHKSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/woridinyourear https://www.covermesongs.com/about-ray-padgett Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This podcast discusses various interesting topics, including a singer who sold vials of her tears as merchandise, why our favorite music is often from our teenage years, the impact of Reckless Eric's song 'Whole Wide World', the Curse of Flyers documentary, the influence of Bill Graham on the music industry, and the creative process behind the band's album.

Even podcasts take “annual leave” but we’re back and once again propelling the two-man Pedalo of Enquiry down the rock and roll seafront stopping off at sundry wave-rippled spots, among them … … what Chuck Berry said about the Clash. … a band whose keyboard player is the King’s second cousin. … the song Art Garfunkel sang for years without realising it was about him. … Billy Connolly’s bicycle gag and other things you couldn’t get away with now. … Ian Hunter remembering “that little bloke from Beckenham”. … why Punk was like a religious movement. Guest Paul Burke claims it was a “passing fad and its over-cooked legacy was fashioned by the middle-class media”. … the Shakespearian echoes of ‘The Boxer’. … what Bowie would have done if the Laughing Gnome had been a hit. … how Robbie Robertson lived the life Bob Dylan claimed to have lived and never recaptured the spirit of the first two Band albums. … Earl Shilton, Norbert Putnam … American session player or remote place in Leicestershire?… lost TV documentaries about Gene Vincent and the Global Village Trucking Company.  That Global Village Trucking Company doc …https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SNrBey7yQI Punk’s fake history, Spectator column by Paul Burke …https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/punks-fake-history/Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

 The mellifluous melody and soaring counterpoint of this week’s podcast were comprised of the following notes … … Morrissey’s broadside on the treatment of Sinead O’Connor – and her electrifying moment at Dylan’s 30th Anniversary tribute two weeks after she’d torn up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live. … two unsettling events in the later life of Randy Meisner. … Adele revives the old Las Vegas business model (at about £8m a night). … the eternal mystery of Bob Dylan’s motorcycle crash and his Shea Stadium and Russian shows that never happened. … how long news took to travel: the Battle of Waterloo (three days), the death of Jim Morrison (two weeks). … Oppenheimer and why so many films are so long. … Things It’s Almost Impossible To Accept, No 97: Mick Jagger is 80! … in 2006 BBC viewers voted Morrissey second in a Greatest Living British Icons poll (Sir David Attenborough was first, McCartney third). Where would he be if they ran they voted tomorrow? … that photo of Pulp and their 57-strong entourage. … the time the Troggs turned psychedelic.… the endless value of the mantra “never apologise, never explain”. … TV clips from the Lost World of Rock And Roll – Hush tour Australia in 1997 (and pay their road crew $1 an hour);Quintessence in 1970, ‘the sound of Notting Hill Gate’.  ------------- Clips:- Sinead O’Connor at Dylan’s 30th anniversary concert two weeks after she tore up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live …https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKeJifOXAnA Glam-rock roadhogs Hush in 1977 …https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-Iyytr1AJ4 Getting It Straight In Notting Hill Gate …https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-getting-it-straight-in-notting-hill-gate-1970-onlineSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Blips on the rock and roll radar this week include …   … Things You No Longer See, No 97: the celebrity airport arrival shot. .. do we, in all honesty, need Roger Waters’ re-interpretation of the Dark Side Of The Moon for it is upon us on October 6?  … is there really an Edinburgh Fringe show called ‘Bald Man Sings Rihanna”, ‘A Shark Ate My Penis’ or ‘In The Court Of The Crimson Ting: Prog Rock in A Reggae Style’? … a 1976 clip of Elton John as the jobbing pianist on the Morecambe & Wise Show. “Elton John? Sounds like an exit on the motorway.  … the poignant story of 1968’s lost psych-rock voyagers the Mike Stuart Span and what happened when they became Leviathan. … the time Hipgnosis put a sheep on a psychiatrists’ couch in the Hawaiian surf and landed a chopper in the Alps to photograph a statue. … the Scottish stately pile Bob Dylan’s just put on the market. .. and – with birthday guest Patrick Butler - six theories as to why Steely Dan are hipper now than ever.  The Mike Stuart Span TV clip …https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufD0e8tE-UY Elton with Eric & Ernie …https://twitter.com/eric_ernie_col/status/1673207024702636033 Roger Waters’ Money redux …https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUVmeYgo1IwSubscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Pat “PP” Arnold was hired as an Ikette by Ike & Tina’s Revue in 1965 and set off a 2,000 mile tour of America, coming to London a year later to support the Rolling Stones. Offered a record deal by Andrew Oldham, she lived in England for many years becoming “the First Lady Of Immediate” with a wide circle of friends and collaborators including the Small Faces, Cat Stevens, Hendrix, Rod Stewart, Nick Drake and the Bee Gees, all recorded in her memoir 'Soul Survivor'. Here she looks back at:- … the rigours of the Ike & Tina tours where she was once fined $50 for crying onstage. … the contrast between “the Chiltin’ Circuit and the Albert Hall. ... supporting the Stones in ’66 and her romance with Mick Jagger “who wanted to walk and talk like a black man”. She taught him how to do the Pony and the Mashed Potato. … the success of The First Cut Is The Deepest.   … her unique American take on the Swinging London of the mid-‘60s and quaint English expressions like “taking the piss”, and how an “unsophisticated” girl from the Watts district of Los Angeles saw the bohemian world (eg Chelsea restaurants where you got three sets of cutlery). … her time with “my brothers” the Small Faces who were “a lot more ghetto than the Stones”. … and a mention of recent collaborations with Paul Weller and Ocean Colour Scene. Order Soul Survivor here …https://www.amazon.co.uk/Soul-Survivor-Autobiography-P-P-Arnold/dp/1788705785Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As Mark Ellen had taken his shrimping net to the coast Alex Gold steps into the breach to talk to David Hepworth about….how solo acts like Bing Crosby and Bruce Springsteen get to play the common man in a way they never could if they were in a band….the extraordinary sight and sound of the band called Punch trying to make their name on “Opportunity Knocks” in the vanished land of 1976….what to do with your wedding ring if you find yourself on the world’s largest cruise liner….Cat Stevens’ “Father And Son” and a few less exalted things that Dads say.Don’t miss the amazing Punch dochttp://youtu.be/_DxLtuK3pD4Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In his new biography “Nick Drake: The Life”, Richard Morton Jack set out to correct the misconceptions spread by magazines and former biographies, some ending up on Wikipedia. This involved talking to as many people as he could track down who’d met and remembered him, from key players like Joe Boyd, Francoise Hardy and Drake’s sister Gabrielle to the girl who played the cello on ‘Cello Song and a childhood friend who wrote a poem about him in the school magazine. The result is, by some margin, the clearest and most comprehensive picture of him to date, far more accelerated and self-promotional in the early days than we’d been lead to believe – “not just sitting in his ivory tower singing to the moon” – though it’s still hard to think of a musician worse equipped for the rigours of the music business and having, as Richard perfectly puts it, “a personality fundamentally ill-suited to display”. This covers a wide landscape from his lack of support (no real manager, no agent, no proper PR), the unusual and often disastrous gigs he played, the luckless timing of his record releases (Five Leaves Left out the day Brian Jones died), the mysteries of his love life, his time with John Cale, playing for Mick Jagger in Marrakesh, an awkward Parisian dinner with Francoise Hardy and his eventual decline and withdrawal from the outside world. It’s also a charming portrait of what real life was like in the late ‘60s when evenings revolved around a record deck, overflowing ashtrays and games of Monopoly. You can order Richard Morton Jack’s book here …https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nick-Drake-Richard-Morton-Jack/dp/1529308089Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free! - access to all of our content: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.