Word In Your Ear

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

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
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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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
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.