Word In Your Ear Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

Among the logs tossed on the conversational bonfire this week to combat mid-June’s British winter you’ll find …
… ‘I Managed Van Morrison’ and other films screaming to be made.
 … how it feels to watch someone play from the best seat in the house.
… Françoise Hardy, her unsmiling photos and legions of besotted male admirers (ie us and everyone else).
 … the time she met Dylan and Nick Drake.
 … Juliette Greco, Edith Piaf and the handful of French stars who made it across the Channel.
… the joy of small venues: “the bigger the gig, the smaller a component of the experience the actual performance is”.
 … Elvis Costello’s photographic memory.
 … Maria Muldaur with Earl Palmer and Amos Garrett.
 … why Twenty Twelve says more about British life than any other TV show.
 ... the terrible jokes of Ronnie Scott.
… “Kate Bush grew up in a world without sarcasm.”
 … Siobhan Sharpe, Bertie Wooster, the Artful Dodger, Basil Fawlty, Edina & Patsy and other deathless British fictional stereotypes.
 … plus birthday guest Paul Thompson and books tracking down people who’ve played with Dexys and Dylan. And who should be next – Hawkwind, Van Morrison?
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Stewart Lee – beloved writer, columnist and stand-up - was on the podcast in 2022 talking about the first records he bought, immensely funny and fascinating, and we’ve been praying for an excuse to get him back since. And it’s here! - he’s on tour again and his ‘Basic Lee’ show is on Sky/Now TV on July 20. This covers his first memories of live entertainment - in the audience and as a performer – and the people who influenced him and stops off at the following stations …
 
… why the Wombles were just like Crass.
 
… how he writes and tests new material.
 
… why Ted Chippington inspired his stand-up career.
 
… television comedy is now “two-screen TV” as the viewer’s always watching something else at the same time.
 
… how Lockdown made audiences forget how to behave.
 
… “Comedian In Bum Phone Fury”: how he stopped people filming his gigs.
 
… deliberately using negative reaction shots in his TV edits.  
 
… improvisation in music and comedy and why every night should be unique.
 
… the tense protocol of comedians at other comedians’ gigs. 
… Mark E Smith doing things “out of necessity irrespective of how they were received” and his reaction to seeing Stewart in his audience.
 
… why festival crowds are a challenge.
 
… the Drifters, the Applejacks and Napalm Death and how they are related.
 
… the music playing when his son was born.
 
… arriving in full early Dexys rig - donkey jacket, woolly hat - to find they were now the “raggle-taggle gypsies”.
 
… the sole performance of Peter Richardson’s Mexican bandit act.
 
… Daniel Kitson, “the world’s greatest living stand-up”.
 
… plus the Nightingales, Chris Spedding, Clem Cattini, Kirk Brandon, the Bevis Frond, Geddy Lee, Throbbing Gristle and Brighton Psych Fest’s Secluded Bronte – “is it music or are they just moving furniture around?”
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All information about Stewart Lee tour dates here …
https://www.stewartlee.co.uk/
 
‘Basic Lee’ is on Sky/Now TV on July 20.
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You’ll always find us in the kitchen at parties, near the hoppy summer ale and sausage rolls and, and this week discussing …
 
… he hasn't changed his look or sound for 30 years: is there a more conservative concept than Liam Gallagher? And how he became the one-man Oasis.
 
… the eye-watering sum Kevin Hart made from Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.
 
… Loudermilk, Rob Gordon in High Fidelity and other Rock Snob stereotypes in fiction - “I’m a Rock Snob? It comes with the territory being right!” And how rock critics are always cast as cynical, joyless curmudgeons.  
… why Courteney Cox was chosen for the Dancing In The Dark video and how Springsteen turned live performance into spectacle.
 
… the diplomatic skills of A&R men in pursuit of hit singles.
 
… why Born In The USA was a masterclass in branding.
 
… the Word in Your Ear podcast and Taylor Swift, both up and running since 2006!
 
… plus Abba, Peter ‘King Mod’ Meaden, Jon Savage’s book on LGBTQ pop culture, Liam Gallagher’s hair and Springsteen’s dancing lessons.
 
Great clip of Steve Harley on Australian TV sent by listener Brian Nankervis …
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=10154289171249235
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“I thought Dave Davies of the Kinks was a girl. When I discovered he was a boy, that’s when I got interested.” Jon’s an old friend of the podcast and the author of some highly regarded and influential books about pop and its repercussions, ‘England’s Dreaming’ and ‘1966: the Year The Decade Exploded’ among them. His latest is ‘The Secret Public: How LGBTQ Performers Shaped Popular Culture 1955-1979’ which looks at five particular moments and the pivotal people in the mix at the time. We couldn’t recommend it more highly and cover seven decades in this conversation, stopping off at …
 
… how “homosexuality was a career-killer” until Bowie’s spectacular Melody Maker interview in 1972.
 
… new male identities - Valentino, Nureyev, Sinatra and the “subversive” stage act of Johnnie Ray.
 
… does pop drive change or reflect it?
 
… Andrew Loog Oldham, Kit Lambert, Simon Napier-Bell and the supposed “gay managers mafia” and how Oldham used camp as a weapon.
 
… Dusty Springfield and the Gateway Club.
 
… how Brian Epstein invented a new type of manager.
 
... Andy Warhol at the Factory, pop art, the launch of the Velvet Underground and his jukebox time-capsule of ‘60s gay pop taste.
 
… was Tom Robinson the first out gay British pop star?
 
… Mary Whitehouse v the Gay Times.
 
… the Clash (“hurt, vulnerable boys”), Siouxsie, Poly Styrene, the Slits, Vic Godard and punk’s other new stage identities.
 
Order ‘the Secret Public’ here …
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Secret-Public-Resistance-Popular-1955-1979/dp/0571358373
 
… and Jon’s 2-CD soundtrack here …
https://www.roughtrade.com/en-gb/product/various/jon-savages-the-secret-public-how-the-lgbtq-aesthetic-shaped-pop-culture-1955-1979?channable=409d9269640032313931333434ec&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwvIWzBhAlEiwAHHWgvQetjeRXO03PVnpFYq75PMG_pmDd42hKBO8VytbDerJqZw3ycIY7pxoCFxIQAvD_BwE#cd-x2
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Giles was 12 when he watched Abba win Eurovision in 1974 and was instantly besotted – and thus required to spend the next 20 years wrestling with The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name. His thunderingly funny, fond and illuminating book – My My!: Abba Through The Years – traces their story, looks at the snobbery and critical mauling they endured and figures out how they made records so universally popular and which still move him to tears 50 years later. It’s also the best example of any book we’ve read that can explain the mechanics of music to a non-musician. It’s highly recommended, as is this podcast which alights upon …
 
… a 50 year-old story – “for 42 of which they haven’t existed”.
 
.. the vicious early press reaction - “calculatingly commercial”, “dispassionate” …
 
… the divine clunkiness of their early TV appearances.
 
… the sense of the melancholy we’ve attached to their music - and why.
 
... the immense value of splitting up early and never reforming or publicly falling out.  
 
… the immaculate construction of Dancing Queen (which opens with the second half of the chorus) and why “there are two types of wedding disco – ones that start with Dancing Queen and terrible ones.”
 
… the maturity of Abba’s lyrics – about marriages, relationships, children and other subjects pop music rarely tackles.
 … why Abba Voyage is so affecting that he’s seen it three times.
 
… and Muriel’s Wedding, Priscilla Queen of the Desert and other key factors in The Comeback.
 
Order Giles Smith’s My My!: Abba Through The Ages here …
https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-ABBA-Through-Ages-ebook/dp/B0CF73GNN4
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Peter Meaden was a key figure in the Mod movement. He changed the world view of Andrew Loog Oldham, which shaped the early Stones, and he managed the Who, remodelling their look and sound, writing their first single and turning them into Mod figureheads. Steve Turner interviewed him in 1975, an exchange that's now the centrepiece of his new book 'King Mod: the Story of Peter Meaden, the Who and the Birth of a British Subculture', and the NME's published extract in 1978 paved the way for the Mod Revival. It's an extraordinary story that would make a movie, discussed here with Steve and including ... 
... the Scene Club in Windmill Street "when a band was a way of life".
... Angus McGill and the first press mention of 'the Modernists'.
… the tale of Sandra Blackstone, the DJ who vanished into thin air.
... the lifelong values of Mod culture for teenagers like Eric Clapton, Marc Bolan and David Bowie. 
 ... the single Meaden wrote for the Who - Zoot Suit/I'm The Face - and where he stole the music from. 
... police raids in Soho. 
... doing press for Bob Dylan at the time of Madhouse on Castle Street. 
 
... the Flamingo Club's dress policy, French and Italian film and fashion, boxing boots, cycle jackets and the origins of Mod style. 
 ... Chuck Berry in suburban Edmonton! 
... Meaden's disastrous attempt to bring Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band to London. 
... and a typical weekend in 1964, a sleepless, Drinamyl-powered 48 hours from the Ready Steady Go! green room to the Scene Club via Carnaby Street. 
£5 off copies of ‘King Mod’ here. Just type in the discount code which is:-
Podcast offer
https://redplanetmusicbooks.com/collections/full-catalogue/products/king-mod
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