Word In Your Ear

A tie-dyed-in-the-wool rock & roll space odyssey to infinity and beyond which stops off this week at …

… why the Dead’s music was “like lighting a match in the wind”

… Ha Ha Harlem! Rebels Without Applause! – Morrissey song or Lenny Bruce comic routine?

… Sting v Sumner & Copeland and what Every Breath You Take makes daily just from streaming

… is Oasis “the biggest exchange of money for old rope in the history of commerce?”

… rock stars in shorts

… John Hartford and his Willie Nelson Sliding Doors moment

… how Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions became the most hi-tech band on the planet

… Rock ‘babes’ in the Bob Weir mould – eg Michael Clarke of the Byrds, Evan Dando and Mark Gardener from Ride

… has anyone made more by doing less than JJ Burnel on Golden Brown?

... plus Warren Zevon song titles, Mary Coughlan in a coracle and the first records we reviewed for money.

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Steve Cradock’s touring with Ocean Colour Scene in 2026 and in his own show, Travellers Tunes, with his wife and son Steve – “we’re like the Von Trapps!” This highly original night involves them “living like gypsies in the spirit of Ronnie Lane”. He looks back here, from his psychedelic Mod-shrine converted garage in Totnes, at the first shows he ever saw and played, which touches on …

…seeing UB40 at Birmingham Odeon, aged 13 – “I was bruised for days”

… an after-school Duran Duran video shoot

… “three 45-minute sets a night”: doing J Geils Band and Lennon covers pre-Bingo in working men’s clubs, aged 15

… playing Scooter Rallies in Gorleston-on-Sea in pilled-up homage to the Purple Hearts, the Jam and Secret Affair

… the imperishable sound of the early Small Faces – “the tone, the feedback, Plonk smashing his bass”

… an intense love of Northern Soul, Soft Cell, the Pretenders, Costello and the La’s

… the Stones Roses, “the most important show I ever saw – the hair, the clothes, the songs, the guitars”

… supporting Oasis at Knebworth

… “musicians’ books bore me”

…. three days in a pub with Chris Evans and regrets about “the double-edged sword” of the Riverboat Song on TGI Friday

… and Paul Weller with love beads

Buy Steve Cradock tickets here: https://www.stevecradock.com/tour/

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

Mary Coughlan – aka “Ireland’s Billie Holiday”, adored by Nick Cave, Shane MacGowan and Elvis Costello - is on tour again in 2026. This warm, funny and circuitous conversation looks back from her home in Wicklow at the first shows she ever saw and played and various milestones along the road, among them …

… singing Two Little Orphans (aged 5) at a Christmas party: “The adrenaline rush! Applause and lemonade!”

… escaping down ladders from school to see Rory Gallagher in Galway and the nuns waiting when she returned

… seeing Donovan on the Aran Islands in 1969, a trip from the mainland by currach

… meeting Mike Stoller and re-recording Peggy Lee’s savaged Mirrors album: “more relevant now than ever”

… Elton John (dressed as a hornet) at Watford Stadium and the embroidered floral skirt she’d made to watch him

… her love of cabaret and old 78s and the songs she and Erik Visser chose to launch her career

… her transformative slot on the Late Late Show in 1984: “I played to four people the night before; a week later they were queuing round the block”

… Frank Sinatra’s mysterious autocue and sitting next to Roger Moore in his audience (“very orange”)

… “I adored St Dominic’s Preview and 15 years later Van Morrison was in my dressing-room”

… her cure for insomnia

… why Joe Strummer meant so much to her

… and her 200-song live repertoire – from Meet Me Where They Play The Blues and Don’t Smoke In Bed to Love Will Tear Us Apart.

Order Mary Coughlan tickets here: https://www.marycoughlan.ie/upcoming-shows

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

‘January,’ a revered pop lyricist once wrote, ‘sick and tired you've been hanging on me.’ And if that’s the mood down your way, this might help crank up the heat, alighting as it does upon the following …

… Guns N’Roses and the imperial age of the pop video: director Nigel Dick remembers the $750,000 budget

… ‘lost elfin Scots superstar’: missing Incredible String Band member found after 40 years!

… comparing the original West End Girls to the re-made worldwide hit: “like a Top Of The Pops album doing the same song”

… the three ages of Bowie and why he’s becoming a religious cult

… gangster-wall-papering the Melody Maker office as an Ian Dury promo stunt

... the magic of stars’ childhood bedrooms

… “he’s got a tinfoil pal and a pedal bin”: Star Wars in a nutshell

… Tales of Brave Ulysses: psychedelia in under three minutes

…. and has there ever been a fictional band as convincing as McGwyer Mortimer?

Andy Miller on Licorice McKecknie here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/incredible-band-146577648

Nigel Dick’s wonderful video for God Only Knows here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXhEkug1G-Q

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

Cartwheeling into 2026 with the usual cast of rock and roll heroes and pantomime villains. Behind you this week you’ll find …

… Boy George? Rick Wakeman? Chas Smash? Vanilla Ice? Pop stars who’ve done panto

… will there ever be another Rock Knighthood?

… Dylan, Elton, Chrissie Hynde and Lil Wayne mention Brigitte Bardot in songs: but who’s seen any of her films?

… “the Brigitte Bardot idea of beauty was conceived at the same time as the idea of rock and roll”

… Chris Rea’s obsession with Miles Davis – and the tale of Benny Santini

… Billy Joel’s ‘We Didn’t Start The Fire’ and ‘Hello’ by the Beloved and their roll calls of saints and sinners

… David saw Bob Marley at the Lyceum but now thinks he’s seen a show that was even better

… the great attraction of cinema is “our furtive dreams in the dark”

… what Van Morrison owes Hugh McCracken for the intro to Brown-Eyed Girl

… and birthday guest Andrew Slattery’s Hepworth v Ellen SmashWaddy reviews quiz!

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