Word In Your Ear

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

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
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When the pedalo of perusal cruised the lagoon of news this week, it paused to inspect the following ...

… the particular magic of the late-night DJ

… a Get Well card to dear Bob Harris

… is Global Beatles Day a bridge too far?

… the exquisite Britishness of the Manics, the Fall and the Small Faces

… Cyprus Avenue, Soho, Asbury Park … the best places to visit to help you understand an artist who lived there

… how T.Rex and Roxy Music were “too fancy” for America

… Jagger, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Johann Sebastian Bach? Musicians with the most children

… All You Need Is Love – work of genius or “ropey old doggerel”?

Plus birthday guest Paul Thompson, Foghat and watching the One World global-cast on a black and white telly.
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.

Old friend of the podcast Lloyd Bradley wrote Bass Culture, the defining account of reggae, and he’s now turned his attention to funk, from its deepest roots and via the jazz, arts, TV, radio and pop culture that flavoured it. The main 10-year focus of ‘Funk Has Its Own Reward’ is from James Brown’s ‘Say It Loud - I’m Black and I’m Proud’ to Michael Jackson’s ‘Off The Wall’ but free your mind and all this will follow! …

… the importance of radio being “colourblind”

… Cab Calloway’s Jive Dictionary and the impact of DJs Martha Jean ‘the Queen’ Steinberg and Daddy-O Daylie

… how James Brown floor-tested his records and saved a fortune making them

… funk’s deep roots in America’s marching bands

… why jazz is funk’s closest relative and what it stole from white rock

… how the Family Stone’s Larry Graham made bass the place

… how solo singers gave way to the ‘funk gangs’

… how Richard Pryor gave mainstream America a window on a whole new world.

… the influence of Soul Train and Sesame Street (19-year-old Nile Rodgers on guitar!) in bringing funk to the masses

… George Clinton – “I can’t dance, can’t play, people tell me I can’t sing … but without me none of this would have happened!”

… plus the Chambers Brothers, Herbie Hancock, Funkadelic, Bootsy, Quincy Jones, Parliament and the greatest funk record ever made.

Order copies of ‘Funk Is Its Own Reward’ here: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/lloyd-bradley-2/funk-is-its-own-reward/9781472123411/

Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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.