Nutritious items on the rock and roll tasting menu this week include …
… the curious life of Tom Verlaine, his grocery cart and his 50,000 books.
… was March 9 1984 the worst week ever for the British album charts?
… what all great records have in common.
… Yesterday’s news today! ‘Soundies’ at the cinema and the Scopitone colour video jukebox.
… why A Hard Day’s Night was the greatest advert for the magical qualities of the Beatles and the scene that was the blueprint for the pop promotional clip.
… comforting acts with a narrow range – JJ Cale, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, U2 (“like getting into your parents’ car after a school trip”). And what made JJ Cale’s recordings so mesmerising.
… did Johnny Marr ever play a guitar solo?
… “I work in advertising but tell my mother I play piano in a brothel”.
… the link between JJ Cale’s Call Me The Breeze and Family Affair by Sly & the Family Stone.
Mentioned in despatches … Cab Calloway and the Hondells, The Hoodoo Gurus, the Style Council, Jimmy Reed and the Inkspots.
Tom Verlaine’s 50,000 books …
https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/march/at-the-tom-verlaine-book-sale?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20240306blog&utm_content=20240306blog+CID_6b4a1bd19ed9ca733f5ffca04056ca8b&utm_source=LRB%20email&utm_term=Read%20more
Subscribe to Word In Your Ear on Patreon for early - and ad-free - access to all of our content, plus a whole load more!: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
Get bonus content on PatreonHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Great album trilogies, suing Madonna and "the pantheon of psychedelic heaviosity"
The spectacular Dead & Co, songs performed backwards & happy birthday Diamond Dogs!
Why They Might Be Giants now perform an entire song backwards
Guy Chambers - writing with Robbie, a tangle with Bowie & half a bagel with Paul McCartney
Alan Edwards, pop PR – ‘Bowie was like King Arthur and the Spice Girls like the Pistols’
Rock’s image-makers, men on dancefloors and why bands can’t act like bands anymore
Paul Carrack has seen it all – beat, soul, prog, pub rock, pop & the perfect ‘slow burn’ career.
Nige Tassell was so obsessed with Dexys he’s tracked down all 24 ex-members
Why Nick Mason’s “cottage industry” band plays just early Pink Floyd
Let It Be revisited, the wisdom of Steve Albini and a woeful tale about Steve Marriott
The genius of Little Feat, the Man with the Twang & pop’s greatest scandal in the making
Steve Diggle of the Buzzcocks remembers the day “a terrible beauty was born”
Rock snobbery, the seven wives of Gregg Allman & the greatest solo on a pop record
Harold Bronson of Rhino Records kept a 40-year rock and roll diary…
The “amniotic throb” of modern pop, the eternal life of the Top Gear theme and the Blue Nile’s lucky break
Hollywood Babylon, the inspired gimmickry of Catch A Fire and the luck of Ron Wood
Neil Tennant remembers life “with dyed red Bowie hair and clattering platforms”
Richard Thompson – “you know it’s time to go when the audience starts throwing chairs”
Neil Tennant remembers the pop press and “the last great era of forward-looking songs"
The Stones’ clothes, our love affair with Abba & rock’s most appalling spectacle
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Superfancast
Derringer Discoveries - A Music Adventure Podcast
Bandsplain
One Song
Popcast