Word In Your Ear

Bowie’s early years have been scrutinised repeatedly but people tend to speed through the last act, from the early ‘90s to his death in 2016. Alexander Larman’s ‘Lazarus: The Second Coming Of David Bowie’ looks at his resurrection and the mystery of his final days in Manhattan in attractively honest detail, a book that’s as fondly critical of his artistic decisions as it’s celebratory. Under discussion here …

… ‘David Bowie was a fictional invention and much of his life an act’

… how wrong so many album reviews turned out to be

… “he liked to be liked and he put a lot of effort into being liked”

… Eno, Tony Visconti, Nile Rodgers, Pet Shop Boys and his endless search for collaborators

… the Lucian Freud incident at the Dorchester

… Scott Walker’s taped message: “I see God in the window”

... “he trusted in the idea he was a genius”

… the sharp contrast been his public image and private life

… how his Lord’s Prayer at the Freddie Mercury tribute was a deliberate attempt to steal the show

… the piercing question Tin Machine were asked on ‘Wogan’

… and the struggle to find anything sincere in his interviews.

Order ‘Lazarus’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lazarus-Second-Coming-David-Bowie/dp/1917923449

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David Sinclair was a long-running rock critic for the Times, Rolling Stone and many others and now makes records himself. He looks back here at some of the first bands he saw and the extraordinary people he interviewed, which touches on …

… the day Bowie took him to the Hammersmith Odeon to stand on the spot where he announced his retirement

… Keith Richards’ dark side (and what he said about Lady Di)

… interviewing Prince “who seemed like a shadow”

… seeing Free in 1970: “I still think about it. Some bands are like footprints in fresh snow”

… Hendrix on a bill with Cat Stevens and the Walker Brothers when he was 14

… singles he wore out in the days when you had to change the needle

… his theory about the lyrics of Crossroads

… “the Simon Templar of rock journalism”

… the purgatory of being a serious musician when Spotify adds 100,000 new tracks a day

… and the Shadows, the Scorpions, Sting, ZZ Top, David Coverdale and … Millstone Grit.

David Sinclair’s music here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4oMczlXHj1pt6M4ZNGR14E?si=_9Dx_G_UQ3GifCFGFra07A

To buy here: https://www.davidsinclairfour.com/shop

Tickets to the 100 Club, May19: https://www.solidentertainments.com/100club/index.html

Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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A bone-shaking ride on the weekly news cycle, stopping off here to pump up the tyres ….

… Springsteen’s Streets Of Minneapolis: it’s not what he said but the fact that he’s said it

… “they’re all just Sly & Robbie records but with someone different singing on them”

… the price of stadium tickets: if it’s too high, don’t go – but stop complaining!

… Catherine O’Hara’s wit and humanity in Waiting For Guffman and A Mighty Wind, and why Home Alone wouldn’t work without her

… Melania’s deal with Amazon: the most craven act in the history of entertainment?

… is Mick Jones the first cousin of a Tory Home Secretary?

… the secret art of “four-walling”

… are most fans conservative with a small ‘c’?

… the romance of knackered old ‘70s New York: “the cheap pleasures have gone”

… and the whitest rap of all time!

Plus birthday guest Roger Millington and the agony of a band’s “new direction”.

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Adele Bertei got a Greyhound to New York in 1977 intent on joining a band. James Chance thought she “looked like a pimp” and hired her as the organist in the Contortions, an instrument she couldn’t play. Her memoir No New York captures the most intoxicating times imaginable, the rise of Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, Madonna and her fellow raft of No Wave cheerleaders in pursuit of dismantling music. Highlights include …

… the local priest recommending the Velvet Underground when she was 11

… “imbibe and dream”: her weekend with Lester Bangs

… the rubble-filled New York wasteland of 1977, landlords setting fire to property just to claim the insurance

… the No Wave circuit: crowd violence and singers who either talked or screamed

.. her rivalry with Madonna: “our labels didn’t want people to know we were white”

… the local Cleveland “Rust Belt” - Pere Ubu, Chrissie Hynde, Devo

… why Warhol, Ginsberg and Burroughs seemed laughably outmoded

… Brian Eno’s shopping list

… the power of Tina Weymouth, Patti Smith and Debbie Harry (“sexy but with a snarl”) and why New York’s venues are internationally mythical.

Order Adele Bertei’s ‘No New York’ here: https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571386154-no-new-york/?srsltid=AfmBOor2IKVLRyzzZDisLz_8cTGDYIjDXphZVU9Lw5drAd4CdKR1KVhs

Adele with Thomas Dolby on Whistle Test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQ3bGioFCXU

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Steve Lillywhite first got a foot in the studio door aged 17 making demos for Ultravox and became a producer with credits on over 500 records. He doesn’t have a copy of any of them but kept his Grammys and his CBE. The job involves being a lightning-rod, cheer-leader, editor, finisher and “as diplomatic as Henry Kissinger”. He looks back here from his ‘Lillypad’ in Bali at the milestones along the way, among them …

… “I’d done my 10,000 hours by the age of 22”

... “If it ain’t broke, break it!”

… when he screwed up as a tape-op: “you only do it once”

… why bands never want to leave the studio

… breakthrough hits with Johnny Thunders, Siouxsie and the Psychedelic Furs

… “there’s been no new technology in the last ten years”

… the radio plugger who heard Sunday Bloody Sunday and said “sounds like a hit but you’ll have to lose the word Bloody”

… “when Mick and Keith weren’t talking they communicated through me”

… why Muff Winwood wanted to fire Larry Mullen

… why producers can’t hear a hit

… Adam Clayton and Nick Rhodes “aren’t musicians”

… “make the drums less Huntley & Palmers!”

… the Wrecking Crew versus the “One-Man Show" production of today

… and memories of making Vertigo, Fairytale of New York and Making Plans for Nigel.

Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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