Word In Your Ear

Sparks are touring – playing dates in the UK and Ireland in June and July – and with a new (and 28th) album, Mad!. Russell Mael looks back at the first shows he ever saw and played which entails …

… sitting on the floors of LA clubs watching Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Move, the Faces, the Who and Tyrannosaurus Rex.  

… his Mum taking him to see the Beatles in the Hollywood Bowl among “10,000 screaming girls”.

… “there was a faux honesty about the Laurel Canyon bands – ‘it’s just me and my guitar’ – whereas the British acts had the clothes and put on a performance. Which is just as honest.”

… what Todd Rundgren saw in the early Sparks.

… Edgar Wright’s “love letter” movie ‘The Sparks Brothers’ and how it’s expanded their audience.

… rehearsing for four months to perform all 21 of their albums in their entirety in 2008 (in Islington) and the people who came every night.

… playing pizza parlours in the ‘60s – “we were paid in pizza”.  

… and how the Mael brothers’ creative relationship has worked - indeed thrived – for over 60 years.

The runners and riders in the rock and roll steeplechase first past the post this week include …

… how Ed Sheeran protects himself against song theft claims.

… ‘lost’ Hendrix, Beach Boys, Amy Winehouse and Jeff Buckley records: is anything unfinished ever any good?

… “The Unauthorised Breakfast Item”: can YOU tell a Bob Newhart sketch title from a Caravan song?

… US Office versus the UK original and the genius of Steve Carrell.

… The West Wing, Frasier, the Good Life and how romance is the root of all great sitcoms.

… rock and roll lighting: “you can do whatever you want now but that doesn’t mean you should”.

… Judge claims busking is “noise pollution”!

. … Pink Floyd: “it’s not going to work without the gong!”

… and a giant poster of David Hepworth and Mark Ellen pinned to a tree outside Wareham.

Plus birthday guest Stephen Lambe on the downside of the age of spectacle.

Ed Tudor Pole entered punk rock from stage school and always felt he was playing a part. After being hired to act in the Great Rock’N’Roll Swindle, he formed Tenpole Tudor and had a brief and dramatic moment in the sun, all recorded in his rollicking memoir ‘The Pen Is Mightier.’ He talks here about …

… his “quite posh” ancestry and a great-grandfather bankrupted by the Wall Street Crash.

… a “Damascene conversion” to the Rolling Stones and ten hours in the burning sun at their Hyde Park show, aged 14.

… being at RADA with Timothy Spall, Imelda Staunton and Juliet Stevenson.

… The Great Rock’N’Roll Swindle audition and the “really horrid” Nancy Spungen’s striptease.

… how everyone’s related to Edward 111.

… the secret of a One-Man Show – adopt the voice of Will Hay and “let the audience do the work!”

… why “most actors are awful people and all crippled in some way” and his time in theatre was “like being a cow in a field of sheep”.

… how Stiff’s Dave Robinson hated punk and wanted Tenpole Tudor to be a novelty act.

… three months with five acts in a coach on the Stiff Tour.

… how the success of Swords Of A Thousand Men didn’t affect their ticket sales - “it was bought by 350,000 12 year-old boys who weren’t old enough to go to gigs”.

… why the Tenpole Tudor split broke his heart.

… as Socrates said, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”

Scanning the rock and roll ether with our patent heat-seeking Ripple-Detector®️ to see what rings the bell. Which this week includes …

… how reformed ‘90s pop groups all look like Paul Whitehouse characters from the Fast Show.

… the mutual agony of parents taking kids to concerts.

… “Tap! Tap! Tap!”, the “gacked up” sound of the Heartbreakers’ at work in Fort Petty.

… “Two old voices crack through the static/ Vinyl souls dissected so erratic”: AI’s nerve-jangling interpretation of Word In Your Ear – in song!

… the four stages of showbiz … and three stages of hearing music.

… the miracle birth of Don Henley’s ‘The Boys Of Summer’.

… why we tend to run the other way when people insist we’d like something.

… records that make sense 40 years later – and a message from Brian Eno.

… EMF and the graffiti, Carter USM rugby tackling Phillip Schofield, Radiohead playing ‘My Iron Lung’: bands “too cool” for the Smash Hits Poll Winners’ Party.

… how simpler music appeals as you get older.

Plus the new Patreon roll-call and, from Les, the unsettling AI-generated tribute to Word in Your Ear: 

The super-trouper of scrutiny scans this week’s events and lands upon …

… the man who’s played on 21,000 records.

… how Joni Mitchell is still stirring it up aged 81 and why we love her for it.

... the impact of the stadium circuit on rock festivals.

… the longest-surviving group in the world – bowing out at Glastonbury after 66 years!

… “fake indignation” on social media.

… the 40th anniversary of Dead Or Alive’s stunning You Spin Me Round (Like A Record).

… the most unlikely looking person to have ever become a rock star. 

… the serial winner of the Bass Player Who Most Resembles An Old Testament Prophet contest.

… why a record untouched for four decades – eg Day Of Radiance by electronic zither master Laraaji - seems to have matured like a fine wine.

… how Donna Summer’s I Feel Love was a new kind of music, one that made you one want endless repetition rather than change.

 … “Kevin Ayers drank a pint of Pernod then drove me down a mountain”.

Plus birthday guest Avi Chaudhiri on the connection between Buddy Holly, Mike Mills and Paul ‘Bonehead’ Arthurs.