Word In Your Ear

Paddling the three-man conversational kayak across the rock and roll rapids this week involved …

… Olive Mess, Candied Yams, Gorilla Biscuits …? Challenging indie act or seasonal vegan recipe?

… the amount YMCA earned through Donald Trump and why the man who wrote it is complaining.

… Tom Hanks’ valuable words of wisdom.

… Neil Tennant’s favourite bridge in a pop song (and it’s not We Can Work It Out or I Will).

… musicians and the modern world of the “one-night stand” circuit.

… Baker Street, Money, Careless Whisper, Giant Steps, Jungleland … and the sax solo that outranks them all.

… the genius of Henry Mancini and the powerful DNA of film music.

… the lost world of small ads – eg this pasted by Roxy Music: “The perfect guitarist for avant rock group: original, creative, adaptable, melodic, fast, slow, elegant, witty, scary, stable, tricky. Quality musicians only.”

… Beatles ’64 - “randomly assembled and directionless”, a listener declares!

Here’s Plas Johnson playing the Pink Panther theme with Henry Mancini:

Joni Mitchell called it “stoking the star-maker machinery behind the popular song”. Every record sent out for review used to come with a press release knocked together by an over-excited PR before terms like “psychedelia” or “prog” had been invented. They were scanned once for the odd fact or quote and usually chucked in the bin. Richard Morton Jack has tracked down scores of these handouts from 1962-1972, and the news stories they sparked, and published them in the sumptuous ‘Pressing News’, a fascinating window into how acts were sold in the days when pop stars liked rump steak, sports cars and “sincere people” but disliked “bad music, traffic wardens and people who say I look like a girl”. We leaf through his book here and talk about ….

... the ingenuity of '60s PRs and why Marc Bolan was a turning point.

… Robert Plant and David Bowie’s genius for self-promotion.

… the pop hopeful whose favourite tipple was tooth-rotting, crystal-based ‘Creamola Foam’.  

… how PRs sold rebels and outsiders.  

… a £900 Olivia Newton-John press release.

… Beta Male pin-ups Nick Drake and Scott Walker.

… confected outrage over the Small Faces’ Lord’s Prayer.

… Joe Cocker, eternally a gas-fitter from Sheffield with “a face like the back of a Sheffield Corporation bus”.

… mysterious pop acts that never made it like the Virgin Sleep, the Accent, Bread Love & Dreams, Fresh Maggots and the Tickle whose songs were supposedly chosen by computer.

 .. the Kinks – “four art students who dress like characters from Dickens”.  

… the promotion of pre-psychedelia Pink Floyd – “a lyrical atmosphere whose words express a feeling rather than tell a story.”

… “the Zombies have 50 GCSE passes between them!” and other press release fiction trotted out in the papers.

… the mass 1966 adoption of the kaftan and Charlie Chan moustache.

Order copies of Pressing News here:

Reversing into tomorrow! This week’s news events given a vigorous once-over include …

… what will a Trump guitar be worth in 30 years’ time?

… the average age of a Glastonbury goer and how it sells its TV coverage.  

… “the Beatles in America was like Cortez arriving in South America, the clash of two civilizations. How did this film manage to balls the story up so catastrophically?”

 … Leonard Bernstein’s daughter’s dreams about George Harrison and the Fabs v the all-American alpha male.

… who should be next for a rock and roll blue plaque?

… the Beatles’ Ed Sullivan support act who became almost as famous as they did.

… why Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater is the most-streamed ‘60s track.

… Hendrix and the Isley brothers’ night in watching telly.

… and Rod Stewart’s genius for generating publicity.  

R.E.M. considered themselves missionaries against the prevailing pop culture – no solos, no old-school stagecraft, no printed lyrics, no lip-syncing, no hard-sell videos, no obvious leader – and mapped out a whole new route to international success. Peter Ames Carlin, whose books include biographies of Springsteen, Brian Wilson and Paul Simon, talks to us here about ‘The Name of this Band is R.E.M.’, what they pioneered and how it rearranged the rock and roll furniture. Which involves …

… why their Letterman Show was a statement of intent.

… “rather than bending to the mainstream, they did what they wanted ‘til the mainstream bent to them.”

… where you can see “the R.E.M. model” - from Sleater-Kinney to Taylor Swift.

… when ‘Mike Stipe’ became Michael.

… Stipe’s first TV appearance, dressed as Frank-N-Furter at a Rocky Horror Show screening.

… why rock critics connected with them. 

… the strategies they share with U2, Radiohead and Coldplay. 

… “Springsteen = Elvis + Dylan”.

… what was in the water in Athens, Georgia, that produced such unconventional

acts - R.E.M., the B-52’s, Pylon, Love Tractor.

… their ‘straight’ but supportive parents – Stipe’s dad in the military, Mills’ dad a marine helicopter pilot.

… how R.E.M. “channelled popular culture”.

… their pioneering approach to record deals, royalties, videos, mixing and song-writing.

… and which of them most wants a reunion.

Order ‘The Name Of This Band Is R.E.M.’ here:

Neil Storey worked in the Island press office in the ‘70s and ‘80s and has set out on mammoth undertaking, to compile a series of gorgeous, album-sleeve-sized books telling the story of virtually every record the label released in its pioneering history and talking to all involved - musicians, producers, designers, photographers, label staff – and collecting old music press ads and ephemera from the time. This latest edition, ‘the Island Book Of Records 1969-1970’, has transported us back to our teenage selves when albums by Fairport, Nick Drake, Jethro Tull, Free, King Crimson etc were unmissable. We talked to Neil at his home in France which happily involved …  

… the extraordinary story of the Unhalfbricking album shoot.  

… when album sleeves were assembled by hand.

… how Island pioneered the ‘underground’ aesthetic and the cheap sampler album.

… the mystery of Ian Anderson’s 11 fingers.

… the “worst sleeve” in the label’s history (which involved a trip to the butchers).

.. the day the Island roster met in Hyde Park at six in the morning.

... the curious marketing of Nick Drake – “who doesn’t have a telephone and will disappear for four days at a time”.

… and Roxy Music, Sparks, Head Hands & Feet and what else to expect in Volume 3.

Order the Island Book Of Records Volume 2 here: