Word In Your Ear

David Holzer was a Lou Reed fan from the moment he saw Walk On The Wild Side on Top Of The Pops but avoided Metal Machine Music for 42 years as it was supposedly unlistenable. He was transfixed when he finally heard it, began playing it daily and felt so strongly about “the most radical rock record ever made” he tracked down 60 fellow obsessives and wrote the enthralling ‘Lou Reed: Metal Machine Mystic’. And talks to us here from his home in Mallorca about …

… why Reed released MMM. To escape a ruinous contract? To boost his avant garde status? To torpedo his career?

… how it was made with two guitars feeding back and a one-note ‘Ostrich’ tuning

… the multiple rumours – “Part 4 is Part 1 played backwards!”

… its inspirational ingredients – Judaism, spirituality, Alice Bailly and Iannis Xenakis

… how he hated the reviews of its forerunner Sally Can’t Dance and the people who bought it (and made it his biggest album)

… the vindication of its first live performance, in Berlin in 2002

… its brutal reception by rock critics who “thought they were hipper than Lou”

… “Reed spent money like a sailor on shore leave”

… and what the record reveals when you’ve heard it 1,000 times.

Order copies of ‘Lou Reed: Metal Machine Mystic’ here: http://jawbonepress.com/metal-machine-mystic/
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A long-running conversation that shifts from major to minor, back to major and all notes inbetween, this week’s lyrics including …

… can people who write ‘happy’ ever be cool?

… the best drummer who isn’t a drummer?

… when will Oasis buy Man City?

… why is Taylor Swift unmemorable?

… when’s “too old to mosh”?

… weird double-bills: Jimi Hendrix and the Monkees. Cat Stevens and Engelbert. Black Sabbath and … Neil Diamond?

… huge stars who barely had any hits

… what Todd Rundgren said about the New York Dolls, XTC and Bat Out Of Hell (“a parody of Springsteen”

… why black musicians had white gangster managers

… Mark paid £2.75 for six bands at Knebworth in 1974. What’s Alex getting for £500 in 2027?

… and “songs about Los Angeles are always about failure”

Plus Radiohead, Laughing Len, Kylie and birthday guest Phil Turner.
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Jon Savage detested the UK’s mid-‘70s hits with a vengeance, “records so bad they made you want to strangle every deejay on Radio One, especially Dave Lee Travis”. Which is why he’s compiled ‘Jon Savage’s 1976: Something Was Going To Happen’, 24 ground-breaking tracks released the same year that paved the way to the future. He looks back here from his home in Anglesey at the thrill of hearing them the first time aged 22, the many highlights including …

… hilarious memories of the nauseating Jeans On, Fernando, No Charge, Combine Harvester and Save Your Kisses For Me

… and his undying love for Eddie and the Hot Rods, Pere Ubu, Candi Station, Burning Spear, Miami and the Flamin’ Groovies

… cheap Ronco and K-Tel compilations and Radio One’s stranglehold on popular taste

… what happened at parties when you took off Steely Dan and played the Ramones

… “reggae records never seem to date”

… seeing the Runaways at the Roundhouse and the Clash at Fulham Town Hall with the future Poly Styrene

… the first review he ever had published

… the early ‘70s ‘underground’ - psychedelia, prog, metal, glam, reggae and disco

… and hunting for records at One Stop, Dobells and Harlequin.

Order copies of Jon Savage’s 1976 album here: https://www.acerecords.co.uk/jon-savages-1976-something-was-going-to-happen

And look out for Jon’s brilliant books, among them
England’s Dreaming (about to be republished with a new Derek Jarman cover), Teenage and 1966.
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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The two-man conversational canoe paddles the rock and roll tideway, stopping off this week at …

… Van Morrison’s set-opener is Kidney Stew Blues by Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson. Do people have to play their big hits?

… what’s the key ingredient in success?

... “all great albums automatically have great sleeves. Bar one!”

… does Beyonce have a horsefly named after her? Is there a Jerry Garcia wood roach? A Sting tree-frog?

… U2’s new album cover is an Abbey Road pastiche. So … is this their swansong?

… “dress for the job you want, not the job you have”

… Elvis, Stones, psychedelia, Be Bop Deluxe, power pop, punk, Pete Doherty: rock stars in ‘statement’ ties

… the many ways Songs In The Key Of Life was a masterpiece

… plus “fibrous weaves, over-stuffed loons”, the Plimsouls, the Roaring Boys, Josh Rouse and birthday guest James Ewen.
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While Mark Ellen visits his Scottish estates, David Hepworth and Alex Gold keep the home fires burning with a wide-ranging conversation, taking in:

•⁠ ⁠why every band containing a pair of brothers seems to inevitably succumb to fraternal warfare

•⁠ ⁠how Ed Sheeran found himself caught in the cross-fire between a multi-millionaire and a bunch of support acts keen not to get caught on the wrong side of a social media war

•⁠ ⁠the fine line that divides a British cheese from a motorway service area

•⁠ ⁠what are the best cases of “mailbox money” in show business?

•⁠ ⁠does anybody else think gigs finish too early?
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.