Word In Your Ear

Fairport tour again in 2026 and are playing their annual Cropredy Convention in August, its 50th year. The rolling Kent landscape behind him, co-founder Simon Nicol looks back at almost six decades in the line-up, the first shows he ever saw and played, why he can’t wait to get back on the tour bus again, and …

… the intoxication of live music – “lost in a moment that’s never happened before and won’t be repeated”

… Count Basie at the Astoria, aged 7 – “the moulded Turkish ottomans! The massed ranks of brass!”

… December 4 1972, the day he left the band (and why)

… “we’ve been self-governing since we were kicked out in 1979”

… the Ravens in Muswell Hill the night they became the Kinks: “frock coats and hunting boots”

… Professor Bruce Lacey, the mad scientist-inventor celebrated in a Fairport song

… Ashley Hutchings’ Little Black Book where band line-ups were assembled: “like an executive chef who chose the ingredients but didn’t wash up”

… playing Mississippi Fred McDowell and country blues in the Ethnic Shuffle Orchestra

… narrative songs and the “shoulders-down” rhythms on Music From Big Pink and how Fairport found their identity

… finding obscure Phil Ochs, David Ackles and Joni Mitchell songs for early Fairport

… and the first Cropredy in the village hall in 1976: you can still arrive by barge!

Fairport Convention tour tickets here: https://www.fairportconvention.com/gigs-tours/

Cropredy 2026 tickets here: https://www.fairportconvention.com/tickets/
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Miles Hunt is on tour in 2026 – solo, with Vent 414 and the Wonder Stuff - and looks back here at his 40 years on stage, which involves …

… stifling hecklers the John Lydon way: “the exits are clearly marked!”

… what percussion does to your ears

… “when a tout’s selling your £3 ticket for £50 you know you’ve made it!”

… keytars, flat drums, guitars without headstocks: things that are JUST PLAIN WRONG!

… seeing Slade at Birmingham Town Hall when he was 10

… why the Size Of A Cow was “the moment a lot of our audience thought we’d sold out”

… Hunter S Thompson, Charles Bukowski: books that work on a tour bus

… when drummers ‘cramp up’

… and why he won’t perform Dizzy with Vic Reeves.

Order Miles Hunt and Wonder Stuff tickets here: https://thewonderstuff.co.uk/tour/

Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake is being reissued on Kenney Jones’ Nice Records, along with unheard outtakes discovered when the original master was found in one of his battered old drum cases. He talks to us here – with the compiler Rob Caiger – about the chaotic construction of the Small Faces’ 1968 masterpiece and his mission to “carry on the legacy”. Are you all sitting comftybold two-square on your botty? Then we’ll begin. Among the highlights …

… the Thames boating accident that inspired the album

… booking Stanley Unwin when Spike Milligan turned them down – and the day Stanley invented ‘Unwinese’

… insomniac days in the band’s Westmoreland Terrace
flat

… the value of Marriott’s stage school background: “he could always ham things up”

… hidden treasures on the original tape – “you hear Steve and Ronnie talking”

… the magic of that fragile tobacco-tin artwork

… possession is nine-tenths of the law!

… Marriott’s wall-banging Chiswick neighbours that inspired Lazy Sunday

… “I’m the only one left and want to carry on the legacy”

… other lost Immediate sessions to be released on Nice Records

Order the Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake expanded 3CD set here, direct from Kenney’s Nice Records imprint: https://www.nicerecords.co.uk/collections/ogdens-nut-gone-flake

Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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A tie-dyed-in-the-wool rock & roll space odyssey to infinity and beyond which stops off this week at …

… why the Dead’s music was “like lighting a match in the wind”

… Ha Ha Harlem! Rebels Without Applause! – Morrissey song or Lenny Bruce comic routine?

… Sting v Sumner & Copeland and what Every Breath You Take makes daily just from streaming

… is Oasis “the biggest exchange of money for old rope in the history of commerce?”

… rock stars in shorts

… John Hartford and his Willie Nelson Sliding Doors moment

… how Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions became the most hi-tech band on the planet

… Rock ‘babes’ in the Bob Weir mould – eg Michael Clarke of the Byrds, Evan Dando and Mark Gardener from Ride

… has anyone made more by doing less than JJ Burnel on Golden Brown?

... plus Warren Zevon song titles, Mary Coughlan in a coracle and the first records we reviewed for money.

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Steve Cradock’s touring with Ocean Colour Scene in 2026 and in his own show, Travellers Tunes, with his wife and son Steve – “we’re like the Von Trapps!” This highly original night involves them “living like gypsies in the spirit of Ronnie Lane”. He looks back here, from his psychedelic Mod-shrine converted garage in Totnes, at the first shows he ever saw and played, which touches on …

…seeing UB40 at Birmingham Odeon, aged 13 – “I was bruised for days”

… an after-school Duran Duran video shoot

… “three 45-minute sets a night”: doing J Geils Band and Lennon covers pre-Bingo in working men’s clubs, aged 15

… playing Scooter Rallies in Gorleston-on-Sea in pilled-up homage to the Purple Hearts, the Jam and Secret Affair

… the imperishable sound of the early Small Faces – “the tone, the feedback, Plonk smashing his bass”

… an intense love of Northern Soul, Soft Cell, the Pretenders, Costello and the La’s

… the Stones Roses, “the most important show I ever saw – the hair, the clothes, the songs, the guitars”

… supporting Oasis at Knebworth

… “musicians’ books bore me”

…. three days in a pub with Chris Evans and regrets about “the double-edged sword” of the Riverboat Song on TGI Friday

… and Paul Weller with love beads

Buy Steve Cradock tickets here: https://www.stevecradock.com/tour/

Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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