Word In Your Ear

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

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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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Mary Coughlan – aka “Ireland’s Billie Holiday”, adored by Nick Cave, Shane MacGowan and Elvis Costello - is on tour again in 2026. This warm, funny and circuitous conversation looks back from her home in Wicklow at the first shows she ever saw and played and various milestones along the road, among them …

… singing Two Little Orphans (aged 5) at a Christmas party: “The adrenaline rush! Applause and lemonade!”

… escaping down ladders from school to see Rory Gallagher in Galway and the nuns waiting when she returned

… seeing Donovan on the Aran Islands in 1969, a trip from the mainland by currach

… meeting Mike Stoller and re-recording Peggy Lee’s savaged Mirrors album: “more relevant now than ever”

… Elton John (dressed as a hornet) at Watford Stadium and the embroidered floral skirt she’d made to watch him

… her love of cabaret and old 78s and the songs she and Erik Visser chose to launch her career

… her transformative slot on the Late Late Show in 1984: “I played to four people the night before; a week later they were queuing round the block”

… Frank Sinatra’s mysterious autocue and sitting next to Roger Moore in his audience (“very orange”)

… “I adored St Dominic’s Preview and 15 years later Van Morrison was in my dressing-room”

… her cure for insomnia

… why Joe Strummer meant so much to her

… and her 200-song live repertoire – from Meet Me Where They Play The Blues and Don’t Smoke In Bed to Love Will Tear Us Apart.

Order Mary Coughlan tickets here: https://www.marycoughlan.ie/upcoming-shows

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