Scanning the baggage carousel of news to see what sets off the alarm, which this week involves …

… Springsteen: why is America’s most American American so quiet about his President on home turf?

… the Seven Ages of Nepo: in defence of Julian Lennon, Joe Sumner and Brooklyn Beckham

… the Robbie Williams story that gets our goat

… why do half the UK music venues make no profit?

… the onstage ‘act’ that did 104 minutes non-stop

… pre-testing EDM singles on the dancefloor

… Four Boys in the Wind! What A Night That Day Was! - foreign editions of A Hard Day’s Night

… in praise of the Latin Playboys

… the mid-‘60s mystery album that outsold the Beatles

… and we name the root of all ills in popular music!

Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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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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