The Farm are touring again this summer and have just made their first album for 31 years (with the same-line-up). This sparky and wide-ranging conversation with Peter Hooton stops off at the following …

… the advice Mark E Smith gave him when they were interviewed by Select magazine.

… “Suedeheads v Trogs and Greebos”: early ‘70s tribal warfare in Bootle.

… seeing Cockney Rebel, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band and Genesis at the Liverpool Empire.

… the death of old heroes – “you imagined Bowie was always going to be there”.

… backstage with the Clash in Paris and why they were the Farm’s role models.

… Bill Drummond’s attempt to remodel them “in tracksuits with hard dogs”.

… how the death of John Lennon made him start writing.

… the use of All Together Now as a football anthem – from everyone to Everton to Euros 2004 to a disastrous campaign by the Labour Party - “but the Qatar World Cup was a bridge too far”.

… touring with Mick Jones (“the Pied Piper”) for the Hillsborough 96 Campaign.

… his school band, Breakwind - “the forerunners of Half Man Half Biscuit” – and being in the cast of Oliver!.

…. his guided music tours of Liverpool and the places they visit.

… and why The Farm has “omni-appeal – a band who look like they’re from a street corner”.

Also in the mix: Big Audio Dynamite, Deaf School, Nile Rodgers, Roger Eagle and Cliff Richard on Top Of The Pops.

Buy tickets and the album Let The Music (Take Control) here: https://thefarmmusic.co.uk/

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Carol Decker - another Smash Hits cover star on the podcast! T’Pau are playing dates this summer and autumn and she talks here – hilariously - about life on the ‘80s package tour circuit and the first shows she ever saw and played, which stops off at ….

… does any audience beat a Butlin’s Mid-Weeker on their third pint?

… from Black Mirror to PG Tips: the afterlife of a hit.

… seeing Rod & the Faces in Stoke-On-Trent and Dire Straits in a Wrestling Hall.

… “Appearing In An A&E Near You!”: accident-prone ‘80s stars, a sitcom waiting to happen.

... the arcane world of the backing vocalist – “don’t distract, nothing too big”.

… the grim tradition of headline bands’ road crews making the support acts suffer.

… ‘80s package tours with OMD, Kim Wilde, Toyah, Clare Grogan and Nik Kershaw.

… playing working men’s clubs with the Lazers in 1980 - “an unwelcome distraction from the Bingo”.

… visits to Dusty Springfield’s grave.

… “Universal own the world”: when your songs appear in films and ads but you couldn’t keep the rights.

… more power to the Amnesty for Unrecouped Bands!

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As the great Warren Zevon said, ‘Enjoy every sandwich’. The two-man canoe navigates this week’s rock and roll rivulet which sadly entails reflections on a pair of towering musical giants ‘whose legend occupied the space where activity should have been’. Things considered include …

…are you born with genius or does a set of circumstances allow it to flourish?

… the impossible task of living up to people’s expectations and the calamitous ways it led Sly and Brian Wilson to behave.

… like Sly’s plane landing at the moment he was meant to be onstage at Madison Square Garden.

… the massive cultural contrast between Woodstock and ‘the Black Woodstock’ a month earlier and how Sly & the Family Stone looked like they’d ‘come from Mars’.

… how Derek Taylor, Tom Nolan and Nick Kent helped fashion the Beach Boys’ myth.

… Sly’s impact on Miles Davis, Prince, Massive Attack and hip-hop and how a record as radical as There’s A Riot Goin’ On was a No 1 Christmas album.

… In My Room, a completely new kind of teenage song.

… David’s five Beach Boys teenage moments …

… and Mark’s three examples of Brian Wilson’s Greatest Bits – eg the overture to California Girls.

… and 'Arise, Sir Roger Daltrey!'

Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear

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