A seasonal egg-hunt in the rock and roll backyard finds the following conversational confectionary …

.. Wild Bill Hickok? Valentino? Bob Dylan’s bizarre new media manoeuvre

… Liza Minnelli, Peter Sellers, Harrison Ford, Aaron Paul: people born to play one part

… how to spot writers using AI

… “dried-up old prune”? Trump’s pot-kettle war against Springsteen

… what BBC DJs must think when they see ‘Woo’ Gary Davies in reception

… “Neil Young looks like an unmade bed”

… when invincible ignorance meets invincible confidence: the stupidest thing we’ve ever done

… do most rock stars eventually get ‘work’ done?

… plus the Jungle Brothers, De La Soul, the Roots, Daisy Age hip-hop and our link with the Hatton Garden heist.

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Tony Visconti left Brooklyn for London in 1967, began working with the Move and Marc Bolan and formed a life-long friendship with the teenage David Bowie, playing on his first two albums and producing 10 of ones that followed. And in 2014 he formed Holy Holy with Woody Woodmansey, a live celebration of Bowie’s music from 1970 to Blackstar. They’re touring again in September with Glenn Gregory as lead singer – “you can’t mourn forever.” He talks to us here about …

… the gig they played the night Bowie died

… life at Bowie’s commune at Haddon Hall – “I kept my door firmly locked!”

… Marc Bolan at Middle Earth, “a hundred spellbound kids sitting cross-legged on the floor”

… hearing Flowers In The Rain (which he arranged) as the first record on Radio One

… “A little chinwag?” How Bowie broke the news about his illness

… his dislike of Space Oddity, “I told him it was novelty, a sell-out”

… producing The Man Who Sold The World and the emotional Blackstar

… the night he met the teenage Bowie and they wound up in a Chelsea cinema

… “Why are you doing this?” Bowie’s reaction to the first Holy Holy tour in 2014

… his time as the red-caped Hypeman and Ronson and Woody’s resistance to make-up, “macho boys from Hull”

… walking round New York with a cassette of secret The Next Day album in his pocket

… and the big emotional moments in the Holy Holy set list

Order Holy Holy tickets here: https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/holy-holy-tickets/artist/2096354

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Matt Johnson’s life story has been mapped out as one long Q&A conversation from meetings with old friend, fan and BFI director Jason Wood. ‘Cognitive Dissident’ traces his trajectory from the East End to Soho to the beloved albums he made with a series of super-groups and his 2021 comeback. He looks back here at …

… his earliest musical memories – Donovan, the Move, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown

… the old East End and the Two Puddings pub run by his parents, “full of ghosts”, Bobby Moore, Francis Bacon and the Krays

… his Uncle Kenny promoting the Who, the Kinks and Jerry Lee Lewis

… “Get yourself on a sunbed!” and other advice from George Michael

... what he learnt at De Wolfe Music, aged 15, in the red-light Soho of the late ‘70s

… legendary manager Stevo signing the band’s CBS contract at midnight in Trafalgar Square

… “cigarettes, coffee, warm analogue equipment”: the Proustian scent of old studios

… his NME ad recruiting The The members via the Residents, the Velvet Underground, Syd Barrett and Throbbing Gristle

… being part of “the Long Mack Brigade” with Cabaret Voltaire, This Heat, Wire and the Gang of Four

… Leonard Cohen’s premonition of the internet

… the Albert Hall: “like a tennis player playing Wimbledon”

… the genius of Hank Williams

… and his 2018 comeback, “like reunion of old army buddies”

Order ‘Cognitive Dissident’ here: https://omnibuspress.com/products/cognitive-dissident?_pos=1&_psq=cognitive+dissi&_ss=e&_v=1.0

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

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