A rain-splashed, dub-filled, cash-scattering foray into this week’s news and events which happily lands upon …

… meeting Maddy Prior – a Prior engagement? – and the time Steeleye Span showered their audience with £8,000.

… hearing Nick Drake’s demos on a narrowboat in the pitch dark a few hundred feet below London.

… Steve Miller’s cancelled tour, absurdly blamed on the weather.

… who’s older, Lulu or the King? Kim Wilde or William Hague? Neil Tennant or Andy Fraser of Free?

… Bob Marley at the Lyceum in 1975 – the confidence of their pace, the heft of their sound, what the audience wore. And David’s backing vocal on No Woman No Cry.

… the ugliest group in history – “they make Crabby Appleton look like the Walker Brothers”.

… an imagined duet by Rick Astley and David Cameron.

… is Bob Dylan the Tommy Cooper of rock and roll?

… David Ackles and the curse of “the greatest album ever made”.

… the Coldplay ‘Kiss-cam’ clip – “either they’re having an affair or just very shy”.

… the crackle of crime at ‘70s gigs.

… how someone could have seen the opening night of Charlie Chaplin’s Gold Rush and – 50 years later - Bob Marley at the Lyceum.

… why aren’t there still fanzines with names like Ptolemaic Terrascope?

… and birthday guest Gianluca Tramontagna claims Bob Dylan is neither sage, seer or prophet but an immensely comic “song and dance man”.

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Picked up in the great singer-songwriter sweep of the late 60s and signed to Elektra Records, David Ackles made four albums which went over the heads of the record-buying public, attracted over-the-top reviews and earned the undying devotion of fans like Elvis Costello and Elton John. Now Mark Brend’s book brings together an appreciation of his work with an account of his career before and after the three period when he was going to be the next big thing, taking in…

….the night he found himself supporting his biggest fan Elton John at the Troubadour in Los Angeles

….his year in Berkshire planning and recording “American Gothic”, an album about his distant homeland

…how two different record companies took him to their hearts but had no earthly clue how to promote him

…why it is that rock fans who boast of their eclectic tastes can’t deal with anything which sounds like musical theatre

…will he ever join the pantheon in which we have installed Nick Drake, Judee Sill and the other late musicians we are pleased to call a “lost genius”?

Buy Down River: In Search of David Ackles: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Down-River-Search-David-Ackles/dp/1916829228

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Our patent fact-from-fiction separator goes into overdrive this week though sometimes, as Robert Wyatt observed, Ruth is stranger than Richard. High in the mix …

… FOMO (Fear Of Missing Oasis), Gen Z’s love of queuing and has there ever been a greater outpouring of joy at a band reunion?

…what’s the greatest musical city?

… Kevin Rowland – cheat, burglar, arsonist, menswear salesman – and his capacity for self-sabotage.

… the harder to get tickets, the more people feel compelled to go.

… Kylie Minogue is a year older than Jacob Rees-Mogg!

… the best album to come out of New Orleans.

… memoirs you can read as either comedy or tragedy.

… Ed Sheeran turns Ipswich pink.

… the Salt Path saga and the pursuit of profit over truth.

… Mirrors In The Smoke, Dust On The Wind, Echoes Through the Pines: spot the AI-generated song title!

… the Beatles’ Tree in Chiswick: let’s keep local landmarks a secret!

… John Otway’s 5,300 gigs: the hardest working man in showbiz.

… and birthday guest Patrick Butler and cities with the greatest legacy – Liverpool, Birmingham, Nashville, New York, Chicago, New Orleans?

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John Otway – self-billed as “Rock And Roll’s Greatest Failure” - has played 5,260 gigs in 53 years, a record possibly only beaten by BB King. There are more this autumn of course. He simply can’t stop. “People buying me drinks and telling me what a good bloke I am? Why would you stop?” We talk to him here about the art of shambling stagecraft and a life lived almost permanently on the road, which involves …

... a burning desire to perform from the age of nine.

… “Don’t think before opening your mouth!”

… the rhythm of life when you play two gigs a week for five decades. And the value of ‘Micro-stardom’ - “I’m at the bar when they walk in”.

… seeing the Move, Free and Mott the Hoople in Aylesbury.

… how people always noticed him – not least because “I was idiot-dancing by the bass speakers”.

... his first performance, a massively overwrought version of Peter Sarstedt’s Where Do You Go To My Lovely.

… best-selling Otway merch - “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better! It’s Nearly Rock And Roll But I Like It!” etc.

… “You have to capture an audience in the first 20 seconds.”

... why playing the same size venues every night doesn’t challenge you.

… a recent three-month ‘trial retirement’.

… when he estimates he’ll play his 6,000th gig.

… and his planned and bank-breaking 2026 World Tour.

John Otway tour dates here: https://www.johnotway.com/gigs.html

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Peter Hook, bold pioneer of the high, clambering, tune-filled bassline, is touring this autumn with Peter Hook & the Light. We talk to him in Prestatyn - about to deejay at mate’s birthday - about the first gigs he ever saw and played, heavy-handed club owners, tough crowds on dance floors, the world audience for his two old bands and few key moments of a long life onstage, which involves …

… why you should never read your reviews.

… how Ian Curtis was precisely the opposite of how people imagined him.

... why deejaying is “the loneliest job in the world” and three tunes to play when it all goes wrong - “and I don’t play Blue Monday for obvious reasons”.

… seeing the Nolans at Salford Rugby Club, aged 15.

… his bell bottoms, clogs and Heavy Metal phase.

… seeing Led Zeppelin and the Sex Pistols the same week – “the Pistols were so bad they were relatable. I thought I could do that!”

… Stiff Kittens’ first gig: “a third-rate punk band aping all the others”.

… how DJs need to be “belligerent” and why people find them hard to love – and the book he’s writing, ‘How Not To Be A DJ’.

… how Ian Curtis’s vision of an international Joy Division following has finally been realised – “and with three generations in the crowd”.

… radiogram-wrecking early adventures in bass guitar.

… and the reasons he wanted to leave New Order and the thrill of maintaining their legacy.

Peter Hook & The Light tickets here: https://peterhookandthelight.live/

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A 40th anniversary special with two of its presenters (Hepworth and Ellen) and old pal and TV critic Boyd Hilton who watched on the day aged 18 (“young, pretentious, idiotic”) and reviews the new BBC documentary. We look back at …

… the ways Live Aid changed television – “not about music but spectacle and scale”.

… would the idea of staging it have ever come about in the world of social media?

… being in the room for the Geldof F-Bomb.

… Ian Astbury smoking on live TV, the concrete mausoleum of the old Wembley Stadium, Concorde, Status Quo and other things that now seem so 1985.

… how Live Aid was the death of the New Romantics – “they don’t work in daylight” – and why Boy George turned it down.

… the footage set to the Cars’ video, the emotional pivot of the day, and the interview with the Ethiopian girl Birhan Woldu in the new documentary.

… how the thin sound of ’80s acts like the Style Council and Ultravox didn’t have the impact of old-school guitar/bass/drums.

… was Live Aid the first live televised rock concert event?

…and fragments of our fading memories – the U2 drama, Adam Ant, Sade, the lost link to Ian Botham, Billy Connolly in tears, acts unwisely playing new singles, Noel Edmonds’ helicopter shuttle, the BBC insisting it “mustn’t feel like a Telethon” – and all achieved without mobile phones.

Plus the return of Oasis, the BBC’s tangle with Neil Young at Glastonbury and the fall-out from the Bob Vylan broadcast.

… and a few Glastonbury moments - Rod Stewart’s cocktail-dress cabaret girls and the 1975’s Matt Healy stumbling on with a fag and a pint of Guinness.

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Ian Anderson is touring again in 2026 and talks to us here about tweed stage-wear, an audience of four, his teenage heroes and the first shows he ever saw and played. There’s all sorts within, including …

… playing his first gig to Catholic schoolgirls at the Holy Family Youth Club in Blackpool – “we emptied the room”.

… queues round the block at the Marquee in 1968 – “the moment I knew we’d arrived.”

… how Joe Cocker nicked his breakfast.

… seeing Cliff at the ABC in Blackpool – “he was our Elvis.”

… guitarists who played “nicely”– Hank Marvin, Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Ritchie Blackmore. “Precise, accurate, they sang melodies.”

… the ceremonial christening of Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond.

… exotic clothes, stage names and parallels with Beefheart’s Magic Band.

… recording Feel Like Makin’ Love with the 90-year-old Engelbert Humperdinck.

… learning Guitar Tango by the Shadows - “not blues or rock and roll - progressive pop!”

… the fine art of dressing up: Jethro Tull in America – tweeds and deerstalkers v check shirts and denim.

… fund-raising shows for imperilled cathedrals.

… the allure of touring by train – “I’m Michael Portillo with a flute”.

… the three songs Jethro Tull always play.

Tickets for the Curiosity Tour 2026 here: jethrotull.com

Ian Anderson presents Christmas With Jethro Tull:

Thursday 18 December 2025 - Bath Abbey

Friday 19 December 2025 - Peterborough Cathedral

Saturday 20 December 2025 - Southwark Cathedral

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It’s Happy Hour in the Rock and Roll Lounge of News and we’re working our way through anything over 40 per cent proof. Which means ice, a slice and ….

… how the F-Bomb lost its impact.

… Mick Ralphs and Lalo Schifrin RIP – and chapeau to "There's A Whole Lalo Schifrin Goin' On’.

… the Blush-o-meter! Album sleeves that’d get you lynched in the 21st Century – and that means you Roxy, UFO, BowWowWow, Blind Faith, Tom Waits and Supertramp!

… why the TV comedy W1A was the last record of the world before Covid.

… Irresistible song titles – eg Rikki Don’t Lose That Number, Misty Morning Albert Bridge, Jeannie Needs A Shooter.

… where was Instagram when Roxy Music started?!

… the genius of Sabrina Carpenter’s publicity machine.

… “The oldest used to have the power. Now it’s the youngest.”

… Jeff Bezos v a canal full of inflatable crocodiles.

… I’m Getting Buried in the Morning, Paintball’s Coming Home … the eternal joy of Half Man Half Biscuit.

… “Meeting a man from the motor trade - like a line from a TS Eliot poem.”

And birthday guest Guy Constant on the value of lyrics - plus ‘grollies, ‘70 supergroups and Theresa May swearing.

Here’s the link set up by Jon Hotten to help the rock writer (and former podcast guest) Mick Wall after he’d suffered a heart attack: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/jon-hotten-2

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