Dominic Mohan saw Britpop on the inside from the showbiz desk of the Sun in the days when it sold 4.5m copies, a series of heated memories recorded in ‘1996: My Backstage Pass to the Wildest Year of Britain’s Wildest Decade’, a lost age of hedonism, stupidity, drunkenness and creativity. He makes a compelling case in this very funny and colourful podcast which stumbles into …

… the advice David Hepworth gave him when he was 16

… Euro 96 and headlines you couldn’t run now

… how the deaths of Kurt Cobain and John Smith changed the picture

… doorstepping Phil Collins’ ex-wife

… the wreath for Noel Gallagher “the fat dancer from Take That” sent to the Sun

… Cool Britannia and that brief love affair between music and politics

… on the dancefloor at the Labour Conference with Mo Mowlam, John Prescott and Chris Evans

… Knebworth 1996, the perfect marriage of alternative music and club culture with a £250,000 bar bill

… the debt Pulp, Oasis and Blur owe Ray Davies - “less the Godfather of Britpop, more a concerned uncle”

… is it hard to identify a new zeitgeist when people don’t congregate as much?

… the ‘reverse-ferret’ from American culture towards bespectacled blokes from Sheffield

… the shameless age before people public apology

… how the post-Spice Girls TV talent shows soaked up the budgets and column inches

… and Madonna dancing with Dennis Hopper.

Order copies of ‘1996’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/1996-Backstage-Wildest-Britains-Decade/dp/B0FZBZHPNR

The Barbican Show curated by Dominic: https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2026/event/1996-a-celebration-of-the-wildest-year-of-britains-wildest

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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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.

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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

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

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.