Which bands pass the three-year test? – plus the great live albums & rock stars’ alter egos

Stirring the spice-filled gumbo of news and turning the heat up. This week’s nutritious ingredients include ….

… is everything better shorter?

… the greatest opening line in a book ever written

… did Tom Waits, Warren Zevon, Joe Cocker, the Bee Gees, Cheap Trick, Sam Cooke, Talking Heads or Bill Evans make the greatest live album of all time?

… the worst beers Buster Poindexter ever had

… rock stars’ alter egos – Lady Gaga as Jo Calderone, Andy Partridge as Sir John Johns, George Clinton as Mr Wiggles, Justin Hawkins as Sir Voltage Blackthorn!

… Blur, Radiohead, Stones, Doors, Steely Dan, Bowie, Leonard Cohen … they all had a three-year golden streak

… “I’m writing a short letter as I don’t have time to write a long one”

… why the Matrix was a watershed moment

… the three stages of success – getting known, the magnum opus, basking in the glow

… and why we love August N'gutu Leibowitz-Clementine.

Plus Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, Buckshot La Funke, birthday guest Phil Hopwood and how everyone at the BBC is a gossip.