Word In Your Ear

Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

Mark Ellen and David Hepworth have been talking about and writing about music together and individually for a collective eighty years in magazines like Smash Hits, Mojo and The Word and on radio and TV programmes like "Rock On", "Whistle Test" and VH-1. Over thirteen years ago, when working on the late magazine The Word, they began producing podcasts. Some listeners have been kind enough to say these have been very special to them. When the magazine folded in 2012 they kept the spirit of those podcasts alive in regular Word In Your Ear evenings in which they spoke to musicians and authors in front of an audience.  Over these years they've produced hundreds of hours of material. As of the Current Unpleasantness of 2020, they've produced yet hundreds of hours more with a little help from guests kind enough to digitally show them around their attics such as Danny Baker, Andy Partridge, Sir Tim Rice and Mark Lewisohn. For the full span of the Word In Your Ear world, visit wiyelondon.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. The Clash story mapped by the places they lived, played, evolved … and shot pigeons

    3 HR AGO

    The Clash story mapped by the places they lived, played, evolved … and shot pigeons

    Paul Gorman, author and curator, has put together fascinating maps of the London haunts of Bowie and the Stones and just published one about the Clash built around key locations in the network that formed them and helped them to flourish. It’s a beautiful thing: buy one and take the walking tour! He talks to us here about …   … how an Agit-Prop alternative West London emerged with links to Oz, IT and San Francisco counter-culture   … kindred spirits meeting in Rock On, Compendium Books and the dole office in Lisson Grove   … how their artwork and black and white photos linked them to the past   .. the days when corrugated iron and fly-posters were part of the London vernacular   … Guns On The Roof: how the band and press ramped up an element of danger   ... the art school background that gave them control of their visuals   … “Big Audio Dynamite was the band the Clash could have been!”   … Nick Lowe’ theory that everyone is either funny or not funny: “The Clash? Not funny”   … Kosmo Vinyl’s attempt to get their triple album released for the price of a single   … their connections to the Slits, Bernie Rhodes, Patti Smith, Pennie Smith, Hawkwind and Heathcote Williams   …and the moving story of Joe and Mick’s last meeting.   Order the Clash map here: https://www.herblester.com/products/london-calling-the-clash-in-the-capital   Paul’s Slits walking tour here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/slits-are-girls-walking-tour-with-paul-gorman-tickets-1985048002010 Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    39 min
  2. Neil Tennant revisits songs he’s written since the age of nine

    20 MAR

    Neil Tennant revisits songs he’s written since the age of nine

    Neil Tennant co-wrote a musical at Primary School and soon decided that “learning other people’s songs was hard work compared with making up your own”. He’s chosen some from the Pet Shop Boys’ 40-year catalogue, hits and obscurities, in ‘One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem’, just out in paperback, and added fascinating notes about their context and composition. This very funny and revealing conversation lands on the following …   ... the first song he ever wrote   … auditioning for Rocket Records in 1975   … does songwriting have rules?    … how Chris Lowe tamed his inner “musical snob”   … rap, Brecht-Weill, Betjeman, Noel Coward, My Fair Lady and the art of “speak-singing”   … the decades of lyrics stored in our brains   … the Songwriting Bootcamp that produced What Have I Done To Deserve This?   … the essence of melancholy (and the chord that expresses it)   … “the sound of words is often more important than the sense”   … whether Dylan deserved the Nobel Prize for Literature   … West End Girls and whether to rap in English or American   … the writing of King's Cross, Cricket Wife, Odd Man Out and I Made My Excuses And Left   … “Robert Maxwell stole my pension!”   … and the “geology of my life” in diaries that one day might make a memoir.   Order ‘One Hundred Lyrics And a Poem’ here: https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571397891-one-hundred-lyrics-and-a-poem/   And ‘Pet Shop Boys: Volume’ here: https://shop.petshopboys.co.uk/gb/pet-shop-boys-volume/9780500027479.html Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    55 min
  3. Steve Nieve looks back at Costello, Stiff tours and the magical sound of pianos

    16 MAR

    Steve Nieve looks back at Costello, Stiff tours and the magical sound of pianos

    At the age of four, Steve Nieve drew pictures of piano keys and pretended to play them. He joined Elvis Costello & the Attractions when he was 19, the start of a life that involves having to find a flight case for a Steinway Grand. He talks to us here from his Paris apartment about Stiff package tours, recording remotely, his upcoming shows with the French singer Kessada and …   … being a teenager as fond of Stravinsky as Alice Cooper and the Carpenters   … playing in a mid-‘70s Top Forty covers band   … the ad for a “rockin’ pop combo” that changed his life   … touring with Costello and Ian Dury and how he got his stage name   … playing the Thunderbirds theme as a chat show bandleader on the Last Resort   … a giant Klavins piano “that has stairs leading up the seat”   … working on Morrissey’s Kill Uncle   … the 40,000 audience that watched his online Lockdown shows   … unreliable stage pianos and the story of Keith Jarrett’s Köln Concert.   Tickets here: https://www.tickettailor.com/events/westhampsteadartsclub/2059256   The “About Love” album: https://music.apple.com/gb/album/about-love/1834791707   Steve’s new album: https://stevenieve.hearnow.com/piano-night-2026   Steve’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steveprofessornieve/   Kessada’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamkessada/   www.stevenieve.com www.kessada.com Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    43 min
  4. The Kinks’ chaotic ascent mapped out day-by-day is ‘a nirvana for any fan’

    8 MAR

    The Kinks’ chaotic ascent mapped out day-by-day is ‘a nirvana for any fan’

    A gorgeous and lavish new publication tells the story of the Kinks in the ‘60s via the key events in their unsteady trajectory plus concert bills, letters and ephemera assembled by Andrew Sandoval, the kind of non-digital research that’s filled his archive with yellowing back numbers of Disc & Music Echo. It’s “nirvana for any fan”, the title hinting at the level of detail – ‘The Kinks: All Day and All of the Night, the Day By Day Story Part 1: 1940 – 1971’. He joins us here from Los Angeles to talk frock coats, deathless tunes and own-foot-shooting setbacks, and what he learnt about the band from compiling it. Which involves …   … their magical run of 16 hits from 1964–68 (by a sole songwriter)   … the five people who ran and managed the band and what they had to put up with   … the last chance saloon backstory of You Really Got Me and the Jimmy Page rumours   … the Kinks’ alleged black-listing on the American tour circuit   … Ray’s “unauthorised autobiography” and perpetual self-sabotage   … Granada TV’s record of Alan Bennett and John Betjeman as possible co-writers for Arthur   ... the 12,000 miles required to re-record three seconds of “Lola”   … the ways Reprise, Pye and Marble Arch sold the Kinks catalogue     … and Ray and Dave’s live debut as “the Kelly Brothers”.   Order copies of ‘The Kinks: All Day and All of the Night’ here: https://beatlandbooks.myshopify.com/ Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    41 min
  5. How A Hard Day’s Night ripped up the pop movie rulebook

    6 MAR

    How A Hard Day’s Night ripped up the pop movie rulebook

    Author and broadcaster Samira Ahmed used to watch A Hard Day’s Night once a week and she’s just written an enthralling account of the shoot and its impact for the BFI’s Classic Films series. A movie, she points out, that celebrates Britishness and suburbia made largely by immigrants that broke every Hollywood rule, a film made to capture the essence of the Beatles before the bubble burst “which turned out to be the start of something not the end”. She talks to us here about …   … the film’s connections with the Goons, the Young Ones, Dr Strangelove, Star Wars, Billy Liar, It’s Trad Dad and the Nouvelle Vague   … and its influence - from the Dave Clark Five’s Catch Us If You Can and Paul Jones’ Privilege to Charlie XCX and the Moment   … how the train sequence for I Should Have Known Better invented pop video   … the play John and Paul wrote (Pilchard!) that was a homage to its scriptwriter Alun Owen   … Paul’s two-day solo shoot with Isla Blair and other (mercifully) deleted scenes   ... Profumo, pirate radio, the changing Britain of 1964   … Pattie Boyd, Anna Quayle, Alison Seebohm and other stand-out female stars   … Wilfred Brambell’s gigantic fee and how badly his part has aged   … why George and Ringo emerged as the stars   … surely the greatest scene? – “She's a drag, a well-known drag. We turn the sound down on her and say rude things”   … “hair that moved!”: the film’s impact in the USA   … “beat-up and depraved in the nicest possible way”   … and how the dubbed-on dialogue about Ingmar Bergman made the German version “a film for cineastes”.   Order Samira’s book here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/hard-days-night-9781839029394/ Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    44 min

About

Mark Ellen and David Hepworth have been talking about and writing about music together and individually for a collective eighty years in magazines like Smash Hits, Mojo and The Word and on radio and TV programmes like "Rock On", "Whistle Test" and VH-1. Over thirteen years ago, when working on the late magazine The Word, they began producing podcasts. Some listeners have been kind enough to say these have been very special to them. When the magazine folded in 2012 they kept the spirit of those podcasts alive in regular Word In Your Ear evenings in which they spoke to musicians and authors in front of an audience.  Over these years they've produced hundreds of hours of material. As of the Current Unpleasantness of 2020, they've produced yet hundreds of hours more with a little help from guests kind enough to digitally show them around their attics such as Danny Baker, Andy Partridge, Sir Tim Rice and Mark Lewisohn. For the full span of the Word In Your Ear world, visit wiyelondon.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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