Word In Your Ear

Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold
Word In Your Ear

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. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

  1. Has politics eaten entertainment? What’s ‘perfect sound’? Plus Brian James & how to make a speech

    2 HR AGO

    Has politics eaten entertainment? What’s ‘perfect sound’? Plus Brian James & how to make a speech

    Tyres pumped, engine cranked, chromework winking in the Springtime sun, the two-man conversational jalopy sets off on its weekly spin and visits …   … the day America broke the news and showed its dark side.     … Brian James RIP and Stiff’s brilliant ad campaign for the first Damned album: “Play it at your sister!”   … has entertainment been dwarfed by world events?   … why the Oscars were invented and what it said about American life.   … “negative publicity is the first response to everything”.   … why Adrien Brody’s speech set back the cause of actors being taken seriously by about 40 years.   … Will Smith v Chris Rock, Chumbawamba v John Prescott, David Niven and the streaker: Awards show bombshells and what today’s media would make of them.   … The Wizard Of Vinyl and his mission to “save the world from bad sound”.   … the days when Hi-Fi was considered a hobby.   … are musical memories mostly about context? David relives ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ on a jukebox in the Shady Nook café in Wakefield.   … how not to make a speech.   … and the band that called Nick Lowe “granddad” (when he was 27).   Plus birthday guest Adrian Ainsworth on the worst and most insulting Greatest Hits compilations of all time. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    56 min
  2. Lennon & McCartney seen in a fresh, stirring and original new light by Ian Leslie

    4 DAYS AGO

    Lennon & McCartney seen in a fresh, stirring and original new light by Ian Leslie

    Ian Leslie posted his ‘64 Reasons To Celebrate Paul McCartney’ in 2020 and the viral reaction to its piercing and original points encouraged him to write ‘John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs’. Do we need another Beatles book? We do if it’s this one! It’s exceptionally good and highly recommended. The conventional wisdom for decades was that John was the tormented, anti-establishment genius and Paul the effortlessly tune-churning, bourgeois poser. Ian’s book points up that their deep devotion to each other and telepathic, close relationship was the root of the supernatural partnership that made those songs possible. The two of them were, as he puts it, “the bubble within the bubble – and the deeper you get, the more mysterious the story becomes.” He talks to us here about …    … their powerplays and their underlying rivalries for the leadership of the group.   … why the Beatles were in another league - “like Shakespeare versus Johnson or Marlowe”.   … how a songwriting duo where both wrote words and music gave them an extraordinary advantage.   … the writing of Yesterday and John’s fear that Paul might no longer need the group and leave.   … Paul’s discovery of his “superpowers” between ‘64 and ’66.   … how current groups now have “intimacy councillors” and in any other band the unmanageable Lennon would have been ejected.   … In My Life, Hey Jude and other songs they wrote about each other.   … how there was “an element of their fathers about them, of stiff upper lip” and displays of physical affection were rare.   … Paul as “the omnivorous culture-vore” in avant garde London while John was horizontal in suburbia.   … why Paul’s pace and creativity must have been psychologically punishing for the others.   … and how the emotional landscape shifted with the arrival of Yoko and Linda.   Order Ian’s book here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Paul-Story-Beatles-decades/dp/0571376118 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    44 min
  3. Eternally cool rock stars, the Bond takeover and remembering Rick Buckler

    24 FEB

    Eternally cool rock stars, the Bond takeover and remembering Rick Buckler

    As sinister autocrats stroke Persian cats in shark-pooled underground bunkers, their bony fingers reaching for the nuclear button, we shake another Vodka Martini and reflect on the week’s events, among them …   … Amazon buys Bond: but isn’t the essence of 007 its droll and unimpressible Britishness?   … and haven’t the lunatics taken over the asylum? Can you still invent unhinged fantasy villains with real life versions in the Kremlin and White House?   … why a Jam reunion would never have worked.   … when did ‘cool’ change from meaning exotic and unconventional to being just like everyone else? And why do we picture the concept of ‘cool’ in black and white?   … in stout defence of the pilloried record reviewer!   … why the Olympics was payday for Justine Frischmann.   ... when Johnny Cash was on the Muppet Show and was photographed with Richard Nixon.   … how come no-one complains about old online reviews but they do if they were physically printed?   … how Lonnie Donegan made a fortune from Nights In White Satin.   … hurrah for the silencing of the Pedicab boombox!   … newspaper sellers, milkmen, shifty ‘hot goods’ vendors: whatever happened to the street cries of London?   … plus birthday guest Paul Monaghan and rock stars who were architects – Art Garfunkel, Ice Cube, Pete Briquette, Chris Lowe, Ralf Hutter …– and teaching Damon Albarn and Justine Frischmann. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    58 min
  4. Justin Hayward – ‘60s package tours, lost profits & the highpoint of the Moody Blues

    20 FEB

    Justin Hayward – ‘60s package tours, lost profits & the highpoint of the Moody Blues

    Nights In White Satin - 260 million streams on Spotify - is still the central plank in the set Justin Hayward’s touring in October. He talks to us here about the first shows he ever saw and played, the ballroom circuit of the mid-’60s remembered in particularly vivid detail and involving the odd burst of song - “My kind of town, Great Yarmouth is …!”. Along with …   … the appeal of “a Moody Blues crowd”.   ... “Name Singer seeks guitar player”: the Melody Maker ad that got him into the Marty Wilde band, aged 17.   … playing a summer season on the same bill as a water feature – aka the Waltzing Waters.   … his early band All Things Bright and their Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Coasters setlist.   … the “onerous” publishing deal he signed with Lonnie Donegan that siphoned off the profits of Nights In White Satin.   … seeing Tommy Cooper at the Bournemouth Pavilion and the Barron Knights at the Locarno in Swindon.   … “Terry the Pill” in Eric Burdon’s office.   … toying with the idea of “a rock version of Dvorak”.   … the uncertain fate of Nights In White Satin and the plugger who threatened to resign over it.   … how Days Of Future Passed was the “Deramic Sound” demo record.   … and the highpoint of the Moody Blues story and their Second Coming.   Justin Hayward tickets here: https://justinhayward.com/pages/current-tour-dates   https://justinhayward.com/ Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    29 min
  5. Your guided tour of David Bowie’s London with Paul Gorman’s stories about its key locations

    18 FEB

    Your guided tour of David Bowie’s London with Paul Gorman’s stories about its key locations

    No musician is more closely associated with London or left more footprints than Bowie, and you can trace its influence on his life and work (and vice versa) through a series of landmarks from the suburbs to the centre. Author and curator Paul Gorman has just published an annotated street-map – David Bowie’s London - listing the places that played a formative role in his world and music, the places he rehearsed, performed, filmed and recorded, the homes of friends and managers, his schools and the addresses where he lived, worked and was photographed, made connections, bought clothes and generally raised the temperature. We talk here about many of those old haunts and the stories attached to them, which include…   … mysterious manager Ralph Horton who got him to change his name to Bowie and then vanished from the face of the earth.   … the fate of Heddon Street, home of K-West and the Ziggy phone-box.    … Marc Bolan refusing to let him sing at an all-night benefit at Middle Earth.   … “the Fairy Godmother of the New Romantics” at the WAG Club.   … when Lionel Bart came to Haddon Hall.   … Bowie and Steve Marriott auditioning for the Lower Third.   … how he levered his way into a Fabulous magazine fashion shoot.   … “the end of the age of Showbiz”: performing Chim Chim Cher-ee at the Marquee when at a crossroads between rock and roll and cabaret.   … the magical piano at the Trident Studios.   … a chance encounter with the otherworldly Vince Taylor whose ‘UFO map’ helped inspire the concept of Ziggy Stardust.   … the legend of Mr Fish, creator of the man-dress on the cover of The Man Who Sold The World.   … the days when people had a white Rolls Royce and matching Alsatian – and “the Great Sarong Scare of the ‘90s”.   … and various fringe figures including his art teacher Owen Frampton, Konrads agents Bob Knight and Eric Easton, muse and heartbreaker Hermione Farthingale, producers Shel Talmy and Tony Hatch (“the original Mr Nasty from Opportunity Knocks”) and slum landlord and racketeer Peter Rackman.   Order Paul’s street-map here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Bowies-London-Paul-Gorman/dp/1068523476 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    55 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. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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