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 Keith Moon story is a movie in waiting, both a comedy and a tragedy

    6 HR AGO

    The Keith Moon story is a movie in waiting, both a comedy and a tragedy

    The life of Keith Moon can be seen as Animal from the Muppets or as a dark, psychological odyssey. And the two co-exist in Tony Fletcher’s magnificent ‘Dear Boy’, first published in 1998, never out of print and now ‘remastered’ with new pictures, updates, epilogues and a foreword by Mandy Moon who “has to keep reminding myself this person was my father”. Tony looks back here at events along the way, many of which now seem unimaginable. Among them …   … fact versus fiction: his fudged birthdate, his hidden marriage, the Roller in the swimming-pool   … Tony’s meeting with Moon two months before he died   … the letters to his wife Kim when touring America     … Mel Gibson, Mike Myers, Jason Schwartzman, all once in line to play Keith onscreen   … “I killed a man”: the terrible incident with his chauffeur   … the legs in the bath, the head in the bed, the loudspeaker in the bushes: the punchline of all his pranks was “someone’s going to suffer”   … “working-class rock stars who conquered the world like pirates without a map”   … would things have been different if he’d been hailed as a pioneering drummer?   … the times he met Larry Hagman and Oliver Reed   … do book publishers look down on drummers the way musicians do?   … to Golders Green with Viv Stanshall in German uniforms and an open-topped car: #DifferentTimes   … and a sad and telling moment on the Stardust film shoot.   Order copies of ‘Dear Boy’ here: https://omnibuspress.com/products/dear-boy-the-life-of-keith-moon-omnibus-remastered?_pos=1&_psq=dear+boy&_ss=e&_v=1.0 Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    47 min
  2. The shameless age of Britpop in ‘the wildest year of the 90s’

    1 DAY AGO

    The shameless age of Britpop in ‘the wildest year of the 90s’

    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.

    1hr 7min
  3. How Tony Visconti keeps the Bowie flag flying

    2 APR

    How Tony Visconti keeps the Bowie flag flying

    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.

    35 min
  4. Matt Johnson & the unique story of The The plus George Michael and the sunbed

    1 APR

    Matt Johnson & the unique story of The The plus George Michael and the sunbed

    Matt Johnson’s life story has been mapped out as one long Q&A conversation from meetings with old friend, fan and BFI director Jason Wood. ‘Cognitive Dissident’ traces his trajectory from the East End to Soho to the beloved albums he made with a series of super-groups and his 2021 comeback. He looks back here at …   … his earliest musical memories – Donovan, the Move, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown   … the old East End and the Two Puddings pub run by his parents, “full of ghosts”, Bobby Moore, Francis Bacon and the Krays   … his Uncle Kenny promoting the Who, the Kinks and Jerry Lee Lewis   … “Get yourself on a sunbed!” and other advice from George Michael   ... what he learnt at De Wolfe Music, aged 15, in the red-light Soho of the late ‘70s   … legendary manager Stevo signing the band’s CBS contract at midnight in Trafalgar Square   … “cigarettes, coffee, warm analogue equipment”: the Proustian scent of old studios   … his NME ad recruiting The The members via the Residents, the Velvet Underground, Syd Barrett and Throbbing Gristle   … being part of “the Long Mack Brigade” with Cabaret Voltaire, This Heat, Wire and the Gang of Four   … Leonard Cohen’s premonition of the internet   … the Albert Hall: “like a tennis player playing Wimbledon”   … the genius of Hank Williams   … and his 2018 comeback, “like reunion of old army buddies”   Order ‘Cognitive Dissident’ here: https://omnibuspress.com/products/cognitive-dissident?_pos=1&_psq=cognitive+dissi&_ss=e&_v=1.0 Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    39 min
  5. At home with Nick Drake, Sandy Denny & John Martyn in the golden year of 1970

    31 MAR

    At home with Nick Drake, Sandy Denny & John Martyn in the golden year of 1970

    When he was 19, New Yorker Brian Cullman covered the London music scene for Crawdaddy, landing at the birth of folk-rock and the singer-songwriter boom and watching its leading lights from unimaginably close quarters - Sandy Denny, Nick Drake, John Martyn among them. He even played on the same bill as Drake at Les Cousins club, all this recorded in his book ‘How To Prepare for the Past: Travels in Music and Time’. He talks to us here about that golden age and the American stars he met later, stopping off at …   … Ed Sullivan at the shoe-shine: “in six months the Beatles will be lucky to be playing a bowling alley!”   … Nick Drake in the same clothes he wore on the cover of Five Leaves Left   … Sandy Denny: “She knew she was extraordinary but didn’t know if she was any good”   … Jackson Browne, onstage from the age of 12   … being hired by rock encyclopaedist Lillian Roxon, “my fairy godmother”   … Tim Hardin making Bird On A Wire, “so wasted they followed him round the room with a microphone”   ... and “14 hotdogs”? The cavernous appetite of Big Joe Turner.   Order ‘How To Prepare for the Past’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Prepare-Past-Travels-Music/dp/B0FTS8ZPTW   Or here: https://www.zebooks.com/books/how-to-prepare-for-the-past Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

    27 MAR

    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

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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