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

    HACE 10 H

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

    HACE 1 DÍA

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

    HACE 5 DÍAS

    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
  4. 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
  5. 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

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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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