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. 6d ago

    The Specials are no more! Horace Panter remembers days when it was ‘like walking on air’

    The Specials have officially disbanded, bowing out with a swansong album recorded in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral in 2019. Horace Panter looks back at the first shows they played - when Jim Callaghan was still PM! - and the rigours of mastering ska when some of the group thought it was “old man’s music”. Along with …   … the dignified way for any band to retire   … the 2-Tone tour of 1979 – “like a school trip with no teachers”   … bonding with Terry Hall over comedian Ken Platt: ‘I won't take me coat off, I'm not stoppin'!"   … the day Jerry Dammers came to rehearsal with Prince Buster’s Greatest Hits – “for all your rebellious needs!”   … the poignancy of playing in the ruins of Coventry Cathedral when you start the set with an air-raid siren   … seeing the Faces and Mott the Hoople, “once in my school uniform”   … the sensory overload - “The space! The volume!” - of Led Zeppelin at the Albert Hall when you’re 15 and from Kettering   … “strange to think few people under 60 have ever seen the Specials”   … the bassist he pretended to be when posing in the mirror   ... the Bilzen Festival in 1979 “when the chain-link fence was broken down and I came offstage like I was walking on air”   … and creating the 2-Tone look with ex-Mod tonic suits   Order ‘Live From The Cathedral’ here: https://shop.thespecials.islandrecords.com/ Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    The Specials are no more! Horace Panter remembers days when it was ‘like walking on air’
  2. Jul 8

    Kevin Rowland, the new Dexys and what he's learnt from life

    We first saw Kevin in ‘77 wearing jodhpurs onstage with his art-punk band the Killjoys! He’s formed a new version of Dexys, made an album, starts a tour in October, and looks back here at central moments in his life, some recent ones so huge and affecting “that I put them to music” and they’ll be performed as a drama in the first half of these upcoming theatre shows. This touches - in vivid detail - on bands that inspired him, repaired relationships, a health crisis, what it took to be a singer in the first place and what’s requires now to put the show back on the road, along with …   … memories of music before the Beatles   … playing Jim Reeves and Ricky Nelson in a social club band in 1975 “after the bingo”   … the touching shift of power in his relationship with his 102 year-old father: “he was like a child again, he needed me”   … Roxy Music on Top Of The Pops, “I couldn’t believe you could be avant garde AND commercial”   … life on the Top Rank circuit supporting the Specials: “you learnt not to play at an audience but play for them”    … making Searching For The Young Soul Rebels in ten days with producer Pete Wingfield dancing in the studio   … “Come On Eileen doesn’t belong to me anymore”   … the alarming spectacle of an ‘80s Hear & Now package tour and what it taught him   .. the song he wrote for his grandchildren (one of whom is 31)   … a possibly terminal diagnosis in 2024 and “like Wilko Johnson, the relief I felt”   … and the Tim Buckley song he just recorded without knowing who wrote it!   Order the new Dexys album ‘Love’ here: https://dexysofficial.lnk.to/love   And tour tickets here: https://dexys.tmstor.es/Live Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Kevin Rowland, the new Dexys and what he's learnt from life
  3. Jul 3

    Joan Armatrading, Tom Robinson and the great music meltdown of Summer ‘76

    The blistering heat of 1976 burnt various things onto the memory – standpipes, strikes, Entebbe, ‘Confessions’ movies, Jeremy Thorpe – but most of all the records that became its soundtrack, some of them revolutionary, others begging for extinction. John L Williams captures the moment in ‘Heatwave: the Summer of 1976, Britain at Boiling Point’ and a paints of picture of a country on the brink of a vast pop-cultural shift. We talk to him here about …   … violence at gigs and football and on Derek & Clive albums   … dumb people pretending to be clever (prog rock) and clever people pretending to be dumb (Ramones)   … the rise of Joan Armatrading in the days before ‘identity’ marketing   … how ‘funny’ t-shirts were the memes of their day   … when Tom Robinson saw the future in Scarborough   … “mainstream culture gave you things to both love and hate”   ... how Rock Follies featured an imaginary Blitz Club where people danced in military uniforms   … Andy Summers (with Kevin Ayers) and Stewart Copeland (Curved Air) on the same bill a year before the Police   … why anyone with a Sensational Alex Harvey Band scarf got a wide berth    … Time Out’s headline: "It's the Buzz, C**k!"   … Tom Waits, aged 25, unconvincing hobo-hipster   … and Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Emmanuelle and the lowest point of the Radio One Roadshow.   Order copies of ‘Heatwave’ here: https://tinyurl.com/2kudc6xr Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Joan Armatrading, Tom Robinson and the great music meltdown of Summer ‘76
  4. Jul 2

    Prefab Sprout - a tale of mystery, eccentricity and pop’s most famous motorbike

    Nige Tassell fell in love with the literary allusions of Prefab Sprout when at school and his new book ‘Truly Gifted Kids’ tells their unique and inscrutable story – and involves some delightfully off-road “deerstalker” investigation. You’ll find self-sabotage, square pegs in round holes, the eternal pressure to have hits, and a devoted portrait of ringmaster Paddy McAloon that leaves you convinced there’s never been anyone quite like him before or since. This sparks off in a million directions, these among them …   … the lure of bands who'd clearly been to the library and were unlikely to have a huge hit   ... Paddy’s stoic defence of their name   … his distaste for “diary songwriting” of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen   … Jesse James, Elvis, Hey Manhattan: the obsession with the romance of America   … the archive of unrecorded songs (one box labelled ‘For Rod Stewart’)   … how the success of The King Of Rock ‘N’ Roll came to haunt them   … the inconceivable moment they appeared on the National Lottery with Bob Monkhouse and Mystic Meg   … pop tribalism on the school bus   … the dreadful circumstance that lead to I Trawl the Megahertz   … Paddy’s visual transformation from tousled pop star to hermetic semi-reclusive Gandalf   … and the fate of the Steve McQueen motorbike.   Order ‘Truly Gifted Kids’ here … https://linktr.ee/newmodern_books?lt_utm_source=lt_share_link#566128608. Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

    Prefab Sprout - a tale of mystery, eccentricity and pop’s most famous motorbike
4.5
out of 5
74 Ratings

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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