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.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Nov 23, 2017 • 55min
Word Podcast 277 - Robert Forster
Robert Forster's new book 'Grant And I' features strongly in many people's lists of the music book of the year. He came to WIYE to talk to Mark and David about growing up in Brisbane, bonding with Grant McLennan over their shared affection for Ry Cooder, forming a band with like-minded people rather than people who could play, getting near enough to success to be able to taste it and why no band has anything new to say after twenty minutes. Robert's been on the podcast before and remains one of our favourites. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 18, 2017 • 47min
Word Podcast 276 - Armando Iannucci
Armando Iannucci's Hear Me Out is a collection of pieces about his first love, classical music. He decided early on that the Deep Purple and Lou Reed records favoured by his older brother didn't speak to him in the way that Holsts's Planet Suite did. His book explains why. In this wide ranging chat with Mark and David Armando talks about how it felt to not share the general enthusiasm for the sound of now and what he says to people when they try to get him on the dance floor at parties. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Oct 23, 2017 • 1h 13min
Word Podcast 275 - Dylan Jones
As a teenager Dylan Jones was one of that generation who saw David Bowie on “Top Of The Pops” in 1972 and felt he was talking directly to them. As an art student he worked as an extra on a Bowie film and even gave him a light for his cigarette. As the editor of such magazines as Arena and GQ he went on to interview Bowie numerous times. Now he’s put together “David Bowie: A Life”, a massive oral history of the man’s life and brilliant career. It draws on the recollections of everyone from old school friends like George Underwood through fellow musicians like Rick Wakeman to the artists, film makers and fashion leaders whose direction he affected. In this special extended chat with Mark Ellen and David Hepworth Dylan talks about everything Bowie, including how small he was in some directions and yet how big in others. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 17, 2017 • 51min
Word Podcast 274 - Chris Difford
"My Dad said that if I joined a rock band I would be an alcoholic, a drug addict and skint. Turns out he was right." So writes Chris Difford in "Some Fantastic Place", a startlingly candid autobiography. An old friend of the pod he came along to Word In Your Ear to talk to Mark and David about the strange dynamics within bands, the reason musicians don't talk to each other, the attractions of relaxants and stimulants and the challenges of managing Bryan Ferry. Amazing stuff. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sep 16, 2017 • 46min
Word podcast 273 - with Daniel Rachel
The guest on our snug Chesterfield was Daniel Rachel, who won the Penderyn Prize for best music book of 2017 for his "Walls Come Tumbling Down", a triumphant oral history of the story of Rock Against Racism, 2-Tone and Red Wedge. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 23, 2017 • 1h 13min
Word podcast 272 - Johnny Rogan and Sid Griffin
Johnny Rogan almost didn't make it to this Word In Your Ear. He was so absorbed in a discussion about biography with friend of the podcast Mark Lewisohn that he had a small traffic accident that almost sidelined him for the evening. Anyway, he made it and brought along both volumes of his mammoth new account of their complex career. To help tell their story we were also delighted to welcome another friend of the pod Sid Griffin. It's all here: the folk revival, Swinging London, psychedelia, square glasses, country music, personality conflicts and some very sad ends. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jul 18, 2017 • 36min
Word Podcast 271 - with Sarfraz Manzoor
Usually our guests are talking about freshly-published books. It's actually ten years since Sarfraz Manzoor put out Greetings From Bury Park, his memoir about growing up in a traditional Pakistani family in Luton with an obsession with Bruce Springsteen. With the prospect of the story being transferred to the screen in the offing, Sarfraz came along to talk to David Hepworth about how he found parallels between Springsteen's songs and the challenges he faced in his life and how his desire to identify with the Boss led him into the odd unfortunate fashion choice. At the same time the two of them talk about Bruce Springsteen's autobiography Born To Run as it comes out in paperback, because, face it, he could use the royalties. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Jun 7, 2017 • 35min
Word Podcast 270 - Uncommon People
We loved them because they could do things we could never do. We adopted them as our fantasy friends when we were teenagers and were still measuring ourselves against them forty years after. David Hepworth talks about his best-selling book "Uncommon People" which traces the history of the cult of the rock star from Little Richard to Kurt Cobain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 25, 2017 • 57min
Word Podcast 269 - Thomas Dolby
Thomas Dolby’s career has seen him sharing a helicopter with a terrified David Bowie over Wembley Stadium, labouring on the nightshift at a New York studio in search of noises that Foreigner might like and dropping in on Michael Jackson at home in the days before scandal consumed him. All this and a good deal more is in his memoir The Speed Of Sound, which also covers his pop success and his adventures at the heart of the great Internet revolution. He came to Islington to talk to Mark Ellen and David Hepworth all about it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 21, 2017 • 46min
Word Podcast 268 - John Ingham
John Ingham used to sign himself Jonh Ingham when he covered the very early stirrings of punk rock in 1976 for Sounds. Although he was a writer by trade he took along his camera because literally nobody else was taking pictures and he recognised that early punk was above all things colourful. Forty years later he’s got those pictures out from storage and published them in a fabulous new book called Siprit Of 76: London Punk Eyewitness, which has pictures of all the key players - the Sex Pistols, Clash, Siouxsie, Generation X and Subway Sect - in the last days before they were household names. It’s an extraordinary document. The book comes with an introduction from Jon Savage and a commentary from John himself. He came along to the Islington to tell us about the year it all happened. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
