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
May 4, 2018 • 54min
Word Podcast 282 - Garth Cartwright
Virgin, Harlequin, One Stop, Dobells, Rock On, HMV, Cheapo Cheapo, Disci, Andy's, Woolies, Our Price and a million and one places called The Spinning Disc. It doesn't matter where you did your record shopping in the far long-ago, they're all in "Going For A Song", Garth Cartwright's information-packed survey of UK record shops past and present. In this podcast he talks to Mark and David about record retailing in this country from the days of the cylinder through the danceband boom of the thirties and the madness of Beatlemania to the recent rebirth of very specialist indies. It's a road we've all trodden one way or another and it's good to have it recognised. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Apr 12, 2018 • 1h 3min
Word Podcast 281 - Sir Tim Rice
Tim Rice didn't particularly like musicals. He was a rock and roll fan turned junior exec. In fact when Tim Rice met Andrew Lloyd Webber in the late 60s he had his eyes on a nice job running one of EMI's overseas outposts. But then there was Jesus Christ Superstar which was performed by the Grease Band and recorded at Olympic and sold in quantities nobody knew anything could sell and the next thing he knew he was a giant of the musical theatre and was writing with and for everyone. The perspective he's acquired in the course of a fifty-plus year career is unique and he's already distilled a lot of it into one volume of memoirs. He came along to The Islington so that Mark and David could encourage him to get on with the next volume. It was a delight to talk to him. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Apr 11, 2018 • 36min
Word Podcast 280 - Richard Newman
It was born in an unpromising flat in Tottenham, came to fruition in an old manor house in Oxfordshire, became, by accident, the soundtrack of a horror film that is still frightening people 45 years later and led, also by accident, to the foundation of one of the few British brands that's still a household name. It changed the lives of everybody who had anything to do with it. Richard Newman is the only person to have spent time talking to all the people who were involved and his book, 'The Making Of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells', has been re-published to mark the forty-fifth anniversary of the record's original release. He came to the Islington to talk to David and Mark about it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Feb 14, 2018 • 1h 1min
Word Podcast 279 - Ian Anderson
When Ian Anderson left the family home in Blackpool to make his name in the music business his father flung him hid old overcoat. "It'll be cold out there," he said. That was more than fifty years ago. 2018 sees the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the first Tull album "This Was". This anniversary is being marked by a special tour which begins in April. When Ian was our guest at Word In Your Ear he talked about: going to the police station as a 15-year-old because he wanted to be a copper, how the name of his band was as much a surprise to him as anyone else, what it was like to go on before Hendrix at the Isle of Wight in 1969, how The Who outshone the Rolling Stones during the filming of "The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus", why any idiot can manage his own band and why so few do, the secret of breaking America and why this tour is definitely the last. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Dec 14, 2017 • 1h 28min
Word Podcast 278 - Danny Baker
In the course of a packed conversation with David Hepworth the Damon Runyon of Bermondsey touches upon Keith Chegwin and the Third Ear Band, carrying a coffin and recovering from cancer, the breathtaking profanity of Hughie Green and the staggering stupidity of certain BBC executives, the difficulty of dealing with 12-year-old TV producers who are labouring under the misapprehension that they understand pop history and what happened when he and Danny Kelly decided it was finally time to try getting stoned. As ever, all human life is there – as it is in his latest autobiographical volume, "Going On The Turn". Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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.
