Word In Your Ear
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- Último episódio
- 21 out 2026
Sobre o podcast
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.
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Episódios 1.022
Dexys, their hits and flops and how I survived them by Helen O’Hara
Helen’s violin at the start of Come On Eileen has filled a million wedding dancefloors. She was a member of Dexys Midnight Runners, later their musical director, at the boom time of Too Rye Ay (and its wobbly …
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Helen’s violin at the start of Come On Eileen has filled a million wedding dancefloors. She was a member of Dexys Midnight Runners, later their musical director, at the boom time of Too Rye Ay (and its wobbly sequel) and captures the thrill of it all in her just-updated memoir, What’s She Like: A Violinist’s Tale. You’ll love this conversation - warm, candid, forgiving and touching on all the following …
… the day the dungarees arrived
… the tribal nature of bands
… the social skills required in a group as tangled as Dexys who’d “go to the caff and just … not talk!"
… what she learnt from the memorabilia found in her shed
… the myth that she met Kevin Rowland at a bus-stop and her reinvention as “the belle from Ballymena”
… working with Nicky Hopkins (“my hero”), Tom Dowd, Woody Woodmansey and Tanita Tikaram
… Dexys studio method: “focus, discipline, tightness” and trying to record a 12-minute track in one take
… hearing hits by Rod Stewart and Slade that featured violins
… and her swansong: recording Because Of You for the TV sitcom Brush Strokes.
Order copies of ‘What’s She Like’ here: https://www.route-online.com/all-books/whats-she-like
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Nigel Dick shot videos for Band Aid, Guns N’Roses, Britney and Oasis by ‘failing upwards’
We first met Nigel Dick in the late ‘70s when he was the motorbike messenger for Stiff Records and watched him rocket to success in the video boom, directing career-launching clips for Guns N’Roses, Tears for …
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We first met Nigel Dick in the late ‘70s when he was the motorbike messenger for Stiff Records and watched him rocket to success in the video boom, directing career-launching clips for Guns N’Roses, Tears for Fears and Britney Spears and working with Cher, Joni Mitchell and McCartney, all recorded in his memoir ‘Music Video Mischief’. He looks back here on that big-budget golden age and the rise of the amateurs from his home in Colorado and stops off at …
… ‘You have to work out where the power lies’
… the story of the million dollar video
… how he finally found the Axl Rose charisma
… New Boots And Panties, ‘the most radical album to have that level of success’
… Stiff’s ‘frightening, lovable, devious’ Dave Robinson, characteristics every label boss requires
… ‘I’ll make sure you never work in this town again!’
… why the 16 year-old (ex-Mickey Mouse Club) Britney Spears was born for video
… working with his teenage heroes Yes: ‘the beautiful castles I’d built in my mind just collapsed to sand’
… the rise of AI – ‘best to check people haven’t got six fingers and a changing haircut’
… and working with McCartney, Cher, Band Aid, Oasis and Claude Van Damme.
Order copies of ‘Music Video Mischief’ in the UK from: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/music-video-mischief-ozzy-to-britney-oasis-to-gn-r-mccartney-to-cher-a-lifetime-of-rock-and-chaos-nigel-dick/619386081ce90352?ean=9798999048783
And in the U.S. from: https://www.trouserpressbooks.com
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Tall stories about towering and tiny rock stars, ‘50s jazz and Mick Jagger’s gym shoes
Two fearless men journey to the Edge Of News so that you don’t have to. Some highlights of this week’s report …… when a gig’s all about the performer not the audience… the power of singing other people’s songs… …
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Two fearless men journey to the Edge Of News so that you don’t have to. Some highlights of this week’s report …
… when a gig’s all about the performer not the audience
… the power of singing other people’s songs
… can you ever trust a film critic?
… what connects Richard Thompson, Neil Tennant, Loudon Wainwright and Randy Newman?
… “bands can’t look like gangs if they’re not all the same height”
… can you picture ‘50s jazz without cigarette smoke?
… who – dear god – is “achingly cool” according to critics? Miles Davis? The Portico Quartet? Annie Lennox?!
… should we call time on the ailing Mike Love?
… biopics that can’t afford the music
… why Robert Evans hated the American Graffiti soundtrack
… people who perform sitting down
… plus BB King, Jack Bruce, Philip Roth, Woody Guthrie, Woody Allen, James McMurtry and the 15-year old “Michael” Jagger’s gym shoes.
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Another Word with … Richard Thompson: includes Fairport, Lennon, Schwarzenegger and a cast of thousands!
Richard Thompson has a new album, ‘Hippies, Thugs and Heroes’, and he’s touring again in 2027, the perfect excuse to get another of our favourite guests back in the chair again. He joins us here for a …
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Richard Thompson has a new album, ‘Hippies, Thugs and Heroes’, and he’s touring again in 2027, the perfect excuse to get another of our favourite guests back in the chair again. He joins us here for a brilliant, free-wheeling conversation with a cast list including …
Arnold Schwarzenegger (and his son Wolfie)
William Shakespeare
Mandy Miller
Shostakovich
Fairport Convention
William Walton
Fellini
John Lennon
Louis Armstrong
Post-War Brighton gangsters
Nellie the Elephant
Les Paul
Harold Pinter
Booker T & the M.G.’s
Bix Beiderbecke
Stephane Grappelli
Ennio Morricone
John Coltrane
Django Reinhardt
My Fair Lady
‘50s radio show Journey Into Space
Once Upon A Time In The West
… his dad (a policeman) and his first girlfriend Deirdre.
Order copies of ‘HIPPIES, THUGS AND HEROES’ here: http://newwst.com/hippies
And tickets here: https://www.richardthompson-music.com/tour-dates/
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.
Rory Gallagher – Ireland’s first rock star remembered by the brother who managed him
You forget how huge and ubiquitous Rory Gallagher was in the ‘70s, just 22 at the Isle of Wight and auditioning for the Stones four years later, an inspiration for Johnny Marr, Andy Partridge, the Edge, Slash …
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You forget how huge and ubiquitous Rory Gallagher was in the ‘70s, just 22 at the Isle of Wight and auditioning for the Stones four years later, an inspiration for Johnny Marr, Andy Partridge, the Edge, Slash and countless others. And for his brother and manager Dónal - “it was a big wide world I wasn’t going to see unless I hung onto his coattails”. He’s just published a memoir, ‘Edged In Blue, A Rock’n’Roll Odyssey with Rory Gallagher’, and looks back here at some of the highlights, these among them …
… watching Six-Five Special through a closed TV shop window at night and adding vocals to entertain the crowd
… hearing jazz, Lonnie Donegan and Big Bill Broonzy on Forces Radio in Ireland
… auditioning for the Stones in 1974
… joining the Fontana Showband aged 15 playing ceilidh, Chuck Berry and Georgie Fame
… Taste on the chaotic Blind Faith US tour when Ginger Baker attacked the security
… when Johnny Marr and Joe Bonamassa asked to borrow his old guitars
… and “the BBC’s most recorded artist of the ‘70s” and managing his expanding legacy.
Order ‘Edged in Blue: A Rock 'n' Roll Odyssey with Rory Gallagher’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Edged-Blue-Rock-Odyssey-Gallagher/dp/1786052539
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Q Magazine’s 40th, Ariel Bender and the most unlistenable music ever made
In this week’s extension of The Longest Conversation In Pop History™️ you’ll be happy to find …… the front row audience driving Gillian Anderson mad and why we feel for her... can you still buy anything for …
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In this week’s extension of The Longest Conversation In Pop History™️ you’ll be happy to find …
… the front row audience driving Gillian Anderson mad and why we feel for her
... can you still buy anything for £1.10?
… when did rock nostalgia begin?
… what Andy Partridge paid “the Hermit of Mink Hollow”
… the famous playwright who wrote a Beatles film script
… Spirit of Eden, Trout Mask Replica, Bitches Brew? Unlistenable?!
… whatever happened to the pop instrumental?
… My Bloody Valentine and bands who were “a challenge”
… Japanese noise pioneer Merzbow’s 53-hour marathon at Colchester Arts Centre
… Bricknasty, Tooth, Clutter, Sleepazoid … real or invented new bands?
… and memories of first hearing Sister Ray.
Plus Widowmaker, Stan Ridgway, the long-suffering hero who’s heard every one of our podcasts and birthday guest Matthew Elliott.
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Roxy, Traffic, Nick Drake, Mott the Hoople & the magic of Island Records
The third instalment of ‘The Island Book of Records’ is out, another sumptuous, elegantly designed, LP-sized chronicle of every album released on this most fabled of labels, in this case between 1971-72 …
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The third instalment of ‘The Island Book of Records’ is out, another sumptuous, elegantly designed, LP-sized chronicle of every album released on this most fabled of labels, in this case between 1971-72. They’re edited by Neil Storey who worked in the press office for years, and they’re magnificent, a painstaking assembly of the memories of producers, musicians and label staff involved in those records with photo outtakes, press cuttings and concert bills to illustrate. We talked to Neil in Jamaica, on his way to present Chris Blackwell with a copy, and touched on the following …
… why anything on Island still quickens the pulse
… how Blackwell understood “the packaged goods business” and only signed Roxy when he saw the shot they wanted on their first album cover
… Jess Roden, John Martyn, Tír na nÓg, John Wood, Jethro Tull, Hackensack and the record everyone forgot
… ‘the deification of Nick Drake is not a good thing”
… the misfortunes that derailed Bronco
… the ‘Renaissance’ look of Amazing Blondel and the member permanently dressed as an Elizabethan
… “Bless The Weather was the first John Martyn record where he didn’t want to be somebody else”
…. Spooky Tooth - “grunge before grunge was invented”
… and the Island albums that should have sold more.
Order ‘The Island Book of Records 1971-72’ here: https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781807072995/
And here:
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Gary Kemp bought Brian Epstein’s address book and discovered ‘the DNA of the Beatles’
A lifelong Beatles obsessive, Gary Kemp bought Epstein’s black leather address book at auction and (with Simon Halfon) researched its 404 names to construct a picture of him, “a 360-degree look” built around …
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A lifelong Beatles obsessive, Gary Kemp bought Epstein’s black leather address book at auction and (with Simon Halfon) researched its 404 names to construct a picture of him, “a 360-degree look” built around musicians, managers, impresarios, hustlers, grifters, ‘walkers’, tricksters, writers, deejays, scene-makers and assorted fashion and media folk. It’s fascinating. As is this podcast where he talks about what he discovered compiling ‘1967: the World of Brian Epstein and the Beatles’ and how the contacts were like “an Advent Calendar leading to his death in August 1967”. We touch on …
… what he paid for the address book (but couldn’t tell his wife!)
… the last person Brian spoke to
… how the Age of Innocence became the Age of Experience
… the legal, contractual and social problems overwhelming him in 1967
… cracking the code that hid the Beatles’ phone numbers
… “these days Lennon would be cancelled many times over”
… the crisis just before Shea Stadium in 1965
… why Brian missed the last Beatles show and his absurd idea for the Sgt Pepper cover
… and “how different all our lives would have been if he hadn’t walked down those steps to the Cavern”.
Order copies of ‘1967: the World of Brian Epstein and the Beatles’ here: https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/1967-the-world-of-brian-epstein-and-the-beatles-the-address-book-that-defined-an-era-gary-kempsimon-halfon?variant=56206336885115
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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‘Metal Machine Music is a masterpiece!’ David Holzer has played it 1,000 times
David Holzer was a Lou Reed fan from the moment he saw Walk On The Wild Side on Top Of The Pops but avoided Metal Machine Music for 42 years as it was supposedly unlistenable. He was transfixed when he finally …
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David Holzer was a Lou Reed fan from the moment he saw Walk On The Wild Side on Top Of The Pops but avoided Metal Machine Music for 42 years as it was supposedly unlistenable. He was transfixed when he finally heard it, began playing it daily and felt so strongly about “the most radical rock record ever made” he tracked down 60 fellow obsessives and wrote the enthralling ‘Lou Reed: Metal Machine Mystic’. And talks to us here from his home in Mallorca about …
… why Reed released MMM. To escape a ruinous contract? To boost his avant garde status? To torpedo his career?
… how it was made with two guitars feeding back and a one-note ‘Ostrich’ tuning
… the multiple rumours – “Part 4 is Part 1 played backwards!”
… its inspirational ingredients – Judaism, spirituality, Alice Bailly and Iannis Xenakis
… how he hated the reviews of its forerunner Sally Can’t Dance and the people who bought it (and made it his biggest album)
… the vindication of its first live performance, in Berlin in 2002
… its brutal reception by rock critics who “thought they were hipper than Lou”
… “Reed spent money like a sailor on shore leave”
… and what the record reveals when you’ve heard it 1,000 times.
Order copies of ‘Lou Reed: Metal Machine Mystic’ here: http://jawbonepress.com/metal-machine-mystic/
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Todd Rundgren’s outbursts, ‘too old to mosh’ & the happiest and saddest songwriters
A long-running conversation that shifts from major to minor, back to major and all notes inbetween, this week’s lyrics including …… can people who write ‘happy’ ever be cool?… the best drummer who isn’t a …
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A long-running conversation that shifts from major to minor, back to major and all notes inbetween, this week’s lyrics including …
… can people who write ‘happy’ ever be cool?
… the best drummer who isn’t a drummer?
… when will Oasis buy Man City?
… why is Taylor Swift unmemorable?
… when’s “too old to mosh”?
… weird double-bills: Jimi Hendrix and the Monkees. Cat Stevens and Engelbert. Black Sabbath and … Neil Diamond?
… huge stars who barely had any hits
… what Todd Rundgren said about the New York Dolls, XTC and Bat Out Of Hell (“a parody of Springsteen”
… why black musicians had white gangster managers
… Mark paid £2.75 for six bands at Knebworth in 1974. What’s Alex getting for £500 in 2027?
… and “songs about Los Angeles are always about failure”
Plus Radiohead, Laughing Len, Kylie and birthday guest Phil Turner.
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Jon Savage loathed the 1976 singles chart so he’s made an album of should-have-been hits
Jon Savage detested the UK’s mid-‘70s hits with a vengeance, “records so bad they made you want to strangle every deejay on Radio One, especially Dave Lee Travis”. Which is why he’s compiled ‘Jon Savage’s 1976 …
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Jon Savage detested the UK’s mid-‘70s hits with a vengeance, “records so bad they made you want to strangle every deejay on Radio One, especially Dave Lee Travis”. Which is why he’s compiled ‘Jon Savage’s 1976: Something Was Going To Happen’, 24 ground-breaking tracks released the same year that paved the way to the future. He looks back here from his home in Anglesey at the thrill of hearing them the first time aged 22, the many highlights including …
… hilarious memories of the nauseating Jeans On, Fernando, No Charge, Combine Harvester and Save Your Kisses For Me
… and his undying love for Eddie and the Hot Rods, Pere Ubu, Candi Station, Burning Spear, Miami and the Flamin’ Groovies
… cheap Ronco and K-Tel compilations and Radio One’s stranglehold on popular taste
… what happened at parties when you took off Steely Dan and played the Ramones
… “reggae records never seem to date”
… seeing the Runaways at the Roundhouse and the Clash at Fulham Town Hall with the future Poly Styrene
… the first review he ever had published
… the early ‘70s ‘underground’ - psychedelia, prog, metal, glam, reggae and disco
… and hunting for records at One Stop, Dobells and Harlequin.
Order copies of Jon Savage’s 1976 album here: https://www.acerecords.co.uk/jon-savages-1976-something-was-going-to-happen
And look out for Jon’s brilliant books, among them
England’s Dreaming (about to be republished with a new Derek Jarman cover), Teenage and 1966.
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.
Stevie Wonder’s masterpiece and the daft, chequered history of Ties In Rock!
The two-man conversational canoe paddles the rock and roll tideway, stopping off this week at …… Van Morrison’s set-opener is Kidney Stew Blues by Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson. Do people have to play their big …
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The two-man conversational canoe paddles the rock and roll tideway, stopping off this week at …
… Van Morrison’s set-opener is Kidney Stew Blues by Eddie ‘Cleanhead’ Vinson. Do people have to play their big hits?
… what’s the key ingredient in success?
... “all great albums automatically have great sleeves. Bar one!”
… does Beyonce have a horsefly named after her? Is there a Jerry Garcia wood roach? A Sting tree-frog?
… U2’s new album cover is an Abbey Road pastiche. So … is this their swansong?
… “dress for the job you want, not the job you have”
… Elvis, Stones, psychedelia, Be Bop Deluxe, power pop, punk, Pete Doherty: rock stars in ‘statement’ ties
… the many ways Songs In The Key Of Life was a masterpiece
… plus “fibrous weaves, over-stuffed loons”, the Plimsouls, the Roaring Boys, Josh Rouse and birthday guest James Ewen.
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Why can’t brothers in bands ever get along?
While Mark Ellen visits his Scottish estates, David Hepworth and Alex Gold keep the home fires burning with a wide-ranging conversation, taking in:• why every band containing a pair of brothers seems to …
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While Mark Ellen visits his Scottish estates, David Hepworth and Alex Gold keep the home fires burning with a wide-ranging conversation, taking in:
• why every band containing a pair of brothers seems to inevitably succumb to fraternal warfare
• how Ed Sheeran found himself caught in the cross-fire between a multi-millionaire and a bunch of support acts keen not to get caught on the wrong side of a social media war
• the fine line that divides a British cheese from a motorway service area
• what are the best cases of “mailbox money” in show business?
• does anybody else think gigs finish too early?
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Sid Griffin: the Long Ryders leader laughs at the absurdity of teenage life!
A whole new format we’ve invented for people who’ve been guests before and were so entertaining we wanted them back. So we’ve devised some random questions to spark a few memories and revelations. First up, Sid …
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A whole new format we’ve invented for people who’ve been guests before and were so entertaining we wanted them back. So we’ve devised some random questions to spark a few memories and revelations. First up, Sid Griffin of the Long Ryders, touring the UK this autumn, who looks back here at his early life before he “went to L.A. to quote-unquote make it”. You’ll love this as much as we did, especially …
… the Beatles song he knew he’d understand when he was older
… his teenage band rehearsal when the drummer got a hammer in his head
… the rock star he always wanted to be
… what happens when you wear the bug-infested cap you find on a bus
… DJ Carl ‘Weird Beard’ Markert burping in Pepsi commercials on WAKY Radio
… Gregg Turner and the Angry Samoans – “bad songs in bad taste”
… things he can still recite from childhood
… the best use of music in a movie
… how arch-rival Norrie Paramor made George Martin even richer
… and the greatest B-side ever written.
Plus English teacher Mrs Atlas and his deathless crush on Mimi Babcock.
Long Ryders tickets here … thelongryders.com/tour
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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An Indie Sleaze special! – up and down with the Strokes, Libertines and Arctic Monkeys
“Good hair, good shoes, something to say” were the requirements of Indie Sleaze whose vanguard lit up the fading music press in the first decade of the 21st Century – acts like Franz Ferdinand, the Rakes, the …
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“Good hair, good shoes, something to say” were the requirements of Indie Sleaze whose vanguard lit up the fading music press in the first decade of the 21st Century – acts like Franz Ferdinand, the Rakes, the Cribs, Kaiser Chiefs and Bloc Party. Janine Warren saw the Strokes in Camden in 2001 and life took a whole new direction. Her book ‘The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect’ looks back at old-school rock PR, unmanageable bands, and the summit and collapse of the last scene she thinks we’ll ever see. You’ll enjoy …
… Morrissey at St George’s Hall, Blackburn
… deejaying at Liquidation in Liverpool playing psychedelia and Northern Soul
… the impossible task of being Pete Doherty’s PR: “like sand running through your fingers”
… the day its editor realised the NME was doomed
… the indie dilemma: wanting fame and publicity while appearing not to care
… the rise of Arctic Monkeys, the first big digital success story
… the financial crash, big label panic, illegal file-share and other woes of the 2010 music business
… why rock scenes are a thing of the past
… and the greatest Indie Sleaze record ever made.
Order copies of ‘The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect: the Last Indie Music Scene 2000-2010’ here:
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Nicky Hopkins’ hidden genius, the Oasis film and the best songs about rain
This week’s news in three separate files - the Good, the Bad and the Befuddling. Which involves … … have Oasis created their own economy? … are stadium gigs now like historical re-enactment? … “people listen to …
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This week’s news in three separate files - the Good, the Bad and the Befuddling. Which involves …
… have Oasis created their own economy?
… are stadium gigs now like historical re-enactment?
… “people listen to music more intently in Manchester as they’re inside while it rains”
… ‘includes All Things Must Pass miniature garden gnomes!’ The mad money-draining joy of the luxury box-set
… when bands don’t change but audiences do
…Sun = Happiness, Rain = Sorrow: lyrics as an emotional weather forecast
… the pianist who wouldn’t play minor chords
… Nicky Hopkins on records by the Kinks, Beatles, Who and Stones (“She’s A Rainbow was like a music-box Mozart”): has any session player made a more vital contribution?
… “Lose two teeth in German nightclub brawl, go back to Burnage”: real and fictitious rock band Monopoly sets!
… Blue Nile, Ann Peebles, Beautiful South, Paul Simon? What’s the best song about rain?
Plus J Blackfoot, Paul Simon’s Kathy from Brentwood and birthday guest Matthew North.
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Clint Boon saw Manchester lift off twice and auditioned the young Noel Gallagher
Clint Boon was at the heart of “the two biggest musical revolutions of my lifetime” – as a teenager for Joy Division and Buzzcocks, and later the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Hacienda and onstage with …
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Clint Boon was at the heart of “the two biggest musical revolutions of my lifetime” – as a teenager for Joy Division and Buzzcocks, and later the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays and Hacienda and onstage with Inspiral Carpets, a world of characters as big as his own. His memoir ‘The Manchester Chronicles’ is about obsessions, schoolteachers, purple winklepickers, mobile discos, good luck, catastrophe and being in the right place at the right time for 30 years. Along with …
… why Manchester listens to music so intently: “we’re stuck inside while it rains”
… auditioning Noel Gallagher “as the Lockerbie plane flew directly overhead”
… the new economy: making a Number 2 album funded by t-shirt and cassette sales
… growing up on Tom Jones, Shirley Bassey, Little Richard and Gary Lewis & the Playboys
… Inspiral Carpets’ obsession with West Coast psychedelia
… when the band all got houses with their Mute advance “and I just bought some $800 sunglasses”
… great bowl-heads haircuts (Stones, Byrds, Jefferson Airplane) and why he got one too
… seeing the Pistols at the Electric Circus: “I left college the next morning”
… the sudden split: playing Glastonbury one minute, living on milk tokens and income support the next
… his 1975 disco playing Mud, the Rubettes and Showaddywaddy (“I was a 14 year-old Ted”)
… and how 24 Hour Party People captured “the spirit, chaos, colour and madness”.
Order copies of ‘The Manchester Chronicles: True Tales of Music, Madness and Mayhem 1976-2006’ here: https://geni.us/manchesterchronicles
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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The Slits, a movie in waiting - “Marvel superheroes with their pants on the outside!”
The Slits burned very brightly – but briefly - and were gone, their bumpy and courageous tale crisply told in Zoë Howe’s updated ‘Typical Girls?’. She looks back here at the unforgettable things they wore, said …
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The Slits burned very brightly – but briefly - and were gone, their bumpy and courageous tale crisply told in Zoë Howe’s updated ‘Typical Girls?’. She looks back here at the unforgettable things they wore, said and did as “outsiders in an outsider scene”, a band celebrated before they’d even played a note. And touches on …
... how other all-girl groups got started - the Moodies, the Runaways, Fanny, the Shaggs, Goldie and the Gingerbreads
… Nora Forster – Ari’s mum, German print heiress, the “punk rock Baroness Nica” who bankrolled the Slits
… Ari was a 14 year-old schoolgirl, Viv Albertine was 21: “I couldn’t have a relationship with her. It was like a having a child in the band”
… Nick Kent’s account of the four of them “blazing down Oxford Street”
… producer Dennis Bovell’s dub reggae project with “the
Witches of West London”
… their fractious relationship with Island Records and Radio One
… “No birds on the stage!”: the author’s life as a female drummer
… and the Pop Group, Rip Rig + Panic, “humour, playfulness, the freedom to be childlike” and the long legacy of the Slits.
Order ‘Typical Girls?: the Story of the Slits’ here: https://omnibuspress.com/products/typical-girls-the-story-of-the-slits-omnibus-remastered?_pos=1&_psq=typical+girls&_psid=eb748e5dc&_ss=e
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Shawn Colvin – songwriter, storyteller, urban cowgirl, singing waitress
Shawn Colvin was in the spotlight from the age of 10 playing her parents’ parties, singing in bars at college, acting off-Broadway and joining country swing bands before making 12 solo albums. She’s touring the …
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Shawn Colvin was in the spotlight from the age of 10 playing her parents’ parties, singing in bars at college, acting off-Broadway and joining country swing bands before making 12 solo albums. She’s touring the UK and Ireland from late September and looks back on it all with us from her home in Austin, Texas. Lots of great moments here, these among them …
… growing up on hymns, Pete Seeger and the Kingston Trio with a Dad who tried to get stoned at a Judy Collins gig
… being a spoons-playing singing waitress with Maria Muldaur in an off-Broadway musical
… playing four sets a night of Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Simon & Garfunkel for tips and beer on the Illinois bar circuit
… acting in the Simpsons and Larry Sanders
… life in dance halls in country swing bands
… her part in “the great ‘80s Urban Cowboy Scare”
… how to connect with festival crowds when it’s raining
… the Richard Thompson glass bowl requests system
… and covers she never tires of playing – Joan Baez, U2, Gnarls Barkley.
Shawn Colvin tickets here: https://tix.to/ShawnUK26
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The world’s greatest radio station! & things we loved about Dolly Parton
Passing the conversational Dutchie 'pon the left hand side, we fire up the following … … “speech, not music, brings people together” … if music gets ever broader, why’s radio getting more niche? … can YOU guess …
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Passing the conversational Dutchie 'pon the left hand side, we fire up the following …
… “speech, not music, brings people together”
… if music gets ever broader, why’s radio getting more niche?
… can YOU guess the NME’s 10 most influential bands in 2002?
… a doomed Dolly Parton kidnap attempt at the Hammersmith Odeon: we were there!
… ‘Voice-tracking’, ‘auditorium testing’ and other network radio secrets
... 61 year-old listener hears the Beatles for the first time and reports back. (Chapeau, Jelltex!)
… short-lived TV spin-offs from Fawlty Towers and Dad’s Army
… Madonna, 50 Cent and Courtney Love wrote children’s books? Anyone read Marcus Mumford’s ‘Barnaby and the Drumming Bear’?
… familiar acts doing unfamiliar songs and well-known tracks by obscure people
… and why Boom Radio is booming.
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Blur’s thrilling early years in words and pictures by Dave Rowntree
Dave Rowntree had a camera with him as Blur took off in the early ‘90s and his book ‘No-One You Know’ distils the thrill of a band in ascent – backstage, in studios, with fans, on tour buses and their first …
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Dave Rowntree had a camera with him as Blur took off in the early ‘90s and his book ‘No-One You Know’ distils the thrill of a band in ascent – backstage, in studios, with fans, on tour buses and their first trips to America and Japan. It bristles with joy and exhilaration. He looks back here at life in lift-off nearly 35 years ago and ahead to his spoken word tour promoting it, stopping off at …
… two years busking in France in the mid-’80s
… why pictures taken on film are more like paintings than photographs
… Blur’s unique chemistry - “all four of us had one sister and no brothers”
… what he learnt from their label manager Dave Balfe
… the writer who discovered Blur and other game-changing moments
… how ‘the Fanerati radar’ and editor Miranda Sawyer encouraged him to publish the book
… Japan’s confusing, intoxicating new culture in the early ‘90s
… mile-melting on US tour buses in the days before social media and DVD
… and why Blur today are in “the dream position”.
Order tickets and copies of the book here: https://www.daverowntree.com/
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Natalie Merchant returns playing ‘Mother Goose as an 18th Century feminist’
Natalie Merchant joined 10,000 Maniacs when she was 17, had a long and successful solo career and then began teaching children in New York State. Realising the value of rhymes and theatre, her adaptation of …
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Natalie Merchant joined 10,000 Maniacs when she was 17, had a long and successful solo career and then began teaching children in New York State. Realising the value of rhymes and theatre, her adaptation of Mother Goose (played by herself) was expanded into a multi-media performance with 150 four-year-olds and recorded with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She even made most of the costumes. And she’s never had an audience reaction as enthusiastic and emotional. It’s a magnificent project to give children experiences that modern life rarely affords “right down to the thrill of seeing people play real instruments”. She talks to us here from her New York home about ‘Cabinet Of Wonder’, along with …
… her first stage appearances, aged seven
… scanning record collections and thinking “if they don’t have a copy of Nico’s ‘Chelsea Girl’, we can’t be friends!”
… how improvising lyrics got her into 10,000 Maniacs (“who I wanted to call the Tunda Bunnies”)
… seeing Styx, the Cars and the Clash playing ‘Combat Rock’
… how she and her daughter grew up in homes without TV
… and the threat of future education run by avatars.
The Cabinet of Wonder website: https://cabinetofwonder.org
And the multi-retailer link for the album: https://cabinetofwonder.lnk.to/album
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The Proclaimers know the exquisite delight of your songs being sung in football stadiums
The Proclaimers have only had a handful of hits but they’re songs that have kept expanding for nearly 40 years. And the World Cup was a reminder of how far they’ve reached. Craig and Charlie Reid talk to us …
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The Proclaimers have only had a handful of hits but they’re songs that have kept expanding for nearly 40 years. And the World Cup was a reminder of how far they’ve reached. Craig and Charlie Reid talk to us here about first adventures onstage, talent shows, the tour circuit, the new album ‘You May Offend’ and …
… the moment the Proclaimers took off
… first records bought in Woolworths in Fife (including the less-than-prophetic World Cup anthem Easy Easy)
… the fraternal voices of the Everly Brothers
… seeing Joy Division supporting Buzzcocks and feeling “the heat and charisma” of Ian Curtis
… the unique way they write songs
… getting royalties when your hits are sung in televised football stadiums
… their first gigs playing Stones, Kinks, Clash and Pistols covers plus a Talent Show in ’77 on a bill with “a lassie singing Scottish ballads and possibly a performing dog”
… recording at Rockfield and the ghost of Bohemian Rhapsody
... their new video imagining John & Yoko as they might be today
… how easy it is to offend Gen-Z
… and hitchhiking 60 miles to see Hibs and writing ‘The Joyful Kilmarnock Blues’ about it.
Order ‘You May Offend’ here: https://proclaimers.lnk.to/youmayoffend
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What are the great singles that have entered our bloodstream? “Nobody hums an album!”
The original rock podcast - now in its 20th year! – knocks the week’s news across the conversational net. Amid the top-spin, rallies and double-faults, you’ll find … … farcical developments in the Tupac trial … …
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The original rock podcast - now in its 20th year! – knocks the week’s news across the conversational net. Amid the top-spin, rallies and double-faults, you’ll find …
… farcical developments in the Tupac trial
… the shock-horror reaction to the Sam Mendes Beatles’ wigs!
… Dave Marsh’s ‘1001 Greatest Singles’ in 1989: what 45s released since would make his Top 10?
… ‘If the Phone Doesn’t Ring, It’s Me’, ‘I’ve Been Flushed From The Bathroom Of Your Heart’: real or made-up Country song titles?
… “People buy albums because they like the band. They buy singles because they like the song”
… musicians who wrote a second memoir as the first one wasn’t all true
… the Stones single that’s streets ahead of their others
… the Hank Marvin Challenge: the correct facial expression when playing instrumentals!
… are the greatest singles the ones with the most emotional depth?
… and the mystery of ‘No Way Out’ by Joyce Harris.
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Martin Simpson’s 60 years on the folk circuit ‘making people cry for a living’
Martin Simpson got backstage when he was 15 and met Jimmy Reed and Big Joe Williams and it changed his life forever. He’s been on the folk circuit ever since, still at the top of his game and with the wealth of …
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Martin Simpson got backstage when he was 15 and met Jimmy Reed and Big Joe Williams and it changed his life forever. He’s been on the folk circuit ever since, still at the top of his game and with the wealth of knowledge and experience reflected in this extremely entertaining podcast. His ‘Some Kind Of Jubilee’ album celebrates 50 years since his first record and he’s on tour in September. And talks to us here about …
… his operatic Dad born in the 19th Century
… the message carved with a knife on the door of the Bodmin Trad Music Club
… hearing Paul Robeson aged four and thinking “I want to make people cry for a living”
… ‘60s folk circuit snobbery and its disdain for “foreign songs”
… signing Big Joe Williams’ walking stick in a space between Bob Dylan and Joan Baez
… memories of Alex Campbell, Matin Carthy, Dave & Jo Ann Kelly and “that swarthy bunch of lunatics from Hull, the Watersons”
… the Nun & Ice Cream Cone, the Frog & Afterbirth: imaginary pub venues cooked up with June Tabor
… being managed by Tony Secunda, “an extremely unpleasant human being”
… “the only damage you can do to a folk song is to not sing it”
… supporting Steeleye Span and the night cash rained from the heavens
… Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right, These Days by Jackson Browne, Mississippi John Hurt and other songs that never let you down onstage
… second-lining at a New Orleans jazz funeral: “the slow drag and the racing return”
… and how folk songs travel abroad and evolve.
Order copies of ‘Some Kind Of Jubilee’ here: https://martinsimpsonmusic.com/pre-order-the-new-album/
Martin Simpson tickets here: https://martinsimpsonmusic.com/
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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The Shadows and the chequered tale of the first British rock’n’roll band
The Shadows were the strongest brand in British pop, adored and widely imitated. When they went out of fashion, no-one wanted them to change. Bob Stanley salutes their enormous influence and creation of the …
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The Shadows were the strongest brand in British pop, adored and widely imitated. When they went out of fashion, no-one wanted them to change. Bob Stanley salutes their enormous influence and creation of the guitar hero and unravels their rapid post-Beatles decline in his superb new book, ‘The Shadows: the Definitive Story’. And talks to us here about …
… Hank and Bruce arriving in London aged 15 when the 2i’s coffee bar was a labour exchange and a social club
… entering a talent contest won by a Malayan opera singer
… the magic of cowboy culture transported to British suburbia and their four cartoonish stage names
… meeting Jacques Tati at the Paris Olympia and being asked to write a song for his upcoming movie
… the rapid post-Beatles crash – bow-ties, panto and Cliff announcing his Christianity
… “being thrown through a mangle twice a night by Arthur Askey in Stockton-on-Tees is not why they joined the music business”
… getting Hipgnosis to design their album sleeve while stuck playing Batley Variety Club
… the return of instrumentals with Albatross and the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
… when Hank was asked to join the Move
.. the Swedish vogue for “barbed wire groups”
… and Neil Young’s ‘From Hank to Hendrix’ – which everyone assumed was about Hank Williams.
Order copies of Bob’s book here: https://tr.ee/rSilFTJwfO
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Stiff Records’ 50th birthday! – the farcical magnificent record label and why we adored it
Stuff, nonsense, the white heat of debate and yesterday’s news today! Which this week involves … … which of these didn’t host a TV chat show – Ian Botham, Charlotte Church, Lily Allen or Harold Wilson? … if …
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Stuff, nonsense, the white heat of debate and yesterday’s news today! Which this week involves …
… which of these didn’t host a TV chat show – Ian Botham, Charlotte Church, Lily Allen or Harold Wilson?
… if you’d paid £102 to see two-thirds of the Fugees show up an hour late, wouldn’t you SCREAM for a refund?
… Britain’s most rock’n’roll hotel and why the idea of “excess” seems purely American
… Dave and Stephane Grappelli at the Sunset Marquis
… Reversing Into Tomorrow! We Came, We Saw, We Left! The genius of Stiff Records, “the Motown of Bayswater”, and the oddballs and misfits they signed
… “there are only two types of record demand: too little and too much”
… “Artistic breakthrough, the first double B-side!” The single that started the Indie boom
… and why naked ballet doesn’t work.
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Elliott Smith, his life, his afterlife and the friends who believed in him
A sense of melancholy hangs over the music of songwriters whose lives were tragically short – Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, Eva Cassidy, Judee Sill - and we’re left knowing very little about them. Jamie Fisher …
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A sense of melancholy hangs over the music of songwriters whose lives were tragically short – Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, Eva Cassidy, Judee Sill - and we’re left knowing very little about them. Jamie Fisher, writer and New York Times researcher, discovered Elliott Smith 12 years after he’d died and contacted 40 of his friends and fellow musicians to build a picture of him for her memoir Nobody Broke Your Heart. She looks back here at his background and ascent from the Portland club circuit to the Oscars, and touches on …
… the emotional impact of first hearing his music walking round Central Park in Lockdown
… “goofy, stubborn, wildly smart, addictively listenable”
… early life in Omaha and Texas (and the telling tattoo on his arm)
… the shy collegiate kid reading Dostoevsky who thought promotion was “distasteful”
… how a singer-writer broke through in Portland during the Grunge boom
… rejected stage-names - Johnny Panic, Elliott Stillwater-Rotter - and the pivotal moment when Steven became ‘Elliott’
.. his sense of humour – “a garbage truck passed him and he said, ‘there’s my ride!’”
… the archive of unreleased recordings she’d heard
… the Oscars appearance and signing to DreamWorks and Nirvana’s PR
… the root of his eventual unhappiness
… “he would have been more shielded if he’d been in a band”
… and his expanding legacy and adoption by Gen-Z.
Order ‘Nobody Broke Your Heart’ here: https://www.roughtrade.com/product/jamie-fisher/nobody-broke-your-heart-an-intimate-biography-of-elliott-smith
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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How Kylie became the whole world’s sweetheart
Michael Cragg’s devotion to all things Kylie once led him to Melbourne in search of the actual carousel horse she rode in a pop video. He got a tattoo a day later. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head is a funny and …
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Michael Cragg’s devotion to all things Kylie once led him to Melbourne in search of the actual carousel horse she rode in a pop video. He got a tattoo a day later. Can’t Get You Out Of My Head is a funny and fondly detailed personal account of the risk-taking variety of her records, the mystery of her private life and the irresistible nature of her appeal, a girl who, were there a war on, would be painted on the tail fins of aircraft. He looks back here at …
… her ‘90s reinvention by association – with Nick Cave, Michael Hutchence and Bobby Gillespie
… how records about joy never get enough credit
… wrestling back control after life with Stock Aitken & Waterman
… the root of her appeal as a gay icon
... being vilified by the press for any public pronouncement
… a capacity to charm her detractors when she meets them
… reciting I Should Be So Lucky at the Poetry Olympics alongside Patti Smith and Allen Ginsberg
… a mixture of the ordinary and the exotic and the ‘Carry On’ sexuality of her videos
… only Queen Elizabeth 11 has had more waxworks at Madame Tussauds
… and Michael’s meeting with her – “I’m six foot eight, she’s five foot one” - and the resulting photo.
Order copies of ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head’ here: https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571392766-cant-get-you-out-of-my-head-in-search-of-kylie/
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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Sandy Denny’s life and luminous talent celebrated by Linda Thompson
‘Sandy Denny: A People’s History’ has just been published, memories from fellow musicians, old friends, producers, writers, fans and admirers. Linda Thompson met her when they were both 16 and was devoted to …
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‘Sandy Denny: A People’s History’ has just been published, memories from fellow musicians, old friends, producers, writers, fans and admirers. Linda Thompson met her when they were both 16 and was devoted to her ‘til she died in 1978 – “she’s still with me, I talk to her all the time”. She looks back here at their lives in Soho bars, folk clubs and studios, the world they inhabited and the musicians they both knew. Among the many highlights …
… meeting Sandy in 1966, onstage doing Jackson Frank’s You Never Wanted Me. “Eight million cigarettes a day but such breath control!”
… why her singing and songwriting were unique
… high times at the Colony Club with Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon - “famously grumpy”
… “she didn’t put up with bullshit. Cross her and she’d deck you”
… memories of Nick Drake – “spectral and gorgeous”
… the repercussions of the Fairport car crash
… memories of her family home in Wimbledon (on the cover of Unhalfbricking)
… recording ad jingles for Ski Yoghurt and ‘flour so fine, it flows and it flows’ - £15 an hour, “a fortune”
… making demos of Nick Drake songs with Elton John, “so full of Valium I had to be held up to the mic”
… sharing a flat with Tim Buckley in Holland Park
… “anyone who can bear to listen to their own records must be no bloody good”
… and the script Nick Hornby started about the life of Richard and Linda Thompson.
Order ‘Sandy Denny: A People’s History’ here: https://burningshed.com/georgia-rose-lucas_sandy-denny-a-peoples-history_book
Help us to keep The Longest Continuous Conversation In Rock'n'Roll going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear
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