Word In Your Ear
Kanal Təfərrüatları
Word In Your Ear
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 la...
Son Epizodlar
895 epizod
Punk Rock recalled by Chris Sullivan - can music STILL be outrageous?
What’s the word ‘punk’ come to mean 50 years later? It’s been adopted by the very people it sought to unsettle. Chris Sullivan – DJ, club runner, lect...
UK Subs’ Charlie Harper (81) has served 50 years in the punk wars. Give this man a medal!
UK Subs formed in 1976 when Charlie Harper was 32. They’ve had over 80 members, some of whom he can’t remember. They never split up and are touring in...
Fairytale of New York's full story & the imperishable genius of Steve Cropper
The boys of the NYPD choir are still singing Galway Bay, so pour yourself a measure of the Rare Old Mountain Dew and warm your toes on the following …...
The Beatles versus Capitol Records and ‘the greatest marketing hype in history’
In 1963, Capitol Records considered the Beatles “a band who looked and sounded weird with an odd name and no leader” and refused to release their reco...
The Undertones are 50! And no-one’s more amazed than Damian O’Neill
Glorious news! The Undertones, dependable symbols of eternal youth, are setting out on a 50th anniversary tour in 2026, still playing Teenage Kicks an...
Jimmy Cliff, unseen Beatles and the greatest bassline on record!
Twenty pounds of headlines plus rants, theories and the odd slice of old hokum: served hot. Which this week involves …
… Jimmy Cliff and...
Boo Hewerdine’s funny and alarming account of real life on the road
Boo Hewerdine, beloved singer-songwriter, has been onstage for 40 years in venues of every type, shape and size. He thinks of himself as a “tradesman”...
Legendary duos who met by chance, RIP Mani & ironing to gangsta rap
News, rants, theories and curios which this week includes ….
… how Mani made the Stone Roses swing
… Mick & Keith, Meg & J...
Kula Shaker’s Crispian Mills had a colourful childhood
Crispian Mills knew he’d be onstage as he’s from a “family of professional show-offs” but they begged him not to be an actor. He talks here about his...
The Beach Boys’ story gets more tangled by the minute
“All bands are sad stories,” Peter Doggett points out, but is there a more woven, moving and, at times, farcical tale than that of the Beach Boys? It...
What makes a rock star a ‘ledge’ & the daft rituals of the ‘70s disco
Five decades of rock and roll with none of the names redacted. In the despatches this week …
… Kevin Rowland? Adam Ant? Toyah? Morrissey...
Rock’s fascination with the Third Reich exposed by Daniel Rachel
Musicians have flirted with Nazi imagery since the ‘60s, lampooning its theatre, absorbing its style, exploiting its shock value, even promoting its i...
Paul Weller – ‘gloriously chippy’ – as seen by friends, family, fans and collaborators
Dan Jennings’ podcast ‘Desperately Seeking Paul’ is so successful he’s used 250 of the interviews in a best-selling oral history. ‘Dancing Through The...
Did rave kill dancing in couples? Stars seen in strange places?
Marking our dance card at the rock and roll hop this week you’ll find …
… And Then He Kissed Me, I Saw Her Standing There, Springsteen’s...
David Bowie and why we need him more than ever. Paul Morley looks back in wonder
David Bowie’s significance just keeps expanding and the look and sound of him never age. Paul Morley has been gripped from the start and his new book...
‘Bob Dylan is my father’ - and why Sam Sussman is convinced it’s true.
Sam Sussman’s mother Fran had a year-long love affair with Dylan when he was working on Blood on the Tracks – she’s mentioned in Tangled Up In Blue –...
Thompson Twins’ Tom Bailey had a ‘manifesto for success’. Here’s how it worked
Tom Bailey’s been based in New Zealand for the last 30 years, making records, DJing and avoiding British winters. He tours the UK in 2026 playing the...
Cowbells, maracas, gongs, castanets – classic percussion parts demonstrated!
The raw ingredients of this week’s news gently diced, simmered and served as a nutritious broth. And flavoured with the following …
… wh...
The Smiths’ Mike Joyce on triumph, gladioli & Morrissey when he was still ‘Steve’
Morrissey and Marr both wrote memoirs but Mike Joyce hasn’t read either, preferring to publish ‘The Drums’, his version of one of the great success st...
Records that sound unique and why all bands need a backlash
Boarding this week’s giddy carousel of news, we ride the following ponies …
… the Sliding Doors moment that made a ‘50s star a f...
Paul Young – “Big in the ‘80s! What lucky bastards we were!’
Paul Young was the bassist in a pub band playing Led Zeppelin and Patto covers ‘til his solo soul and blues slot launched him as a singer. He’s still...
Billy Bragg – 40 years, 2,700 gigs and what he learnt from Taylor Swift
‘Billy Bragg: A People’s History’ is just out, a new and wholly original kind of memoir written by himself, friends, collaborators and fans, and packe...
Mark Kermode tells us stories about music in movies
The Graduate, Trainspotting, Jaws, Star Wars, Citizen Kane – films you can’t picture without thinking of the music. Mark Kermode has been gripped by t...
How many bands can you name every member of?
This week’s news put through the wringer and hung out to dry. On the line you’ll find …
… Taylor Swift and Ophelia and other things pop...
The Zombies’ Colin Blunstone – a psychedelic showpiece then ‘washed up’ aged 21
The Zombies formed before the Stones and had huge hits with She’s Not There and Time Of The Season. Their baroque masterpiece Odessey and Oracle now g...
Led Zeppelin’s fight for attention and how they fudged their backstory
This lavish, beautifully designed collection of late ‘60s news stories, reviews and press clippings sheds new light on the band’s roots and ascent fro...
Stones, Blondie, Iggy and songs that make a movie & why we loved Diane Keaton
Shifting the pass-the-parcel of news and removing the wrapping when the music stops. Which this week happens here …
… will rock bands ge...
Ringo and why the Beatles wouldn’t have worked without him
The look, sound, story and dynamic of the Beatles can’t be imagined without him. Nor can their success. Tom Doyle, author and drummer, examines the un...
Rock stars we envy, Madonna as a sister-in-law & the British obsession with poshness
Steering the supercar of enquiry round the rock and roll racetrack with the occasional stop for a tyre change. Foot-to-floor moments this week include...
Bowie, Boy George and the rise of the riotous Blitz club with Robert Elms
London’s Blitz club in 1980 had a huge impact on the way the decade looked and sounded, the launchpad for Boy George, Spandau Ballet, a new age of ele...
The Prince story by 200 people who knew him - and John McKie
Prince’s commercial peak was Purple Rain but John McKie thinks Sign O’ The Times was his creative masterpiece and tracked down over 200 collaborators,...
The three London kids who invented rock style
Paul Gorman, biographer of Malcolm McLaren and friend of the pod, tells the extraordinary story of the three young hipsters behind Granny Takes A Trip...
Danny Thompson’s bass adventures, Dylan’s women, TV satire and great sleeve art.
News, rants, theories, stories and assorted old hokum which this week stumbles into …
… Kate Bush, Thunderbirds, Tim Buckley, the Blind...
Thea Gilmore on Joan Baez, Jake Thackray and Dave Pegg’s dog starting her career
We’ve always liked Thea Gilmore who once crossed America with Joan Baez in a pre-Election campaign tour and has released 21 albums (“I’ve got musical...
How pioneer tape-rat Roger Armstrong found vintage America a whole new audience
Roger Armstrong co-founded the legendary Rock On record shop and was running the Chiswick label long before the punk rock explosion of independents, a...
Why Van and Fairport make the perfect send-off, Robert Redford & the best-looking rock stars
On the menu at the rock and roll state banquet …
… Into the Mystic, Meet On The Ledge, In My Life, Tom Waits’ Take It With Me and other...
John Prine, Elvis Costello and a jukebox on fire
Novelist and journalist Tom Piazza struck up a friendship with the irreplaceable John Prine in the last years of his life. This relationship, which be...
Alex's star-studded week in Hollywood
Having disposed of the surprising history of pop stars who posed for Playboy, discussing whether the universe really needs another album called "Play"...
Peter Hammill on Bowie, other superfans & 47 albums of ‘self-sabotage and chaos’.
Peter Hammill, adored by Bowie, Mark E Smith and many others, co-founded Van Der Graaf Generator when he was 19. And he’s made 47 albums since, powere...
Talking Heads, where they came from and where they went - with Jonathan Gould
Has there ever been a group like Talking Heads? Jonathan Gould’s Burning Down The House explores their affluent background, the root of their ambition...