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Podcasts · Music

Word In Your Ear

Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

300 episodes

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.

More about the show

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 page 5 of 6

  1. Peter Hook looks back at Joy Division, New Order and how not to be a DJ

    · 31 min · Episode 784

    Peter Hook, bold pioneer of the high, clambering, tune-filled bassline, is touring this autumn with Peter Hook & the Light. We talk to him in Prestatyn - about to deejay at mate’s birthday - about the first gigs he…

  2. Live Aid remembered – from inside and out – on its 40th birthday

    · 54 min · Episode 783

    A 40th anniversary special with two of its presenters (Hepworth and Ellen) and old pal and TV critic Boyd Hilton who watched on the day aged 18 (“young, pretentious, idiotic”) and reviews the new BBC documentary. We…

  3. Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull and 58 years of one-legged live performance

    · 27 min · Episode 782

    Ian Anderson is touring again in 2026 and talks to us here about tweed stage-wear, an audience of four, his teenage heroes and the first shows he ever saw and played. There’s all sorts within, including … … playing…

  4. Album sleeves the modern world would ban & the best song titles and opening lines

    · 55 min · Episode 781

    It’s Happy Hour in the Rock and Roll Lounge of News and we’re working our way through anything over 40 per cent proof. Which means ice, a slice and …. … how the F-Bomb lost its impact. … Mick Ralphs and Lalo Schifrin…

  5. Bobby Bluebell’s thriving third act, ‘80s Glasgow and the gift that keeps on giving

    · 24 min · Episode 780

    Bobby Bluebell remembers the “cuddly duffle-coat friendship” of Glasgow bands in the early ‘80s and the Bluebells’ second act rebooted by the Volkswagen ad. The band are touring again and an even bigger part of the…

  6. Dubmaster Dennis Bovell has had 50 fun-filled years making magical records

    · 24 min · Episode 779

    Dennis Bovell has worked his dub magic on everyone from Janet Kaye to the Slits, the Pop Group, Jarvis Cocker and Thom Yorke & Jonny Greenwood – and his own band Matumbi. He talks here about the thrill and freedom of…

  7. Rick Wakeman once signed a contract guaranteeing he’d wear “at least one cape onstage”

    · 32 min · Episode 778

    Rick Wakeman was onstage from the age of five and looks back with us here on a life of live performance – jazz and blues bands, the Strawbs, Yes – and ahead to this autumn’s tour performing King Arthur and the Six…

  8. 10cc’s I’m Not In Love is still weird & wonderful! - plus Kneecap & Carol Kaye

    · 54 min · Episode 777

    Chasing the shade and applying Factor 50 in the wilting heat of this week’s rock and roll news turns the conversation to … … Kneecap v the Prime Minister. … will any openly anti-Trump musician find it hard to tour…

  9. When Peter Hooton, the Farm & Eric Cantona played Clash songs in an amphitheatre

    · 41 min · Episode 776

    The Farm are touring again this summer and have just made their first album for 31 years (with the same-line-up). This sparky and wide-ranging conversation with Peter Hooton stops off at the following … … the advice…

  10. Carol Decker of T’Pau and the ocean-going world of the 80s package tour

    · 35 min · Episode 775

    Carol Decker - another Smash Hits cover star on the podcast! T’Pau are playing dates this summer and autumn and she talks here – hilariously - about life on the ‘80s package tour circuit and the first shows she ever…

  11. The magnificent Sly Stone & Brian Wilson and the curse of our expectations

    · 36 min · Episode 774

    As the great Warren Zevon said, ‘Enjoy every sandwich’. The two-man canoe navigates this week’s rock and roll rivulet which sadly entails reflections on a pair of towering musical giants ‘whose legend occupied the…

  12. Why Oasis were God’s gift to the rock press and the story of two missing teeth

    · 42 min · Episode 773

    Liam Gallagher calls Ted Kessler and Hamish MacBain “the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore of music journalism”. Both worked at the NME (and Ted at Q), both interviewed the band many times and have just published ‘A Sound So…

  13. Elkie Brooks once opened for the Beatles. A lot happened in the next 65 years …

    · 25 min · Episode 772

    Elkie Brooks was on a package tour aged 15, supported the Beatles and the Animals, made a single when she was 19, joined the jazz-rock Dada, then Vinegar Joe (with Robert Palmer) and has since made 20 albums. She’s now…

  14. Why they MUST make the Cat Stevens movie + rock feuds, the best video & Beyoncé in a Stetson

    · 46 min · Episode 771

    Facing down the leg spinners of rock and roll news while trying to wallop the odd shot across the pavilion roof. On the scoreboard this week … … has there ever been a rock feud as bitter as Trump v Musk? … what Ray…

  15. Stuart Maconie – every character in the Beatles’ story has a story of their own

    · 47 min · Episode 770

    Stuart Maconie – broadcaster, prolific author – has a brilliant and original new perspective on the Beatles. His latest book With A Little Help From Their Friends identifies the 100 people who had the greatest impact…

  16. Inside the world of reissues with producer Rob Caiger

    · 47 min · Episode 769

    Rob Caiger is one of those special people who turned their teenage obsession with music into a job … from being the only one in ELO’s office who knew where the old tapes were … to learning that what it says on the…

  17. Genuinely ‘iconic’ rock pictures, words we should ban and how Freddie Mercury still makes headlines

    · 49 min · Episode 768

    Hoary old tales retold – ideally in an Irish accent - and new ones prized from the giddy carousel of rock and roll news which, this week, features … … was there a better stage name than Rick Derringer? … Linda…

  18. Martha Wainwright - ‘never nervous, always ballsy’ and onstage from the age of eight

    · 24 min · Episode 767

    Martha Wainwright is a key member of the Wainwright/McGarrigle clan, all of them big favourites of ours. She’s currently on her 20th anniversary tour and looks back here at the first shows she ever saw and played which…

  19. Budgie of Siouxsie And The Banshees started out in nightclub cabaret acts, aged 13

    · 41 min · Episode 766

    Small boy begins breeding budgerigars in Liverpool, makes enough to buy a drum kit and becomes the power behind Big In Japan, the Slits, the Creatures and Siouxsie and the Banshees. And one half of punk rock’s most…

  20. Books rock stars want you to read, sacked drummers and how Dylan spent his birthday

    · 38 min · Episode 765

    The two-man pedalo of enquiry sets out on the Bank Holiday boating lake of news pausing to consider … … Florence Welch, Dua Lipa and the rise of the rock and roll book club. … the 92 year-old that Bob Dylan supported…

  21. Dylan Jones bangs the drum for 1975, an explosion of talent and creativity

    · 32 min · Episode 764

    Dylan Jones – writer, former editor of i-D, Arena and GQ - was 15 in 1975 and dressed like Jimmy McCulloch of Wings (“a lot of denim and silk scarves”), a time he thinks had enormous influence on the following five…

  22. The great lost Beach Boys SMiLE album – David Leaf unravels rock’s Holy Grail

    · 52 min · Episode 763

    The Beach Boys’ SMiLE was abandoned by Brian Wilson in 1967 and eventually performed at an emotional gathering of the faithful in London 37 years later. For writer and lecturer David Leaf it became an obsession. He…

  23. The best songs written in seconds, Lennon’s legs and Springsteen’s chimes of freedom.

    · 36 min · Episode 762

    Slapping the beanburger of news on the sizzling grill of scrutiny and served with relish by Alex Gold and Mark Ellen (David’s in Spain with his bucket and spade). This week’s specials include … … Springsteen’s…

  24. Dennis Greaves, Nine Below Zero – old-school R&B, police and thieves and the agony of white clogs

    · 41 min · Episode 761

    Dennis Greaves took a week off from Nine Below Zero in 1980 but otherwise kept his nose firmly applied to the grindstone. They broke up in 1983 when he formed the Truth, who broke up in 1989 when he rebooted the old…

  25. Peter Capaldi’s life in a teenage Glasgow punk band and a public apology to the Cocteau Twins

    · 49 min · Episode 760

    Peter Capaldi – aka Malcolm Tucker, Dr Who, the universal screen delight and an Oscar-winning film director – was the singer in the punk band the Dreamboys in the late ‘70s who put out a single when he was at the art…

  26. Alan Parsons – from the rooftop of Savile Row to Pink Floyd, Steve Harley and some singing pigs

    · 35 min · Episode 759

    The teenage Alan Parsons was hired as a tape op by EMI and worked with the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Steve Harley, orchestras, comedians, Pinky And Perky and countless others in the control room at Abbey Road, and saw…

  27. Mom Rock v Dad Rock, the Oasis rumour mill and Kanye West’s devious dentist.

    · 40 min · Episode 758

    Perched outside the Vatican Of News awaiting puffs of white smoke, which this week arrive in the following fashion … … Brandi Carlile’s Mothership Weekend and her genius for publicity. … Jim Morrison is alive and…

  28. Dennis McNally saw the Summer Of Love in London, New York and California

    · 40 min · Episode 757

    Dennis McNally was the Grateful Dead’s publicist in the mid-‘80s, one of many reasons why he’s supremely qualified to write his new book about the birth of the counterculture in America’s West and East Coast and…

  29. The greatest duet, rock cameos in Miami Vice and the rebirth of Mississippi John Hurt

    · 50 min · Episode 756

    Passing the thermometer of conversation over the rock and roll news to see where the mercury rises, which this week includes … … the new Barbra Streisand duets album. Duets are ‘playlets’, small intense dramas that…

  30. Al Murray and James Holland talk the ending of the war in 1945 and the afterlife of The Beatles

    · 43 min · Episode 755

    In which comedian Al Murray and historian James Holland talk about their new book Victory ’45 and our twin national obsessions, the Second World War and The Beatles. Includes: ….how being emotionally shut down enabled…

  31. Derek Shulman – when Simon Dupree and Gentle Giant were “the darlings of the English Mafia”

    · 42 min · Episode 754

    Derek Shulman was at the heart of two great transformations – Simon Dupree & the Big Sound switching to psychedelia, and then sensing the prog-rock trade winds and becoming Gentle Giant. One minute he was singing…

  32. The entertaining fictions of Max Romeo and Robert Smith and tech that actually works!

    · 36 min · Episode 753

    While Mark Ellen is hanging out with the other old ruins in Athens, David Hepworth and Alex Gold compare and contrast the organisation of the London Marathon with the Travellodge in Frimley and wonder… …Rolling Stone…

  33. Moon Zappa remembers life with her father Frank. ‘Pagan absurdists’ aren’t great parents

    · 50 min · Episode 752

    Moon Zappa grew up in what appeared, on the outside, to be an enviably free-wheeling and creative household in Laurel Canyon. On the inside, not so much. Her extremely funny, soul-baring and colourful account of…

  34. Daryl Hall - ‘60s soul session work, the right shoes and a barge trip with Bob Dylan

    · 29 min · Episode 751

    We like to think of Daryl Hall as a kindred spirit, his home-recorded Live At Daryl’s House series with its magnificent roster of guests now racking up 90 episodes. He’s about to tour in May and talks to us here from…

  35. Rock star pilots, sacking Zak Starkey and bold pioneers of the psychedelic moustache

    · 52 min · Episode 750

    The chocolate Easter bunny of rock and roll news in highly nutritious and digestible fragments, such as … … the Who’s very public sacking of Zak Starkey. … why no band ever wants to play quietly. … how a magazine in…

  36. Dave Pegg, Fairport’s “longest-serving member” (fnarr!) looks back at hippie chaos and old heroes

    · 43 min · Episode 749

    Dave Pegg joined Fairport Convention 56 years ago and fully deserves some sort of medal. They’re playing their 49th Cropredy in August and touring the UK later in the year. He talks to us here about the first gigs he…

  37. Withering reviews of famous albums, Jaws versus Jeeves and the genius of Blondie’s Clem Burke

    · 53 min · Episode 748

    Boldly pursuing tariff-free trade in rock and roll news, nostalgia, gossip and old hokum since 2007 and, this week, featuring … … the romantic allure of life as a critic. … Sting’s part in the success of…

  38. Why Sparks’ Russell Mael preferred British acts to the ‘faux honesty’ of Laurel Canyon

    · 25 min · Episode 747

    Sparks are touring – playing dates in the UK and Ireland in June and July – and with a new (and 28th) album, Mad!. Russell Mael looks back at the first shows he ever saw and played which entails … … sitting on the…

  39. Seven ‘lost’ Springsteen albums, romance in sitcoms and the age of spectacle

    · 38 min · Episode 746

    The runners and riders in the rock and roll steeplechase first past the post this week include … … how Ed Sheeran protects himself against song theft claims. … ‘lost’ Hendrix, Beach Boys, Amy Winehouse and Jeff…

  40. Ed Tudor Pole – singer, actor, serial showman – saw the pop and punk wars as ‘pure theatre’.

    · 39 min · Episode 745

    Ed Tudor Pole entered punk rock from stage school and always felt he was playing a part. After being hired to act in the Great Rock’N’Roll Swindle, he formed Tenpole Tudor and had a brief and dramatic moment in the…

  41. AI’s Word In Your Ear theme tune (!!), the four stages of showbiz & taking kids to concerts

    · 39 min · Episode 744

    Scanning the rock and roll ether with our patent heat-seeking Ripple-Detector®️ to see what rings the bell. Which this week includes … … how reformed ‘90s pop groups all look like Paul Whitehouse characters from the…

  42. Hearing 45 year-old records you’d never played & the least likely-looking person to become a rock star

    · 42 min · Episode 743

    The super-trouper of scrutiny scans this week’s events and lands upon … … the man who’s played on 21,000 records. … how Joni Mitchell is still stirring it up aged 81 and why we love her for it. ... the impact of the…

  43. What Kate Mossman discovered about rock’s elder statesmen

    · 43 min · Episode 742

    Kate’s an old pal from our days at Word magazine. She was on the staff for six years before heading off to the New Statesman and has just put out a collection of the sizzling and revelatory profiles she wrote for us,…

  44. How John Harris and his son found a life-changing connection through music

    · 52 min · Episode 741

    John Harris is an old pal from our days in the music press. You might remember him from Sounds, the NME and Select (which he edited) and he’s been one of the mainstays of the Guardian ever since, writing mostly about…

  45. Mike Rutherford looks back at 60 years onstage and the art of cheap rock theatre

    · 26 min · Episode 740

    This one starts with memories of Genesis at Farnborough Tech in 1972 – Batwings? Fox heads? - looks back at school bands and the early ‘70s and ends with the current Mike & the Mechanics tour. But it mostly centres on…

  46. Mike Scott of the Waterboys remembers the shows that inspired him

    · 16 min · Episode 739

    The Waterboys’ new album comes with the magnificent title ‘Life, Death & Dennis Hopper’ and the band start touring in May. Mike Scott looks back here at the first gigs he ever saw and played and the performers he…

  47. The lost world of teenage love songs – and the best pop song ever written!

    · 47 min · Episode 738

    In eager pursuit of dance and merriment, we dust down the current events. Which this week involves …. … are teenagers no longer in love? And what does this mean for pop music? … are people better musicians now than…

  48. Nik Kershaw remembers Live Aid, snoods, fingerless gloves & a sudden male-female audience shift

    · 27 min · Episode 737

    Someone else we put on the cover of Smash Hits 40 years ago who’s touring in 2025! He’s playing European festivals, ‘80s packages, dates with his band and a string of solo shows billed as ‘Musings & Lyrics With Nik…

  49. Gang Of Four’s Jon King now sees the comedy in their endless self-sabotage

    · 52 min · Episode 736

    Gang Of Four’s moment was dramatic but brief. It was littered with times when the future seemed impossibly bright before disaster crept up with a cosh in their relentless “refusal to do the obvious”. Being a musician,…

  50. Has politics eaten entertainment? What’s ‘perfect sound’? Plus Brian James & how to make a speech

    · 56 min · Episode 735

    Tyres pumped, engine cranked, chromework winking in the Springtime sun, the two-man conversational jalopy sets off on its weekly spin and visits … … the day America broke the news and showed its dark side. … Brian…

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