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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.

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  • 989 episodes
  • Updated Yesterday

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  • Oct 13, 2025 · 54 min

    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 get offered the Saudi money? … “there could be no British nightclubs in 2030” … Diane Keaton and why all men were besotted … the day Led Zeppelin played an Aqua Theatre for an audience swimming and in boats … “the optimum number of band members is either three or loads” … did Easy Rider invent the music video? … Trainspotting, Reservoir Dogs, Midnight Cowboy, Almost Famous – soundtrack moments that made their movies … 12 million more UK tickets were sold than in 2019 yet 150 small venues closed in two years: “scale is now part of the appeal” … the genius of John Sebastian … the end of MTV UK and how video changed the landscape … “Here’s to you Mrs Roosevelt”: how Simon & Garfunkel got into the Graduate … can anyone fathom Ghost Town Blues by Prefab Sprout? Plus Tim Hardin, Harry Nilsson and birthday guest Matthew Elliott on why three is the magic number. Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Oct 10, 2025 · 37 min

    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 unexplored depths of the one at the back from 70 different angles, one per chapter, in his new memoir ‘Ringo: A Fab Life’ and talks to us here about …. … how he learnt to read by looking at his Dad’s Beatles singles and the one that first made him notice the drumming ... what you learn re-watching him in Peter Jackson’s Get Back … why Ringo gave them universal appeal and his key role in their conquest of America … supernatural brilliance: exceptional moments such as the un-slowed original Rain and “the way he makes the sound of the holes in Blackburn, Lancashire” … the delicious Britishness of comparing Rishikesh to Butlins and the mantra the Maharishi gave him he still uses every day … the pre-Beatles time he applied to emigrate to Texas and what stopped him doing it … the only Beatle who could dance: the proof! … the Lost Years and the day he had his head and eyebrows shaved … the mortifying fate of the first recording of the four Beatles together (in 1960) … how all four spent the rest of their lives in recovery … what Sam Mendes might accentuate in his upcoming portrait of Ringo ... and the clip that’ll be all over the news on the day he bows out. Plus our campaign to buy the Sentimental Journey pub starts here! Order Tom Doyle’s ‘Ringo: A Fab Life’ here: https://www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Ringo/Tom-Doyle/9781917923132 Help us to keep The Longest Conversation In Rock going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Oct 5, 2025 · 52 min

    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… … why are the British so hung up about posh pop stars? … the 10-second moment of his stage routine that Springsteen must find addictive … the flaming bra, the flying dress, the human horse: Lady Gaga’s most OTT entrances .. would YOU want Madonna as a sister-in-law? … Fleetwood Mac, the Grateful Dead, the Bee Gees: bands the NME said were finished in 1975 … John Paul Jones in Marks and Sparks … musicians’ houses we’d most like to live in (actually one’s a lifeboat) … the goth/fantasy allure of Steve Nicks on TikTok … and the still-haunting times we died onstage “like a louse in a Russian’s beard”. Plus Noel Coward, Julie Andrews, Jem Finer, birthday guest Phil Turner and Tony Bennett’s favourite meal. Help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Oct 3, 2025 · 32 min

    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 electro-pop and many writers, designers and photographers. The author and broadcaster Robert Elms was one of its cornerstones, “a place for people who’d outgrown the 20th Century”. We talk here about his book ‘Blitz: the Club That Created the ‘80s’ with all of this on the dancefloor … … the Blitz Club rules, “unspoken until Steve Strange spoke them”. And the door policy: “Look at yourself, darling. Would YOU let yourself in?” … first nights “with a Space Cossack shirt and asymmetric wedge” and the origin of the term New Romantic … the rise of the “home-made Macaronis” (dictionary definition: “over-dressed popinjays of dubious sexuality”) … Bowie’s Starman, Roxy, soul, disco, Weimar, Max Ernst, Otto Dix, Edith Piaf, Swinging London, Andy Warhol and other keys strands of Blitz DNA … its anti-rock stance and impact on the mid-‘80s American charts … the news-friendly night Mick Jagger was barred entry … “I was spat at by an old lady at a bus stop for wearing eyeliner and a kilt” … when Island offered Spandau a deal after just three numbers … the role of the Face, Smash Hits and the new full-colour media … the author’s “dilettante” passage through skinhead, suedehead, soul boy and punk … and the night Bowie appeared, “like Jesus walking into your local church and sitting in a pew”. Order ‘Blitz: The Club That Created the 80s’ here: https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/blitz-the-club-that-created-the-eighties-robert-elms/e672041a84e0cde9?ean=9780571394180&next=t&next=t Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Oct 1, 2025 · 39 min

    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, girlfriends, “Prince whisperers”, assistants and admirers to piece together the story of its construction (without allowing himself to use the word “genius”). Which leads us up some colourful, spot-lit alleys, among them … … “a man in suspenders playing funk”: why a disastrous support slot on the ‘81 Stones tour was pivotal moment … Mozart/Salieri levels of rivalry: he once told a Paisley Park engineer to stop singing Culture Club “as that’s the competition” ... battles with Warners president Lenny Waronker: “he believed he was right and the rest were wrong” … “creative incontinence”: an autocrat in need of an editor … bodyguard “Big Chick” Huntsberry, performative stunts and the BRITS moment that immortalised him … the controlling, manipulative nature of anyone who can play 27 instruments … “he changed his cars to match the colour of his album campaigns” … artistic parallels with his hero Joni Mitchell … why he loved comedians in the way he loved jazz musicians … what we know about his “secret” wives Mayte Garcia and Manuela Testolini … and the four acts with eternal mystery – Prince, Bowie, Dylan, Dolly Parton. Order ‘Prince: A Sign O’ The Times here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/prince-a-sign-o-the-times/john-mckie/9781785121944 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Sep 30, 2025 · 34 min

    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, the Kings Road store that was a magnet for rock’s glitterati in the late 60s. •⁠ ⁠Sheila Cohen, the first queen of cool; she invented the whole idea of vintage •⁠ ⁠Nigel Waymouth, who never went to art school but changed the face of London with his posters •⁠ ⁠John Pearse, who could make a jacket out of anything - and did •⁠ ⁠The days of aatering to the 200 fashionable people in London •⁠ ⁠Why the Beatles, Stones and Pink Floyd beat a path to Granny’s door •⁠ ⁠How the three walked away in 1969, the shops were exported to the USA •⁠ ⁠How GTAT became the outfitter of choice for the rock aristocracy •⁠ ⁠Some of its clothes are immortal thanks to album covers from Lou Reed, the Isleys and Todd Rundgren •⁠ ⁠All the rest are in secure storage Paul’s book, which is lavishly illustrated and contains a pictorial catalogue of the wardrobe of the Rolling Stones, is here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Granny-Takes-Trip-Fashion-Boutique/dp/1399623613 You can read a preview here: https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Granny_Takes_a_Trip/_SZSEQAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PT6&printsec=frontcover The Rolling Stones London 1962-71 map can be found at: https://www.herblester.com/products/down-the-road-apiece-the-rolling-stones-london Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Sep 28, 2025 · 56 min

    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 Boys of Alabama … the magical bass adventures of Danny Thompson (and the time he headlined over the Beatles) … how Claudia Cardinale wound up on the sleeve of Blonde On Blonde … would Roxy Music have made it if their albums had been released in brown paper bags? … how TikTok is destroying the “superfan” … do late night TV hosts need us more than we need them? … Boris Johnson chose the Clash? Charles Kennedy chose Toploader? Theresa May chose ‘In These Shoes’ by Kirsty MacColl? MPs on Desert Island Discs … packaged goods: how CDs removed music’s greatest marketing tool … the peculiar life of Johnny Carson … have you ever bought an album solely on the strength of its cover? … and Carmel, Andrew Ridgeley, Jay Leno’s pay packet and birthday guest Jon Pickles on high-impact sleeve art. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Sep 23, 2025 · 48 min

    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 believer that you could license rare R&B, soul and rockabilly classics while cutting new records with rising stars (Shane MacGowan, Kirsty MacColl and Joe Strummer among them). He then co-founded Ace Records and talks to us here about the thrill of trawling through American label vaults, locating vintage tracks and finding them a whole new audience. Along with … … seeing Ella Fitzgerald and the Beatles in Belfast in the early ‘60s ... inventing a new Irish rock circuit and turning showbands into soul bands … how American Graffiti, Gaz’s Rockin’ Blues and the mod revival all chimed with Ace Records’ re-issues … promoting ‘Tin’ Lizzy (“that’s what it sounded like on the phone”) and being immortalised in one of their lyrics (“I get my records at the Rock On stall”) … Joe Strummer in the 101-ers – “sensational, full-tilt, as if playing a stadium” … releasing Dylan’s Theme-Time Radio Hour box-sets and the size of his record collection … finding a Little Richard demo and making an Elvis Presley speech album a money-spinner … being a pioneer tape rat and crate-digger and Ace Records quality control – “Stack ‘em low, sell ‘em high!” … “think of the strapline, then choose the tracks”: making compilations with Jon Savage, Bob Stanley, Bobby Gillespie and Paul Weller … plus reflections on John Martyn, Carol Grimes, Brinsley Schwarz, Rocky Sharpe, Irma Thomas, Arthur Alexander and the Count Bishops (“like the Stones at 78”). Order ‘Chiswick Records 1975 - 1982 Seven Years At 45 RPM’ here: https://www.acerecords.co.uk/chiswick-records-1975-1982-seven-years-at-45-rpm Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Sep 22, 2025 · 47 min

    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 perfect songs for a last farewell … the day we joined the world’s best band … Robert Redford’s blinding handsomeness and the greatest moment – all three seconds of it – in Butch Cassidy And the Sundance Kid … best-looking rock stars … were the Shadows really a UK Eurovision entry? … “very special guests” and the new age of the stadium rock “bring-on” … how John Prine and Iris DeMent won the big door prize … “the movie camera is the biggest lie-detector in the world” … strange double bills of our time - the Foo Fighters and Rick Astley, Bo Diddley and the Clash Plus Cary Grant smoking, watching Brad Pitt do ordinary things and birthday guest Steven Way on the subtle billing of support acts. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Sep 18, 2025 · 39 min

    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 began as a profile for a magazine, almost blossomed into an autobiography and involved a road trip in an inadvisable vehicle, has resulted in a new book “Living In The Present With John Prine”. Which involves: •⁠ ⁠setting off in a 1977 Coupe De Ville and driving “until the engine burns up”. •⁠ ⁠sitting up all night playing old country songs. •⁠ ⁠remembering how he came to write some of the greatest songs of the last fifty years •⁠ ⁠an evening’s swapping stories with Elvis Costello which ends with the alarming word “the jukebox is on fire!” •⁠ ⁠what Prine’s last album “The Tree Of Forgiveness” has in common with Beethoven’s late quartets Buy Living In The Present With John Prine: https://amzn.eu/d/9vWv9rg Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Sep 15, 2025 · 44 min

    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", come up with a couple of nominations for Best Album Title Of All Time, we hear about Alex's experiences seeing Oasis in the midst of 90,000 who have never been to Manchester and how he "used the force" to get some face time with Jack Black and Dave Grohl. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Sep 12, 2025 · 36 min

    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, powered by “hubris, enthusiasm and sheer bloody-mindness” and celebrated in a new 18-CD box set. He talks to us here from Somerset about … … supporting Hendrix at the Albert Hall and being ‘the Shirley Bassey of the Underground’ … meeting David Bowie - who asked for Hammill’s new music to be sent to him all his life … Van Der Graaf Generator being bottled off by medical students in the days when you rang from a phone-box to see what gigs you were playing … the Bee Gees, Eric Clapton, Champion Jack Dupree and Jimmy James & the Vagabonds at the Locarno in Derby … Tony Stratton-Smith and the Six Bob Tour – 30p! – with Lindisfarne and Genesis … Nut Rocker, Theme Of Exodus and other teenage keyboard staples … the value of “Boswellian superfans” who know more about you than you do … breaking the £100 barrier for a live performance … writing blues songs, aged 16, with “a gnat’s experience of life” … the unsettling lyric to Rodgers & Hammerstein’s ‘You've Got to Be Carefully Taught’ … and his new young audience via the internet and “that right of passage, your parents’ records” Order The Charisma & Virgin Recordings 1971 - 1986’ here: https://peterhammill.lnk.to/CVRecordingsPR Pre-order 'ROCK and ROLE: The Visionary Songs of Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator' here: https://burningshed.com/store/kingmaker Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Sep 10, 2025 · 45 min

    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 and the springboard of the New York scene of the late ‘70s (he was a regular at CBGB). Along with … ... the romanticised image of CBGB and the reality … their black music roots: “the same instrumentation as Booker T & the MGs” … the influence of the Modern Lovers: “Jonathan Richman and Byrne were both oddballs, appealing but peculiar” … how the economy of New York’s real estate let them rent a 2,000 square foot loft for $289 a month … bands from affluent backgrounds take greater commercial risks: “there was always a Plan B” … the art-school drop-out lineage that began John Lennon and Keith Richards … how different they were from the CBGBs acts, a band that sang verses in French and “didn’t dress like the New York Dolls” … the band’s dynamic, Chris and Tina “effectively one person” ... did Byrne really make Tina Weymouth “re-audition”? … the success of the Tom Tom Club and the tension that caused … Byrne’s invention of his own “white choreography” … Stop Making Sense, as big a part of their legacy as any album … and why there can never be a reunion Mentioned in dispatches: Brian Eno, Adrian Belew, Herbie Hancock, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Ramone and Fela Kuti. Order ‘Burning Down The House’ here: https://www.waterstones.com/book/9780063022980 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Sep 10, 2025 · 31 min

    Freddie Mercury has a daughter’ – and Lesley-Ann Jones can prove it

    Freddie Mercury had an affair with a close friend’s wife and, in 1977, became a father. He’s now a grandfather. That’s the foundation of a new book ‘Love, Freddie’ by his highly respected biographer Lesley-Ann Jones which details a four-year, detailed exchange with his daughter ‘B’, now 48, and the contents of the 17 notebooks he gave her before he died in 1991. We talk to Lesley-Ann here about this gripping new tilt on his story which covers … … the 41-page document B sent her in 2021 and how the author assumed it was a hoax … why B was outraged by his portrayal in the Bohemian Rhapsody biopic … how the notebooks Freddie gave her are legally owned by Sony “and she would burn them if they tried to collect them” … Freddie’s turmoil at the time of her conception - engaged to Mary Austin, a love affair with David Minns … B’s secret life in Kensington and Montreux and her father’s “scary knitwear” disguises … “in the age of AI, even a real photo of Freddie and his daughter would be reckoned a scam” … the unheard – surely priceless - recordings Freddie made of the two of them singing together … how B’s existence stayed a secret and the members of Queen’s inner circle who might have known about her … the photo of B, aged four, with her dad and David Bowie … and how there were no denials about B’s existence from Queen or any Cease & Desist demands when the book extracts published. Order ‘Love, Freddie’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Freddie-Mercurys-Secret-Life/dp/1916797962 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Sep 8, 2025 · 52 min

    Oasis in 2026, the Troggs and what Morrissey’s only gone and done now!

    All the leaves are brown and the sky’s a bit unruly but mellow fruitfulness abounds in this week’s pick of the rock and roll news. Add to basket … … is Morrissey hacked off, broke or just desperate for attention? … are stadium gigs the new tourism? … bucket hats, Man City, lads culture … how did America finally ‘get’ Oasis? … singles that weren’t on albums … are we sated by an overabundance of music? … how Gary Numan got a record deal … why Gene Loves Jezebel are the new Sam & Dave! … the new age of the rock and roll pilgrimage … did Slade record the Hokey Cokey? The Dave Clark Five did Neil Young? The Troggs did Foxy Lady? … the Jam, the Yardbirds, The Nice, the Smiths: bands who broke up because they couldn’t crack America … selling Barry White records to Middle Eastern airline pilots Plus Tubeway Army, the Scaffold doing Ging Gang Goolie, “Mister Ferry’s diction” and birthday guest Jelltex. Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Sep 3, 2025 · 36 min

    ‘Hey Joe’, its miracle birth & why violent songs are like True Crime - by Jason Schneider

    Immortalised by Hendrix, ‘Hey Joe’ had its roots in 18th century murder ballads, ‘60s folk and rock clubs before the world got to hear it. Jason Schneider unravels its twisted genesis in ‘That Gun In Your Hand’, and talks to us here about the miracles that allowed it to happen and the sad fate of Billy Roberts, the man who claimed he wrote it. Along with … … “all pop records are built on the back of other pop records” … the allure of violent songs: “we get our kicks from real-life murder” … the bit-part players in the story – David Crosby, Dino Valenti, Tim Rose, Cass Elliot, the Byrds, the Leaves, the Creation and Bob Dylan … the final twist: how Chas Chandler was looking to make Hey Joe a hit when Linda Keith pointed him at Hendrix … “a song with no chorus and a circle of fifths”: why it was a rock staple alongside Gloria and Louie Louie … the cruel fate of Billy Roberts who never recorded Hey Joy as couldn’t bear to give away 50 per cent of the royalties … the girl murders the man? “It’s a song still in evolution” … how Andy Summers was the first person to hear Hendrix play in the UK … 1,881 guitarists mass-performed Hey Joe in 2007 but could you even release a version of it now? You can order ‘That Gun In Your Hand: The Strange Saga of Hey Joe and Popular Music’s History of Violence’ from Anvil Press here: https://www.anvilpress.com/books/that-gun-in-your-hand-the-strange-saga-of-hey-joe-and-popular-musics-history-of-violence And from the US distributor Asterism here: https://asterismbooks.com/product/that-gun-in-your-hand-the-strange-saga-of-hey-joe-and-popular-musics-history-of-violence-jason-schneider Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Sep 1, 2025 · 41 min

    Why reviews lost their sting - and what matters more, the song or the record?

    Our pencil-chewing, critical assessment of this week’s news gets mainly * and *** reviews, among them … …. Sting v Summers & Copeland over Every Breath You Take, the goose that laid the golden egg … what John Lennon would have thought about the ‘cancelled’ track on Some Time In New York City … when did “critically acclaimed” come to mean unpopular? … the knock-about days when a critic was “a jerk, a crank and a spoilsport” … Jonny Greenwood’s dad was a bomb disposal expert? Pete Doherty’s mum was a Lance-Corporal in the Royal Army Nursing Corps? … what matters more, the song or the record? ... Anthony Fantano, Rick Beato and the rise of the YouTube rock review … “negative comments about a famous act’s new album are like graffiti on the walls of a hallowed institution” … Bob Dylan’s Self Portrait, Andrew Ridgeley’s Son Of Albert (“half a star”) and the lost age of the crushing review … and “you never mention Depeche Mode!” Find out more about how to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.

  • Aug 27, 2025 · 37 min

    Debsey Wykes of Dolly Mixture wants you to read her teenage diary

    Debsey Wykes was in Dolly Mixture, one of the very few all-girl groups in post-punk London, a time when bands with charisma won the battle for attention and you promoted singles on the back of a truck. Her memoir Teenage Daydream perfectly captures a slice of late ‘70s life, the thrill of playing the pub circuit and trying to storm Radio One. Along with … … the agony of re-reading teenage diaries … being supported by U2 then watching their “annoying” ascent … Girls With Electric Guitars and why rock hacks couldn’t take them … forming bands for self-expression: “you reach that moment when all you want to do is scream!” … “when Jean-Jacques Burnel rests his boot on your head you don’t wash your hair for a week” … early adventures with Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, David Cassidy and Bowie: “Cassidy was normal, Bowie was weird” … diary entries: “the lead singer of the Only Ones has fantastic legs and glittery plimsolls” … “Sugary Sweets Cause Youth Decay!”: the NME’s withering interview … the satin-and-silk allure of Stevie Nicks … violence at ‘70s gigs: “we were locked in the dressing-room with the sirens going off” … “a cross between the Slits and the Nolans”: John Peel’s producer’s loathing for Dolly Mixture … the vicious rivalry between ‘70s girl singers … letters from her old boss and headmaster after she appeared on Top Of The Pops Order ‘Teenage Daydream: We Are The Girls Who Play In A Band’ here: https://linktr.ee/new.modern?utm_source=linktree_profile_share&ltsid=008bc73f-2400-4a67-81df-04fa9758dc06 Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear 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.