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 Hi...
Mike Rutherford looks back at 60 years onstage and the art of cheap rock theatre
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 the first live shows Mike Rutherford ever saw and played which features … … his mum making him wash the Brylcreem from his hair before seeing Cliff & the Shadows when he was 17. … buying an electric guitar before you realised it needed an amplifier. … playing the same theatres he played with Genesis when he was 19. … Cream at the Marquee Club - “the volume was like an atom bomb!” … supporting Mott the Hoople at Farx in Southall, “the moment I felt we were getting somewhere”. … the contract for their £7 fee he still has for Genesis on the Eel Pie Island, “like ancient fading parchment”. … the non-competitive days of Yes, King Crimson, Rare Bird and the rock underground when there was room for everyone. … making an album in three days with Jonathan King in Regent Sound (where the Stones recorded). … Peter Gabriel developing his on-stage theatre because no-one could hear the words. … ‘Man up!’ Note to self after breaking a hip skiing with his grandchildren. Mike & the Mechanics tour dates and tickets:https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/mike-the-mechanics-tickets/artist/1673635 Pre-order Looking Back: Living The Years here:https://found.ee/MikeATM_LBLTYFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Mike Scott of the Waterboys remembers the shows that inspired him
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 watched closely, which involves … the Stones “when they were still dangerous” and the connective genius of Mick Jagger, Dennis Hopper’s lost decade, Nazareth and Emerson Lake & Palmer at the Glasgow Apollo, a love affair with microphones, how not to look at the audience, the days when he wrote songs called ‘Freefall’, Joe Strummer singing on his back and McCartney’s crowd going “totally buck-mental”. Order Waterboys tickets here:https://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/the-waterboys-tickets/artist/888869 Order the new Waterboys’ album ‘Life, Death & Dennis Hopper’ here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Death-Dennis-Hopper-Waterboys/dp/B0DQSK48PCFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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16:08
The lost world of teenage love songs – and the best pop song ever written!
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 40 years ago? And is that because you can get online tutorials explaining how to play everything? … Paul McCartney taking two buses across Liverpool just to learn the chord of B7. … how the best pop songs start with someone walking into a room. … Ghana! India! New Zealand! The Caribbean! The King’s Spotify Playlist, a carefully chiselled love letter to the Commonwealth. … do couples still have “Our Tune”? And do they still request songs for each other on radio shows? … Neil Tennant’s memories of pre-Putin Russia – “we swept into Moscow in Gorbachev’s limousine”. … Thunder Road, And Then He Kissed Me, Wouldn’t It Be Nice and other magical songs about dating. … Amanda Seyfried does Joni Mitchell! … the best pop song ever written - and we know the answer! Plus birthday guest David Messer and two great Lou Reed live albums (“he heckles the hecklers!”). David and Mark’s One-Man Show in Wareham on April 4: https://loveitlocalmagazine.co.uk/events/one-man-show/ Neil Tennant’s piece about pre-Putin Russia: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/mar/12/neil-tennant-pet-shop-boys-russia-putin-gay-club-mtvHelp us to find out more about how to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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47:16
Nik Kershaw remembers Live Aid, snoods, fingerless gloves & a sudden male-female audience shift
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 Kershaw’, and talks to us here about the first gigs he ever saw and played, which involves … … a bad case of Imposter Syndrome. … how the relationship with your audience changes over 40 years. … “it all seemed so important back then. I was in this little bubble where I thought the world was waiting for my next statement.” … seeing Rory Gallagher, Wishbone Ash, Lindisfarne, Slade, T Rex, the Sensational Alex Harvey Band – and Vinegar Joe at St Matthew’s Baths in Ipswich. … the sole appearance of his first band Thor at Rushmere Village Hall. … instant success in 1983: four nights at Hammersmith Odeon without playing clubs first - “We’re going to need a bigger PA!” … playing Steely Dan and Weather Report one night and The Birdy Song and Country Roads at a wedding the next. ... appearing between Elvis Costello and Sade at Live Aid – “quite a sandwich” - and forgetting the words. …and the ‘80s festival circuit: “one big club”. NIK KERSHAW TOUR DATES HERE: https://www.nikkershaw.net/tour-dates/Find out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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27:04
Gang Of Four’s Jon King now sees the comedy in their endless self-sabotage
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, he points out, is a ridiculous life best not taken seriously. His memoir ‘To Hell With Poverty!’ rightly describes itself as “rich with stories”, many remembered in this spirited exchange with David and Mark, among them … … the transformational effect of a scholarship to the boarding school where he met GO4 guitarist Andy Gill and future film-makers Adam Curtis and Paul Greengrass. … life-changing records he heard in the school art department – Highway 61 Revisited, the Stooges, the MC5. … “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity”. … aged 11, bumping into John Lennon in Sevenoaks who’d just bought his Mr Kite poster. … signing a contract with the manager that robbed them and whose busy and efficient office of “ripped and buffed” staff turned out to be hired actors. … being thrown off Top Of The Pops for not changing an ‘offensive’ song lyric – “EMI were “mortified”. … the old hippy world of the ‘70s – Hawkwind, the Whole Earth Catalog and “a Withnailesque flat where we had an airgun to shoot the mice”. … hopeless online misinterpretations of his song lyrics - “there may be soil under fuck all” (aka “there may be oil under Rockall”). … the rigours of trying to promote “outsider music”. … reaching “the point where the game is up”. … the Bourgeois Brothers, the ‘comedy’ duo he formed with Andy Gill at Leeds University and why they returned to England to form a band in the mould of Talking Heads, the Ramones and Richard Hell. … and why recording the audiobook moved him to tears. Order ‘To Hell With Poverty!’ here:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hell-Poverty-Class-Inside-Gang/dp/1636142346 Gang Of Four tour dates:https://www.songkick.com/artists/393675-gang-of-four/calendarFind out more about how to help us to keep the conversation going: https://www.patreon.com/wordinyourear Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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. Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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