Word In Your Ear

We were delighted to welcome Midge Ure to the Islington to talk about growing up in Glasgow, becoming a teen idol by accident, being offered a slot in the Sex Pistols, almost becoming the Next Big Thing, assisting at the birth of the Cult With No Name, becoming a temporary rock star with Thin Lizzy, becoming a genuine rock star with Ultravox, writing the biggest hit in chart history, getting his slot at Live Aid pinched by his mate Bob Geldof, appearing on "This If Your Life", "Celebrity Masterchef" and playing the blues on the porch with Eric Clapton. Truly all human life is here. Midge is touring twice in the next year. In the first jaunt, beginning in March, he'll be playing and also taking questions from the audience. In the second he'll be supported by a full band and reprising many of the Ultravox and Visage songs which are about to celebrate their 40th birthday. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In introducing this session, which was inspired by David Hepworth's new book "Nothing Is Real" Mark Ellen said "I've know this man for over forty years and I've never won an argument with him". On this occasion the two of them were joined by old friends, writer Jude Rogers and broadcaster/podcaster Geoff Lloyd, to chew over some of David's theories, such as why the Beatles were underrated and why you should never play pop records at funerals, and to add a few of their own, which cover such topics as the girlfriend who changed the direction of popular music, the redundancy of the live album and the records that you should and shouldn't play at a wedding disco. A splendid time is guaranteed for all. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter Grant was the former all-in wrestler turned manager whose reputation was built on his knack for making sure his bands got paid. In this respect didn't hurt to have the build of a screen heavy and the reputation of a gangster. When Led Zeppelin got paid it was in quantities so large that they had to be taken away from the venues in carrier bags from supermarkets. In "Bring It All Back Home" Pink Floyd and Queen biographer Mark Blake tells the full story of Peter Grant from his time as a wartime tearaway through road managing Chuck Berry and Gene Vincent to his meeting with Jimmy Page, with whom he formed what was probably the key relationship in the Led Zeppelin camp through their rampages across America in the 70s to a very dark period holed up in his moated house in the country taking cocaine in immense quantities and harbouring dark thoughts about the world outside. As we told Mark Blake when he came to the Islington to talk about it, this one really should be a movie. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kenneth Womack, who actually teaches a course in the Beatles at Monmouth University in New Jersey, has just published "Sound Pictures", the second part of his mammoth biography of Beatles producer George Martin, and he came to Word In Your Ear to talk about it. There was plenty to cover: from his childhood in the Depression through a transformation thanks to the Fleet Air Arm and the Guildhall School of Music to an apprenticeship at EMI which led him to produce everyone from Flanders and Swann to Peter Sellers and then confronted him with the challenge of making something of the four boys from Liverpool that the publishing division were keen on signing. He wasn't convinced at first but as soon as they did something he thought was good he was the first to recognise it and he was the only person apart from Brian Epstein who believed they were going to be huge and helped make sure they were. Kenneth provides a gripping account of what was arguably the most productive creative partnership of the 20th century. How does he think they would have fared if they had ended up with some other producer at EMI rather than George Martin? "I think they would have had a few hits and then faded away," he says. "What make it all work was that they came at everything sideways." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Billy Bragg joins us to talk about Izal medicated toilet paper, the Beatles, Joe Henry, the restorative effects of finishing the evening signing tea towels, Bovingdon tank museum, an old copy of the East London Advertiser, meeting Bob Dylan, watching old Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers movies, the importance of accountability, what the Clash could do and what they couldn't do, meeting Ray Galton in the pub, what poems could each of us recite from memory, Lead Belly, the cultural importance of TV cowboys, how many of the Quarrymen are still alive, and much more besides... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For all the people who have been asking to hear the long version of our chat with Chas Hodges, who was our guest in the podcast on June 1st 2012, here it is. It's all here: growing up in Edmonton, playing in Joe Meek's house band, hearing "Revolver" on acetate, playing with Heads, Hands and Feet, the amazing story of Chas and Dave and much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the entire firmament of those who busted the charts in the 1980s there was nobody more reliably sane than Mark King of Level 42. Before they start on their 2018 tour he came in to the Islington to entertain an enthralled house with his account of importing the first Mahavishnu Orchestra album into the Isle Of Wight, turning up on Lenny White's doorstep in America at the age of seventeen, treating the bass as a percussion instrument, his ride on the giddy carousel of chart success in the 80s, prodding Sean Penn in the chest at Madonna's party, appearing with Elton John and Eric Clapton at the Prince's Trust and a recent run-in with Ginger Baker. One of the best evenings we've ever had at the Islington. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Ever since first hearing the siren call of The Rubettes' "Sugar Baby Love", Mark Kermode, TV and Radio's Mr Movie, has been possessed by a determination to find out how it feels to be on stage with a band and to make the noise that bands made. His new book "How Does It Feel?" recounts every step on that journey, from making his own guitar while at school through leading his own bands The Bottlers and The Dodge Brothers and masquerading as the musical director of Danny Baker's late-night chat show to trying to learn the chromatic harmonica on stage in front of a large orchestra and an even larger audience. It has been a life devoted to the noble objective of getting some kind of noise out of just about anything he has been confronted with and being prepared to treat the twin impostors of approval and derision both the same. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We couldn't get over the fact that Seymour Stein actually met Buddy Holly. It shouldn't surprise us really because after all he is 76 and his first job in the music business was at Billboard when he was a teenager. It's well known that as the boss of the Sire label he signed the Ramones, Talking Heads, Depeche Mode, the Undertones and Madonna. What's less well-known is the part played in the Sire story by Focus, the Deviants and the Climax Blues Band. The full story is written in "Siren Song" which he's written with Gareth Murphy. He came to Word In Your Ear to talk about it. We let him get on with it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stuart Baillie's book, "Trouble Songs" is, as he told us at this Word In Your Ear, his personal story as well as the story of music and the Troubles. Born in Belfast in 1961, Stuart came to London to work on the NME, returning to Belfast in the late 90s to run a music project in the city. His book paints a rich picture of a place with unique virtues as well as unique problems. It's the story of how entertainment has reflected both and how live music re-emerged from behind the ring of steel and came blinking in the daylight following the Good Friday agreement. It's the story of Christy Moore, the Miami Showband, Stiff Little Fingers, Rudi, Van Morrison, the Undertones, Terri Hooley and scores of others, many of whom were interviewed specifically for the book. It's also the story of the part played in the events of the time by outsiders like Lennon and McCartney, U2 and The Clash. It's the story of how music both brings people together and sometimes drives them apart. It's one of the best books we've ever covered in Word In Your Ear. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Drummer with the Small Faces, the Faces and the Who, supplier of the distinctive drum sound on the Rolling Stones' "It's Only 'N' Roll", guest at Mick Jagger's wedding in 1971, Kenney Jones is one of the few people born in Stepney in 1948 who wound up owning his own polo club. It's all in his newly-published autobiography "Let The Good Times Roll". He came to the Islington to talk to David and Mark about it. The new air conditioning was working and a splendid time was had by all. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Award-winning broadcaster and podcaster, successful novelist and former Word subscriber Simon Mayo makes his debut on the pod to talk about his ascent of the greasy pole of broadcasting, his experience fronting the Radio One Roadshow in the days when that was a very big deal, his radio husband Mark Kermode, his radio wife Jo Whiley, his first adult novel "Mad Blood Stirring", soon to be a major motion picture, and the real reason why Dave Lee Travis always got the biggest cheer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It was a delight to catch up with Andrew Collins on the occasion of the publication of "Still Suitable For Miners", his biography of Billy Bragg which was initially published in 1998 and is now updated with additional material. He talked to David and Mark about the days when a biographer had a carrier bag of clippings instead of the internet, how the self-described big-nosed bastard from Barking managed to turn himself into a national institution and kept his brand burning bright for the best part of forty years and also tells us the one about the stripper and the banana. All this and an education too! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the sixties Neil Innes wrote and sang many of the deathless masterpieces of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band. In the late 70s he was the leading light of the pre-fab four, The Rutles, still the greatest and most affectionate of Beatles parodies. He lives in France now. On a visit to the UK to take part in a tour marking the 40th anniversary of the Rutles, he dropped in to the Islington to talk to old skool fans Mark and David about wooing women with fruit, meeting the Beatles on the stairs at Abbey Road, doing a weekly children's programme live on TV with the one and only Viv Stanshall, helping George Harrison with his garden and not suing Oasis. A delightful guest. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Virgin, Harlequin, One Stop, Dobells, Rock On, HMV, Cheapo Cheapo, Disci, Andy's, Woolies, Our Price and a million and one places called The Spinning Disc. It doesn't matter where you did your record shopping in the far long-ago, they're all in "Going For A Song", Garth Cartwright's information-packed survey of UK record shops past and present. In this podcast he talks to Mark and David about record retailing in this country from the days of the cylinder through the danceband boom of the thirties and the madness of Beatlemania to the recent rebirth of very specialist indies. It's a road we've all trodden one way or another and it's good to have it recognised. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tim Rice didn't particularly like musicals. He was a rock and roll fan turned junior exec. In fact when Tim Rice met Andrew Lloyd Webber in the late 60s he had his eyes on a nice job running one of EMI's overseas outposts. But then there was Jesus Christ Superstar which was performed by the Grease Band and recorded at Olympic and sold in quantities nobody knew anything could sell and the next thing he knew he was a giant of the musical theatre and was writing with and for everyone. The perspective he's acquired in the course of a fifty-plus year career is unique and he's already distilled a lot of it into one volume of memoirs. He came along to The Islington so that Mark and David could encourage him to get on with the next volume. It was a delight to talk to him. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It was born in an unpromising flat in Tottenham, came to fruition in an old manor house in Oxfordshire, became, by accident, the soundtrack of a horror film that is still frightening people 45 years later and led, also by accident, to the foundation of one of the few British brands that's still a household name. It changed the lives of everybody who had anything to do with it. Richard Newman is the only person to have spent time talking to all the people who were involved and his book, 'The Making Of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells', has been re-published to mark the forty-fifth anniversary of the record's original release. He came to the Islington to talk to David and Mark about it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Ian Anderson left the family home in Blackpool to make his name in the music business his father flung him hid old overcoat. "It'll be cold out there," he said. That was more than fifty years ago. 2018 sees the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the first Tull album "This Was". This anniversary is being marked by a special tour which begins in April. When Ian was our guest at Word In Your Ear he talked about: going to the police station as a 15-year-old because he wanted to be a copper, how the name of his band was as much a surprise to him as anyone else, what it was like to go on before Hendrix at the Isle of Wight in 1969, how The Who outshone the Rolling Stones during the filming of "The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus", why any idiot can manage his own band and why so few do, the secret of breaking America and why this tour is definitely the last. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the course of a packed conversation with David Hepworth the Damon Runyon of Bermondsey touches upon Keith Chegwin and the Third Ear Band, carrying a coffin and recovering from cancer, the breathtaking profanity of Hughie Green and the staggering stupidity of certain BBC executives, the difficulty of dealing with 12-year-old TV producers who are labouring under the misapprehension that they understand pop history and what happened when he and Danny Kelly decided it was finally time to try getting stoned. As ever, all human life is there – as it is in his latest autobiographical volume, "Going On The Turn". Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Robert Forster's new book 'Grant And I' features strongly in many people's lists of the music book of the year. He came to WIYE to talk to Mark and David about growing up in Brisbane, bonding with Grant McLennan over their shared affection for Ry Cooder, forming a band with like-minded people rather than people who could play, getting near enough to success to be able to taste it and why no band has anything new to say after twenty minutes. Robert's been on the podcast before and remains one of our favourites. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Armando Iannucci's Hear Me Out is a collection of pieces about his first love, classical music. He decided early on that the Deep Purple and Lou Reed records favoured by his older brother didn't speak to him in the way that Holsts's Planet Suite did. His book explains why. In this wide ranging chat with Mark and David Armando talks about how it felt to not share the general enthusiasm for the sound of now and what he says to people when they try to get him on the dance floor at parties. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

As a teenager Dylan Jones was one of that generation who saw David Bowie on “Top Of The Pops” in 1972 and felt he was talking directly to them. As an art student he worked as an extra on a Bowie film and even gave him a light for his cigarette. As the editor of such magazines as Arena and GQ he went on to interview Bowie numerous times. Now he’s put together “David Bowie: A Life”, a massive oral history of the man’s life and brilliant career. It draws on the recollections of everyone from old school friends like George Underwood through fellow musicians like Rick Wakeman to the artists, film makers and fashion leaders whose direction he affected. In this special extended chat with Mark Ellen and David Hepworth Dylan talks about everything Bowie, including how small he was in some directions and yet how big in others. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

"My Dad said that if I joined a rock band I would be an alcoholic, a drug addict and skint. Turns out he was right." So writes Chris Difford in "Some Fantastic Place", a startlingly candid autobiography. An old friend of the pod he came along to Word In Your Ear to talk to Mark and David about the strange dynamics within bands, the reason musicians don't talk to each other, the attractions of relaxants and stimulants and the challenges of managing Bryan Ferry. Amazing stuff. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The guest on our snug Chesterfield was Daniel Rachel, who won the Penderyn Prize for best music book of 2017 for his "Walls Come Tumbling Down", a triumphant oral history of the story of Rock Against Racism, 2-Tone and Red Wedge. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Johnny Rogan almost didn't make it to this Word In Your Ear. He was so absorbed in a discussion about biography with friend of the podcast Mark Lewisohn that he had a small traffic accident that almost sidelined him for the evening. Anyway, he made it and brought along both volumes of his mammoth new account of their complex career. To help tell their story we were also delighted to welcome another friend of the pod Sid Griffin. It's all here: the folk revival, Swinging London, psychedelia, square glasses, country music, personality conflicts and some very sad ends. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Usually our guests are talking about freshly-published books. It's actually ten years since Sarfraz Manzoor put out Greetings From Bury Park, his memoir about growing up in a traditional Pakistani family in Luton with an obsession with Bruce Springsteen. With the prospect of the story being transferred to the screen in the offing, Sarfraz came along to talk to David Hepworth about how he found parallels between Springsteen's songs and the challenges he faced in his life and how his desire to identify with the Boss led him into the odd unfortunate fashion choice. At the same time the two of them talk about Bruce Springsteen's autobiography Born To Run as it comes out in paperback, because, face it, he could use the royalties. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We loved them because they could do things we could never do. We adopted them as our fantasy friends when we were teenagers and were still measuring ourselves against them forty years after. David Hepworth talks about his best-selling book "Uncommon People" which traces the history of the cult of the rock star from Little Richard to Kurt Cobain. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Thomas Dolby’s career has seen him sharing a helicopter with a terrified David Bowie over Wembley Stadium, labouring on the nightshift at a New York studio in search of noises that Foreigner might like and dropping in on Michael Jackson at home in the days before scandal consumed him. All this and a good deal more is in his memoir The Speed Of Sound, which also covers his pop success and his adventures at the heart of the great Internet revolution. He came to Islington to talk to Mark Ellen and David Hepworth all about it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Ingham used to sign himself Jonh Ingham when he covered the very early stirrings of punk rock in 1976 for Sounds. Although he was a writer by trade he took along his camera because literally nobody else was taking pictures and he recognised that early punk was above all things colourful. Forty years later he’s got those pictures out from storage and published them in a fabulous new book called Siprit Of 76: London Punk Eyewitness, which has pictures of all the key players - the Sex Pistols, Clash, Siouxsie, Generation X and Subway Sect - in the last days before they were household names. It’s an extraordinary document. The book comes with an introduction from Jon Savage and a commentary from John himself. He came along to the Islington to tell us about the year it all happened. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

David Hepworth started at Smash Hits in the late 70s, Mark Ellen joined in the early 80s, Barry McIlheney arrived in the middle of the decade and Miranda Sawyer came along in the late 80s. Therefore they were well placed to talk about such key Smash Hits experiences as being pinned to a door by Jimmy Pursey, taking Bananarama to Burger King, asking U2 to draw a duck and getting a bit tired and going home halfway through a Stone Roses interview. All this and more in this bumper ish. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Captain Fantastic” is Tom Doyle’s account of Elton’s most tumultuous decade, the 70s, during which time he assumed every role from bedsitter poet to intercontinental hell raiser, from singing frontiersman to singing hornet, from Pinner to Philly and back. He came along to Word In Your Ear to talk to us about the eternal puzzle that is Elton. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There’s a rich British tradition of well brought up young men from the leafier suburbs developing a fixation on music from a very different culture and somehow getting themselves a job playing said music on the radio. Nobody has done it more successfully and more unexpectedly than David Rodigan. For a part of the career he’s run it alongside his work as an actor. No wonder there’s so much interest in turning his book “My Life In Reggae” into a film. It’s a story rich in humour and packed with incident, some of which he recounted to Mark Ellen and David Hepworth. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We were delighted to be joined by two of the UK’s most respected providers of backing vocals and harmonies, who between them have sung with everybody from David Bowie at Live Aid on down. They showed us aspects of their vocal techniques, instructed us in the diplomatic arts required to rub along on tour when the members of the band aren’t speaking to each other and explain why the wordless refrain has gone the way of the whalebone corset. You can find the full story in Tessa’s book “Backtrack”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this shortcast Jon Savage talks to David Hepworth about his new compilation album, “1967 - The Year Pop Divided”. Forty-eight tracks of psych-flavoured pop, rock and soul from the last year before music went off into its own ghettoes, from the Byrds to Captain Beefheart, from Rex Garvin and the Mighty Cravers to the Shag, from the Thirteenth Floor Elevators to Gladys Knight and the Pips, from the Monkees to The Mickey Finn. “Do the lyrics have anything in common? Yes. Drugs." Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Which Tony Fletcher tells us about Wilson Pickett, who was impossible as a child, inimitable as a singer and incorrigible as a success, and how he came to write “In The Midnight Hour”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which Barney Hoskyns talks to us about Woodstock and the part it played in the lives of Dylan, the Band, Albert Grossman and Van Morrison, as related in his book “Small Town Talk”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which Jeff Evans returns from researching the full history of "Rock and Pop On TV" for his new book and talks to Mark Ellen and David Hepworth about not just "Six Five Special" but also "Cool For Cats", not just Legs and Co but also Ruby Flipper, not just "The Tube" but also "The White Room", and wonders whether, now that we have You Tube, we have finally come to the end of music television as a genre. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which Paul Gambaccini, that son of New York who became an institution of British broadcasting, talks to Mark Ellen and David Hepworth about how the Beatles changed his life, how he got into broadcasting, what brought him to Britain, his experience of Radio One in the 70s, his recent ordeal at the hands of the Metropolitan police – fully documented in an amazing book "Love, Paul Gambaccini" – and how this experience has changed his view of the BBC and the Labour Party but not the British people. It's an extraordinary listen, one that goes the full distance from hilarity to horror. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which Mick Houghton, the author of a book about the legendary folk-rock label Elektra, and Adam White, the man behind a huge tome about the history of Motown, talk to David Hepworth about the unique challenges faced by independent labels, the charismatic men who founded them, the occasionally difficult stars they had to deal with and what keeps both Jac Holzman and Berry Gordy going at an age when most people are happy just to look at their great-grandchildren. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which Richard Houghton, the author of “I Was There”, a collection of first-hand reminiscences from people who saw the Beatles back in the sixties, from under-attended dance halls in England to over flowing stadia in the United States, talks to David Hepworth about how he wrinkled out their stories. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which David Hepworth talks to legendary journalist and author Paul Morley about how David Bowie inflamed his young imagination and his new book The Age Of Bowie. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which David Hepworth talks to legendary journalist and author Hunter Davies about his time as a fly on the wall with the Beatles in the middle sixties and his newly-published Beatles Book. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which we talk to the irrepressible Sylvia Patterson on how music provided some much needed structure in her chaotic teenage life and her career as a writer on Smash Hits, NME and beyond. Contains: Manics, Mick Hucknall, Happy Mondays, Blur and many more. Sylvia’s book is “I’m Not With The Band”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which we talk to Derek Ridgers, who began taking pictures at Eric Clapton’s Rainbow concert and was there to document the brief moment when punk was invented in London. Some of these pictures are collected in his new book “Punk London 1977”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which we talked to the husband and wife team behind Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong: The Life And Times Of Randy Newman about this uniquely fascinating artist and whether he'll be remembered for"Short People" or "Toy Story". Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which Harry Nilsson biographer Alan Shypton reflects on the man with the voice of an angel and the thirst of a medium-sized nation. We're a bit late with this, but Alan's book 'Nilsson: The Life Of A Singer-Songwriter' is such an absorbing account of a life packed with incident that it's better late than never. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which David Hepworth instructs Mark Ellen in the theory behind his best-selling book about the the annus mirabilis of the rock album, “1971: Never A Dull Moment”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which friend of Word In Your Ear and Essex correspondent Zoë Howe talks about the Doctor Feelgood frontman, subject of her new book Lee Brilleaux: Rock’n’Roll Gentleman. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In which Word contributor and biographer of George Harrison Graeme Thomson talks about the short but action-packed passage of the “literally clubbable” Phil Lynott, the subject of his authorised biography “Cowboy Song”. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jon Savage has written celebrated histories of Punk Rock and the Teenager. Now he turns his attention to 1966, the year when pop went fuzzy at the edges, when psychedelic drugs, protest about Vietnam and anxiety about nuclear war helped inspire some of the greatest pop music ever made, by everyone from Bob Dylan to the Stones to Norma Tanega. He talked to David Hepworth about it in front of an audience at The Islington. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.