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...
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.
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52:24
Has politics eaten entertainment? What’s ‘perfect sound’? Plus Brian James & how to make a speech
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 James RIP and Stiff’s brilliant ad campaign for the first Damned album: “Play it at your sister!” … has entertainment been dwarfed by world events? … why the Oscars were invented and what it said about American life. … “negative publicity is the first response to everything”. … why Adrien Brody’s speech set back the cause of actors being taken seriously by about 40 years. … Will Smith v Chris Rock, Chumbawamba v John Prescott, David Niven and the streaker: Awards show bombshells and what today’s media would make of them. … The Wizard Of Vinyl and his mission to “save the world from bad sound”. … the days when Hi-Fi was considered a hobby. … are musical memories mostly about context? David relives ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ on a jukebox in the Shady Nook café in Wakefield. … how not to make a speech. … and the band that called Nick Lowe “granddad” (when he was 27). Plus birthday guest Adrian Ainsworth on the worst and most insulting Greatest Hits compilations of all time.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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55:34
Film-maker Denny Tedesco on dad’s old band The Wrecking Crew and new doc “Immediate Family”
We’re long-time admirers of Denny Tedesco’s “Wrecking Crew” doc which celebrated the studio musicians of 60s Hollywood, the unseen hands who can be heard on all those Beach Boys and Spector hits. Now he’s done something similar with the musicians who were so much part of the success of James Taylor, Carole King and Warren Zevon in the next decade in “The Immediate Family”. We’re delighted to have been able to organise a screening of the film at The Art House in Crouch End after which he spoke to David Hepworth about what it was like to grow up married to the music business, how the culture of session players changed over the years, what has kept the likes of Leland Sklar, Danny Kortchmar, Waddy Wachtel and Russ Kunkel at the top of their game for fifty years and whether anybody else is still keeping their craft alive. The film is streaming on a platform near you now!The Immediate Family: https://www.immediatefamilyfilm.com/The Art House: https://www.arthousecrouchend.co.uk/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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24:06
Lennon & McCartney seen in a fresh, stirring and original new light by Ian Leslie
Ian Leslie posted his ‘64 Reasons To Celebrate Paul McCartney’ in 2020 and the viral reaction to its piercing and original points encouraged him to write ‘John & Paul: A Love Story In Songs’. Do we need another Beatles book? We do if it’s this one! It’s exceptionally good and highly recommended. The conventional wisdom for decades was that John was the tormented, anti-establishment genius and Paul the effortlessly tune-churning, bourgeois poser. Ian’s book points up that their deep devotion to each other and telepathic, close relationship was the root of the supernatural partnership that made those songs possible. The two of them were, as he puts it, “the bubble within the bubble – and the deeper you get, the more mysterious the story becomes.” He talks to us here about … … their powerplays and their underlying rivalries for the leadership of the group. … why the Beatles were in another league - “like Shakespeare versus Johnson or Marlowe”. … how a songwriting duo where both wrote words and music gave them an extraordinary advantage. … the writing of Yesterday and John’s fear that Paul might no longer need the group and leave. … Paul’s discovery of his “superpowers” between ‘64 and ’66. … how current groups now have “intimacy councillors” and in any other band the unmanageable Lennon would have been ejected. … In My Life, Hey Jude and other songs they wrote about each other. … how there was “an element of their fathers about them, of stiff upper lip” and displays of physical affection were rare. … Paul as “the omnivorous culture-vore” in avant garde London while John was horizontal in suburbia. … why Paul’s pace and creativity must have been psychologically punishing for the others. … and how the emotional landscape shifted with the arrival of Yoko and Linda. Order Ian’s book here:https://www.amazon.co.uk/John-Paul-Story-Beatles-decades/dp/0571376118Find 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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44:21
The threat of AI, the appeal of Gene Hackman & the filthy glamour of Exile On Main St
In which we pedal the conversational tandem uphill and down dale, like a rabbit through the pea-vine or a turkey through the corn, stopping for moments of reflection which include … … “If someone wants to steal your music, it means your music’s worth stealing.” … cats, birdsong: spot the ‘silent track’ by Kate Bush. … when Gene Hackman smiles, be very afraid. … what was written on Walter Matthau’s funeral card. … “Home-Taping Is Killing Music!” and other threats that failed to sink the business. … double albums: never mind the quality, feel the width. … how Exile On Main St became a symbol of peak-Stones grimy decadence. … Hunter Davies, Mark Lewisohn, Ian Leslie, Richard DiLello?: the best Beatles book ever written? … “is genius worth the collateral damage?”: homelife in Frank Zappa’s house. … things we never say on the Word podcast. … when rock critics get it wrong. Plus birthday guest Nick Foreman flies the flag for Hunter Davies.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.
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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