Word In Your Ear
Word In Your Ear

Word In Your Ear

Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold

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Episodes

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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.

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Recent Episodes

Your guided tour of David Bowie’s London with Paul Gorman’s stories about its key locations
FEB 18, 2025
Your guided tour of David Bowie’s London with Paul Gorman’s stories about its key locations

No musician is more closely associated with London or left more footprints than Bowie, and you can trace its influence on his life and work (and vice versa) through a series of landmarks from the suburbs to the centre. Author and curator Paul Gorman has just published an annotated street-map – David Bowie’s London - listing the places that played a formative role in his world and music, the places he rehearsed, performed, filmed and recorded, the homes of friends and managers, his schools and the addresses where he lived, worked and was photographed, made connections, bought clothes and generally raised the temperature. We talk here about many of those old haunts and the stories attached to them, which include…

 

… mysterious manager Ralph Horton who got him to change his name to Bowie and then vanished from the face of the earth.

 

… the fate of Heddon Street, home of K-West and the Ziggy phone-box. 

 

… Marc Bolan refusing to let him sing at an all-night benefit at Middle Earth.

 

… “the Fairy Godmother of the New Romantics” at the WAG Club.

 

… when Lionel Bart came to Haddon Hall.

 

… Bowie and Steve Marriott auditioning for the Lower Third.

 

… how he levered his way into a Fabulous magazine fashion shoot.

 

… “the end of the age of Showbiz”: performing Chim Chim Cher-ee at the Marquee when at a crossroads between rock and roll and cabaret.

 

… the magical piano at the Trident Studios.

 

… a chance encounter with the otherworldly Vince Taylor whose ‘UFO map’ helped inspire the concept of Ziggy Stardust.

 

… the legend of Mr Fish, creator of the man-dress on the cover of The Man Who Sold The World.

 

… the days when people had a white Rolls Royce and matching Alsatian – and “the Great Sarong Scare of the ‘90s”.

 

… and various fringe figures including his art teacher Owen Frampton, Konrads agents Bob Knight and Eric Easton, muse and heartbreaker Hermione Farthingale, producers Shel Talmy and Tony Hatch (“the original Mr Nasty from Opportunity Knocks”) and slum landlord and racketeer Peter Rackman.

 

Order Paul’s street-map here:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/David-Bowies-London-Paul-Gorman/dp/1068523476


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 MIN
Why all great pop stars are cartoons, Bowie doing mime and people whose voices we’ve never heard
FEB 17, 2025
Why all great pop stars are cartoons, Bowie doing mime and people whose voices we’ve never heard
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46 MIN