September 2014

One small step for Word In Your Ear, one giant stride for Monday nights in the pub

September 23, 2014 David Hepworth 0

Last night’s show was our best yet. Thanks to the people at the Islington we managed to get the visuals working and so we we could put on […]

Stevie Nicks biographer Zoe Howe added to our Ben Watt live podcast recording

September 13, 2014 David Hepworth 0

We’re delighted to say that Zoe Howe‘s joining us at our next Word In Your Ear Podcast recording at the Islington on September 22nd. She’ll be […]

A Quiet Word with Ben Watt at the Islington

September 8, 2014 David Hepworth 0

Ben Watt’s worn a variety of hats in the last thirty years: half of Everything But The Girl, solo artist, deejay, producer, club owner and […]

Word In Your Ear

David Hepworth, Mark Ellen and chums cast an occasionally jaundiced eye over the goings-on in the worlds of music and entertainment.

The blistering heat of 1976 burnt various things onto the memory – standpipes, strikes, Entebbe, ‘Confessions’ movies, Jeremy Thorpe – but most of all the records that became its soundtrack, some of them revolutionary, others begging for extinction. John L Williams captures the moment in ‘Heatwave: the Summer of 1976, Britain at Boiling Point’ and a paints of picture of a country on the brink of a vast pop-cultural shift. We talk to him here about …

… violence at gigs and football and on Derek & Clive albums

… dumb people pretending to be clever (prog rock) and clever people pretending to be dumb (Ramones)

… the rise of Joan Armatrading in the days before ‘identity’ marketing

… how ‘funny’ t-shirts were the memes of their day

… when Tom Robinson saw the future in Scarborough

… “mainstream culture gave you things to both love and hate”

… how Rock Follies featured an imaginary Blitz Club where people danced in military uniforms

… Andy Summers (with Kevin Ayers) and Stewart Copeland (Curved Air) on the same bill a year before the Police

… why anyone with a Sensational Alex Harvey Band scarf got a wide berth

… Time Out’s headline: “It’s the Buzz, Cock!”

… Tom Waits, aged 25, unconvincing hobo-hipster

… and Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Emmanuelle and the lowest point of the Radio One Roadshow.