Strange. The first time I downloaded and listened to the Word magazine podcast, I caught myself scrambling for the off button pretty sharpish.

Seeing as Mark Ellen and David Hepworth are involved (and if you remember the Old Grey Whistle Test) you might not be surprised that there’s more than a few passing references to prog rock.  At times it’s more than a little embarrassing Dad-ish.

But persevere and it grows on you.  The anecdotes from lives spent in rock journalism make it worth listening to on their own.  A tale of Smashy and Nicey era Radio One DJs embarrassing themselves at a Manic Street Preachers gig is just priceless. 

Until I wiki-ed him I had forgotten that Dave Ellen was actually in Ugly Rumours with Jagger wannabe Tony Blair.

He says of TB:

He was fantastically confident but without any arrogance or swagger. He had ambition, enormous charm. He even wanted to rehearse. He said to me: ‘What’s the point of doing it if we can’t be good?’

Our second gig was at St John’s and Tony, who was a massive admirer of Mick Jagger, was waiting in the wings. He was wearing a hoop-necked, trumpet-sleeved T-shirt, loons and high heels, with lots of bare flesh on show. He came screaming on with the classic ‘Let’s rock!’ and went into the first Stones number as if he was Jagger himself, all pointing fingers and pout.

More on Ellen, Blair and Ugly Rumours here. 

Word blog here.