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ETTA JAMES REMEMBERED (2012): A lady not for turning
When Etta James died at age 73 in January after a protracted battle with leukemia, there a was genuine but surprising acknowledgment of her career in the media. Not that James didn't deserve them, but the singer whose life was troubled by heroin addiction and time in rehab was an unlikely candidate for obituaries. She didn't have that many hits, not even At Last which many hailed... more >>
Added: 7 May 2012
TOY LOVE; A RETURN BOUT? (2012)
Since the cheaply printed posters reading "Toy Love, live at the Gluepot Sat 21st April" started appearing on walls and lamp posts around central Auckland, I have had to answer a few questions. People say things like, "So Toy Love are playing the Gluepot, huh?" Without being condescending I have to point out the famous/notorious Gluepot pub no longer exists, so . . .... more >>
Added: 10 Apr 2012 
1 Comment
BLUES MAGOOS 1966-68: Pop's psychedelic pioneers
Some albums catch a band at a turning point, one foot in the past and the other stepping towards an unknown but promising future. If the Beatles, through exhaustion and wrung out by the constant pressure to produce, had called it a day in late 1965 their legacy would have been easy to distill down: a few joyfully adolescent pop hits, Beatlemania, a classic pop film in A Hard Day's Night . .... more >>
Added: 2 Apr 2012 2 Comments
NICK LOWE INTERVIEWED (2011): Looking for that old magic
A couple of years ago we passed by this way, a phone call to Nick Lowe at the most unrock'n'roll hour of 9am in the UK (see here). But Lowe again laughs it off -- “I have a six-year old so this is the middle of the day for me” – and concedes that while he was once a notorious party animal (he barely remembers playing in Australia in the early Eighties) says “I... more >>
Added: 23 Mar 2012
GERRY ROSLIE OF THE SONICS INTERVIEWED (2012): The noise of the Pacific Northwest
In Seattle's Experience Music Project – a music and sci-fi museum funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen who is a massive Hendrix fan – there is, aside from a breathtaking Hendrix display of course, a large section devoted to the music which roared out of the Pacific Northwest region from the late Fifties and early Sixties. Bands like the Kingsmen (with Louie Louie), the... more >>
Added: 22 Mar 2012
JAY FARRAR INTERVIEWED (2012): Raising the spirit of Guthrie again
You could almost make the case that the music and life of Woody Guthrie had become better known in the past two decades than it was at the time of his death in 1967. Certainly in the very early Sixties when Bob Dylan was borrowing heavily from Guthrie's speak-sing folk style, his name was out there, and folkies in particular have always held him in particular reverence. But put aside... more >>
Added: 19 Mar 2012 2 Comments
PULP REISSUED (2012): Portrait of the Jarvis as a young knobhead
When the Sheffield band Pulp gate-crashed the relentlessly jingoistic and self-aggrandising Britpop party in '95 with their single Common People, they were hardly a new band. The Different Class album which that cynical, emotionally detached and pointed single anticipated was their fifth, and in some form or other – always around singer-songwriter Jarvis Cocker – they had... more >>
Added: 16 Mar 2012
BOB SEGER RECONSIDERED (2012): Rock and roll should never forget him
If he hadn't had a fear of flying -- and Bruce Springsteen hadn't come on so strong in the Seventies -- Bob Seger out of the Detroit area would have been the great working class rock'n'roll hero. He came from that world: After his dad left when he was 11, Bob -- with his mum and brother -- found himself in a single bedroom flat; later he worked three jobs, started playing in bands for... more >>
Added: 12 Mar 2012 2 Comments
ROKY ERICKSON INTERVIEWED (2012): Calling occupants of interplanetary craft . . .
Compared to Roky Erickson, Syd Barrett – who checked out of Pink Floyd and reality in the late Sixties -- had it easy. Where Barrett took enormous amounts of LSD, spun out and stayed in the house for most of the following four decades, Erickson did the hard time. After enjoying the first wave of success with 13th Floor Elevators when their classic garageband single You're Gonna... more >>
Added: 5 Mar 2012 1 Comment
DIANA ROSS, COMING OUT IN '80: From soul-pop princess to Chic dancefloor diva
By the late Seventies, Diana Ross had put almost two decades of Motown soul-pop and various dress-up personae behind her. She'd been the pop princess decked out in eye-liner and increasingly chic'n'slender dresses in the Supremes hit machine, had pushed her name out front so they became "Diana Ross and the Supremes" and then, with the help of her lover and Motown boss, Berry Gordy... more >>
Added: 2 Mar 2012 3 Comments
DOUG JEREBINE INTERVIEWED (2012): The distant light that shines again
Doug Jerebine sounds both amused and detached about the fact that two days in a London recording studio some 42 years ago have now thrown him into the spotlight. At 67, and with almost four decades in the Krsna movement as a teacher and respected translator between those two days and now, he hardy sounds like the long-haired young man on the cover of the newly released album... more >>
Added: 27 Feb 2012 3 Comments
NEW ORDER REISSUED AND RECONSIDERED (2012): Dreams never end . . .
Few bands can survive loss of a lead singer who has been the focal point. Even fewer can reinvent themselves. Genesis did when Peter Gabriel quit after The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway and Phil Collins stepped out from behind the drum kit, and Pink Floyd morphed into another form after Syd Barrett checked out of reality . . . and again when Roger Waters went into a solo career. To his... more >>
Added: 24 Feb 2012 1 Comment
ROD STEWART, STORYTELLER: The easy case for the defense
It was always easy for me to forgive Rod Stewart his excesses and mistakes. His graduation from soulful r’n’b singer through frontman impersonations with the boys-night-out Faces band and into a solo career was a pleasure to watch. When he wasn’t being entertaining, he was tearing your heart out with his singularly sandpapery voice. And when he took his... more >>
Added: 22 Feb 2012 3 Comments
BADFINGER (1968-73): The shop-soiled Apple band
There are two stories every young musician should read, the first is obvious. The Beatles story is full of magic and coincidence; McCartney's meeting with a drunk Lennon, Harrison getting in by playing Raunchy to them while on a bus, the Hamburg days and the death of Stu Sutcliffe, the firing of Pete Best and Ringo entering just before they went into the studio, the touring and madness,... more >>
Added: 20 Feb 2012
ALABAMA 3 INTERVIEWED (2012): Pills'n'Thrills and country heartaches
On paper, it doesn't work no matter which way you look at it. A sound which brings together techno-dance beats with American country music and upbeat hand-clap gospel? If you tried to sell it as a concept you'd be turned down at every corner, as Alabama 3 out of Brixton in London were by big American record companies like Sony and Geffen. “Someone told me, 'You cannot mention... more >>
Added: 13 Feb 2012
THE LOUVIN BROTHERS, SATAN IS REAL, 1959: A slow waltz with the devil
It's not strictly true that “You can't judge a book by its cover”. If the title is Sex, Strippers and Sleaze and the photo is of naked people cavorting in a dungeon then you can probably guess it isn't essays on the life of St Francis. Okay, that's not exactly judging, but you get the point. Similarly with album covers. Gothic lettering, umlauts and a devil's head tend... more >>
Added: 13 Feb 2012
THE SHARP SARACENO AND THE MYSTERIOUS MARKETTS: Tales from the farce side
After the accountants took over what used to be called the entertainment business, there was less room for "real characters". Perhaps it was a good thing to get the Mafia out of the music business (for that story you should read Tommy James' autobiography Me, the Mob and the Music), but those larger than life people -- cigar chomping, money juggling and often opportunists at the... more >>
Added: 3 Feb 2012
THE DOORS; LA WOMAN, 1971: Four decades gone, the big beat goes on
On record at least, the Doors career began and ended well. Their self-titled debut album of early '67 arrived in the same year as any number of striking first outings (Hendrix, the Velvet Underground, Country Joe and the Fish, Moby Grape etc) and classic albums (Cream's Disraeli Gears, the Beatles Sgt Peppers). And in this company, the Doors' dark and poetic music stood apart as owing... more >>
Added: 27 Jan 2012
STEPHEN STILLS INTERVIEWED (2012): He's a real everywhere man
Few musicians can claim to have played at the three defining musical festivals of the Sixties. But a few, very few, were on stage at all of them. One of them was in Buffalo Springfield at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 which launched the peace'n'love era, and with Crosby, Stills and Nash at Woodstock in mid 69 which was the zenith of the era (CS&N's second concert). And he was... more >>
Added: 23 Jan 2012 1 Comment
JOHN DENSMORE INTERVIEWED (2012): Re-opening the Doors four decades on
When it came to watching the rapid decline of Jim Morrison – and the Doors' once promising career being relentlessly dragged down with him -- John Densmore had the best seat in the house. From his drum stool he saw it all – from the thrilled and awe-struck audiences as the handsome and sexually electric Morrison in leathers delivering his rock poetics through to the... more >>
Added: 23 Jan 2012 2 Comments
