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JOHN PAUL JONES OF LED ZEPPELIN INTERVIEWED (2003): The songs remain reissued
They might have been the biggest band in the world at the time, but they were openly despised, ignored or condemned by critics. Even later, after the shouting had died and a clearer perspective was possible, Dave Marsh, one of America's most venerated rock writers, couldn't resist another attack.He damned one of their classic songs as "the most vulgar record in rock history" and... more >>
Added: 6 Feb 08
BUDDY GUY INTERVIEWED (2001): One of the last men standing
Oddly enough, this is not the best time to talk to 64-year-old bluesman Buddy Guy - despite him having released Sweet Tea, one of the finest albums in his long career.It is days after the death of his contemporary John Lee Hooker and Guy is understandably philosophical rather than keen to talk up his new album which was, uncharacteristically for this seminal figure in Chicago blues, recorded... more >>
Added: 6 Feb 08
NORAH JONES INTERVIEWED (2002 and 2003) AND ALBUM REVIEWS: Great Expectations -- and then some
Somebody up there obviously likes Norah Jones and blessed her with extraordinary good looks. Those are her cheekbones and ruby lips which have been replicated in their thousands and grace the cover of her album Come Away With Me. And just in case her looks alone weren't enough to draw attention to this 22-year-old singer/pianist, that somebody up there also blessed her with musical... more >>
Added: 6 Feb 08
BILL PAYNE OF LITTLE FEAT INTERVIEWED (2001): Feat don't fail me now
Bringing up the "famous dead member" is never easy when you are talking to a band. It can seem ghoulish, is most often unnecessary and can result in suddenly finding yourself alone in the room or that telephone tone which says you've just been hung up on, don't bother calling back. When the American band Little Feat lost their founder, main songwriter and slide guitarist Lowell... more >>
Added: 6 Feb 08
XTC's ANDY PARTRIDGE INTERVIEWED: A man in the middle ages (1999)
The last time XTC had a new album out, Oasis didn't. In fact Oasis didn't even exist back when Andy Partridge, Colin Moulding and Dave Gregory dropped their assured 1992 album Nonsuch on a world which simply looked the other way. Since then these veterans of the 70s punk-new wave wars have been on strike (their deal with Virgin ensured the company would make money, but they wouldn't) and... more >>
Added: 6 Feb 08
RANDY NEWMAN INTERVIEWED: What's the Buzz? (1999)
Randy Newman is a problem in popular culture, a man misplaced into the rock textbooks simply because there's nowhere else to put him. He's part of rock culture by association (his albums are reviewed in rock magazines) but more correctly he's an ironic, acerbic songwriter who has populated his songs with an extraordinary collection of bigots, misfits, racists and cynics for three decades.He... more >>
Added: 6 Feb 08
TIM AND JEFF BUCKLEY: Their short musical legacy (2004)
The shoreline beneath the Memphis Visitors Centre -- with its massive statues of Elvis and BB King -- isn't that appealing. There's a rocky bank scattered with litter leading down to Wolf River, a sliver of thick water between the city and Mud Island, renowned for its swirling eddies and unpredictable undercurrents. You wouldn't want to swim in dirty and dangerous Wolf River, least of all... more >>
Added: 6 Feb 08
GEORGE HARRISON: A dark horse reconsidered (2004)
This year's Oscars were unusual, and not because they recognised fantasy films, or for Nicole Kidman's bizarre shelf-bust. No, what was odd was how lacking in sentiment they were.Usually you'd expect a veteran favourite like Clint Eastwood to be recognised, or some time-server to get best supporting something. But no, what Lord of the Rings didn't win went to choices seemingly unmotivated by... more >>
Added: 6 Feb 08
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN'S TRACKS BOX SET (1998): The creation, rise and redemption of the Boss
For Bruce Springsteen -- born in the unpromisingly named town of Freehold, New Jersey, in the promised land of America -- rock 'n' roll was the redemptive force which delivered him from his working-class existence in the "20 years of schoolin' and they put you on the day shift" world Bob Dylan once sang of. Springsteen is a Horatio Alger story -- with a backbeat. But he also... more >>
Added: 5 Feb 08
BEATLES MANAGER BRIAN EPSTEIN, Behind the music (2002)
When Brian Epstein died in August 1967 at the age of 32, he was one of the most famous men in Britain. His death by an accidental overdose of prescription drugs made the front page of newspapers at home and abroad. Yet a mere five years earlier Epstein was known only to a few close friends and family in his native Liverpool where he managed a popular record shop as part of the family furniture... more >>
Added: 5 Feb 08
BEATLEMANIA IN '64: Good times and bad politics
Some photographs are deafening. Consider the images of American kids screaming at the Beatles in late 1964. Even now, more than four decades later, those who remember the times or have seen the footage will hear an inexplicable noise as if it were alive and ear-shattering right now. Beatlemania from this historical distance -- a world of moshpits, gangsta rap killings and bellicose... more >>
Added: 5 Feb 08
GEORGE HARRISON'S POSTHUMOUS ALBUM BRAINWASHED REVIEWED: Within You and now Without You (2002)
The problem with music released after an artist's death is that sentiment tends to overwhelm any cooler assessment of the work in hand. When Elvis died, his mediocre single Way Down was suddenly propelled to the top of the charts. And only a Lennon devotee could argue that his Double Fantasy album was worthy of its number one slot in late 1980. Being shot doubtless had something to do with... more >>
Added: 5 Feb 08 
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STEVE EARLE INTERVIEWS (2004, 2002): A hero on the homefront . . . and relevant album reviews
By 2004, Steve Earle could reflect on a career and life which had been one of the most extraordinary in American music. He crashed into country music with his 1986 classic rockin' country album Guitar Town then spun through a drug-fuelled downward spiral which earned him a prison term in the early 90s. He emerged a stronger man, vocal advocate of free speech persuasively arguing against... more >>
Added: 5 Feb 08
THE BEATLES IN NEW ZEALAND 1964: Screaming and cynicism
As the saying goes, the past is another country - -often a pretty innocent one, and certainly cheaper. That's why many people prefer to live there.Roll the clock back to over 40 years ago, and look around: a National Government led by Keith Holyoake; the All Blacks back home from a successful tour of France and Britain; Brass Band Parade on 1ZB on a Sunday morning and black'n'white... more >>
Added: 5 Feb 08
PATTI SMITH INTERVIEWED AND REVIEWED. On the road again (1998) And album reviews (2004, 2007)
The first phone call to Patti Smith at home in New York catches her weary and breathless. She's apologetic but disarmingly courteous. It's been quite a few years since I've been called "sir" and never, that I recall, by someone from rock'n'roll culture. But it is also an inconvenient time to talk she says. She's been working all day, it's now 5.30 pm and she wants to do... more >>
Added: 5 Feb 08
PAUL SIMON INTERVIEWED (2000) The Attraction of Opposites
Paul Simon calls from New York 15 minutes early, polite and apologetic. He needs to put the kids to bed -- his three children aged 7, 5 and 2 with his third wife, 34-year-old singer-songwriter Edie Brickell -- and read them stories. Could he call back in maybe an hour and a quarter?And, as you might expect from the man's almost obsessive, meticulously crafted music, punctually 75 minutes... more >>
Added: 5 Feb 08
SOLOMON BURKE INTERVIEWED (2002): The rock'n'soul preacherman
Just exactly when soul music disappeared off radio and out of people's consciousness is hard to pinpoint. Soul - born in the church and taken to the street by Ray Charles, Marvin Gaye, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke and many others in the 60s -- simply evaporated by the early 70s.Marvin, Otis and Sam were gone, and some say the golden age ended in April '68 with the murder of Martin Luther King. It... more >>
Added: 5 Feb 08
YOKO ONO INTERVIEWED, THE TOURING LENNON ART EXHIBITION (1997) In his own draw
For anyone who has only experienced her singing -- which slews wildly between a visceral scream of anguish and an orgasmic howl -- Yoko Ono’s remarkably quiet speaking voice, barely above a whisper, comes as a surprise. And this week as she talks about art and music from her home in New York it is aggravated by a cold and initially reduced to being almost inaudible. “I’ll... more >>
Added: 5 Feb 08
BOB DYLAN at 60: The road goes on forever (2001)
The guitarist G. E. Smith must have great stories to tell. For a little over two years in the late 80s he was, for want a better description, Bob Dylan's band leader.During those difficult years when Dylan was emotionally adrift, Smith would audition players and introduce them to a repertoire of well over 100 songs, and replace members as some inevitably dropped out or Dylan would obliquely... more >>
Added: 2 Feb 08
TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS: RUNNIN' DOWN A DREAM DVD REVIEWED (2008)
The American actor/director Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon etc and Dr Melfi's psychotherapist in The Sopranos) seems an unusual figure to be behind this four-hour doco of the 30-year career of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.Unlike Martin Scorsese who did the similarly-lengthed Dylan doco No Direction Home, Bogdanovich hasn't really shown much interest in the contemporary... more >>
Added: 1 Feb 08
