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ORNETTE COLEMAN, LOVE REVOLUTION 1968: The Italian job
I thought I knew all about Ornette Coleman, a man nominally described as a jazz musician but among the most unconstrained musical geniuses of the 20th century. I’ve got a couple of dozen Coleman albums on vinyl and at least that many CDs. I’ve got bootlegs and biographies, and a photo of Ornette and me on a couch in a New York loft taken when I interviewed him in ‘96.... more >>
Added: 20 Jan 08
NEW ZEALAND'S iiii LABEL: 20/20 vision into the past (2007)
In a remarkably short period in the mid 80s, maybe 18 months, Wellington’s Braille label released a swag of albums -- I have eight, there may have been more -- which were nominally “left-field improv”. There was a bit of free jazz, some faux-Dixieland and assaults on jazz standards, and too many unmemorable originals which noodled around to no great effect. Braille’... more >>
Added: 20 Jan 08
WYNTON MARSALIS, FROM THE PLANTATION TO THE PENITENTIARY: Wynton in the 21st century
Only a few jazz musicians have actually changed the course of the music: Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis (twice, maybe three times) and Ornette Coleman undeniably reset the compass -- and Wynton Marsalis certainly did. However many would qualify Wynton with, “but not in a good way”. The trumpeter from New Orleans broke... more >>
Added: 20 Jan 08
CHARMAINE NEVILLE INTERVIEWED (2000): Who's in a name?
Sometimes, as with those Lennon children Sean and Julian, and of course Bob Marley's offspring, you just have to live -- sometimes live up to -- with the name you've been bron into. A help . . . but a hindrance no doubt. Yes, the name was an issue when she started, says singer Charmaine Neville, daughter of Neville Brothers' saxophonist Charles and one of the... more >>
Added: 20 Jan 08
JOHN MARTYN'S 1980 ALBUM GRACE AND DANGER: How can you mend a broken heart?
Like his peer Richard Thompson, with whom he sometimes recorded, Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist Martyn came from a folk background in the mid 60s then incorporate rock gestures into his playing. Unlike Thompson however he also explored jazz deeply and so his guitar playing has a kind of free-ranging, adventurous sound that is rare. Again like Thompson though he worked with... more >>
Added: 17 Jan 08
SPEAKING WITH SULU: STAR TREK'S GEORGE TAKEI INTERVIEWED (2004)
George Takei - "it rhymes with okay" - began his career with a minor role as a crew member on the USS Enterprise. But Star Trek became a cult hit and Takei, as Mr Sulu, a star. Since then he has been in dozens of sitcoms, tele-series, movies and theatrical productions, and is involved in civic and political causes. Are you keeping well? Are you worried for me? I am hale and... more >>
Added: 3 Dec 07
PAUL McCARTNEY GOES CLASSICAL (1993): An oratorio for everyman
Around the time of his 50th birthday in June last year, Paul McCartney could have -- if he so chose -- picked up a couple of mainstream British newspapers and read editorials and think pieces suggesting that this former Beatle be made a knight of the realm. And why not? James Paul McCartney is undeniably Britain’s most popular living composer and, as the writers pointed out,... more >>
Added: 20 Nov 07
THE BEACH BOYS' BRIAN WILSON INTERVIEWED: Heroes and Villains
The city is melting by mid-morning. One of the newspapers - under the thumping headline "Blast Furnace" - says the Met Office is predicting the hottest day of the month: a withering 42C. Summer is scorching its way to town, so Sydney responds with shirts off and shorts on. And by coincidence the soundtrack beneath the hiss of bus brakes and rattle of trams around Circular... more >>
Added: 7 Nov 07
THE BEACH BOYS' MIKE LOVE INTERVIEWED (2007, and concert review): Hang on to Your Ego
It is a rare individual who can claim that the Beatles sang “happy birthday” to him. But then Mike Love -- the Beach Boy who keeps their early surf songs alive today -- is a rare man indeed. Now 66, Love can reflect on a life in popular music that began with 60s pop capturing the breezy vibe of southern California, but which became somewhat darker as the decade rolled on.... more >>
Added: 2 Nov 07
THE ROLLING STONES, AN ESSAY: Living in Memory Motel
If memory serves me still, it was schoolmate Chris Gilbert and I who went to see the Stones together at Auckland's Civic Theatre on March 1, 1966. I know I wore a black polo-necked sweater (of the kind that Stones Brian Jones and Keith Richard favoured), and that the show, while not actually changing my life, had a profound --and not entirely favourable -- effect on me.Even as a spotty... more >>
Added: 20 Oct 07
JOHNNY CASH REMEMBERED 2006: Solitary, and singular, man
The last photographs of Johnny Cash told their own story: the thinning grey hair, the once tough jaw bent out of shape by years of painful dental surgery, the lines which spoke of a world-weariness. And the ineffable sadness in those dark eyes as if he was looking into the beyond where he would once again be with his wife June, who died just nine weeks before Johnny passed on in September... more >>
Added: 20 Oct 07
IGGY POP AND THE STOOGES, AGAIN: Loud, fast and out of control
A few years ago, a cartoon in a rock magazine captured the essence of the Stooges. It showed a guy in headphones whose head had exploded and his friend in the other room saying over his shoulder, "So what do you think of the remastered version of Raw Power?" The Stooges, fronted by Iggy Pop, delivered that kind of sonic intensity on albums like their drug-addled, self-titled debut in... more >>
Added: 20 Oct 07
JOHN CALE INTERVIEWED (2005): Flipping the Velvet
At the end of a digressive conversation with John Cale, I thank him for his time then add, "and I didn't even mention The Other Band". Cale -- Welsh, classically trained and fiercely intellectual -- lets go a baritone chuckle and says, "and thank you" -- then makes his escape, as if fearing inevitable questions about it may come. The Other Band was The Velvet Underground.... more >>
Added: 20 Oct 07
THE ROLLING STONES LIVE IN CHICAGO (2002): Men of Stone
From the back row of Chicago's United Centre, about four storeys above the stage, Mick Jagger - not the biggest of men anyway - is the size of a matchstick held at arm's length.But even without his roadmap features projected on the screen behind him, this is undeniable Mick. He struts'n'thrusts across the stage and still possesses that animal sexuality he learned from watching Tina Turner... more >>
Added: 20 Oct 07
JOHN FOGERTY INTERVIEWED (2005): The Long Road Home
In an airless room backstage at the Brisbane Entertainment Centre after the concert, Australian promoter and entrepreneur Michael Gudinski is buzzing. "Wasn't that bloody fantastic?" he says to no one in particular. "I want that set list," and he reaches for his phone. Minutes later a guy appears at the door with it. Gudinski scans the 20 or so songs then says, "Only... more >>
Added: 13 Oct 07
BLUE NOTE'S BRUCE LUNDVALL INTERVIEWED (2005). Riding high on a Blue Note
The most powerful man in jazz sits in his office six floors above Fifth Avenue, New York. He's smiling. Business is good. Bruce Lundvall -- who began his career at Columbia Records with a hip young Miles Davis -- has been heading the famous Blue Note jazz label for 20 years. And recently business just got better. Why? In a word, “Norah". Founded by Alfred Lion and Frank Wolff... more >>
Added: 20 Aug 07
BOB DYLAN, AND DA PENNEBAKER INTERVIEWED (2007). Looking back on Bob
Fortysomething years ago the New York filmmaker DA Pennebaker received an offer he couldn’t refuse -- and which would subsequently define the genre of rock documentaries, rockumentaries if you will. The phone call came from Albert Grossman, the most important manager in music at the time after the Beatles’ Brian Epstein. Grossman -- who later managed Janis Joplin, Todd Rundgren... more >>
Added: 19 Aug 07
STEVIE NICKS OF FLEETWOOD MAC INTERVIEWED (2006): Actually, not such a gypsy queen
Stevie Nicks -- the fairie queen singer in Fleetwood Mac -- is in a plush Melbourne hotel room ready to go off to another soundcheck. In a few days she will perform her ethereal songs with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, but "the waiting" -- as her old friend Tom Petty once offered, and with whom she sang on the memorable Stop Draggin' My Hear Around-- is "the hardest... more >>
Added: 17 Aug 07
DAVID CROSBY AND STEPHEN STILLS INTERVIEWED (2007): Survivors' stories
The life of 65-year old David Crosby is an open book. In fact, it is two open books. In the late 80s Crosby wrote his autobiography Long Time Gone which, in compelling detail, outlined his career from a Greenwich Village folk singer to being a founding member of the Byrds, his friendships with the Beatles and Bob Dylan, being fired from the Byrds and forming Crosby, Still and Nash... more >>
Added: 14 Aug 07
JIMMY WEBB INTERVIEWED (2005). The songwriter's songwriter
When Jimmy Webb, one of the most sophisticated and successful songwriters of his generation, speaks of making music it is like eavesdropping on genius. And that is what he is considered to be by his peers and those who have followed his long career. Before he was 21 Webb had already written some of pop’s most enduring songs, including By The Time I Get To Phoenix (which Frank Sinatra... more >>
Added: 13 Aug 07
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