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JORDAN REYNE INTERVIEWED (2009): Tales from the dark side
Jordan Reyne is one of New Zealand’s most challenging and innovative songwriters. Whether it be on albums under her own name or as Dr Kervorkian and the Suicide Machine, Reyne has pushed sonic and lyrical boundaries, pulled together electronica and acoustic instruments, explored noir-narratives and personal emotional states . . . and largely gone without an audience. Which... more >>
Added: 22 Oct 09
JUDEE SILL (1944-79): The disappearing crayon angel
There seem an alarming number of women musicians written out of popular culture: Doris Troy, Minnie Ripperton, Laura Nyro, Judy Henske, Mireille Mathieu, folk-rocker Cindy Lee Berryhill . . . And who these days even cites Janis Joplin either as an influence, or simply as someone worthy of serious critical or popular attention? These (and dozens of others) were all women who made, if... more >>
Added: 18 Oct 09 
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THE FLAMING LIPS' WAYNE COYNE INTERVIEWED (2004): In search of the miraculous
Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips is in his kitchen in Oklahoma City saying he likes that rock'n'roll is a broad church. It allows alternative music to co-exist with MTV and pop radio. "I don't want the world to be just made up of music like the Flaming Lips, White Stripes and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. I like that rock'n'roll is an uncontrollable beast throwing away great artists and celebrating... more >>
Added: 17 Oct 09
GREG JOHNSON INTERVIEWED (2009): The song, not the singer
The first call catches Greg Johnson and his wife Kelli somewhere in the empty landscape of Texas heading for Shreveport, Louisiana with a fuel gauge hovering near “Empty”. “We’re looking for gas at the moment,” he says slightly anxiously, and there follows a brief and fraught discussion in the front seat. They are turning back rather than run out of petrol.... more >>
Added: 16 Oct 09
BIG STAR: The Great Lost American Pop Band - found!
The reputation and influence of some artists far outstrips their sales figures. Dylan – even at his various peaks – was hardly shipping out albums by the crate load and Van Morrison’s seminal/essential/classic (pick your own adjective) Astral Weeks clocked up sales of only a quarter of a million copies in the States. The trickle-down of the Sex Pistols and Velvet... more >>
Added: 13 Oct 09
J. MASCIS INTERVIEWED, AND CONCERT REVIEW (2003): No time for talking
J. Mascis is the Silent Bob of rock. Look at any of the few interviews on the internet and you can see large blocks of type (the question) followed by a paltry line or two (the closed answer which seldom allows for a follow-up). Mascis, once of Dinosaur Jr and now out on a solo career with the occasional band The Fog, is a man of formidably few words. Judge for yourself from this... more >>
Added: 12 Oct 09
LOU BARLOW INTERVIEWED (2003): Dinosaur walking again
As a cruel ploy it was also kind of funny. When guitarist J. Mascis and bassist Lou Barlow in Dinosaur Jr got to the point that they couldn't even talk to each other, the end was inevitable. They'd had a good few years, but in 1989 Mascis told Barlow he was breaking up the band. The following day he reformed it -- without Barlow. Barlow was miffed, to put it mildly (his song The Freed... more >>
Added: 12 Oct 09
RADIO BIRDMAN REMEMBERED: Detroit rock'n'roll . . . . outta Sydney, Australia
Radio Birdman were one of the great Detroit rock bands, except they came from Sydney. Inspired by the Stooges and MC5, they blasted out of Australia in the pre-punk Seventies in one of those short, fast flights that would end in legend or obscurity. They managed to achieve both. Most people have never heard of them let alone their sonic boom thrash-pop, but the few who did became... more >>
Added: 5 Oct 09
RY COODER INTERVIEWED (2009): Dry, wry and moving right along
Ry Cooder -- if a slightly flinty 15 minute conversation with someone who rarely gives interviews suggests -- gives the clear impression of someone who doesn’t like to waste his time. His answers can sound abrupt, he barely laughs even when he makes a mild joke, and bristles at some questions. The other problem in talking with Cooder is simply this: at 62 he has such a long... more >>
Added: 5 Oct 09 2 Comments
NICK LOWE INTERVIEWED (2009): As times go by
It is one of the ironies of Nick Lowe’s life that -- despite producing the first three Elvis Costello albums, the success of his solo debut Jesus of Cool in ‘78 (retitled Pure Pop for Now People in the more sensitive American market), being in the dream team with Cooder and drummer Jim Keltner on the exceptional John Hiatt album Bring the Family in ‘87 and having delivered a... more >>
Added: 5 Oct 09
TIM FINN, A TIMELINE (2009): A solo, and sometimes solitary, man
Tim Finn is one of New Zealand's most gifted songwriters. If his long catalogue sometimes lacks the easy pop-rock polish of those songs by his brother Neil (with whom he has frequently written and played) or the sentimentality of Dave Dobbyn's more recent output, that is only to say Tim has gone his own way. From the idiosyncratic and innovative songs with Split Enz through a series... more >>
Added: 24 Sep 09
NELLY OMAR: The restless soul of Argentina
Sometimes it is possible to feel some sympathy for the aging Rolling Stones, and not because they are aging -- but because that has become an issue. It must be extremely tedious for Jagger, Richards, Watts and Wood to see in just about every article written their ages added up to some collective number, as if that had something to do with their ability to make music. In many cultures... more >>
Added: 21 Sep 09
PAUL McCARTNEY'S SOLO CAREER, PART FOUR, 2000 - 2010: Here, there and everywhere
For a man pronounced dead by radio DJs back in the late Sixties, Paul McCartney (or his doppelganger) has has a long and productive life. And musically diverse, as the Nineties proved: classical, pop-rock, balls-out rock'n'roll, acoustic sets, experimental electronica . . . Not a bad track record late in a long career. And in the new millennium he showed no signs of slowing down, either on... more >>
Added: 12 Sep 09
MURRAY McNABB'S ASTRAL SURFERS ALBUM (2009): Keyboardist . . . to the stars
Long experience and years of disappointment have taught me that very few among this country’s more established jazz musicians listen to much beyond their own doorstep or record collection. Standards rule, okay? Perhaps if you’d been at it for as long as these musicians -- with the so few rewards, financial or by way of public interest -- you too might retreat into yourself and... more >>
Added: 11 Sep 09
THE BEATLES' ABBEY ROAD IN 2009: A classic from the cover on in
Four decades ago the Beatles released Abbey Road, the album that marked the end of their career even though the inferior Let It Be would appear later, a sad coda to decade which they defined. Producer George Martin loved Abbey Road and considered it “Sgt Pepper, Mark II . . . it was innovatory but in a controlled way, unlike The Beatles and Let It Be which were a little beyond... more >>
Added: 4 Sep 09 1 Comment
PAUL McCARTNEY'S SOLO CAREER, PART THREE, 1990-2000: Classical, pop and what else ya got?
If McCartney closed his Eighties on a real high -- a massively successful world tour which won critical accolades and pulled in huge gate-takings -- it would seem he was back in top, rocking form. Not bad for someone who was perilously close to 50. By 1990 he had been two decades out of the Beatles and had behind him more than a dozen solo albums (or with Wings) to draw on in concert. That... more >>
Added: 4 Sep 09
THE BEATLES ROCK BAND 2009: One, two, a-one-two-three-faaa
It is one of the many ironies of the Beatles Remastered project (which I have noted in this Listener article) is that these albums might not have even come out at this time were it not for the Beatles Rock Band interactive game. The remasters were finished some years ago and have been sitting around waiting for . . .? Some kind of marketing tie-in, the go-ahead from the remaining Beatles... more >>
Added: 4 Sep 09
THE BEATLES REMASTERED, 2009 (EMI): Here, there and everywhere
The story behind the extensive and long overdue remastering of the most important music catalogue in pop has been well canvassed. Indeed, I have written this, a Listener article, Getting Better based on my experience of listening through to a large sampling of tracks while in Abbey Road in June. What that article doesn't address is the music itself. From "I want to hold... more >>
Added: 31 Aug 09
THE BEATLES AFTER THE REMASTERS (2009): And in the end . . .
So are the remastered Beatle albums released on 09/09/09 ("number nine, number nine, number") the full-stop on a career which ended almost four decades ago? Maybe not. While at Abbey Road in June listening to the playback of some of these tracks (about which I wrote this article in the New Zealand Listener), it seemed natural to ask engineers Allan Rouse and Steve Rooke --... more >>
Added: 31 Aug 09 5 Comments
PAUL McCARTNEY'S SOLO CAREER, PART TWO, 1980-90: Adrift in the Eighties
Paul McCartney closed the Seventies much as he had started it: with the low-key self-titled album McCartney II which deliberately tried to downplay expectation and evoke the charm of his debut solo album McCartney in 1970. Quite where he might have gone after that was an open book, but the decade had been one of diminishing musical returns after the excellent Ram in 1972, the runaway... more >>
Added: 30 Aug 09
