Absolute Elsewhere
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THE STEVE MILLER BAND (2012): The space cowboy taking flight
30 Nov 2012 | 6 min read
In rock'n'roll call of great West Coast bands in the late Sixties -- from the Airplane and Big Brother to the Youngbloods and Zappa's Mothers -- one name is almost consistently ignored: the Steve Miller Band out of San Francisco. Yet well before they broke through with the famous hit The Joker in '73 ("some people call me the space cowboy . . .") they had been playing blues-based... > Read more
Going to Mexico
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KENNEY JONES, SMALL FACES, FACES AND WHO, INTERVIEWED (2012): Living in the afterglow
25 Nov 2012 | 10 min read
Kenney Jones has had a busy time of it lately. The former member of the Small Faces and then the Faces (with Rod Stewart and current Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood) was inducted into the Hall of Fame in April, has overseen the remastering and reissue of the Small Faces' albums -- which includes a double disc version of their semi-classic Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake -- and been actively involved in... > Read more
Song of a Baker
ROB ST JOHN PROFILED (2012): A voice from the North
21 Nov 2012 | 2 min read
Variously described as "new folk", "alt.folk, "a troubadour" and likened to both Nick Cave and Nick Drake, Rob St John -- born in Lancashire, longtime musician in Edinburgh and latterly of Oxford -- is also a noted writer on ecological and environmental matters. But it is his dark folk, especially that on his debut album Weald released a year ago -- which evokes... > Read more
Sargasso Sea
LED ZEPPELIN, CELEBRATION DAY (2012): Bring the noise
20 Nov 2012 | 2 min read
When the surviving members of Led Zeppelin – singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist/keyboard player John Paul Jones – gathered in London recently there were two items on the agenda. The first was the launch of Celebration Day -- the DVD/Blu-ray/double CD of their December 2007 reunion concert -- but the second was that question which dogged the solo Beatles... > Read more
Kashmir
LED ZEPPELIN REVISITED (2012): A celebration of excess
16 Nov 2012 | 3 min read | 1
Recently I played Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love at high volume through very large speakers. Nothing unusual I suppose, except it was to university students, none of them pursuing a music degree, Maybe only a dozen out of the 150 had heard it before. Fair enough, it came out over 40 years ago – about two decades before most were born – and it doesn't get airplay beyond... > Read more
Whole Lotta Love
NUGGETS AT 40 (2012): We are the young Americans . . .
15 Nov 2012 | 1 min read
In a year which tripped over itself with anniversaries (the Stones' half century, 45 years since the Velvets' debut and 35 for the Sex Pistols' Bollocks), most of the inevitable reissues played the nostalgia card. But one stands out as different. Forty years ago Lenny Kaye -- later guitarist in Patti Smith's band – compiled the double-vinyl album Nuggets; Original Artyfacts... > Read more
Hey Joe
JOHN MARTYN'S 1980 ALBUM GRACE AND DANGER: How can you mend a broken heart?
14 Nov 2012 | 2 min read
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... > Read more
Some People Are Crazy, first version, from the bonus disc (1980)
JOHN CALE ON GETTING NOOKIE (2012): Music for another new society
12 Nov 2012 | 4 min read
In the current issue of Britain's Mojo magazine there is an interview with John Cale, artist-without-portfolio and one of the most interesting musicians of the past half century, and more. In his capacity for reinvention and shapeshifting, Cale is on an equal footing with Bowie and Madonna . . . so it was understandable the Mojo interviewer might sidestep the customary career... > Read more
Vampire Cafe
VELVET UNDERGROUND REPACKAGED (2012): Some velvet morning when I'm rich
10 Nov 2012 | 3 min read | 2
So how long was that debut album by Velvet Underground, the one with Nico and in Andy Warhol's banana cover? Two sides of vinyl so about, what, 35 minutes? Sounds right. Well it has just been reissued in a collector's edition 45th anniversary box set and it is six – yep, count 'em -- six CDs. Okay they've cheated by adding in Nico's first solo album Chelsea Girls (good... > Read more
John Cale and Lou Reed
JEFF LYNNE AND ELO (2012): The re-electrification programme
6 Nov 2012 | 2 min read | 1
When identifying a cheap Suzanne Vega double disc as a Bargain Buy recently, it was noted what she has been up to in recent years since her profile dropped below the low water mark. In effect she has been re-recording her fairly extensive catalogue and presented themed albums. Interesting. And the recent double CD of material by Roy Wood -- once of the Move, Electric Light Orchestra... > Read more
Smile
JACQUES BREL PROFILED: Seasons in, and out of, the sun
2 Nov 2012 | 4 min read
Jacques Brel is alive and well and living in ... Well, back in his hometown of Brussels, funnily enough. This is odd because Brel (1929-78) was ambivalent about Brussels. "Everyone has to come from somewhere," he would sardonically remark. And Brussels has often seemed a bit iffy about him. The great singer-songwriter, who made his home in Paris, called one of his daughters... > Read more
L'amour est morte
OTIS BLACKWELL REMEMBERED (2012): Mr Otis, no regrets
28 Oct 2012 | 3 min read
When Otis Blackwell died in May 2002 in his adopted hometown of Nashville -- the songwriter's city -- the tributes followed, and rightly so. He might not have been inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame until 2010, but Blackwell's songs have been part of the DNA of rock music since the mid Fifties when he -- a black kid from New York who loved cowboy songs and was encouraged to write by... > Read more
One Broken Heart For Sale
THE BEE GEE STILL STANDING (2012): Hits and Mythology
26 Oct 2012 | 3 min read | 2
Few people who know anything about the Bee Gees can't help be struck by the sad irony that Barry Gibb -- now 66 -- is the last man standing. He's suffered crippling and painful arthritis for many years -- he was visibly stiff at a Western Springs concert in 2000, over a decade ago -- but most recently he has buried his younger twin brothers Maurice and Robin, and back in '88 his youngest... > Read more
Spirits Having Flown
MATTHEW SWEET RECALLED (2012): The power and sour of Sweet
22 Oct 2012 | 3 min read | 1
In the past few years when the American singer, songwriter and stunning guitarist Matthew Sweet received a bit of publicity, his longtime fans -- oddly enough -- were disappointed. Not that Sweet's fans – unlike indie.cult people and DJs with rare grooves – want to keep the good news to ourselves. But Sweet was getting attention for albums with former Bangle Susannah... > Read more
Someone to Pull the Trigger
BOOTLEG BEATLE INTERVIEWED (2012): By Andre, it's George!
18 Oct 2012 | 12 min read | 1
It must have been unnerving for Andre Barreau when, at a party in 1996, he came face-to-face with the man he had been impersonating for a decade and half. He'd earned money off the man's music and image . . . and he is still doing it today. For the past 32 years Andre Barreau -- now 52 -- has traveled the world playing the part of another man, and for more than 11 years that man has been... > Read more
R.E.M. DOCUMENT REISSUED (2012): The times they were a-changin'
17 Oct 2012 | 3 min read
On paper, Scott Litt seemed an unlikely choice as co-producer of REM's 1987 album Document. The band were poised to make the great leap forward after the success of Lifes Rich Pageant of the previous year and Litt's credentials, while more than decent, weren't massively impressive. He had produced the dB's Repercussion (which hardly anyone heard) and worked with Sylvain... > Read more
Disturbance at the Heron House
THE FACES ANTHOLOGY (2012): A Rod's as Good as a Drink
12 Oct 2012 | 2 min read
Making records wasn't the point of the Faces – aka just “Faces” – although they delivered four albums in the five years to 1975. Certainly Rolling Stone critic Jon Landau thought so when, in '72, he dismissed their A Nod is As Good As A Wink saying that on his parallel solo albums singer Rod Stewart pulled everyone up to his level, but with the Faces he brought... > Read more
As Long As You Tell Him
VANGUARD RECORDS IN THE SIXTIES (2012): The label out in front
10 Oct 2012 | 4 min read
In the mid Sixties and beyond, the World Record Club in New Zealand -- which distributed albums for major labels and posted them to you -- had a smart sales technique which hooked in many, myself included. Without going into exact details it went something like this. For a nominal fee (about the equivalent of $5 today) you joined the club and got three albums of your choice from their... > Read more
Ball and Chain
THE SEX PISTOLS, AND BEYOND (2012): No future but plenty of past
8 Oct 2012 | 3 min read | 1
Given the Sex Pistol's flashpoint album Never Mind the Bollocks came to define punk for many, it's interesting it actually came late in the day. By the time of its release in October 77, the Ramones – an inspiration for various young Pistols, Clash, Damned, Chrissie Hynde and others when they played in London in July 76 -- had already released two albums and even the Damned, Jam... > Read more
Bodies (live)
TOY LOVE REVISITED, AGAIN (2012): World famous in New Zealand
4 Oct 2012 | 2 min read
Few short-lived bands in New Zealand, indeed anywhere, have inspired such fierce loyalty and undiminished devotion as Toy Love. Their career lasted little more than 18 months from the close of the Seventies – and a large measure of that was worked out in Australia – but in that brief, incendiary time they seared themselves into the consciousness of anyone who saw them.... > Read more