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LOU REED AND PATTI SMITH IN THE 21ST CENTURY: Patent pending
When those archetypal New Yorkers Lou Reed and Patti Smith both released albums in the early days of 2000, it allowed anyone still interested in their careers the chance to consider their relative positions as they entered a new decade -- in fact a new century -- about 25 years (and more) on from their career defining best work. Neither of them seemed especially interested in what we might... more >>
Added: 15 Feb 10
A RHYTHM AND BLUES TIMELINE 1900 - 1960
Here follows a broad outline of the growth and development of rhythm and blues, courtesy of Rhythm and Blues Records in the UK, a company which specialises in this music. PRE 1910 1877 Invention of the Phonograph 1883 Racist coon songs introduced into vaudeville and burlesque 1896 Jim Crow Segregation laws 1897 World’s first radio station on the... more >>
Added: 12 Feb 10 
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EVAN DANDO OF THE LEMONHEADS INTERVIEWED (2004): Learning to crawl
You know how the arc of fame moves in the States: you have a minor career in rock, hip-hop or the movies so you take to drink, drugs or become addicted to pain-killers. (Who knew there was that much lower back pain in success?) Then you spin out of control. You do silly things such as marrying in Las Vegas to someone you just met, date transvestites or punch a photographer. Then you get... more >>
Added: 1 Feb 10
JEFF KELLY AND THE GREEN PAJAMAS: The other sound of Seattle
One day, just before I went to the Pacific Northwest, I had lunch with a friend. When I told him I was going to Seattle he said, "Are you going to see Green Pajamas? I had no idea what he was talking about, I thought he meant some stage play.At this point my friend -- who has a big-time job in a major record company -- regailed me with enthusiasm about the genius of Jeff Kelly,... more >>
Added: 29 Jan 10
DANIEL JOHNSTON: In a mixed up, shook up world
Being eccentric or even downright loopy has never disqualified anyone from a career in rock culture. Indeed, some would argue being slightly off-beam is a prerequisite. Rock is littered with oddballs: acid-damaged Syd Barrett, who signed out of Pink Floyd in '68 and reality shortly after; those Fleetwood Mac guitarists who went walkabout mid-career; Brian Wilson lolling on his bed for a... more >>
Added: 24 Jan 10
LOVE IS THE SONG WE SING; SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS 1965-1970 (Rhino): Flowers and freak outs
Any box set or collection which tries to mop up an era, genre or decade is probably doomed to failure, not from lack of genuine effort but because some artists (the big ones) don't want to be included. So you can get a multiple disc, very inclusive set of the Eighties for example and it doesn't have anything by Madonna, Prince, Springsteen and Michael Jackson. That the Rhino label did such... more >>
Added: 24 Jan 10
PET ROCKS AND PUNK ROCK: Have A Nice Decade; The '70s Pop Culture Box considered
It might have been famously "the decade that taste forgot", but the Seventies has spawned an interesting nostalgia for smiley faces (on e-mails!), terrific films such as Dazed and Confused . . . and this extraordinary box set of seven CDs which unflinchingly collects up the great (James Brown's The Payback, Freda Payne's Band of Gold and Gladys Knight and the Pips' Midnight Train to... more >>
Added: 17 Jan 10
PETE HAM OF BADFINGER: Take a sad song and make it sadder
Put simply: Pete Ham was one of the singer-songwriters in Badfinger, the British pop band of the late Sixties and early Seventies which enjoyed the patronage of Paul McCartney. He gave them his Come and Get It (used in the Ringo-Peter Sellers movie The Magic Christian) on the condition they record it exactly as his demo. They did, it was a hit, and a band was born which always... more >>
Added: 11 Jan 10
MOTOWN, THE FIRST TWO DECADES: There's a place in the sun
In 2009, Motown celebrated its 50th anniversary. Not that there was much to celebrate in 2009. The golden years for this classic and culture-shifting label had started to wither some three decades previous and it was notable that when it released compilation albums to cash in on this anniversary they were shoddy and sorry affairs, woeful in their tracklisting, and elevated Michael Jackson.... more >>
Added: 11 Jan 10
MARIANNE DISSARD INTERVIEWED (2009): The Tucson chanteuse
Marianne Dissard is a woman whose music confounds expectations, yet there is an impeccable logic to it: she is French but lives in Tucson, so there is an almost inevitable marriage of chanson and Americana on her album L’entredeux which was produced by Joey Burns of Calexico, who also wrote the music which envelops and supports Dissard’s poetic lyrics. She in fact has also been... more >>
Added: 7 Jan 10
NU METAL IN 2001: Look at the nu boss, same as the old boss
Heavy metal is for young men without a war of their own, wrote a wag in Creem magazine some time in the early Seventies. At the time Led Zeppelin were stomping across the planet delivering their stolen blues and post-pop at ear-shattering volume. You can catch it in their concert film The Song Remains the Same -- and they look like a bunch of pussies. Metal these days is a much more... more >>
Added: 1 Jan 10
THE ROLLING STONES' GET YER YA-YA'S OUT! (2009): The '69 Garden party
The live album -- or double live as was standard in the days of vinyl -- has had a chequered history in rock: some live albums defined an artists career (Frampton Comes Alive, Thin Lizzy's Live and Dangerous) and others added little to the sum of our knowledge (most of Dylan's). Some artists regularly drop live albums (Paul McCartney, who has a huge backlog of songs to draw from) and... more >>
Added: 13 Dec 09
JOHN BOUTTE INTERVIEWED (2002): Easy out of the Big Easy
If you could distil the history of New Orleans down to a few litres of blood, they'd probably be pumping around John Boutte's body. Listen to this. "The European side of my family has been here since 1760. There were two brothers Boutte, Pierre and Hillary, who was an architect who built what is now the oldest theatre in New Orleans. It was originally the Spanish governor's... more >>
Added: 27 Nov 09 1 Comment
LONG JOHN BALDRY INTERVIEWED (2002): What becomes a legend most.
They didn't call him Long John for nothing. Standing more than 2m tall, John Baldry was a towering figure in British r'n'b during the 60s. Alongside John Mayall, Long John Baldry was a kingmaker whose various groups included the young Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts, later of the Rolling Stones, and the 16-year-old Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin). Rod Stewart, whom Baldry spotted playing... more >>
Added: 16 Nov 09
GWEN STEFANI of NO DOUBT INTERVIEWED (2001): Style and substance
The fact is, Gwen Stefani of No Doubt looks even more gorgeous lounging casually on the couch opposite than she does in her carefully styled photo shoots. While her magazine image is often that of a distant, pouting, sexually empowered ice-queen -- "Glamazon" is the new description -- in real life she glows naturally, laughs unselfconsciously, radiates curiosity and furrows... more >>
Added: 15 Nov 09
THE DECEMBERISTS’ JOHN MOEN INTERVIEWED (2009): Marching to his own drum
With all due respect to their craft, drummers aren’t usually the people you want to interview in a band. As saxophonist Branford Marsalis -- who played in Sting’s band -- recently noted, the audience’s attention is on the singer and the guitarist, “the rest of us are just background.” And the drummer -- who doesn’t write or sing the songs -- is maybe the... more >>
Added: 10 Nov 09
THE POSIES, KEN STRINGFELLOW INTERVIEWED (2006): Power pop to the top
For a man about to go on stage in Holland, Ken Stringfellow sounds as if he’s got his feet on the desk and thinking about getting home for a night in front of the tele. The relaxed Stringfellow has spent a large part of the past 25 years facing audiences: with the neo-psychedelic outfit Sky Cries Mary out of Seattle in the late 80s; in the past decade as a member of REM’s... more >>
Added: 26 Oct 09 1 Comment
LLOYD COLE INTERVIEWED (2000): This changing man
Lloyd Cole, the Derbyshire-born pop singer-songwriter who sprang to attention in the mid-80s for his introspective literate lyrics with his band the Commotions, quit Britain for New York in 1988 for six months - and has now stayed for 12 years. With his American wife and two children, he lives in the wilderness three hours north of New York and two hours west of Boston. He has a... more >>
Added: 23 Oct 09
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 1 Comment
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