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STARSAILOR INTERVIEWED (2001): Big, before the backlash

STARSAILOR INTERVIEWED (2001): Big, before the backlash

Even after you've taken into account his weariness from jetlag and the stress of meeting a dozen strangers important to his career in the past few hours, James Walsh strikes you as hesitant, quiet and slightly overwhelmed by all that's happening. He keeps his eyes modestly downcast and, for one who has already endured and enjoyed the attention of the Britrock media, he seems wary... more >>

NICK CAVE INTERVIEWED (1992): Hyena circles the corpse

NICK CAVE INTERVIEWED (1992): Hyena circles the corpse

"I went out walking the other day the wind hung wet around my neck my head it rung with screams and groans from the night I spent among her bones... " - Opening lines on Nick Cave’s album Henry’s Dream.   If rock music has a reigning Lizard King, it’s Nick Cave. Painfully thin, black hair swept back from a severe widow’s peak, shrouded in... more >>

BOB MARLEY REMEMBERED IN NEW ZEALAND: The symmetry of commemorations

BOB MARLEY REMEMBERED IN NEW ZEALAND: The symmetry of commemorations

Summertime in the late Nineties and I am walking in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. Around the corner come two Maori guys who greet me with eyebrow flashes and a hefty, "Kia ora." We run down a quick exchange: "Do you live here?" "Nah, just over for a few days ..." And so on. Finally I ask: "How d'you know I was from New Zealand?"... more >>

NITIN SAWHNEY INTERVIEWED (2007): Orchestrating A Throw of Dice

NITIN SAWHNEY INTERVIEWED (2007): Orchestrating A Throw of Dice

Ask British-Indian musician and composer Nitin Sawhney what he’s currently working on and five minutes later he is still telling you. Then adding, “Oh and also . . .” Sawney has the kind of schedule that doesn’t allow much time for sleep and even locating him has been difficult. Finally, after numerous attempts, there he is on his cellphone rushing off to somewhere.... more >>

U2'S ZOOROPA TOUR (1993): A report from the frontline when TV comes to town

U2'S ZOOROPA TOUR (1993): A report from the frontline when TV comes to town

The whisper-voice and marble polish Hilton Hotel in Melbourne isn’t the sort of place you’d normally associate with rock ‘n’ roll. Suits and chic glide by, uniforms open doors and fingerprints on the gilt are removed discreetly by maids with an imperceptible swipe of a cloth.  The place breathes class. Upper class. But this time last week the lobby of the... more >>

IMAGINING AFRICA IN THE SIXTIES: The Soul of Africa album considered

IMAGINING AFRICA IN THE SIXTIES: The Soul of Africa album considered

Funny how “African music” has been perceived, adapted and mis-represented down the decades, innit? That’s not to say Bengt Berger and the other musicians from Stockholm who recorded Bitter Funeral Beer for ECM in the early 80s didn’t come up with something interesting when they used the voices and rhythms of Ghanaian people. Or that Talking Heads, Ginger Baker, Paul... more >>

ZIGGY MARLEY INTERVIEWED (1990): The son also rises

ZIGGY MARLEY INTERVIEWED (1990): The son also rises

Ziggy Marley’s throat is dry and he sounds tired. It’s nearly midnight at the Mayflower Hotel in New York and a day of photo sessions and interviews is almost behind him. But he’s going back to Jamaica soon – back to Tuff Gong Headquarters, his father’s home in old colonial style which now houses the Bob Marley Museum. These days Ziggy Marley spends little... more >>

FLEET FOXES INTERVIEWED (2008): Their remarkable year

FLEET FOXES INTERVIEWED (2008): Their remarkable year

The big music story of 2008 wasn’t Britney back on track, Axl Rose finally delivering the Chinese Democracy album or even Kanye West sidestepping the hip-hop that made his name for an album of songs and techno-blips. It was how the self-titled and self-funded debut album from a previously unknown band -- which didn’t exist outside a studio a year ago -- topped many critics... more >>

JIMMY CLIFF, REGGAE PIONEER, INTERVIEWED (1993): Many rivers crossed

JIMMY CLIFF, REGGAE PIONEER, INTERVIEWED (1993): Many rivers crossed

Jimmy Cliff – the fundamental reggae pioneer -- could have been a contender.  Never quite the crown prince of reggae, a title taken without struggle by Bob Marley, Cliff nevertheless stacked up the kind of profile early in his career that marked him out as someone special. He’s still doing it, still making fine music and by his own account on the road about six months... more >>

JOHN HIATT INTERVIEWED (1991): Through a glass, darkly

JOHN HIATT INTERVIEWED (1991): Through a glass, darkly

Thursday last week and a cool, almost chill night in Los Angeles. It’s a little after nine and John Hiatt is back in his hotel room after dinner. He came in from Nashville a few days ago to do some recording and writing with “three other guys” but is now just making a few phone calls. He flies home tomorrow in time to catch the kids off school for the spring... more >>

HENRY ROLLINS INTERVIEWED (1990): Volume and vehemence

HENRY ROLLINS INTERVIEWED (1990): Volume and vehemence

It’s the handshake which takes you aback first – a real knuckle-crushing pressure grip which Henry Rollins delivers impressively as his eyebrows level and his gaze hardens. On a first meeting, Rollins is a confrontational kind of guy. And a very heavily tattooed man. The tats snake across his taut forearms around his heavily muscled biceps and run down his legs. Across his back... more >>

10CC SONGWRITER/SINGER GRAHAM GOULDMAN INTERVIEWED (2007): Got hit if you want it

10CC SONGWRITER/SINGER GRAHAM GOULDMAN INTERVIEWED (2007): Got hit if you want it

The measure of how modest -- and successful -- Graham Gouldman has been comes when he quickly corrects the assumption he was on the British number one single Neanderthal Man by Hotlegs in 1971. “I didn’t actually play on it,” he says . . . although it was recorded in the British studio he co-owned by some other guys who he subsequently ended up working with. Who they were... more >>

ELVIS PRESLEY, THE KING RECLAIMING HIS CROWN IN 1968: Stranger in a strange land

ELVIS PRESLEY, THE KING RECLAIMING HIS CROWN IN 1968: Stranger in a strange land

When you look at the footage now it‘s as if you’ve been tossed down some weird time tunnel. It is 1968 and out on the explosive streets of America are assassinations (Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King), riots and demonstrations, cops wielding clubs, and teargas clouds filling the air. The soundtrack is the Stones’ Street Fighting Man and the day-glo hippie Summer of Love... more >>

KRAFTWERK'S RALF HUTTER INTERVIEWED (2008): The werk ethic

KRAFTWERK'S RALF HUTTER INTERVIEWED (2008): The werk ethic

Ralf Hutter -- founder of the innovative German electro rock pioneers Kraftwerk rarely does interviews. And when he does speak to the press he sometimes doesn’t make it easy. One reporter tells of the constraints being placed on questions: the first being no asking about Kraftwerk. Kraftwerk are, shall we say, different: their Kling Klang studio in Dusseldorf has no phone, no... more >>

MICAH P HINSON INTERVIEWED (2008): We won't have to be lonesome

MICAH P HINSON INTERVIEWED (2008): We won't have to be lonesome

Micah P Hinson is one those artists who is just starting to appear on the radar for many people, this despite much touring, two excellent albums before his current Micah P Hinson and the Red Empire Orchestra album, and a back-story that has been of interest to music writers. The slight Hinson -- who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household in Abilene, Texas where his father was... more >>

WILLARD GRANT CONSPIRACY'S ROBERT FISHER INTERVIEWED (2008): Strange bedfellows: economics and music

WILLARD GRANT CONSPIRACY'S ROBERT FISHER INTERVIEWED (2008): Strange bedfellows: economics and music

For a band which has released eight albums the alt.country/indie.rock band Willard Grant Conspiracy has - like Calexico, Giant Sand, Lambchop and others - rarely broken into mainstream consciousness. Despite favourable reviews for live shows and albums, WGC remains the private passion of small but significant audience. Yet those who have discovered them can be slavishly loyal and will... more >>

KASEY CHAMBERS AND SHANE NICHOLSON INTERVIEWED 2008: The family that plays together . . .

KASEY CHAMBERS AND SHANE NICHOLSON INTERVIEWED 2008: The family that plays together . . .

Backstage after a performance for invited guests and a camera crew in a studio room at the Sydney Opera House, Kasey Chambers and her husband Shane Nicholson are greeting fans and well-wishers. Just minutes before they had unplugged after an intimate and affecting set -- with their small band which includes Kasey’s father Bill on guitar -- and now they are the centre of a more... more >>

JAMES HUNTER INTERVIEWED: The hard way to the top (2008)

JAMES HUNTER INTERVIEWED: The hard way to the top (2008)

At 46, James Hunter from Colchester in Essex is an overnight soul-singing sensation who took a couple of decades to get to where he is. But for most people he seemed to appear out of nowhere with his breakthrough album People Gonna Talk in early 2006. Hunter’s effortless blend of Sam Cooke-styled soul with soft reggae rhythms and his snappy original songs found immediate critical... more >>

PRINCE IN THE PICTURE THEATRE: Can't act, can sing and dance some

PRINCE IN THE PICTURE THEATRE: Can't act, can sing and dance some

One of the most stealthy pop rehabilitations in the past decade has been that of Prince. Ten years ago he was in creative limbo after a series of poor selling albums presented under that incomprehensible squiggle. Now however he’s appearing at the right parties and his tours are sell-outs. That’s despite his recent albums not doing anything like the business of his most... more >>

PETER FRAMPTON INTERVIEWED (2001): From headlines to sidelines

PETER FRAMPTON INTERVIEWED (2001): From headlines to sidelines

From where Peter Frampton was standing he could see everything. It was 1976 and the angelic, halo-haired singer-guitarist from Kent was on top of the world. His new album was selling spectacularly.  As one writer put it, in 1976 two significant events happened in America: the country celebrated its bicentenary and Frampton Comes Alive! was released. In that year, the double live... more >>