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THE TEMPTATIONS: Creating Heaven for Motown right here on Earth
The ever-changing line-up of the legendary Motown soul group the Temptations (only two original members of the '61 founding group by the mid-Nineties when the five-disc retrospective Emperors of Soul was released) made their career a little difficult to follow. But they were one of the cornerstone acts on Motown. Even their most ardent fans might have thought the Emperors of Soul... more >>
Added: 16 Apr 09
LIVING COLOUR: VERNON REID INTERVIEWED (1993): Black, white and everything in between
It’s an old line but no less true for all that...and when you put it to Vernon Reid of Living Colour, he knows exactly what it means: “Everyone sees the world from their own disadvantage point.” It’s late at night in New York City and Reid is at home and obviously tired. But he still gets a laugh out of the quip. He knows what it means because he sees it all the... more >>
Added: 12 Apr 09 
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THE MC5, WAYNE KRAMER INTERVIEWED AND CONCERT REVIEW (2004): The politics of rock
It's fair to think most people only know the noise of the MC5 through their spiritual heirs: the garageband clatter of the Datsuns, D4, Soledad Brothers, the Black Keys and other such rowdies who have an old-school r'n'b heart and amps turned up to 11. Or maybe people know of them through the connection with their old hometown of Detroit: the Stooges, White Stripes, Dirtbombs, Eminem and... more >>
Added: 5 Apr 09
AN EMERALD CITY INTERVIEWED (2009): The sky-high vision
To hear guitarist/keyboard player Sam Handley tell it, there was a magical moment when they knew: “That first hit on the drum, it just sounded 10 times bigger than normal”. In this suburban villa in Kingsland, Auckland there are nods of recognition from the assembled members of An Emerald City. They are talking about setting up their gear in a cave at Whatipu in January... more >>
Added: 5 Apr 09
PETE SEEGER PROFILED: The conscience of America
When I was growing up and the sound of the Beatles and the Stones was the soundtrack to my life, the folk movement out of the US just seemed quaint and grounded in another era. While artists such as Joan Baez and the young Bob Dylan made an impact, a bunch of buttoned-down college boys in sweaters singing "hang down your head Tom Dooley" or women in chunky-knits whining "we... more >>
Added: 5 Apr 09
QUINCY JONES INTERVIEWED (1990): The Dude, back on the block
Quincy Jones doesn’t quite put it this way, but he knows that with great power comes great responsibility. And Jones has great power because of a financial empire founded on an extraordinary career in music which spans from bebop to hip-hop. This is the man who hung out with jazz artists like Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker in the early 50s, counts his Grammy nominations in the... more >>
Added: 12 Mar 09
TY INTERVIEWED (2004): British hip-hop to the people
From this distance, British hip-hop comes down to a few big names: the Streets, Dizzee Rascal and Skinnyman. It takes keen interest -- or a look at the nominees for the highly regarded Mercury Prize -- to come across rapper Ty. But he's not a new name. His debut album Awkward appeared three years ago in 2001 and the Mercury-nominated Upwards came out in 2003. He's had a run of successful... more >>
Added: 10 Mar 09
SLIM JIM PHANTOM OF THE STRAY CATS INTERVIEWED, AND CONCERT REVIEW. (2009) Still strutting
In these days when people are losing their jobs, Stray Cats’ drummer Slim Jim Phantom seems to have more than his share: he co-owns the successful Cat Club on Sunset Strip where he usually plays Thursday nights with celebrity guests; is in The Head Cat with Lemmy from Motorhead; this year is getting together the Forgotten Saints with longtime friend Captain Sensible of the Damned... more >>
Added: 10 Mar 09
GENE CLARK, THE ONCE AGAIN BYRD: A true American dreamer
Former Byrd Gene Clark is so famous he's dead and people write songs about him. Well, Teenage Fanclub did on their album Thirteen album and that's a pretty creditable homage. After all, the Fanclub previously modelled themselves on Alex Chilton's cult-hero band Big Star. Gene, you wanna talk muso-cred? You got it, man. You're another dead cult figure. So wave hello and say goodbye.... more >>
Added: 1 Mar 09 1 Comment
MARY WILSON OF THE SUPREMES INTERVIEWED (2009): The Dreamgirl goes on
There are many things that stars of stage and screen these days seem very happy to talk about: their former or current addictions, the assault case, the booze-fuelled nights, that bitch/bastard of an ex, their fall from grace and so on. Then there is the taboo area: money. About 15 minutes in to a wide-ranging conversation with a founding member of the Supremes, Mary Wilson -- who was the... more >>
Added: 1 Mar 09 1 Comment
JOSE GONZALEZ INTERVIEWED (2004): Quiet is the new loud
Jose Gonzalez is an interesting series of contradictions: his family is Argentinean but he was born and grew up in Sweden; he played in hardcore bands but has enjoyed huge success with a quiet folksy album; he makes lo-fi music yet has sprung to fame on the back of a memorable telly-ad for cutting edge technology; and he goes untroubled on the streets of his hometown Gothenburg despite being... more >>
Added: 1 Mar 09
BUDDY HOLLY REMEMBERED 50 YEARS ON: His life, his wife, his legacy
It was 50 years ago, on February 3 1959, that the tail-lights of the red four-seater Beechcraft Bonanza faded into gusty winds over the airport at Mason City in Iowa. Within minutes the single-engine plane had plummeted into the snow-covered cornfields of the thinly-populated countryside. And so it was that America woke up on February 4 to the news that Buddy Holly was dead. He was 22... more >>
Added: 19 Feb 09
IVAN NEVILLE INTERVIEWED (2005): The family that plays together . . .
More than four decades after one of the family first scored a hit, and 25 years from the first Neville Brothers album Fiyo on the Bayou, you could almost forgive the brothers Aaron, Art, Charles and Cyril for slowing down a little. The oldest, keyboardist Art, is 68 and had a close call with death after back surgery in late 2001. And their last album, Valence Street in 1999, despite... more >>
Added: 18 Feb 09
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 >>
Added: 13 Feb 09
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 >>
Added: 10 Feb 09
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 >>
Added: 30 Jan 09
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 >>
Added: 5 Jan 09
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 >>
Added: 29 Dec 08
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 >>
Added: 27 Dec 08
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 >>
Added: 23 Dec 08 2 Comments
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