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JACQUES BREL PROFILED: Seasons in, and out of, the sun
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... more >>
Added: 18 Sep 08
SCOTT WALKER INTERVIEWED (2006). Loneliness is a cloak you wear
No one could accuse reclusive songwriter and singer Scott Walker of haste. In the time between Walker's last album Tilt and his latest The Drift in May 2006, film director Peter Jackson delivered The Frighteners, his Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong. Van Morrison coughed up 11 albums, and Oasis -- despite fraternal bickering, divorces and finding a new line-up -- managed to record four.... more >>
Added: 16 Sep 08 
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MIRACLE MILE PROFILED: Beauty in search of an audience
Some years ago when I was at the Herald yet another CD for review arrived in the post and took its place on the huge pile of "discs to be listened to". I have no idea why out of the stack of worthies I picked up the album by Miracle Mile laterand played it one night at home when no one was around: but I am glad I did because I was smitten immediately. The cover had on it... more >>
Added: 16 Sep 08
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE'S 1993 BOX SET: Fasten your seat belts
History’s such fun. Here are some lyrics from the past to think on: “We are all outlaws in the eyes of America/in order to survive we steal, cheat, lie and [inaudible]/ we are obscene, lawless, hideous, dangerous, dirty, violent and young . . . we are forces of chaos and anarchy.” The singers then toss in the Price noun, and it isn’t calling someone a “sexy... more >>
Added: 14 Sep 08
BETH ROWLEY INTERVIEWED (2008): From Bristol to the Big Time
UK singer-songwriter Beth Rowley is one of those 10-year in the making overnight sensations. Her debut album Little Dreamer has won her wide acclaim -- “the next big thing", said the Independent, “destined for number one” weighed in the Sunday Times -- but because she has worked her way up from small pubs she seems very grounded, smart and focused. This phone interview... more >>
Added: 9 Sep 08
THE BEATLES IN PRINT: HAMBURG DAYS; Before the whirlwind (2002)
The oldest wasn't yet 20, but they were drunk, pilled to the eyeballs and doing what they loved best: playing rock'n'roll.In black leather, hair greased back Elvis-style, they pumped out primal versions of Little Richard hits to the drunken sailors, pimps and prostitutes who jostled in the beer-stale club, the sweat dripping down on them as it accumulated on the low ceiling. The air was fetid,... more >>
Added: 8 Sep 08
JAMES BROWN: THE ONE AND ONLY GODFATHER OF SOUL (1992): Star time . . . all the time
“The artistry of James Brown is epitomised by the guttural grunt (uh,uh) or the equally familiar cry of ‘oo-wee’ that punctuates practically ever young he has recorded. In those simple primal utterances Brown comes nearer his poetic goal than in any of his more elaborate lyrics. For there, he is not singing about black life – he is black life.” - Mel... more >>
Added: 8 Sep 08
KATCHAFIRE: Slow burning their way to consciousness
Reggae is one of the bloodlines of New Zealand music. It is there whenever an acoustic guitar comes out on the marae or suburban barbeque, and you can hear it in the hi-tech dub incarnation in clubland and dance music like that from Salmonella Dub, Trinity Roots, Pitch Black and the many bands out of Wellington. Yet since indigenous reggae burst onto the scene after the arrival of its... more >>
Added: 5 Sep 08
KRIS KRISTOFFERSON INTERVIEWED (2005): Rebel with a scholarship
Before he was 40 Kris Kristofferson -- now in his 70s -- had lived enough to fill the pages of at least a couple of wild novels. And the real craziness was still to come. In the 80s Kristofferson greeted a journalist with, “Let’s have some dope”. The interviewer reported she remained high just by breathing his exhaust. Born in Texas, he was a smart kid and won a Rhodes... more >>
Added: 2 Sep 08
ARETHA FRANKLIN, THE QUEEN OF SOUL: Oh, how the mighty have risen
When American critic Dave Marsh complied his The Heart of Rock and Soul in the early 90s -- a free-swinging personal recount of the “1001 greatest singles ever made” from doo-wop Moondogs (1955) to dance floor Madonna (1985) -- one name turned up repeatedly. For those who nostalgically put Abba up the charts again (and again) that name may seem surprising -- but here was... more >>
Added: 2 Sep 08
BOB MARLEY ON THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS DEATH (ESSAY, 1991): Legacy of a righteous rebel
There are no written records of the event, but we can speculate: the interior of the Tuff Gong Studio in Jamaica on a hot afternoon in 1980. Bob Marley and the Wailers are putting the final tracks together for the album to be called Uprising. Urged on by Chris Blackwell, boss of Island Records, Marley has gone back into the studio to add something more. He is sitting alone with his... more >>
Added: 1 Sep 08
WARREN ZEVON INTERVIEWED (1992): Tales from the dark side
The various encyclopaedias of rock don’t do justice to Warren Zevon. He got a snippy microscopic reference in the 91 New Illustrated Rock Handbook (“well-established but usually hitless”) and a massive tome from the same period by Phil Hardy and Stephen Barnard didn’t mention him at all. A few others get to the usual stuff. That he played piano for the Everly... more >>
Added: 1 Sep 08
THE KRONOS QUARTET COMES TO TOWN (1988): The Talking Heads of the classical world
When David Harrington hit the stage it was with a lot of style. Wearing a lurex T-shirt, leather pants and ankle boots, and a tight black jacket he looked every inch the lean and rangy musician blowing into town for a couple of concerts. Beside him was the group, also all in stylish black attire. And they were greeted with rapturous applause. Some in the capacity crowd which filled... more >>
Added: 31 Aug 08
ELVIS COSTELLO INTERVIEWED (1993): Elvis - with strings attached
When Mick Jagger started doing interviews this year for his return-to-form Wandering Spirit, he let it be known he’d prefer to speak with younger writers, not those carrying a whole heap of Stones baggage. Elvis Costello – now 16 years in the trade and whose latest album The Juliet Letters finds him with a string quartet – makes the same point. Ironically Melody Maker... more >>
Added: 30 Aug 08
ELVIS COSTELLO INTERVIEWED (1991): Every thorn has a rose
Elvis Costello has lurked about under any number of names in the past decade or so. He’s been Howard Coward of the Coward Brother (when he sang with T-Bone Burnett), Napoleon Dynamite (for his ’86 Blood and Chocolate album), cynically called himself “The Beloved Entertainer” and for a while even worked under his birth name, the flamboyantly Irish Declan Patrick Aloysius... more >>
Added: 29 Aug 08
LOU REED'S MAGIC AND LOSS ALBUM OF 1992: Heart and soul
Some great rock albums have been inspired by death. Deaths of friends were at the heart of Neil Young’s bleak Tonight’s the Night, death of belief and the spirit fuelled John Lennon’s abrasive Plastic Ono Band album. In 1990 Lou Reed – with John Cale – took the death of friend Andy Warhol (1928-87) to craft the poetic, affecting and quasi-biographical Songs... more >>
Added: 23 Aug 08
THE BOB DYLAN ENCYCLOPEDIA BY MICHAEL GRAY REVIEWED (2006): More song and dance
Writer Michael Gray is not backward about coming forward: he includes an entry on himself in this massive tome which is alternately illuminating, absurdly amusing, opinionated or a trainspotter’s delight depending on which of the more than 2000 entries you pick. The author of the seminal Song and Dance Man study of Dylan and his lyrics published the mid 70s (updated in 2000 to... more >>
Added: 14 Aug 08
PAUL WELLER'S PHASE TWO: THE STYLE COUNCIL. There are second acts in English life
After six exhausting years in the Jam, singer-songwriter Paul Weller pulled the plug in October '82 and within months re-appeared with his keyboard-playing friend Mick Talbot as The Style Council, a group with a soulful, European attitude and some hard things to say about the political state of Britain under the Torys. Their debut album Cafe Bleu of early '84 exuded cool -- but bewildered... more >>
Added: 4 Aug 08
LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III INTERVIEWED (2008): The family that sings together . . .
These days American singer-songwriter Loudon Wainwright III -- touted as a “new Dylan” at the dawn of the 70s and whose critically acclaimed 20 or so albums since have skirted the edges of public acceptance -- is pretty well known, but perhaps not for his own sake: he is father to famous Rufus and fairly-famous Martha. But Loudon -- who has always written about his life and... more >>
Added: 30 Jul 08
CARLOS SANTANA INTERVIEWED (2003). The Shaman of Optimism
Carlos Santana is either a philosopher or a flake. His conversation is littered with high-minded thinking, but also slews into new age psychobabble which can be cringe-inducing and sounds charmingly naive. This is a man whose favourite colour is a rainbow and thinks MTV should play Stravinsky, but that's another story. This is 55-year-old Grammy-magnet Carlos on current affairs: "See,... more >>
Added: 16 Jul 08
