Absolute Elsewhere
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JACK BRUCE INTERVIEWED (1994): Cream rises to the top
14 Feb 2011 | 7 min read | 1
Talk to Jack Bruce and the of name of That Band just cannot be avoided. Yet this Band That Dare Not Speak Its Name occupied a mere three years in the life of this 51-year-old musical polymath - and that ending as far back as ’69. Then he took his phenomenal bass playing skills and distinctive, strong tenor voice into a series of jazz-fusion projects (most notably into Lifetime with... > Read more
Jack Bruce: Waiting on a Word (from Somethin Els, 1992)
SHARON O'NEILL INTERVIEWED (2009): This heart, these songs
11 Feb 2011 | 5 min read
Sharon O’Neill laughs loud and often about her current profile in Australia, and admits that as a live performer it is low. ”I’d be lucky if I could half-fill the Rooty Hills RSL!” she hoots. “It’d be more like the Brass Monkey down the road -- but that’s what everybody does. Dragon do it, and that’ll be the first cab off the rank when I... > Read more
Sharon O'Neill: Love Can Be Cruel (from Sharon O'Neill, 1980)
WANDA JACKSON INTERVIEWED (2011): Still ready to have a party
7 Feb 2011 | 9 min read
Wanda Jackson – at 73 – has had a number of careers: in the Fifties she was a rockabilly star and touring with (and dating) Elvis Presley while delivering belters like Fujiyama Mama and the classic throat-tearer Let's Have a Party; in the Sixties she went back to her country roots as rock'n'roll faded; by the Seventies she had embraced the church and was adding gospel and... > Read more
Wanda Jackson: Teach Me Tonight
THE RUTLES. RON NASTY and NEIL INNES INTERVIEWED: I have always thought in the back of my mind . . .
7 Feb 2011 | 8 min read | 1
In the Sixties they changed the world -- in 1970 they changed their mind and broke up. They were the Rutles, lovable legends from Liverpool who launched their career with innocent hits such as Hold My Hand. Within two years the cynical Ron Nasty and cheery Dirk McQuickly had penned dozens of enduring classics. As they matured through films A Hard Days Rut and Ouch!, their music became... > Read more
The Rutles: Eine Kleine Middle Klass Musik (from Archeology)
DAVID GATES INTERVIEWED (2003): Not in it for the Bread
6 Feb 2011 | 7 min read
Here's something not many fans of soft-rock singer David Gates -- formerly the songwriter and voice behind Bread -- will know. When he was a much younger man he wrote and produced some material with one of rock's greatest and most musically challenging eccentrics, Frank Zappa protege Captain Beefheart. The gentle-voiced Gates - now 63 - also played in the studio with the legendary Phil... > Read more
David Gates: Goodbye Girl
NOEL GALLAGER OF OASIS INTERVIEWED (1995): The view from the top
4 Feb 2011 | 10 min read
It's the week after Oasis’ Earl’s Court triumphs where they’ve pulled 20,000 for each of their two night stands and now Noel Gallagher is slouched backstage in the unpromisingly named Gramby Halls, Leicester. In two hours the band will play a blinder of a gig to 3000 in this basketball stadium. Their set tonight is the same as at Earl’s Court; a sharp 80 minutes... > Read more
Oasis: Some Might Say
ODETTA INTERVIEWED (1989): The human touch
30 Jan 2011 | 4 min read
Folk singer Odetta has kept her sense of humour about the 15 year lull in her recording career. “I’ve just been practicing," she says, but is delighted by at last having another record out there in the marketplace. Despite her acclaim by audiences as far spread as Russia and Nigeria and accolades by Yale University, the album came about through a small personal... > Read more
Odetta: Chilly Winds
JIMMY BUFFETT INTERVIEWED (2011): Sail on sailor
27 Jan 2011 | 11 min read
Easy-going Jimmy Buffett always gives the impression he's in walkshorts and a Hawaiian shirt, and is just metres away from the ocean filling in time until cocktail hour with his Coral Reefer Band. Buffett – often in shorts and bare feet -- has performed in all kinds of places, most often within hearing distance of an ocean (his Live in Anguilla CD/DVD of two years ago shows him... > Read more
Jimmy Buffett: Beautiful Swimmers (from the album Buffet Hotel, 2009)
THE HOLLIES. TONY HICKS INTERVIEWED (2010): The road is long . . .
23 Jan 2011 | 5 min read
A couple of years Noel Gallagher of Oasis saw Tony Hicks of the Hollies in a local supermarket and felt compelled to yell, "Love yer band, man. You've got the songs". And the Hollies certainly did. Pop-rock classics among them. So when in March 2010, the Hollies out of Manchester, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame – it seemed long overdue. For a decade from... > Read more
The Hollies: Look Through Any Window
SMOKEY ROBINSON: The man and the Miracle worker
11 Jan 2011 | 4 min read
It was one of those fortunate circumstances that Motown Records founder Berry Gordy from Detroit met his label’s star (and later his producer and boardroom exec) Smokey Robinson -- who had been around the Detroit scene in high school groups for years -- when both of them happened to be in New York. The ambitious Gordy, who’d written a couple of songs and got into small-time... > Read more
Smokey Robinson and the Mirales: I'll Try Something New
JOE COCKER INTERVIEWED (2010): The school and sound of hard knocks
10 Jan 2011 | 6 min read
It's a trick question, but see how you go: Who's the odd one out in this list; Hannah Montana, Britney Spears, Joe Cocker or Justin Bieber? The answer is, of course . . . the Bieber boy. He's the only one who hasn't had a song written for him by former American Idol judge Kara DioGuardi. But the real question is, what is 66-year soul singer Cocker doing with having not just one,... > Read more
Joe Cocker: Unforgiven
JAMES BROWN INTERVIEWED (2004): I'll go crazy?
4 Jan 2011 | 9 min read
We go through a very polite Mr Bobbitt, James Brown's business manager. He warns "everything with him is 'Mister' and do not speak about his personal business or his family affairs". It isn't the last we hear from Mr Bobbitt. Initially there is some confusion when Mr Brown doesn't understand a question and later electronic interference briefly drowns us out. But we... > Read more
Get on the Good Foot
THE JAM and TOM PETTY in '79: Two bands separated by a common language
12 Dec 2010 | 3 min read
At the fag-end of the Seventies, the sound of the Sex Pistols explosion in Britain had faded and in the place of furious punk anger came the more intellectual and cooler sound of post-punk: bands like Magazine, Wire and Joy Division. Across the Atlantic the Ramones' flat-tack energy was faltering and the names to note were Talking Heads, Blondie and Television. Britain and the USA... > Read more
The Jam: Pop Art Poem
AL GREEN INTERVIEWED (2004): Soul from pulpit to the street
12 Dec 2010 | 7 min read
In Memphis, a few kilometres south of Graceland is a small church in Hale Rd, a sidestreet off Highway 51 also known as Elvis Presley Boulevard. Not many music lovers make it this far; they are waylaid by the fridge magnets, postcards and facsimile of Elvis' drivers licence further back up the highway, or are taking the tour around the room in town that is Sun Studios where Presley,... > Read more
Al Green: I Can't Stop
THE BEACH BOYS: GOOD VIBRATIONS IN A BOX (2010): The hits, the misses and the myths
7 Dec 2010 | 5 min read
As with any great and long-running band, the Beach Boys were capable of the sublime, the superfluous and the downright stupid. Were. The use of the past tense is quite deliberate. Nobody – except perhaps organisers of those weird American commemoration days where the remnants of the band made their tedious appearances for decades -- could ever think of them in the present... > Read more
The Beach Boys: Heroes and Villains (alternate version)
BRUCE COCKBURN PROFILED (2010): Poet with a rocket launcher
5 Dec 2010 | 4 min read | 2
Most people looking at the life of Bruce Cockburn come away saying the same thing: “You mean he made music as well?" Canadian singer-songwriter Cockburn has his biography punctuated by stories about being in Mozambique while snipers were out, getting drunk in Kathmandu, travels through nervous Central and South American regimes . . . Cockburn gets around - he came to New... > Read more
Bruce Cockburn: Lovers in a Dangerous Time (from Stealing Fire)
DAMON ALBARN: FROM BRITPOP TO A CARTOON CHARACTER (2010)
5 Dec 2010 | 3 min read
When I met Damon Albarn in London many years ago things were looking good for his band Blur: they'd previously scored a minor hit with There's No Other Way (heavily borrowed from Syd-era Pink Floyd which he cheerfully admitted), it had taken them to America, and their debut album Leisure went to number two on the UK charts. Their second album Modern Life is Rubbish had just arrived... > Read more
Gorillaz: Tomorrow Comes Today
BRYAN FERRY INTERVIEWED (2004): Something he just threw on?
28 Nov 2010 | 8 min read
Let's be honest, this is how we think Bryan Ferry spends his days: he rises just before noon after having tea, toast, marmalade and the daily papers delivered to his bedroom. His manservant lays out his crisply pressed white suit in his dressing room. He'll flick the pages of Vogue and Vanity Fair to see what his famous friends have been up to, then later in the day he'll go to a... > Read more
Bryan Ferry: Simple Twist of Fate (from Dylanesque, 2007)
SPINAL TAP, NIGEL TUFNEL INTERVIEWED (1992): The wind cries Spinal
22 Nov 2010 | 17 min read
Rock history is littered with legendary bands, some more legendary than others. Some of these legends will live for ever, others even longer. But there is one rock hand which stands above all others, the most legendary of all legends. It is, in a word, Spinal Tap. The story of Spinal Tap is now part of rock’s rich tapestry, an integral weave in the carpet of popular music: how... > Read more
Spinal Tap: Break Like The Wind
BILLIE COMES TO TOWN (1999): The working life of pop princess
22 Nov 2010 | 5 min read
You don't see it often and when you do it’s only briefly -- but it drains through Billie’s face for an instant. “Yeah, I’m really tired. I’ve been up since 5.30 so now I’m like, urghh.” She forces a smile, then momentarily disappears back into her own world. It’s Wednesday afternoon and the 16 year-old British teen-pop sensation... > Read more