Absolute Elsewhere
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KARL WALLINGER OF WORLD PARTY INTERVIEWED (1993): Couldn't care less, couldn't care more
27 Oct 2008 | 9 min read | 1
For a few smoke-filled seconds Karl Wallinger is difficult to see in this small airless room three floors up in suburban London, W10. Then through the haze of his cigarette smoke he emerges like some satiated Cheshire cat. Grinning. This is the day Wallinger has set aside to talk some about the new World Party album Bang!, and as chief Party member who writes, sings, arranges and most often... > Read more
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ROBERT PLANT AND JIMMY PAGE INTERVIEWED (1994): Only the song remains
20 Oct 2008 | 9 min read
They’ve certainly seen worse than this dark oak lined bar where Sydney Harbour glitters seductively just through the panelled doors. And they’ve certainly done this whole thing before, one of them with forgivable ill-humour. But today they are jocular, blokey and their living-legend status is resting comfortably with them. Robert Plant exchanges a firm handshake and throws a... > Read more
OTIS REDDING REMEMBERED (2008): The lost legacy of a soul genius
19 Oct 2008 | 4 min read
The life and death of Otis Redding is replete with ironies. The man who displaced Elvis in the British magazine Melody Maker as top male vocalist in ’67 – knocking off the King after an eight-year straight residency – could barely crack the top 10 in his homeland. Yet after his death in December that year – his plane going nose-down into a Wisconsin lake –... > Read more
BILL CHAMBERS INTERVIEWED (2003): Call of the big country
16 Oct 2008 | 4 min read
When Bill Chambers tells it, with a smile at the corner of his lips and in his leisurely Australian drawl, it sounds the most natural thing in the world. But it's kind of strange. He's talking about the mid-70s and what he was doing then, having grown up on country music and playing in bands. "I was a bit of a cowboy hippie, long hair but a cowboy hat. I had a long beard and the... > Read more
PITCH BLACK INTERVIEWED (2000): Lightning striking again and again . . .
8 Oct 2008 | 5 min read
Lightning sears the walls, neon tubes dance along the screen, mobile tie-dye patterns hover in the mist. And all the while, pulsing, ever-changing electronic music triggers the images, ebbs and flows, and engages the ear as the visuals entrance the eye. Welcome to the world of Pitch Black, where light and sound collude to infiltrate the brain. “Why not? We are multi-sensed... > Read more
GILLIAN WELCH INTERVIEWED (2004): That ol' time contemporary music
7 Oct 2008 | 3 min read
For someone whose stark songs sound like they have come from the impoverished rural underbelly of Depression-era America, Gillian Welch seems as lively as a June-bug. She laughs readily and doesn't come across as a woman who sings death ballads and has the signature song Orphan Girl. But Welch surprises on many levels. Those who have heard her spare singing on the soundtrack to O Brother,... > Read more
AMERICA'S DEWEY BUNNELL INTERVIEWED (2007): Upstarts up the charts
2 Oct 2008 | 4 min read
Among people whose musical credentials you wouldn’t question would be the Beatles’ producer George Martin. Or if you want a more contemporary reference maybe alt.country rocker Ryan Adams, James Iha of Smashing Pumpkins, or guys from the indie bands My Morning Jacket and Nada Surf. And the link -- possibly the only one -- between these diverse people is an unexpected one:... > Read more
MUSIC IS MY MADNESS: Ego, drugs and minor chords, musicians who lost the plot
1 Oct 2008 | 9 min read | 1
The world of music is populated by creative people -- and those around them who offer musicians absurd amounts of money, pampering for their inflating egos and medication for their every ailment, real or imagined. The surprising thing is that more musicians don’t follow Elvis, Britney Spears, Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty into that netherworld of self-delusion, eccentricity and... > Read more
THE DOORS, ON AND OFF THE RECORD: Still opening and closing
29 Sep 2008 | 4 min read
I only saw the Doors once, in a packed club on Sunset Strip. That was five years ago. Jim Morrison had been dead 35 years but there they were -- or at least an excellent replica -- going through their hits as the leather-clad singer exuded menace, animal sexuality and seduction. The crowd -- mostly people not born when the Doors peaked in the late 60s -- included other Morrison... > Read more
DAVID BOWIE INTERVIEWED (1993): Black tie, white noise and the duke bounces back
29 Sep 2008 | 9 min read
David Bowie is a pain. Or more correctly perhaps, “his people” are. Eighteen months ago, when he was keen to plug his uneven, already forgotten but not uninteresting Tin Machine II album (the follow-up to what we might have charitably called “a side project” in a long career) he was a pushover. Oh, just wait by the phone “his people” said and... > Read more
DAVID GILMOUR OF PINK FLOYD INTERVIEWED 1988: Us and Them Lawyers
27 Sep 2008 | 10 min read
Rock stars shouldn’t talk this way, not in these well-rounded vowels and carefully constructed, oh-so English sentences. But then, this is David Gilmour from Pink Floyd – and as rock bands go Pink Floyd are no ordinary band at all. Here is the band which presents astonishingly visual concerts, every couple of years unleashes a monster of an album and then disappears into silence... > Read more
ROD STEWART INTERVIEWED : Too often the singer, not the songs
25 Sep 2008 | 10 min read
In typically witty cover notes to the six-album Storyteller anthology released two years ago to celebrate 25 years in music, Rod Stewart appended something interesting after his signature...”Stewart’s the name, singing’s the game.” And that’s worth remembering. Fashions may change (and with Stewart every debauched or debonair picture tells a story),... > Read more
TOM RUSSELL INTERVIEWED: The stories he could tell
25 Sep 2008 | 4 min read
Julio Gonzalez was pumped up and crazy when he was tossed out of the Happy Land Social Club in the Bronx in mid-March 1990. He was 36, unemployed and had been in the States for only 10 years after arriving with thousands of other Cubans in the Mariel boatlift. An argument with his former girlfriend who worked in the cloakroom, a couple of bouncers heavying him into the streets, a short walk... > Read more
A Dollar's Worth of Gasoline
WIRE INTERVIEWED (2004): From garages to galleries, the rise and re-rise of art-rock
19 Sep 2008 | 5 min read
You need a little patience when trying to get a handle on the career of the four-piece British art-punk band Wire, who emerged in the late 70s at the start of punk. But first let's establish that Wire were Colin Newman, Bruce Gilbert, Graham Lewis and Robert Gotobed. The early-90s line-up, wittily named Wir, was the same guys, but without drummer Gotobed. That’s reasonably simple... > Read more
HARRY NILSSON, PROFILED (2008). The fire this time
18 Sep 2008 | 4 min read
The too-short life of the greatly under-appreciated singer/songwriter Harry Nilsson (1941-94) was full of bitter ironies: not the least was that this gifted songwriter's biggest hits were written by others. His memorable Without You was penned by Pete Ham and Tom Evans from the Beatles-blessed power poppers, Badfinger; and although Nilsson's beautiful original song I Guess the Lord... > Read more
MIRACLE MILE PROFILED: Beauty in search of an audience
16 Sep 2008 | 2 min read
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... > Read more
Miracle Mile: Seven Bells (from Alaska, 2003)
SCOTT WALKER INTERVIEWED (2006). Loneliness is a cloak you wear
16 Sep 2008 | 15 min read | 3
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.... > Read more
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE'S 1993 BOX SET: Fasten your seat belts
14 Sep 2008 | 2 min read
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... > Read more
BETH ROWLEY INTERVIEWED (2008): From Bristol to the Big Time
9 Sep 2008 | 9 min read
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... > Read more
JAMES BROWN: THE ONE AND ONLY GODFATHER OF SOUL (1992): Star time . . . all the time
8 Sep 2008 | 6 min read
“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 Watkins,... > Read more