WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . .
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WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . PETE BURNS: What's on the a-gender?
21 Apr 2014 | 3 min read
A lifetime and career trajectory from beautiful young New Wave pop-boy star to a very alarming botoxed older woman is not what most people would chart for themselves. But welcome to the world of the always androgynous Pete Burns who came to attention in the Eighties as the lead singer of Dead or Alive out of Wirral, across the Mersey from central Liverpool, and went on to become a media... > Read more
Sex Drive (Glam Driving Mix)
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . STRAWBERRY WALRUS: Let me take you down . . . and down
5 Aug 2013 | 2 min read | 8
The jury will be out on "the worst album ever" until the judge directs it on exactly how we define the word "worst". For many "worst" would immediately be something by an anodyne boy band, some middle-of-the-road crooner or a cult hero like non-singer/non-player Jandek. But here goes nothing with a guy called Gary Murtha from Mississippi who writes under... > Read more
When John Met Yoko
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . KLAUS NOMI: Twinkle twinkle little star . . .
1 Jul 2013 | 3 min read | 1
There have been some remarkable voices who have landed in rock culture -- that strange world where people like Tom Waits, Antony Hegarty (of Antony and the Johnsons), Yoko Ono and other people clearly not "rock" end up in the same magazines as Aerosmith, U2 and Lady Gaga. One of the strangest voices -- and most visually engaging images -- belonged to Klaus Nomi who began his... > Read more
Valentine's Day
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . G.G. ALLIN: Pottymouth not potty-trained
3 Jun 2013 | 2 min read | 1
We might as well get it out of the way quickly: G.G. Allin was a shit-eater. He also threw his excrement -- poos and wees -- at his audiences, punched people in the crowd and told Jerry Springer's television show he would rape women on stage but that was okay because women at his performances should expect that so couldn't be surprised. He took as many drugs and as much booze as he could... > Read more
I Live to be Hated
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . YOKO ONO: The noises from within
11 Apr 2013 | 6 min read | 1
Yoko is a concept by which we measure our pain -- New York graffiti, 1970. A voice that comes once in a lifetime; unfortunately it came in ours -- Critic Jim Mullen, 1992 Yoko Ono was always an easy target. Conceptual artists who mount exhibitions of chess sets where all the pieces are white, or write books which consist of ambiguously and unintentionally... > Read more
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . LEON THEREMIN: The sound of sci-fi and nightmares
11 Mar 2013 | 3 min read | 1
You gotta hand it to inventor Leon Theremin, no one else had thought of a stringless cello. And if that sounds a bit Dada or like an installation at a Yoko Ono art exhibition, be assured. It was the real thing. Theremin invented an electronic stringless cello for the British conductor Leopold Stokowski. He also developed an early form of television which his homeland, Russia,... > Read more
The Swan
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . THE RESIDENTS' COMMERCIAL ALBUM: Well, if you're so smart . . .
14 Jan 2013 | 3 min read
The code for a commercially successful pop song is relatively simple to crack: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, a different but similar bit (usually referred to as the bridge or middle eight), then verse, chorus, chorus . . . Of course there are variants (the Beatles' She Loves You for example cleverly starts with the catchy chorus) but basically that's it. It comes down to verse/chorus. You... > Read more
Picnic Boy
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . THE SHAGGS: Sisters doing it for themselves
3 Dec 2012 | 3 min read | 3
When Don Emerson realised his sons Donnie and Joe had musical ambitions he was enormously supportive. He bought them instruments and then, on the family farm in Washington state, built them a studio and started on a venue (with a backstage area) for them. Although the Emerson's sole album Dreamin' Wild in '79 didn't sell, disappeared and became a cult item until recently (that story and... > Read more
What Should I Do?
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . THE MONKS: Gabba Gabba Hey Hey we're the Monks
30 Aug 2012 | 2 min read
Because of its lo-fi, raw and untutored quality, the Black Monk Time album by a group of five former GIs who had been stationed in Germany in the early Sixties has been widely hailed by the likes of Jack White, Iggy Pop, Jay Reatard, Fred Cole of Dead Moon and many others who favour its elemental quality. The fact that it has been largely out of print (and the band broke up shortly after... > Read more
I Hate You
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . ROKY ERICKSON: Calling occupants of interplanetary craft
5 Mar 2012 | 5 min read | 1
Compared to Roky Erickson, Syd Barrett – who checked out of Pink Floyd and reality in the late Sixties -- had it easy. Where Barrett took enormous amounts of LSD, spun out and stayed in the house for most of the following four decades, Erickson did the hard time. After enjoying the first wave of success with 13th Floor Elevators when their classic garageband single You're Gonna... > Read more
Reverbaration
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . SKIP SPENCE: Oar in dark water
5 Mar 2012 | 4 min read | 2
Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd and Roky Erickson of Thirteenth Floor Elevators don't own the category of "mad Sixties acid casualty" exclusively. Alexander Spence -- aka Skip Spence -- deserves to be entered among the "tuned in, turned on and dropped so far out he couldn't come back". In the years before he died in '99 at age 52, he had become an itinerant,... > Read more
Little Hands
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . LARAAJI: Relax, you are feeling sleepy
4 Jan 2012 | 3 min read
Rather cruelly, when the English rock writer Andy Gill reviewed the Laraaji album Days of Radiance back in 1980 he opened with "Zzzzz . . ." Fair call in some ways, but in its defense the album was the third in Brian Eno's ambient series and the second side was taken up with two long pieces entitled Meditation #1 and Meditation #2. And you could hardly expect someone who played... > Read more
Meditation #1 (extract only, from vinyl some surface pops)
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT . . . DANIEL JOHNSTON: In a mixed up, shook up world
24 Jan 2010 | 3 min read
Being eccentric or even downright loopy has never disqualified anyone from a career in rock culture. Indeed, some would argue being slightly off-beam is a prerequisite. Rock is littered with oddballs: acid-damaged Syd Barrett, who signed out of Pink Floyd in '68 and reality shortly after; those Fleetwood Mac guitarists who went walkabout mid-career; Brian Wilson lolling on his bed for a... > Read more