Edmund Hardy Lou Reed is the craggy man in black leather, a permanent member of rock’s avant-garde without trying. Popular in all his guises, as Velvet Underground punk progenitor, as Seventies glam decadent, or as Nineties eagle-eyed chronicler. Or maybe just as the guy who wrote the original ‘Perfect Day’. But a book of song […]
Sonic Youth : Murray Street
Chris Byrd enjoys the reflective mood of Sonic Youth’s Murray Street During the first half of the ’90s, Sonic Youth capitalized upon their reputation as one of the preeminent groups born in the wake of the post-punk scene. Signing with Geffen Records’ DGC subsidiary, the band released Goo in 1990. Arty and intelligent but catchy […]
Will Self : Feeding Frenzy : Biting The Hand That Feeds
Chris Hall serves up a slice of Will Self with the publication of his second collection of journalism, Feeding Frenzy Chris Hall: First off, congratulations on the birth of your new son, Luther. Will Self: Yeah, little baby Luther. He was born on August 8, so he’s a couple of months old now. CH: So […]
Keith Altham – No More Mr Nice Guy!
Robin Askew At home with Sting. The in-no-way-narcissistic rainforest dwellers’ friend and tantric sex enthusiast is looking for a space in his sitting room to hang a giant self-portrait. Unfortunately, it soon becomes clear that this will not match the decor. Eventually, Mrs Sting, Trudie Styler, suggests that it should go in the bathroom in […]
Neighbourhood Threat: On Tour With Iggy Pop – Alvin Gibbs: The Song Of Leonard Cohen – Harry Rasky
Chris Mitchell Tour diaries have a particular squalid glamour all of their own. First person accounts of frequently excessive life on the road have become a mini-genre within the slew of books about pop music, Hammer Of The Gods and Pamela Des Barres’ I’m With The Band: Confessions Of A Groupie being two of its […]
J.G. Ballard : Super Cannes : Flight And Imagination
Chris Hall talks about the dark side of capitalism and the deceptions of reality with J.G. Ballard Walking along Oxford Street the day after I finished reading JG Ballard’s new novel, Super-Cannes, it struck me, literally, the total acceptance of the substrate of violence in consumer societies when it manifests itself. A silent, monolithic crowd […]
Jeff Noon : Pixel Juice : Dub Til It Bleeds
Polly Marshall hears why sci-fi is a four letter word for the Lee Scratch Perry of contemporary letters, Jeff Noon Jeff Noon’s gorgeous girlfriend has her hands on the wheel and a crazy glint in her big blue eyes. Jeff and Julie are my not entirely reliable guides on the Vurt tour, a late night […]
Sonic Youth: An interview with Thurston Moore
Andrew McCutchen meets Sonic Youth mainman and guitar torturer extraordinaire Thurston Moore “I moved to New York to fuck Patti Smith” writes Thurston Moore, going back, going way back to an epoch of rock history when Sid Vicious was at his most vicious, prowling the Village’s streets after Nancy’s brutal murder, when Lydia Lunch was […]
Paul Stump – Unknown Pleasures: A Cultural Biography of Roxy Music
Stephen Harper Yesterday, Bryan Ferry nearly killed me. Lost in the music on my car stereo, I took a sharp corner on the A7 south of Edinburgh at a foolish speed. Unable to turn quickly enough, I lost control of the car and skidded to a stop on the wrong side of a road, nanoinches […]
Jim DeRogatis : Paul Morley : Let It Blurt : Nothing : Critical Mass
Brian Dillon on the lifechanging journalism of Lester Bangs and Paul Morley Lou Reed’s magnificent “Rock’n’Roll” recounts the peculiar tale of a five-year-old girl living in a blank suburb where there’s ‘nothing happening at all … not at all … Then one fine day she turned on a New York station, she couldn’t believe what […]
Hubert Selby : The Willow Tree : A Lightning Strike On The Retina
Thierry Brunet meets the uncompromising Hubert Selby Hubert Selby Jr is one of the most powerful American writers. Last Exit To Brooklyn, his first novel, was a best seller and the subject of an obscenity trial in England. The book was incendiary with its release in 1964. It’s a compassionate portrait of an overlooked America. […]
Kruder And Dorfmeister : The K&D Sessions
Chris Mitchell Despite the rise of dance music in the 90s to the point where it’s arguably overtaken rock’n’roll as the defining sound of popular music, remixing is still something of a dirty word. It’s unsurprising given the way pedestrian remixes are continually used as filler on singles and even albums when an artist has […]
Peter Guralnick: Careless Love: The Unmaking Of Elvis Presley
Gary Marshall I was five years old when Elvis died and, like most of my generation, my knowledge of Elvis is derived largely from muck-raking biographies, shockingly bad films, sightings documented in supermarket tabloids and documentaries about brain-damaged Elvis impersonators. With the exception of U2’s embarrassing fandom no modern bands list Elvis as an influence […]
Liam Howlett : The Prodigy: The Dirtchamber Sessions : Down In The Dirt
Jayne Margetts encounters The Prodigy’s Liam Howlett going solo with The Dirtchamber Sessions There is no easy way to put this, but Liam Paris Howlett is the pin-up poster boy of electronic punk. Choice doesn’t enter into the equation. The scions of street cred and music bibles Mixmag, Loaded and The Face would fight tooth […]
Irvine Welsh: Alan Warner: Queerspotting: Homosexuality in contemporary Scottish fiction: Queerspotting
Zoe Strachan drags Irvine Welsh’s and Alan Warner’s writing from out of the closet… Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electric tin openers. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. But […]
P.J. O’Rourke : Eat The Rich : Biting Satire
Susan Wright meets P.J. O’Rourke and discovers even economics can be fun if done the P.J. way… It’s 10.15 am on a Monday morning, and O’Rourke is introducing himself in the Langham Hilton in London. He manages to look different from the photographs that adorn his book covers by being smaller than you might expect […]
Nikos Kazantzakis : The Last Temptation Of Christ : Always Thirsty
Lewis Owens on the uphill path of Nikos Kazantzakis Although many people may have heard of the novels Zorba the Greek and The Last Temptation of Christ, both of which have been adapted into films, it appears that few are so familiar with the name of the author, Nikos Kazantzakis. Although a national hero in […]
Stereophonics : Performance And Cocktails
Gary Marshall “WOOOOOOAAAAARGH! GNAAAAAAAH! BLEEEEEEEURGH!” If you’re one of those people who finds Kelly Jones’ “I eat gravel, me” voice about as aesthetically appealing as nails on a blackboard, you’ll loathe this album. If on the other hand you like driving like a maniac and bellowing at the top of your lungs to whatever’s on […]
Liz Evans: Girls Will Be Boys: Women Report On Rock
Jason Weaver Now, here’s a conundrum. Liz Evans has edited a volume of journalism on contemporary rock music written exclusively by women and here am I, a man, sent out to review it. Ideologically thin ice. I have to confess, I’m tripping over every nuance. A wrong-footed phrase is going to sound like an alibi, […]
make up: it’s not only rock N roll but I like it
Jason Weaver on the musical impact of rock’n’roll band make up The Marxist project was about the conditions of work. Parasites grew fat on the labour of those who worked only to stay alive, an imbalance based on the arbitrary division of society. Marx phrased this situation as an equation, a mathematical formula, an argument. […]
Douglas Rushkoff : Children Of Chaos (Playing The Future) : Lost In Translation
Chris Mitchell speaks to Douglas Rushkoff about making sense of the future “My career is based on the fact that I’m close enough to the boomers to be able to speak their language, but close enough to the busters to understand what the hell it is that they’re doing. I’m one of the hinge […]
Francis Ford Coppola : The Godfather : Saturday Night Fever: John Badham: Sex And Spaghetti
Bethan Roberts watches the transformation of the American-Italian man, from The Godfather to Saturday Night Fever With The Godfather recently re-released in a new print, Don Corleone and his family are back on our screens, shovelling spaghetti into their mouths, screaming at their wives and shooting other Mafia families – all with excessive amounts of […]
