Absolute Elsewhere
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STEVE WILSON OF PORCUPINE TREE INTERVIEWED (2011): Setting controls to the heart of his prog
29 Sep 2011 | 12 min read
Steven Wilson doesn't sound remotely angry, just weary, when he says a major British newspaper declined to review his new album Grace For Drowning. They said he was too under-the-radar and no one knew who he was.“Well, that's frustrating,” he sighs, “because most of the music they write about is completely unknown and unheard. Without wishing to blow my own trumpet I've... > Read more
Index
PINK FLOYD, PART ONE 1967-72: Before the dark side
25 Sep 2011 | 8 min read | 1
When Johnny Rotten wrote “I hate” on a Pink Floyd t-shirt, he probably didn't have much room left to get into specifics. After all, even by 1976 when the Sex Pistols emerged there had been a lot of different Pink Floyds for him to hate. Nine album's worth in fact. There had been the brief period in '67 when Syd Barrett wrote the eccentric singles See Emily Play and... > Read more
Interstellar Overdrive
PINK FLOYD, PART TWO 1972 - 83: After Dark to the unkindest Cut
25 Sep 2011 | 9 min read
Despite the textual analysis possible on Wish You Were Here in 1975 and the gargantuan theatrics of The Wall (a largely unlistenable album and often as dull as its cover), it is always The Dark Side of the Moon where the Pink Floyd story pivots. That album -- 50 million sold, in the Billboard top 200 for more than 14 years after its release in March '73 -- captured the uneasiness of the... > Read more
Sheep (extract)
PINK FLOYD, PART THREE (1987-94): Cut straight to the toll of the Bell
25 Sep 2011 | 6 min read
When Roger Waters quit Pink Floyd in April '87 -- the band he had co-founded with Syd Barrett, Nick Mason and Rick Wright more than 20 years previous, and for whom he had largely written their last few albums including The Wall -- he probably quite justifiably expected the band's name would be folded away. He might have presumed the individual members, all wealthy aside from acid-damaged... > Read more
Learning to Fly
NIRVANA'S NEVERMIND 20 YEARS ON: Classic is as classic does
16 Sep 2011 | 4 min read
The past is not just another country, it is one with very different radio. Let's go back to a time when people wore strange clothes and listened to very different music. A place where Bryan Adams was writing himself into the Guinness Book of Records with the longest-running single -- 16 weeks -- on the UK charts with (Everything I Do) I Do It For You. In this yesteryear Guns N' Roses... > Read more
On a Plain
THE JAYHAWKS, MARK OLSON INTERVIEWED (2011): Today in the green grass again
5 Sep 2011 | 10 min read
Whenever anyone speaks of the No Depression movement – the alt.country and roots music which emerged in the early Nineties -- one band's name is always mentioned: The Jayhawks. Out of Minneapolis, the five-piece Jayhawks influenced bands such as Uncle Tupelo (which split to form Wilco and Son Volt) and their first two major label albums Hollywood Town Hall (1992) and Tomorrow... > Read more
Hide Your Colours
MAREKO INTERVIEWED (2003): The hard road from Samoa to South Auckland
4 Sep 2011 | 9 min read
Mareko is seated at one end of a stacked table in Dawnraid's South Auckland office. Piled high on the other end are boxes of T-shirts emblazoned with his name and that of his debut album, White Sunday. During a wide-ranging conversation, Mareko - aka Mark Sagapolutele - laughs about how much mileage he's been getting in the media lately. And his album isn't even out yet. He's had... > Read more
City Line
THE DIRTBOMBS INTERVIEWED (2004): Detroit's punk soul brothers
1 Sep 2011 | 3 min read
The Dirtbombs come from a city with a powerful rock'n'roll history: Detroit. The Motor City sprang Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Bob Seger, Iggy Pop, and latterly the White Stripes, Kid Rock and the Von Bondies. The Dirtbombs' frontman Mick Collins formerly helmed the semi-legendary Gories but the unique two-bass, two-drums quintet Dirtbombs have been seriously rocking for... > Read more
I'll Wait
RATTLE RECORDS AT 20: Decades of delivering
1 Sep 2011 | 4 min read
Even producer Steve Garden, one of the prime movers behind Auckland's Rattle label, finds it hard to believe it has been 20 years since their first releases. Now with a catalogue of over 30 albums -- which includes those on their Rattle Jazz imprint -- Rattle is a significant player in New Zealand's musical landscape. It has recently launched the ia subsidiary label (Independent... > Read more
Part 8
CHICAGO SOUL, BLUES AND FUNK IN THE SIXTIES: Moving the Chess pieces
29 Aug 2011 | 3 min read
In 2002 after a Rolling Stones concert in Chicago I asked my friend, who lived in the city, to take me down to 2120 South Michigan Avenue, the old home of Chess Records. Aside from wanting to see this legendary place where Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley, Etta James, Chuck Berry, Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon once held court, I also half thought that Mick'n'Keith'n'Charlie might drop by. After... > Read more
Another Sugar Daddy
THE MOODY BLUES INTERVIEWED (2011): Voices in the sky
22 Aug 2011 | 12 min read
In the late Sixties, when the boundaries of pop and rock were being extended into jazz and quasi-classical areas, the Moody Blues were one of the most musically innovative and productive groups of the period. Their albums between Days of Future Passed in 67 and Seventh Sojourn in 72 – an extraordinary seven albums in five years following their hit single Nights in White Satin... > Read more
Legend of a Mind
PETER GABRIEL, THE SOLO FLIGHT IN THE SEVENTIES: Not one of us
15 Aug 2011 | 7 min read
In late '77 Peter Gabriel -- two years after quitting Genesis at their creative peak with the ambitious concept album The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway -- told NME "I felt that [Genesis] were just at a point of breaking through to the Big Time. "I just felt that if I'd stayed I would have got trapped into roles that I was beginning not to enjoy -- both within the band and within... > Read more
Family Snapshot
ILL SEMANTICS INTERVIEWED (2002): The meaning behind the theory
2 Aug 2011 | 5 min read
You know how it's supposed to be in hip-hop - the artists are kinda surly and mean, there's usually something about the struggle of "my people", some unspecified and unfiltered rage. That's how it's supposed to be: guys in beanies with a bad attitude, sistas glaring at you from behind impenetrable wraparounds. But it isn't like that on this sunny morning in the boardroom of... > Read more
Ill's Coming
COLD CHISEL INTERVIEWED (2011): Forever now, and again
1 Aug 2011 | 12 min read | 1
When the Australian rock band Cold Chisel arranged a press conference in Sydney in July 2011, they had something to announce and much to celebrate. But the gathering of media, management and musicians was also conducted with a degree of solemnity. The excitement was tempered because someone was absent from the microphones alongside singer Jimmy Barnes, keyboard player/songwriter and... > Read more
Home and Broken Hearted
COLD CHISEL ALBUMS, REMASTERED AND RE-PRESENTED (2011): The last wave, again . . .
1 Aug 2011 | 10 min read
The reason for Cold Chisel's July 2011 Sydney press conference was to announce the biggest archival reissue in Australian music history. All their albums (including live releases) remastered and packaged up with rare and unseen DVD footage (some bought from eBay says Barnes), and 56 extra tracks available only on digital download. Here's a run-down of the Cold Chisel remastered and... > Read more
The Last Wave of Summer
HOLLIE SMITH INTERVIEWED (2011): Are friends electronica?
1 Aug 2011 | 6 min read
In Berlin it's 8.15am so a yawning Hollie Smith is forgivably vague about where her friends Electric Wire Hustle played last night. And she is also on holiday, despite having a new album Band of Brothers Vol 1 – with Mara TK of EWH – released back home. “I did talk last year of moving over here for a lot longer,” she says “but things kept changing so... > Read more
Promised Land Hotel (Pt 1 and Pt 2)
CHANTS R&B 1966: New Zealand's rocking witchdoctors
25 Jul 2011 | 2 min read | 2
Chants R&B, who styled themselves "soul agents for r'n'b," were a raucous four-piece from Christchurch, New Zealand who would seem to have been in cultural isolation from r'n'b rock of the mid Sixties by them being at the bottom of the bottom island at the bottom of the world. But Christchurch had an American airforce base and so -- as with Max Merritt and Ray Columbus before... > Read more
I Want Her
R.E.M. LIFES RICH PAGEANT REISSUED (2011): The turning point
25 Jul 2011 | 3 min read
When R.E.M. re-signed to Warners for a reported US$80 million in 1996, it was hard to know whether to stifle the gasp or the guffaw. Although that figure bandied about was doubtless inflated and involved complex deals regarding recording, promotion and royalties, it wasn't the number that was so significant. It was what Warners thought they might be getting. After all, the band were... > Read more
Fall On Me (Athens demo)
THE GREATEST LOST ALBUM IN ROCK? (2011): The remarkable story of The Voyage of the Corvus Corrone
18 Jul 2011 | 4 min read | 5
In late 1976 keyboard player Rick Wakeman of the progressive rock band Yes – riding a string of solo successes with his prog-rock concept albums The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Citizen Kane – gave a revealing interview to the British magazine New Music Maker in which he described his forthcoming project, a concept album based on Sir James... > Read more
The Edges of the Map
HAPPY BIRTHDAY BOB (2011): The Dylan tribute albums
18 Jul 2011 | 3 min read
Bob Dylan's 70th birthday in June 2011 hardly went unobserved in the world – you couldn't turn around without bumping into profiles, reconsiderations, essays and the like – and nor was it coincidence that many artists lined up for tribute albums. Some got in early – like Ben Sidran whose Dylan Different arrived before Bob's 69th birthday – and others had... > Read more