Drugs and alcohol
632 articles
Billie Holiday: "They won't let me work in New York, so I'm settling in London"
Interview by Max Jones, Melody Maker, 28 February 1959
Billie Holiday was in London this week for a TV date. She returned to the States on Wednesday ...
Billie Holiday: She was original, honest — unique says Max Jones
Obituary by Max Jones, Melody Maker, 8 August 1959
WHAT A sad, bad year it has been for jazz. The deaths of Baby Dodds, Lester Young and Sidney Bechet have been followed with tragic ...
Zoot Money: The trouble with Zoot Money is that he can't get his hands on any
Interview by Maureen Cleave, The Evening Standard, 13 November 1965
ZOOT MONEY is the son of Oscar Money. Mr. Oscar Money is half Italian and works as a wine waiter in Bournemouth. "He speaks very ...
Is Trips Festival Really Necessary?
Report by Philip Elwood, The San Francisco Examiner, 24 January 1966
AFTER THREE weekend nights of ear-splitting, head-aching, eye-straining audio-visual bedlam in the Longshoremen's Hall, a collective patronage of 10,000 kicks-seekers should be wondering by now, ...
The Moody Blues, St. Louis Union, The Who, The Yardbirds: Drugs. Yes or No?
Report and Interview by uncredited writer, Rave, March 1966
Drugs are always in the news. And always in the news with them, are pop stars. This month four famous stars give their views on ...
Interview by Dawn James, Rave, March 1966
Who really knows what the Who are like? RAVE'S Dawn James does. She met them for this very special RAVE interview. ...
The Beatles, The Byrds, The Velvet Underground: Psychedelics: That's The New Fad
Report by Lillian Roxon, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 17 July 1966
The Pop movement has become old-hat now. In its place a brand new gimmick has started to sweep American discotheques. ...
Teen Panel: The Use Of Drugs By American Teens
Interview by uncredited writer, KRLA Beat, 28 January 1967
In this issue, The BEAT's Teen Panel discusses another of the hottest subjects of the day – the use of drugs by teenagers. ...
Teen Panel: Teenagers And Drugs, Part II
Interview by uncredited writer, KRLA Beat, 11 February 1967
This is the second half of The BEAT'S Teen Panel discussion on the subject of "drugs," Part One appeared in the last issue. ...
War Between the Generations: "This Thing Can't Be Stopped"
Report by uncredited writer, KRLA Beat, 11 February 1967
Or Beware The Postage Stamps You Lick! ...
Donovan, The Lovin' Spoonful, The Rolling Stones: The Psychedelic Yenta Strikes Again!
Report by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 23 March 1967
THE LOVIN' Spoonful may soon find their names anathema to the very underground which nurtured them. ...
The Small Faces: The Many Faces of Steve Marriott
Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 29 April 1967
POP STARS and the Establishment seem to be ever at loggerheads. Cliff Richard and Elvis Presley used to be accused of corrupting teenage morals. Quite ...
Pills (not THE Pill but Pills for the Mind): Hollywood Grasps a Hot Theme
Report by Ivor Davis, Daily Express, 3 May 1967
ONCE HOLLYWOOD shunned controversial subjects for its pictures. Now it has became even bolder than some of the European film-makers. ...
The Yardbirds: Bill Harry's Pop Talk: The Yardbirds
Interview by Bill Harry, Record Mirror, 20 May 1967
KEITH RELF, Chris Dreja and Jimmy Page are quite angry about the continuous, almost hysterical attacks the pop world has been receiving from all directions ...
Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane: California Dreamin'
Report by Nick Jones, Melody Maker, 27 May 1967
AMERICA'S WEST COAST — ESPECIALLY SAN FRANCISCO — IS WHERE IT'S ALL AT NOW. WHAT LESSON CAN WE LEARN FROM IT? NICK JONES EXPLAINS ...
The Rolling Stones: Pop In The Police State
Comment by Mick Farren, International Times, 2 June 1967
"People try to put us down just because we get around."The Who – 'My Generation' ...
The Beatles, Paul McCartney: Paul McCartney: 'If You'll Shut Up About It I Will'
Report by Tony Barrow, KRLA Beat, 15 July 1967
ON THE evening of Monday June 19, thirty six hours after the British press had reported and examined Paul McCartney's statement regarding LSD (originally contained ...
The Rolling Stones: The fearful treatment and unfair torture of the Rolling Stones
Comment by Derek Taylor, Disc and Music Echo, 15 July 1967
Our man in America Derek Taylor, Hollywood, Tuesday ...
The Rolling Stones, The Who: The Rolling Stones drugs bust: Time Is On Our Side
Report by uncredited writer, International Times, 28 July 1967
THE SUN isn't known to have two faces, only the moon, but in England we have the lunatic Sun (a newspaper it thinks) with as ...
George Harrison, Ravi Shankar: Ravi Shankar: 'My Music Not For Addicts'
Interview by uncredited writer, KRLA Beat, 29 July 1967
"THE MESSAGE I'm trying to get through is that our music is very sacred to us and is not meant for people who are alcoholic, ...
The Beatles, The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane: Pills and Pop Music: A Psychedelicate Subject
Comment by Pete Johnson, Los Angeles Times, 30 July 1967
One pill makes you larger And one pill makes you small And the ones that mother gives you Don't do anything at all." ...
Mick Jagger, The Rolling Stones: Aftermath: Mick Jagger Answers Some Questions
Interview by Norman Jopling, Record Mirror, 26 August 1967
WHEN I SPOKE to Mick Jagger everything was "nice" and "groovy" with him, so don't believe everything you read in the papers. And he's happy ...
The Beatles, George Harrison: Harrison Arrives Stateside; Explains Controversial Ad
Report and Interview by uncredited writer, KRLA Beat, 27 August 1967
LOS ANGELES — Beatle George Harrison arrived at the Los Angeles International Airport for what he described as a "little bit of business and pleasure." ...
The Beatles, George Harrison: The George Harrison Interview
Interview by Alan Walsh, Melody Maker, 2 September 1967
"You may think this interview is of no importance to me," said George Harrison across a table in NEM's Enterprises Mayfair offices. "But you'd be ...
The Beatles, Cilla Black: Brian Epstein's Death Is Ruled Accidental Overdose
Report by Tony Barrow, KRLA Beat, 7 October 1967
THE NEWS OF Brian Epstein's tragic death led to an immediate storm of speculation about the future of his artists and his various pop empires ...
The Supremes: The Smell Of Flower Power
Readers' Letters by uncredited writer, KRLA Beat, 21 October 1967
Dear BEAT: ...
Charles Aznavour, Donovan: Donovan: "I Don't Need Drugs for Strength"
Report by Loraine Alterman, Detroit Free Press, 17 November 1967
PROPOSES BANNING ALL FALSE-GOD TRIPS ...
Report from swinging London town
Report by Miles, Los Angeles Free Press, 26 January 1968
LITTLE HAS happened since winter came upon us and forced London's underground underground. The organisation called RELEASE has become one of the most valuable community ...
Frankie Lymon: I’m Not A Juvenile Delinquent: The Death of Frankie Lymon
Obituary by Bill Millar, Soul Music Monthly, 8 March 1968
THE LAST TWO months have been sad times for blues, rock and soul fans all the world over. All three idioms have had their brutal ...
The Who: Bus Ride Back To Pop 30 For Who
Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 21 September 1968
THE STATES are where the Who now have their biggest hits, most fan fever, and excitement. Pete Townsend, Keith Moon, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle ...
Lady Wootton talks to Caroline Coon about Pot
Interview by Caroline Coon, International Times, 31 January 1969
THE BARONESS Wootton of Abinger was chairman of the subcommittee on 'Cannabis' of the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence whose Report was published on 8th ...
Report and Interview by Miller Francis jr., The Great Speckled Bird, 20 October 1969
OURS IS AN age of reluctant ambivalence. The impact of the new is devastatingly real, but the clinging corpse of what has been and what ...
The Beatles, The Chambers Brothers: The Chambers Brothers: 'They Put Us Up for Sale; People Bought'
Interview by Mike Gormley, Detroit Free Press, 31 October 1969
THE CHAMBERS Brothers, who are Willie, George, Joe and Lester Chambers plus Brian Keenan, were dressed in the usual cool clothes they've been noted for ...
Charles Manson, John Phillips: You just don't know Hollywood
Report by Lillian Roxon, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 1 November 1969
More things there than murder are bizarre, reports Lillian Roxon ...
Essay by John Sinclair, Los Angeles Free Press, 19 December 1969
From one who knows the hemp ropes... ...
The Rolling Stones: King Hash Is Sure To Come
Report and Interview by Sheila Weller, Rolling Stone, 14 May 1970
TANGIER – He shakes another pebble oul of the foot-long, coral-and silver-encrusted stash pouch, pokes an amber-ringed forefinger under the schlockedelic fake-silk ascot he has ...
The Beatles, The Byrds, Jefferson Airplane: Agnew urges curbs on "brainwashing" lyrics
Report by Lillian Roxon, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 16 September 1970
NEW YORK, Tuesday. — The Vice-President, Mr Spiro Agnew, last night accused some songwriters and motion picture makers of "brainwashing" young Americans with lyrics and ...
The "famous" children are going to pot...
Report by Lillian Roxon, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 4 October 1970
More and more big names are cropping up in the round-up of dangerous narcotics-takers ...
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin: Death joins the electric band
Report by Lillian Roxon, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 10 October 1970
JIMI HENDRIX died last week. Janis Joplin died this week. The needle is picking off the electric generation one by one with the precision of ...
Report by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 29 October 1970
LONDON — Rain is sloshing down all the streets and windows, and when Bob Hite of Canned Heat wakes up in his hotel room in ...
Tim Leary: or, Bomb for Buddha
Interview by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 10 December 1970
JUST OUTSIDE Algiers, on the balcony of a white stone hotel by the sea, Timothy Leary sits in the sunlight. Aquiline nose, high cheekbones, eyes ...
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Charles Manson: The Maggot in the Rose
Comment by Geoffrey Cannon, unpublished, 1971
Author's note, 2018: Nobody talked about flower power or summers of love or fun, fun, fun after the Manson and the Altamont murders, followed by ...
The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe McDonald: Rock Music: Drumbeat For Drugs?
Essay by Mike Jahn, New York Times Special Features Syndication, 3 January 1971
"If you're tired or a bit run down, can't seem to get your feet off the ground Maybe you oughta try a little bit ...
Caroline Coon: The Underground Angel Of Mercy...
Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 30 January 1971
Michael Watts talks to CAROLINE COON of Release ...
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin: Jimi and Janis: Victims of the Plague
Essay by Frank Bach, The Ann Arbor Sun, February 1971
EARLY IN the morning of Monday, October 5, 1970, Janis Joplin was found dead in an apartment in San Francisco, her arms filled with tracks, ...
Report by Dave Marsh, Creem, March 1971
ALGIERS, Algeria (UPS) — Timothy Leary has once again spent some time in jail — and this time his jailer was none less than Eldridge ...
Report by Robert Greenfield, Rolling Stone, 4 March 1971
LONDON — With any kind of luck, you could sleep long enough to save two hits. Take them down to Piccadilly and sell one, then ...
Mott The Hoople: America's druggies scared Mott to death
Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 27 March 1971
"IF PEOPLE want revolution then they should join an organised party en block instead of sitting on their backsides bemoaning their fate. It's absolutely no ...
If You Think It's Groovy To Rap, You're Shucking
Overview by Mike Jahn, The New York Times, 6 June 1971
WHEN YOU are trying to be a suburban Dharma Bum you have to try harder. Between the tennis court and the parking lot I read ...
Rick Derringer, Johnny Winter: Johnny Winter: Behind the Scene With Steve Paul
Report and Interview by Ed McCormack, Rolling Stone, 14 October 1971
THE BIG dusty black Cadillac limousine comes rolling around the comer at Twenty-First Street, turns into the dimly-lighted stage-set stillness of Gramercy Park East, and ...
The Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson: The Beach Boys: A California Saga
Special Feature by Tom Nolan, Rolling Stone, 28 October 1971
Part One: Mr. Everything ...
John Lennon, Yoko Ono, John Sinclair: John and Yoko "go protest"
Report by Lillian Roxon, Sydney Morning Herald, the, 19 December 1971
NO SOONER did Bob Dylan astonish everyone by going back to "protest" and coming out with a song protesting the death of convict George Jackson ...
Charles Manson, Ed Sanders: Charles Manson: Stalking Manson – The Sanders Saga
Essay by Nick Tosches, Fusion, 24 December 1971
Ed Sanders spent the summer of the Tate-LaBianca murders yodeling the ditties that were to come to comprise Sanders Truckstop into an overhead mike at ...
Syd Barrett, MC5: Syd Barrett: The Madcap returns
Report by Roy Hollingworth, Melody Maker, 4 March 1972
SYD BARRETT'S new band, Stars, made their strange debut at Cambridge Corn Exchange last week. Roy Hollingworth reports... ...
Jerry Garcia, Grateful Dead: Grateful Dead: Jerry Garcia Interview
Interview by uncredited writer, Mutha Grumble, May 1972
ON TUESDAY 11 April, an American rock n' roll band, the Grateful Dead, played to a packed house at Newcastle City Hall. Two hours before ...
Yes: Confessions Of a Musical Idiot
Interview by Tony Norman, New Musical Express, 3 June 1972
JON ANDERSON OF YES TALKS TO TONY NORMAN ...
"I'm Down, I'm Really Down" — The Emerging Sopor Culture
Report by Wayne Robins, Creem, October 1972
SINCE HE got out of the army, my friend Tony has been getting by wheeling vats of boiling liquid from one tank to another in ...
Curtis Mayfield: Curtis the Crusader
Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 18 November 1972
FIGHTING A DRUG MENACE IN AMERICAN GHETTOES ...
Interview by James Johnson, Rock's Backpages audio, Spring 1972
The vibrato in his body, the band in his head and the drugs in his veins: the legendary singer-songwriter in revealing, if somewhat dazed conversation.
File format: mp3; file size: 29mb, interview length: 31' 37" sound quality: ****
Tim Hardin (1972) [transcript]
Audio transcript of interview by James Johnson, Rock's Backpages transcripts, Spring 1972
This is a transcript of James's audio interview with Tim. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Marianne Faithfull: Somewhere in Her Soul...
Interview by Andrew Bailey, Rolling Stone, 12 April 1973
LONDON — She once said: "It's like there's this chant — 'Poor, tragic Marianne, poor, tragic Marianne.'" Tragic is a word that has cropped up ...
Chet Baker: The Man Who Came Back From The Dead
Report and Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 21 July 1973
The Return of Chet Baker ...
Manassas, Stephen Stills: Stephen Stills: The Reformation Of a "Jive" Artist
Interview by Judith Sims, Rolling Stone, 27 September 1973
LOS ANGELES — It's difficult to name a rock & roll star who's been put down, chopped up, dismissed and generally hated as much as ...
Gram Parsons: Ashes In the Morning
Memoir by Eve Babitz, Rolling Stone, 25 October 1973
Eve Babitz is an artist and author of a column and an upcoming book entitled Eve's Hollywood. — Editor ...
The Dramatics: A Dramatic Experience
Report and Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, April 1974
OVER THE past two years, the Dramatics have become established as one of the most consistently successful vocal groups in America. The success streak began ...
Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd: The Cracked Ballad of Syd Barrett
Profile and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 13 April 1974
The summer of '67 went up like a psychedelic mushroom-cloud – and some of the fall-out's still coming down. Brian Jones was casually snuffed out, ...
What Made Rizla Famous Made A Loser Out Of Me
Comment by Penny Reel, International Times, May 1974
AFTER YEARS OF shadowy unwillingness as one of the mainstays of the dope scene, Rizla and their finest quality gummed papers have finally put one ...
The Doors, Jim Morrison: Pam Morrison: A Final Curtain on Her Affair with Life
Report by Judith Sims, Rolling Stone, 6 June 1974
LOS ANGELES — "Pamela was Jim's other half," said ex-Door Ray Manzarek. "The two of them were a perfect combination; I never knew another person ...
Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 2 July 1974
THE WELCOME revival in the musical fate of Etta James is highlighted by the release of a fine new album, produced by Gabriel Mekler and ...
Joe Cocker: Academy of Music, New York NY
Live Review by Ian Dove, Rolling Stone, 24 October 1974
WELL, HE went on. Stood out there in the spotlight and sang. Out in the street the freeloaders and ticket beggars were truly frenzied, having ...
Report by Judith Sims, Rolling Stone, 7 November 1974
LOS ANGELES — Robbie McIntosh, 24, drummer with the Average White Band, died in his North Hollywood hotel room September 23rd of an overdose of ...
Average White Band: White Band with Soul
Interview by Judith Sims, Rolling Stone, 19 December 1974
LOS ANGELES — Their name has a nice sense of irony and confidence, because the Average White Band plays music that is anything but white; ...
Rick Wakeman: Beers of the World
Report and Interview by Chris Salewicz, New Musical Express, 21 December 1974
"ON OUR rider for the tour of America – for the seven of us – we had twelve six-packs of Budweiser, two bottles of tequila, ...
Iggy Pop, The Stooges: Iggy Pop: The Mighty Pop vs. the Hand of Blight
Special Feature by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 3 May 1975
Never before told! The story of a brilliant monster called IGGY POP, whose life and countless near-demises have provided Rock with one of its most ...
Neil Young: Tonight's The Night
Review by Bud Scoppa, Phonograph Record, June 1975
...At the canyon bottom, four cruisers were spinning blue light; there was an ambulance and four civilian cars, all balanced on the sloping shoulder of ...
Neil Young: Tonight's the Night: Play It Loud and Stay in the Other Room!
Interview by Bud Scoppa, New Musical Express, 28 June 1975
NEIL YOUNG isn't out to win any popularity contest. Just as he reached the top of the heap three years ago with the huge-selling Harvest, ...
Perspectives on Ralph J. Gleason
Memoir by j. poet, Rolling Stone, 17 July 1975
ONE OF THE things that inspired me to become a record reviewer was Ralph Gleason's record collection. It completely filled all the walls of his ...
Tim Buckley Dead at 28; Murder Charged
Report by Judith Sims, Rolling Stone, 14 August 1975
LOS ANGELES — Singer/songwriter Tim Buckley died at the Santa Monica Hospital emergency room at 9:42 p.m. on June 29th. At first police suspected that ...
Lynyrd Skynyrd: The 100 Proof Blues
Report by Jim Esposito, Creem, October 1975
2009 note: In the Summer of '75 The Editors of Creem decided to do a Special Report on Rock 'n Roll and booze. They called ...
Jefferson Airplane, Jefferson Starship, Grace Slick: Grace Slick (1976) [transcript]
Audio transcript of interview by Jim Esposito, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 1976
This is a transcript of Jim's audio interview with Grace. Note that almost all his questions are inaudible on his tape. Listen to the audio ...
10cc, Donna Summer, Jane Birkin, Max Romeo, Serge Gainsbourg: Banned — Why?: What Turns Censors On…
Report by uncredited writer, Melody Maker, 21 February 1976
It's Donna Summer at the moment, but the Beatles, Stones even Lena Horne have all run into radio censorship. So this week, MM examines that ...
Obituary by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 27 March 1976
WHAT CAN you do but grieve. Just grieve. Too close to the edge, always. Pain, so much pain, so much of the time it seemed. ...
The Tubes: Special Drug Report: GREEN — Every Day Is St. Patrick's Day!
Report by Robert Duncan, Creem, June 1976
WILLY HAS just returned from Los Angeles where he has found the perfect drug. Obsessional as he is on these jags of his, after several ...
Profile and Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 13 November 1976
THE SENSUOUS POUT FROM CBGB ...
Peter Tosh: Tosh Spreads the Message
Interview by Chris Charlesworth, Melody Maker, 13 November 1976
"REGGAE IS black. It was held back but you can't keep a good man down. It was just a manifestation but it had to happen. ...
James Booker: A winner never quits, a quitter never wins...
Interview by John Abbey, Blues & Soul, 30 November 1976
'THE BLACK LIBERATCHI' That's what it says on the card and you can tell that it's going to be one of those interviews when you ...
New York Dolls: Meet The Boys In The Band: The New York Dolls
Retrospective by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 4 December 1976
Prime movers of P**K, this gang of poseurs were wearing safety pins when they were still in diapers. ...
The Rolling Stones: Keith Richard: One Man's Week OFF THE HOOK
Report and Interview by Barbara Charone, Sounds, 22 January 1977
MONDAY, JANUARY 10th. In Colorado, Claudine Longet, ex-wife of singer Andy Williams, stood trial for allegedly murdering her lover. On America's west coast, kidnap victim/revolutionary ...
Eric Clapton: Give Me Strength
Interview by Steve Turner, Sounds, 19 February 1977
Meg and George Patterson's cure for heroin addiction ...
Keith Richards: Keith And The Cockroaches Rip This Joint
Report and Interview by Barbara Charone, Creem, June 1977
Take me to the airportAnd put me on a planeI've got no expectationsTo pass through here again('No Expectations', Jagger/Richards) ...
Johnny Thunders & The Heartbreakers, The Ramones: The Ramones: So The New Wave Have Scruples Too
Report and Interview by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 18 June 1977
JOHNNY RAMONE is quite definitely pissed off. ...
Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers: Bring a freezer, you're gonna need it
Report by Barry Cain, Record Mirror, 25 June 1977
THE HEARTBREAKERS (make that THE JUNKIES), St Albans and Birmingham ...
Mahogany Rush: And This Little Piggy Took Too Much Acid
Interview by Geoff Barton, Sounds, 25 June 1977
If we tell you that Frank Marino of Mahogany Rush took 1500 trips in a month, you won't be surprised that the tale he tells ...
Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones: Keith Richard Caught Live
Interview by Paul Nelson, Circus, 29 September 1977
A Long Look at the Rolling Stones, Love You Live, and the Journey Between Then and Now ...
R.I.P.: Calendar of Death in Rock
Special Feature by Michael Gray, Record Mirror, 29 October 1977
WE'VE HAD heavy rock, blues rock, folk rock, glam rock and punk rock. And now, in 1977, it's... snuff rock. ...
Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones: Keith Richards: Heroin, old age, rhythm and blues
Interview by Victor Bockris, High Times, February 1978
KEITH RICHARD has been the Rolling Stones' lead guitarist for the last 15 years and one of rock's leading crusaders and criminals. His most recent ...
Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd: Syd Barrett: Careening Through Life...
Retrospective by Kris DiLorenzo, Trouser Press, February 1978
THE COLOR black is not a solitary real color. Nor is it the total absence of color. A black hole in space, in fact, is ...
Art Pepper, Before And After Life
Profile and Interview by Roy Carr, Brian Case, New Musical Express, 11 February 1978
And still going strong. The alto legend is working again after beating heroin addiction and 12 years in jail. ...
Jerry Lee Lewis: Loud Covenants: Jerry Lee Lewis, God's Garbage Man
Book Excerpt by Nick Tosches, Creem, March 1978
[The following is excerpted from the book, COUNTRY: The Biggest Music In America by Nick Tosches, published by Stein & Day Publishers.] ...
William Burroughs: Junkie, Junkey... An Interview With William Burroughs
Interview by Jeffrey Morgan, Creem, April 1978
"I WAS AROUND people who were using it. Then I started, you know, taking an occasional shot. It is, for most people, I think, a ...
Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious: Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen: Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll
Interview by Rosalind Russell, Record Mirror, 8 April 1978
When SID VICIOUS was at the height of fame with the Sex Pistols, be was supporting an £80 a day heroin habit. His fix cost ...
Grateful Dead, Bob Weir: Alone again gratefully: Bob Weir proves he's more than Dead
Interview by John Swenson, Rolling Stone, 20 April 1978
"THIS DOESN'T represent me correctly," Bob Weir complains to a photographer as he gestures at the half-empty dishes before him. "I hardly ever drink tea, ...
Jimmy Buffett: Red-Eyed Sails in the Sunset
Profile by Fred Schruers, Circus, 8 June 1978
Jimmy Buffett Floats Home Another Relaxing Rock Monster ...
Jefferson Starship: Starship Aim To Stay On Course
Report and Interview by David Hancock, Evening News, London, 24 June 1978
FOR MANY fans the most disappointing news today is that legendary rock singer Grace Slick will not perform with the Jefferson Starship. ...
Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 5 August 1978
CONTRARY TO legend, out on the road the Rolling Stones attempt to lead as normal a life as one can expect when living out of ...
Keith Moon, The Who: The Who Come To a Fork in the Road
Interview by Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 5 October 1978
"THIS POOR hotel," says Pete Townshend, gesturing at his spacious suite in the Navarro Hotel on New York's posh Central Park South. "Mr. Russell, the ...
The Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious: Sid and Nancy: Life In The Vicious Circle
Report by Nick Kent, New Musical Express, 21 October 1978
SID VICIOUS (born John Simon Ritchie — though his mother's remarried name is Mrs. Ann Beverley) may hold the all-time record for building up an ...
The Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious: Sid and Nancy
Comment by uncredited writer, New York Rocker, November 1978
WHAT MORE can we add to the pathetic, sordid tale of Nancy Spungen and Sid Vicious? ...
The Only Ones: Another Year Another Planet
Report and Interview by Giovanni Dadomo, Sounds, 30 December 1978
1979 is the year of the Only Ones sez GIOVANNI DADOMO ...
Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones: Keith Richards (and Anita Pallenberg) (1979)
Interview by Chris Welch, Rock's Backpages audio, January 1979
Holding court at London's Ritz Hotel – and with frequent interjections from Pallenberg – the Rolling Stones guitarist talks about the band's most recent tour; why he's back in London; being in tax exile; punk and the Pistols; Keith Moon's death; working with Peter Tosh, and reggae and Jamaica in general; the etymology of the terms "Blood Claat"; his Canadian drug bust and being a junkie; writing with Mick Jagger and the Stones' Some Girls; how he and Mick became known as "the Glimmer Twins"; Edith Grove flatmate Jimmy Phelge; Bill Wyman; his various house fires, and... enter son Marlon! (Read the resulting Melody Maker piece "An Outlaw at the Ritz")...
File format: mp3; file size: 82mb, interview length: 1h 25' 24" sound quality: ***
Roky Erickson, 13th Floor Elevators: Roky Erickson: Darkness at the edge of your mind...
Profile by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 6 January 1979
...and other remembrances of psychedelic times past and future. ROKY ERICKSON, the Martian Van Morrison, will be visiting your town in "person" next month with ...
Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones: An Outlaw At The Ritz: Keith Richards
Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 13 January 1979
In which Keef holds up the price of Smirnoff shares, little Marlon holds up his Dad, Anita Pallenberg holds up the interview, and CHRIS WELCH ...
Rock Mortality: They Gave Their Souls For Rock 'n Roll
Essay by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 27 January 1979
THE WRITER can eventually put down his pen, close the book and turn on the TV. The actor can take off his makeup and go ...
Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious: Sid Vicious Dies of Overdose
Report by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 3 February 1979
NEW YORK — Sid Vicious joined his girlfriend Nancy in death yesterday. ...
Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious: Sid Vicious: A Rocky Lifestyle Played Out to Its Extreme End
Obituary by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 18 February 1979
EPITAPH FOR a punk: Even before his somehow not too surprising drug overdose death at age 21, Sid Vicious already scrawled his name indelibly in ...
Report by uncredited writer, Creem, May 1979
IT MIGHT seem that just about everything's been said about Sid's death on February 2, of a heroin overdose. The newspapers reported every detail with ...
Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers: Max's Kansas City, New York NY
Live Review by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 16 June 1979
THE HEARTBREAKERS have abandoned the conceit of billing each of their now regular appearances at Max's as a 'farewell' gig and it looks a safe ...
Herman Brood: Brood Back On The Nest
Report and Interview by Chris Bohn, Melody Maker, 23 June 1979
German rock star Nina Hagen's upset because her Dutch rock 'n' rolling boyfriend, Herman Brood, has disappeared. Will our intrepid CHRIS BOHN track him down? ...
The Who is undated in a new age
Interview by Wayne Robins, Newsday, 24 June 1979
THE WHO may have won and maintained its devoted and massive following thanks to the flamboyant intensity of its peerless live performances and the surging ...
Peter Tosh, The Wailers: Peter Tosh: The Bush Doctor is in
Interview by Howard Wuelfing, Unicorn Times, August 1979
FIRST TACTICAL error: having arranged earlier in the day to meet with a long admired reggae legend at a given place and hour, I trust ...
Elvis Presley: Elvis Still Dead Shock
Report by Mick Farren, New Musical Express, 22 September 1979
Drugs Probe — Doc Probe ...
Marianne Faithfull: The Ballad of Marianne Faithfull
Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, December 1979
MARIANNE FAITHFULL was the Face of the '60s Fragile, damaged little bird with the voice of an angel, broken on a spike and filled with ...
Keith Moon, The Who: The Who's Pete Townshend on Keith Moon (1980)
Interview by Keith Altham, Rock's Backpages audio, 1980
Pete describes first meeting Keith Moon and the drummer's immediate impact on the band; Moon's conflict with Roger Daltrey, mostly over women, and the changing personal dynamics within the band; the musical intuition between Townshend, Entwistle and Moon; Keith's eccentricities and lunacy; gear-smashing, women, drugs and drink... and the inevitable fist fights.
File format: mp3; file size: 25.7mb, interview length: 26' 44" sound quality: ****
Paul McCartney, Wings: Paul McCartney: The Yellow Perils Of Paulie
Report by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 26 January 1980
The Nips nabbed Big Macca last week as he allegedly lugged half-a-pound of marijuana through the Japanese customs. Is the naughty 'former Beatle' set for ...
Marianne Faithfull: Broken English (Island ILPS 9570)
Review by Toby Goldstein, High Fidelity, March 1980
MARIANNE FAITHFULL cut her first record, 'As Tears Go By', fifteen years ago. She was seventeen and fresh out of pre-convent boarding school — a ...
Warren Zevon: How L.A.'s 'Excitable Boy' Won the Battle with the Bottle
Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 10 April 1980
"L.A. rock's newest darling desperado, Warren Zevon, likes to start his day with a screwdriver, then clear his head with coffee and a side of ...
Marianne Faithfull: Rave Girl To Brave Girl: True Confessions Of Marianne Faithful
Report and Interview by Toby Goldstein, Creem, May 1980
"GOOD LORD, why?" rasps Marianne Faithfull, as she sinks into the hotel's rumpled bedding. "It's so strange, why would you be a fan of somebody ...
Motörhead: Must We Fling This Filth At Our Pop Kids
Interview by Ronnie Gurr, Record Mirror, 7 June 1980
RONNIE GURR thinks we should and MOTÖRHEAD want to get even dirtier. ...
Paul McCartney, Wings: Paul McCartney: Once Nipped, Twice Shy
Interview by Paul Gambaccini, Record Mirror, 12 July 1980
PAUL McCARTNEY tells PAUL GAMBACCINI how he avoided going to pot in a Jap jail ...
Warren Zevon: Hollywood's Prince of Darkness
Interview by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 28 February 1981
I SHOULD'VE known better with an excitable boy like him. "You misjudge my sense of humour," said Warren Zevon, carefully disarming me of my .44 ...
Special Feature by Nick Tosches, Penthouse, March 1982
IT WAS 3 O'CLOCK in the morning and the master bedroom of Graceland was still. Elvis Presley lay in his blue cotton pajamas dreaming. ...
Report by Mick Farren, Trouser Press, May 1982
AS I WRITE THIS, the tabloids tell me we're having a cocaine war in New York City. Not that there's anything novel about a cocaine ...
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 22 May 1982
Two of the original New York Dolls are in London. BARNEY HOSKYNS charts their destinies. ...
William Burroughs: The Beat Guru Loaded For Bear
Interview by Mick Brown, The Guardian, 1 October 1982
Burroughs is in Britain for a series of readings. Mick Brown reports. ...
The Beach Boys, Charles Manson, Dennis Wilson: Manson and Drugs — A Beach Boy's Troubled Life
Retrospective by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 January 1984
DENNIS WILSON, the Beach Boy who drowned a week ago last Wednesday, never got that many headlines in life. He may have been the most ...
The Pretenders: Leather Wears Better Than Dreams
Profile and Interview by Lesley White, The Face, February 1984
In the last two turbulent years, Chrissie Hynde has had a baby by the man who once personified for her the rock and roll myth, ...
Dennis Wilson: The Beach Boy Who Went Overboard
Report by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 7 June 1984
He was the wild one. He could never get enough of anything: drugs, women or booze. But in the end, he had nothing. ...
Report by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 22 September 1984
Go-go's got a godfather and a group in every area!! RICHARD GRABEL goes ga-ga in Washington as he uncovers the biggest show in those suburbs. ...
Sam Moore, Sam & Dave: Sam Moore: The Soul Man Makes A Comeback From Heroin
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 26 October 1984
IN THE late '60s, Sam & Dave were right up there with Otis Redding as stars of Memphis' legendary Stax Records. Singles like 'Hold On, ...
The Replacements: Going Down With the Replacements
Special Feature by RJ Smith, The Village Voice, 11 December 1984
Not a Bunch of Loads ...
The Sid Presley Experience: Going Cold Turkey with the Sid Presley Experience
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, New Musical Express, 19 January 1985
Why reheat ‘Cold Turkey’? BARNEY HOSKYNS TALKS TO THE SID PRESLEY EXPERIENCE about their protest against council block smack. ...
Natalie Cole Is Back From the Fast Lane
Interview by Ben Fong-Torres, San Francisco Chronicle, 24 February 1985
SINGER'S DRUG REHABILITATION ...
The Faces, Humble Pie, Steve Marriott, The Small Faces: The Small Faces' Steve Marriott (1985)
Interview by Chris Welch, Rock's Backpages audio, 29 May 1985
The smallest Face takes us back to the band's beginning: meeting Ronnie Lane and Kenney Jones and starting the Small Faces; the Man with the Van, Jimmy Winston; signing up with manager Don Arden; sacking Winston and Ian McLagan joining; the hits, and wild times on the road; leaving Decca and Don Arden and joing Immediate; leaving the band and forming Humble Pie with Peter Frampton; his uneasy relationship with psychedelics and his cocaine years.
File format: mp3; file size: 85.2mb, interview length: 1h 28' 44" sound quality: ****
Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 9 July 1985
David Nathan conducts a very sober and enlightening interview with the former Wild Man of Funk whose drug and alcohol abuse took him to the ...
Rick James, The Mary Jane Girls, Process & the Doo Rags: Rick James: "I Was Having Seizures"
Interview by Paul Sexton, Record Mirror, 13 July 1985
...this is a public admission by Rick James, naughty boy of soul who up till now has been getting high on more than the charts, ...
Interview by Adam Sweeting, Rock's Backpages audio, August 1985
Over the course of almost two hours, Neil talks about world politics, the state of America today, his philosophical outlook, his current country-music tour and his love of that music; and about the transition from 'Heart of Gold' to Tonight's the Night, drugs and David Crosby, meeting Charles Manson... and the event that became Farm Aid.
File format: mp3; file size: 101.2mb, interview length: 1h 45' 24" sound quality: ***
Interview by Howard Johnson, Kerrang!, 8 August 1985
HOWARD JOHNSON goes beyond the Pain barrier with MÖTLEY CRÜE. ...
Jerry Lee Lewis: No Sinner Like An Old 'Un
Interview by Jim Sullivan, New Musical Express, 14 September 1985
Not for JERRY LEE LEWIS the cosy trail from rocker to rocking chair. Last year a rollercoaster life and career hit a new low when ...
Richard Lloyd, Television: Richard Lloyd: The Well-Tempered Guitarist
Interview by Richard Grabel, New Musical Express, 16 November 1985
When RICHARD LLOYD turned off the Television, he switched to drug and alcohol abuse. A nervous breakdown followed... RICHARD GRABEL hears how the new Field ...
Alex Chilton (1986) [transcript]
Audio transcript of interview by Martin Aston, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 1986
This is a transcript of Martin's audio interview with Alex. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Art Pepper: The Art of darkness
Retrospective by Brian Case, Melody Maker, 11 January 1986
His story is a 'feast off rape, voyeurism, compulsive masturbation and armed robbery'. Brian Case on the legend of former drug addict, jailbird and sax ...
Ozzy Osbourne: Prince of Sin, 'bourne to be wild
Interview by Chris Roberts, Sounds, 11 January 1986
OZZY OSBOURNE is a particular man. He wouldn't walk out in the street with shit on his trousers, he is not colour prejudiced and he'd ...
Jeffrey Lee Pierce: impurely an entertainer
Interview by Jack Barron, Sounds, 25 January 1986
JEFFREY LEE PIERCE is a nice man when he's sober but when he's got three fingers in his mouth he's a scream. JACK BARRON held ...
Profile and Interview by Laura Fissinger, Creem, February 1986
ROSANNE CASH, a very young and dishy 30-year-old, has just celebrated the start of her second year without drugs. "Being on drugs is like being ...
Boy George, Culture Club: Boy George: Chasing the Dragon
Report by Jon Savage, The Observer, 13 July 1986
JON SAVAGE reports on the rise and fall of Boy George ...
Boy George: From Culture Club To Vulture Club
Comment by Paolo Hewitt, Don Watson, New Musical Express, 26 July 1986
Boy George's romance with the Fleet Street scandal sheets came to an abrupt end when they turned on him in an hysterical anti-drugs campaign. But ...
Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious: Sid And Nancy (Dir. Alex Cox; Palace Pictures, 18, 92 minutes)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Sylvia Patterson, Smash Hits, 30 July 1986
ALEX COX, film director: "In 1980 I tried to write a screenplay called 'Too Kool To Die'. It was about an English rock 'n' roll ...
The Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious: Sid Vicious: Scum Also Rises
Retrospective by Nick Kent, The Face, August 1986
SID LIVES ON T-SHIRTS AND IN A NEW FILM, BUT MOSTLY HE JUST LIVES ON IN INFAMY ...
Boy George, Culture Club: Boy George's Nightmare
Report by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 28 August 1986
A SPECIAL REPORT ON THE FALLEN POP IDOL'S BOUT WITH HIS DRUG ADDICTION ...
Overview by Mat Snow, New Musical Express, 27 September 1986
AFTER TWO false starts due to bad weather, the wide-eyed and jittery paratroopers swallowed their third load of benzedrines in three nights and flew off ...
The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious: "Poor Sid — You were a good guy, but..."
Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 7 November 1986
SID AND Nancy, Alex Cox's film about the life and death of the Sex Pistols' bassist, Sid Vicious, and his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, is a ...
The Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious: Sid And Nancy (Dir. Alex Cox; Samuel Goldwyn Co.)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Kris Needs, Creem, December 1986
LOVE IS A ROSE ...
Interview by Dave Zimmer, BAM, 16 January 1987
THE FIRST thing you notice is the twinkle in his eyes. That is the clearest signal that David Crosby is, indeed, back among the living. ...
Sam Moore, Lou Reed, Sam & Dave: Sam & Dave & Lou
Interview by Roger St. Pierre, Blues & Soul, 3 February 1987
Golden oldies never die, but they come back in different guises. Sam Moore and Lou Reed are currently scoring with 'Soul Man' — a veritable ...
Boy George, Culture Club: Boy George: Flying nun back on the runway
Interview by Jon Savage, The Observer, 22 February 1987
Boy George talks exclusively to JON SAVAGE about heroin, cold turkey and death ...
The Smiths: The Band With The Thorn In Its Side
Report by Nick Kent, The Face, April 1987
The past two years have seen panic in the Smiths camp, with take-over bids and narcotic problems competing with international success. Nick Kent assesses the ...
Depeche Mode: Fzss!... Zwiing! Aaargh!... Hahahahah!!
Report by Sylvia Patterson, Smash Hits, 6 May 1987
Hark! Depeche Mode are having a party — i.e. they're having "a" drink, scoffing streamers, pretending to be space-men, cavorting under tables, stealing "a" drink ...
Report and Interview by William Shaw, Smash Hits, 3 June 1987
What are Curiosity Killed The Cat, Boy George, Whitney Houston, Beastie Boys, A-ha and three squillion other pop stars doing in a little town in ...
The Mamas and The Papas, John Phillips: John Phillips with Jim Jerome: Papa John (W.H. Allen/Virgin)
Book Review by Hugh Fielder, Sounds, 6 June 1987
PAPA DON'T PREACH ...
Boy George, Culture Club: Boy George: Mr. Clean
Report and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 8 October 1987
Boy George Straightens Up His Act ...
John Hiatt: Return of the Demon Conqueror
Interview by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 9 October 1987
Singer-songwriter John Hiatt is back — at his best — from the drugs-and-booze brink. Adam Sweeting reports ...
Report and Interview by Stuart Bailie, Record Mirror, 19 December 1987
But no one thinks the Pogues are really like that, surely? To celebrate the hit status of 'A Fairytale In New York', Stuart Bailie legs ...
The Beatles, George Harrison: Fab! Gear! The George Harrison Interview (part 2)
Interview by J. Kordosh, Creem, January 1988
DID YOU ever see that show in London: John, Paul, George, Ringo & Bert? ...
The Shamen: Shamen Scandal: Angus At The Fungus
Interview by Robin Gibson, Sounds, 20 February 1988
The hip hop psychedelia of Aberdeen's THE SHAMEN probably has its roots in the mushrooms that grow in abundance along the North East coast. ROBIN GIBSON sips ...
Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe: Doc McGhee: Top rock manager pleads guilty to drug charges
Report by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 10 March 1988
Bon Jovi and Mötley Crüe boss tied to international smuggling ring ...
Miles Davis: The Man With The Horn
Retrospective and Interview by Gene Santoro, Pulse!, June 1988
IT'S DRIZZLING on an unseasonably warm spring day in New York; even the huge bay windows in this suite on the upper reaches of the ...
Beats Workin': Turn On, Drop Out
Report and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, New Musical Express, 16 July 1988
Methylenedioxymetheamphetamine, aka Ecstasy has been described as a "love drug" and "a new age mind bender". Whatever, there is no doubting its effect on a ...
Nico, The Velvet Underground: Nico: Last of the Bohemians
Obituary by Michele Kirsch, New Musical Express, 30 July 1988
NICO, HIGH priestess of Teutonic angst, died in Ibiza last Monday night of a brain haemorrhage. She was found unconscious by the side of her ...
Nick Cave, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds: Nick Cave: The Needle And The Damage Done
Report and Interview by Jack Barron, New Musical Express, 13 August 1988
NICK CAVE – the voice of desperation; singer, writer, actor, junkie! JACK BARRON, branded by the Bad Seed a "filthy little prick", gets to grips ...
Paul Oakenfold, Danny Rampling: From Acid House to the Balearics
Report by David Toop, The Times, 18 August 1988
What is the link between acid and House, between Ibiza and a music that does not exist? ...
The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson: Dr. Eugene Landy on Brian Wilson (1988)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, 25 September 1988
The notorious Dr. Landy talks about his long association with Brian Wilson, going back to helping produce 15 Big Ones in 1976: his own background in the music business with Frankie Avalon and George Benson; becoming a psychologist; what was wrong with Wilson, and how he fixed him; the Capitol reissues of the Beach Boys' catalogue; his break with Wilson, and being called back by the band; dealing with Wilson's health issues; the complexities surrounding the production of Wilson's first solo record; the involvement of his wife Alexandra (who appears here), and his on-off relationship with the Beach Boys.
File format: mp3; file size: 83mb, interview length: 1h 26' 30" sound quality: ****
Report by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 17 November 1988
Friends of the soul singer say drug has 'whipped him' ...
Acid Crackdown: Get Right Off One Chummy
Report by Paolo Hewitt, Sean O'Hagan, Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 19 November 1988
With the hysteria now reaching fever pitch and questions being asked in the (non-Acid) House, NME calls a time out to assess the damage in the tab-mad ...
Book Review by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 1 December 1988
DAVID CROSBY'S autobiography, Long Time Gone, provides a gripping, sometimes terrifying portrait of a rock stars personal and professional decline through drug addiction. As an ...
Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: Elysees Montmartre, Paris
Live Review by Simon Price, Melody Maker, 17 December 1988
TONIGHT THE Angel saw the Ass, and still isn't convinced. ...
Interview by Richard North, Rock's Backpages audio, Fall 1988
Mr P-Orridge talks at length about psychedelics, acid house, sexuality, ritual, Tantra, and about Psychic TV, Throbbing Gristle and Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth.
File format: mp3; file size: 125.7mb, interview length: 2h 17' 19" sound quality: ***
Spacemen 3: Urine Salesmen Of The Apocalpyse [sic]
Interview by Byron Coley, Forced Exposure, Fall 1988
SWEETLY, simply put, Spacemen 3 are the only English band that I'd walk across the street to piss on. Meaning mostly that I wouldn't even ...
David Crosby (1989) [transcript]
Audio transcript of interview by John Pidgeon, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 1989
This is a transcript of John's interview. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Profile and Interview by Martin Aston, Auckland Star, 1989
IF PUNK WAS the answer to the broad lack of genuine invention in the musical mid-70s, then the Acid House phenomenon answered those who believed ...
Report by Sean O'Hagan, Spin, January 1989
A heady mix of sex, drugs, and trance dance music, Acid House has swept England with a wave of hedonism and made going out fun ...
Boy George, Culture Club: Boy George: Culture Shock
Interview by Jon Wilde, Melody Maker, 18 February 1989
THREE YEARS AFTER HIS DRUG-INDUCED DOWNFALL, TABLOID VILIFICATION AND COMMERCIAL FAILURE, THE GOLDEN BOY OF EIGHTIES POP HAS FINALLY MANAGED TO REBUILD A SOLO CAREER. ...
Interview by Johnny Black, unpublished, 22 February 1989
INTERVIEW CONDUCTED in the Halcyon Hotel, Holland Park, London, 22.2.89. Crosby casual in jumper, white shirt and slacks. Seriously overweight and often short of breath, ...
David Crosby: A Hippy out of Hell
Interview by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 3 March 1989
David Crosby is back with an album and autobiography. He talks to Adam Sweeting ...
Report by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 9 March 1989
SOUL SINGER James Brown has received a second six-year prison sentence. The sentence will run concurrently with the six-year term Brown is already serving at ...
Johnny Thunders: An American In Sweden
Report and Interview by Richard North, Offbeat, April 1989
SO, WHY did I wait around half a day for a three-minute interview with Johnny Thunders? ...
James Brown: Wrestling With The Devil
Report and Interview by Michael Goldberg, Rolling Stone, 6 April 1989
The struggle for the soul of the Godfather of Soul ...
The Ramones: Dee Dee Ramone's Rap'n'Roll
Report and Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 17 April 1989
DEE DEE RAMONE, bassist of the Ramones, pops up in concert or on record every so often to sing a hardcore punk song like 'Warthog'. ...
James Brown, Bobby Byrd: Bobby Byrd: Rare Byrd
Interview by Paolo Hewitt, New Musical Express, 6 May 1989
Over the years, BOBBY BYRD has been an integral part of JAMES BROWN'S career. PAOLO HEWITT spoke to him about his hot-and-cold relationship with the ...
Happy Mondays: Haçi*nda, Manch*st*r
Live Review by Helen Mead, New Musical Express, 20 May 1989
THAT MONDAY FEELING ...
Interview by Push, Melody Maker, 5 August 1989
Just when you thought Public Enemy had pushed as far as it could go, just when you thought rap outrage had peaked, along come N.W.A. ...
Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones: Keith Richards: Sealed with a disc
Interview by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 25 August 1989
Keith Richards bridles at the suggestion that rock is a young man's game. Spruced up, rifts with Mick Jagger all forgotten, he and the Stones ...
Report by Jack Barron, New Musical Express, 30 September 1989
This week NME devotes its Dance/Club page to a cool and unsensational look at the drug Ecstasy. Report by JACK BARRON ...
Live Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 21 October 1989
Guns N' Roses Shows Some Mettle ...
808 State, A Guy Called Gerald: House-proud
Report by Len Brown, The Observer, 17 December 1989
Techno-beat may have played itself out in the capital, but in Manchester it's the rhythm which has sparked a working-class musical revolution. LEN BROWN reports ...
The Beloved: They Wanna Be Loved
Interview by Jack Barron, New Musical Express, 27 January 1990
THE BELOVED may have started life as dodgy New Order copyists with that ubiquitous Peel session under their studded leather belts, but now they're Dance ...
Chet Baker: Let's Get Lost (15) (Bruce Weber)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Lloyd Bradley, Q, February 1990
CHET BAKER'S James Deanish looks, rebel-type lifestyle and romantic jazz style made him a cult figure in the '50s, when he became one of photographer ...
Report and Interview by John Robb, Sounds, 14 April 1990
With The Stone Roses at Spike Island, the Mondays at Glastonbury and numerous other raves, the summer of 1990 should be one to remember. John ...
Retrospective by Paul Nelson, Musician, October 1990
It takes a tough hopper to be cool ...
Report and Interview by Mal Peachey, Daily Telegraph, 13 October 1990
FOR 35 YEARS, he has begun every performance with the line, "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash", as if anyone needs telling. He greets people personally with ...
Grateful Dead: Bring Out Your Dead
Report and Interview by Max Bell, Vox, November 1990
Hey, man. Whatever happened to the summer of love? It’s taking dedication a bit far when in a year, three fans die at Grateful Dead ...
Stevie Ray Vaughan: Lost and Found and Lost Again: Stevie Ray Vaughan 1954-1990
Retrospective by Tony Scherman, Musician, November 1990
"STEVIE WAS on it. Playin' great, kickin' butt," says Robert Cray, and when Double Trouble was done, everybody — the Vaughan brothers, Cray, Buddy Guy ...
Shane MacGowan, The Pogues: Shane MacGowan: Dark Side of the Hooligan
Profile and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, Vox, November 1990
Shane MacGowan has not been a happy man since the 'natural living' days of punk. Now he's disillusioned with the Pogues and a recent medical ...
The House Of Love: Burning Down The House
Interview by Max Bell, Vox, November 1990
The House Of Love became a house of ill repute as they binged, boozed and vindalooed their way through the tour that never ended, burning ...
Roky Erickson, 13th Floor Elevators: Roky Erickson: I Walked With a Zombie
Retrospective and Interview by John Morthland, L.A. Weekly, 22 November 1990
Roky Erickson, at ultra-high frequency ...
The Doors: Jim Morrison: Last Meeting With a Fallen Star
Memoir by Ben Fong-Torres, San Francisco Chronicle, 1991
NEAR THE END of his 27-year life, was Jim Morrison – as depicted in Oliver Stone's new movie, The Doors – a fat, abusive, alcoholic, ...
The Ronettes, Ronnie Spector: Ronnie Spector (1991) [transcript]
Audio transcript of interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 13 February 1991
This is a transcript of Barney's audio interview with Ronnie. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages audio, March 1991
The British Blues-rock bass wunderkind talks about joining John Mayall at 15, then of his years with the fabulous Free, including the writing of the iconic 'All Right Now', and Paul Kossoff's descent into drugs.
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 42.8meg, total interview length: 54' 35" sound quality: ***
Jim Morrison: Roll Over Elvis : The Second Coming Of Jim Morrison
Memoir by Eve Babitz, Esquire, March 1991
I know why I loved him. I know why lots of women loved him. But what I want to know is this: Why now, does ...
Tad: Mad, Tad and Dangerous to Know!!
Interview by Steffan Chirazi, Kerrang!, 23 March 1991
With a new LP 8-Way Santa ready to shred your eardrums at any moment, TAD are back with a vengeance. It might be a dangerous ...
Boy George, Culture Club, Jesus Loves You: Jesus Loves You: The Last Temptation of Boy George
Report and Interview by Lucy O'Brien, Select, April 1991
Four years ago BOY GEORGE'S world crashed, his career in shreds as he struggled to come off heroin. He became a bitter, paranoid recluse, shunning the same media he'd once courted. In this rare interview, ...
Obituary by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 30 April 1991
JOHNNY THUNDERS had long been a by-word for self-destruction through drugs and hard living. In 1981, Trouser Press magazine cynically declared Thunders "legally dead" alongside a cartoon ...
The Doors: Paul Rothchild: Open Doors
Retrospective and Interview by Tom Doyle, Melody Maker, 4 May 1991
As producer of nearly all of The Doors' albums, PAUL ROTHCHILD knew Morrison and the band better than anyone else. TOM DOYLE relives the invention ...
Jane's Addiction: The Shocking Truth
Interview by Paul Elliott, Vox, June 1991
"Okay, so we do music from time to time. But we can control it..." Jane's Addiction have cleaned up their habits of late, but just ...
EMF: E.M.F.: A New Band That's All the Rave
Report and Interview by Simon Reynolds, The New York Times, 30 June 1991
LONDON — The trance-dance rhythms and euphoric aura of acid house music have drastically altered the outlook and aspirations of most British rock groups. ...
The Band, Bob Dylan: Al Aronowitz (1991)
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages audio, 10 August 1991
Hired and fired by the New York Post; having "total phoney" Andy Warhol steal the Velvets from him; running with Dylan and, extensively, his dealings with The Band – "blacklisted journalist" Al Aronowitz vents his not-inconsiderable spleen.
File format: mp3; total file sizes: 73.8meg, interview length: 1h 16' 53" sound quality: ***
Happy Mondays: Renting and raving
Interview by James Brown, New Musical Express, 26 October 1991
SHAUN RYDER Is suing News Of The World after they alleged he was a rent boy before he was a singer. JAMES BROWN hears the ...
Interview by Steffan Chirazi, Kerrang!, 31 October 1991
With their devils, of more accurately CC DeVille, exorcised, POISON are ready to add thoroughbred musicianship to mass popularity. With a new guitarist, Richie Kotzen, ...
Happy Mondays: Working Class Zero
Interview by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 16 November 1991
1990 was the year HAPPY MONDAYS could do no wrong. But this year they've made more headlines than records — Ronnie Biggs, editing Penthouse, the ...
Def Leppard's Joe Elliott (1991)
Interview by Mat Snow, Rock's Backpages audio, December 1991
The Leppard frontman looks back at guitarist Steve Clark's descent into alcoholism and eventual death: how it impacted the making of latest album Adrenalize; guitarist Phil Collen stepping up in Clark's absence; how it is possible for rockers to grow old; the essential escapism of metal, and how marvellously uncool it is.
File format: mp3; file size: 45.4mb, interview length: 47' 15" sound quality: ***
Bob Dylan, Eric Von Schmidt: Eric Von Schmidt on Bob Dylan (1992)
Interview by Larry Jaffee, Rock's Backpages audio, 1992
The venerable folkie looks back to the Yale folk scene, and first meeting Dylan; discusses who actually wrote 'Baby Let Me Follow You Down' — the Rev. Gary Davis? Blind Boy Fuller? Von Schmidt? — and Dylan's magpie tendencies; he also recounts meeting Dylan in London in 1963 with Richard Fariña, and drinking gin and smoking pot.
File format: mp3; file size: 37.8mb, interview length: 39' 47" sound quality: ** (phoner)
Elton John: The Rebirth of Elton John
Interview by Philip Norman, Rolling Stone, 19 March 1992
Drugs, fame and alcohol turned him into a monster. Now, after rehab, he's clean, happy and in love. ...
Report and Interview by Push, Melody Maker, 18 April 1992
TRUST FLOWERED UP to come up with the name "Debauchery" for the unofficial launch party for their new single, 'Weekender'. And trust them to take ...
Interview by David Nathan, Blues & Soul, 19 May 1992
FLASHBACK: it's 1989 and El DeBarge is sitting in a conference room at Motown Records discussing his then new album, Gemini (his first in three ...
Cypress Hill: The Disciples of Pot
Interview by Rob Tannenbaum, Rolling Stone, 28 May 1992
Cypress Hill says marijuana's getting a bad rap ...
Overview by David Toop, Mixmag, June 1992
WHEN PHUTURE'S 'Acid Tracks' hit the decks in 1987, the title of this minimalist techno-homage to the Roland TR-303 blinded most of us to the ...
Interview by Helen Mead, i-D, June 1992
After achieving pop success and suffering the death of Will Sin last year, the Shamen are back.New singer, new songs, but an enduring interest in ...
Report by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 6 June 1992
Castlemorton was the site of the biggest illegal rave to date. But, as SIMON REYNOLDS discovered, it was only a prelude to what's to come ...
Altern-8, Derrick May, Orbital, Spiral Tribe: The Techno Revolution
Report by Simon Reynolds, Details, July 1992
Four years after its invention in a Detroit bedroom, techno is now dominating dance floors from London to L.A. Is it the next musical insurrection ...
Guide by Tom Hibbert, Q, September 1992
Music and drugs have always been promiscuously compatible bedfellows. How many of the great albums would exist had their creators not been "shedded" at the ...
Guns N' Roses, Izzy Stradlin: Izzy Stradlin: Happy to be fretting out on his own
Report and Interview by David Sinclair, The Times, 12 October 1992
Izzy Stradlin, lead guitarist with Guns N' Roses, has left the band he helped to create. Now, as he tells David Sinclair, he plays to ...
The Shamen: Brixton Academy, London
Live Review by Simon Price, Melody Maker, 17 October 1992
CHAS N'RAVE ...
Flowered Up, Right Said Fred: Flowered Up: Sex Pistils
Interview by Stephen Dalton, New Musical Express, 31 October 1992
YOU HEAR all these outrageous rumours about Flowered Up. About lavish parties which degenerate into Roman orgies where whole mansions get trashed while Kylie and ...
Interview by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 1 November 1992
Etta James has sung and lived the blues, but these are good times for the R&B matriarch bound for the Rock and Roll Hall of ...
Happy Mondays: That Monday Mourning Feeling
Report and Interview by Tom Hibbert, Q, December 1992
FOR NO IMMEDIATELY discernible reason, Shaun Ryder is attempting to perform a party trick and failing miserably. He is trying to flick a cigarette (one ...
Interview by Bill Holdship, Pulse!, December 1992
Cool, smooth & refreshing, Britain's sultry siren of song checks in with her first new album in four years, Love Deluxe. ...
Megadeth's Dave Mustaine (1992)
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Fall 1992
The Megadeth leader talks about taking up Martial Arts; keeping it simple on stage; about not being such a dickhead anymore; his time with Metallica, and getting fired; his huge drug intake, and getting clean; being a father; his religious beliefs, and his view of the world and politics.
File format: mp3; file size: 55.2mb, interview length: 57' 27" sound quality: **** (after a dodgy start)
Report by John Robb, i-D, April 1993
Three years ago Manchester was famous for flares, clubs and the Happy Mondays. Now it's guns, drugs and violence. How accurate is the city's media ...
Cockney Rebel, Steve Harley: Steve Harley: How I Survived, by the Cocaine Rebel
Interview by Mal Peachey, Mail On Sunday, 2 May 1993
ONCE STEVE Harley had it all. Every song he wrote was a hit, every friend he made was famous and every lover was a fashion ...
Essay by Richard Goldstein, The Village Voice, 22 June 1993
"Let me tell you about the first time I got high. It was 1966, and I was a young reporter... There, sitting on the floor, ...
Nirvana: Winners Get Scars, Too
Book Excerpt by Michael Azerrad, Vox, October 1993
Nirvana's meteoric rise was a classic example of the American Dream in action — until heroin turned it into a nightmare for singer Kurt Cobain. ...
Lisa Stansfield: Singing The Booze
Interview by Nick Coleman, Time Out, 13 October 1993
She speaks as she finds, does Lisa Stansfield. Over in Dublin cutting her third album, So Natural, she lays it on the line about heavy ...
Retrospective by Frank Owen, Vibe, November 1993
For over a decade, Larry Levan ruled the dance-music world from his roost in the DJ booth at New York's legendary Paradise Garage. Last November, ...
The Shangri-Las: Shadow Morton (1993)
Interview by Tony Scherman, Rock's Backpages audio, Fall 1993
The legendary songwriter/producer takes us back to his days in the Brill Building: the Shangri-Las' '(Remember) Walking In The Sand'; the people who surrounded him: Leiber & Stoller, Jeff Barry & Ellie Greenwich, George Goldner, Cynthia Weill & Barry Mann, and Seymour Stein; Kama Sutra and Red Bird records; the insanity of the scene, and his personal style. He also talks about his Brooklyn and Long Island childhood, his alcoholism, his break from music and surviving his aneurysm.
File format: mp3; file size: 118.3mb, interview length: 2h 03' 14" sound quality: ** (background noise)
Cypress Hill And The New US Rap
Report by David Bennun, Melody Maker, 19 February 1994
IN AMERICA, rap is big, big business. ...
Elastica, John Lydon, S*M*A*S*H, These Animal Men: Speed: Sinus Of The Times
Report by Steven Wells, New Musical Express, 19 March 1994
Hey, you! Are you trying to coat your lungs with a half-pound bag of baking soda mixed with industrial-strength heroin and dealer's dandruff? STEVEN 'Just ...
Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, Skip Spence: Skip Spence: The Next Big That Never Was
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Angel, L.A. Weekly, 25 March 1994
IT'S EARLY December, 1966, at San Francisco's Avalon Ballroom. The Summer of Love is a good seven months off, the Avalon scene still small and ...
Marvin Gaye: The Ostend of the Road
Film/DVD/TV Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 28 March 1994
Arena's vivid documentary evokes Marvin Gaye's final years ...
Interview by Michael Goldberg, Vibe, April 1994
While Rick James was ruling the charts with hits like 'Super Freak' and 'Give It To Me Baby', he was descending into the drug addiction ...
The Rolling Stones: Twilight in Babylon: Adventures with the Rolling Stones
Retrospective by Nick Kent, MOJO, April 1994
THE FIRST THING you need to know about my adventures with the Rolling Stones is that they pretty much all took place once the basic ...
Aerosmith: Sex'n'Drugs'n'Rock'n'Roll!
Memoir by Pete Makowski, Kerrang!, 6 April 1994
Up until the early '80s, Aerosmith indulged in every rock 'n'roll excess! "It's a miracle they survived!" says Dr. Pete Makowski, who met Steven Tyler ...
Interview by Andy Schwartz, Rock's Backpages audio, 18 April 1994
The erstwhile Night Tripper on writing his autobiography Under a Hoodoo Moon; on the New Orleans music business — the rip-offs, lousy studios, useless Musician's Union, Jim Garrison; on his new album Television; on drugs and recovery; on moving to New York City; on the modern recording scene (and being sampled by Beck); on his early involvement in N.Y. hip hop... and how he started out just playing for fun.
File format: mp3; file size: 72.1mb, interview length: 1h 15' 03" sound quality: ****
The Beatles, Bob Dylan: Eyewitness: Dylan Turns The Beatles On To Dope
Essay by Al Aronowitz, Q, May 1994
History ahoy! In the second of our new series, journalist Al Aronowitz recalls introducing Bob Dylan to The Beatles and how His Bobness turned the ...
Buffalo Tom, Kurt Cobain, The Lemonheads: The Lemonheads: Come On Feel The Suedehead
Report and Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 7 May 1994
EVAN DANDO has been marketed as teen sex symbol, scagged out hippy doper and serious artiste, but now THE LEMONHEADS' main squeeze is trying to ...
The Rolling Stones, The Sex Pistols, The Stooges: Nick Kent: Hack From The Brink
Interview by Paul Lester, Melody Maker, 28 May 1994
Wanna find out where MM acquired its taste for livid purple prose? Then let PAUL LESTER introduce you to legendary rock journalist NICK KENT, whose ...
Hole, Mother Love Bone, Nirvana: Rock 'N' Roll Suicide?
Report by Paul Elliott, Pete Makowski, Kerrang!, 9 July 1994
Seattle's heroin nightmare continues. First ANDY WOOD of the seminal MOTHER LOVE BONE overdosed and died. Then KURT COBAIN ended his desperate addiction by committing ...
Report and Interview by Johnny Cigarettes, New Musical Express, 9 July 1994
"AAAARGH! F*** YOU ASSHOLE! GET OUT MY FACE!" ...errrrrrk!..."YEAH I'M DOIN' A F***IN' U-TURN – WHAT'S THE GODDAMN PROBLEM?!" errrrrrrk! "Oh jeeezuuus! We've been past ...
Report and Interview by Lisa Verrico, Vox, August 1994
They rant against rock'n'rollers in leather keks, yet their hotel-trashing, drug-snorting lifestyle is becoming legendary. Are Oasis hypocrites or Britain's most sussed rock band? ...
Public Enemy: Flavor Flav: Coke Adds Strife
Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 13 August 1994
While PUBLIC ENEMY have been lying low for the past two years, errant rapper FLAVOR FLAV has been having very personal, and very public problems ...
Report by John Harris, New Musical Express, 27 August 1994
Take 250,000 hippy children (Please! — Ed) and baby boomers reliving the 'glories' of the '60s, stick them in a sea of mud and charge ...
Chrissie Hynde: "Guys in bands are pussies"
Interview by Max Bell, Vox, October 1994
Should Kurt Cobain have unplugged his fax or Evan Dando blabbed about crack? Should Brian Jones have smoked in public? Chrissie Hynde has the answers ...
Shane MacGowan, The Pogues: Shane MacGowan: Lush life
Interview by Chris Heath, The Face, November 1994
When Shane MacGowan left the Pogues, it was not so much in a cloud of acrimony than a murky fog of drink and drugs. Against ...
The Sabres of Paradise, Andrew Weatherall: Andrew Weatherall: Sabre as a Judge
Interview by Ted Kessler, New Musical Express, 17 December 1994
ANDREW WEATHERALL was a wanker, but he's alright new. At least that what he tells TED KESSLER in the wake of his girlfriend ditching him ...
Report and Interview by John Harris, New Musical Express, 14 January 1995
Has it all gone wrong for SUEDE? Dog Man Star not accorded the status they wished for, doubt over Richard Oakes' ability to better Bernard, ...
Book Review by Cliff Jones, MOJO, March 1995
IMAGINE BEING able to skip through time and witness historv first-hand. On my own list of happening temporal destinations would be McGoo's Pizza Parlour in ...
Retrospective by Richard Cook, MOJO, April 1995
Four decades on from the premature death of Charlie Parker in March 1955 the world remains split between the dazzled – including fans as disparate ...
Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, April 1995
Especially Elton John. Cocaine seizures, Martini marathons, curry 'n' cockle blow-outs, condom-free congress, surprising marriages, violent evacuations, rent boys… he's had a few. But that ...
Guns N' Roses: The Ten That Matter Most '85-'95: Guns N' Roses
Retrospective by Chuck Eddy, Spin, April 1995
GUNS N' ROSES surprised me in 1987 simply by being search-and-destroy young punks who weren't afraid to sing and dance. ...
Kurt Cobain, Nirvana: Washington's State
Report and Interview by Barbara Ellen, New Musical Express, 8 April 1995
If Cobain's death shook the rock world, its impact on his hometown went off the scales. BARBARA ELLEN visited Seattle to find out how much ...
Grooverider, Moby, Orbital: Tribal and Strife
Report by Andrew Smith, The Guardian, 8 May 1995
The Criminal Justice Act put the rave under House arrest. But it's out and it's phat in Oxfordshire ...
Report and Interview by Craig McLean, The Face, June 1995
Two years ago Björk drove herself into the nation's hearts with Debut. Now she's back with a new LP that's even stranger and more compelling. ...
Roky Erickson, 13th Floor Elevators: His Own Private Realm: Roky Erickson
Interview by Tom Hibbert, MOJO, June 1995
Come with us now to the home of erstwhile 13th Floor Elevator Roky Erickson: a little shack on the outskirts of reality. And marvel how, ...
Report by Bethan Cole, Mixmag, July 1995
Jellies used to be heavy shit, for addicts and desperados. Then serious clubland hedonists started taking them to come down. Now, in the search for ...
Blur: The great escape — live!
Report by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 22 September 1995
Caitlin Moran catches up with Blur's whimsical tour of unlikely seaside resorts ...
Cypress Hill: Back in the Daze
Interview by Andrew Smith, The Face, October 1995
CYPRESS HILL used cannabis to devastating effect in the marketing of their Black Sunday — racking up best-selling rap album in the process. Can they pull the ...
Report by Andrew Smith, The Face, October 1995
Amsterdam's Safe House Project does more than just advise clubbers on Ecstasy: it goes right to the source, to the manufacturers. ...
Report and Interview by Gavin Martin, New Musical Express, 28 October 1995
Forget all you may have read about TRICKY. Forget that he once admitted being the father of MARTINA's child. Forget that he and Björk, at ...
Juno Reactor: Goa: Trance tripping
Report by Bethan Cole, i-D, November 1995
Goa's legendary party scene has turned a global network of travellers on to its unique sound. Spiritual, psychedelic and blowing up across the world: is ...
Report by Susan Corrigan, i-D, November 1995
JUNK CULTURE IS NOT MERELY FASHIONABLE ANYMORE, IT'S GONE MAINSTREAM Heroin kills two people every week in Glasgow. It's the most common street drug in Manchester. ...
David Lee Roth, Van Halen: David Lee Roth (1995)
Interview by Steven Daly, Rock's Backpages audio, December 1995
The erstwhile Van Halen frontman talks about his youth, and his memories of uncle Manny Roth, who started the Greenwich Village Café Wha?; on being first turned on to music; his love of boats; his current gig playing Las Vegas, and the uniform blandness of the modern world. He also revisits the end of Van Halen and their legacy, and the part cocaine played in their break-up.
File format: mp3; file size: 93.8mb, interview length: 1h 37' 44" sound quality: ***
Interview by Andy Gill, Rock's Backpages audio, Summer 1995
Zevon talks about recording new album Mutineer using modern technology; his early musical activities including being musical director for the Everly Brothers; his various record labels; his songwriting viewpoint, and not being a cynic; his drink and drugs use, and detoxing; being happy with his career; the success of ‘Werewolves of London’; meeting Stravinsky; novelists he likes; his fascination with the dark side of society; albums like Transverse City and Mr Bad Example; classical and other modern serious music; the Oklahoma bombing; writing with Carl Hiaasen, and writing music for television.
File format: mp3; file size: 103mb, interview length: 1h 47' 16" sound quality: ****
Coolio: Paradise Lost And Found
Profile and Interview by Bethan Cole, i-D, January 1996
Once the grim fictions of gangsta rap were Coolio's reality: gangs, guns, crack addiction, jail. Now he's swapped sin for salvation and notoriety for celebrity. ...
The Stone Roses: Still Storming Heaven
Interview by Dave Simpson, i-D, January 1996
Stoned and dethroned? This was a strange year for the Roses. Resurrection, personal dilemma, professional discontent... and finally, with their first British tour in five ...
Interview by Adam Sweeting, Rock's Backpages audio, April 1996
Fourteen months into sobriety, the country rebel discusses his multiple marriages; his anger at the press and ex-colleagues; his admiration for Bruce Springsteen; country radio and the Nashville establishment... and talks at length about addiction and recovery.
File format: mp3; file size: 76.3mb, interview length: 1h 19' 25" sound quality: ****
Steve Earle: New habit for Earle of excess
Profile and Interview by David Sinclair, The Times, 5 April 1996
Country-rocker Steve Earle switched tracks, and feels all the better for it. David Sinclair reports ...
Steve Earle: Back in the Saddle
Interview by Geoffrey Himes, Rolling Stone, 18 April 1996
C&W outlaw STEVE EARLE returns from his lost years ...
Smashing Pumpkins: Mellow, Jolly and the Infinite Madness
Interview by Paul Elliott, Kerrang!, 4 May 1996
It's all gone weird in Amsterdam — the Smashing Pumpkins are eating hash cakes, visiting gay bars, getting chatted up by lesbians and generally having ...
Report and Interview by Bethan Cole, i-D, June 1996
You reckoned the rave dream died years ago? Think again! They may have hung up their whistles and white gloves, but Scotland's musical youth are ...
Report by Frank Owen, The Village Voice, 25 June 1996
Looking for Angel: Did King of Club Kids Michael Alig really Kill Angel Melendez? Or is it all a hoax? By Frank Owen ...
Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, July 1996
RICHARD HELL had an idea earlier this year. ...
Interview by Sylvia Patterson, New Musical Express, 20 July 1996
Of course, us pop kids have always known BJÖRK was a nutter, but when she battered a journalist in Bangkok she became tabloid property and, ...
Drugs In Rock Culture: Don’t Try This At Home
Essay by Ian Penman, The Guardian, 2 August 1996
TAKING DRUGS CHANGES things. It changes your blood stream and brain waves and bank balance; your heart rate and slang of choice and the circumference ...
The Needle And The Damage Done
Report by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 10 August 1996
"I've seen the needle and the damage done / A little part of it in everyone / But every junkie's like a setting sun" — ...
Secret Knowledge: Hi Bunny, I'm Home!
Interview by Push, Muzik, September 1996
Kris Needs and Wonder. A boy from Aylesbury and a girl from Ohio. Music from the heart, some hard lessons from the street... and a ...
Evan Dando, The Lemonheads: Evan Dando: Reckless Idol Through The Lens Darkly
Interview by Jim Sullivan, The Boston Globe, 20 September 1996
GAY HEAD — It's nearing summer's end on Martha's Vineyard, and Evan Dando, the 29-year-old guiding voice and vision of the Lemonheads, is chilling on ...
Smashing Pumpkins: Out on a limb
Interview by Pat Blashill, Details, October 1996
Billy Corgan is the zero who became a hero. But when Jonathan Melvoin died and Jimmy Chamberlin was dismissed from the Smashing Pumpkins, the world ...
Blondie, Debbie Harry: The HT Interview: Debbie Harry
Interview by Victor Bockris, High Times, October 1996
(RBP Editor's note — the original article in High Times was printed missing a section. Victor Bockris provided us with material which, in part, filled ...
Alexander O'Neal: Alexander the grateful
Interview by Paul Sexton, The Times, 8 November 1996
Finding God helped soul survivor Alexander O'Neal to straighten up and fly right. Paul Sexton reports ...
Alice Cooper, The Who: Alice Cooper on Keith Moon
Interview by Tony Fletcher, iJamming.net, 12 November 1996
ONE REASON I've been looking forward to getting this site up is to make available some of the interviews I conducted for the Keith Moon ...
Report by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 16 December 1996
They're mad, bad and dangerous to know, and the apple of their mothers eyes. Caroline Sullivan examines the closest of all relationships... ...
Black Grape: Straight to Stupid: Black Grape
Interview by Dave Thompson, Alternative Press, 1997
DANNY SABER'S been a busy boy. Produced the Rolling Stones, remixed David Bowie, and then seven weeks recording the new Black Grape album, climbing ...
Retrospective by Stuart Bailie, New Musical Express, 25 January 1997
Liam Gallagher's caution for possession of cocaine is the latest in a long line of rock'n'roll drug busts. STUART BAILIE remembers those other pop stars ...
Depeche Mode: Synth and Sensibilities
Interview by Keith Cameron, New Musical Express, 25 January 1997
Last week Dave Gahan flabbered your collective 'gast with his terrible tale of all-round narcotic foolishness. In the second part of our DEPECHE MODE exclusive ...
The Beatles: The Sound of Acid
Overview by Jon Savage, The Guardian, 31 January 1997
Hey man — it's time to beat that cosmic tabla and slap on a droning tape loop. Drug-infused psychedelia, says Jon Savage, never went away ...
James Brown: Eyewitness: James Brown is arrested after a Car Chase
Retrospective by Johnny Black, Q, March 1997
1988, SEPT 24: HIGH ON PCP, SHOTGUN-WIELDING JAMES BROWN GETS ARRESTED IN AUGUSTA, GEORGIA, AFTER AN INTER-STATE CAR CHASE. ...
Goldie, Menswear, Tricky: Pre Millennium Tension
Report by Bethan Cole, i-D, March 1997
Adolescent angst and twentysomething trauma used to be something of a cliché. But no longer. With admissions of young people to hospital at an all-time ...
Manic Street Preachers: Richey Edwards: Missing street preacher
Retrospective by Andy Beckett, The Independent, 2 March 1997
LATE LAST MONDAY night, near the weary end of the televised blare called the Brits Awards, three dressed-down Welshmen — two small, one awkwardly tall ...
Robbie Williams: The devil in the teen angel
Interview by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 18 April 1997
Basically, Robbie Williams should not have been in Take That. He was much better suited to Bad Boys Inc ...
Robbie Williams: "I am not a pie eater!"
Interview by Caitlin Moran, Select, May 1997
...well, you must like your chips, then. Robbie Williams has seen better times. The post-That fallout began at Glasto '95 and spiralled into an 18-month ...
Peter Green: Things are rosier for Peter Green, but does he still have the blues?
Report and Interview by Colin Harper, The Scotsman, 5 May 1997
"I JUST took too many LSD trips," says Peter Green. "I couldn't get back from it – I didn't want to get back ... I ...
Report by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 16 May 1997
Heroin abuse is gaining depressing and dangerous ground among music's super-famous ...
Sly & the Family Stone: On The Record: Sly & the Family Stone
Book Excerpt by Joel Selvin, Simon & Schuster, July 1997
Introduction & Voices ...
Profile and Interview by Simon Garfield, Mail On Sunday, July 1997
"THEY TAKE A vein from your leg, and chop it up four times." Rick Parfitt, the big-haired, blond singer-guitarist with Status Quo for the past 30 ...
Thomas Jefferson Kaye, Bob Neuwirth: A Movie For David Geffen
Retrospective and Interview by Al Aronowitz, The Blacklisted Journalist, 1 July 1997
I. WHEN I TELL people that Bobby Neuwirth was one of the hippest men I ever knew, they say, "Who?" They want to know didn't I ...
Profile and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 5 July 1997
Hedonism was a way of life for Alan McGee. And who would expect anything less from the man behind Oasis? But the road to pop-tycoon ...
Janis Joplin: Eyewitness: Janis Joplin's Last 24 Hours
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Q, October 1997
It's October 3, 1970 and after an exhausting tour Janis Joplin and her new group, the Full Tilt Boogie Band are holed up in Sunset ...
Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne: Ozzy Osbourne (1997)
Interview by David Stubbs, Rock's Backpages audio, October 1997
The Ozzmeister effs and blinds his way through subjects ranging from the death of Princess Diana to the myth of Sabbath's Satanism and the US religious backlash, via a detailed description of his substance abuse and much more.
File format: mp3; file size: 62.6mb, interview length: 1h 08' 22" sound quality: ****
Keith Richards (1997) [transcript]
Audio transcript of interview by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages transcripts, November 1997
This is a transcript of Barney's audio interview with Keith. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Shane MacGowan, The Pogues: Shane MacGowan: One More For The Road
Profile and Interview by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, 29 November 1997
THERE ARE THOSE who believe that Shane MacGowan is among the most gifted and singular singer-songwriters to have emerged in British music in the past ...
Jamiroquai: Battersea Power Station, London
Live Review by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 16 December 1997
ON THE face of it, Jamiroquai are an unlikely group to excite the passions they do. Singer Jason "Jay" Kay is the only member familiar ...
Sublime: Bradley Nowell: Life After Death
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Kemp, Rolling Stone, 25 December 1997
Two months before the release of his band's finest album, Bradley Nowell stuck a needle in his arm and died. In the 18 months since, ...
Scott Weiland: Lone Temple Pilot
Interview by James Hunter, Details, January 1998
"TODAY, I am not suffering," Scott Weiland says. "I am not dope sick." The frontman for Stone Temple Pilots claims his fuckup days are behind ...
Retrospective by Johnny Black, MOJO, February 1998
"I WAS MERELY a pawn in a big chess game," said Frankie Lymon, just months before he died of a heroin overdose on February 28, ...
Spiritualized: The Mile High Club: Spiritualized in the Sky
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 1998
SPIRITUALIZED: a concoction of the cosmological and the pharmaceutical enjoying high times in Britain. Now Jason Pierce is spending two months turning on America. Barney ...
Dance Culture: One Nation Under A Groove
Essay by Bethan Cole, Muzik, March 1998
Ten years ago, a few hundred people were raving all night to the sounds of acid house. A year later there were a few thousand ...
Report by Sheryl Garratt, The Face, March 1998
Sheryl Garratt learns from those at our hospitals' sharp end that Ecstasy may not be the biggest threat to clubbers' health after all ...
Marilyn Manson: The Long Road Out of Hell (ReganBooks)
Book Review by James Hunter, Rolling Stone, 19 March 1998
MANSON'S LITTLE BLACK BOOK: MARILYN MANSON UNLEASHES THE ULTIMATE TELL-ALL ...
Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page/Robert Plant: Page & Plant: Help! The Aged!
Interview by Sylvia Patterson, New Musical Express, 28 March 1998
Hey! Come back! Haven't you heard? Old blokes are cool, the past is the future and prog rock is back. In fact, the perfect time ...
Scott Weiland: The Man Who Fell To Earth
Profile and Interview by Marc Weingarten, Request, April 1998
AFTER A SIX-YEAR battle with heroin addiction and two stints in rehab, Scott Weiland, frontman for Stone Temple Pilots and would-be solo artist, is in ...
Retrospective and Interview by Andy Crysell, New Musical Express, 25 April 1998
Disco biscuits, gurning, raves, sartorial bonkersness, and, um, Guru Josh! The ACID HOUSE scene brought us many things when it exploded in 1988; it also ...
Stone Temple Pilots, Scott Weiland: Scott Weiland: No More Mr Vice Guy
Interview by Andrew Mueller, Vox, June 1998
As leader of the Stone Temple Pilots, he took lots of drugs, sold lots of records and was hated by the critics. Now he's off ...
Report by Toby Manning, Jockey Slut, August 1998
CIGARETTES AND ALCOHOL KILL 400 TIMES MORE PEOPLE EVERY YEAR THAN DEATHS FROM ALL ILLEGAL DRUGS PUT TOGETHER. SO WHY ARE THEY LEGAL WHILE OTHER ...
Depeche Mode, Primal Scream: Depeche Mode and Primal Scream: The Most Debauched Tour Ever
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Q, August 1998
Depeche Mode have been touring for almost a year. Drug and alcohol abuse is rife and the group are close to breaking point. The obvious ...
Grateful Dead: Ken Kesey: The prank outsider
Interview by Max Bell, The Evening Standard, 12 August 1998
In the Sixties the Beatles stitched him up. But chemically challenged cult novelist Ken Kesey still loves London in the summer. MAX BELL meets the ...
Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Elvis Presley, Super Furry Animals: Consuming Passions: Howard Marks
Interview by Terry Staunton, Uncut, September 1998
Skinning up from Lennon's stash box, securing dentures with a luxury adhesive, and watching lizards drown in brandy — a typical evening at home with ...
Retrospective by Sean O'Hagan, The Guardian, 12 September 1998
Twenty-five years ago, Gram Parsons died in a remote desert motel, the victim of a prodigious appetite for drugs and alcohol that shocked even Keith ...
Marilyn Manson: The Love Song of Marilyn Manson
Special Feature by Chris Heath, Rolling Stone, 15 October 1998
In which our hero, trapped in the hills of Los Angeles, finds a girl, discovers his emotions and consumes copious amounts of drugs ...
Monster Magnet: Life After Mood-Altering: Monster Magnet
Interview by Ian Fortnam, Kerrang!, February 1999
SIT A SPELL in the stark and featureless foyer of the current temple of the Monster Magnet dreams, a half-built Sunset Strip hotel of rare ...
Report by Frank Owen, The Village Voice, 9 February 1999
New details about Tunnel drug overdose allegation ...
Paul Oakenfold (1999) [transcript]
Audio transcript of interview by Frank Broughton, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 7 April 1999
This is a transcript of Frank's audio interview with Paul. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Interview by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 30 April 1999
It is ten years since Suede released their seminal debut album. Caroline Sullivan meets one of the most influential bands of the nineties ...
Sammy Hagar, Metallica: Bottoms up: Topping the Billboard
Comment by Chuck Eddy, The Village Voice, 12 May 1999
FOR THE PAST month, two of the top five tracks pissing their night away on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart have been celebrations of alcohol consumption, ...
Happy Mondays: 192-Hour Party People
Report and Interview by Jack Barron, Melody Maker, 15 May 1999
The Kings of hedonism HAPPY MONDAYS have just completed their triumphant eight-date comeback tour. We joined them on the road to hear about their slightly ...
Ike Turner, Ike & Tina Turner: Ike Turner: What Love Had To Do With It
Interview by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 26 May 1999
Ike Turner last spoke to his ex-wife Tina in 1986. Since then, he tells Caroline Sullivan, he's taken too much flak ...
Interview by Tom Doyle, The Face, June 1999
HEROIN. ARSON. DEATH. DESTROYED STUDIOS. BLOWN OPPORTUNITIES. THE BALLAD OF SHACK IS HARDLY EASY LISTENING. BUT NOW, WITH A GLORIOUS NEW ALBUM, BRITAIN'S GREAT LOST ...
The Agony of "Soft" Ecstasy is in the Price That Others Have To Pay
Comment by Barbara Ellen, The Observer, 20 June 1999
ME AND ECSTASY had this fling once. What chemical virgins don't realise is that, for most of us, getting attached to a certain drug is ...
Johnny Thunders: Forewarned: Johnny Thunders
Book Excerpt by Nina Antonia, Cherry Red Books, August 1999
JOHNNY THUNDERS didn’t just flirt with death, he courted it. Even so, his eventual demise in New Orleans on 23rd April 1991 still came as ...
Secret Knowledge: Kris Needs: I Snogged Debbie Harry
Profile and Interview by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 3 August 1999
If you can't be a rock star, you can always get your kicks by hanging out with them. Kris Needs tells Dave Simpson how it's ...
Whitney Houston: Sheffield Arena **
Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 11 September 1999
Diva takes a nosedive ...
Review by David Bennun, The Guardian, October 1999
IF EVER a Central Committee for Naming Things should be summoned into existence, I would like to nominate, for the chair, the inventor of the ...
The Chemical Brothers: Dark Side of the Rave
Report by Pat Blashill, Rolling Stone, 11 November 1999
Drug deaths and police crackdowns threaten the national rave scene ...
Heroin: The Secret Drug Of The'90s
Report by Tom Doyle, Q, December 1999
It offed grunge. It killed Britpop. It claimed actual human lives. Heroin began the '90s as a retro drug with insalubrious associations. It ended the ...
Profile and Interview by David Bennun, The Guardian, 2000
"I CAN," says Glen Campbell, "wriggle my right breast." He demonstrates. It's true. He can. ...
David Bowie, Elvis Presley, The Rolling Stones: I Was A Pop Star's Arse-wiper!
Report by Martin Aston, Q, January 2000
For as long as there have been rock stars, there have been rock star "support systems", from the Memphis Mafia to "Spanish" Tony Sanchez to ...
Primal Scream: "I Am A Drug Addict"
Profile and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, February 2000
Primal Scream are off the smack (but not the speed, coke and E) and on a mission – kill Sporty Spice, kick the shit out ...
Curtis Mayfield: The Soul of Soul: Curtis Mayfield 1942–1999
Obituary by Anthony DeCurtis, Rolling Stone, 3 February 2000
"EVERYTHING WAS A SONG," Curtis Mayfield once said. "Every conversation, every personal hurt, every observance of people in stress, happiness and love ... if you ...
Primal Scream: Bobby Gillespie
Interview by Tom Doyle, Q, March 2000
Mr Primal Scream was "remedial" in Geography, but that doesn't matter now he's a reckless rock'n'roll revolutionary on the way to the chemist with an ...
Shane MacGowan, Sinead O'Connor: The Terrible State Of Shane MacGowan
Report by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, March 2000
Skint, on drugs, walking a tightrope life, a young man dead in his flat: things could hardly have looked worse for Shane MacGowan. Then, astonishingly, ...
Essay by Victor Bockris, Gadfly, May 2000
Somebody once asked who Andy Warhol reminded me of. My answer, Muhammad Ali, tickled the artist so much that he used the statement in a ...
Interview by Adam Sweeting, Rock's Backpages audio, May 2000
Taking tea in Soho's brand-new Sanderson Hotel, the great singer-songwriter talks about... well, almost everything: getting older; being perceived as a "dark" moralist; not being commercial; his good pal Jackson Browne; David Geffen; addiction, sobriety and therapy; his parents; plus songwriting and his diffidence in talking about it.
File format: mp3; total file size: 43.6mb, interview length: 45' 22" sound quality: ***
Wu-Tang Clan is Sumthing ta Fuck Wit
Report by Frank Owen, The Village Voice, 23 May 2000
The world-famous Staten Island hip-hop collective has a government informer working within its ranks; at the same time, the group is being investigated by the ...
Kyuss, Queens Of The Stone Age: Queens of the Stone Age make an offer you can't refuse
Interview by Ted Kessler, New Musical Express, 29 July 2000
"SOME OF YOU DRUGGERS, SOME OF YOU SOBER PEOPLE, SOME OF YOU SEX FIENDS, SOME OF YOU VIRGINS. COME TO OUR CLIQUE. YOU JOIN THE ...
Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Q, August 2000
He's hard. He's funny. He flirts dramatically with mental illness and he's back with the best pop music of his life. No argument: the Ferrari ...
Bleachin': Jeremy Healy and Amos Pizzey: Club Class
Interview by Sheryl Garratt, The Observer, 13 August 2000
Guest lists and free champagne, bright cocaine nights and dark, empty comedowns... Jeremy Healy and Amos Pizzey have the power to pack dance floors everywhere ...
Dope Smugglaz Allstars: Toke Implosion: Dope Smugglaz Allstars
Report and Interview by Neil Mason, Melody Maker, 6 September 2000
THERE ARE some moments in life when you have to take a good look around. Some moments that hurt when you pinch yourself because, in ...
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Select, October 2000
Soup Is Blood! Tony Blair's Baby Was Born At Sea! Finley Ouaye Is Reborn As A Manic Street Preacher And He'll Smack You If You ...
Jason Donovan: Jason gets sorted
Interview by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 19 October 2000
Jason Donovan was the golden boy of soap and pop 10 years ago. Then he went bald and it all fell apart. Now he's reinvented ...
Queens Of The Stone Age: We Pride Ourselves On Giving You A Night You'll Never Remember
Report and Interview by Everett True, Melody Maker, 29 November 2000
WE JOIN QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, ROCK'S ULTIMATE HEDONISTS, ON THE ROAD IN THE UK FOR TALES OF DRUGS, DRINK AND ONSTAGE PENIS SHRINKAGE. ...
Jimmy Reed, Emancipator of the South: An Oral History
Retrospective and Interview by Joe Nick Patoski, Blues Access, Summer 2000
IT BEGINS WITH the discovery of a black-and-white photograph dated 1961. The setting is Walker's Auditorium, a chitlin' circuit showcase for touring black musicians in ...
Trick Daddy: Trouble in Motion
Interview by Michael A. Gonzales, The Source, April 2001
On the run from the ghetto vices of hard drugs, fast women and sheisty po-po, Trick Daddy sees peace at the finish line. But is ...
Stevie Nicks: Queen Of The Stoned Age
Interview by Paul Elliott, Q, May 2001
Fleetwood Mac's full-pelt excess and partner-swapping made for rock's most incredible soap opera. But there's one question everyone wants to ask Stevie Nicks. It concerns ...
Interview by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, 20 July 2001
A year ago, after a rumoured nervous breakdown, a rift within the band and a cancelled tour, the music press had consigned Cerys Matthews and ...
Report by Toby Manning, The Face, August 2001
The pills are getting cheaper, the music's getting faster, the nights are getting longer. Now the club promoters have joined police and newspapers in telling ...
Spiritualized: Jason Pierce: The Urban Spaceman Falls To Earth
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, September 2001
COSMIC OR WHAT? Jason Pierce has conducted Q to a yellowed Hoxton hostelry called the Macbeth. By the door it sports a tiled mural illustrating ...
Aerosmith: Tales of Toys and Toxic Twins: Aerosmith
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, 2002
SPOOL BACK four years to the Virginia Beach Resort Hotel on America’s sun-kissed East Coast and I’m sharing a sumptuous afternoon repast with Aerosmith’s Steven ...
Flying High With The General Patton Of Pot: Smokescreen By Robert Sabbag (Canongate Books)
Book Review by James Maycock, The Independent, January 2002
ROBERT SABBAG'S Smokescreen, subtitled "A True Adventure," reads like a Boy's Own escapade. Its swashbuckling protagonist, Allen Long, blessed with a princely face and an ...
Whitney Houston, OutKast: Whitney Houston: Houston, still a problem
Review by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 4 January 2002
Troubled superstar Whitney Houston overdoses on sugar, says Lisa Verrico ...
Retrospective by Ian Winwood, Kerrang!, 19 January 2002
On the long, straight drive from Los Angeles airport, down a curving freeway, past oil wells and gas stations, diners and office supply stores, onto ...
Report and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, February 2002
"I WAS TRYING to prove I could do it and come out alive." That was Eric Clapton's account of his immersion in heroin from 1970-74. ...
Marianne Faithfull: Rock Steady
Report and Interview by Barney Hoskyns, Vogue, March 2002
ON A DAMP December afternoon in bucolic Buckinghamshire, a legendary female icon of the '60s is leading her Noughties counterpart down the garden path. Literally. ...
Ol' Dirty Bastard, Wu-Tang Clan: Ol' Dirty Bastard: Portrait Of The Artist In Jail
Report and Interview by William Shaw, The Guardian, 22 March 2002
He was the clown prince of hip-hop, famously appearing onstage with the Wu-Tang Clan while on the run from the police. Now Ol' Dirty Bastard ...
Dexys Midnight Runners, Kevin Rowland: Kevin Rowland: A dark knight of the soul
Interview by Simon Price, The Independent, 5 April 2002
When his solo album bombed in 1999, Kevin Rowland considered retiring. Now he's back on tour and plugging a re-release of Dexy's Midnight Runners' greatest ...
Lisa Lopes, TLC: Lisa Lopes: Rollercoaster career of a troubled star
Obituary by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 27 April 2002
THE POP world lost one of its most colourful characters yesterday with the death of Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes. ...
Kurt Cobain, Nirvana: The Last Star: Kurt Cobain
Essay by Barney Hoskyns, Observer Music Monthly, June 2002
Why Kurt Cobain's legacy is worth fighting – or at least waiting – for ...
Essay by Clinton Walker, Meanjin, 1 June 2002
I CAN STILL remember my first joint. All the usual jibes notwithstanding (memory loss, not inhaling, whatever), I remember it vividly: It was at the ...
Chet Baker: James Gavin: Deep in a Dream – The Long Night of Chet Baker
Book Review by Gene Santoro, The Nation, 27 June 2002
IT'S EASY TO rephrase Tolstoy's opening to Anna Karenina so it describes junkies, who all share an essential plot line: Who and how to hustle ...
Alice In Chains: The Man Boxed In: Layne Staley, 1967-2002
Obituary by Jason Cohen, Spin, July 2002
LAYNE STALEY was already something of a ghost. Alice in Chains, the Seattle band he'd fronted since 1987, was officially on "hiatus," a two-year respite ...
The Flaming Lips: Waitin' for a superman
Interview by Paul Lester, Uncut, August 2002
The Flaming Lips, the world's most inventive band, have followed up Uncut's album of 1999, The Soft Bulletin, with a record about death, overcoming sadness, ...
Book Review by Will Hermes, The New York Times, 25 August 2002
Do Not Speak Ill of the Dead ...
The Rolling Stones: The Crowning of King Mick
Retrospective by Chris Salewicz, The Sunday Times, 27 October 2002
It is hard to believe that Mick Jagger was once just another Rolling Stone. How did he become an idol? Chris Salewicz, his biographer, tells ...
The Germs: St. Anger: Darby Crash
Retrospective by Chris Campion, Dazed & Confused, November 2002
HE WAS Johnny Rotten and Sid Vicious rolled into one. A befuddled punk prophet with a brilliant mind whose rise was as shocking as his ...
Jefferson Airplane: High Priestess: Grace Slick and ‘White Rabbit’
Retrospective and Interview by Mark Paytress, The Guardian, 15 November 2002
White Rabbit has just come out top in a poll to find the finest drug song ever. Mark Paytress discovers that its writer/singer Grace Slick ...
Bob Dylan: Just Bend Your Mind A Little…
Retrospective by Andy Gill, MOJO, December 2002
BOB DYLAN WAS NOT THE FIRST SONGWRITER to write about – or under the influence of – drugs, though you could be forgiven for assuming ...
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Fortnam, Classic Rock, 2003
BY DECEMBER 1984, having exploded onto a decidedly lacklustre rock scene blighted by vacuous new romanticism, post-punk austerity and backward glancing metal Gumby-ism, the five ...
Interview by Ted Kessler, New Musical Express, 8 March 2003
FEW ROCK'N'ROLLERS have crashed from such a spectacular height as Evan Dando. Fewer still live to tell the tale. In 1992, he was primed to ...
Review and Interview by Max Bell, Uncut, April 2003
The mighty Lemonhead gets seven-year-itch and returns a much-changed man. ...
Interview by Gavin Martin, Rock's Backpages audio, April 2003
Mick Fleetwood on getting it on with Stevie Nicks, his place in the band and cocaine; Stevie Nicks on her relationship with Lindsey Buckingham, dud boob jobs, songwriting and cocaine.
File format: mp3; in 2 parts, total file sizes: 64.6mb, total interview length: 1h 10' 38" sound quality: ****
Jane's Addiction: Is this the band that saved rock?
Profile and Interview by Lisa Verrico, The Times, 30 July 2003
Groundbreaking rock band Jane's Addiction are back to inspire a new generation of fans. ...
The Libertines: The decline and fall of the Albion Empire
Profile and Interview by Ted Kessler, New Musical Express, 20 September 2003
THE LAST TIME Pete Doherty and Carl Barat played on the same stage together was at the summit of the Libertines' explosive career in May. ...
The Byrds, David Crosby: David Crosby: A Long Strange Trip
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2003
Over the past 40 years David Crosby has done it all, from crafting transcendental, psychedelic harmonies for the Byrds and CSNY to living a life ...
Interview by Ian Winwood, Kerrang!, 8 November 2003
Hundred Reasons make terrible rock stars. They do, however, make fantastic rock albums. This despite being crippled by panic attacks, chronic geekyness and rampant alcohol ...
David Amram, Jack Kerouac: David Amram's Beat Memories
Retrospective and Interview by Victor Bockris, High Times, December 2003
David Amram is an American treasure. A multi-instrumentalist who can play in all styles, he's composed classical concertos and symphonies, accompanied poets on spoken-word records, ...
Book Excerpt by Gene Santoro, 'Highway 61 Revisited...', 2004
IT'S EASY TO rephrase Tolstoy's opening to Anna Karenina so it describes junkies, who all share an essential plotline: Who and how to hustle in ...
Book Excerpt by Gene Santoro, 'Highway 61 Revisited', 2004
THE SCENE: MIAMI in 1951. A 25-year-old strip show emcee initiates his first public demonstration of what would, decades later, be called performance art. It ...
The Move: Hello Goodbye: Ace Kefford and the Move
Interview by Mark Paytress, MOJO, February 2004
Hello: October 1965 ...
The Distillers: The Ballad of Brody Dalle
Interview by Sylvia Patterson, The Face, February 2004
Just as they're about to make it huge, The Distillers are in the middle of a bitter punk-rock feud. The LA punk scene's split down ...
Elliott Smith: You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
Retrospective and Interview by RJ Smith, Spin, 18 February 2004
WHEN ELLIOTT SMITH played Los Angeles in the fall of 2002, after more than a year of semi-seclusion, he didn't look so good. His hands ...
Walter Yetnikoff with David Ritz: Howling at the Moon (Little, Brown)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 22 February 2004
DURING WALTER Yetnikoff's reign as president of CBS Records (later Sony Music), the music industry generated unprecedented profits, and commensurately large corporate egos. ...
The Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks, Brian Wilson: Brian Wilson: Smile? Don't mind if I do…
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, March 2004
It was due in January 1967. But the Beach Boys' Smile LP was shelved when its creator Brian Wilson refused to finish it. Now he ...
Interview by Ian Watson, The Evening Standard, 18 March 2004
She nearly killed herself with drugs, but now pop's wild child has cleaned up her act. As she prepares to play Wembley, Pink tells Ian ...
Essay by Nick Kent, The Guardian, 19 April 2004
THEY ASKED ME to write this piece about "self-destruction and its place in rock" and that immediately set me to thinking: what do they mean ...
Marvin Gaye: Time Machine June 1981: Marvin the Paranoid Singer
Retrospective by Fred Dellar, MOJO, June 2004
"MARVIN GAYE'S British tour is back on again," claimed a press report. "The dates originally announced were scrapped 48 hours later, on the grounds that ...
Guns N' Roses, Velvet Revolver: Velvet Revolver's Slash (2004) [transcript]
Audio transcript of interview by Adam Sweeting, Rock's Backpages transcripts, June 2004
This is a transcript of Adam's audio interview with Slash. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
The Red Hot Chili Peppers: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Profile and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, July 2004
Clowntime is over for the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the L.A. punks who defied death, grunge and a burning crack den to play the music ...
Interview by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 9 July 2004
After a decade of crises that would have finished off most bands, Wilco are back ...
Gil Scott-Heron: Chasing The Heron
Report and Interview by James Maycock, The Times, 16 July 2004
"I'M ADDICTED to creating," mutters a grizzled, slightly stoned Gil Scott-Heron. "I use other things from time to time." It's late afternoon on Friday 3rd ...
Review by Fred Mills, No Depression, September 2004
IF YOU HAVE no tolerance for revolving-door "recovering" addicts who feel compelled to chronicle, on record after record, every opium-drenched near-death vision and every groveling ...
Retrospective and Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, November 2004
A year on, the world is still reeling from the death of Johnny Cash, the speed-crazed rock'n'roller who became America's defining voice. From tragedy to ...
Pete Doherty: "I haven't taken crack for 14 days"
Interview by Ian Watson, Scotland on Sunday, 12 December 2004
HE SAUNTERS in, over an hour late. ...
Babyshambles, Pete Doherty, The Libertines: Babyshambles: Grow up, for Pete's sake
Comment by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 17 December 2004
Fans deify Pete Doherty for his 'old school' hedonism. Actually, he's a tragic junkie du jour ...
Mary J. Blige (2005) [transcript]
Audio transcript of interview by Gavin Martin, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 2005
This is a transcription of Gavin's audio interview with Mary J. Blige. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz: Lil Jon: Time to crunk it up
Report and Interview by Angus Batey, The Times, 15 January 2005
He's crazy. He's drunk. He is "crunk". Angus Batey meets Lil Jon ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, MOJO, February 2005
Wooed by Dylan, ripped off by Jagger, too hardcore for Burroughs. A drug addict who recovered to make grainy, dramatic music rife with sex and ...
Sid Vicious: "Nothing can hurt him anymore"
Retrospective by Jon Savage, MOJO, February 2005
Sid's mother Anne Beverley died of a heroin overdose in 1996, but not before sharing her side of Sid's story. As told to Jon Savage. ...
The Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious: Sid Vicious: A Star Is Born!
Retrospective by David Dalton, MOJO, February 2005
When Sid Vicious joined the Sex Pistols in 1977 it was the end of the band and the beginning of his metamorphosis into mythic rock ...
Babyshambles: Pete Doherty And The New Decadence
Comment by Charles Shaar Murray, Independent on Sunday, 6 February 2005
PERHAPS MARC ALMOND put it best: "To me a star is someone who has something extra, and something missing at the same time – ...
Interview by Bill Brewster, Frank Broughton, Rock's Backpages audio, 23 February 2005
The pioneering House DJ tells the whole story, from a tin bath in Notting Dale to Shoom and beyond: his youth in Slough; discovering the club Crackers; the soul all-dayers and weekenders; the warehouse scene and rare groove; the dawn of House and Ecstacy; the opening of Shoom; his and Andrew Weatherall's Boy's Own fanzine; Danny Rampling; the emergence of the superstar DJ... and House's longevity.
File format: mp3; file size: 117.9mb, interview length: 2h 02' 50" sound quality: ****
Ozzy Osbourne: The Jon Wilde Interview
Interview by Jon Wilde, Uncut, March 2005
WILDE: Your house in Buckinghamshire was burgled in November 2004. What was that like? ...
Billie Holiday: Julia Blackburn: With Billie (Cape)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 27 March 2005
BILLIE HOLIDAY famously led a chaotic, dissolute life that has attracted biographers like rubberneckers to a car crash. ...
Interview by Paul Trynka, MOJO, April 2005
Shopped by Zappa, hooked on heroin and chased by the Feds, Dr. John dodged death and digit loss to become New Orleans' "fonk" ambassador in ...
Retrospective by Mick Houghton, Uncut, April 2005
UNTIL RECENTLY, Judee Sill and her two Asylum albums were all but forgotten. Her story is so tragic as to be nearly unbelievable, the antithesis ...
Babyshambles, Pete Doherty, The Libertines: Kate Moss' Prince Alarming: Pete Doherty
Profile and Interview by Edward Helmore, Vanity Fair, July 2005
IT'S 9 PM AT the Boogaloo in north London and Gerry O'Boyle, the proprietor of this dingy pub, says Kate and Pete are on their ...
Circulus, The Incredible String Band: Nowt so queer as acid folk
Report and Interview by Pete Paphides, The Times, 15 July 2005
In a parallel world alongside mainstream rock lies a folk revival. Pete Paphides enters the zone ...
The Only Ones: Another Boy, Another Planet
Retrospective and Interview by Nina Antonia, Uncut, October 2005
If you thought Pete Doherty and the Libertines were the ultimate in glorious, shambling rock 'n' roll then try THE ONLY ONES, the brilliant late-'70s ...
John Martyn: I've Had a Wonderful Time
Report and Interview by Graeme Thomson, The Herald, November 2005
IT IS FAR from unusual to discover whole fathoms of deep blue sea between the artist and their art. Nothing, however, quite prepares you for ...
Review by Pete Paphides, The Times, 11 November 2005
HOW TONY PARSONS delighted in playing the contrarian on last Friday's Newsnight Review. Having lived with Babyshambles' long-awaited debut album for a week, the Mirror columnist took ...
Book Review by Nick Coleman, Independent on Sunday, 13 November 2005
DOES NARCISSISM have a sound? If it does, it is surely a dulcet, soft, melodic, tender sound. The music – for narcissism is nothing if ...
The Darkness: The gathering Darkness
Interview by Simon Price, The Independent, 13 November 2005
What a year it's been for Lowestoft's campest band of brothers. They've lost a bass player, found a new one (it took, ooh, seconds) and ...
Review by Johnny Sharp, MOJO, January 2006
SOME PUBLIC figures make reality TV shows about their turbulent tabloid lives. Here, Pete Doherty and his band have made Being Pete Doherty — The ...
Nick Drake: Trevor Dann: Darker Than The Deepest Sea – The Search for Nick Drake (Portrait)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 5 February 2006
THIS BOOK IS surprisingly topical, and not just because of the deepening spell cast by Nick Drake, the English singer-songwriter, 31 years after his death. ...
Candi Staton: "I was so drunk I fell on to the stage"
Interview by Sophie Heawood, The Guardian, 24 March 2006
DISCO DIVA CANDI STATON lost everything to alcohol and abuse, but the song she recorded for a diet video saved her. Now, at 66, she's ...
Leaf Hound: Growers Of Mushroom
Retrospective and Interview by Colin Harper, MOJO, May 2006
Horror stories, heavy riffs and heroic failure. ...
Michael Head, The Pale Fountains, Shack: Shack (2006)
Interview by Gavin Martin, Rock's Backpages audio, May 2006
John Head talks about the brothers' childhood; borrowing his dad's guitar, the family being musical, and their mother's death. Mick Head talks about becoming a musician and forming the Pale Fountains; signing to Virgin, John joining the band; moving to London and the end of the Pale Fountains. Mick talks about his heroin habit and being a songwriter. They talk about returning to Liverpool and starting Shack; the albums Zilch and Waterpistol; backing Love's Arthur Lee; kicking heroin and recording H.M.S. Fable; the new album ... the Corner of Miles and Gil; getting his teeth knocked out, and signing to Noel Gallagher's label.
File format: mp3; file size: 92.4mb, interview length: 1h 36' 13" sound quality: ** (background noise)
Interview by Gavin Martin, Uncut, June 2006
MARCH 2006, and in Liverpool feral rat-faced folk with the lean and hungry look seem to be everywhere. Junkies – on the street or selling ...
Johnny Thunders: In Cold Blood: The Death of Johnny Thunders
Retrospective by Kris Needs, MOJO, June 2006
How much do we know about the death of Johnny Thunders? That it was murder, says Kris Needs. ...
New York Dolls: Make-up America!
Retrospective and Interview by Kris Needs, MOJO, June 2006
In 1971 Manhattan, five teenage toughs in make-up, tried to kick-start the punk revolution. By 1976 the New York Dolls seemed finished, poleaxed by drugs, ...
Obituary by Alan Clayson, The Guardian, 11 July 2006
Former lead singer of Pink Floyd whose drug-induced breakdown and reclusive retirement created a musical legend ...
Blaze Foley: The Fall and Rise of Blaze Foley
Retrospective by Joe Nick Patoski, No Depression, September 2006
THE BLACK GRANITE headstone is lost among the other markers in the Live Oak Cemetery in deep South Austin. Several small objects including a small ...
Report by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, 16 September 2006
What do Pete Doherty, Justin Hawkins and Keane's Tom Chaplin have in common? All have been in rehab recently, some for the first time. But ...
Primal Scream: Bobby Gillespie
Interview by Keith Cameron, MOJO, November 2006
He's the jive-talking jackdaw who's led Primal Scream through foul weather and, er...foul. Yet, 22 years on, what has Bobby Gillespie learned? "It's not nice ...
John Phillips: John Phillips (John, The Wolfking of L.A.)
Review and Interview by Mick Houghton, Uncut, November 2006
HIPPY DREAMS DEFILED, HOLLYWOOD AFFAIRS, HERCULEAN DRUG USE: THE LONG-LOST SOLO ALBUM FROM MAMAS & PAPAS LYNCHPIN. ...
Amy Winehouse: She's Class with a Glass: Amy Winehouse
Interview by Sophie Heawood, The Times, 3 November 2006
Cockney chanteuse Amy Winehouse thinks rehab is for wimps. But will her battles with her addictive personality deprive her of her rightful place in musical ...
Profile and Interview by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 9 November 2006
Courtney Love was rejected by her parents at 9, raised in institutions and grew into the wild woman of rock. Our correspondent spent the weekend ...
Pete Doherty: For Pete's Sake, Let's Hope There's No Snow At Christmas
Comment by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 27 November 2006
I WONDER what Pete Doherty will be doing for Christmas? I know you're wondering, too. It is a poser. While it's difficult enough being a ...
Status Quo: Whatever You Want (To Eat): Having Lunch With Status Quo
Interview by Rob Fitzpatrick, The Word, December 2006
Note: This is the original "director's cut" version of the piece that ran in The Word. ...
Babyshambles: The Blinding (Capitol)
Review by Richard Cromelin, Los Angeles Times, 3 December 2006
WHEN Rough Trade Records released Babyshambles’ debut album, Down in Albion, early this year, it was a natural pairing: a maverick U.K. independent label of ...
The Gutter Twins, The Twilight Singers: Bad news boys
Profile and Interview by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 8 December 2006
Tattoos, drugs, beatings, stalkers, prison, betrayal and years of making great music — could Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan be any more rock'n'roll? They talk ...
Judee Sill: A Brief Life, an Enduring Musical Impression
Retrospective by Tim Page, The Washington Post, 30 December 2006
ON THE DAY after Thanksgiving 1979, Judee Sill, a 35-year-old, deeply depressed and physically broken singer-songwriter, took an overdose of opiates and cocaine in her ...
The Hours: Back From The Brink
Interview by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 12 January 2007
The Hours have been through drugs, death and abandonment. But adversity has turned them into Britain's most powerful new band. Dave Simpson caught up with ...
Report and Interview by Chris Roberts, Uncut, February 2007
The Only One wants to cut one more LP "before death comes". ...
Ozzy Osbourne: Lord of the Wings
Profile and Interview by Barbara Ellen, The Observer, 20 May 2007
He has snorted ants, tried to throttle his wife and bit the head off a bat. But now, Ozzy Osbourne tells Barbara Ellen, he is ...
Review by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, June 2007
Astonishing Two-Disc Trove Of Unreleased Mid-'90s Vintage. ...
The Only Ones: Night Of The Living Dead
Report and Interview by David Sinclair, The Word, June 2007
COME TOGETHER: After 26 years apart, the Only Ones have climbed aboard the reunion bandwagon. They have more reasons than most, as they tell DAVID ...
Blur: Alex James: Where There's Muck, There's Blur
Interview by James Medd, The Word, July 2007
Britpop pin-up, champagne-guzzler and gentleman farmer... Just how much of Alex James's extraordinary life has gone into his new book? ...
The Libertines: Up The Bracket
Review by Paul Moody, Uncut, July 2007
Before the supermodels, the drug busts and the tabloid fallouts, Doherty and Barat cooked up a little cracker. ...
Grateful Dead: For The Unrepentant Patriarch Of LSD, Long, Strange Trip Winds Back To Bay Area
Profile and Interview by Joel Selvin, San Francisco Chronicle, 12 July 2007
THE SMALL, barefoot man in black T-shirt and blue jeans barely rates a second glance from the other Starbucks patrons in downtown San Rafael, although ...
The Beatles, The Rolling Stones: Summer of Love: London
Retrospective by Alan Light, Rolling Stone, 12 July 2007
Tightly knit, decadent and explosively creative, the scene was too good to last ...
Sly & the Family Stone: Sly Stone's Higher Power
Profile and Interview by David Kamp, Vanity Fair, August 2007
Sly Stone vanished into rumor in the 1980s, remembered only by the great songs ('I Want to Take You Higher', 'Dance to the Music') he ...
Stevie Nicks: A Survivor's Story
Profile and Interview by Mick Brown, Telegraph Magazine, 8 September 2007
Thirty years after she sold her soul to the devil and, with Fleetwood Mac, set new records for rock'n'roll overindulgence, Stevie Nicks has somehow lived ...
Eric Clapton: The Autobiography (Century)
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 14 October 2007
IT IS HARD to believe that the first book to spill the beans on Eric Clapton should arrive more than 40 years after the graffitied ...
Mötley Crüe: Ban this Sixx filth!
Report by Ian Gittins, The Guardian, 27 October 2007
Thought Mötley Crüe's biog The Dirt was the ultimate rock read? Pah! Ian Gittins helped bassist Nikki Sixx write his gruesome journals. Those of a ...
Lily Allen, Amy Winehouse: I need a break, what shall I have: heroin or a baby?
Comment by Caitlin Moran, The Times, 20 December 2007
As Amy Winehouse's problems mount, and Lily Allen announces that she is pregnant, Caitlin Moran explains that the two young singers are under the same ...
Interview by Robin Eggar, Live Magazine, 30 December 2007
NIKKI SIXX is the bassplayer and chief songwriter in Mötley Crüe, the LA hard rockers who became a byword for rock and roll excess, while ...
Interview by Lisa Verrico, The Sunday Times, 30 December 2007
Sia has endured failure and heartache, but the Australian singer's luck is starting to turn ...
Interview by Michael A. Gonzales, Stop Smiling, Winter 2007
FROM CINEMATIC outlaws Vito Corleone (The Godfather) and Priest (Super Fly) to real life dons like John Gotti and Nicky Barnes, the mythology of gangsterism ...
The Beatles: When Acid Reigned
Retrospective by Harry Shapiro, MOJO, Summer 2007
Hippies tripped, tabloids raged and police cheered as Engelbert Humperdinck's Jan '67 hit, 'Release Me' became the real theme tune for the Summer of Love. ...
Retrospective and Interview by David Burke, R2/Rock'n'Reel, 2008
The artist formally known as Mink demonstrates a direct and colourful use of language as he discusses his rich and varied career with David Burke. ...
Amy Winehouse: Killing Me Softly
Report by Paul Elliott, MOJO, January 2008
She is the finest female vocalist of her generation, but in 2007 Amy Winehouse became an easy mark for the tabloids, with tales of drugs, ...
Amy Winehouse: Life Imitating Art...
Comment by Kate Mossman, The Word, January 2008
...imitating life. When did Amy Winehouse start to inhabit her songs, wonders KATE MOSSMAN. ...
Kate Nash: Singing oh oh on a Friday night
Interview by Scott McLennan, Rip It Up (Australia), January 2008
WHILE TOM MORELLO strums away in his Nightwatchman guise around the corner, British newcomer Kate Nash is sitting backstage in her dressing room at the ...
Amy Winehouse: The Slow Blackout of Amy Winehouse
Comment by Amy Linden, The Village Voice, 15 January 2008
How a troubled r&b mega-talent's breakout hit turned against her ...
Amy Winehouse: How popular is crack?
Comment by Laura Barton, The Guardian, 23 January 2008
FOOTAGE HAS emerged of the troubled songstress Amy Winehouse apparently smoking crack at her home in east London. The substance is widely regarded as the ...
Amy Winehouse: Why Amy Winehouse is On The Rocks
Essay by Nick Kent, The Times, 24 January 2008
As troubled singer Amy Winehouse is filmed smoking crack cocaine, our writer, a veteran of the 1970s music and drug culture, explains why we view ...
Velvet Revolver: And Now Let's Go Over to the Leather Report: Velvet Revolver
Profile and Interview by Dan Gennoe, Mail On Sunday, March 2008
IF THERE'S A definition of a rock star, Scott Weiland is it. The ever-present Aviator sunglasses; the hip-jutting swagger; the slow croak of an LA ...
Review by Roy Wilkinson, MOJO, March 2008
This month in our dusting-off of the ignored: post-punk's answer to Lou Reed's Transformer. ...
The Black Crowes: The Return of the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers
Interview by Paul Elliott, MOJO, April 2008
After seven years in the wilderness, the Black Crowes, America's freewheelin', dope-smokin', warring Blues Brotherhood are back. And this time their singer Chris Robinson is ...
Retrospective by Luke Torn, Uncut, May 2008
IT'S ANOTHER DAY in the busy life of one of the biggest bands in America. The Byrds have just recorded 'Eight Miles High', and are ...
Interview by Sylvie Simmons, Q, May 2008
Stevie Nicks is the epitome of California rock excess. While in Fleetwood Mac, she sold millions and snorted half of Colombia. Solo, she sold millions ...
Amy Winehouse: Can Amy Winehouse be saved?
Report by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 27 July 2008
Her phenomenal talent has been eclipsed by her terrifying ability to self-destruct. Can anything save Amy from herself? ...
Cheech & Chong: Lost in the ozone again
Interview by Bill Holdship, Detroit Metro Times, 17 September 2008
CHEECH MARIN AND Tommy Chong require little introduction. The countercultural comedy heroes turned movie superstars took several decades off to pursue solo careers (and Chong ...
Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five: Grandmaster Flash (2009) [transcript]
Audio transcript of interview by Andrew Purcell, Rock's Backpages transcripts, 2009
This is a transcript of Andrew's audio interview with Flash. Listen to the audio of this interview. ...
Sly & the Family Stone: There's a Riot Goin' On
Review by Stevie Chick, bbc.co.uk, 2009
Dark, troubled and brilliant funk from kaleidoscopic soul-rock legends ...
The Notorious B.I.G., Puff Daddy: Notorious (dir. George Tillman Jr.)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Bill Holdship, Detroit Metro Times, January 2009
Despite some excellent acting and drama, Notorious biopic whitewashes Biggie Small’s gangsta life and death ...
Lily Allen: Celebrity: Lily Allen
Interview by James Medd, GQ (Australia), February 2009
She's released a new album and that string of expletives at Elton John at the UK Men of the Year Awards. So how will GQ ...
Nick Cave, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Grinderman: Nick Cave: King of Pain
Profile and Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, March 2009
"TEA? PIECE OF CAKE?" says Nick Cave civilly. After an earlier on-tour interview at the Malmaison Hotel, Manchester, he's invited MOJO to his office, a ...
Fatboy Slim, Paul Oakenfold: Superstar DJs: Here We Go! by Dom Phillips
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 1 March 2009
They're mostly gone now, but back in the 1990s Britain's superjocks could coin thousands for a single night. A lucid history charts their excesses ...
The Mamas and The Papas, John Phillips: King of the Wild Frontier: Papa John Phillips
Retrospective and Interview by Chris Campion, Observer Music Monthly, 15 March 2009
IN AUGUST 1977, John Phillips was supposed to be recording the album with Keith Richards that would mark his comeback. ...
The Rolling Stones: Villa Nellcote: Tommy Weber Arrives at the Rolling Stones' French Stronghold
Book Excerpt by Robert Greenfield, 'A Day in the Life' (Da Capo), July 2009
In this excerpt from his brilliant new A Day in the Life: One Family, the Beautiful People, and the End of the '60s, Robert Greenfield ...
Corinne Bailey Rae : Corinne Bailey Rae: "It happened to me. It could happen to anyone at any time."
Profile and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 4 October 2009
From out of the darkest place, following the sudden death of her husband, Corinne Bailey Rae is re-emerging with an extraordinarily intimate and impassioned album. ...
Roky Erickson: He has never been here before …
Interview by Bill Holdship, Detroit Metro Times, 28 October 2009
ALTHOUGH THERE ARE certainly other candidates, the man born Roger Kynard Erickson 62 years ago in Dallas, Texas, just might be the greatest rock 'n' ...
The Rolling Stones: The Gimme Shelter You Didn't See
Review by Michael Azerrad, Rock's Backpages, 24 November 2009
GIMME SHELTER is generally considered one of the best rock documentaries ever made, perhaps one of the best documentaries on any topic. ...
Snoop (Doggy) Dogg: The new mellow Snoop Dogg still has bite
Interview by Sophie Heawood, The Times, 4 December 2009
Snoop Dogg: "Now that I'm more concerned and caring and a father and a husband — it seems the less respect I get" ...
Julian Casablancas on the Strokes and going solo
Interview by Sophie Heawood, The Sunday Times, 18 January 2010
He's the privileged kid who with The Strokes shaped the future of, among others, Kings Of Leon and Arctic Monkeys. Now he's all alone ...
John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Phil Spector: Going Under: John Lennon's Lost Weekend
Retrospective and Interview by Tom Doyle, Q, February 2010
Separated from Yoko, at war with McCartney, his phone tapped by the US government... by 1974 JOHN LENNON was a mess. The solution: hook up ...
Interview by Rob Fitzpatrick, Daily Telegraph, 17 February 2010
NOTE: This is the original "director's cut" version of the piece that ran in the Daily Telegraph. ...
Nick Kent, The Rolling Stones, The Sex Pistols: Nick Kent: Apathy for the Devil – A 1970s Memoir
Book Review by Robert Sandall, The Sunday Times, 21 February 2010
AS AN EYEWITNESS account of the dangerous excesses of the 1970s rock scene, Apathy for the Devil is in a compulsively readable class of its ...
Primal Scream: Bobby Gillespie and Primal Scream
Retrospective and Interview by James Brown, Sabotage Times, 23 February 2010
Primal Scream are the last great band of the original Creation Records roster, still rocking on, un-interrupted by break-ups or break-downs. James Brown gets down ...
Whitney Houston: Why someone in Whitney Houston's condition shouldn't be on stage
Report by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 24 February 2010
WHITNEY HOUSTON has a problem. In fact, she seems to have a lot of problems. According to reports from Monday night's concert in Brisbane, Australia ...
Bob Gibson: Unsung Heroes: Bob Gibson
Retrospective by Mick Houghton, Uncut, March 2010
From the dawn of the folk revival – a clean-cut junkie troubadour... ...
Profile and Interview by John Lewis, Hotline, April 2010
GIL SCOTT-HERON has long been a regular and popular visitor to the UK's jazz and soul venues. However, by the late 1990s, he'd become an ...
Keith Moon, The Who: Boozing with Keith Moon
Memoir by Caroline Boucher, The Observer, 18 April 2010
An afternoon with the Who drummer started with him putting wing mirrors on a donkey then went steadily downhill ...
Grand Funk Railroad: We're An American Band
Retrospective and Interview by Jaan Uhelszki, Uncut, July 2010
Grand Funk Railroad shared drugs with Hendrix, helped Janis Joplin play tricks on the Stones, immortalised groupies, worked with Zappa and Rundgren, had the most ...
Review by Bill Holdship, MOJO, July 2010
THIS IS one of those wonderful, unexpected releases that many people once believed could never exist. ...
Plan B on overcoming his anger
Interview by Pete Paphides, The Times, 17 July 2010
His hit 'She Said' is the song of the year so far, and half a million people have bought his critically acclaimed album. But if ...
The Doors, Jim Morrison: L.A. Woman and the Last Days of Jim Morrison
Retrospective and Interview by Max Bell, Classic Rock, August 2010
Forget what you think you know. How Jim Morrison REALLY died, by the people who found the body, moved the body and buried him… ...
Retrospective by Rob Young, Uncut, October 2010
When Sandy Denny left Fairport Convention at the height of their success, she seemed destined for solo stardom. What went wrong? With the help of ...
Kings of Leon: Joel McIver: Holy Rock 'n Rollers – The Story of Kings of Leon (Omnibus Press)
Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 25 October 2010
JUST IN TIME for the release of their fifth record, Come Around Sundown, comes the second biography (after Michael Heatley's Kings of Leon: Sex on ...
Led Zeppelin: Houses of the Unholy: Aubrey Powell on Led Zeppelin
Interview by Barney Hoskyns, unpublished, March 2011
NOTE: This is a transcription from an interview that Hipgnosis co-founder Aubrey Powell gave me in March 2011, for Trampled Under Foot, my 2012 oral ...
Kyuss: Kings of the Stoner Age
Retrospective and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 25 March 2011
"I DIDN'T THINK THAT at 40 years of age I would still be talking about generator parties," Kyuss frontman John Garcia says with a puzzled ...
Smokey Robinson: My Date With Smokey
Interview by Jon Wilde, Sabotage Times, 27 March 2011
On his 70th birthday, William "Smokey" Robinson grants exclusive access to Jon Wilde to talk cocaine, the roots of Motown and why the Stones still ...
The Louvin Brothers, Charlie Louvin: Charlie Louvin, 1927-2011
Obituary by Andrew Mueller, Uncut, April 2011
THE PASSING OF Charlie Louvin on January 26,2011, aged 83, from complications associated with pancreatic cancer, detaches country music from a vital living root. ...
David Bowie, Kraftwerk: Taxi zum Klo's Berlin is a sexual playground
Retrospective by Jon Savage, The Guardian, 21 April 2011
Bowie, Christiane F and Taxi zum Klo: these are the things that made Berlin so alluring to the British pop culture of the late '70s ...
Derek & The Dominos, Bobby Whitlock: Bobby Whitlock: Derek's Main Domino Dishes On Layla and More
Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 25 May 2011
IT'S BEEN AN active, and retroactive, time for singer-songwriter/keyboardist Bobby Whitlock, best known as one of the playing pieces in the Eric Clapton-led group Derek ...
Rickie Lee Jones: Bohemian Rhapsody
Interview by Bob Mehr, MOJO, July 2011
Fuelled by a bitter split with lover Tom Waits, scarred by spiraling addictions and underwritten by her traumatic childhood, Rickie Lee Jones' Pirates album took ...
Obituary by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 23 July 2011
Singer with a soul-steeped voice whose instantly successful Back to Black album reflected her tormented experience of love ...
Amy Winehouse: A Rock Star Dead Again at 27
Comment by Wayne Robins, Rock's Backpages, 23 July 2011
THE OTHER DAY I was listening to Amy Winehouse sing "You Know I'm No Good" on WFUV, and thought about how authentic she sounded. Not ...
Music And Drugs — It's A Hard Habit To Break
Overview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 29 July 2011
Amy Winehouse's popularity came in part, says Andy Gill, from the honesty with which she sang of her addictions. But pop hasn't always faced up ...
Queen Of Nude Orleans: 1978, October 31
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Classic Rock, October 2011
IT WAS THE aftershow party to end all aftershow parties. The champagne flowed like water, couples coupled under the tables and the entertainment included strippers, ...
Hank Williams: On The Lost Highway: Hank Williams
Retrospective by Mark Mordue, The Australian, 22 October 2011
DAMNED cold. An ice storm over Nashville has closed down flights across the state of Tennessee. ...
Jackie Leven, 1950–2011: "I'm too connected to the pain of other people. It really breaks me up."
Retrospective and Interview by Graeme Thomson, Uncut, February 2012
In his life as in his music, the Scottish singer-songwriter who died last November found inspiration in the raw extremes of human behaviour, which he ...
Tim Hardin: The Unforgiven: Tim Hardin
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, MOJO, February 2012
AS CONCEPT ALBUMS go it was one of the more eccentric creations of the late 1960s. The mouthful of a title alone (Suite for Susan ...
Tim Hardin: The Unforgiven: Tim Hardin and the Shock of Grace
Retrospective by Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, February 2012
NOTE: This is the "director's cut" version – at almost twice the length – of a piece written for MOJO and subsequently used as the ...
Obituary by Caroline Sullivan, The Guardian, 13 February 2012
Superstar singer credited as the first 'pop diva', whose compelling talent was lost to drug addiction ...
Perfume Genius: "I've learned not to trust myself"
Profile and Interview by Laura Barton, The Guardian, 16 February 2012
Porn footage and his mum were two of the inspirations for songs on Mike Hadreas's second album, which, yes, features the same themes of lurid ...
Gram Parsons: Gram Theft Parsons Revisited
Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Classic Rock, March 2012
LATE IN THE evening of September 20, 1973, two drunk men clad in rhinestoned jackets and cowboy hats drove a hearse into Los Angeles Airport ...
Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 13 March 2012
A BOON FOR classic-rock fans in recent years has been an increased activity in vault-mining, as record labels are discovering, polishing up, and releasing a ...
Obituary by David Hepworth, The Word, April 2012
IN SEPTEMBER 2009, Whitney Houston performed in Central Park for the TV show Good Morning America. ...
Memoir by Michael A. Gonzales, Complex, 20 April 2012
"Most marijuana smokers are Negroes, Hispanics, jazz musicians, and entertainers, Their satanic music is driven by marijuana."— Harry J. Anslinger, America's First Drug Czar ...
Interview by Stephen Dalton, The Times, 20 April 2012
A RAINY NIGHT in Zurich. These streets may be paved with Nazi gold, but tonight they are also alive with the sound of music. On ...
Retrospective by David Cavanagh, Uncut, May 2012
Evil spirits. "Trotsky. Machiavelli. Sports. Astrology." Sessions with the Cramps and Tav Falco. Periods without shoes. Dishwashing and tree-climbing. And a heroic last stand against ...
Levitation: Whirled Around: The Rise & Fall Of Levitation
Retrospective and Interview by Wyndham Wallace, The Quietus, 23 May 2012
20 years ago, on the eve of their debut album's release, Levitation looked like they'd explode. Instead, a year later, they imploded. Wyndham Wallace invites ...
The Beautiful South, The Housemartins: Paul Heaton: "Armed Revolution Is The Only Cure"
Interview by Rob Hughes, The Word, June 2012
Baleful tunesmith, habitual cyclist, pub-owner, radical — Paul Heaton puts a foot on the ball and surveys the pitch ...
Memoir by John Pidgeon, Rock's Backpages, 8 June 2012
I'M IDLING ALONG the High Street in my tan sit-up-and-beg Ford Pop, when 'Whatcha Gonna Do About It' comes on the radio. ...
Joe Walsh: Taking It Easy: Joe Walsh Of The Eagles Interviewed
Interview by Julian Marszalek, The Quietus, 21 June 2012
Julian Marszalek speaks to Joe Walsh about life with the world's biggest rock group, going solo and, er, boshing pills and going out raving to ...
Retrospective and Interview by Sheila Weller, Vanity Fair, July 2012
It was billed as "the Summer of Love", a blast of glamour, ecstasy, and Utopianism that drew some 75,000 young people to the San Francisco ...
Amy Winehouse: Lost Girl: The Fierce Life and Tortured Times of Amy Winehouse
Retrospective by William Shaw, Q, August 2012
The force of nature who made Back To Black was also a vulnerable daddy's girl, a harsh taskmistress, a woman with a weakness for the ...
The Rolling Stones: A Sweet Tooth for the Stones: 'Brown Sugar'
Comment by Barney Hoskyns, Sabotage Times, Summer 2012
GOD IT'S TEDIOUS when ancient hacks wax nostalgic about formative pop memories – memories sacred to them but rarely to their readers. So stop reading ...
Ginger Baker: "I came off heroin something like 29 times"
Profile and Interview by Edward Helmore, The Observer, 5 January 2013
Former Cream drummer Ginger Baker talks about his battle with heroin, how he was the original Rolling Stones drummer and being the subject of new ...
Come: Chris Brokaw and Thalia Zadek: Come On My Shirt, Come In My Ear
Interview by Neil Kulkarni, The Quietus, 17 January 2013
I'LL NEVER FORGET. 1994. A cold Wednesday morning in March. The Embassy Hotel, Bayswater. I'm sat down, inside, smoking 'cos you could back then, and ...
Tim Hardin: Remembering the lost genius of his music
Retrospective by Graeme Thomson, Daily Telegraph, 18 January 2013
BOB DYLAN once called him "the greatest songwriter alive" and Joe Strummer regarded him as a "lost genius of music". Yet when Tim Hardin died ...
Retrospective by Lois Wilson, MOJO, February 2013
Abandoned as a child, addicted as an adult, Etta James lived a life punctuated by self-destruction and "wrong-headed men". Then came redemption. As the first ...
Profile and Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 2 June 2013
Last year, the multi-millionaire publishing mogul and drug-addled dissolute Felix Dennis was diagnosed with throat cancer. But don't count him out yet, he tells Sean ...
Retrospective and Interview by Jude Rogers, Q, August 2013
Suede kick-started Britpop 20 years ago, but their arty glam-indie rock was soon overtaken by the more laddish likes of Oasis and Blur. Today, singer ...
Obituary by Richard Williams, The Guardian, 28 October 2013
Velvet Underground frontman and solo artist whose hymns to transgressive behaviour created an audience of outsiders. ...
Derek & The Dominos, Bobby Whitlock: The strange tale of Derek, Gordon, George …and Bobby Whitlock
Retrospective and Interview by Max Bell, unpublished, Summer 2013
AUGUST 14. Summer of 1969. Oakland Coliseum. Eric Clapton, Rick Grech, Ginger Baker and Steve Winwood are on stage during the US tour to promote ...
Lou Reed: A Last Waltz on the Wild Side
Memoir by Ed McCormack, Vanity Fair, 13 January 2014
In an excerpt from his in-progress memoir, former Rolling Stone writer Ed McCormack remembers his friend Lou Reed, and the small theft and turn on ...
Book Review by Ian Penman, London Review of Books, 23 January 2014
"There was a lot of racial tension around bebop. Black men were going with fine, rich white bitches. They were all over these niggers out ...
Interview by Adrian Deevoy, The Guardian, 23 January 2014
HELLO GEORGE. First things first: what are you wearing? I got my suit on, baby. I like to change things up every now and then. So ...
Mark Lanegan, Screaming Trees: Mark Lanegan: Shadow Play
Interview by Rob Hughes, Record Collector, February 2014
Over a series of solo albums, work with Screaming Trees and Queens Of The Stone Age, among others, Mark Lanegan has proved his worth as ...
David Crosby: "The FBI scare me more than Hell's Angels"
Interview by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 26 February 2014
The legendary songwriter on Janis Joplin, being "the voice of cosmic America" and Croz, his first solo album in 20 years. ...
Alex Chilton, Jim Dickinson, The Sex Pistols: Flies on Shit: Alex Chilton Goes Back to Memphis
Book Excerpt by Holly George-Warren, Viking Books, March 2014
The former Big Star man sees the Sex Pistols in Memphis and limbers up for the shambolic Like Flies On Sherbert. An exclusive excerpt from ...
Jean-Jacques Burnel, The Stranglers: Mr Dojo Rising: JJ Burnel of The Stranglers interviewed
Interview by Julian Marszalek, The Quietus, 4 March 2014
Julian Marszalek looks beyond the ugliness, violence and "intellectual thuggery" to find punk's genuine outsiders. ...
Big Star, The Box Tops, Alex Chilton: Holly George-Warren's Alex Chilton
Memoir by Binky Philips, Huffington Post, 11 April 2014
When I was running the East Village record store, St Mark's Sounds in the 1980s, Alex Chilton's LP Like Flies On Sherbert [sic] was a ...
Jay Z, Public Enemy: Still Smokin': 30 Years of Crack's Influence on Pop Culture
Essay by Michael A. Gonzales, Ebony, 2 May 2014
With Showtime announcing John Singleton's upcoming Snowfall series, crack cocaine's sway on pop culture continues to grow ...
Randy California, Spirit: California Dreaming: The Wild and Tragic Story of Spirit
Retrospective by Max Bell, Classic Rock, 18 June 2014
Led by mercurial guitarist Randy California, Spirit were buddies of Jimi Hendrix and praised by Led Zeppelin. But their promise would collapse in blur of ...
The Kooks' Luke Pritchard: "When I look back on some of the songs I wrote, it makes me laugh"
Interview by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 22 August 2014
The new Kooks record features electric church music, a strong Ethiopian-jazz influence ... and no songs about the singer's penis. No wonder Luke Pritchard thinks ...
Book Review by Ian Penman, London Review of Books, 25 September 2014
IN THE SPRING of 1965, on the road between Memphis and Hollywood, desert plains all around, his bloodstream torqued by a tinnital static of prescription ...
Nick Cave, Marianne Faithfull: Marianne Faithfull: Give My Love To London
Review and Interview by Terry Staunton, Uncut, October 2014
Recuperating from serious injury, the veteran chanteuse puts her back into one of her most personal records... ...
Retrospective and Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Event Magazine, 11 October 2014
THE SIGNATURE sneer is nowhere to be seen, the rebellious fist, so often raised and pumping, rests limply in his lap. Billy Idol, the wild ...
The Beach Boys, The Eagles, Charles Manson: Charles Manson and the Death of the Californian Dream
Retrospective by Gavin Martin, Sabotage Times, 17 November 2014
The swinging '60s in the Golden State – California. A decade of sex, drink, drugs and debauchery soundtracked by the Beach Boys, the Eagles and ...
Jess Glynne: The chart-topper who lives with her mum
Profile and Interview by Paul Lester, The Jewish Chronicle, 25 November 2014
The pop sensation explains how being a family girl helps her keep fame in perspective ...
Chet Baker, Trumpeter, 1929-1988
Book Excerpt by Brian Case, On the Snap (Caught by the River, 2015), 2015
I CAN REMEMBER that Chet was major despondent. A black cloud marking time. Why was I interviewing him? No particular reason. The Jazz Centre Society ...
Interview by Jim Sullivan, Rock's Backpages audio, 2015
The ex-Cream drummer refuses to divulge much about working with PiL; the Beware of Mr. Baker movie; his Nigerian experiences; being an improvising musician; his friendship with the jazz greats; the Cream reunion; leaving South Africa; his relationship with his family and his health. He's marginally more forthcoming about his experiences with heroin.
File format: mp3; file size: 10.6mb, interview length: 29' 27" sound quality: ** (phoner)
Hunter Thompson Pays a Visit to Babylon
Retrospective by Bill Wasserzieher, Rock's Backpages, 2015
HUNTER THOMPSON'S SUICIDE ten years ago this month should not have come as a surprise. His dark tales about riding with a biker gang, Mace-spraying ...
Canned Heat: The badass blues band that death couldn't kill
Retrospective and Interview by Max Bell, Classic Rock, January 2015
PICTURE THE SCENE: April 4, 1981, outside the World Famous Palomino Club in North Hollywood. The members of Canned Heat and their friends are smoking ...
Skip Spence: Dark Star: The Tragic Genius Of Skip Spence
Retrospective by Rob Hughes, Classic Rock, 23 January 2015
Moby Grape co-founder Skip Spence wrote his album Oar in a psychiatric ward after threatening his bandmates with an axe. Fifteen years after his death, artists ...
Sleaford Mods: Grammar Wanker: Sleaford Mods 2007‑2014 by Jason Williamson (Bracketpress)
Book Review by John Harris, The Guardian, 18 March 2015
Drug comedowns and fist fights — an angry and uncompromising collection of lyrics. Who else in modern English music is doing anything quite like this? ...
James Taylor: "A big part of my story is recovery from addiction"
Profile and Interview by Paul Sexton, Daily Telegraph, 20 June 2015
At the age of 67, James Taylor has made his 16th album, his first in 13 years. After spending his early career addicted to heroin, ...
Willie Nelson: Willie and the Weed Factory
Profile and Interview by Chris Heath, GQ, 31 August 2015
Marijuana's state-by-state march toward full legalization would never have happened without Willie Nelson. He's 82 now, and he's spent nearly half his life as America's ...
Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones: Black and Blue: Keith Richards interviewed
Interview by Julian Marszalek, The Quietus, 16 September 2015
Julian Marszalek meets the Rolling Stones guitarist and living legend to talk race, drugs and persistence. ...
The Eagles, Don Henley: Don Henley
Interview by Paul Lester, The Guardian, 1 October 2015
YOU WOULD NEVER know that a member of the biggest American band in history had just entered the building. Dressed down in chequered shirt and ...
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Warren Zanes: Petty – The Biography (Henry Holt)
Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 11 November 2015
YOU WOULD THINK that Tom Petty had it all in the mid to late '90s. On the backside of his forties, he had already enjoyed ...
Amy Winehouse: Asif Kapadia: Amy (Island/Universal DVD)
Film/DVD/TV Review by Jamie Atkins, Record Collector, December 2015
WHILE GIFTED, tragic figures are the very bread and butter of the music documentarian, has there ever been a film in which the downward spiral ...
Natalie Cole: A Remembrance (1950-2015)
Obituary by Michael A. Gonzales, Ebony, December 2015
STELLAR SINGER and showbiz royalty Natalie Cole has passed away at the age of 65. ...
The Replacements: Bob Mehr: Trouble Boys – The True Story of the Replacements
Book Review by Caryn Rose, salon.com, 14 March 2016
The new biography, Trouble Boys, is an unflinching, uncompromising look at the band and the legend ...
Arab Strap: The Cluny, Newcastle upon Tyne
Live Review by Dave Simpson, The Guardian, 13 October 2016
Aidan Moffatt and Malcolm Middleton revive tales of chaotic lifestyles for Brexit Britain, with music that ricochets between folk, pop and intense dance. ...
Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd: Overdrive! Syd Barrett Part 2
Retrospective by Kris Needs, Shindig, November 2016
LAST MONTH WE looked at Syd's childhood and the birth of Pink Floyd up to releasing 'Arnold Layne'. ...
Skid Row: Sebastian Bach: 18 and Life on Skid Row (Dey St. Books)
Book Review by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 13 December 2016
FOR ANYONE WHO has seen an interview with Sebastian Bach, he of the motor-mouth, hellzapoppin', frenetic energy and a constant stream of verbal non sequiturs, two ...
Karen Dalton: Are You Leaving for the Country? Karen Dalton in Woodstock
Book Excerpt by Barney Hoskyns, 'Small Town Talk' (Da Capo), Spring 2016
FRED NEIL had returned to his beloved Florida by the early '70s, but from 1970 onwards Karen Dalton spent much of her time in Woodstock. ...
Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan: "Why I don't understand my own band"
Profile and Interview by Kate Mossman, New Statesman, 1 June 2017
WHEN NEIL TENNANT of the Pet Shop Boys was the assistant editor of Smash Hits, he made the following observation: ...
Benjamin Booker: How I turned my personal meltdown into a rallying cry for black America
Profile and Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Guardian, 21 June 2017
He was overweight, abusing drugs and fleeing from his self-harming past. So he took all his problems – and turned them into the sensational new ...
Madonna: Another view: My night with Madonna (and Sean Hughes)
Memoir by Tim Cooper, The Evening Standard, 20 October 2017
BACK IN THE LATE 1990s I used to run into Sean Hughes all the time at parties. He was a Perrier Award-winning stand-up comedian and ...
Alice Cooper: Alice's biggest shock of all
Profile and Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Event Magazine, 18 November 2017
Forget the guillotine, noose and snakes – the master of the macabre's fans will be stunned by his enduring passion for God, golf and marriage ...
Neil Young: Roxy – Tonight's the Night Live
Review by Will Hermes, Rolling Stone, 23 April 2018
The songwriter opened a legendary L.A. club in 1973 with an incredible performance that spotlighted his classic album. ...
The 1975: How The 1975's Matty Healy Kicked Heroin and Took the Band to New Heights
Interview by Dorian Lynskey, Billboard, 2 August 2018
The most ambitious pop-rock band of its generation nearly succumbed to Matty Healy's heroin addiction. Now clean, the flamboyant frontman is taking his group to ...
Chrissie Hynde, The Pretenders: Chrissie Hynde
Interview by Adrian Deevoy, Event Magazine, 4 August 2018
Still super-hip (and all lip) at 66, the Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde tells Event why she swears at fans, enrages sex abuse victims… and has swapped ...
Wayne Kramer: MC5's Wayne Kramer Testifies about Music, Drugs, and Not Being "Revolutionary" Enough?
Report and Interview by Bob Ruggiero, Houston Press, 13 August 2018
IT'S HARD TO fathom today that the FBI would be interested in the daily activities of, say, the Foo Fighters, Imagine Dragons, or Fall Out ...
The Beasts of Bourbon: Beasts of Bourbon's Spencer P Jones: hellraiser among Australian rock greats
Obituary by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 23 August 2018
Some were scared off by the guitarist's snarling delivery and reputation, but you'd be hard pressed to name a bad song. ...
The Beatles, Paul McCartney: The Untold Stories of Paul McCartney
Interview by Chris Heath, GQ, 11 September 2018
He's as famous and accomplished as a man can be. He could just stay home, relax, and count his money. But Paul McCartney is as ...
Billie Holiday: Lady Sings the Blues
Book Review by Nick Hornby, The Sunday Times, 9 December 2018
Unsparing in its portrayal of addiction, divorce and racism, Billie Holiday's memoir is now a Penguin Modern Classic. ...
The GTOs: Miss Christine: The Fast Life of a Rock Legend
Retrospective by Erik Himmelsbach, Alta Journal, 11 December 2018
Christine Frka was a muse to Alice Cooper, a secretary to Frank Zappa, and a member of a pioneering all-girl band. The glamour goddess-icon of ...
Interview by Henry Yates, Classic Rock, March 2019
Frontman Josh Todd on addiction, tattoos and the death of rock radio… ...
The Chills: Martin Phillipps' triumph and tragedy told with extraordinary candour
Film/DVD/TV Review by Andrew Stafford, The Guardian, 14 June 2019
THE INDEPENDENT scene that emerged from Dunedin, New Zealand, in the early 1980s had all the strange qualities musical trainspotters around the world associate with ...
Blondie, Debbie Harry: Debbie Harry: Face It
Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, October 2019
IT IS A popular misconception that – once they have tasted chart success and seen their faces in magazines – music stars like Debbie Harry ...
Tim Hardin: The Haunted Saga of Tim Hardin
Retrospective by Mitchell Cohen, Music Aficionado, November 2019
TIM HARDIN DIED in December 1980, not quite a week after his 39th birthday, and to the extent that his passing was felt in the ...
Aerosmith: How Aerosmith are still rocking after 49 years: "We did drugs, drugs - and more drugs"
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 28 January 2020
IN THE AUTUMN of 1972, Aerosmith's Joey Kramer was walking in the group's adopted home-city of Boston. With work finished on the quintet's eponymous debut ...
Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, March 2020
IN 1990, JOHN Entwistle spent two months in the region of Connemara on the west coast of Ireland, where fierce winds coming off the Atlantic ...
The Flamin' Groovies, Kim Fowley, The Stooges: Farewell to Marc Zermati
Memoir by Nick Kent, unpublished, 15 June 2020
IT'S BEEN FIVE hours now since I received the news that Marc Zermati died in his sleep and — as with all deaths of those ...
Lamb of God: Metal's moral backbone: the uncompromising, righteous rise of Lamb Of God
Interview by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 23 June 2020
AS A YOUNGER man, D. Randall Blythe conducted social experiments with bleach. As jocks in passing cars screamed insults, the singer with the metal band ...
Iggy Pop, The Stooges: Between Fun House & 'Funtime': Iggy Pop in the '70s
Retrospective by Simon Reynolds, TIDAL, 7 July 2020
Brilliantly out of step, the rock provocateur architected revolutionary sounds with the Stooges and Bowie. ...
Obituary by Chris Campion, Los Angeles Times, 31 July 2020
MISS MERCY, the effervescent rock 'n' roll superfan who found fame as a member of Frank Zappa's "groupie" girl-group the GTOs (Girls Together Outrageously), died ...
Jimi Hendrix: So who killed Jimi Hendrix?
Book Excerpt by Philip Norman, 'Wild Thing' (Weidenfeld & Nicholson), 5 August 2020
50 years after musician's death, Philip Norman tracks down the key players to tell the definitive story of one of rock's most tantalising mysteries - ...
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 16 October 2020
IN THE SUMMER of 1987, Mötley Crüe embarked on a tour of the largest indoors venues in North America. Travelling aboard a private jet, the ...
James Taylor: "I took legal heroin – it's the safest way to be an addict"
Retrospective and Interview by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 7 December 2020
ON THE AFTERNOON of 7th December 1980, James Taylor was accosted by a stranger who knew his name. As the singer-songwriter battled his way home ...
Charlie Parker: The Savoy 10" LP Collection
Review by Tony Burke, Vintage Jazz Mart, Fall 2020
2020 MARKS Charlie Parker's Centennial and as part of the celebrations Craft Recordings have re-issued Parker's 10" Savoy LPs with restored original album artwork, detailed booklet ...
Nick Kent: "I was in the right place at the right time, on the wrong drugs"
Interview by Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, 9 January 2021
The rock critic who revived British music writing at the NME in the 70s is back with his first novel — a caustic tale of ...
Nick Cave: The Journalist and the Singer
Book Excerpt by Mark Mordue, 'Boy On Fire' (Allen & Unwin), February 2021
THE FIRST TIME I ever spoke to Nick Cave was in a phone interview to promote his second solo album, The Firstborn Is Dead (1985), ...
Retrospective by Mick Brown, Daily Telegraph, 18 August 2021
Bob Dylan has just been accused of a sexual assault there in 1965 - the latest in a long line of claims about the storied ...
Rick James: "There's a lot to unpack": the dark, difficult life of Rick James
Retrospective by Jim Farber, The Guardian, 2 September 2021
In a new documentary, the defining funk artist's ups and many downs are examined with a clear eye and a lack of sugar-coating. ...
Retrospective by Graeme Thomson, Daily Telegraph, 15 September 2021
The troubled, genre-defying Scot told stories that no one else dared to. Who cares if they weren't all true? ...
Shane MacGowan: Richard Balls: A Furious Devotion – The Authorised Story Of Shane MacGowan
Book Review by Chris Charlesworth, Just Backdated, December 2021
WITH HIS uncombed hair, rotten teeth and charity shop clothes, not to mention the obligatory bottle, Shane MacGowan presented himself to the world as a ...
Keith Richards: Playing Air Guitar With Keith Richards
Memoir by Wayne Robins, Critical Conditions, 4 January 2022
It was a pretty good afternoon, bourbon included. ...
Alice Cooper, Lemmy: A Walk on the Wild Side of Sunset: Remembering Lemmy and the Hollywood Vampires
Book Excerpt by Ian Winwood, 'Bodies' (Faber & Faber), April 2022
This is an excerpt from Ian's new book Bodies: Life and Death in Music, published by Faber on April 21. ...
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